Archive for December, 2009
Cruise missile attacks in Yemen
Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com
Given what a prominent role “Terrorism” plays in our political discourse, it’s striking how little attention is paid to American actions which have the most significant impact on that problem. In addition to our occupation of Iraq, war escalation in Afghanistan, and secret bombings in Pakistan, President Obama late last week ordered cruise missile attacks on two locations in Yemen, which “U.S. officials” say were “suspected Al Qaeda hideouts.” The main target of the attacks, Al Qaeda member Qasim al Rim, was not among those killed, but: “a local Yemeni official said on Sunday that 49 civilians, among them 23 children and 17 women, were killed in air strikes against Al-Qaeda, which he said were carried out ‘indiscriminately’.” Media reports across the Muslim world — though, not of course, within the U.S. — are highlighting the dead civilians from the U.S. strike (one account from an official Iranian outlet began: “U.S. Nobel Peace Prize laureate President Barack Obama has signed the order for a recent military strike on Yemen in which scores of civilians, including children, have been killed, a report says”).
For many people, the mere assertion by anonymous U.S. Government officials that these attacks targeted “suspected al-Qaeda sites” will be sufficient to deem them justified. All credible reports confirm that there is indeed a not insignificant Al Qaeda presence in Southern Yemen, so that claim, at least, seems at least grounded in reality. Yet arguments about justification to the side for the moment, here we have yet another violent attack by the U.S. which — even under the best-case scenario — has killed more Muslim civilians than it did “Al Qaeda fighters,” and failed to kill the main target of the attack. When it comes to undermining Al Qaeda — both in Yemen and generally — isn’t it painfully obvious that the images of dead Muslim women and children which we constantly create — and which we again just created in Yemen — will fuel that movement better than anything else we can do?
Full Story Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.
E.J. Dionne Jr. | Progressives: Don’t Scream, ORGANIZE
Washington – For progressives, the question on the health care battle going forward is not whether they have a right to be angry but whether they can direct their fury toward constructive ends. The alternative is to pursue a temporarily satisfying and ultimately self-defeating politics of protest.
Of course what has happened on the health care bill is enraging. It's quite clear that substantial majorities in both houses of Congress favored either a public option or a Medicare buy-in.
In a normal democracy, such majorities would work their will, a law would pass, and champagne corks would pop. But everyone must get it through their heads that thanks to the now bizarre habits of the Senate, we are no longer a normal democracy.
Full Story t r u t h o u t | E.J. Dionne Jr. | Progressives: Don’t Scream, ORGANIZE.
14-Year-Old About To Reach Lifetime Limit On Insurance Policy
As part of our Bearing Witness 2.0 project, the Huffington Post is rounding up compelling local stories about the victims of the recession.
Fourteen-year-old Brendan Staub of St. Louis County, Mo., may max out his insurance policy before doctors even figure out what’s wrong with him. For the past six years, Staub has had frequent seizures because of a strange neurological disorder that doctors cannot diagnose. He receives regular treatment at the Mayo Clinic — which comes with a $15,000 price tag every three weeks. If that keeps up, he will reach the $1.5 million limit on his health insurance policy within two years, reports the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Christine Byers. He has already used about $1.1 million.
Brendan’s treatment already costs his family about $1,000 out-of-pocket. To help the Staubs deal with the expense, friends and family have started Brendan’s Buddies, a foundation to help Brendan and other children with neurological disorders. They have raised about $80,000 so far, according to the Post-Dispatch.
Full Story 14-Year-Old About To Reach Lifetime Limit On Insurance Policy.
Alcohol Consumption Around The World
Combing through the data, there are a few surprising nuggets of information – take the apparent fact that British children have the best dental health (what is it that happens when they enter adulthood then?)
But with the holiday season on our mind, we decided to focus on a subject of particular relevance this time of year – alcohol.
The OECD data shows alcohol consumption in liters per capita for people 15 year old and over. The data is from 2007 or the latest year available.
It turns out that Mexicans don't tend to drink much, while, despite stiff competition from most of Europe, the Luxembourgers really know how to party. Do you find the results surprising? Let us know!
Full Story Alcohol Consumption Around The World (PHOTOS, POLL).
Lieberman: Obama Never Pressed Me On Public Option
Senator Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) insists that the White House did not pressure him to get in line behind either a public health insurance option or a Medicare buy-in compromise during the health care debate this year.
“Well, no. I think I got pressure from the president to be for health care reform,” Lieberman said when asked by HuffPost about any pressure from the administration to support either the public option or the Medicare buy-in. “I’d have to think about this, but I didn’t really have direct input from the White House on this.”
He added that Nancy-Ann DeParle, a top administration health care aide, downplayed the public option’s significance early in the debate.
Full Story Lieberman: Obama Never Pressed Me On Public Option.
Ford: Buyouts, Early Retirement Offered To All 41,000 Of Its U.S. Hourly Workers
Ford Motor Co. has offered buyout or retirement incentive packages to all of its 41,000 U.S. hourly workers as it tries to further reduce its factory work force.
Ford, the healthiest of Detroit’s three automakers and the only one to avoid government aid and bankruptcy protection, still has more workers than it needs to produce cars and trucks at current sales levels, said company spokesman Mark Truby.
He would not say how many workers Ford expects to take the packages, which include cash payments and other incentives such as vouchers to buy cars and short-term health insurance coverage.
Full Story Ford: Buyouts, Early Retirement Offered To All 41,000 Of Its U.S. Hourly Workers.
Top U.S. Commander: Women Who Become Pregnant While On Active Duty Face Jailtime
Major General Anthony Cucolo, who is responsible for operations in northern Iraq, has issued a controversial new policy — which went into effect on Nov. 4 — that allows throwing women servicemembers on active duty in jail if they become pregnant:
Under the new policy, troops expecting a baby face court martial and a possible prison term – and so do the men who made them pregnant.
And the rule applies to married couples at war together, who are expected to make sure their love lives do not interfere with duty.
Usual US Army policy is to send pregnant soldiers home from combat zones within 14 days.
But Major General Anthony Cucolo, who runs US operations in northern Iraq, issued the new orders because he said he was losing too many women with critical skills. He needed the threat of court martial and jail time as an extra deterrent, he said.
All troops under his command are covered by the extension to the military’s legal code — the first time the US Army has made pregnancy a punishable offence.
Full Story Think Progress » Top U.S. Commander: Women Who Become Pregnant While On Active Duty Face Jailtime.
McCain hits Obama for failing to reach out to Republicans, while Snowe praises Obama for outreach.
Throughout the health care debate, Republicans have grumbled that they have been shut out of the negotiations. “[N]o Republican was invited,” to hash out a deal, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said yesterday. “[Obama's] campaign promise on health care reform, which I believed was that we would sit down and negotiate together, Republicans and Democrats, we didn’t. … Republicans were never brought in to the negotiations,” Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) complained this morning on ABC’s Good Morning America. But yesterday on Face the Nation, Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) explained that negotiating with the White House and Democrats has, in fact, not been a partisan issue:
BOB SCHIEFFER: Let me ask you this. It’s my understanding that, even after Leader Reid announced that he had the sixtieth vote, the sixty votes he needs, you met again with President Obama. What was– what was that about?
SNOWE: Correct. The President, you know, and I have worked together on this issue. And I applaud him for, you know, his knowledge, his grasp of the issue. It’s his major and highest domestic initiative, on this issue, and he wants to get it done this year, and encouraging me to support the legislation.
Watch it:
Obama signs Franken’s anti-rape amendment into law.
Al Franken The White House Press Office sent out a statement today announcing that President Obama signed the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2010 into law on Saturday:
H.R. 3326, the “Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2010,” which provides FY 2010 appropriations for Department of Defense (DOD) military programs including funding for Overseas Contingency Operations, and extends various expiring authorities and other non-defense FY 2010 appropriations.
Within the Appropriations Act is Sen. Al Franken’s (D-MN) amendment prohibiting defense contractors from restricting their employees’ abilities to take workplace discrimination, battery, and sexual assault cases to court. The measure was inspired by Jamie Leigh Jones, who was gang-raped by her co-workers while working for Halliburton/KBR in Baghdad. Many Republicans opposed the legislation — saying it was an unnecessary attack on their allies in the defense contracting business — and faced intense political blowback over their positions.
Full Story Think Progress » Obama signs Franken’s anti-rape amendment into law..
Americans Judge The Bush Decade: ‘Awful’ And ‘Not So Good’
Mission Accomplished A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll finds that Americans are entering 2011 with a negative view of the events of the past decade, which was largely marked by President Bush’s tenure from 2001-2009:
According to the poll, a combined 58% said the decade was either “awful” or “not so good,” 29% said it was fair, and just 12% said it was either “good” or “great.” [...]
Asked what they thought had the greatest negative impact on America this past decade, 38% cited the 9/11 terrorist attacks, 23% picked the mortgage and housing crisis, 20% said the Iraq war, 11% chose the stock market crash, and 6% said Hurricane Katrina.
But 37% said it lost ground on the environment, 46% said it lost ground on health and well being, 50% said it lost ground on peace and national security, 54% said lost ground on the nation’s sense of unity, 55% said it lost ground in treating others with respect, 66% said it lost ground on moral values, and a whopping 74% said it lost ground on economic prosperity.
Full Story Think Progress » Americans Judge The Bush Decade: ‘Awful’ And ‘Not So Good’.
Youth Unemployment Continues to Rise – Don’t Forget It
Beware of reports that unemployment is getting better. Because for our nation’s future, it isn’t.
The LA Times reports:
For 20- to 24-year-olds, the jobless rate rose four-tenths of a percent to 16% in November, even as unemployment nationally slipped to 10% from 10.2%.
And data from the Labor Department show that the unemployment figure for college graduates in that age group was 10.6% in the third quarter — the highest since early 1983 and more than double the rate for older college-educated workers.
What’s scary is how long this could linger with our generation, even after this recession passes and unemployment begins recovery.
Eventually, things will probably get better for Daley and for classmates he said were having similar problems. After all, job and pay prospects for college graduates are generally stronger than for workers with less education. But studies also suggest that graduates entering the workforce in a recession see negative effects not only in the short term but for years into the future in terms of pay and career mobility.
Entry-level salaries are usually lower in tough times, and for most workers, where they start is one of the biggest factors in how much they’re earning a decade later. The slower start can also influence family formation and consumer spending on such things as cars and houses.
Full Story Youth Unemployment Continues to Rise – Don’t Forget It | Future Majority.
Beyond ecological imperialism
The row over climate change isn’t just a battle between rich and poor, it illustrates the futility of obsession with economic growth
So the Copenhagen summit did not deliver any hope of substantive change, or even any indication that the world’s leaders are sufficiently aware of the vastness and urgency of the problem. But is that such a surprise? Nothing in the much-hyped runup to the summit suggested that the organisers and participants had genuine ambitions to change course and stop or reverse a process of clearly unsustainable growth.
Part of the problem is that the issue of climate change is increasingly portrayed as that of competing interests between countries. Thus, the summit has been interpreted variously as a fight between the “two largest culprits” – the US and China – or between a small group of developed countries and a small group of newly emerging countries (the group of four – China, India, Brazil and South Africa), or at best between rich and poor countries.
The historical legacy of past growth in the rich countries that has a current adverse impact is certainly keenly felt in the developing world. It is not just the past: current per capita greenhouse gas emissions in the developed world are still many multiples of that in any developing country, including China. So the attempts by northern commentators to lay blame on some countries for derailing the result by pointing to this discrepancy are seen in most developing countries as further evidence of an essentially colonial outlook.
Full Story Beyond ecological imperialism | Jayati Ghosh | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.
Mike Whitney: Bernanke Tightens the Noose
Brace Yourself for a Hard Landing
Ben Bernanke has been a bigger disaster than Hurricane Katrina. But the senate is about to re-up him for another four-year term. What are they thinking? Bernanke helped Greenspan inflate the biggest speculative bubble of all time, and still maintains that he never saw it growing. Right. How can retail housing leap from $12 trillion to $21 trillion in 7 years (1999 to 2006) without popping up on the Fed’s radar?
Bernanke was also a staunch supporter of the low interest rate madness which led to the crash. Greenspan never believed that it was the Fed’s job to deal with credit bubbles. “The free market will fix itself”, he thought. He was the nation’s chief regulator, but adamantly opposed to the idea of government regulation. It makes no sense at all. Here’ a quote from Greenspan in 2002: “I do have an ideology. My judgment is that free, competitive markets are by far the unrivaled way to organize economies. We have tried regulation, none meaningfully worked.” Bernanke is no different than Greenspan; they’re two peas in the same pod. Everyone could see what the Fed-duo was up to
Now Bernanke is expected to carry on where his former boss left off, using all the tools at his disposal to offset the atrophy that’s endemic to mature capitalist economies. “Stagnation”, that the real enemy, which is why Bernanke supports this new galaxy of oddball debt-instruments and bizarre-sounding derivatives; because it creates a world where surplus capital can generate windfall profits despite chronic overcapacity. It’s financial nirvana for the parasite class; the relentless transfer of wealth from workers to speculators via paper assets. Marx figured it out. And, now, so has Bernanke.
Full Story Mike Whitney: Bernanke Tightens the Noose.
The Individual Mandate: An Unconstitutional Exercise of Congressional Power
It is generally agreed, by both proponents and opponents of the Administration’s health reform bill, that the lynchpin of the legislation is the individual mandate requiring uninsured Americans to obtain health insurance, or pay a tax penalty for failing to do so. Without the mandate, even the Administration’s wildly exaggerated cost savings estimates simply cannot work. The whole plan is predicated on enlarging the risk pool by bringing in younger, healthier people who currently lack the means or the incentive – or both – to purchase health insurance.
Given the centrality of the mandate, it is somewhat surprising that little attention has been paid to the critical legal question of whether Congress has the constitutional authority to require Americans to purchase a commodity from a private, for-profit corporation. Other than some limited commentary on the Right — George Will and Orrin Hatch both had columns on this topic in the Washington Post and the Heritage Foundation recently published a detailed legal analysis of the question – there has been almost no critical discussion of the issue. The silence on this issue is even more amazing in view of the fact that the Congressional Budget Office raised a red flag on the question during the Clinton Administration’s abortive effort at health care reform:
A mandate requiring all individuals to purchase health insurance would be an unprecedented form of federal action. The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States.
Full Story The Individual Mandate: An Unconstitutional Exercise of Congressional Power | Antemedius.
The Nelson “Compromise:” What It Will Cost Us
The weeks-long soap opera of finding 60 votes for the Senate health reform bill came to an end yesterday when Democrats “compromised” with Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) on language regarding abortion coverage. After catering first to Senator Joe Lieberman, (Ind-CT), by removing both the public option and the Medicaid buy-in, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) then introduced a manager’s amendment that includes new language on abortion care–and a huge barrel of pork for Nebraska–in an effort to bring Nelson on board and get the 60 votes needed to end a Republican filibuster.
In doing so, the Senate aided the anti-choice community in achieving one of its primary goals: further stigmatizing reproductive and sexual health care, including but not limited to abortion, and making such care ever-harder for women to secure. This is and was unquestionably a major goal of Nelson’s hold-out strategy. Nelson has consistently voted against expanded contraceptive services, voting no, for example, in 2005 on a program to invest $100 million to reduce teen pregnancy through increased access to sexual and reproductive health education and contraceptive services. Over the past month, he has several times made a point of “waiting for the approval” of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and anti-choice organizations on language for the Senate bill.
Meanwhile, the drama over Lieberman and Nelson also aided the Republicans in one of their primary goals: first to kill, and barring that, to severely weaken any attempt to reform health care in this country.
Full Story The Nelson “Compromise:” What It Will Cost Us | RHRealityCheck.org.
DOT imposes 3-hour limit on tarmac strandings
Airlines must supply food, water after 2 hours, maintain operable lavatories
The Obama administration took aim Monday at tarmac horror stories, ordering airlines to let passengers stuck in stranded airplanes to disembark after three hours.
With its new regulations, the Transportation Department sent an unequivocal message on the eve of the busy holiday travel season: Don’t hold travelers hostage to delayed flights.
Under the new regulations, airlines operating domestic flights will be able only to keep passengers on board for three hours before they must be allowed to disembark a delayed flight. The regulation provides exceptions only for safety or security or if air traffic control advises the pilot in command that returning to the terminal would disrupt airport operations.
Full Story DOT imposes 3-hour limit on tarmac strandings – News- msnbc.com.
Joseph Stiglitz: ‘Significant’ Chance The Economy Will Contract In 2010
Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz warned there’s a “significant” chance the U.S. economy will contract in the second half of next year, and urged the government to prepare a second stimulus package to spur job creation.
“The likelihood of this slowdown is very, very high,” Stiglitz told reporters in Singapore. “There is a significant chance that the number will be in the negative range.”
Stiglitz, a professor at Columbia University, called on Washington to make more funds available to state governments who face a drop in tax revenue.
Full Story Joseph Stiglitz: ‘Significant’ Chance The Economy Will Contract In 2010.
EPA, USDA Encourage Farmers To Put Coal Ash That Contains Mercury And Arsenic On Crops
The federal government is encouraging farmers to spread a chalky waste from coal-fired power plants on their fields to loosen and fertilize soil even as it considers regulating coal wastes for the first time.
The material is produced by power plant “scrubbers” that remove acid rain causing sulfur dioxide from plant emissions. A synthetic form of the mineral gypsum, it also contains mercury, arsenic, lead and other heavy metals.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says those toxic metals occur in only tiny amounts that pose no threat to crops, surface water or humans. But some environmentalists say too little is known about how the material affects crops, and ultimately human health, for the government to suggest that farmers use it on their land.
“Basically this is a leap into the unknown,” said Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. “This stuff has materials in it that we're trying to prevent entering the environment from coal-fired power plants and then to turn around and smear it across ag lands raises some real questions.”
Full Story EPA, USDA Encourage Farmers To Put Coal Ash That Contains Mercury And Arsenic On Crops.
Worst Companies To Work For
Glassdoor.com, a web forum where users share employment-related information, released the results of its survey of the best and worst companies to work for.
The results, based on a series of questions the site asked employees to complete and return, included employees’ evaluations of senior management and each company’s CEO.
Chalk it up to the recession, but only a handful of respondents seem to to be confident in the performance of their company’s leadership: the highest CEO approval rating on the list of the bottom ten companies was a mere 26% — and most of them were much lower.
Is that a sign of fading hope in the leaders of massive companies — or just the kvetching of bitter employees?
Well, because Glassdoor’s list isn’t entirely scientific, we’d like you to let us know which large corporation you think belongs on this list. (Note, we’re going to limit user submissions to large national companies.) First, check Glassdoor.com’s list of the worst places to work — and nominate your own nightmarish employer:
Full Story Worst Companies To Work For: Glassdoor.com’s List (PHOTOS, POLL).
Taxpayers Paying $40,000 A Month For Lobbyist Dennis Hastert
Former speaker gets pricey perks
U.S. taxpayers are spending more than $40,000 per month on office space, staff, cell phones and a leased SUV for former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, even as he works as a lobbyist for private corporations and foreign governments.
The payments are perfectly legal under a federal law that provides five years of benefits for former speakers — but only if Hastert never makes use of his government-funded perks in the course of his lobbying work. Ethics experts say that sort of separation is hard to maintain.
Hastert “has to be meticulous in his schedule to make sure there is no bleed from his publicly subsidized office into his private practice,” said Kenneth Gross, a former Federal Election Commission general counsel and congressional ethics authority. Steve Ellis, vice president of the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense, called the arrangement “really concerning.”
Full Story Former speaker gets pricey perks – - POLITICO.com.
At Top Subprime Mortgage Lender, Policies Were An Invitation To Fraud
First of two articles about the roots of the subprime lending bubble.
Diane Kosch had one of the most thankless jobs in the subprime lending craze.
Sitting elbow to elbow with colleagues at a conference table in a northern California office building, Kosch's job was to review a huge stack of loans each day at Long Beach Mortgage for problems, including evidence of fraud. She was given 15 minutes per file.
However, even when Kosch noticed clues of mortgage fraud – suspicious income, questionable appraisals or missing documents – the loans usually got approved anyway. Senior managers at Long Beach Mortgage, one of the nation's biggest subprime lenders, aggressively pushed loans through. As far as the company was concerned, Kosch's quality-assurance team was just slowing things down.
Full Story At Top Subprime Mortgage Lender, Policies Were An Invitation To Fraud.
Opec expected to maintain oil output
Cartel determined to support crude price at $70-$80 a barrel.
The Opec oil cartel will almost certainly leave its production levels unchanged when it meets on Tuesday, satisfied with current crude prices at $70-$80 a barrel.
Arriving in Luanda, Angola’s capital, for the cartel’s meeting, ministers and delegates said the 12 Opec countries were hopeful that robust demand for oil in China, India and other economically emerging nations would be enough to support oil prices in the first quarter of 2010.
Full Story FT.com / Commodities – Opec expected to maintain oil output.
Philippine volcano Mount Mayon ‘may erupt within days’
Scientists in the Philippines have raised the alert level for the volatile volcano Mount Mayon, amid fears of an imminent eruption.
It is now at four out of a possible five, meaning a hazardous eruption “is possible within days”. Level five is when a major eruption has begun.
Scientists raised the level after the number of volcanic earthquakes more than doubled on Sunday.
The cone-shaped volcano has already been emitting lava and ash for days.
About 40,000 people who live near Mount Mayon have been moved to temporary shelters
Full Story BBC News – Philippine volcano Mount Mayon ‘may erupt within days’.
Maine to consider cell phone brain cancer warning
A Maine legislator wants to make the state the first to require cell phones to carry warnings that they can cause brain cancer, although there is no consensus among scientists that they do and industry leaders dispute the claim.
The now-ubiquitous devices carry such warnings in some countries, though no U.S. states require them, according to the National Conference of State Legislators. A similar effort is afoot in San Francisco, where Mayor Gavin Newsom wants his city to be the nation’s first to require the warnings.
Maine Rep. Andrea Boland, D-Sanford, said numerous studies point to the cancer risk, and she has persuaded legislative leaders to allow her proposal to come up for discussion during the 2010 session that begins in January, a session usually reserved for emergency and governors’ bills.
Full Story Maine to consider cell phone brain cancer warning | Raw Story.
Nelson: Tax the rich and I’ll oppose health care bill
Hours before Democrats passed a historic cloture motion to advance the health care bill, one of its critical backers announced that his vote remains conditional on a set of demands.
It had better not tax the rich, Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) said Sunday in an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union, or he could withdraw his support.
CNN paraphrased Nelson as saying, “Imposing a tax on wealthier Americans, a funding mechanism employed in the House health care reform bill, could also cause him to withhold his vote for the final version of the bill.”
Full Story Nelson: Tax the rich and I’ll oppose health care bill | Raw Story.
Quitting Meat Is at the Heart of 2009′s Health Zeitgeist, And Author Kathy Freston Is Leading the Debate
Author Kathy Freston promotes a body/mind/spirit approach to health and happiness that includes a concentration on healthy diet, emotional introspection, spiritual practice, and loving relationships. Over a dozen of her most popular articles for AlterNet this year concern the health benefits of a meat-free or vegan diet. Freston is a New York Times best-selling author, and her latest book is The Quantum Wellness Cleanse: A 21 Day Essential Guide to Healing Your Body, Mind and Spirit. You can find more of her work at kathyfreston.com.
Each of Freston’s essays were read by tens of thousands of people on AlterNet. Here are 10 of her most popular from 2009:
Howard Dean Is a Genuine Hero: Taking on Corporate ‘Centrists’ Like Lieberman
Dean’s attacks on the Lieberman-gutted health insurance “reform” bill are creating the political space for the final version to be better and more progressive.
I want to take a moment just to recognize what has been recognized before, but needs to be recognized right here and now one more time: Howard Dean is a genuine hero.
In coming out against the Lieberman-gutted health insurance “reform” bill, Dean is leveraging every shred of power he can muster to create the political space for the final bill — whether passed now, or later after going back to the drawing board — to be better and more progressive. He has made a compelling case that the bill “would do more harm than good,” as he says in his Washington Post op-ed today — and in doing that he has made the power struggle between Joe Lieberman’s Palpatinian forces of insurance/drug industry darkness and the progressive movement far more symmetrical.
Before Dean’s move, the fight was asymmetrical, as Chris Hayes noted in my interview with him on my radio show yesterday. Before Dean’s move, Lieberman had the upper hand in that he was the only one who didn’t seem to care whether he alone killed the bill by joining with Republicans for a filibuster. Now, though, Dean has said to progressive members of Congress that they should be OK killing this bill if that’s what taking a stand for a better bill means. And you see some of them potentially starting to follow.
Full Story Howard Dean Is a Genuine Hero: Taking on Corporate ‘Centrists’ Like Lieberman | Politics | AlterNet.
“Health Care Reform is Not Reform if it Denies Women Coverage”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid continued his health-care-by-the-holidays rush Saturday, and he was having some tactical success.
But Reid and the Democrats weren’t winning any friends among the broad base of voters who support reproductive rights.
In order to secure the critical 60th vote needed to advance the compromise legislation he wants to see the Senate pass before Christmas, Reid agreed to amend the legislation to include severe restrictions on access to basic health care for women.
That concession brought Senator Ben Nelson, a socially-conservative Democrat who is closely aligned with the health-insurance industry, on board — meaning that Reid should have the 60-member Democratic caucus united in time for critical votes that begin early Monday morning.
Full Story “Health Care Reform is Not Reform if it Denies Women Coverage”.
10 Ways to Screw Over the Corporate Jackals Who’ve Been Screwing You
Tired of getting pushed around by faceless big business? Here are 10 ways to push back!
The New Year is nearly here, and so much has happened. Wait, what’s that? Nothing major at all has happened, you say? Oh right, we’ve been stuck in neutral since dumping the toxic trash of the Republican Bush administration and embracing Democratic promises of hope and change, neither of which have blossomed.
A year of our collective life has flown by and our global culture is still rife with schemers, screw jobs and sorry excuses for solutions. And we just sit back and take it, year after year. But no more. When you make that hefty list of New Year’s resolutions, drop some of these bombs. Then duck. You’ll get your change faster than you can say, “Teabag this!”
1. Mortgage underwater? Just walk away from it. Even academia says it’s OK. Move to the city and rent.
“Homeowners should be walking away in droves,” University of Arizona law school professor Brent T. White told the Los Angeles Times. “But they aren’t. And it’s not because the financial costs of foreclosure outweigh the benefits. One can have a good credit rating again — meaning above 660 — within two years after a foreclosure.”
Most of Us Hate X-mas: Let’s End That Holiday As We Know It
If you poll Americans this time of year, far more regard the approaching holidays with dread than anticipation. How can we make Christmas worthwhile again?
The problem with Christmas is not the batteries. The problem isn’t even really the stuff. The problem with Christmas is that no one much likes it anymore.
If you poll Americans this time of year, far more of them regard the approaching holidays with dread than anticipation. It has long since become too busy, too expensive, too centered around acquiring that which we do not need. In fact, it’s the perfect crystallization of the American economy — the American consumer experience squeezed into a manic week, a week that people find themselves hoping will soon end so that on Jan. 2 they can return to the mere routine hecticity of their lives.
From that central truth, a few propositions follow:
Full Story Most of Us Hate X-mas: Let’s End That Holiday As We Know It | Environment | AlterNet.
New research: Fructose increases risk of diabetes, heart disease [UPDATED]
[Author’s Note:] This post, reacting to the findings of a University of California, Davis, study on fructose, quoted and relied heavily on an error-laden Times of London story. That said, the post generated a lot of valuable discussion in the comments section below, including a critique of the Times piece by Dr. Kimber Stanhope, one of the authors of the Davis study.
In response to another comment, Dr. Stanhope agreed that the question remains how much fructose is safe to consume and she indicated that a current project of hers involves testing that question with HFCS itself.
As I said at the end of the piece, the fundamental issue is that we consume too much sugar in any form. However, total fructose consumption has also increased dramatically thanks to juices and, yes, HFCS. While the simple answer going forward is to consume less sugar period, looking backward, it seems to me that we will indeed discover that changes in consumption patterns in different type of sugar over the last thirty or so years played a significant role in the current obesity/diabetes epidemic.
Full Story New research: Fructose increases risk of diabetes, heart disease [UPDATED] | Grist.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse Accuses GOP of Playing to “Ardent Supporters” in “Right-Wing Militia” and “Aryan Support Groups”
In his Senate floor speech on the health-care bill, the Rhode Island senator accused the GOP of fomenting the kind of paranoia that led to Kristallnacht and lynchings.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This floor speech was delivered by the junior senator from Rhode Island yesterday, as the Senate remained in session to debate the health-care bill before a procedural vote that will bring the bill to the Senate floor later this week. References to “Madam President” or “Mr. President” refer to the senator who is presiding over the body at the time of the senator’s comments. When Whitehouse began speaking, Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., was presiding; when he finished up, it was Al Franken, D-Minn., wielding the gavel. Transcription and links added by AlterNet.
Madam President, as we are here in the Senate today, Washington rests under a blanket of snow, reminding us here of the Christmas spirit across the nation — the spirit that is bringing families happily together for the holidays. Unfortunately, a different spirit has descended on this Senate. The spirit that has descended on the Senate is one described by Chief Justice John Marshall back in the Burr trial: “those malignant and vindictive passions which rage in the bosoms of contending parties struggling for power.”
Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Richard Hofstader captured some examples in his famous essay, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics.”
How Americans Are Enslaved by a Corrupt Right Wing Machine!
Len Hart, -
The name of a ‘god’ and a sacrifice associated with fire, the term ‘Moloch’ is found in Hebrew and Arabic and other Middle Eastern cultures –Ammonite, Canaanite and Phoenician as well as related cultures in North Africa and the Levant.
In American or modern English usage, the term or ‘character’ “Moloch” refers to any leader or person requiring costly sacrifices and/or utter enslavement. The term is thus especially applicable to a corrupt, right wing system requiring of its citizenry a virtual enslavement by virtue of diminishing or increasingly prescribed economic roles.
In the US, this is often referred to as ‘being a wage slave’. Most recently, ‘Moloch’ describes not just an extreme right wing establishment but the enslavement of every American who is left behind by GOP tax cuts benefiting just one percent –the ruling one percent –of the population of the nation. Moloch is all-pervasive, effectively denying to all the choice to live otherwise but for and ‘in’ the omni-present machine.
‘Liberal’ Means ‘Free’; GOP Means the Reaganomic Slavery to ‘Moloch’
Full Story The Existentialist Cowboy: How Americans Are Enslaved by a Corrupt Right Wing Machine!.
PolitiFact’s Lie of the Year: ‘Death panels’
Of all the falsehoods and distortions in the political discourse this year, one stood out from the rest.
“Death panels.”
The claim set political debate afire when it was made in August, raising issues from the role of government in health care to the bounds of acceptable political discussion. In a nod to the way technology has transformed politics, the statement wasn't made in an interview or a television ad. Sarah Palin posted it on her Facebook page.
Her assertion — that the government would set up boards to determine whether seniors and the disabled were worthy of care — spread through newscasts, talk shows, blogs and town hall meetings. Opponents of health care legislation said it revealed the real goals of the Democratic proposals. Advocates for health reform said it showed the depths to which their opponents would sink. Still others scratched their heads and said, “Death panels? Really?”
The editors of PolitiFact.com, the fact-checking Web site of the St. Petersburg Times, have chosen it as our inaugural “Lie of the Year.”
Full Story PolitiFact | PolitiFact’s Lie of the Year: ‘Death panels’.
Eurostar CANCELED: Train Services Stopped Indefinitely
The only passenger rail link between Britain and the rest of Europe has been shut down indefinitely, Eurostar said Sunday, promising more travel misery for thousands of stranded passengers just before Christmas.
Services have been suspended since late Friday, when a series of glitches stranded five trains inside the Channel Tunnel and trapped more than 2,000 passengers for hours in stuffy and claustrophobic conditions. More than 55,000 passengers overall have been affected.
Some panicked passengers stayed underground for more than 15 hours without food or water, or any clear idea of what was going on – prompting outrage from travelers and a promise from Eurostar that no passenger train would enter the tunnel until the issue had been identified and fixed.
Full Story Eurostar CANCELED: Train Services Stopped Indefinitely.
A Dangerous Dysfunction
Paul Krugman
Health Care Fight Shows The Senate Has Become Dangerously Dysfunctional
Unless some legislator pulls off a last-minute double-cross, health care reform will pass the Senate this week. Count me among those who consider this an awesome achievement. It’s a seriously flawed bill, we’ll spend years if not decades fixing it, but it’s nonetheless a huge step forward.
It was, however, a close-run thing. And the fact that it was such a close thing shows that the Senate — and, therefore, the U.S. government as a whole — has become ominously dysfunctional.
After all, Democrats won big last year, running on a platform that put health reform front and center. In any other advanced democracy this would have given them the mandate and the ability to make major changes. But the need for 60 votes to cut off Senate debate and end a filibuster — a requirement that appears nowhere in the Constitution, but is simply a self-imposed rule — turned what should have been a straightforward piece of legislating into a nail-biter. And it gave a handful of wavering senators extraordinary power to shape the bill.
Full Story Op-Ed Columnist – A Dangerous Dysfunction – NYTimes.com.
Beer is Cheaper Than Water
Several British supermarket chains make a habit of selling a bottle of booze for less than they sell a bottle of water (5 pence for a beer vs. 8 pence for brand-name water). The cut-rate prices are designed to lure customers into stores, where it’s hope that they’ll load up on more expensive alcohol and some food to go with it (and who knows, maybe some pricey mineral water). But some British experts worry that the low cost of booze may disguise the high cost of drinking in a nation known for enjoying the bottle. “We hav ea huge problem with alcohol abuse in the UK, so we want a clampdown on these cut-throat price deals,” a spokeswoman for the British Medical Association said. The BMA and other groups are calling for a minimum price on alcohol that would force the price of a six-pack up to 6 pounds. The idea has been roundly panned by the alcohol industry and government officials alike, but some activists insist that it’s necessary. As the chief executive of Alcohol Concern sagely noted, “The evidence shows young people and harmful drinkers are drawn to very cheap alcohol.”
Full Story The most important news and commentary to read right now. – The Slatest – Slate Magazine.
The ‘green’ mayor? McGinn wants to legalize pot and tax it, too
He hasn’t even taken office yet, but the words of Mayor-Elect Mike McGinn have already perked some citizens’ ears.
McGinn believes pot should not only be legal, but also taxed.
“We recognize that, you know, like alcohol, it’s something that should be regulated, not treated as a criminal activity. And I think that’s where the citizens of Seattle want us to go,” said McGinn on a public radio show on Friday.
McGinn asked for the public’s help identifying the issues he should tackle as mayor. Topping the list was light rail expansion. The second slot went to legalizing pot.
Now McGinn, as well as state leaders, are talking about it.
Senate Health Care Vote 1:00 A.M. Monday Morning, First Of Three Critical Votes
Senate Democrats confidently advanced health care legislation Sunday toward a make-or-break test vote in a push for Christmas-week passage. Republicans vowed to resist what they appeared unable to stop.
In the run-up to the vote, the escalation in rhetoric was remarkable on both sides of an issue that has divided the two political parties for months.
“This process is not legislation. This process is corruption,” said Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., referring to the last-minute flurry of dealmaking that enabled Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and the White House to lock in the 60 votes needed to approve the legislation.
Full Story Senate Health Care Vote 1:00 A.M. Monday Morning, First Of Three Critical Votes.
Olympia Snowe confirms she’ll filibuster health reform
Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) said on Sunday she will join Republicans in filibustering the Senate health care bill, claiming the process has been moving too fast.
“I deeply regret that I cannot support the pending Senate legislation as it currently stands,” Snowe said in a statement, announcing that she won't allow it to proceed to a final vote.
She cited “continued concerns with the measure and an artificial and arbitrary deadline of completing the bill before Christmas that is shortchanging the process on this monumental and trans-generational effort.”
Snowe’s affirmation comes one day after Senate Democrats announced their unified support, along with the two independent senators, for the bill. As things stand, every Republican is projected to filibuster it.
Full Story Olympia Snowe confirms she’ll filibuster health reform | Raw Story.
Dean No Longer Urging Dems To ‘Kill’ The Bill: ‘Let’s See What They Add To This Bill And Make It Work’
Dean No Longer Urging Dems To ‘Kill’ The Bill: ‘Let’s See What They Add To This Bill And Make It Work’
This morning, Howard Dean walked back from earlier statements encouraging Democrats to “kill” the Senate health care bill. On Thursday, Dean wrote that “this bill would do more harm than good to the future of America,” but during his appearance on Meet The Press, Dean argued that yesterday’s manager’s amendment significantly improved the legislation. “I would let this thing go to conference committee and let’s see if we can fix it some more,” Dean said:
Well, let’s start with the positive things. Over the last week, there were things that were improved. There were some cost containment mechanisms that were gutted. They got restored. I would certainly not vote for this bill if this were the final product, but there are, the House bill is quite a good bill. This bill has improved over the last couple of weeks, I would let this thing go to conference committee and let’s see if we can fix it some more…so there are a lot of things that need to be fixed, but if they are fixed you may actually get the foundation of a bill, coming out of the House. If most of the House provisions survive, then we can have a bill that we could work with….I hope this isn’t the compromise that’s been achieved. I think we have yet to see the compromise that we could achieve.
Watch a compilation:
Sen. Coburn: ‘People Ought To Pray’ That A Senator ‘Can’t Make The Vote Tonight’
Sen. Coburn: ‘People Ought To Pray’ That A Senator ‘Can’t Make The Vote Tonight’
The Senate is expected to vote very late tonight/early Monday morning “on the first of three motions to close off debate” on the health care bill and proceed to an expected Christmas Eve vote on final passage. Speaking against the health care bill on the Senate floor just moments ago, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) expressed his hope that a Senator of the majority caucus would not be able to make the vote:
What the American people ought to pray is that somebody can’t make the vote tonight. That’s what they ought to pray.
Just a few minutes later, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) interrupted while Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) was speaking to issue a challenge to Coburn:
I have been trying to reach Sen. Coburn. … This statement troubles me, and I’m trying to reach him come back to the floor and explain exactly what he meant about a senator being unable to make the vote tonight. … I’m reaching out to Sen. Coburn. I’ll be on the floor for the next 45 minutes, and I hope that he will join me there.
Watch it:
Full Story Think Progress » Sen. Coburn: ‘People Ought To Pray’ That A Senator ‘Can’t Make The Vote Tonight’.
Why Obama Is Failing
Robert Parry -
A year ago, as Barack Obama was assembling his administration, he was at a crossroads with two paths going off in very different directions: one would have led to a populist challenge to the Washington/New York political-economic establishments; the other called for collaboration and cajoling.
Faced with a dire financial crisis and two foreign wars – not to mention a host of long-festering problems like health care, the environment, debt and de-industrialization – Obama’s choice was not an easy one.
If he took the populist route and further panicked the financial markets, the nation and the world might have plunged into a new Depression with massive unemployment.
There were also political dangers if he chose the populist path. The national news media rests almost entirely in the hands of corporate “centrists” and right-wing ideologues, who would have framed the issues in the most negative way, blaming the “radical” Obama for “wealth destroying.”
This media problem dates back a quarter century as American progressives have mostly turned a deaf ear to those calling for a major investment in media and other institutions inside the Washington Beltway, as a way to counter the dominance of the Right and the Establishment.
Full Story Consortiumnews.com.
Combat veterans going deaf
More than two-thirds of British troops returning from Afghanistan are suffering from severe and permanent hearing damage, according to the most comprehensive study into one of the less well-known side-effects of the conflict in Helmand.
Internal defence documents reveal that of 1250 Royal Marine commandos who served in Afghanistan, 69 per cent suffered hearing damage due to the intense noise of combat.
The findings indicate that complaints such as tinnitus or almost complete deafness among combat troops are considerably greater than previously reported.
One audiologist said the report revealed that hearing loss was endemic among Afghan veterans, with many suffering defects that could bar them from frontline service.
Full Story Combat veterans going deaf – World – NZ Herald News.
Gaza must be rebuilt now
Jimmy Carter
We can wait no longer to restart the peace process. The human suffering demands urgent relief
It is generally recognised that the Middle East peace process is in the doldrums, almost moribund. Israeli settlement expansion within Palestine continues, and PLO leaders refuse to join in renewed peace talks without a settlement freeze, knowing that no Arab or Islamic nation will accept any comprehensive agreement while Israel retains control of East Jerusalem.
US objections have impeded Egyptian efforts to resolve differences between Hamas and Fatah that could lead to 2010 elections. With this stalemate, PLO leaders have decided that President Mahmoud Abbas will continue in power until elections can be held – a decision condemned by many Palestinians.
Even though Syria and Israel under the Olmert government had almost reached an agreement with Turkey’s help, the current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, rejects Turkey as a mediator on the Golan Heights. No apparent alternative is in the offing.
Full Story Gaza must be rebuilt now | Jimmy Carter | Comment is free | The Guardian.
The Week the IAEA Applied a Nuclear Double Standard
In 2004, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) revealed that a member state had violated its Safeguards Agreement by carrying out covert uranium conversion and enrichment activities and plutonium experiments for more than two decades. The nature of certain of those enrichment activities, moreover, raised legitimate suspicions of interest in a nuclear weapons programme.
The state was found to have lied to the IAEA even when it began investigating these suspicious activities, claiming that its laser enrichment research did not involve any use of nuclear material.
If that sounds like a description of Iran’s troubled relationship with the IAEA up to 2004, that’s because it bears striking resemblance to it. In fact, however, it is a description of the deception of the IAEA by the government of South Korea.
There was just one major difference between the South Korean and Iranian cases: Iran never enriched uranium at a level that could only represent an interest in nuclear weapons, but South Korea did.
Full Story t r u t h o u t | The Week the IAEA Applied a Nuclear Double Standard.
Dean hopes health bill can be fixed after Senate vote
Dr. Howard Dean did not allow NBC’s David Gregory to corner him into advising other Democrats to vote no.
He wouldn’t vote for the Senate’s current health insurance reform bill, but he isn’t giving up on the process. After the Senate passes their bill, Dean hopes that provisions in the House’s version of the bill can be combined with the Senate bill to create major health care reform.
“I would certainly not vote for this bill if this were the final product, but the House bill is quite a good bill. This bill has improved over the last couple of weeks. I would let this thing go to conference committee and let’s see if we can fix it some more,” Dean told Gregory Sunday.
Full Story Dean hopes health bill can be fixed after Senate vote | Raw Story.
Chavez says US spy plane violated Venezuela’s airspace, tells military to shoot down others
President Hugo Chavez on Sunday accused the U.S. of violating Venezuela’s airspace with an unmanned spy plane, and ordered his military to be on alert and shoot down any such aircraft in the future.
Speaking during his weekly television and radio program, Chavez said the aircraft overflew a Venezuelan military base in the western state of Zulia after taking off from neighboring Colombia. He did not elaborate, but suggested the plane was being used for espionage.
“These are the Yankees. They are entering Venezuela,” he said.
“I’ve ordered them to be shot down,” Chavez said of the aircraft. “We cannot permit this.”
Lenders reject homeowners who apply for Obama plan
Ten months after the Obama administration began pressing lenders to do more to prevent foreclosures, many struggling homeowners are holding up their end of the bargain but still find themselves rejected, and some are even having their homes sold out from under them without notice.
These borrowers, rich and poor, completed trial modifications of their distressed mortgage, and made all the payments, only to learn, often indirectly, that they won’t get help after all.
How many is hard to tell. Lenders participating in the administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP, still don’t provide the government with information about who’s rejected and why.
To date, more than 759,000 trial loan modifications have been started, but just 31,382 have been converted to permanent new loans. That averages out to 4 percent, far below the 75 percent conversion rate President Barack Obama has said he seeks.
Full Story Lenders reject homeowners who apply for Obama plan – Politics AP – MiamiHerald.com.
Feingold blasts White House’s ‘lack of support’ for public option
A leading Senate proponent of the public option blasted the White House for a “lack of support” for the provision’s inclusion in health reform legislation.
Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) said he would vote in favor of the Senate’s healthcare bill, but not without taking a terse shot at the White House.
“I’ve been fighting all year for a strong public option to compete with the insurance industry and bring health care spending down,” Feingold said Sunday in a statement. “Unfortunately, the lack of support from the administration made keeping the public option in the bill an uphill struggle.”
Full Story Feingold blasts White House’s ‘lack of support’ for public option – The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room.
Bill Moyers Journal: Matt Taibbi and Robert Kuttner
Something’s not right here. One year after the great collapse of our financial system, Wall Street is back on top while our politicians dither.
Taibbi: Suggesting Dems were unable to get a public option ‘is a fallacy’
BILL MOYERS: Welcome to the Journal.
Something’s not right here. One year after the great collapse of our financial system, Wall Street is back on top while our politicians dither. As for health care reform, you’re about to be forced to buy insurance from companies whose stock is soaring, and that’s just dandy with the White House.
Truth is, our capitol’s being looted, republicans are acting like the town rowdies, the sheriff is firing blanks, and powerful Democrats in Congress are in cahoots with the gang that’s pulling the heist. This is not capitalism at work. It’s capital. Raw money, mounds of it, buying politicians and policy as if they were futures on the hog market.
Here to talk about all this are two journalists who don’t pull their punches. Robert Kuttner is an economist who helped create and now co-edits the progressive magazine THE AMERICAN PROSPECT, and the author of the book OBAMA’S CHALLENGE, among others.
Also with me is Matt Taibbi, who covers politics for ROLLING STONE magazine where he is a contributing editor. He’s made a name for himself writing in a no-holds-barred, often profane, but always informative and stimulating style that gets under the skin of the powerful. His most recent article is “Obama’s Big Sellout,” about the President’s team of economic advisers and their Wall Street connections. It’s been burning up the blogosphere. Welcome to both of you.
More…….
Full Video at link
transcript here December 18, 2009 — Full Transcript (print)
Bill Moyers Journal . Watch & Listen | PBS.
Senate Speech Heralds New Social Movement
This week the sincere effort of millions of people across the nation once again proved effective in the face of determined opposition from the White House and Congress, as single payer health reform reached another milestone in its historic journey.
When the Senate initiated its debate on health insurance reform, Senator Bernie Sanders offered a single-payer amendment, with co-sponsors Sherrod Brown and Roland Burris. Initially Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid skipped over it, allowing other amendments to come to the floor instead.
But nationwide events on International Human Rights Day, the delivery of paper “bodies” to the senate offices, non-violent civil disobiedience including nine arrests at Senator Schumer’s office, and hundreds of thousands of emails and phone calls and faxes to the Senate evidently changed Reid’s mind.
When Sanders introduced his amendment the Senator from Oklahoma, Dr. Coburn, rose according to the rules of the Senate to insist that the bill be read in full. It was estimated that reading the 767-page bill would take days, stalling a galloping Senate process.
Full Story Senate Speech Heralds New Social Movement | CommonDreams.org.
Sen. Fritz Hollings: They’re All Against Jobs
Who is against jobs in the United States? The big banks, Wall Street, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Business Roundtable, the United States Chamber of Commerce, the National Retail Federation, Corporate America, the President of the United States, Congress of the United States. Everyone is crying for jobs, but no one seems to understand why there aren’t any. And the reason for those opposing jobs is money.
Beginning in 1973, big banks made most of their profit outside of the United States. Industries off-shoring, investing, banks financing the investments, transfer fees, fees and interest on the loans made for bigger profits. Long since, the big banks under the leadership of David Rockefeller have led the way to off-shore and make a bigger profit. Goldman Sachs, AIG, Citicorp and Wall Street, conspiring for a bailout and now using it for bonuses, make more money from the off-shored operations.
Full Story Sen. Fritz Hollings: They’re All Against Jobs.
Mr. President, its time to come clean
….. on the deals you’ve made with the health insurance gangsters
Thom Hartmann Video
Matt Taibbi on Obama’s Big Sellout
Thom Hartmann Program
YouTube – Matt Taibbi on Obama’s Big Sellout.
US Prison Population Drops For First Time Since 1972
The United States may soon see its prison population drop for the first time in almost four decades, a milestone in a nation that locks up more people than any other.
The inmate population has risen steadily since the early 1970s as states adopted get-tough policies that sent more people to prison and kept them there longer. But tight budgets now have states rethinking these policies and the costs that come with them.
“It’s a reversal of a trend that’s been going on for more than a generation,” said David Greenberg, a sociology professor at New York University. “In some ways, it’s overdue.”
Full Story US Prison Population Drops For First Time Since 1972.
Obama’s Copenhagen Deal
How it came about—and why it may not be a real deal.
— By David Corn and Kate Sheppard
The final deal at the Copenhagen climate summit, which was convened to develop a comprehensive international response to the threat of global warming, came down to a behind-closed-doors conversation among some of the most powerful people in the world about the difference between two terms: “examination and assessment” and “international consultations and analysis.”
Then again, there may not have been a final deal. Late on Friday night, President Barack Obama announced that an agreement had been reached, establishing a minimalist accord that would not set a firm schedule with hard-and-fast targets for reducing emissions. But after Obama held a press conference to declare semi-victory—”this is going to be a first step”—and jetted back to Washington, European officials said nothing was in the bag. And Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping, the Sudanese chairman of the G77 bloc of least developed nations, claimed there was no deal. “What has happened today confirms what we have been suspicious of that a deal will be imposed by United States, with the help of the Danish government, on all nations of the world,” he said.
This raised the question, was the Obama deal merely a side deal that would be agreed to by some nations but not all? A convenient bypass of international climate negotiations?
Full Story Obama’s Copenhagen Deal | Mother Jones.
Diabetes & Obesity: Why Conventional Medicine Makes Things Worse
If you are diabetic, overweight, or suffer from insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, or any of the other conditions conventional medicine associates with “elevated blood sugar,” I want to share a startling new discovery with you: Lowering your blood sugar may increase your risk of death.
These are the findings from an extraordinary new study that was recently published in The New England Journal of Medicine, and in this blog, the second in my three-part series on diabesity, I am going to tell you all about that study and its profound implications for the treatment of obesity, diabetes, and other related conditions.
In last week’s blog you were introduced to the concept of diabesity, and learned that conventional treatments typically don’t work to treat it. Today we’ll see WHY those treatments don’t work and look at the REAL way to treat the problem. Let’s start with one of the most fascinating medical studies published in recent times …
Full Story Mark Hyman, MD: Diabetes & Obesity: Why Conventional Medicine Makes Things Worse.
Stupak aims to sink ‘unacceptable’ abortion compromise
Anti-Abortion Democrat Coordinating Activism With GOP Senate Leadership
An aide to Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) coordinated opposition to the Senate health bill’s abortion compromise this morning with the Republican Senate leadership, according to a chain of frantic emails obtained this morning by POLITICO.
Stupak, in an interview with POLITICO, called the Senate bill’s abortion position “unacceptable” – but disavowed his staffer’s collaboration with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
“I never talked to McConnell about the health care bill,” said Stupak, adding that “I did not authorize the email [which] “was sent without my knowledge.”
Stupak said that he has discussed the Senate’s abortion position with Democratic senators Ben Nelson (Neb.) and Robert Casey (Penn.), who both hold conservative views on abortion.
Full Story Stupak aims to sink ‘unacceptable’ abortion compromise – POLITICO.com Print View.
Conrad: Senate Senator Warns House: Don’t Improve Our Health Care Bill Or Else
Health Care Bill Is Basically The Final Version
Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) asserted on Sunday that the Senate’s version of health care legislation will, by and large, be the final product, even though negotiators in the House and Senate have yet to merge their respective bills.
The North Dakota Democrat, during an appearance on Fox News Sunday, offered a reading of the political tea leaves, predicting that several conservative Democratic senators would abandon reform if too many changes were made to the current legislative compromise.
“It is very clear that the final bill that passed in the United States Senate is going too have to be very close to the bill that is being negotiated here,” he said. “Otherwise you will not get 60 votes in the United States Senate. So, look, this is a bill that does reduce the deficit according to the independent expert. This is a bill that expands coverage to 30 million people. This is a bill that will begin to control the cost explosion, has got critically important insurance reforms, delivery system reforms, so those who say kill the bill, I think, have really missed the boat.”
Full Story Conrad: Senate Health Care Bill Is Basically The Final Version.
McCain: Obama Created More Partisan Environment Than Bill Clinton
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) ripped into the president on Sunday for abandoning his pledge to foster bipartisanship in Washington, accusing Obama of creating a more toxic political environment than that which existed during the Clinton administration.
“In some ways, of course, yeah,” McCain told Fox News Sunday when asked if the Obama White House was more partisan than Bill Clinton’s. “At least under Hillarycare they tried to seriously negotiate with Republicans. There has been no effort that I know of — of serious across the table negotiations — such as I have engaged in with other administrations. And that was the commitment that the president made.”
McCain, who squared off against Obama during the 2008 campaign, harped on two main issues: the deal the White House made with the pharmaceutical industry to secure its support of health care reform, and the fact that no C-SPAN cameras had been brought into Senator Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) office as the majority leader tinkered with the health care legislation.
Full Story McCain: Obama Created More Partisan Environment Than Bill Clinton.
OPS: Another report from the alternate universe
Show Us the E-Mail
Former Prosecutors Call For AIG To Release Internal Emails
WE end this extraordinary financial year with news that the Treasury is in discussions with American International Group about selling the taxpayers’ 80 percent ownership stake in that company. The government recently permitted several banks to break free of its potential oversight by repaying loans made during the rescue. But with respect to A.I.G., the Treasury should not move so fast. There is one job left to do.
A.I.G. was at the center of the web of bad business judgments, opaque financial derivatives, failed economics and questionable political relationships that set off the economic cataclysm of the past two years. When A.I.G.’s financial products division collapsed — ultimately requiring a federal bailout of $180 billion — those who had been prospering from A.I.G.’s schemes scurried for taxpayer cover. Yet, more than a year after the rescue began, crucial questions remain unanswered. Who knew what, and when? Who benefited, and by exactly how much? Would A.I.G.’s counterparties have failed without taxpayer support?
The three of us, as experienced investigators and prosecutors of financial fraud, cannot answer these questions now. But we know where the answers are. They are in the trove of e-mail messages still backed up on A.I.G. servers, as well as in the key internal accounting documents and financial models generated by A.I.G. during the past decade. Before releasing its regulatory clutches, the government should insist that the company immediately make these materials public. By putting the evidence online, the government could establish a new form of “open source” investigation.
Full Story Op-Ed Contributors – Show Us the E-Mail – NYTimes.com.
How health lobbyists influenced reform bill
How The Health Care Lobby Swarmed Congress And Got What They Wanted
Former staffers of lawmakers from Harry Reid to Mitch McConnell push clients’ agenda
David Nexon had a big problem. An early version of national health care legislation contained a $40 billion tax aimed squarely at members of the medical device trade association he represents.
Nexon, a former adviser to the late Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, went to work. He marshaled 14 people like himself — lobbyists who were once congressional aides, many of them from staffs of congressional leaders or committees that had a hand in crafting the health care overhaul.
When Senate Democrats unveiled their bill in mid-November, Nexon’s handiwork was evident. The tax on device-makers was still large — $20 billion — but only half what it might have been without the efforts of Nexon and his fellow lobbyists.
Nexon’s team is an illustration of how deeply the health care industry has embedded itself on Capitol Hill, using former aides of lawmakers and ex-lawmakers themselves.
An analysis of public documents by Northwestern University’s Medill News Service in partnership with the Tribune Newspapers Washington Bureau and the Center for Responsive Politics found a revolving door between Capitol Hill staffers and lobbying jobs for companies with a stake in health care legislation.
Full Story How health lobbyists influenced reform bill – chicagotribune.com.
Byrd’s coal comments rock W.Va.
An extraordinary recent statement by Sen. Robert Byrd has stunned his coal-dependent home state and left West Virginia politicians and business leaders scrambling to understand the timing and motivation behind his unexpected discourse on the future of the coal industry.
In an early December op-ed piece released by his office — also recorded on audio by the frail 92-year-old senator — Byrd argued that resistance to constraints on mountaintop-removal coal mining and a failure to acknowledge that “the truth is that some form of climate legislation will likely become public policy” represent the real threat to the future of coal.
“Change has been a constant throughout the history of our coal industry,” Byrd said in the 1,161-word statement. “West Virginians can choose to anticipate change and adapt to it or resist and be overrun by it. One thing is clear: The time has arrived for the people of the Mountain State to think long and hard about which course they want to choose.”
Full Story Byrd’s coal comments rock W.Va. – - POLITICO.com.
Ed Schultz to Obama: ‘Your base thinks you’re nothing but a sellout’
Progressive radio’s most popular talker seems a little fed up with President Obama after this week’s health care concessions.
“Right now, Mr. President,” declared Ed Schultz on his 6 pm MSNBC show, “Your base thinks you’re nothing but a sellout, a corporate sellout, at that. I know it’s tough audio, but I’m your buddy Ed. I’ve got to tell you this. I don’t think anybody else is.”
Schultz’s words echo the flurry of liberal criticisms aimed at Obama and the Democratic leadership this week, following their jettisoning of the popular public option and the Medicare buy-in provision for those 55 and up from the legislation.
“You aren’t listening to the very people who put you in office, Mr. President,” Schultz, who is typically a vigorous supporter of Obama, continued. “This isn’t about your legacy. It’s about the people in America who need health care now.”
The current bill is projected to cover roughly an additional 30 million Americans, largely through federal subsidies and mandates that individuals purchase insurance. Progressives argue that without an expansion of government-run options, the legislation fails to fix the core problems in the system.
Full Story Ed Schultz to Obama: ‘Your base thinks you’re nothing but a sellout’ | Raw Story.
Citadel Broadcasting Plans to File for Bankruptcy
Citadel Broadcasting is planning to file for bankruptcy by the end of the year, the Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site on Thursday.
The bankruptcy plan would cut Citadel’s…..
In November, the company reported having $1.4 billion in total assets and $2.48 billion in total liabilities in the quarter ended Sept. 30, 2009, according to a 10Q filing with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission.
In the last quarter, it reported a 14 percent drop in revenue, to $183 million, and a quarterly loss of 8 cents per share versus a profit of 10 cents per share a year earlier, the filing showed.
Full Story Citadel Broadcasting Plans to File for Bankruptcy: Report – CNBC.
OPS: Includes a lot of right wing talk stations – maybe they’ll have to sell
Video: The Asteroid That Will Almost Hit Earth
Any number of undiscovered near-Earth objects could one day careen into the Earth, and there is a lot of talk here at the American Geophysical Union meeting about tracking them. So far, though, only one discovered object has seemed even mildly likely to hit our planet.
That asteroid is Apophis, a 900-foot asteroid. Calculations released on Christmas Eve 2004 appeared to show that there was a greater than 2 percent chance the asteroid would hit the Earth in 2029. The asteroid appeared ready to give the Earth its closest shave since astronomers began looking for such things. It was judged a 4 on the Torino Impact Hazard Scale for a short time, the highest rating any near-Earth object has received.
Full Story Video: The Asteroid That Will Almost Hit Earth | Wired Science | Wired.com.
NASA reveals first-ever photo of liquid on another world
NASA scientists revealed Friday a first-of-its-kind image from space showing reflecting sunlight from a lake on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan.
It’s the first visual “smoking gun” evidence of liquid on the northern hemisphere of the moon, scientists said, and the first-ever photo from another world showing a “specular reflection” — which is reflection of light from an extremely smooth surface and in this case, a liquid one.
“This is the first time outside Earth we’ve seen specular reflection from another liquid from another body,” said Ralf Jaumann, a scientist analyzing data from the Cassini unmanned space probe.
Full Story NASA reveals first-ever photo of liquid on another world – CNN.com.
Mobile Phone Cancellation Fees Help the Poor, Verizon Tells Feds
Verizon defended its early termination charges for cellphone contracts Friday, telling federal regulators that the high fees help the poor by making it more affordable for them to access the mobile internet.
The Federal Communications Commission asked the nation’s largest wireless carrier earlier this month to explain why it had raised the fees for breaking a mobile phone service contract to $350 for its smartphones. In a response that gave no ground to an increasingly active FCC, Verizon said the fees were a necessary and good way to subsidize expensive smartphones so that users don’t have to pay for the hardware up front, so long as they sign a two-year contract.
That arrangement “enables many more consumers, including those of more limited means, access to a range of exciting, state of the art broadband services and capabilities (.pdf),” Verizon VP Kathleen Grillo wrote. “The company’s pricing structure therefore promotes the national goal of fostering the greater adoption and use of mobile broadband services.”
Full Story Mobile Phone Cancellation Fees Help the Poor, Verizon Tells Feds | Epicenter | Wired.com.
Agent Orange: U.S., Vietnam Struggle Over Dioxin Legacy
This lonely section of the abandoned Danang air base was once crawling with U.S. airmen and machines. It was here where giant orange drums were stored and the herbicides they contained were mixed and loaded onto waiting planes. Whatever sloshed out soaked into the soil and eventually seeped into the water supply. Thirty years later, the rare visitor to the former U.S. air base is provided with rubber boots and protective clothing. Residue from Agent Orange, which was sprayed to deny enemy troops jungle cover, remains so toxic that this patch of land is considered one of the most contaminated pieces of real estate in the country. A recent study indicates that even three decades after the war ended, the cancer-causing dioxins are at levels 300 to 400 times higher than what is deemed to be safe.
After years of meetings, signings and photo ops, the U.S. held another ceremony in Vietnam on Dec. 16 to sign yet another memorandum of understanding as part of the continuing effort to manage Agent Orange's dark legacy. Yet there are grumblings that little — if anything — has been done to clean up the most contaminated sites. Since 2007, Congress has allocated a total of $6 million to help address Agent Orange issues in Vietnam. Not only does the amount not begin to scratch the surface of the problem or get rid of the tons of toxic soil around the nation, but there are questions about how the money is being spent. And several parties have noted with growing frustration that the money is primarily going to study the issue and hire consultants rather than implementing measures to prevent new generations from being exposed.
Full Story Agent Orange: U.S., Vietnam Struggle Over Dioxin Legacy – TIME.
CSPAN footage of McCain denying Dem Senator extra time in debate blacked out
When Senator Al Franken (D-MN) this week denied Senator Joe Lieberman’s (I-CT) request for more time to make his points on health care reform, he was blasted by Fox news who called him an “angry comedian” and berated him for mistreating the “kind” senator from Connecticut. Conservative blogger Ann Althouse called it a “dick move,” and columnist and Fox News correspondent Michelle Malkin railed against “Franken’s little snit fit.”
Franken’s move instantly hit Senator John McCain’s (R-AZ) concern trigger and, speaking right after Lieberman, he seemed outraged as he remarked, “I’ve been around here twenty-some years, first time I’ve seen a member denied a minute or two to finish his remarks. And I must say that I don’t know what’s happening here in this body, but I think it’s wrong.”
Well, it seems Senator McCain may have had a bit of a memory lapse. As Faiz Shakir of Think Progress points out, in October of 2002, McCain refused to grant just 30 seconds of extra time during the Iraq war debate to former Senator Mark Dayton (D-MN).
Full Story CSPAN footage of McCain denying Dem Senator extra time in debate blacked out | Raw Story.
Health Data 2009
Total spending on health care, per person, 2007:
- United States: $7290
- Switzerland: $4417
- France: $3601
- United Kingdom: $2992
- Average of OECD developed nations: $2964
- Italy: $2686
- Japan: $2581
Total health spending accounted for 8.4% of GDP in the United Kingdom in 2007, compared with an average of 8.9% across OECD countries. The United States is, by far , the country that spends the most on health as a share of its economy, with 16% of its GDP allocated to health in 2007. France and Switzerland followed with 11.0% and 10.8% of their GDP spent on health, respectively. Several EU countries – Germany, Belgium and Austria – and Canada also devote more than 10% of their GDP to health.
In terms of per capita spending on health, the United Kingdom close ly matches the OECD average, with spending of 2992 USD in 2007 (adjusted for purchasing power parity). Health spending per capita in the United Kingdom remains much lower however than in the United States (which spent 7290 USD per capita in 2007), and significantly lower than some other big spenders, such as Norway and Switzerland (with spending of over 4400 USD per person).
38980557.pdf (application/pdf Object).
MRI Scandle: Libel gag on talk of ‘medical hurricane’
Two years ago in a conference room in the Randolph hotel in Oxford, England, Henrik Thomsen gave his inside account of a medical “nightmare.” In a presentation to about 30 colleagues, Thomsen, one of Europe’s leading radiologists, revealed how patients treated at his Copenhagen University hospital had subsequently contracted a rare and potentially fatal disease.
Thomsen and other doctors were baffled about why 20 kidney patients who had been given routine scans were afflicted by a disorder — nephrogenic systemic fibrosis (NSF) — in which the skin gradually swells, thickens and tightens. Some sufferers were confined to wheelchairs. At least one died. There was no known cure.
Then, in March 2006, came a breakthrough. It was confirmed that all those who had fallen ill with NSF had been given the same drug in advance of a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan.
Omniscan was used to enhance the images produced by the scan. The product was sold around the world and was manufactured by GE Healthcare, a subsidiary of General Electric, one of the world’s largest corporations.
Thomsen’s presentation lasted no more than 15 minutes, with the final slide reading: “I hope none of you meets a similar medical hurricane.”
Full Story Libel gag on talk of ‘medical hurricane’ | Raw Story.
Colombia to build new military base on Venezuelan border
Colombia has announced it will build a new military base near its border with Venezuela, in a move likely to further strain its tense ties with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
Defense Minister Gabriel Silva said Friday that the base, located on the Guajira peninsula near the city of Nazaret, would have up to 1,000 troops. Two air battalions would also be activated at other border areas.
“It is a strategic point from a defense point of view,” Silva said.
The 1.5-million-dollar facility, paid for with Colombian tax funds, would also have a care facility for indigenous Wayuu people who live in the area, he added.
Army Commander General Oscar Gonzalez meanwhile announced Saturday that six air battalions were being activated, including two on the border with Venezuela.
Tensions between Venezuela and Colombia have been spurred by a US deal with Bogota allowing US forces to run anti-drug operations from Colombian bases.
Full Story AFP: Colombia to build new military base on Venezuelan border.
OPS: Anyone wanta bet they are building this with US Tax Payer money?
Sweeping Patent Reform Detrimental to U.S.
“Patent policy is suddenly being run by advocates for Microsoft and IBM,” Economist Pat Choate told The Wall Street Journal
The Obama administration’s patent reform efforts, led by two former employees of companies that stand to benefit enormously from the changes, are coming under heavy criticism from all corners.
Academics, small businesses, universities, individual inventors, ethics groups, intellectual property rights groups and many lawmakers have all at times been heavily critical of the proposed legislation and the people behind it.
David Kappos, formerly the assistant general counsel for intellectual property at IBM and currently the head of the Commerce Department’s patent and trademark office, and Marc Berejka, a former Microsoft lobbyist for eight years that now works on patent issues for the administration, are at the forefront of the criticism.
Critics have pointed out that the legislation that they are currently helping to shape will directly benefit their previous employers at the expense of small businesses, independent inventors and universities.
Full Story Sweeping Patent Reform Detrimental to U.S. | Economy In Crisis.
Huge Losses on Wall St, Super Saturday Approaching
A tepid week of trading took a turn for the worse on Thursday; markets were battered across the board resulting in huge losses on Wall Street.
A tepid week of trading took a turn for the worse on Thursday; markets were battered across the board resulting in huge losses on Wall Street. The Dow Jones led the charge to the bottom dropping 1.27 percent (132.86 points). Trailing close behind was the NASDAQ (down 1.22 percent, 26.86 points), and the S&P 500 (down 1.18 percent, 13.10 points).
Stocks began to rebound during the morning session, but we seem to once again be witnessing the glass ceiling of investments. Every time investment markets begin to tick toward a certain level buyers become weary and shy away, leading to drops on the market.
This self-fulfilling prophecy has slowed the yearlong rally many times in the past. However, it could also be argued that this phenomenon has kept markets from ballooning to far and re-creating an economic bubble.
Full Story Huge Losses on Wall St, Super Saturday Approaching | Economy In Crisis.
Plug-in Hybrid Hysteria Hits a Wall
For this technology to truly take hold we must first make huge strides in the fabrication of batteries and we must make home electricity even more affordable than it already is.
The American car market has quickly become flooded with gas-electric hybrid vehicles. For several years the Toyota Prius was the only car even trying the hybrid model.
Today, every major automaker provides full lines of hybrid alternatives. In some cases, after rebates and deductions, there is no reason whatsoever to purchase the standard combustion version.
The rapid growth of the hybrid market has led to another off-shot: the plug-in hybrid.
A hybrid vehicle uses a symbiotic relationship between the gas engine and an electric motor. The “plug-in” hybrid of the future depends almost completely on its electric motor, while carrying a backup generator running on gasoline. This technology allows for much greater fuel economy, and in a world of high gas prices it is very appealing to consumers.
Full Story Plug-in Hybrid Hysteria Hits a Wall | Economy In Crisis.
Trade Pressures Increasing at Climate Talks
As world leaders continue their global climate summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, trade is emerging as a very contentious issue in the negotiations, holding the potential to derail any substantive deal that leaders had hoped would emerge from the conference.
At issue is the developed world’s desire to levy a border adjustment tax -what essentially amounts to a tariff – on manufactured imports from nations that resist greenhouse gas emission curbs.
Developing nations have been steadfastly opposed to the idea, claiming that it is nothing more than a form of protectionism under the pretense of environmentalism and could be the ember needed to spark a trade war.
“We will always oppose any practice of establishing trade barriers under the guise of protecting the global environment,” Yu Qingtai, China’s climate-change ambassador, said in an interview with Bloomberg News.
Full Story Trade Pressures Increasing at Climate Talks | Economy In Crisis.
U.S. to Begin Negotiations To Enter TPP: The Largest Since NAFTA
The Obama administration on Tuesday, in a letter to congressional leaders, announced its intention to move forward with a massive free trade agreement that would be the largest since the North American Free Trade Agreement.
U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said in a letter that the U.S. plans to begin negotiations to enter into the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
The TPP is currently comprised of Brunei, Chile, New Zealand and Singapore. Vietnam and Australia are in negotiations to enter the free trade zone. In addition, Kirk said that he would eventually like to see Japan, Malaysia, Peru and South Korea enter the fold as well.
“U.S. participation in the TPP agreement is predicated on the shared objective of expanding this initial group to additional countries,” Kirk wrote.
The U.S. currently has bilateral trade agreements with Chile, Peru, Singapore and Australia as well as a negotiated but yet-to-be-ratified deal with South Korea.
Full Story U.S. to Begin Negotiations To Enter TPP | Economy In Crisis.
National Organization for Women opposes Senate health bill
A leading women’s group called on senators on Saturday to defeat its healthcare reform bill.
The leader of the National Organization for Women (NOW) excoriated the language in the health bill curtailing federal support for insurance plan covering abortions, which was inserted to win the 60th vote of Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.).
“The so-called health care reform bill now before the Senate, with the addition of Majority Leader Harry Reid’s Manager’s Amendment, amounts to a health insurance bill for half the population and a sweeping anti-abortion law for the rest of us,” NOW President Terry O’Neill said in a statement.
Full Story National Organization for Women opposes Senate health bill – The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room.
Senate healthcare bill now relies on regulation
Without a ‘public option’ to compete with private insurers, the government would instead police the industry. But do regulators have enough authority to make a difference?
Reporting from Washington – When Senate Democratic leaders agreed this week to remove a public insurance plan from their massive healthcare bill, they did more than quash a liberal dream of expanding the government safety net. They effectively pinned their hopes of guaranteeing coverage to all Americans on a far more conventional prescription: government regulation.
The change sprang from a compromise made to placate conservative Democrats wary of a new government program. But shorn of a “public option,” the Senate healthcare bill has reverted to a long-established practice of leveraging government power to police the private sector, rather than compete with it.
Despite the resistance among Republicans and conservatives to more government regulation, even the insurance industry has agreed to broad new oversight of their business in exchange for the prospect of gaining millions of new customers.
Full Story Senate healthcare bill now relies on regulation — latimes.com.
OPS: Sounds more like a way for congressional extortion of the corporations
Obama Just Ran Out Of Slack
The media was quick to declare the Obama honeymoon over this summer. Yet supporters exhilarated by Barack Obama’s stunning win in November 2008 were still willing to cut him a lot of slack. That slack just ran out.
The simplest, most comprehensive health insurance reform –- single payer –- was off the table before the legislative effort started, replaced with an amorphous “public option.” David Sirota and others called it a violation of Negotiating 101: compromise comes at the end of the process, not at the beginning. Now the campaign to enact substantive health care reform has foundered on Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT). And on Obama’s refusal to bust heads. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel instructed Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) to cut a deal with Lieberman for his vote, even if it meant jettisoning Medicare expansion and a public option –- along with cost controls, lifetime benefit caps and drug re-importation. Reid did. So much for the Chicago-style politics Fox News warned about.
All year, progressive reform advocates tried to remain calm as the House and Senate bills got watered down. “Don’t freak out,” they told each other. At every stage, they were told “trust us” as the bills got weaker and weaker. They can expect to hear that once again as the House and Senate bills go to conference. An Organizing for America rumor in September had it that the White House was working secretly on its own bill to spring in mid October once opponents had spent themselves pushing back against the House and Senate versions.
Full Story Obama Just Ran Out Of Slack | OurFuture.org.
Army general in Iraq issues pregnancy ban
U.S. personnel in the north could face court-martial, jail for failing orders
The Army general of U.S. forces in Northern Iraq has banned pregnancy among military personnel in his command, NBC News reported on Friday.
Anyone who becomes pregnant or impregnates another servicemember, including married couples assigned to the same unit, could face a court-martial and jail time, according to an order issued by Maj. Gen. Anthony Cucolo.
The order, which went into effect on Nov. 4, was first reported by the military publication Stars and Stripes.
Full Story Army general in Iraq issues pregnancy ban – Military- msnbc.com.
Iraq’s oil auction hits the jackpot: A Bad “Investment” for America
Neocons Must Be Pissed; China and Russia Are Getting the Sweet Oil Deals in Iraq. Cheney and Rumsfeld’s script was never supposed to develop like this. Instead of US Big Oil getting the lion’s share in Iraq, its top competitors turned out to be big winners
Former United States vice president Dick Cheney, ex-defense minister Donald Rumsfeld and assorted US neo-cons will have plenty of time to nurse their apoplexy. One of their key reasons to unleash the war on Iraq in 2003 was to seize control of its precious oilfields and thus shape a great deal of the new great game in Eurasia – the energy front – by restricting the access of Europe and Asia to Iraq's staggering 115 billion barrels of proven oil reserves.
After at least US$2 trillion spent by Washington and arguably more than a million dead Iraqis, it has come to this: a pipe dream definitely buried this past weekend in Baghdad with round two of bids to exploit a number of vast and immensely profitable oil fields.
Full Story Asia Times Online :: Middle East News, Iraq, Iran current affairs.
Tiger Woods, Person of the Year
Frank Rich –
AS we say farewell to a dreadful year and decade, this much we can agree upon: The person of the year is not Ben Bernanke, no matter how insistently Time magazine tries to hype him into its pantheon. The Fed chairman was just as big a schnook as every other magical thinker in Washington and on Wall Street who believed that housing prices would go up in perpetuity to support an economy leveraged past the hilt. Unlike most of the others, it was Bernanke’s job to be ahead of the curve. Yet as recently as June of last year he could be found minimizing the possibility of a substantial economic downturn. And now we’re supposed to applaud him for putting his finger in the dike after disaster struck? This is defining American leadership down.
If there’s been a consistent narrative to this year and every other in this decade, it’s that most of us, Bernanke included, have been so easily bamboozled. The men who played us for suckers, whether at Citigroup or Fannie Mae, at the White House or Ted Haggard’s megachurch, are the real movers and shakers of this century’s history so far. That’s why the obvious person of the year is Tiger Woods. His sham beatific image, questioned by almost no one until it collapsed, is nothing if not the farcical reductio ad absurdum of the decade’s flimflams, from the cancerous (the subprime mortgage) to the inane (balloon boy).
As of Friday, the Tiger saga had appeared on 20 consecutive New York Post covers. For The Post, his calamity has become as big a story as 9/11. And the paper may well have it right. We’ve rarely questioned our assumption that 9/11, “the day that changed everything,” was the decade’s defining event. But in retrospect it may not have been. A con like Tiger’s may be more typical of our time than a one-off domestic terrorist attack, however devastating.
Full Story Op-Ed Columnist – Tiger Woods, Person of the Year – NYTimes.com.
GOP’s New Prayer Guru Says Gays Possessed By Demons
Meet the Republican Party’s new spiritual guru, Lou Engle:
[excerpt from 2007 Engle Los Vegas speech. see here for extended transcript. right: audio excerpt from Engle sermon]“My son Jesse, he’s nineteen years old. God has given him dreams, to go to San Francisco to launch a house of prayer, one block from the Castro District – where the homosexuals boast the dominion of darkness. He’s going there with weeping in his heart. With the dream that prayer is stronger than the dominion of that spirit.
He’s nineteen years old. He’s starting to cast out homosexual spirits out of our new converts. It’s scary as hell. The whole thing’s scary. But fathers are to send their sons into the darkest places.”
…He said to me, “dad,” he said, “as long as I’m there I don’t think the Lord will judge San Francisco.” [boos, angry murmur from Engle's audience]…
As the Rachel Maddow Show has recently showcased, on December 16th the Family Research Council sponsored a “Prayercast” event, attended by GOP luminaries including Senators Jim DeMint and Sam Brownback, and House Representatives Michelle Bachmann and Randy Forbes. But FRC head Tony Perkins did not lead the prayer event. That honor fell to Lou Engle, Founder of TheCall. Besides leading the capstone stadium rally for pro-Proposition 8, antigay marriage organizers last November 1, 2008 at San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium, Lou Engle could also be found, at a special ceremony at a Virginia Beach megachurch last summer, anointing and blessing GOP presidential hopefuls Mike Huckabee and Newt Gingrich.
Full Story Talk To Action | GOP’s New Prayer Guru Says Gays Possessed By Demons.
Release: Primary Health, Dental Care for 25 Million More Americans
Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) -
$10 Billion More for Community Health Centers will Revolutionize Care
WASHINGTON, December 19 – A $10 billion investment in community health centers, expected to go to $14 billion when Congress completes work on health care reform legislation, was included in a final series of changes to the Senate bill unveiled today.
The provision, which would provide primary care for 25 million more Americans, was requested by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
He said the additional resources will help bring about a revolution in primary health care in America and create new or expanded health centers in an additional 10,000 communities. The provision would also provide loan repayments and scholarships through the National Health Service Corps to create an additional 20,000 primary care doctors, dentists, nurse practitioners, physician assistants and mental health professionals.
Very importantly, Sanders also said the provision would save Medicaid tens of billions of dollars by keeping patients out of emergency rooms and hospitals by providing primary care when then needed it.
Sanders has worked with House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) to include $14 billion in the House version of the legislation.
Sanders is also working with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) to improve language already in the bill to provide waivers for states that want to provide comprehensive, affordable health care and curb rapidly-rising costs for money-making private health insurance companies. The waivers could clear the way for a state-run, single-payer system.
White House Drug Importation/PhRMA Deal Scandal Thickens with New Contradictions…
David Sirota:
TPM has a new story up about the now-thickening drug importation scandal – and the explanations are starting to get more and more convoluted and contradictory as the White House works to fight off the accusation that its political staff actually wrote an FDA safety-warning letter:
Hearing rumors of an FDA letter opposing his amendment last week, Dorgan called Hamburg to inquire about that matter. She told him that she didn’t know of any letter. Then, just 24 hours later, on Dec. 8, the letter went out, signed by Hamburg…
Asked about Dorgan’s timeline by TPMmuckraker, FDA spokesperson Meghan Scott did not say it was inaccurate. “The Commissioner did speak to Sen. Dorgan in the days before the letter was sent,” Scott says. “On that call, she expressed the FDA’s concerns, but at the time, no decision had been made on whether or not to send a letter.”
Scott adds that the letter was sent in response to an inquiry by Sens. Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Tom Carper (D-DE). And she argues that the letter is consistent with the FDA’s past position on drug importation.
First the contradiction: According to this report and the Wall Street Journal report, FDA Commissioner Hamburg “didn’t know of any letter.” The FDA spokesperson does not deny this – but suggests that when Dorgan talked to the FDA Commissioner a letter was under consideration. Notice the phrase “at the time, no decision had been made on whether or not to send a letter” – the idea being that there was the possibility of a letter, it was just under consideration.
Full Story White House Drug Importation/PhRMA Deal Scandal Thickens with New Contradictions… | The Smirking Chimp.
Four Eurostar trains stuck in Channel tunnel
Rail link reopens with only ‘very limited’ service after 2,000 passengers are stranded by cold-weather breakdown
More than 2,000 people have been evacuated from four Eurostar trains that were trapped in the Channel tunnel after breaking down due to the cold weather.
The trains are believed to have failed as they left the cold air in northern France and entered the warmer air inside the tunnel.
The four trains had been moved from the tunnel and passengers were being transferred to England, said a Eurostar spokesman.
Some passengers were evacuated to shuttle trains that carry vehicles but others were stuck overnight. Many complained about the conditions on the stranded trains.
Lee Godfrey, who was travelling back from Disneyland Paris with his family, said they were left overnight without light, air conditioning, food or water.
Full Story Four Eurostar trains stuck in Channel tunnel | UK news | guardian.co.uk.
BP oil refinery workers in Texas win damages of $100m
A US jury has awarded $100m (£62m) in damages to 10 workers who said a leak at a BP oil refinery in Texas in 2007 had made them sick.
The source of the leak at the refinery south of Houston was never identified and environmental agencies reported no evidence linking it to the refinery.
BP concluded that any toxic substance had come from outside.
But lawyers for the workers argued the odour had come from a sulphur recovery unit at the plant.
They described BP as a serial polluter.
The Texas jury agreed with the lawyers’s; case and imposed punitive damages.
A hundred workers at the refinery were sent to hospital after being overcome by a toxic substance and a further 90 claims are to come.
The workers said their injuries had included dizziness and sore throats, with one employee passing out after inhaling the substance, but none suffered long-term damage to their lungs, their lawyer said.
Full Story BBC News – BP oil refinery workers in Texas win damages of $100m.
Johann Hari: The truths Copenhagen ignored
So that’s it. The world’s worst polluters – the people who are drastically altering the climate – gathered here in Copenhagen to announce they were going to carry on cooking, in defiance of all the scientific warnings.
They didn’t seal the deal; they sealed the coffin for the world’s low-lying islands, its glaciers, its North Pole, and millions of lives.
Those of us who watched this conference with open eyes aren’t surprised. Every day, practical, intelligent solutions that would cut our emissions of warming gases have been offered by scientists, developing countries and protesters – and they have been systematically vetoed by the governments of North America and Europe.
It’s worth recounting a few of the ideas that were summarily dismissed – because when the world finally resolves to find a real solution, we will have to revive them.
Discarded Idea One: The International Environmental Court. Any cuts that leaders claim they would like as a result of Copenhagen will be purely voluntary. If a government decides not to follow them, nothing will happen, except a mild blush, and disastrous warming. Canada signed up to cut its emissions at Kyoto, and then increased them by 26 per cent – and there were no consequences. Copenhagen could unleash a hundred Canadas.
Full Story Johann Hari: The truths Copenhagen ignored – Johann Hari, Commentators – The Independent.
Unemployment By State In November (MAP)
Unemployment rates are up from this time last year in all 50 states, but in recent months the situation has improved somewhat, with rates declining in 36 states since October, according to new government data. Seven states, led by Kentucky and Connecticut, saw statistically significant decreases of less than one percent.
Michigan still boasts the highest rate in the country, but saw its second consecutive monthly decrease in unemployment as the rate fell to 14.7 percent from 15.1 percent. The only state with a higher unemployment rate from the previous month is Florida, where the rate climbed from 11.3 percent to a record 11.5 percent.
Texas, Ohio, and Georgia saw the biggest payroll gains.
Full Story Unemployment By State In November (MAP).
Barney Frank Vs. The Credit Raters (VIDEO)
After deftly dodging federal regulation for years, the nation’s top credit rating companies now must get past the formidable Barney Frank.
Last week, as the U.S. House debated the Wall Street reform package crafted largely by Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat quietly slipped regulations into the bill that would force the most significant overhaul of the credit rating industry to date.
The top raters–Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s and Fitch–seemed ripe for regulation ever since they awarded inflated grades to investments that ultimately unraveled the economy.
If the provisions in the bill, passed by the House last Friday, make it through the Senate, investors who lost billions of dollars on those top-rated financial products would likely find it easier to sue the raters for fraud. Also, by no longer mandating that mutual funds buy only top-rated investments, the bill has the potential to squeeze the raters out of their special status in the financial system.
Full Story Barney Frank Vs. The Credit Raters (VIDEO).
FDIC Shuts Down Seven More Banks
Regulators on Friday shut down two big California banks, as well as banks in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Michigan and Illinois, bringing to 140 the number of U.S. banks brought down this year by the weak economy and mounting loan defaults.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over all seven.
Regulators shuttered First Federal Bank of California, based in Santa Monica, with $6.1 billion in assets and $4.5 billion in deposits, as was as Imperial Capital Bank of La Jolla, Calif., with about $4 billion in assets and $2.8 billion in deposits.
California was one of the states hardest hit by the real estate market meltdown and many banks there have suffered under the weight of soured mortgage loans. First Federal and Imperial Capital bring to 17 the number of California banks to fail this year.
Full Story FDIC Shuts Down Seven More Banks.
What’s In Health Care Proposals For 5 Americans
As Congress gets closer to a final health care bill, many Americans want to know: What's in it for me?
The answer is: It depends.
On your age and household income. Whether you own a business and whether it's big or small. Whether you're insured now and who provides that insurance. In the end, it will depend on how House and Senate negotiators will merge the proposals, and how their vision gets translated into regulations.
Five Americans shared their stories with The Associated Press. Here's an educated guess on how the health care package taking shape in Congress might affect them.
Name: Holly Brown
Home: Round Lake, Ill.
Age: 28
Employment: Student, working part time, receiving unemployment benefits.
Household income: about $15,000.
Coverage: Insured, but struggling to afford it.
Full Story What’s In Health Care Proposals For 5 Americans.
“Onward Christian Athletes”: Tom Krattenmaker’s Book Explores Evangelical Monopoly In Sports World
A toss left, a quick break past the defense, and it was obvious Philadelphia Eagles running back Herb Lusk was headed to the end zone. The real surprise came when he arrived 70 yards later.
Lusk dropped to a knee in the NFL’s first public end zone prayer.
High-profile expressions of faith by athletes have become routine in pro sports since Lusk’s October 1977 run. A new book by religion writer Tom Krattenmaker explores how it happened, and asks whether it’s a good thing.
“Some love it, some really resent it. The comedians have a field day with it,” said Krattenmaker, author of “Onward Christian Athletes.”
Full Story “Onward Christian Athletes”: Tom Krattenmaker’s Book Explores Evangelical Monopoly In Sports World.
60 Votes: Nelson on-board, but at what cost?
Democrats Say They Clinch Deal on Health Care Overhaul
Senate Democrats said they neared agreement Saturday on a major overhaul of the nation’s health care system, putting them within reach of approving legislation by Christmas.
As the Senate convened in a driving snowstorm, Democratic lawmakers and senior officials said a breakthrough came when Senator Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska, agreed after hours of negotiation Friday to back the legislation, making him the pivotal 60th vote.
In a sign of confidence that he had the necessary support, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, introduced his 383-page proposal (pdf) in hopes of overcoming a series of procedural hurdles over the next several days. Republicans immediately forced a reading of the measure, which was expected to take at least 10 hours.
Full Story Democrats Say They Clinch Deal on Health Care Overhaul – Prescriptions Blog – NYTimes.com.
OPS: And wait for it - Will Traitor Joe will pop up again?
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Republicans Don't Care about Voter Fraud....owa Republicans are trying to dismiss claims that the vote count in Tuesday's Iowa Caucus was wrong. An Iowa voter told a local TV station yesterday that he noticed a 20-vote discrepancy in the count - and that Rick Santorum was the real winner of the Caucuses. Republican Party officials, though, are sticking to their first count - showing Mitt Romney as the winner by 8-votes - and there will be no recount.The Republican Party has launched a war on voters around the nation this year with strict new laws that will disenfranchise over 5 million Americans. They claim these laws are necessary to combat so-called voter fraud. Yet in Iowa - where there are no such laws - and where a very, very close and questionable election was just held - Republicans don't seem to care at all about getting it right.Clearly - the war on voters isn't about making sure the people's voices are represented accurately - it's about making sure poor people, young people, and minorities who tend to vote for Democrats - can't vote at all.-Thom(Who do you think won? Tell us here.) -
LEGALIZE Democracy
" We the corporations" On January 21, 2010, with its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons, entitled by the U.S. Constitution to buy elections and run our government. __________
MOVE to AMEND
a project of the CAMPAIGN TO LEGALIZE Democracy
Help end Corporate personhood
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The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. 
