Archive for December, 2009

C.I.A. to Expand Use of Drones in Pakistan

Two weeks ago in Pakistan, Central Intelligence Agency sharpshooters killed eight people suspected of being militants of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and wounded two others in a compound that was said to be used for terrorist training.

Then, the job in North Waziristan done, the C.I.A. officers could head home from the agency’s Langley, Va., headquarters, facing only the hazards of the area’s famously snarled suburban traffic.

It was only the latest strike by the agency’s covert program to kill operatives of Al Qaeda, the Taliban and their allies using Hellfire missiles fired from Predator aircraft controlled from half a world away.

Full Story C.I.A. to Expand Use of Drones in Pakistan – NYTimes.com.

No cell phone, brain tumor link, study says

A very large, 30-year study of just about everyone in Scandinavia shows no link between cell phone use and brain tumors, researchers reported on Thursday.

Even though mobile telephone use soared in the 1990s and afterward, brain tumors did not become any more common during this time, the researchers reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Some activist groups and a few researchers have raised concerns about a link between cell phones and several kinds of cancer, including brain tumors, although years of research have failed to establish a connection.

Full Story No cell phone, brain tumor link, study says – Cancer- msnbc.com.

OPS:  Not sure what to make of this.

BPA found in 90% of newborns

A study released Wednesday which found that nine of 10 babies tested were born with bisphenol A in their systems has renewed calls for the chemical to be banned.

In the study commissioned by the Environmental Working Group, scientists found the chemical in nine of 10 randomly selected samples of umbilical cord blood.

Previous studies have found BPA in the urine of 93% of Americans tested. But Wednesday’s study is the first to find it in the cord blood of U.S. newborns.

“It’s alarming,” Janet Gray, director of the Environmental Risks and Breast Cancer project at Vassar College, said of the study results. “What more evidence do we need to act?”

More than 6 billion pounds of BPA are used each year to make polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins. The chemical is used in thousands of common products, including the lining of nearly all food and beverage cans and as coating for carbonless paper receipts.

Full Story BPA found in 90% of newborns – JSOnline.

Taibbi: Obama’s sellout to Wall Street creates ‘permanent bailout’

If passed as it is, the financial reform bill winding its way through Congress will create a “permanent bailout mechanism,” and will give complete control over future bailouts to the White House, says columnist Matt Taibbi.

In a video preview of an upcoming Rolling Stone article, Taibbi explained how the Obama administration started selling out to Wall Street interests almost as soon as the 2008 election was over.

“The really big thing that’s in these bills that’s really, really scary is that it kind of outlines a permanent bailout mechanism,” Taibbi said. “If it survives in the way that it was originally conceived, it’s basically going to formalize an arrangement whereby the government is expected to bail out the top 20 to 25 largest financial companies. … It will be entirely up to the White House to determine whether or not these companies are in trouble in the future, so there won’t be any congressional role in deciding when and when not to give a bailout.”

Taibbi’s words echoed the concerns of some in Congress that, far from ensuring that America’s financial system will be healthy, the financial reform being proposed will make Wall Street more dependent on taxpayers than it is already.

Full Story Taibbi: Obama’s sellout to Wall Street creates ‘permanent bailout’ | Raw Story.

30% of Teens Report Abuse in Relationships

CBS Evening News Anchor Katie Couric reports that an alarming number of American teenagers have experienced abusive relationships.

“All I remember was landing face first on the floor,” said Tina, 18.

Tina – disguised for her safety – says the violence spiraled out of control during her six-month relationship with her 17-year-old boyfriend.

“I remember he got on top of me and he was slapping me back and forth,” Tina said. “And he said, ‘next time you walk by me, acknowledge me. Say that you love me.’”

Raped, beaten and berated on a regular basis, she stayed with him, believing the abuse was part of a normal relationship.

“A Thin Line” MTV’s Initiative to Stop Digital Abuse

“I knew my aunt went through it so I thought, you know, if she stuck it out with him, with her husband for years, that I should just do the same and keep my mouth shut,” she added.

Full Story 30% of Teens Report Abuse in Relationships – CBS Evening News – CBS News.

Swiss party leader calls for ban on Jewish, Muslim cemeteries

Move is an ‘escalation’ of conflict between Switzerland, Muslim minority: report

Just a few days after Swiss voters approved of a ban on minarets in their country, the leader of a major Swiss political party is defending his call to ban separate Jewish and Muslim cemeteries.

According to Jewish news service JTA, Christophe Darbellay, head of the country’s Christian Democratic Party, made the comment during a TV interview on Tuesday evening.

“It doesn’t bother me to be buried next to a person of another religion,” Darbellay told the Swiss daily Le Matin on Thursday. “But I don’t imagine that in this country, every religion or sect can have a separate cemetery in every town. It wouldn’t be manageable to make these exceptions. … Principle requires that one does not distinguish on the basis of origin or religion.”

Full Story Swiss party leader calls for ban on Jewish, Muslim cemeteries | Raw Story.

Fourth senator joins move to block Bernanke

Bunning to Bernanke: You are ‘the definition of moral hazard’

Update: A fourth senator has joined three other senators in placing a hold on the Fed Chairman’s nomination. Louisiana Republican David Vitter will also move to keep the chairman’s nomination from coming to the floor.

“Over the past year or so, the Fed has doled out several trillion dollars to any number of troubled institutions through a series of programs that were supposed to turn our economy around,” Vitter said in a statement. “These programs have worsened our economic crisis by making ‘too big to fail’ a permanent government policy and created further debt that will now be the burden of our children and grandchildren. His endorsement of these unsound fiscal policies gives me great pause.”

A bipartisan effort to block the confirmation of Ben Bernanke to a second term as chairman of the Federal Reserve means the White House will face tougher obstacles reappointing the man it says is the right person to lead the country’s central bank.

Full Story Fourth senator joins move to block Bernanke | Raw Story.

Exclusive: Beck’s movie bombs in New York, Boston — and Washington, D.C.

In New York, Beck sold 17 tickets. In Boston, another 17. And in Washington, D.C., the hotbed of political activism, his tearful film drew only 30.

Glenn Beck’s new movie The Christmas Sweater – A Return To Redemption — released for a viewing Thursday night in hundreds of theaters across the country. While it performed better in the south and in rural, more conservative areas, his ability to draw viewers in major US markets was a bust.

“The theater’s almost empty,” a representative at Regal Cinemas in Manhattan told Raw Story moments before it began.

The flick features the firebrand Fox News host sharing with willing souls his most profound childhood memories, along with his philosophies on life, love and happiness.

“It is the story of faith, tragedy, redemption and hope,” Beck says in the trailer. (Reporter’s caution: he cries in it.)

Full Story Exclusive: Beck’s movie bombs in New York, Boston — and Washington, D.C. | Raw Story.

Protesters say Rove should go on trial for ‘crimes against humanity’

The architect of George W. Bush’s presidency triggered a protest to his visit to a Wisconsin university Thursday, drawing about 40 protesters carrying signs calling him a war criminal at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“We believe that before he speaks at this university for thousands of dollars, he should be put on trial for the crimes against humanity that he and the rest of the Bush administration committed,” Natasha Morgan of Students for a Democratic Society told local tv network WISN.

Hecklers interrupted Bush’s former Deputy Chief of Staff several times.

“I’ll make a deal with you,” Rove said. “I’ll keep my remarks short and then you can get a microphone and you can ask me any damn question you want. Until then, do something that may come hard to a liberal intellectual, and that is show respect for the rights of others, like everybody else who came here tonight.”

Full Story Protesters say Rove should go on trial for ‘crimes against humanity’ | Raw Story.

Climate Scams Won’t Save the Planet

What’s Cap and Trade? A New Video Breaks it Down and Reveals the Plan as a Scam.   It’s a scheme that tries to sell business-as-usual as a solution to global warming. Here’s how it works.

Whether you listen to NPR or Rush Limbaugh, you’ve probably heard about climate change. And if you’ve heard about climate change, chances are you’ve also heard about “cap and trade.” It’s a scheme that tries to sell business-as-usual as a solution to global warming.

Here’s how it works. The government puts a limit on how much greenhouse gas can be released in a year (the cap), and industries covered by the system are issued an equivalent number of emissions permits. As the cap is tightened each year, permits become scarcer and thus more valuable. The increasing value of the permits is supposed to encourage dirty industries to clean up their act fast, and sell their spare permits to the dinosaurs that didn’t innovate. That’s the trade.

The theory behind cap and trade is that the planet doesn’t care where you reduce emissions, as long as you stay under the cap. And by trading permits, you maximize efficiency and make it profitable for corporations to shrink their carbon footprints.

Everybody wins, right? Wrong. A new short film, The Story of Cap & Trade, released by the Story of Stuff and Free Range Video (www.storyofcapandtrade.org) explains why the real of story of cap and trade is that it’s easy to scam, riddled with loopholes, and a dangerous distraction from the real change needed to protect people and the planet.

Full Story Minuteman Media: Climate Scams Won’t Save the Planet.

Why Should We Get Out of Afghanistan? Because Imperialism Is a Fool’s Game

By Larry Beinhart

Imperial occupations have become geometrically more difficult since the Second World War.

Should we get out of Afghanistan?

Yes. Here’s why.

Imperialism, in general, is a tough business.

Influence, dominate, manipulate, sure. But an occupation is a different story. It can only succeed in a state that is contiguous, as Chechnya is to Russia and Tibet is to China. Success demands utter ruthlessness: secret police, assassinations, the murder of civilians, and leveling neighborhoods and sometimes entire cities. Open societies like ours find that hard to tolerate.

Good intentions – reform, rebuild, bring democracy, modernize, civilize, liberate, pick up the white man’s burden – don’t turn the trick.

There is a classic sequence. A rebel group commits violent acts. The occupying power reacts with force. This alienates the population. If it doesn’t, the rebels push until they get the reaction they need. The rebellion grows.

Full Story Why Should We Get Out of Afghanistan? Because Imperialism Is a Fool’s Game | World | AlterNet.

Hey Religious Believers, Where’s Your Evidence?

In the marketplace of ideas, only religion gets a free ride in an armored tank.

What evidence do religious believers have for their beliefs?

And when they’re asked what evidence they have, how do believers respond?

In my conversations with religious believers, I’ll often ask, “Why do you think God or the supernatural exists? What makes you think this is true? What evidence do you have for this belief?” Partly I’m just curious; I want to know why people believe what they do. Plus, I think it’s a valid question: it’s certainly one I’d ask about any other claim or opinion. And if I’m wrong about my atheism — if there’s good evidence for religion that I haven’t seen yet — I want to know. I’m game. Show me the money.

But when I ask these questions, I almost never get a straight answer.

What I typically get is a startling assortment of conversational gambits deflecting the question.

Full Story Hey Religious Believers, Where’s Your Evidence? | Belief | AlterNet.

“Tea Party: The Documentary” — Attending a Bizarre Movie Premiere for Right-Wingers in Washington

Presented by FreedomWorks, the front group that organized the 9/12 March, a new documentary on the tea parties attempts to suggest that the protests were spontaneous.

The movement’s stars were out in force at the Washington D.C., premiere of “Tea Party: The Documentary.” Before the screening, presentations by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, Senator Jim DeMint and Rep. Joe “You Lie” Wilson of South Carolina, Rep. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Rep. Tom Price of Georgia — all Republicans — got the half-full auditorium in the Ronald Reagan Building humming.

Price, who chairs the Republican Study Committee, presented each of the film’s “stars” — five movement participants characterized as “regular citizens” by director Pritchett Cotten — with a plaque bearing the text of a resolution introduced in the House of Representatives thanking Tea Party activists for their participation in the September 12th march on Washington.

The film conveys the stories of five activists chosen to represent the movement’s everyman and everywoman — the kind of people who were motivated by Washington D.C.-based lobbying groups to shout down members of Congress at town-hall meetings in their districts this summer. “I think it’s a compelling story,” Matt Kibbe, president of FreedomWorks, told me after the screening. “Here’s real people in it with real beliefs. It sort of debunks the whole astroturf thing.”

What Astroturfing?

Full Story “Tea Party: The Documentary” — Attending a Bizarre Movie Premiere for Right-Wingers in Washington | Politics | AlterNet.

Is the Tobacco Industry Pro-life? Let’s Ask the Bishops

I recently called on mainstream Catholics to remonstrate against the aggressive behavior of reactionaries within the Church. Increasingly bishops are playing politics with the Mass itself, denying Catholic elected officials who dissent on some matters, the sacrament of Communion. Such coercion appears to me, and to many other Catholics, as part of an effort to compel all Americans to live under Catholic orthodoxy, subject to the interpretation of the prelates.

As I have written, dignified but firm acts of resistance are now the order of the day. In this post and the next, I will put forth and discuss possible paths for resistance. One obvious such path is to call out the hierarchy when they are being hypocritical. So let's begin there. One obvious example is the hypocrisy of church reactionaries when it comes to the politics of tobacco.

In this installment, I will examine some of the deadly effects tobacco has on human health — including fetuses. In part two, I will focus on some prominent Catholics politicians who have not only opposed reproductive freedom under the rubric of being “prolife,” but turned a blind eye to the addiction and medical ravages of tobacco while accepting campaign contributions from tobacco interests — and even do their bidding.

But first, let's look at the use of communion as a political weapon

Full Story Talk To Action | Is the Tobacco Industry Pro-life? Let’s Ask the Bishops.

Conservative Group Expels Lou Dobbs for Loving Illegal Immigrants Too Much

Poor Lou. No one ever said fulfilling your crass political ambitions would be easy.

Illegal-immigrant lover Lou Dobbs is no longer intolerant enough for the Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, a group that used to think it’d be so awesome if Dobbs were President that they raised $660,000 in pledges to fund his run for office. ALIPAC is mad because the former CNN anchor said he endorsed legalizing undocumented immigrants — a policy he’s previously trashed as “shamnesty” — in an interview with Telemundo two weeks ago.

“Our internal polling shows that over 70% of our supporters are upset with Mr. Dobbs’s comments on Telemundo is support of legalizing illegal aliens. ALIPAC opposes any path to citizenship form of Amnesty for illegal aliens currently in the US,” said William Gheen of ALIPAC. “Therefore we are dropping our support for Lou Dobbs and suspending the fan sites we have created.”

That includes: Lou Dobbs for President.org, a website previously used to pull funding for Dobbs’ Presidential ambitions, which now sports the same shaming press release featured on the AILPAC site; and the Draft Lou Dobbs for President or Senate Facebook page, where former fans can grieve the latest betrayal of regular hard-working Americans. Here are a few:

Full Story Conservative Group Expels Lou Dobbs for Loving Illegal Immigrants Too Much | PEEK | AlterNet.

After the Summit Ends

Katrina vanden Heuvel

It’s Jobs Summit Day at the White House, and here’s hoping it creates real momentum for a bold jobs bill that the people of this nation desperately need.

You know the bleak statistics–10 percent unemployment, underemployment at 17.5 percent. For urban communities and minorities the jobs picture is even more severe–a silent depression–16 percent unemployment for African-Americans and 13 percent for Latinos. In all, nearly 16 million people are out of work.

“In cities and states with a sizable black population, the unemployment rate has reached incredible levels,” writes C. Nicole Mason, executive director of the Women of Color Policy Network at New York University. “Detroit, for example, has an unemployment rate of 30 percent and one-third of its residents live below the official poverty line.”

Hunger is on the rise. One in four children now relies on food stamps.

Full Story After the Summit Ends.

ACORN Lawsuit in OH a Victory for Democracy

The BRAD BLOG :

Republican Secretary of State defied federal election law

Hundreds of thousands of voters likely to benefit from settlement…

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) has won a substantive victory on behalf of the voters of Ohio — perhaps hundreds of thousands of them — via a court case filed in 2006, challenging a number of voter suppression tactics employed by the state's then Sec. of State, J. Kenneth Blackwell (R).

The victory may lead to the enfranchisement of “hundreds of thousands of voting-eligible low-income Ohioans” according to one of the attorneys involved in the case, yet it looks like Fox “News”, Matt Drudge, and all of the other Rightwingers may have forgotten to post a thank you note to ACORN this week for their successful battle to strengthen the growth of democracy in the U.S….

In September 2006, ACORN filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court alleging that Blackwell and officials from Ohio's Department of Job and Family Services (DJFS) had systematically violated the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), which Act, by its express terms, was intended to “increase the number of eligible citizens who register to vote in elections for Federal office,” “protect the integrity of the electoral process,” and “ensure that accurate and current voter registration rolls are maintained.”

Full Story The BRAD BLOG : ACORN Lawsuit in OH a Victory for Democracy.

Op-Ed Columnist – Reform or Else

Health care reform hangs in the balance. Its fate rests with a handful of “centrist” senators — senators who claim to be mainly worried about whether the proposed legislation is fiscally responsible.

But if they’re really concerned with fiscal responsibility, they shouldn’t be worried about what would happen if health reform passes. They should, instead, be worried about what would happen if it doesn’t pass. For America can’t get control of its budget without controlling health care costs — and this is our last, best chance to deal with these costs in a rational way.

Some background: Long-term fiscal projections for the United States paint a grim picture. Unless there are major policy changes, expenditure will consistently grow faster than revenue, eventually leading to a debt crisis.

Full Story Op-Ed Columnist – Reform or Else – NYTimes.com.

Prominent GOP Fundraiser Pleads Guilty in N.Y. Pension Scandal

The Republican National Committee’s former finance chairman pleaded guilty Thursday to paying nearly $1 million in bribes to officials at New York State’s pension system, in exchange for a $250 million placement in his investment fund.

The former official, Elliott Broidy, who also resigned as chairman of Markstone Capital Partners, the private equity firm, admitted that he had paid for luxury trips to hotels in Israel and Italy for pension staffers and their relatives — including first-class flights and a helicopter tour. Broidy funneled the money through charities and submitted false receipts to the state comptroller’s office to cover his tracks.

The California financier, who was the GOP finance chairman in 2008, also paid thousands of dollars toward rent and other expenses for former “Mod Squad” star Peggy Lipton, who was dating a high-ranking New York pension official at the time.

Full Story On The Hill: Prominent GOP Fundraiser Pleads Guilty in N.Y. Pension Scandal.

Putin: Russia has no evidence Iran trying to build nukes

Haaretz

Russia has no evidence that Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Thursday.

“We have no information that Iran is working on the creation of a nuclear weapon,” Putin said when asked by a reporter if Iran was close to making an atomic bomb.

Russia, a veto-wielding permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, is a key player in efforts to force Tehran to allay Western fears that it is trying to make nuclear weapons.

Full Story Putin: Russia has no evidence Iran trying to build nukes – Haaretz – Israel News.

Grayson Responds To Coburn’s ‘Die Soon’ Claim: ‘The Basis For What He’s Saying Is Delusion’

Earlier this week, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), one of the Senate’s most stalwart obstructionists, made a wild claim on the Senate floor intended to scare seniors. He told them that if the Senate health care bill passes, they’re “going to die soon.” Many in the media were quick to compare Coburn’s wild claim with the comments made by Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL), who noted that the GOP’s health care plan — which would either maintain or worsen the status quo — amounts to telling people “don’t get sick, and if you do get sick…die quickly.”

On the Alan Colmes radio show yesterday, Grayson responded to people comparing his comments to Coburn’s. He told Colmes that the “basis for what [Coburn] is saying is delusion”:

GRAYSON: There’s no valid comparison unless lies are now the same as truth. … I mean, I had a Harvard study to back me up. And everybody knows the Republicans haven’t any plan for health care. They still don’t have a plan for health care. …. And the basis for what he’s saying is delusion. There’s nothing in the Democrats’ health care bill that would put any senior at risk at all. So I – I know that people have been drawn to this idea that there is somehow this moral equivalence between what I said and what Senator Coburn said, but I think that’s ridiculous.

Listen to it:

Full Story Think Progress » Grayson Responds To Coburn’s ‘Die Soon’ Claim: ‘The Basis For What He’s Saying Is Delusion’.

GOP congressman opposes timeline because Afghanistan extremists ‘wait centuries to get even.’

Untitled-2 Earlier this week, President Obama announced that he will be sending an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. While many on the right praised him for deciding on a troop surge in the central Asian country, others attacked him for suggesting that American troops will begin drawing down from the country within 18 months. The Orlando Sentinel reports that one GOP congressman, Rep. John Mica (R-FL), had a particularly absurd attack on the the idea of a timetable, claiming that setting a withdrawal timeline would be a mistake because militants in Afghanistan patiently “wait centuries to get even“:

“I’m taken aback by his deadline,” said U.S. Rep. John Mica, R-Winter Park. “These guys wait centuries to get even. Eighteen months is nothing for them.”

Full Story Think Progress » GOP congressman opposes timeline because Afghanistan extremists ‘wait centuries to get even.’.

Kucinich: Prolonging Afghan war a ‘threat to our national security’

AMERICA ‘IN FIGHT OF ITS LIFE’… AT HOME

Far from being a necessary part of the US’s national security strategy, the Afghanistan war is actually a threat to it, says Ohio congressman Dennis Kucinich.

In a statement released two days after President Barack Obama announced a 30,000-troop surge for the war effort and a July, 2011, beginning for troop withdrawal, Kucinich argued that extending the war would destabilize the United States at home.

“America is in the fight of its life and that fight is not in Afghanistan — it’s here,” Kucinich declared. “We are deeply in debt. Our GDP is down. Our manufacturing is down. Our savings are down. The value of the dollar is down. Our trade deficit is up. Business failures are up. Bankruptcies are up.

“The war is a threat to our national security. We’ll spend over $100 billion next year to bomb a nation of poor people while we reenergize the Taliban, destabilize Pakistan, deplete our army and put more of our soldiers’ lives on the line. Meanwhile, back here in the USA, 15 million people are out of work. People are losing their jobs, their health care, their savings, their investments, and their retirement security. $13 trillion in bailouts for Wall Street, trillions for war; when are we going to start taking care of things here at home?”

Full Story Kucinich: Prolonging Afghan war a ‘threat to our national security’ | Raw Story.

Gingrich Dupes Press By Recycling ‘Jobs First’ Plan Full Of Same Tax Breaks For The Rich He Always Pushes

This afternoon, the White House is hosting a jobs summit aimed at finding ways to “jumpstart the hiring that typically lags behind economic growth.” But former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is attempting to steal President Obama’s thunder, hosting what his own “real jobs summit” in Ohio and Mississippi. Gingrich’s effort has received coverage from CBS News, CNN, Fox News and the AP.

Though Gingrich is dismissing the White House summit as “political theater,” his “real solutions for job creation and economic growth” are really just another effort to repackage ideas he has already promoted. In fact, Gingrich is even recycling his old “Drill Here. Drill Now” slogan…

Full Story Think Progress » Gingrich Dupes Press By Recycling ‘Jobs First’ Plan Full Of Same Tax Breaks For The Rich He Always Pushes.

Sweden cutting aid to Uganda over ‘appalling’ Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

The Ugandan parliament is currently considering an “Anti-Homosexuality Bill,” under which any person “convicted of gay sex is liable to life imprisonment.” If that person is HIV positive or has sex with a minor or a person with a disability, he or she would be found guilty of “aggravated homosexuality” and face the death penalty. Although the U.S. has not yet taken an official position on the bill, other countries are speaking out. Both UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper have called the legislation unacceptable, and now Sweden is adding its voice:

According to comments attributed to Gunilla Carlsson, Sweden’s development assistance minister, the Swedish government says it would cut aid to Uganda over an anti-gay law they find “appalling”.

“My number two at the ministry, who has direct contact with the Ugandan government, has brought it up,” Ms Carlsson recently told Swedish Radio News. “We’ve talked about it in Uganda, and I’ve also tried to speak to the kind of organisations in Uganda that are the target of the legislation.” Uganda receives about $50 million in development aid from Sweden annually.

Full Story Think Progress » Sweden cutting aid to Uganda over ‘appalling’ Anti-Homosexuality Bill..

Gohmert opposes estate tax extension because ‘Jesus never advocated the government go steal.’

Gohmert opposes estate tax extension because ‘Jesus never advocated the government go steal.’

Today, the House voted 225-200 to permanently extend the estate tax at its 2009 level, which is 45 percent for estates valued at more than $3.5 million ($7 million for a couple). Due to a Bush-era accounting gimmick, the estate tax was set to disappear in 2010, and come back in 2011 at a 55 percent rate on estates of $1 million. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), however, took to the floor to oppose the extension, complaining that his his great aunt once had to pay the 55 percent rate. Gohmert continued by arguing Jesus wouldn’t have wanted an estate tax:

Now, after someone dies and someone comes in and steals from them, we consider that in most society reprehensible. … But when the government comes in, because we have the power to pass laws and legalize theft that otherwise would be considered reprehensible, it’s okay. But it is not okay. … Jesus never advocated the government go steal. He said ‘you do it. Do it with your own money, don’t steal it from somebody else.’ And that is why this should not pass.

Watch it:

Full Story Think Progress » Gohmert opposes estate tax extension because ‘Jesus never advocated the government go steal.’.

Even After CBO Reports Stimulus Created Up To 1.6 Million Jobs, Conservatives Claim It ‘Failed’

Even After CBO Reports Stimulus Created Up To 1.6 Million Jobs, Conservatives Claim It ‘Failed’

AP090909054851Today, the White House is hosting a jobs forum, “to sound out ideas for accelerating job growth during the worst labor market in a generation,” as Democrats in both houses of Congress are attempting to craft jobs legislation. Yesterday, the administration for the first time expressed support for new legislation, so long as it has a “relatively small deficit impact.”

This effort comes in the wake of a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report showing that the economic stimulus package is having its intended effect — creating or saving 600,000 to 1.6 million jobs — albeit in a weaker than anticipated economy.

Republicans, though, have said that additional jobs legislation “would meet resistance.” They’re justifying this position — aided by the conservative media — by claiming that the “failed economic stimulus” has not created jobs, despite the CBO reporting otherwise. Here’s a roundup of conservative statements that have occurred after the CBO released its report:

Full Story Think Progress » Even After CBO Reports Stimulus Created Up To 1.6 Million Jobs, Conservatives Claim It ‘Failed’.

Here It Comes… (Sovereign Treasury Sales)

I have repeatedly warned that there’s an “end game” coming if we do not cut out the monetization games.

I have repeatedly warned that the “end of the world” scenario comes about if The Government cannot finance its operating requirements (e.g. interest cost exceeds income), as that event will result in an instantaneous “death spiral” of credit downgrades and ramping CDS spreads, which in turn drive up interest rates further, etc.

I have repeatedly warned that if we do not get our own house in order others will force it upon us, as we have given them the weapons to do so by selling trillions of dollars worth of Treasuries to overseas sovereigns and institutions over which we can exert no control (except by threatening to use our 6,000 nuclear weapons.)

This morning there’s a nasty rumor on the wire – that Japan may be intending to sell US Treasuries.

Their purported reason for this, of course, would be to weaken the Yen. Selling Treasuries would have this effect since it would strengthen the dollar, and in a fiat monetary system all values are relative.

Full Story Here It Comes… (Sovereign Treasury Sales) – The Market Ticker.

Wal-Mart will pay $40m to workers

Settlement is biggest in Bay State history

Full Story Wal-Mart will pay $40m to workers – The Boston Globe.

The Higher Education Fiscal Crisis Protects the Wealthy

Police are arresting and attacking student protesters on University of California (UC) campuses again. “Why did he beat me – I wasn’t doing anything,” screamed a young Cal Berkeley woman student over KPFA radio on the evening of November 20. Students are protesting the 32 percent increase in tuition imposed by the UC regents in a time of severe state deficits. The Board of Regents claims that they have no choice. Students will now have to pay over $10,000 in tuition annually for a public university education that was free only a few decades ago.

The corporate media spin the tuition protests as if we are all suffering during the recession. For example, the San Diego Union-Tribune wrote on November 20, “These students need a course in Reality 101. And the reality is that there is virtually no segment of American society that is not straining with the economic recession. With UC facing a $535 million budget gap due to state cuts, the regents have to confront reality and make tough choices. So should students.”

Yet the reality is something quite different. Our current budget crisis in California and the rest of the country has been artificially created by cutting taxes on the wealthiest people and corporations. The corporate elites in the US, the top 1 percent who own close to half the wealth, are the beneficiaries of massive tax cuts over the past few decades, while at the same time working people are paying more through increased sales and use taxes and higher public college tuition.

Full Story t r u t h o u t | The Higher Education Fiscal Crisis Protects the Wealthy.

NASA – Spirit Gets Stuck, Makes a Big Discovery

Homer’s Iliad tells the story of Troy, a city besieged by the Greeks in the Trojan War. Today, a lone robot sits besieged in the sands of Troy while engineers and scientists plot its escape.

Welcome to “Troy” – Mars style. NASA’s robotic rover Spirit is bogged down on the Red Planet in a place the rover team named after the ancient city.

So why aren’t scientists lamenting?

“The rover’s spinning wheels have broken through a crust, and we’ve found something supremely interesting in the disturbed says Ray Arvidson of the Washington University in St. Louis.

Spirit, like its twin rover Opportunity, has roamed the Red Planet for nearly 6 years. During that time, the rover has had some close calls and come out fighting from each. In fact, it’s been driving backwards since one of its wheels jammed in 2006.

Full Story NASA – Spirit Gets Stuck, Makes a Big Discovery.

Oceans, forests less able to absorb carbon emissions

World’s oceans, forests becoming less able to absorb CO2

In the race to reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, scientists have been looking to forests and oceans to absorb the pollution people generate.

Relying on nature to compensate for human excesses sounds like a win-win situation — except that these resources are under stress from the very emissions we are asking them to absorb, making them less able partners in the pact.

Consider it the latest inconvenient truth about climate change.

The benefits of these natural carbon “sinks” are many: Their diverse ecosystems soak up carbon dioxide. What’s more, the international carbon enables industries to compensate for their emissions at a fraction of the price of installing cleaner technology, essentially by investing in forests; meanwhile, poorer countries that are rich in woodland profit from selling not lumber but carbon credits.

Full Story Oceans, forests less able to absorb carbon emissions – washingtonpost.com.

Concerns Mounting That White House, Congress Won’t Do Enough to Halt Job Losses

Even as the White House today hosts a much-vaunted jobs summit with economists and leaders of businesses, nonprofits and unions, there are growing concerns among progressives that neither the White House nor Congress will take the bold actions needed to bring down the 10.2 percent unemployment rate and create enough new jobs. The political climate is relatively cool to new spending initiatives, and such programs could be further thwarted by growing White House interest in an independent deficit-slashing commission.

The political obstacles are not insurmountable, though, because Democrats are increasingly worried that their majorities in the House and Senate are threatened if unemployment continues at these levels, so grass-roots pressure for action might propel Congress to pass strong measures.

One well-connected reform advocate, citing comments by chief Obama economic adviser Larry Summers that there’s no need for added job-creation programs, told Truthout, “The White House is reluctant to do anything big, while members of Congress are going totally batshit because they have to face re-election in 2010.”

Full Story t r u t h o u t | Concerns Mounting That White House, Congress Won’t Do Enough to Halt Job Losses.

Not another bank bailout

Dean Baker

The millions of American families struggling to keep up with their bubble-era mortgages are the ones who deserve help

The big talk in Washington these days is “helping homeowners“. Unfortunately, what passes for help to homeowners in the capitol might look more like handing out money to banks anywhere else.

The basic story is fairly simple. Tens of millions of US homeowners are now underwater: they owe more on their mortgage than the market value of their home. The reason is that they bought homes at bubble-inflated prices earlier in the decade. Economists and other policy wonks insisted that housing was a great buy, even as house prices got ever more out-of-line with economic fundamentals.

Needless to say, the Wall Street crew was eager to cash in on the mania, peddling deceptive mortgages and reselling mortgage-backed securities all over the world. These deceptive mortgages have now “reset” to higher interest rates, leaving many people unable to afford their mortgage payments. However, even at lower interest rates, homeowners who purchased houses at bubble-inflated prices would find themselves paying far more for their homes than they would to rent a comparable house.

Full Story Not another bank bailout | Dean Baker | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

Reproductive Rights Showdown Looms in Senate

WASHINGTON — Senators debating health care legislation are headed for a clash over abortion, the issue that threatened to derail the bill in the House.

Anticipating the showdown, hundreds of abortion rights supporters gathered on Capitol Hill Wednesday to call on senators to keep new abortion restrictions out of the health care bill. Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., plans to unveil an anti-abortion amendment as early as Thursday that abortions rights supporters inside the Senate and out say they can’t support.

Nelson says he won’t vote for the underlying bill without his strong abortion language. But opponents say his amendment doesn’t have the votes to pass. The outcome could be critical in determining the fate of President Barack Obama’s signature health overhaul agenda.

At issue is how abortions would be handled in the health care bills. In the House, a bloc of anti-abortion Democrats forced Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to accept restrictions that outraged liberals as the price for passing the Democratic health care bill last month.

Full Story Reproductive Rights Showdown Looms in Senate | CommonDreams.org.

Britain is protecting the biggest heroin crop of all time

This week the 64th British soldier to die in Afghanistan, Corporal Mike Gilyeat, was buried. All the right things were said about this brave soldier, just as, on current trends, they will be said about one or more of his colleagues who follow him next week.

The alarming escalation of the casualty rate among British soldiers in Afghanistan ? up to ten per cent ? led to discussion this week on whether it could be fairly compared to casualty rates in the Second World War.

But the key question is this: what are our servicemen dying for? There are glib answers to that: bringing democracy and development to Afghanistan, supporting the government of President Hamid Karzai in its attempt to establish order in the country, fighting the Taliban and preventing the further spread of radical Islam into Pakistan.

But do these answers stand up to close analysis?

Full Story Britain is protecting the biggest heroin crop of all time | Mail Online.

Rise of the New McCarthyism:

How Right Wing Extremists Try to Paralyze Government Through Ideological Smears and Baseless Attacks

Introduction

On December 2, 1954, the U.S. Senate voted to censure Sen. Joseph McCarthy, bringing to an end four years of political intimidation and character assassination so ferocious that McCarthy’s name is still synonymous with a particularly destructive form of demagoguery.

McCarthy’s campaign against supposedly widespread communist infiltration of the U.S. government brought down sitting Senators and intimidated even President Eisenhower (who loathed McCarthy) and his advisors. McCarthy’s campaign was boosted by conservative think tanks, media figures, and clergy, and abetted for years by the unwillingness of most of his colleagues to stand up against his false charges and clear abuses of power.

McCarthy launched his campaign with a speech on February 9, 1950, in West Virginia, claiming to have a list of 205 people in the State Department known to be members of the Communist Party. He made similar claims, with shifting numbers, many times.  McCarthy’s charges were inflammatory and false, and often sufficiently vague to resist any fact-checking.  But his bluster and manipulation of the era’s fear of global communism allowed him to build power while destroying lives and careers.

Full Story People For the American Way: Right Wing Watch In Focus – Rise of the New McCarthyism: How Right Wing Extremists Try to Paralyze Government Through Ideological Smears and Baseless Attacks.

Asian Carp Threaten Lake Michigan

Environmental officials in Illinois plan to dump a toxic chemical into a stretch of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal Wednesday night hoping to keep Lake Michigan safe from a species of massive and voracious fish called Asian carp. The fish, which can grow to 4 feet long and weigh 100 pounds, are known for their ability to leap up to 8 feet out of the water as motor boats speed by, injuring fishermen. Scientists fear that the fish, which can eat the equivalent of 40 percent of their body weight every day, could damage the ecosystem of the Great Lakes, which is the largest body of fresh water in the world.

For now, officials say there’s nothing to do but kill them.

“We are all very concerned about the threat Asian carp pose to the Great Lakes,” said Stacey Solano, spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

Officials said the carp are closing in on Lake Michigan, and that’s why they plan to poison a 5.7-mile channel south of Chicago to keep the carp from passing an electric barrier that would normally hold them back. Officials will spread a fish toxin called rotenone near Lockport, Ill., hoping to kill the carp. Rotenone kills fish by disrupting their ability to metabolize oxygen.

Full Story Invasive Species: Asian Carp Threaten Lake Michigan – ABC News.

New Poll: 60% in US want public health option

Thomson Reuters poll:

(Reuters) – Most Americans would like to see a “public option” in health insurance reform but doubt anything Congress does will lower costs or improve care in the short term, according to a poll released on Thursday.

The survey of 2,999 households by Thomson Reuters Corp (TRI.TO)(TRI.N) shows a public skeptical about the cost, quality and accessibility of medical care.

Just under 60 percent of those surveyed said they would like a public option as part of any final healthcare reform legislation, which Republicans and a few Democrats oppose.

Full Story Thomson Reuters poll: Most in US want public health option | Deals | Regulatory News | Reuters.

USDA Classifies PETA as a Terrorist Threat

PETA is one of the most controversial activist groups operating today. The group’s contentious media campaigns, undercover operations, infamous advertising, and high profile demonstrations have made them perhaps the most notorious–and most polarizing–nonprofit organization there is. But are they terrorists? According to the US Department of Agriculture, they are now.

And right when PETA was about to be able to call it quits, too. The USDA has just released a new security profile form (pdf), which it distributes to animal experimentation facilities. The form reveals that PETA has been classified as a terrorist threat by the US government–potentially opening up its members to prosecution as terrorists. According to Green is the New Red, an eco-activist rights website, the document was given to all facilities that conduct experiments on animals. They were asked to disclose whether they were the target of attacks or harassment from a list of terrorist groups–one of which, evidently, is PETA.

Here’s an excerpt from the form:

Full Story USDA Classifies PETA as a Terrorist Threat : TreeHugger.

Group promoting climate skepticism has extensive ties to Exxon-Mobil

A group promoting skepticism over widely-accredited climate change science has a web of connections to influential oil giant Exxon-Mobil, Raw Story has found.

The organization is called the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), apparently named after the UN coalition International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). An investigation into the group reveals its numerous links to Exxon-Mobil, a vehement opponent of climate legislation and notorious among scientists for funding global warming skeptics.

“Exxon-Mobil essentially funds people to lie,” Joseph Romm, lauded climate expert and author of the blog Climate Progress, told Raw Story. “It’s important for people to understand that they pay off the overwhelming majority of groups in the area of junk science.”

The NIPCC’s signature report, “Climate Change Reconsidered,” disputes the notion that global warming is human-caused, insisting in its policy summary that “Nature, not human activity, rules the planet.” Many of its assertions have been challenged by, among others, the scientists’ blog RealClimate.

Full Story Group promoting climate skepticism has extensive ties to Exxon-Mobil | Raw Story.

Time Inc. Unveils Tablet-Based Digital Magazine Prototype (VIDEO)

*See video below*

Even though tablet computers have yet to hit stores (and Apple won't even confirm its mythical “iTablet” exists), Time Inc. has unveiled a prototype of what Sports Illustrated would look like on an interactive, touchscreen tablet.

Time reports that the design intentionally adhered to the traditional print format of a magazine — for example, users read the magazine by “flipping” through “pages” and although they can reorder sections, they can't zoom in or out of the text.

“There's something really great about magazines, about browsing,” the editor of the Sports Illustrated group told the New York Times. “Let's heighten that.”

Time Inc. has also thrown in some new twists that take advantage of the (hypothetical) tablet interface.

Full Story Time Inc. Unveils Tablet-Based Digital Magazine Prototype (VIDEO).

Fed Transparency Should Precede Bernanke Confirmation

Dean Baker:

Congress will soon consider whether Ben Bernanke merits another term as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. It is fair to say that no single individual played a larger role in responding to the recent financial crisis. The Fed has directly lent more than $2 trillion to financial and non-financial institutions in the last two years. It has guaranteed trillions more. It is also fair to say that few individuals and institutions played as large a role in the economy leading up to the crisis than Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve.

However, at the moment Congress lacks the independent and objective analysis needed to fully assess Bernanke’s performance and therefore to make an informed judgment as to whether he deserves re-appointment. For this reason, Congress should put off a vote on Bernanke’s nomination until there has been a full audit of the Fed’s actions preceding and during the crisis.

Before considering Bernanke’s role in containing the financial crisis, Congress should, via the Government Accountability Office (GAO), investigate the role of Fed policy in allowing the housing bubble to grow. This is not just an effort at playing the blame game; an objective assessment of this policy will also be helpful in avoiding future bubbles.

Full Story Dean Baker: Fed Transparency Should Precede Bernanke Confirmation.

OPS:  We will never have transparency in the Fed when the people that are currently running it have a vested interest in staying out of jail by NOT having transparency

Getting out of Afghanistan now

Thom Hartmann  w/ Pascal Zachery

YouTube – Getting out of Afghanistan now w/ Pascal Zachery.

Why are conservatives trying to make education available only to rich children?

Thom Hartmann

YouTube – Why are conservatives trying to make education available only to rich children?.

Report Examines Civil Rights Enforcement During Bush Years

When the Bush administration ran the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department, career lawyers wanted to look into accusations that officials in one state had illegally intimidated blacks during a voter-fraud investigation.

But division supervisors refused to “approve further contact with state authorities on this matter,” according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office auditing the activities of the division from 2001 to 2007.

Congress is set to release that report, which did not identify the state in question, on Thursday as the House of Representatives takes up its first oversight hearing of the Civil Rights Division under the Obama administration.

The 180-page report, obtained by The New York Times, is densely packed with statistics about civil rights enforcement by the division’s sections. The accountability office also examined a sampling of matters that were closed without further action, finding several cases — including the curtailed voter intimidation inquiry — in which supervisors rejected the recommendations of career lawyers to go forward.

Full Story Report Examines Civil Rights Enforcement During Bush Years – NYTimes.com.

Earth could plunge into sudden ice age

Experts: ‘Big Freeze’ about 12,800 years ago happened within months

In the film, “The Day After Tomorrow,” the world gets gripped in ice within the span of just a few weeks. Now research now suggests an eerily similar event might indeed have occurred in the past.

Looking ahead to the future, there is no reason why such a freeze shouldn’t happen again — and in ironic fashion it could be precipitated if ongoing changes in climate force the Greenland ice sheet to suddenly melt, scientists say.

Starting roughly 12,800 years ago, the Northern Hemisphere was gripped by a chill that lasted some 1,300 years. Known by scientists as the Younger Dryas and nicknamed the“Big Freeze,” geological evidence suggests it was brought on when a vast pulse of fresh water — a greater volume than all of North America’s Great Lakes combined — poured into the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans.

Full Story Earth could plunge into sudden ice age – LiveScience- msnbc.com.

Our Insane Economics

Video

Thom Hartmann  with Chuck Sheketoff

YouTube – Our Insane Economics with Chuck Sheketoff.

Feingold Leads Bipartisan Group of Legislators in Opposing Afghanistan Escalation

In advance of President Obamas scheduled remarks on Tuesday, December 1, 2009, outlining his Afghanistan strategy, U.S. Senator Russ Feingold and a bipartisan group of legislators discussed how an increase of U.S. troops in Afghanistan is the wrong move in our fight against al Qaeda. Senator Feingold was joined by U.S. Representatives Jim McGovern (D-MA), Walter Jones (R-NC) and Barbara Lee (D-CA).

Full Story YouTube – Feingold Leads Bipartisan Group of Legislators in Opposing Afghanistan Escalation.

Mall of America officials backtrack on banning non-English speaking reporters from Palin’s book event.

Mall of America On Dec. 7, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin will be at the Mall of America to sign copies of her new book. In advance of her visit, mall officials sent out a message to reporters: If you don’t speak English, stay away. The Chicago Tribune’s Mark Silva reports:

Officials at the Minnesota mega-mall this week told reporters planning to cover the Minneapolis-area stop on Palin’s Going Rogue book tour they must address the 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate who resigned as governor last summer by her old title — a common honor, actually, which normally is accorded to former governors.

Full Story Think Progress » Mall of America officials backtrack on banning non-English speaking reporters from Palin’s book event..

Blue Whale Song Mystery Baffles Scientists

All around the world, blue whales aren’t singing like they used to, and scientists have no idea why.

The largest animals on Earth are singing in ever-deeper voices every year. Among the suggested explanations are ocean noise pollution, changing population dynamics and new mating strategies. But none of them is entirely convincing.

“We don’t have the answer. We just have a lot of recordings,” said Mark McDonald, president of Whale Acoustics, a company that specializes in the sonic monitoring of cetaceans.

McDonald and his collaborators first noticed the change eight years ago, when they kept needing to recalibrate the automated song detectors used to track blue whales off the California coast. The detectors are triggered by songs that match a particular waveform. Every year, McDonald had to set them lower.

Since then, he and Scripps Institution of Oceanography researchers Sarah Melnick and John Hildebrand have gathered thousands of blue whale recordings made since the 1960s, spanning populations from the North Atlantic to the South Pacific to the East Indian Ocean. Their analysis, published in October in Endangered Species Research, shows that the songs’ tonal frequency is falling every year by a few fractions of a hertz.

Full Story Blue Whale Song Mystery Baffles Scientists | Wired Science | Wired.com.

Ed Schultz Spars With Sen. Barbara Boxer Over Senate Health Care Bill

The Ed Show’s Ed Schultz let it all out Wednesday evening and expressed the frustration that many progressives feel about attempts by Democrats to water down the Senate health care bill.

Citing efforts by Sens. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) to block or dillute measures in the health care bill, a fired-up Schultz explained to Sen. Barabara Boxer (D-Calif.) that Democrats have disappointed. Progressives, he explained, thought that by electing a Democratic president, a Democratic Senate, and a Democratic House, reform would be possible.

Sen. Boxer, exasperated by Schultz’s comments, tried to calm down the MSNBC host and urged people not to give up on Senate Democrats.

WATCH:

Full Story Ed Schultz Spars With Sen. Barbara Boxer Over Senate Health Care Bill.

Republicans Fail To Overturn Order Targeting Voter Intimidation In New Jersey

A federal judge in New Jersey has denied a request by the Republican National Committee to dissolve a 27-year-old court order aimed at preventing intimidation of minority voters.

In his ruling Tuesday in Newark, U.S. District Judge Dickinson Debevoise said voter intimidation remains a threat and preventing it outweighs the potential danger of voter fraud.

But the judge did modify the order, loosening some of the restrictions on Republican activities, and set a 2017 date for its expiration.

The order resulted from a lawsuit filed in New Jersey in 1981, but applies nationwide.

Democrats claimed a Republican “ballot security” program in minority neighborhoods violated the federal Voting Rights Act. The program included using mailed sample ballots returned as undeliverable to compile lists of voters to be challenged at the polls and stationing off-duty police and sheriff's officers near polling places.

Full Story Republicans Fail To Overturn Order Targeting Voter Intimidation In New Jersey.

McCain Returns To Robocalls To Target Health Care, Democrats

Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.), who relied heavily on automated calls to attack Barack Obama during the presidential campaign, is deploying the same tool in his efforts to derail health care legislation and bruise some Democrats along the way.

The Arizona Republican has cut at least two separate versions of a robocall now making the rounds, in which he attacks Democrats for “cutting vital Medicare coverage for our seniors.” The most widely-distributed call, which was reported on Tuesday evening, is paid for by the National Republican Senatorial Committee and targets at least five key swing Senators: Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Byron Dorgan and Kent Conrad, both from North Dakota.

Slightly further under the radar, McCain has put out a nearly identical robocall for himself in Arizona, in which he again touts the work he did in introducing “the first Republican amendment to the massive health care bill, which would send the bill back to the Senate Finance Committee and stop the Democrats from cutting vital Medicare coverage for our seniors.” That call, as first reported by Shaun Dakin at The National Political Do Not Contact Registry, is paid for by the Senator’s political arm, Friends of John McCain.

Full Story McCain Returns To Robocalls To Target Health Care, Democrats.

Best Microscopic-Life Images Of 2009 (PHOTOS)

The BioScapes competition, sponsored by Olympus America, Inc., recognizes microscope photos of plants, animals, and other life-forms that capture the “fascinating minutia of life,” according to Olympus.

“These images and movies reflect some of the most exciting research being done around the world and reveal the art that exists in optical microscopy,” Olympus's Osamu Joji said in a statement.

Each year the company chooses a panel of microscope-imaging experts to judge the competition, which is open to anyone using a light microscope–the familiar apparatus from high school science classes, which uses visible light and lenses to magnify objects.

Full Story Best Microscopic-Life Images Of 2009 (PHOTOS).

America Without a Middle Class

Elizabeth Warren:

Can you imagine an America without a strong middle class? If you can, would it still be America as we know it?

Today, one in five Americans is unemployed, underemployed or just plain out of work. One in nine families can't make the minimum payment on their credit cards. One in eight mortgages is in default or foreclosure. One in eight Americans is on food stamps. More than 120,000 families are filing for bankruptcy every month. The economic crisis has wiped more than $5 trillion from pensions and savings, has left family balance sheets upside down, and threatens to put ten million homeowners out on the street.

Families have survived the ups and downs of economic booms and busts for a long time, but the fall-behind during the busts has gotten worse while the surge-ahead during the booms has stalled out. In the boom of the 1960s, for example, median family income jumped by 33% (adjusted for inflation). But the boom of the 2000s resulted in an almost-imperceptible 1.6% increase for the typical family. While Wall Street executives and others who owned lots of stock celebrated how good the recovery was for them, middle class families were left empty-handed.

Full Story Elizabeth Warren: America Without a Middle Class.

OPS: This is the Goal, and, the logical result of 30 years of Reaganomics, ‘Free’ Trade, and the “Cult of “the Market”.  We’ve been had.

Does Having A Father Shorten Your Life?

For most of human history, people have sought tricks to extend their lives, but new research suggests that one key may be not having a father.

Researchers in Japan created 13 mice using DNA material from two mothers, and compared their lifespans with mice born under normal circumstances. They found that the mice with no father lived roughly 842 days, with control mice living 186 fewer days, on average, findings that suggested a benefit to not having a father.

“We have known for some time that women tend to live longer than men in almost all countries worldwide, and that these sex-related differences in longevity also occur in many other mammalian species,” said Tomohiro Kono, one of the study authors from the department of bioscience at Tokyo University of Agriculture, in a statement. “However, the reason for this difference was unclear and, in particular, it was not known whether longevity in mammals was controlled by the genome composition of only one or both parents.”

In their paper, the researchers noted: “Our results further suggested sex differences in longevity originating at the genome level, implying that the sperm genome has a detrimental effect on longevity in mammals.”

Full Story Does Having A Father Shorten Your Life? – ABC News.

GM to launch Volt in California next year

General Motors will launch its hotly anticipated Chevrolet Volt electric car in California next year, the company announced Wednesday.

The US carmaker announced the decision as the Los Angeles Auto Show got underway, one day after the surprise departure of the auto giant’s chief executive Fritz Henderson.

GM vice-chairman Bob Lutz said the Volt, which can be charged by a conventional electrical power outlet and can run for up to 40 miles (64 kilometers) without fuel, would be released in California in late 2010.

Other markets for the car, which analysts expect to retail at between 30,000 and 40,000 dollars, would be announced later Lutz said.

Full Story GM to launch Volt in California next year – Yahoo! News.

Drug-Makers Paying Off Competitors To Keep Cheap Generics Off Market

Republicans and their allies in the business community talk a good game about the virtues of free-market competition. But, as we’ve seen in the debate over the public option, that stance often goes out the window when corporate profits are at stake.

And now we’ve got another example — one of the sleaziest and most blatantly self-serving yet.

Over the last few years, drug-makers have embraced a startlingly simple tactic for fending off competition from generic brands: paying them off. In a nutshell, the company that holds the patent on a profitable drug strikes a deal with the maker of the cheaper generic brand: you hold off on marketing your generic for several years, and in return, we’ll give you a share of our profits on the drug.

So common have these deals become lately that they’ve been given a name: pay-for-delay. The approach — a textbook anti-competitive tactic — is worth billions to drug-makers, because it essentially allows them to buy more protection than their patent confers.

Full Story Drug-Makers Paying Off Competitors To Keep Cheap Generics Off Market | TPMMuckraker.

Copenhagen climate change talks must fail, says top scientist

Exclusive: World’s leading climate change expert says summit talks so flawed that deal would be a disaster

The scientist who convinced the world to take notice of the looming danger of global warming says it would be better for the planet and for future generations if next week’s Copenhagen climate change summit ended in collapse.

James Hansen talks to Suzanne Goldenberg Link to this audio

In an interview with the Guardian, James Hansen, the world’s pre-eminent climate scientist, said any agreement likely to emerge from the negotiations would be so deeply flawed that it would be better to start again from scratch.

“I would rather it not happen if people accept that as being the right track because it’s a disaster track,” said Hansen, who heads the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.

Full Story Copenhagen climate change talks must fail, says top scientist | Environment | The Guardian.

Major layoffs [40%] at Washington Times, Miami Herald

The Washington Times will lay off at least 40 percent of its 370 employees, as part of a major overhaul that will also see the paper distributed for free at some locations.

Times president and publisher Jonathan Slevin said the cuts were part of a strategy to transform the paper into a 21st century media company.

“We have developed plans to secure our position and advance our vital role in an evolving media marketplace and through challenging economic times,” he said in a statement.

Acknowledging the tough times hitting the media industry and economy as a whole, Slevin said future plans had to be constrained by “current marketplace realities.”

“In this regard, the company is aggressively working to achieve efficiencies of scale that must include significant staff reduction of its 370 personnel.”

The Politico news website reported that the figure represents around 40 percent of the Washington Times workforce.

Full Story Major layoffs at Washington Times, Miami Herald – Yahoo! News.

Kucinich: Afghans want to be saved from us, not by us

Update at bottom: Only 100 Al Qaeda fighters remain in Afghanistan, while number of private Pentagon contractors tops 104,000

In an address to the nation on Tuesday, President Obama declared, “As commander in chief, I have determined that it is in our vital national interests to send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. … After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home.” For Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), however, if the ultimate goal is to get out of Afghanistan, then the sooner the better.

“Why are we still in Afghanistan?” Kucinich asked on the floor of the House of Representatives on Wednesday morning. “Al-Qaeda has been routed. Our occupation fuels a Taliban insurgency. The more troops we send, the more resistance we meet.”

Full Story Kucinich: Afghans want to be saved from us, not by us | Raw Story.

OPS:  It would be a lot cheaper and faster to buy all 100 of them Condos in Miami Beach and a Ferrari

Palin event requests ‘English-only’ reporters

You might be able to see Russia from Sarah Palin’s home state, but that isn’t an excuse to speak Russian.

Authorities turned away reporters who didn’t speak English from a Palin event in Minnesota this week, demanding that reporters address the former Alaska governor only in English and refer to her only as “governor.”

Event planners at the Mall of Americas now say it was only a “misunderstanding.” Palin was scheduled to appear as part of her book-signing tour.

Full Story Palin event requests ‘English-only’ reporters | Raw Story.

GOPers want Franken to defend them in opposing anti-rape amendment

Some Republican senators are taking heat for voting against an amendment that would allow employees of military contractors to sue their employers if they are raped at work — and they want the Democratic senator who wrote the amendment to help them fight off the bad publicity.

In October, 30 Republicans voted against Sen. Al Franken's amendment to a defense appropriations bill that would de-fund contractors who prevent their employees from suing if they are raped by co-workers. Since then, those Republicans have faced outrage for what critics say amounts to support for rape.

A Web site called RepublicansForRape mocks the thirty senators as “legislators who were brave enough to stand up in defense of rape.” Louisiana Sen. David Vitter took heat recently for walking away from a woman who was questioning him about his vote against the amendment.

Now, some of those GOP senators want Sen. Franken (D-MN) to come to their rescue.

Full Story GOPers want Franken to defend them in opposing anti-rape amendment | Raw Story.

OPS: Every week Republicans pull something new to prove they truly live in an alternate universe.  Here is this weeks example. They are insane.

Matthews: ‘I deeply apologize’ for calling West Point cadets Obama’s ‘enemy camp.’

Last night on MSNBC, host Chris Matthews offered a measured apology for calling the U.S. Military Academy at West Point President Obama’s “enemy camp.” He defended himself by arguing that West Point cadets “identify with the Bush strategy.” But today on Hardball, Matthews admitted that his argument “was wrong”:

MATTHEWS: Now I’ve heard too many politicians say things like, “oh that was taken out context” to explain something they wish they hadn’t said let me just say to the cadets, their parents, former cadets and everyone who cares about this country and those who defend it: I used the wrong words and worse than that I said something that is just not right and for that I deeply apologize.

As those who watch me regularly probably got right away, my point was that the military up at West Point was probably a skeptical audience for President Obama given his strong position against the war in Iraq and generally more dovish image. I was wrong to make that conclusion based on the lack of applause or apparent enthusiasm in the ranks of officers and cadets last night.

Watch it:

Full Story Think Progress » Matthews: ‘I deeply apologize’ for calling West Point cadets Obama’s ‘enemy camp.’.

OPS: Tweety deeply apologizes for jeopardizing his multi-million dollar job. Tweety is an idiot

Glenn Beck-Inspired Tea Party Candidates Step Up To Oust Veteran GOP Lawmakers

Glenn Beck, who has waged a conspiratorial, hateful campaign against liberals and his other political enemies all year, has been galvanizing his supporters to run for office. Today, conservative activist Eric Forcade announced that he is running in the Republican primary to unseat longtime Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R-FL). In explaing his reason for running, Forcade said he was inspired by the “values that have been popularized by Glenn Beck.”

Beck’s 9/12 project and its closely related “tea parties” have inspired a number of other challengers to Republican lawmakers deemed insufficiently “pure”:

– Phil Troyer, an attorney and former staffer to Republican Sens. Dan Coats (R-IN) and Richard Lugar (R-IN), is challenged incumbent Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN). An avid tea party supporter, Troyer has attacked Souder as a “big spending liberal.” Rachel Grubb, who is involved with Beck’s 9/12 project, is also challenging Souder.

– Matt Sakalosky, a businessman who is a member of Beck’s 9/12 project, is challenging Rep. Lee Terry (R-NE).

– Earlier this year, Rep. Bob Inglis (R-SC) had the audacity to criticize Beck. Beck has marshaled his supporters into a crowded primary to take out Inglis. One of the challengers, college professor Christina Jeffrey, directly cites Inglis’ criticism of Beck as part of the reason she is running.

Full Story Think Progress » Glenn Beck-Inspired Tea Party Candidates Step Up To Oust Veteran GOP Lawmakers.

Ohio, Pennsylvania Lawmakers Testify in Support of Fair Trade

The importation of Chinese oil industry tubular products, mainly steel tubes and pipes, are highly subsidized and dumped into the American market, putting U.S. producers in a very uncompetitive situation.

Federal, state and local officials from Pennsylvania and Ohio went before the U.S. International Trade Commission on Tuesday to testify in support of fair trade policies, which they say would level the playing field for American steel producers and stem the tide of job loss in the hard hit industry.

At issue is the importation of Chinese oil industry tubular products, mainly steel tubes and pipes, which officials claim are highly subsidized and dumped into the American market, putting U.S. producers in a very uncompetitive situation. To compete with their Chinese counterparts, American companies must lower costs, which typically results in job cuts

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

Fixing the Broken Tax System

The VAT taxes consumption rather than income, leaving more money in your paycheck which allows more money to be efficiently distributed throughout the economy.

It is self-evident that America’s tax system is rather unfair. We have a system of so-called “progressive” income taxes that make people pay different amounts according to their wealth and earnings.

According to our current system the marginal tax rate increases from 10 percent for the lowest earners, and reaches 35 percent for the top income bracket.

After accounting for deductions, subsidies and rebates many of the lowest earning individuals pay very little or virtually nothing. At the same time, after accounting for particular tax loopholes many of the top earners pay very little as well.

The people in the middle are often left shouldering the burden without much assistance.

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

Addicted to Nonsense

Chris Hedges

What Do Levi Johnston, Evangelicals and Oprah Have in Common? They All Blind Us to What Really Matters

Will Tiger Woods finally talk to the police? Who will replace Oprah? (Not that Oprah can ever be replaced, of course.) And will Michaele and Tareq Salahi, the couple who crashed President Barack Obama’s first state dinner, command the hundreds of thousands of dollars they want for an exclusive television interview? Can Levi Johnston, father of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s grandson, get his wish to be a contestant on “Dancing With the Stars”?

The chatter that passes for news, the gossip that is peddled by the windbags on the airwaves, the noise that drowns out rational discourse, and the timidity and cowardice of what is left of the newspaper industry reflect our flight into collective insanity. We stand on the cusp of one of the most seismic and disturbing dislocations in human history, one that is radically reconfiguring our economy as it is the environment, and our obsessions revolve around the trivial and the absurd.

What really matters in our lives—the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the steady deterioration of the dollar, the mounting foreclosures, the climbing unemployment, the melting of the polar ice caps and the awful reality that once the billions in stimulus money run out next year we will be bereft and broke—doesn’t fit into the cheerful happy talk that we mainline into our brains. We are enraptured by the revels of a dying civilization. Once reality shatters the airy edifice, we will scream and yell like petulant children to be rescued, saved and restored to comfort and complacency. There will be no shortage of demagogues, including buffoons like Sarah Palin, who will oblige. We will either wake up to face our stark new limitations, to retreat from imperial projects and discover a new simplicity, as well as a new humility, or we will stumble blindly toward catastrophe and neofeudalism.

Full Story Chris Hedges: Addicted to Nonsense – Chris Hedges’ Columns – Truthdig.

Sunrise Over the Passive Solar House

This will be the 29th November I have lived in my passive solar home.

The picture was taken at 8:00 am, November 19, 2009. The outside temperature was 24 degrees and the expected high for the day is predicted to be in the mid forties. You can see from the picture that we had a hard frost the night before. Since my solar home faces true south, the sun is almost rising at the position it will be in on the shortest day of the year – Dec 21.

There will be no need to start my woodstove today as the low angle of the winter sun will quickly heat my home and provide excess solar energy to be stored in the Solar-Slab for evening use after the sun goes down. Solar-Slab is a name I coined for my formally patented method of storing heat in the base of a solar home. The Solar-Slab consists of an array of concrete blocks positioned to allow air to pass through them. The blocks are then capped with concrete to make a ventilated concrete heat storage unit. The Solar-Slab then acts like a battery that takes on a charge and then gives the electricity “back” when needed. In the case of the Solar-Slab heat is stored instead of electricity. How this all works is described in my book The Passive Solar House (Chelsea Green Publishing, 1997).

The response from my book has been very pleasing to me. It has done exactly what I hoped. It has enabled people from all over the country to realize the dream of owning and living in a solar home. There are now hundreds of solar home owners that will have the same gratifying morning experience I had today.

Full Story Sunrise Over the Passive Solar House – James Kachadorian at Chelsea Green.

The Recession Is Taking a Bite Out of Meat Consumption

More than half of Americans have cut back on meat. Martha Stewart broadcasts a meatless Thanksgiving show. What gives?

The recession is having one positive effect. The national cholesterol is going down.

More than half of Americans have cut back on meat, many becoming “recession-bred flexitarians,” says Gourmet magazine–people who use meat as a condiment not as a meal anchor.

Even the doyenne of taste and nutrition, Martha Stewart, broadcast a vegetarian Thanksgiving show last week.

A small drop in meat exerts big consequences on your health says Katherine Tallmadge of the American Dietetic Association because red meat is the “primary source of saturated fat, which can boost levels of bad LDL cholesterol and inflammation.”

Full Story The Recession Is Taking a Bite Out of Meat Consumption | Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace | AlterNet.

A Humanitarian Disaster in the Making Along the Chad-Cameroon Oil Pipeline — Who’s Watching?

The discovery of oil in Chad was supposed to alleviate poverty and human suffering, but it’s only enriched Western Oil companies and the local dictators.

In 2000 Big Oil, the World Bank, and two corrupt dictators teamed up to launch the Chad-Cameroon Oil Pipeline Project. Years on, the media attention is subsiding while the negative impacts of the pipeline worsen daily. Brendan Schwartz and Valery Nodem reporting from Chad and Cameroon.

Know Chad?

If you’ve heard of Chad — no, not the Bengals’ Ochocinco — you probably haven’t heard anything good about it. Almost continuous war since independence and its involvement the Darfur conflict have gotten Chad nothing but bad press. One author called it “a neglected tragedy of a nation.” Chad is in fact a strikingly beautiful country and its people are as vibrant and diverse as any. But without a doubt, there is great human suffering. And as many people have noted, the discovery of black gold isn’t helping.

The Chad-Cameroon Oil Pipeline Project, although relatively little-known to the general public, was for a time the source of fierce debate and high rhetoric in international development circles. The World Bank-financed project in the heart of war-torn Central Africa pumps 170,000 barrels/day of crude from Chad’s Doba basin to Cameroon’s Atlantic port city of Kribi, 1,080 kilometers away. Led by such corporations as Exxon and Chevron, the pipeline received plaudits from the World Bank as “an unprecedented framework to transform oil wealth into direct benefits for the poor, the vulnerable and the environment.” Nine years after the World Bank agreed to finance the pipeline, six years after oil went online, and just one year after the World Bank quit the project, Chad-Cameroon is slowly fading from the development spotlight. The World Bank quietly released their own evaluationof the project last week admitting that the project failed to achieve its two main goals of reducing poverty and improving governance. One hopes this is not the World Bank’s final evaluation of the project since oil is scheduled to flow for another twenty years and the worst of the project’s impacts are just beginning to be felt. This is an update from the field.

Full Story A Humanitarian Disaster in the Making Along the Chad-Cameroon Oil Pipeline — Who’s Watching? | World | AlterNet.

OPS: Now that Obama has re-upped protecting the pipeline in Afghanistan, Here’s the next war and occupation over a pipeline.  “Can’t happen”?  The mercenaries are already biding the contracts

Does the Vatican Have a Say in Your Health Decisions?

As more health facilities merge with Catholic hospitals in response to economic hardship, patients’ rights are increasingly restricted by Catholic doctrine.

In the first months of her pregnancy, Candace Rich informed her doctors that she wanted to have her tubes tied. Tubal ligation is cheaper and easier on the patient’s health when done during a Cesarean section, so Rich asked her doctors to perform the procedure if she required one. Two days after her due date, Rich was told that she would need a Cesarean but that the hospital refused to perform the simple operation because St. Luke, formerly a secular facility, now operated under Catholic doctrine.

“The doctor told me that ‘because of the Vatican,’ St. Luke could no longer do that procedure,” said Rich in an affidavit. She was forced to find another hospital in the last few days before her surgery and to pay for the full cost of the operation.

Across the country, an increasing number of secular medical facilities are merging with Catholic hospitals to stave off the effects of a difficult economy; a union that proves less than holy for those, like Rich, who seek medical procedures no longer performed by the joined facilities. And many hospitals under Catholic management operate according to doctrine that restricts or prohibits performance of “non-Catholic” procedures, including tubal ligation, a surgical method of sterilization that devout Catholics consider an infringement on God’s plan for reproduction.

Full Story Does the Vatican Have a Say in Your Health Decisions? | Reproductive Justice and Gender | AlterNet.

Fed Up With Federalism

Harold Meyerson | The American Prospect

By accident of its birth — a collection of separate colonies that slowly came together to form an independent union and revolted against the remote power of the British government — the United States has an enduring bias toward localism, an aversion to centralized government that is part of its DNA. For some on the left, this has been seen as a positive. “It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country,” Justice Louis Brandeis once wrote.

Even though progressives such as Brandeis have celebrated our federalism, it's important to remember that Brandeis lived and worked at a time when the federal government was icebound in conservative orthodoxy and the cause of social justice could be advanced only in a small number of states and cities. Segregationists like George Wallace and Richard Russell have celebrated our federalism, too, arguing for states' rights at a time when the national government was moving to abolish the Jim Crow laws throughout the South.

Conversely, liberals have argued for the right of the nation to move beyond its federalist constraints during those periods when they controlled the national government (the 1930s and, especially, the 1960s). And during the late, lamentable Bush presidency, conservative justices on the Supreme Court frequently forbade the states from enacting stricter regulations on business than those that Bush's administration had put in place.

Full Story Fed Up With Federalism | The American Prospect.

Pain Placebos May Be Generating “Real” Relief

Studies are finding that the pain relief induced by placebos may come from releasing the body’s own chemical pain relievers.

A team of researchers smears a cream said to contain a powerful anesthetic on the skin of your forearm. Then, in their mad-scientist way, they apply an electric heating pad that can be dialed up to painfully hot levels.

Imagine being pleasantly surprised to find that the cream works — the heat seems quite bearable. The researchers even run a brain scan to document just how well this cream works.

But picture your dismay at learning that the cream was actually inert and contained no anesthetic. Nada.

Guileless lab rat that you are, you have been punked. By a placebo.

Full Story Health Articles | Pain Placebos May Be Generating “Real” Relief | Miller-McCune Online Magazine.

President Barack Obama delivered the best speech George W. Bush ever gave in his life

William Rivers Pitt

On Tuesday night, President Barack Obama delivered the best speech George W. Bush ever gave in his life. Mr. Bush, if he was watching, would have recognized virtually every facet of Obama’s speech, for it was the Bush administration that hammered out the template used by Mr. Obama to deliver the news that he is doubling down on the war in Afghanistan.

Obama’s eloquence was far superior to anything Mr. Bush could have ever hoped to achieve – for the first time in the 21st century, the United States has a president who can pronounce “nuclear” correctly – but at the end of the day, it was the same script all over again.

Mr. Obama’s speech contained all the well-worn Bushian touchstones, one above all: sharing a stage with soldiers in uniform – and how heartbreakingly young were the faces in that room; one could hear a pin drop throughout in that roomful of children whose lives will be directly affected by the decision that was announced – as a means of political defense and to augment his martial profile. Mr. Bush pulled this sickening stunt more times than can be counted, and it burned like acid to see another president defile their service by using them as props in a bit of political theater.

Full Story President Barack Obama delivered the best speech George W. Bush ever gave in his life | The Smirking Chimp.

Why Bank Of America Fired Me

This is a true story about why I was fired from Bank of America

Full Story YouTube – Why Bank Of America Fired Me.

Democracy & Elitism 2: performance elitism vs privilege elitism, and why the difference matters

“Elite” hasn’t always been an epithet. In fact, if we consider what the dictionary has to say about it, it still signifies something potentially worthy. Potentially. For instance:

e·lit·ism or é·lit·ism (-ltzm, -l-) n.

1. The belief that certain persons or members of certain classes or groups deserve favored treatment by virtue of their perceived superiority, as in intellect, social status, or financial resources.le

That definition, while technically accurate enough, could use a bit of untangling, because it embodies the very nature of our problem with elitism in America. In popular use, the term “elite” and its derivatives has been twisted into a pure, distilled lackwit essence of “liberal” – another once-proud word that fell victim to our moneyed false consciousness machine.

Full Story Scholars and Rogues » Democracy & Elitism 2: performance elitism vs privilege elitism, and why the difference matters.

GE reaches deal with Comcast for NBC

Under pact, NBC Universal would be 51 percent controlled by Comcast

General Electric and Comcast said Thursday they settled on a deal for Comcast to buy a majority stake in NBC Universal, giving the nation’s largest cable TV operator control of the Peacock network, an array of cable channels and a major movie studio.

Comcast said it will put up $6.5 billion in cash and $7.25 billion in assets to buy 51 percent of NBC Universal from GE. Under the terms of the transaction, GE will contribute to the joint venture NBCU’s businesses valued at $30 billion, including its cable networks, filmed entertainment, televised entertainment, theme parks, and unconsolidated investments, subject to $9.1 billion in debt to third party lenders.

Although the deal could mean that movies could reach cable more quickly after showing in theaters, and that TV shows could appear faster on cell phones and other devices, it was already raising concerns that Comcast would wield too much power over entertainment.

Full Story GE reaches deal with Comcast for NBC – Media biz- msnbc.com.

OPS:  Further Consolidation of the 4th Estate.  This is dangerous to Democracy.  Congress should NOT allow this to go through.

Christian Cowards: Why Don’t Evangelical Leaders Condemn the Hate Spouted by Right-Wingers?

Since when does loving Jesus mean you have to hate our President? Prominent Christians should denounce the violently aggressive language right-wingers use to tear down Obama.

On Sunday, November 29, NBC’s “Meet the Press” flunked their interview with Pastor Rick Warren, world famous author of “The Purpose Driven Life.” They didn’t ask the one burning question with historic implications of national importance they should have asked: Pastor Rick, why haven’t you and other prominent evangelical leaders taken the lead in strongly condemning the hate directed at President Obama by the Religious Right and so many evangelical Christians who form the base of the Republican Party?

A week before Warren was interviewed on NBC Franklin Graham — another mainstream evangelical leader (son and heir to Billy Graham) — stood next to Sarah Palin on her book tour having loaned her a plane belonging to an organization he heads up so that she could join him and his dad Billy for dinner. Then Billy Graham released an effusive statement of support for Palin after that meeting. Again, where was the Question from the Grahams: Governor Palin why did you lend your voice to the hateful lie that if the President’s health care reform were to pass it would result in “death panels”?

There will always be hate-filled nuts on the fringe of any movement; left, right, religious or secular. No one in leadership should be blamed for their fringe — unless they don’t speak up. Post “Tea Parties”, “Obama isn’t a real American”, and all the rest it is strange and disturbing to witness the silence of the evangelical leadership in the light of so much venom directed against our President by a largely evangelical Republican base.

Full Story Christian Cowards: Why Don’t Evangelical Leaders Condemn the Hate Spouted by Right-Wingers? | | AlterNet.

Cigarette Maker Buys Quit-Smoking Company

Reynolds American today confirmed news that will leave many scratching their heads: The country’s no. 2 tobacco company and the maker of Camel cigarettes will buy a Swedish maker of products designed to help smokers quit.

Reynolds American said it will pay $44 million for Niconovum, which makes nicotine gum and other nicotine replacement products designed to wean smokers off cigarettes. The firm was founded by Karl Olov Fagerström, who the company’s Web site trumpets as “one of the world’s leading experts on smoking cessation and nicotine dependence.”

Purchasing the company “runs totally counter to the mission statement of (Reynolds American subsidiary) R.J. Reynolds,” Gregory Connolly, a Harvard School of Public Health professor who researches tobacco products, recently told ABCNews.com. “I’m astounded.”

In a statement, Reynolds American president and CEO Susan M. Ivey said the acquisition “extends the harm-reduction strategies RAI and its operating companies have been developing over the past several years.”

Full Story Cigarette Maker Buys Quit-Smoking Company – ABC News.

BREAKING: Sanders Puts Official Senate Hold on Bernanke Nomination

David Sirota

Wed Dec 02, 2009 at 18:50 est

Per Chris’s whip count on the Bernanke nomination, this is pretty huge news from my old boss:

WASHINGTON, December 2 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today placed a hold on the nomination of Ben Bernanke for a second term as chairman of the Federal Reserve.

“The American people overwhelmingly voted last year for a change in our national priorities to put the interests of ordinary people ahead of the greed of Wall Street and the wealthy few,” Sanders said. “What the American people did not bargain for was another four years for one of the key architects of the Bush economy.”

Ya know, with Republicans and corporate Democrats happily using the Senate power of obstruction so much to stop progressive priorities, it’s about time progressive Senators start using that same power of obstruction for progressive ends.

Go Bernie.

Full Story Open Left:: BREAKING: Sanders Puts Official Senate Hold on Bernanke Nomination.

Some Simple Questions After Obama’s Afghanistan War Speech

David Sirota

Just a few quick questions to ponder after President Obama’s speech announcing a massive escalation in Afghanistan – the very first being shouldn’t we be able to honestly answer these queries before mindlessly cheering on a deployment of more troops to a Central Asian war zone?

Here they are in no particular order:

- What percentage of those kids in the West Point audience will die because of this decision?

- Would you be OK sending yourself or a loved one over to face combat and potentially death for the mission Obama articulated in Afghanistan? If not, how could you support sending other people?

- Why do so many pundits and pro-Obama activists continue to focus on how “hard” and “difficult” and “trying” this decision is for President Obama, rather than on how “hard” and “difficult” and “trying” this will be for the soldiers who are killed? Doesn’t Obama get to make this decision, and then go home to the comfortable confines of a butlered White House, while thousands of Americans will be sent 7,000 miles from home to face their potential deaths? Isn’t the latter “harder” than the former?

Full Story Some Simple Questions After Obama’s Afghanistan War Speech | The Smirking Chimp.

Soldiers On Acid: 1963 British VIDEO Shows Troops Under The Influence Of LSD

This is a must watch. Environmental Graffiti has a post up on the decades of experiments western armies undertook in an attempt to develop chemical warfare to render their enemies incapacitated: In short, armies gave their own soldiers LSD, and other psychedelic drugs, and studied the effects. The Nazis did it first, then Britain, and the U.S. and other countries followed suit.

The video below is from 1963 and shows British soldiers under the influence of LSD. From the narration:

“Fifty minutes after taking the drug, radio communication had become difficult, if not impossible. But the men are still capable of sustained physical effort; however, constructive action was still attempted by those retaining a sense of responsibility despite their physical symptoms. But one hour and ten minutes after taking the drug, with one man climbing a tree to feed the birds, the troop commander gave up, admitting that he could no longer control himself or his men. He himself then relapsed into laughter.”

Video at link

Full Story Soldiers On Acid: 1963 British VIDEO Shows Troops Under The Influence Of LSD.

Obama’s proposed financial overhaul takes a step forward

The House Financial Services Committee approves legislation that would give federal officials new powers to downsize and dismantle financial firms whose failure would seriously damage the economy.

Reporting from Washington – The Obama administration’s overhaul of financial regulations took a big step forward today as a key House committee approved legislation that would give federal officials broad new powers to downsize and dismantle large financial firms whose failure would seriously damage the economy.

The House Financial Services Committee voted 31-27 to pass the expansion of the government’s ability to deal with teetering financial giants — authority that was limited when Lehman Bros. and American International Group Inc. neared bankruptcy last year.

As part of the legislation, government regulators would be able to step in when a huge firm is on the verge of collapse and take it apart in an orderly way to avoid market panic. Regulators can do that now with banks but not with more complex financial institutions. Financial firms would be required to pay into a fund to cover government costs of such takeovers.

Full Story Obama’s proposed financial overhaul takes a step forward — latimes.com.

Al Franken fallout has GOP fuming

Republican senators feel burned by Al Franken — and not by his old jokes.

The Republicans are steamed at Franken because partisans on the left are using a measure he sponsored to paint them as rapist sympathizers — and because Franken isn’t doing much to stop them.

“Trying to tap into the natural sympathy that we have for this victim of this rape —and use that as a justification to frankly misrepresent and embarrass his colleagues, I don’t think it’s a very constructive thing,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said in an interview.

“I think it’s going to make a lot of senators leery and start looking at things he’s doing earlier on, because I don’t think it got appropriate attention ahead of time.”

In a chamber where relationship-building is seen as critical, some GOP senators question whether Franken’s handling of the amendment could damage his ability to work across the aisle. Soon after Tennessee GOP Sens. Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander co-wrote an op-ed in a local newspaper defending their votes against the Franken measure, the Minnesota Democrat confronted each senator separately to dispute their column — and grew particularly angry in a tense exchange with Corke

Full Story Al Franken fallout has GOP fuming – Manu Raju – POLITICO.com.

OPS:  Well, you’re either FOR the rapists or your AGAINST them….right?

Good for Al!

Brzezinski Calls Anti-Corruption Crusade In Afghanistan Hypocritical

One of the most respected foreign policy voices in Democratic circles expressed “serious reservations” with components of a U.S. troop escalation in Afghanistan during an interview on Tuesday.

Former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was an early skeptic about increasing troops in Afghanistan, said he was not necessarily opposed to Obama’s decision to send an additional 30,000 troops there. But he stressed that the mission had to be defined properly.

For starters, he argued that if America’s military efforts lack a sufficient multilateral component, “it will in fact help to feed the insurgency.” Brzezinski also cautioned that it would be hypocritical and counterproductive for America to stress that Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s government be purged of corruption.

Full Story Brzezinski Calls Anti-Corruption Crusade In Afghanistan Hypocritical.

White House Told ‘Multiple Times’ Fannie, Freddie Had No Watchdog

Whose fault is it that the federal agency that oversees five trillion dollars in mortgages hasn’t had an independent inspector general for months? Not ours, say Federal Housing Finance Agency officials, insisting that they notified Congress about the problem and pressed the Obama administration “multiple times” to appoint someone to the position tasked with rooting out wrongdoing at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Bank.

In a letter to Rep. Darrell Issa (Calif.), the top Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Alfred Pollard, the FHFA’s top lawyer, writes that two of the agency’s heads – former Director James Lockhart and acting director Edward DeMarco — had alerted Congress to the absence of an inspector general. (Read the letter here.)

But the IG in question, Ed Kelley, was removed only after Lockhart challenged Kelley’s legal authority to operate. At the time Kelley told Congress that there was no IG — on June 3, 2009 — Kelley was, in fact, locked in a battle with Lockhart and was still serving as acting IG with legal authority that stemmed from a previous legal opinion.

It’s highly unusual for an agency head to challenge the legal authority of his own IG, as it undermines the watchdog’s independence.

Full Story White House Told ‘Multiple Times’ Fannie, Freddie Had No Watchdog.

GOP Senator Pens Obstruction Manual For Health Care

Sen. Judd Gregg, (R-NH) has penned the equivalent of an obstruction manual — a how-to for holding up health care reform — and has distributed the document to his Republican colleagues.

Insisting that it is “critical that Republican senators have a solid understanding of the minority’s rights in the Senate,” Gregg makes note of all the procedural tools the GOP can use before measures are considered, when they come to the floor and even after passage.

He highlights the use of hard quorum calls for any motion to proceed, as opposed to a far quicker unanimous consent provision. He reminds his colleagues that, absent unanimous consent, they can force the Majority Leader to read any “full-text substitute amendment.” And when it comes to offering amendments to the health care bill, the New Hampshire Republican argues that it is the personification of “full, complete, and informed debate,” to “offer an unlimited number of amendments — germane or non-germane — on any subject.”

The details of Gregg’s outline are a clear reflection of the extent to which Republicans are turning to the Byzantine processes of the Senate chamber as a means of holding up reform. And doing so with eagerness. Take for instance, the section on offering a “point of order.”

Full Story GOP Senator Pens Obstruction Manual For Health Care.

EFF sues to discover how US collects intel over Facebook, MySpace

The Electronic Frontiers Foundation (EFF) has filed a lawsuit against several government agencies hoping to force the revelation of how the U.S. utilizes social networks like Facebook and MySpace to collect intelligence.

“Millions of people use social networking sites like Facebook every day, disclosing lots of information about their private lives,” said James Tucker, a student working with EFF, in a media advisory. “As Congress debates new privacy laws covering sites like Facebook, lawmakers and voters alike need to know how the government is already using this data and what is at stake.”

However, when EFF went looking for that information by filing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, they ran into a stone wall of silence.

Full Story EFF sues to discover how US collects intel over Facebook, MySpace | Raw Story.

Comcast deal for NBC Universal coming Thursday: source

US cable giant Comcast is set to announce a deal Thursday to take a controlling stake in NBC Universal from conglomerate General Electric, a source familiar with the matter said Wednesday.

The deal values NBC Universal, one of the largest media-entertainment groups, at 30 billion dollars, the source told AFP.

The news comes days after French media group Vivendi accepted 5.8 billion dollars (3.86 billion euros) for its 20 percent stake in NBC Universal, according to sources, paving the way for General Electric to make the deal with Comcast.

Once the sale is finalized, the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-based Comcast will likely hold the controlling stake in NBC Universal, the world's fourth-largest media and entertainment

Full Story The Raw Story | Comcast deal for NBC Universal coming Thursday: source.

Trigger-happy Private security complicates convoys

Army Times –

Ill-disciplined private security guards escorting supply convoys to coalition bases are wreaking havoc as they pass through western Kandahar province, undermining the coalition’s counterinsurgency strategy here and leading to at least one confrontation with U.S. forces, say U.S. Army officers and Afghan government officials.

The security guards are responsible for killing and wounding more than 30 innocent civilians during the past four years in Maywand district alone, said Mohammad Zareef, the senior representative in the district for Afghanistan’s intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security.

Highway 1, the country’s main east-west artery, runs through Maywand and is the route taken by logistics convoys moving west from Kabul and Kandahar to coalition bases in Helmand province. The Afghan government’s district chief for Maywand says the men hired to protect the convoys are heroin addicts armed with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles.

The contractors’ actions are frustrating U.S. military leaders in Maywand and undermining coalition efforts to bring a greater sense of security to the Afghan people, particularly because the locals associate the contractors with the coalition.

Full Story Trigger-happy security complicates convoys – Army News, news from Iraq, – Army Times.

Tell-all book could embarrass Christian right with stories of sex, scandal

If excerpts from Lisa Baron’s upcoming book are anything to go on, it’s sure to be a scandalous read.

My Burning Bush, Baron’s memoir of her days as the spokeswoman for Ralph Reed — the former Christian Coalition leader and the man Time called “The Right Hand of God” — is being shopped around the New York publishing houses. And it promises to embarrass more than one figure in America’s conservative movement.

In one excerpt, Baron addresses the claims that Reed was behind a smear campaign against Sen. John McCain during the 2000 Republican primaries that implied the Arizona senator had had a love-child with a black woman.

“How would I know?” Baron writes, according to the New York Daily News. “”I was too busy giving [George W. Bush's future press secretary] Ari Fleischer [oral sex] in a Greenville hotel room.”

Whether or not she was joking in that statement, Baron’s attitude towards Fleischer appears to be making the former Bush White House spokesman less than happy.

Full Story Tell-all book could embarrass Christian right with stories of sex, scandal | Raw Story.

McCain says Afghanistan withdrawal has to be tied to ‘success,’ forgets he declared victory years ago.

McCain says Afghanistan withdrawal has to be tied to ‘success,’ forgets he declared victory years ago.

Following President Obama’s speech last night, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) predictably hit the airwaves. On CBS immediately after the speech, McCain praised the decision to add more troops but said that setting a timetable was wrong because “[s]uccess is what dictates dates for withdrawal.” “If we don’t have that success and we only set an arbitrary date it emboldens our enemies and dispirits our friends,” he added. Watch it:

However, according to McCain, the U.S. achieved “success” in Afghanistan years ago:

- “Could I add, it was in Afghanistan, as well, there were many people who predicted that Afghanistan would not be a success. So far, it’s a remarkable success.” [CNN, 3/2/05]

Full Story Think Progress » McCain says Afghanistan withdrawal has to be tied to ‘success,’ forgets he declared victory years ago..

Former Fox News Host Calls Fox A ‘Right-Wing Partial-News-But-Mostly-Opinion Network’

Former Fox News Watch host Eric BurnsIn February 2008, Eric Burns, who had worked at Fox News since the network launched in 1996 and served as “the closest person Fox had to an ombudsman” as the host of Fox News Watch, “was told he would be terminated within the next two months.” Since his firing, for which he said “he was not given a reason,” Burns has largely avoided discussing his former employer. In a September 2008 blog post about MSNBC’s opinion shows, Burns wrote that “Fox is a topic for another article, and another writer.”

Burns has ended his Fox News silence, writing on the Huffington Post that he used to work for a “right-wing partial-news-but-mostly-opinion network.” In particular, Burns takes aim at Glenn Beck, who he calls “a problem of taste as well as ethics”:

I speak out now because it is the time of year when one is supposed to count blessings. I have several. Among them is that I do not have to face the ethical problem of sharing an employer with Glenn Beck.

Actually, Beck is a problem of taste as well as ethics. He laughs and cries; he pouts and giggles; he makes funny faces and grins like a cartoon character; he makes earnest faces yet insists he is a clown; he cavorts like a victim of St. Vitus’s Dance. His means of communicating are, in other words, so wide-ranging as to suggest derangement as much as versatility.

Full Story Think Progress » Former Fox News Host Calls Fox A ‘Right-Wing Partial-News-But-Mostly-Opinion Network’.

Erik Prince quitting Blackwater to teach high school history and economics.

Xe (formerly Blackwater) founder and CEO Erik Prince is cutting ties with the company. A spokeswoman for the company said today that Prince will relinquish involvement in its day-to-day operations and give up some of his ownership rights. The company has been shelling out $2 million a month in legal fees to cope with a slew of federal investigations and civil lawsuits stemming from, among other incidents, the “unprovoked and unjustified” killing of 17 Iraqi civilians. Prince told Vanity Fair that after years of serving his country, “someone threw me under the bus”:

Prince has become a scapegoat for some of the Bush administration’s misadventures in Iraq. … Congressmen and lawyers, human-rights groups and pundits, have described Prince as a war profiteer, one who has assembled a rogue fighting force capable of toppling governments. … “I put myself and my company at the C.I.A.’s disposal for some very risky missions. … But when it became politically expedient to do so, someo

Full Story Think Progress » Erik Prince quitting Blackwater to teach high school history and economics..

OPS: Someone this twisted should not be allowed near kids.

Venezuela Pledges Support for Palestinian Statehood during Abbas Visit

Mérida, November 29th 2009 (Venezuelanalysis.com) — The president of the Palestinian National Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, addressed the Venezuelan National Assembly (AN) and met with President Hugo Chavez on Friday in Caracas, and the Venezuelan government pledged its support for the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state.

“We demand that the international community and the world understand that for sixty years, Palestine has wanted to live as a free, peaceful, independent, and sovereign country like the rest of the countries in the world,” said Abbas in the National Assembly. “We have inherited the [task] of constructing a democratic state in Palestine where Jews, Christians, and Muslims live in equal conditions,” he said.

Abbas’s visit almost coincided with the 62nd anniversary of the United Nations General Assembly resolution that formed the states of Palestine and Israel on November 29th 1947. Abbas said the plight of the Palestinian refugees following the establishment of the two states was never fully addressed.

Full Story Venezuela Pledges Support for Palestinian Statehood during Abbas Visit | venezuelanalysis.com.

Kucinich on Obama’s Escalation: Great Speech, Bad Policy

The other “peace candidate” in the 2008 Democratic primary isn’t thrilled with the president’s order to radically escalate the war in Afghanistan, no matter if there’s an exit strategy: “What are we going to learn in 18 months that we haven’t already learned in the last eight years?”

Also on the menu: Iraq, health care, unions and Kucinich says you can like Obama and challenge him at the same time.

LISTEN NOW

Full Story Truthdig – Reports – Kucinich on Obama’s Escalation: Great Speech, Bad Policy.

New York State Senate Votes Down Gay Marriage Bill

The State Senate defeated a bill on Wednesday that would legalize same-sex marriage, after an emotional debate that touched on civil rights, family and history. The vote means that the bill, pushed by Gov. David A. Paterson, is effectively dead for the year and dashes the optimism of gay rights advocates, who have had setbacks recently in several key states.

The bill was defeated by a decisive margin of 38 to 24. The Democrats, who have a bare, one-seat majority, did not have enough votes to pass the bill without some Republican support, but not a single Republican senator voted for the measure. Still, several key Democrats who were considered swing votes also opposed the bill.

Mr. Paterson made an unusual trip to the Senate floor minutes after the last vote was cast, saying, “These victories come and so do the losses, but you keep on trying.”

The state’s Roman Catholic bishops, who had actively lobbied against the bill, said they were pleased by the vote.

Full Story New York State Senate Votes Down Gay Marriage Bill – NYTimes.com.

President Obama’s Secret: Only 100 al Qaeda Now in Afghanistan

With New Surge, One Thousand U.S. Soldiers and $300 Million for Every One al Qaeda Fighter

As he justified sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan at a cost of $30 billion a year, President Barack Obama’s description Tuesday of the al Qaeda “cancer” in that country left out one key fact: U.S. intelligence officials have concluded there are only about 100 al Qaeda fighters in the entire country.

A senior U.S. intelligence official told ABCNews.com the approximate estimate of 100 al Qaeda members left in Afghanistan reflects the conclusion of American intelligence agencies and the Defense Department. The relatively small number was part of the intelligence passed on to the White House as President Obama conducted his deliberations.

President Obama made only a vague reference to the size of the al Qaeda presence in his speech at West Point, when he said, “al Qaeda has not reemerged in Afghanistan in the same number as before 9/11, but they retain their safe havens along the border.”

Full Story President Obama’s Secret: Only 100 al Qaeda Now in Afghanistan – ABC News.

OPS:  Well, if  this was a secret to you, or even news, Stop Watching ABC and start watching Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann , and start listening to Thom Hartmann and spend more time at The One Penny Sheet.