Archive for December, 2009

US lawmakers approve jobs package

As US workers continue to struggle with double-digit unemployment, the House of Representatives narrowly approved a 154-billion-dollar spending bill aimed at creating jobs.

US President Barack Obama’s Democratic allies said Wednesday’s package, which the Senate will likely not act on until 2010, would aid those looking for work and states facing shortfalls and mulling public sector layoffs.

Lawmakers voted 217-212 for the bill, which includes 48.3 billion dollars in infrastructure investments from highway construction to clean water projects and public housing programs. Related article: Fed moves to eixt stimulus package

Obama praised the bill’s passage, saying the legislation offered “some productive ideas to respond to… great need.”

Full Story US lawmakers approve jobs package – Yahoo! News.

US jobless claims rise for second week

New US claims for unemployment benefits climbed for a second straight week but remained below the level of 500,000, government data showed Thursday.

New claims in the week ending December 12 rose to 480,000 from the prior week’s revised 473,000, the Labor Department said.

Most private economists had expected a drop in seasonally adjusted new claims to 465,000.

Still, the report highlighted stablization in the ailing jobs market.

The four-week moving average, a less volatile indicator than the week-to-week figures, fell to 467,500 from the previous week’s revised 472,750.

Full Story US jobless claims rise for second week – Yahoo! News.

Wal-Mart gouges troops in online sales

Stars and Stripes –

Some retailers inflate costs to ship to APO addresses

Overseas military customers ordering gifts online from certain retailers might get an unpleasant surprise when shipping and handling fees are tacked on at the end of the purchase.

Those same customers might be most surprised to find that retail giant Walmart had the biggest markup.

On a $120 purchase, Walmart.com charged $10.35 to ship to an APO address, compared with $2.10 to a stateside address. For most items, Amazon.com charged the same to ship to an APO address as a stateside address. And Target offered shipping on a $120 purchase to an APO address for less than to a stateside address.

Wal-Mart Inc. officials did not return calls requesting an interview. However, in an e-mailed response, spokesman Ravi Jariwala said: “In your shopping cart during the checkout process, we show an estimated shipping cost, based on our lowest-price shipping method and assuming all items in your cart are going to a single address within the contiguous United States. If you select a different shipping method, a military APO/FPO address or an address outside the contiguous United States, your actual shipping cost may be higher. We continue to work with carriers to negotiate favorable shipping rates.”

Full Story Some retailers inflate costs to ship to APO addresses | Stars and Stripes.

Sanders: ‘As of this point’ I’m not voting for the bill

In what may be a huge setback for the Democratic leadership, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said Wednesday on the Fox Business Network that “as of this point” he cannot vote for the Senate health care bill after the concessions recently made to Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT).

“He wants to strengthen the bill,” Michael Briggs, Sanders' Communications Director, wrote in an e-mail to Raw Story. “With the public option and Medicare buy-in off the table, he is focused on strengthening provisions on community health centers.”

“He wants to dramatically increase support,” Briggs added, “for the primary care facilities that provide doctors, dentists, mental health counseling and low-cost prescription drugs on a sliding-scale basis — and he is working to improve a provision that would let states experiment with single payer or other innovative programs to deliver comprehensive, affordable health care more efficiently and economically.”

But the Senator made no promises about how he'll ultimately vote, saying “we'll see” what happens.

Full Story Sanders: ‘As of this point’ I’m not voting for bill | Raw Story.

Dean: I won’t “vigorously” support Obama’s re-election

Escalating his opposition to what remains of the health care legislation, former Gov. Howard Dean has taken more swipes at President Obama, after a contentious back-and-forth that led to Press Secretary Robert Gibbs publicly sniping at him on Wednesday.

Dean, who outspokenly championed the public option and also supported the Medicare buy-in, said Thursday on MSNBC’s Morning Joe that he won’t “vigorously” support Obama’s re-election in 2012.

“I’m going to support President Obama when he runs for re-election,” Dean, also a former DNC Chair, said. “Not vigorously. I’m going to vote for him.”

Full Story Dean: I won’t “vigorously” support Obama’s re-election | Raw Story.

Holiday hit: The five lies of Congress

Some folks think I’m tough on the president. They think the president has done a bang up job and the war’s escalation and health care’s sellout should have been expected. ’Cause it’s really about what Congress is doing and not about the actions of one man, even if that man is the most powerful human being in the world.

The only person who should be surprised by the implosion of the so-called left is Hillary Clinton. Heck, she campaigned promising more and bigger wars as well as virtually guaranteeing the sellout of health care reform. She’s got to be wondering why someone else delivered on those promises and she isn’t president!

Still, I can agree with those who blame Congress for this mess, so I wrote this ditty for them to sing. It’s the same tune as “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” It goes like this:

Full Story Holiday hit: The five lies of Congress – Bangor Daily News.

Six reasons why Earth won’t cope for long

AS WORLD leaders arrive in Copenhagen for the crunch phase of the climate conference, the focus turns to what kind of deal is likely to emerge. Pre-eminent climate scientist Prof James Hansen of the Nasa Goddard Institute has already given the entire process the kiss of death. Any political deal cobbled together is, he believes, likely to be so profoundly flawed as to lock humanity on to “a disaster track”, writes JOHN GIBBONS

Hansen voiced publicly what environmental scientists and campaigners have murmured all year. A political fudge that ducks science is the likeliest outcome at Copenhagen. Earlier this week, for instance, EU fisheries ministers agreed a deal that pleased our Government and our fishermen. However, it does little to arrest the progressive annihilation of a common resource that, like our atmosphere, is owned by no one – and so exploited by all.

The world faces a dangerous convergence of environmental and resource crises, not all directly climate related. All, however, are increasingly difficult to resolve in a rapidly warming world. Taken together, they are not amenable to a business-as-usual political response. Here, in no particular order, are six:

Full Story Six reasons why Earth won’t cope for long – The Irish Times – Thu, Dec 17, 2009.

Manufacturing Council’s Advice to the Secretary of Commerce

The key to bringing down the trade deficit and putting American manufacturers in a position to compete and create jobs is reducing America’s dependence on petroleum imports and counteracting China’s illegal trading practices.

The key to bringing down the trade deficit and putting American manufacturers in a position to compete and create jobs is reducing America’s dependence on petroleum imports and counteracting China’s illegal trading practices, according to a letter to the Commerce Department by the Manufacturing Council, an advisory board that reports to the Secretary of Commerce.

According to the Manufacturing Council, trade with China and petroleum imports accounted for over three-fourth of America’s 2008 trade deficit of $816 billion. Moreover, China was responsible for 60 percent of the U.S.’s trade imbalance in manufacturing in 2008.

Simply enforcing existing trade rules could go a long way toward bringing the trade deficit with China closer to balance, according to the letter.

“Correcting this imbalance will require acting to eliminate Chinese currency manipulation; eliminate subsidies to Chinese manufacturing firms; and eliminate barriers to U.S. exports into China, including business cost disadvantages faced by U.S. manufacturers,” the letter reads.

Full Story Manufacturing Council’s Advice to the Secretary of Commerce | Economy In Crisis.

Markets Drop on Fed’s Decision, Initial jobless Claims Rise

According to CNNMoney.com, the morning drop can be attributed to investor reaction to the Federal Reserve’s decision to keep interest rates near zero into the foreseeable future.

Markets were mixed during trading yesterday, and the expectation was to see them slip even further in the morning today.

At the close Wednesday the Dow had lost 0.10 percent (10.88 points) while the other indexes had each gained slightly. The NASDAQ led the way with a 0.27 percent (5.86 points) gain, and the S&P followed with a 0.11 percent (1.25 points) increase.

According to CNNMoney.com, the morning drop can be attributed to investor reaction to the Federal Reserve’s decision to keep interest rates near zero into the foreseeable future. The Fed feeling compelled to keep rates low is seen by many as a sign of weakness, perhaps an indication that our economy is not doing as well as it should.

Reuters also reports that a recent uptick by the dollar relative to other currencies could be weighing down Wall Street investments.

Full Story Markets Drop on Fed’s Decision, Initial jobless Claims Rise | Economy In Crisis.

Why We’re Fascinated by the Paranormal, Masonic Myths and Secret Societies

By making paranoia part of pop culture, writers like Dan Brown have made a fortune. Then again, maybe he belongs to a secret cabal.

The paranormal pops up everywhere these days. In the last week, two different people have warned me against Ouija boards. In a video posted on YouTube, Richard Heene—who pretended a few weeks ago that his son was trapped in a runaway weather balloon—ponders the question of whether Hillary Clinton is one of those bloodthirsty, shape-shifting, humanoid alien “reptilians” that conspiracy theorists believe are planning a global takeover. At least three different ghost-hunting reality shows are currently airing on cable, all of them featuring muscular dudes storming down hallways in deserted schools and jails clasping electronic recording devices and howling, “Did you hear that?!”

This is hardly the first time in history that people have suddenly started spouting prophecies and speaking with the dead. These fads come in waves, usually fostered in the wake of unbearable tragedy. What else to do about earthquakes, floods, epidemics, dictators and wars than wonder which demon or deity devised this living hell and why, and what sacrifice or sorcery might make it stop? It is always fear and despair that sets us on this train of thought. During a gold rush or when we’ve just been given a clean bill of health, we need not believe in magic.

Full Story Why We’re Fascinated by the Paranormal, Masonic Myths and Secret Societies | Media and Technology | AlterNet.

The Road to Re-Election Runs Through Kabul?

The real goals of the Afghanistan escalation are domestic and electoral. Like Lyndon Johnson, who escalated in Vietnam, Obama lives in mortal fear of being called a wimp by Republicans.

To cover his flank and look tough in the next US election, Obama is expanding the war in Afghanistan. To look strong in front of swing voters, he will sacrifice the lives of hundreds of US soldiers, allow many more to be horribly maimed, waste a minimum of $30 billion in public money and in the process kill many thousands of Afghan civilians.

It is political theater, nothing else. What are the other possible explanations for Obama’s escalation? And why has he pledged to start drawing down the new deployment after only a year of fighting?

Is it to get the job done? To rebuild Afghanistan? To kill Osama bin Laden and crush Al Qaeda? No, all those goals are nearly impossible. And Al Qaeda is too small and internationally defused to destroy.

Full Story The Road to Re-Election Runs Through Kabul?.

Al Gore: A Billion People’s Water at Risk From Melting Ice

At UN climate talks Monday, he warned that record melting of Polar and Himalayan ice could deprive deprive more than a billion people of access to clean water.

Climate guru Al Gore warned UN climate talks Monday that record melting of Polar and Himalayan ice could deprive deprive more than a billion people’s access to clean water.

Adding to an avalanche of bad scientific news over the last two years, the former US vice president cited new research showing that the Arctic ice cap may have shrunk to record-low levels last year.

“2008 had a smaller minimum, probably, than 2007,” Gore said at the release of a report he co-sponsored with the Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store, called Melting Snow and Ice: A call for Action.

Full Story Al Gore: A Billion People’s Water at Risk From Melting Ice | Water | AlterNet.

Right-Wingers’ Much-Hyped “Die-In” Health-Care Protest in Washington Never Materializes

A promised protest on Capitol Hill by right-wingers opposed to health-care reform doesn’t happen; Dick Armey’s speech at National Press Club canceled.

It was supposed to be day of great drama in our nation’s capital. Right-wing activists promised a captivating protest taken from a left-wing playbook, with Tea Party activists acting out the part of dying patients in the halls of Senate office buildings. And one of their stalwart leaders was to address a luncheon at the National Press Club — an event that would have heralded the arrival of the Tea Party movement into the mainstream. Neither event came off.

The Tea Party Patriots’ Senate event promised to be strangely reminiscent of Code Pink’s guerrilla-theater “die-ins.” The Tea Partiers even named their event “Code Red.” Alas, with limited enthusiasm for such artistic tactics among the anti-Obama crowd, the plug was pulled on the die-in, and the activists simply lobbied their senators.

Dick Armey, chairman of the lobbying group FreedomWorks, which has been instrumental in the ginning up of right-wing protests against health-care reform, planned to announce the formation of a new political action committee at a luncheon meeting at the National Press Club. But Armey’s speech to reporters was canceled for apparent lack of interest, allowing him time to get to address a Capitol Hill rally staged by Americans for Prosperity that looked small compared to last month’s protest on the eve of the House health-care vote.

Full Story Right-Wingers’ Much-Hyped “Die-In” Health-Care Protest in Washington Never Materializes | Politics | AlterNet.

In the Shadow of Goldman Sachs, Wall Street Is Far from Recovery

Profits and bonuses are back on the Street, but the prosperity hasn’t filtered down past the service economy.

On the October day after the Dow hit 10,000 for the first time in a year, wealthy socialites assembled on a chilly evening in New York for the Al Smith dinner at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Named for an uneducated fishmonger who played his working-class bona fides all the way to the 1928 Democratic nomination for president, the event has become a mainstay of the rich and influential. Speaking at the dinner in 2000, then-candidate George W. Bush famously quipped, “This is an impressive crowd: the haves and the have-mores. Some people call you the elite. I call you my base.”

On 51st Street, around the corner from the glow of the Waldorf, Abdul Rashidi tore down his fruit stand. He wore a ski mask against the cold, and he was agitated as he loaded his fruit into boxes.

“I work eighteen hours a day,” Rashidi said. “Yesterday I make $70.”

“They don’t buy fruit from me,” he said, gesturing at the hotel. “I think they have fruit inside.”

Full Story In the Shadow of Goldman Sachs, Wall Street Is Far from Recovery | Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace | AlterNet.

Guess What? Casual Sex Won’t Make You Go Insane

Many cling to the notion that casual sex must be damaging. Recent research — and a little historical perspective and common sense — shows otherwise.

Casual sex: even the phrase sounds a little suspect. And its connections to STDs, unplanned pregnancy, depression, and even alcoholism? Well, those are just a given, discussed endlessly by pundits, and in books with titles like, Hooking Up: Sex, Dating and Relationships on Campus, Hooked: New Science on How Casual Sex is Affecting Our Children, and even, Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love and Lose at Both. Add to this the unrelentingly dire warnings about “premarital” sex given by abstinence programs and many religious groups, and it can be hard to make a case for any kind of non-monogamous-non-matrimonial-non-procreative intimacy. But what if the links between casual sex (an ill-defined term, which seems to refer to anything from a one-night stand to sex between committed domestic partners) and the troubles of the world aren’t as straightforward as people would have you believe?

Some recent research makes this seem pretty likely. Last week, for example, researchers from the University of Minnesota announced the findings of a study looking at the effect of casual sex on young adults. After studying 1,311 sexually active 18- to 24-year-olds, researchers were somewhat surprised to discover that, “young adults engaging in casual sexual encounters do not appear to be at increased risk for harmful psychological outcomes as compared to sexually active young adults in more committed relationships.” And back in 2007, another study at the same institution found that despite what many people believe, non-marital sex doesn’t negatively affect a teen’s mental health or make a young person more prone to depression.

Full Story Guess What? Casual Sex Won’t Make You Go Insane | Sex and Relationships | AlterNet.

Does Aspartame Cause Tumors and Pose Cancer Risks? The Jury Is Still Out

Aspartame is consumed by over 200 million people in more than 6,000 products — but how many of us are aware of the health risks?

“Sweet taste is a quality of some chemical substances that the human race has always associated with pleasure,” wrote George E. Inglett in the 1984 book Aspartame: Physiology and Biology, about the controversial artificial sweetener marketed in powder form under popular brands like NutraSweet and Equal. Initially approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1974, aspartame is now “consumed by over 200 million people in more than 6,000 products,” according to the Calorie Control Council’s dedicated site Aspartame.org. “As a result, high value has been placed on materials exhibiting sweetness,” Inglett wrote.

Not just high value, but high risk, according to scientists who have watched the hyperconsumptive human race incorporate sugar, and its replacements, more inextricably into their diet than ever before. The jury is already in when it comes to the ravages of sugar, especially in sodas. The escalating use of sugar has engendered diabetes and obesity epidemics worldwide. But after years of intrigue touching on everything from its approval process to its possible carcinogenicity, the jury is out on the still-controversial aspartame. It could be responsible for increases in various cancers and even Gulf War Syndrome, or, it could not. And that uncertainty is fueling both aspartame’s increasing consumption, and possibly its mounting menace.

“Because of a 1970s-era study that suggested that it caused brain tumors in rats, and because it causes headaches or dizziness in a small number of people, a cloud of doubt has long hung over aspartame,” explained Dr. Michael F. Jacobson, executive director of Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington DC.

Full Story Does Aspartame Cause Tumors and Pose Cancer Risks? The Jury Is Still Out | Health and Wellness | AlterNet.

What Must Obama do about the Lie of the Century?

Len Hart –

Obama should get off his butt and insist upon war crimes trials of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Condo Rice. That Iraq had WMD was a bald faced lie to justify the seizure of Middle East oil fields! Ergo –every Iraqi death following is one count in a WAR CRIMES INDICTMENT on the scale of those charged to Adolph Hitler and high mucky mucks in the murderous Third Reich.

TITLE 18 >(a) Offense.— Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime, in any of the circumstances described in subsection (b), shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death.

– PART I > CHAPTER 118 > § 2441, War crimes

I say let the trials begin with George W. Bush who believed himself above the law and that the US Constitution was just a ‘goddamned piece of paper’!

The government official who wrote the first draft of the “dodgy dossier” that helped propel Britain into war in Iraq today admits, “We were wrong.”

Full Story The Existentialist Cowboy: What Must Obama do about the Lie of the Century?.

Curbing Big Banks: Draw the Damn Line

Robert L. Borosage:

Enjoy the health care debate? Wait until the Senate takes on the big banks. It already looks like déjà vu all over again. Democrats, bloodied from self-inflicted wounds in the health care debate, may well commit seppuku over financial reform.

The script is in place for a failed sequel. The administration, via Treasury, cobbled together a reform plan that was weaker than it should be. The banks signed up every ambulatory lobbyist in town to gut the central reforms. The House fended off Melissa Bean’s attempt to be the Joe Lieberman of financial reform, but ended up passing a bill even weaker than the administration’s proposal – with nary a Republican vote.

And so to the Senate. Senate Finance Committee Chair Chris Dodd put out a remarkably strong reform measure. The bank lobby made it clear that was a non-starter, so Dodd decided to begin a “bipartisan” process in the Finance Committee – think Max Baucus redux — searching for the elusive Republican moderate. Meanwhile Blue Dog and New Dem Democrats – Bayh, Warner, Bennet and others – are openly casting about for ways to weaken the proposed agency to protect consumers from bank gouging. And we have yet to hear from Joe Lieberman, still focused on torpedoing health care, who no doubt will weigh in with his inimitable combination of pious corruption and treacherous venom.

Full Story Robert L. Borosage: Curbing Big Banks: Draw the Damn Line.

Don’t Act Now, It’s Not Too Late Yet

David Swanson –

The U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to vote today, Wednesday, December 16th, on a war funding bill that will pay for the escalation of the war in Afghanistan. Nobody will tell you that. They’ll tell you it’s a “defense” bill, and that a small part of it — a mere $130 billion — is for wars (which therefore have something to do with “defense”). They’ll tell you the $130 billion was approved in June before the announcement of an escalation by the president. They’ll tell you that another bill will have to be passed in the spring to pay for the escalation. And they will be lying, or as we have to say in the post-Bush era: knowingly lying.

Not a single member of Congress has any doubt that the money they are giving final approval to today will be used to massively escalate a war opposed by the majority of Americans. Nor will most of them have any hesitation, come spring, in arguing that they cannot possibly vote No on funding for an escalation that has already, in good part, happened. Others will vote yes, now and in the spring, as long as something else is included in the same bill that they can claim they need to support. Others will insist on being given the opportunity to vote No, as long as they are assured that the No votes cannot possibly prevail. That’s the most common position of members of the progressive caucus, none of whom are whipping their colleagues to vote No today.

There is a whip list recording commitments, from Democrats and a surprising number of Republicans, to vote No on war money, now and in the future, at http://defundwar.org. But for the most part, activist groups are taking the same approach as congress members: keep quiet today, let the escalation be funded and take place, and then insist on defunding it after the fact in the spring. Our motto should be: Don’t act now, It’s not too late yet.

Full Story Don’t Act Now, It’s Not Too Late Yet | The Smirking Chimp.

A Trial That Will Convict Us All

Paul Craig Roberts –

Republican members of Congress and what masquerades as a “conservative” media are outraged that the Obama administration intends to try in federal court Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of 9/11, and four alleged co-conspirators.

The Republican and right-wing rant that a trial is too good for these people proves what I have written for a number of years: Republicans and many Americans who think of themselves as conservatives have no regard for the US Constitution or for civil liberties. They have no appreciation for the point made by Thomas Paine in his Dissertations on First Principles of Government (1790): “An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.”

Republicans and American conservatives regard civil liberties as coddling devices for criminals and terrorists. They assume that police and prosecutors are morally pure and, in addition, never make mistakes. An accused person is guilty or government wouldn’t have accused him. All of my life I have heard self-described conservatives disparage lawyers who defend criminals. Such “conservatives” live in an ideal, not real, world. They desperately need to read The Tyranny of Good Intentions.

Even some of those, such as Stuart Taylor in the National Journal, who defend giving Mohammed a court trial do so on the grounds that there are no risks as Mohammed is certain to be convicted and that “a civilian trial will show Americans and the rest of the world that our government is sure it can prove the 9/11 defendants guilty in the fairest of all courts.”

Full Story A Trial That Will Convict Us All | Foreign Policy Journal.

GE slashes workers’ health benefits

THIS YEAR, General Electric (GE) dropped a bombshell on its non-union employees–their responsibility for health care expenses is going to go up dramatically starting January 1, 2010.

Currently, salaried GE employees and their covered family members, including same-sex partners, have a traditional co-pay/deductible/co-insurance health care plan. However, next year the co-pays go away, and the plans pay nothing until the deductible is reached. After that, it’s 20 percent until the out-of-pocket maximum is satisfied. That maximum also is being raised for most workers.

Some of the worst affected by this change are those expecting to have a child next year. A pregnancy under the current plan is either 20 percent (up to the maximum) or a $15 co-pay for every office visit with the “preferred” option. In 2010, a pregnancy will cost at least $4,225, and up to $7325, for an employee making $50,000 to $74,999.

Combine that with annual payroll contributions, and an employee paying for a pregnancy can expect to spend 10-15 percent of their salary for health care.

Full Story GE slashes workers’ health benefits | SocialistWorker.org.

Not Health, Not Care, Not Reform

Keith Olbermann Special Comment

- 12/16/09

Part 2

Johann Hari: It’s the protesters who offer the best hope for our planet

Johann Hari,

They’ve ensured the corporate lobbyists punching holes in the deal are shamed

At first glance, the Copenhagen climate summit seems like a Salvador Dali dreamscape. I just saw Archbishop Desmond Tutu being followed by a swarm of Japanese students who were dressed as aliens and carrying signs saying “Take Me To Your Leader” and “Is Your Species Crazy?”. Before that, a group of angry black-clad teenage protesters who were carrying spray cans started quoting statistics to me about how much carbon dioxide the atmosphere can safely absorb. (It’s 350 parts per million they pointed out, before sucking their teeth.) Before that, I saw a couple in a pantomime cow costume being attacked by the police, who accused them of throwing stones with their hooves.

But the surrealism runs deeper and darker than this. Inside the Bella Centre, the rich world’s leaders are defiantly ignoring their scientists and refusing to sign a deal that will prevent our climate from being dramatically destabilised. The scientific consensus shows the rich world needs to cut 40 per cent of our emissions of warming gases from 1990 levels by 2020 if we’re going to have even a 50-50 chance of staying this side of the Point of No Return, when the Earth’s natural processes start to break down and warming becomes unstoppable. Yet the scientists at Climate Analytics calculate our governments are offering a dismal 8-12 per cent cut – and once you factor in all the loopholes and accounting tricks, it becomes a net increase of four per cent.

Full Story Johann Hari: It’s the protesters who offer the best hope for our planet – Johann Hari, Commentators – The Independent.

Angry Liberals: Why Didn’t Obama Fight?

More than anything else in Barack Obama’s presidency so far, health reform has exposed a get-a-deal-at-any-cost side of Obama that infuriates his party’s progressives.

And as Democrats tried to salvage health reform Tuesday, some liberals could barely hide their sense of betrayal that the White House and congressional Democrats have been willing to cut deals and water down what they consider the ideal vision of reform.

“The Senate version is not worth passing,” former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean told POLITICO, referring to plans to strip the latest compromise from the bill, a Medicare buy-in. “I think in this particular iteration, this is the end of the road for reform.”

Dean said there are some good elements in the bill, but lawmakers should pull the plug and revisit the issue in Obama’s second term, unless Democrats are willing to shortcut a GOP filibuster. “No one will think this is health care reform. This is not even insurance reform,” he said.

Full Story Angry Liberals: Why Didn’t Obama Fight? | CommonDreams.org.

OPS: Answer:  because Obama made his Faustian deal with the Corporations months ago.  Everything that has happend since has been staged, Kabuki for the peons. The terrible bill, as it now stands, is the bill he wants and the deal he made.

Stopping Leftover Bush Privatization: Congress to Suspend DoD’s Privatization Studies

The pending defense spending bill for the federal 2010 fiscal year includes a provision that would suspend all pending studies and conversions to privatize the workforce in the Department of Defense (DoD).

The appropriations bill, pending in both the House and Senate, would suspend the privatization activities under the policy known as OMB Circular A-76, according to a statement by a large labor union representing federal employees. The intent of the Bush administration policy was to replace federal employees with private-sector contractors.

Although all agencies were forbidden earlier this year from starting new privatization studies, DoD has insisted on carrying out more than a dozen old privatization studies that were started during the Bush administration in order to achieve now outlawed political privatization quotas, according to the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE).

On The Hill: Stopping Leftover Bush Privatization: Congress to Suspend DoD’s Privatization Studies.

Congress Ethics Rules Undermined by Weasels

Jim Hightower –

Scientifically speaking, the weasel is in the mustelidae family, but it is not the only burrowing rodent of its genus. There’s also the mustela congressa lobbyista, which is that mischievous grouping of Washington lobbyists who habitually team up with certain congress-critters to burrow loopholes in our country’s ethics laws.

You might recall the big ethics reform push of 2007. In January of that year, in response to public outrage over breathtakingly flagrant scandals involving Uber-lobbyist Jack Abramoff and several Republican members of Congress, the new Democratic majority in the U.S. House pushed through a widely ballyhooed set of reforms. Incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised that the changes would deliver “the most honest, ethical and open Congress in history.

How’d that work out?

Well, the new rules certainly have been an improvement over the anything-goes, corporate lobbyfest of the George W. Bush years. But even as the reforms were being written, mustela congressa lobbyista was busily burrowing its way into the new majority, inserting weaselly language that lets lobbyists continue slipping corporate money to lawmakers. Both ingenious and insidious, the loopholes allow business-as-usual collusion between influence-peddlers and those members of Congress who seem to be incurably allergic to ethics.

Full Story t r u t h o u t | Jim Hightower | Congress Ethics Rules Undermined by Weasels.

Meet the FBI Operative Who Threatened My Life, and the Gov.-Elect Who May Have Helped Him

Max Blumenthal –

On December 7, neo-Nazi hate radio impresario Hal Turner walked out of a Brooklyn courtroom a free man. Charged by federal prosecutors with incitement for urging his listeners to kill three judges who issued rulings supporting gun control, Turner escaped conviction when the jury deadlocked, forcing the judge to declare a mistrial. However, Turner will return to trial soon in Brooklyn and in Connecticut, where he faces state charges for telling his followers to “take up arms” against state lawmakers who voted to give Catholic lay members more control over church finances.

The trials of Turner might not have invited any media interest had he been another lone wolf howling into the night about the swarthy evildoers supposedly destroying America. After all, white supremacists across the country are persistently prosecuted for activities ranging from criminal littering to murder. But Turner has been an insider both in the New Jersey GOP and in a controversial federal anti-terror program designed to “flush out” violent far-right plots, making him a treasure trove of information on the many prominent Republicans he has associated with over the years. These characters include Turner’s former friend Sean Hannity, who allegedly counseled him on overcoming his cocaine habit and homosexual urges, and New Jersey Governor-elect Chris Christie, whose alleged involvement with Turner may result in the first scandal of his term.

A former moving company manager and real estate agent from North Bergen, NJ, Turner broke into radio when he purchased a time slot on an eclectic short wave station in 2003. He quickly cultivated a small but loyal following of white supremacists, making his show a key hub for an amorphous and violent movement guided by the philosophy of “leaderless resistance.” His formula was simple: discarding the racial code language familiar to mainstream conservative radio jocks in favor of hysterical diatribes against “bull dyke lesbians,” “hook-nosed Jews,” “savage Negroes,” and “filthy mongrels.” Turner’s official website described him as “so far to the right he makes Rush Limbaugh look like a liberal and Sean Hannity seem like a girlie-man!”

Full Story Meet the FBI Operative Who Threatened My Life, and the Gov.-Elect Who May Have Helped Him | The Smirking Chimp.

US House approves massive military spending bill

Money for War – No problem. Money to ave your child’s life – no way

The US House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a massive military spending bill to defray annual expenses, fund operations in Afghanistan, and pay for the troop withdrawal from Iraq.

Lawmakers voted 395 to 34 for the 636.3-billion-dollar package, which does not include monies for President Barack Obama’s recently announced decision to send 30,000 more US troops to Afghanistan in a bid to turn that conflict around.

The Senate was expected to act on the measure soon.

The bill includes 101.1 billion dollars for operations and maintenance and military personnel requirements in Iraq and Afghanistan and to carry out the planned withdrawal of all US combat forces from Iraq by August 2010.

The package also funds the purchase of 6,600 new Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) armored vehicles configured to better resist improvised explosive devices — roadside bombs used to deadly effect by insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Full Story US House approves massive military spending bill – Yahoo! Canada News.

OPS: All the money if the world for War and for Corporations and to kill people you will never meet – but not a penny to save your life or prevent you from going bankrupt.  It’s a sick world

Unemployment Benefits Extension Passed By House, Senate May Follow On Friday

The House of Representatives passed a temporary extension of unemployment benefits and subsidized health insurance for laid-off workers on Wednesday as part of a $636 defense spending bill. The Senate will likely pass its defense bill with the same extensions on Friday, according to a Senate Democratic aide.

Last week, state labor commissioners traveled to Washington to implore Congress to extend unemployment benefits and the 65-percent subsidy of COBRA health insurance. Congress passed an extension in November after a wrenching delay by Senate Republicans, but that extension was built on provisions of the stimulus bill set to expire at the end of the year.

The commissioners warned that if Congress doesn’t act by the end of this week, some state unemployment offices will need to start sending notices to unemployment recipients letting them know that they will be ineligible for extensions in January.

“The actual deadline for many states is Dec. 19, so not only will you create confusion in the system but there’s the possibility of some individuals losing benefits right around the holiday season,” said Sandra Vito of the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry. “So the urgency by which Congress must act can’t be overstated.”

Full Story Unemployment Benefits Extension Passed By House, Senate May Follow On Friday.

Bank Lobbyists Launch ‘Call To Action’ To Crush Financial Reform (MEMO)

The American Bankers Association issued a “Call to Action” on Wednesday, urging its lobbyists and member banks to make an all-out effort to crush regulatory reform in Senate. As part of that campaign, it lashed out at its community-bank rival, charging it with being too soft on bank reform efforts.

In an unusually frank memo from ABA Chairman Art Johnson, the lobby group congratulates bankers for sending some 300,000 letters to Congress opposing reform, crediting the effort with killing several significant provisions.

And it takes aim at the Independent Community Bankers Association, which endorsed the final bank-reform bill to make its way through the House last Friday.

“To be successful in the Senate, we must have a united message. And that is why I am truly saddened by what I am about to report to you. I do this not to cast blame, but in the hope we can fix this and be united as we go to the Senate,” said Johnson.

Full Story Bank Lobbyists Launch ‘Call To Action’ To Crush Financial Reform (MEMO).

Detroit’s Unemployment Rate Is Nearly 50%, According to the Detroit News

Officially, Detroit’s unemployment rate is just under 30 percent. But the city’s mayor and local leaders are suggesting a far more disturbing figure — the actual jobless rate, they say, is closer to 50 percent.

As many have noted, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which culls federal unemployment data, does not account for all of the jobless in its widely-quoted national unemployment figures. Among those omitted: part-time workers who are looking for full-time jobs and frustrated job seekers who abandon their job search altogether.

(For some context, the official national unemployment rate is 10 percent, but the “underemployment rate” is 17.2 percent.)

Detroit city officials argue that, when workers who are underemployed are added to the calculation, the number of city residents who are out of work is close to one in every two.

The Detroit News reports:

“The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that for the year that ended in September, Michigan’s official unemployment rate was 12.6 percent. Using the broadest definition of unemployment, the state unemployment rate was 20.9 percent, or 66 percent higher than the official rate. Since Detroit’s official rate for October was 27 percent, that broader rate pushes the city’s rate to as high as 44.8 percent.”

Full Story Detroit’s Unemployment Rate Is Nearly 50%, According to the Detroit News.

Fannie, Freddie, Forgotten In Reform Bills, May Ask Government For MORE Money

Those who assumed that the recent round of TARP repayments by Citigroup and Wells Fargo signaled an end to the bailout era may want to think again.

Forgotten in all of the recent outrage over soaring bank profits and Wall Street bonuses are two bloated, bailed-out institutions that are are increasingly exposing taxpayers to hundreds of billions in losses. Bloomberg reports that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that guarantee or own nearly half of all U.S. mortgage debt, are likely going back to the government for more money.

Fannie and Freddie are seeking an increase in their $400 billion government lifeline and claim that they can no longer afford to pay dividends to the government, Bloomberg notes. Cumulatively, the two companies have lost $188 billion in the last nine quarters, and have used approximately $112 billion in capital from the government this year. As they continue to hemorrhage money, the firms are balking at the annual dividend they are required to pay to the government, which amounted to about $5 billion each this year.

Fannie and Freddie’s call for more money comes at time when much of the public discourse from policymakers has focused on bailed-out banks and financial reform. But the two companies, referred to as government-sponsored entities (GSEs), seem to be preparing themselves for the possibility of future losses. Here’s the Wall Street Journal:

Full Story Fannie, Freddie, Forgotten In Reform Bills, May Ask Government For MORE Money.

White House as helpless victim on healthcare

Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com  –

Of all the posts I wrote this year, the one that produced the most vociferious email backlash — easily — was this one from August, which examined substantial evidence showing that, contrary to Obama’s occasional public statements in support of a public option, the White House clearly intended from the start that the final health care reform bill would contain no such provision and was actively and privately participating in efforts to shape a final bill without it. From the start, assuaging the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries was a central preoccupation of the White House — hence the deal negotiated in strict secrecy with Pharma to ban bulk price negotiations and drug reimportation, a blatant violation of both Obama’s campaign positions on those issues and his promise to conduct all negotiations out in the open (on C-SPAN). Indeed, Democrats led the way yesterday in killing drug re-importation, which they endlessly claimed to support back when they couldn’t pass it. The administration wants not only to prevent industry money from funding an anti-health-care-reform campaign, but also wants to ensure that the Democratic Party — rather than the GOP — will continue to be the prime recipient of industry largesse.

As was painfully predictable all along, the final bill will not have any form of public option, nor will it include the wildly popular expansion of Medicare coverage. Obama supporters are eager to depict the White House as nothing more than a helpless victim in all of this — the President so deeply wanted a more progressive bill but was sadly thwarted in his noble efforts by those inhumane, corrupt Congressional “centrists.” Right. The evidence was overwhelming from the start that the White House was not only indifferent, but opposed, to the provisions most important to progressives. The administration is getting the bill which they, more or less, wanted from the start — the one that is a huge boon to the health insurance and pharmaceutical industry. And kudos to Russ Feingold for saying so:

Full Story Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.

Why America Needs to Focus on Policy Reform

As the North American Free Trade Agreement creeps closer to its 16th year in existence, a growing number of Americans are wondering where the results are. We’ve seen lots of results from NAFTA, but no one can unilaterally point to something that was beneficial to all three nations.

Mexico has gained some jobs in manufacturing, but lost huge parts of its agricultural industry to agribusinesses in the United States and Canada. The U.S. has gained better access to markets for its products, but it has also sent much of its production across the northern and southern borders. Canada is now more integrated in the American economy, but it faces the same difficulties from low wage Mexican labor as the United States.

The Center for International Policy, in an article published on December 3, detailed the need for wide-ranging reform of NAFTA. The president has largely backed off his campaign rhetoric regarding “renegotiating” the terms of NAFTA. In fact, it will likely be a non-issue throughout the remainder of his presidency. Certain members of Congress recently introduced the TRADE Act of 2009, but it is not law and it may never become so.

The TRADE Act of 2009 is perhaps this nation’s best bet to enact real reform, because it highlights the areas in most dire need of attention.

Full Story Why America Needs to Focus on Policy Reform | Economy In Crisis.

Widespread oil theft by drug traffickers deals major blow to Mexico’s government

Bold theft of $1 billion in oil, resold in U.S., has dealt a major blow to the treasury

Drug traffickers employing high-tech drills, miles of rubber hose and a fleet of stolen tanker trucks have siphoned more than $1 billion worth of oil from Mexico’s pipelines over the past two years, in a vast and audacious conspiracy that is bleeding the national treasury, according to U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials and the state-run oil company.

Using sophisticated smuggling networks, the traffickers have transported a portion of the pilfered petroleum across the border to sell to U.S. companies, some of which knew that it was stolen, according to court documents and interviews with American officials involved in an expanding investigation of oil services firms in Texas.

The widespread theft of Mexico’s most vital national resource by criminal organizations represents a costly new front in President Felipe Calderón’s war against the drug cartels, and it shows how the traffickers are rapidly evolving from traditional narcotics smuggling to activities as diverse as oil theft, transport and sales.

Oil theft has been a persistent problem for the state-run Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, but the robbery increased sharply after Calderón launched his war against the cartels shortly after taking office in December 2006. The drug war has claimed more than 16,000 lives and has led the cartels, which rely on drug trafficking for most of their revenue, to branch out into other illegal activities.

Full Story Widespread oil theft by drug traffickers deals major blow to Mexico’s government.

Faith of Our (Founding) Fathers

In his excellent book, Founding Faith: Providence, Politics, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America, Steven Waldman clears away myths and misconceptions to reveal the true and dramatic story of how Americans came to worship freely. Neither conservatives nor liberals have the story straight, Waldman argues: America was not founded neither as a strictly “Christian nation,” but nor were the Founding Fathers strict secularists or Deists bent on cleaving church and state by way of the First Amendment. Rather, the architects of the nation hit upon a novel formula that promoted faith by, precisely, leaving it alone.

Among the many gifts of the book are Waldman’s descriptions of the religious development of five Founders — Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Benjamin Franklin: the origins of their views, how they developed, and how they shaped each man’s particular contribution to the founding of the nation. Herewith, a quick guide to the faith of our (Founding) Fathers.

Full Story PBC Blog » Faith of Our (Founding) Fathers.

The Washington Post Is Panicked, Again!!!!!!

Dean Baker

The Washington Post is widely known for giving shrill warnings about the deficit danger, but this one is really over the top. It is literally titled: “the coming debt panic.” The piece tells readers of the urgency of reining in the debt, telling readers that: “failing to do so will lower the national standard of living.”

Sorry folks, this is not true. To push its deficit reduction position, the Post is doing what folks in Washington call “dissembling.” They have another word for it everywhere else. Standard economic models do show that deficits can slow economic growth by crowding out investment, they do not show that this impact will be large enough to actually lead to declining standards of living, or at least not any time soon.

The editorial also has the gall to emphasize the problem by telling readers: “consider: In the space of a single fiscal year, 2009, the debt soared from 41 percent of the gross domestic product to 53 percent.” This should have readers have everywhere setting their newspapers and computers on fire.

Full Story Beat the Press Archive | The American Prospect.

Illinois town welcomes plan to house Gitmo detainees

The White House decision to move up to 100 Guantanamo Bay detainees to this dying Mississippi River town has folks here seeing dollar signs, not suspected terrorists.

Many people in this rural community are hopeful that their willingness to house the prisoners in a nearly empty penitentiary will offer an economic boost — helping to ease steep job losses and dwindling tax revenue needed to fix roads and pay for schools.

“This is probably the economic-development opportunity of a lifetime for northwest Illinois, and we intend to take full advantage of it,” said Russ Simpson, who leads an economic-development group for a three-county area that includes tiny Thomson, about 150 miles west of Chicago.

Until now, the expansive Thomson Correctional Center has been a big disappointment in the town of about 450, where there are no stoplights and the two-block business district is lined with old-fashioned buildings that look like they belong on the set of a Western movie.

Full Story Illinois town welcomes plan to house Gitmo detainees – Peoria, IL – pjstar.com.

Blue Shield of California gets tough over late payments (Miss A Payment-Imediately Lose Coverage)

The health insurer will end an additional 15-day grace period but keep its 28-day reprieve. Those who miss a payment risk an immediate loss of coverage.

Amid a national debate on how to make the healthcare system friendlier and more accessible, and as millions of people grapple with the loss of jobs and homes, what does insurance heavyweight Blue Shield of California do?

It decides to take a key benefit away.

The company has notified individual policyholders that their coverage could be immediately dropped if they miss a single payment — or so it seems.

Blue Shield says in a letter to customers that they can reapply for insurance, but with potentially higher premiums and stricter conditions.

Full Story Blue Shield of California gets tough over late payments — latimes.com.

US Silent About Taliban Guarantee Offer on al Qaeda

WASHINGTON – The Barack Obama administration is refusing to acknowledge an offer by the leadership of the Taliban in early December to give “legal guarantees” that it will not allow Afghanistan to be used for attacks on other countries.

The administration’s silence on the offer, despite a public statement by Secretary of State Hilary Clinton expressing skepticism about any Taliban offer to separate itself from al Qaeda, effectively leaves the door open to negotiating a deal with the Taliban based on such a proposal.

The Taliban, however, has chosen to interpret the Obama administration’s position as one of rejection of its offer.

Full Story US Silent About Taliban Guarantee Offer on al Qaeda | CommonDreams.org.

Union pulls back on supporting bill

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) backed out of an event with other organizations promoting the Senate healthcare reform bill Wednesday over concerns about changes made to the legislation to accommodate centrist Democrats.

The SEIU had planned to participate in a Capitol Hill press conference along with the AARP, the liberal advocacy group Families USA, Consumers Union and the American Cancer Society Action Network. As recently as Tuesday morning, the organizations distributed an advisory to the news media that included the SEIU.

But the move by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to excise provisions of the healthcare reform bill to create a government-run public option health insurance program and to allow people between 55 and 64 years old to buy into Medicare gave the labor union pause, spokeswoman Lori Lodes said.

Full Story Union pulls back on supporting bill – TheHill.com.

Abu Dhabi takes action against Citigroup over $7.5bn investment

Emirate’s wealth fund is bound to pay for Citigroup shares at 10 times current price

The oil-rich emirate of Abu Dhabi is trying to disentangle itself from a disastrous deal two years ago to shore up the finances of Citigroup into whose stock it pledged to pump $7.5bn (£4.6bn) at a pre-arranged level 10 times higher than the Wall Street institution’s present share price.

In a claim filed with arbitrators in New York, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) has alleged “fraudulent misrepresentation” in connection with the commitment, which was negotiated before Citigroup was crippled by vast liabilities on mortgage-related securities and derivatives sullied by the global credit crunch.

If the investment from Abu Dhabi is thrown into doubt, the bust-up could affect Citigroup’s plans for a $20.5bn fundraising needed to pay back $20bn of bailout money from the US treasury.

Full Story Abu Dhabi takes action against Citigroup over $7.5bn investment | Business | guardian.co.uk.

Howard Dean: Health Care Bill ‘Bigger Bailout for Insurance Industry Than AIG’ – ABC News

Top Democrat Urges Lawmakers to Kill the Bill and Start Over

“This is a bigger bailout for the insurance industry than AIG,” former Democratic National Committee chairman and medical doctor Howard Dean told “Good Morning America’s” George Stephanopoulos today. “A very small number of people are going to get any insurance at all, until 2014, if the bill works.

“This is an insurance company’s dream, this bill,” Dean continued. “This is the Washington scramble, and I think it’s ill-advised.”

Dean sent shockwaves when he said Tuesday in an interview with Vermont Public Radio that the removal of the Medicare buy-in means Democrats should just kill the health care bill and start over.

“This is essentially the collapse of health care reform in the United States Senate,” Dean said. “Honestly, the best thing to do right now is kill the Senate bill, go back to the House, start the reconciliation process, where you only need 51 votes and it would be a much simpler bill.”

Full Story Howard Dean: Health Care Bill ‘Bigger Bailout for Insurance Industry Than AIG’ – ABC News.

Obama, Palin, Copenhagen: The End Of Drinkable Water?

With America’s national debate on global warming going bipolar between President Obama’s grand entrance at Copenhagen and the surreality of Sarah from Alaska going rogue on world environmental science by championing the climate deniers, those committed to doing the planet’s serious business should stay focused on one, often overlooked but trackable key factor of climate change–the pivotal role of water. It is through water that global warming destabilizes civilized societies. At Copenhagen last week, Bill McKibben of 350.org warned of a looming, water-related doomsday tipping point that could render future climate change efforts moot–if warming temperatures thaw the permanently frozen Arctic soils to release its methane greenhouse gasses.

Water’s central role was colorfully highlighted in the run up to Copenhagen by cabinet members from the sea level Maldives islands and mountainous Nepal who separately held meetings underwater and at the base of Mount Everest’s shrinking glaciers. They are desperate because they are on the front lines of the global warming battle. Along with the billions of other water-distressed people around the planet, climate change is exacerbating today’s mounting crisis of freshwater scarcity by radically altering hydrologic patterns to produce overwhelming flooding, droughts, storms, rising coastal sea levels, as well as the unprecedented melting of Arctic icecaps and mountain glaciers visible in Sarah’s own backyard. While the impacts are complex, they fall unevenly and are further dividing human society–with water rich regions generally getting wetter and arid ones drier.

Full Story Steven Solomon: Obama, Palin, Copenhagen: The End Of Drinkable Water?.

Iran Test-Fires Its Most Advanced Missile

Iran on Wednesday test-fired an upgraded version of its most advanced missile, which is capable of hitting Israel and parts of Europe, in a new show of strength aimed at preventing any military strike against it amid the nuclear standoff with the West.

The test stoked tensions between Iran and the West, which is pressing Tehran to rein in its nuclear program. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said it showed the need for tougher U.N. sanctions on Iran.

“This is a matter of serious concern to the international community and it does make the case for us moving further on sanctions. We will treat this with the seriousness it deserves,” Brown said after talks with U.N. chief Ban Ki-Moon in Copenhagen.

Full Story Iran Test-Fires Its Most Advanced Missile.

Tom Coburn Demands 12-Hour Reading Of Single-Payer Amendment On Senate Floor

The GOP mantra, repeated at Tea Parties all summer, was that lawmakers and voters ought to “read the bill” in order to truly understand the many ills of health care reform.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), on Wednesday, did his part to help out those who can’t read legislation themselves, and asked the Senate clerk to read a single-payer amendment from Sen. Bernie Sanders out loud on the Senate floor. The reading of the 767-page amendment is expected to take about 12 hours.

Sanders, an independent from Vermont, first filed his amendment on December 2, so the GOP has indeed had two weeks to read it.

By jamming up Senate business, Coburn’s move prevents a vote on a funding bill for the Department of Defense. The current funding provision expires at midnight on Friday.

Full Story Tom Coburn Demands 12-Hour Reading Of Single-Payer Amendment On Senate Floor.

Democrats Lash Out At Obama Over Health Care Disappointments

Congressional Democrats are starting to voice their anger at President Obama over the way health care legislation has been compromised, blaming him for not fighting harder.

“The president keeps listening to Rahm Emanuel,” said Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.). “No public option, no extending Medicare to 55, no nothing, an excise tax, God!” he exclaimed about the Senate health care bill to Roll Call. “The insurance lobby is taking over.”

“The White House has been useless,” Rep. Dave Obey (D-Wis.), the chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee, told Politico. Referencing Senate delays, he said, “It's ridiculous, and the Obama administration is sitting on the sidelines. That's nonsense.”

While many House Democrats have expressed anger with the Senate for the watered-down bill, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) argued that it was really Obama who let centrists take control. “Snowe? Stupak? Lieberman? Who left these people in charge?” he said. “It's time for the president to get his hands dirty. Some of us have compromised our compromised compromise. We need the president to stand up for the values our party shares. We must stop letting the tail wag the dog of this debate.”

Full Story Democrats Lash Out At Obama Over Health Care Disappointments.

K9 Connection: At-Risk Teens And Shelter Dogs Get A New ‘Leash’ On Life

At-risk teens. Animals abandoned at shelters. Two marginalized groups in great need of love, security, and a chance at living a good life. With an alarmingly-high rate of teen suicide (the third leading cause of death among teens) and over three million unwanted dogs and cats euthanized each in year in shelters, it is easy to feel helpless towards these two populations who demonstrate an overwhelming need.

An innovative solution: put these two groups together and unleash the healing power of the human-animal bond. That's what Katherine Beattie and Pat Sinclair envisioned when they formed k9 connection, a non-profit organization that educates and inspires at-risk teens through bonding with and training homeless shelter dogs.

k9 connection, located in Santa Monica, California, is a remarkable organization whose mission is to teach at-risk teens how to train homeless shelter dogs in basic obedience skills in order to increase their chances of adoption. Through the training they provide to the dogs, the teens benefit by learning how to be more responsible and accountable, the importance of goal setting, and how positive reinforcement offers an alternative to force and violence.

Full Story Dr. Patricia Fitzgerald: K9 Connection: At-Risk Teens And Shelter Dogs Get A New ‘Leash’ On Life.

White Americans’ Majority To End By Mid-Century

The estimated time when whites will no longer make up the majority of Americans has been pushed back eight years – to 2050 – because the recession and stricter immigration policies have slowed the flow of foreigners into the U.S.

Census Bureau projections released Wednesday update last year’s prediction that white children would become a minority in 2023 and the overall white population would follow in 2042. The earlier estimate did not take into account a drop in the number of people moving into the U.S. because of the economic crisis and the immigration policies imposed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

The United States has 308 million people today; two-thirds are non-Hispanic whites.

The total population should climb to 399 million by 2050, under the new projections, with whites making up 49.9 percent of the population. Blacks will make up 12.2 percent, virtually unchanged from today. Hispanics, currently 15 percent of the population, will rise to 28 percent in 2050.

Asians are expected to increase from 4.4 percent of the population to 6 percent.

Full Story White Americans’ Majority To End By Mid-Century.

Archaeologists Claim They’ve Found Lost City Of Atlantis (VIDEO)

Undersea archaeologists have found the ruins of an ancient city on the bottom of the Caribbean Sea, and researchers claim that it is the fabled and lost city of Atlantis. The satellite photos do show something that could be a city, and the researchers believe that what they’ve found would predate the pyramids of Egypt. Indeed they claim to be able to make out a pyramid and other city-like structures from the satellite photos.

The archaeologists have so far refused to divulge their identities or the location in the Caribbean. They say they are raising money for an expedition to confirm their findings.

Full Story Archaeologists Claim They’ve Found Lost City Of Atlantis (VIDEO).

Bailout Banks Keep Tax Breaks As They Repay Loans

Citigroup and other banks starting to repay the billions of dollars they borrowed from the government are getting another boost as they exit the bailout program: Billions more in tax breaks.

Tax law allows money-losing corporations like Citigroup Inc. and General Motors Co. to use current net operating losses to offset future taxable income, reducing their tax bills for up to 20 years after the losses occur.

Under ordinary circumstances, those tax breaks would be severely limited if the companies underwent an ownership change, much like many of them did when the government acquired big blocks of their stock.

Losing the tax breaks would have substantially reduced the value of the companies, even as the government was trying to prop them up with bailout funds.

Full Story Bailout Banks Keep Tax Breaks As They Repay Loans.

Labor Holds Emergency Meetings To Discuss Senate Bill, May Formally Oppose

Two of the country’s largest labor groups, the SEIU and the AFL-CIO, are each holding emergency executive meetings today to discuss whether they should support the latest round of health care compromises made by Senate Democrats.

Though there’s no official word yet, early indications based on talks with various officials are that the groups will either formally oppose the legislation or, less dramatically, just not fight very hard to ensure its passage.

Labor leaders are fuming at the concessions that Democratic leadership made in the last few days to win the support of the caucus’s most conservative members, notably Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.). A bill that already included one highly objectionable provision (a tax on so-called Cadillac insurance plans) was stripped of a provision beloved by labor: a public alternative to private insurance coverage. Frustration boiled over even further after the leadership succumbed to Lieberman’s demand to jettison even the compromise to the public option — a proposal to expand Medicare to those as young as 55.

Full Story Labor Holds Emergency Meetings To Discuss Senate Bill, May Formally Oppose.

Alzheimer’s disease linked to hunger hormone: study

A person’s risk of contracting Alzheimer’s may be linked to levels of the appetite-suppressing hormone leptin, according to a US study published Wednesday which could point the way toward future treatment of the disease.

The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reported that scientists in the northeastern state of Massachusetts have found that high levels of the hormone leptin, which controls appetite, appears to be related to a reduced risk of developing Alzheimer’s.

“These findings are consistent with recent experimental data indicating the leptin improves memory function in animals… and strengthens the evidence that leptin is a hormone with a broad set of actions in the central nervous system,” wrote the authors of the study, researchers with the Framingham Heart Study, a 60-year-old research project under the direction of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI).

Produced by the body’s fat cells, leptin sends a signal to the brain after a meal that a person has had enough to eat, thereby reducing the urge to eat.

The study measured leptin level in several hundred elderly people without dementia, with particular focus paid to a sub-group of about 200 test subjects who underwent more rigorous magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans.

The research, conducted over 12 years, found that subjects with the lowest levels of leptin were more likely to develop the neurological disease than those with the highest.

Full Story Alzheimer’s disease linked to hunger hormone: study – Yahoo! News.

US Federal Trade Commission files suit against Intel

The US Federal Trade Commission announced Wednesday that it had filed suit against Intel, accusing the world’s biggest computer chipmaker of illegally using its dominant market position to stifle competition.

The FTC alleged that Intel has waged a systematic campaign for a decade to shut out competing microchips produced by rivals by cutting off their access to the marketplace.

“Intel has engaged in a deliberate campaign to hamstring competitive threats to its monopoly,” said Richard Feinstein, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition.

“It’s been running roughshod over the principles of fair play and the laws protecting competition on the merits,” Feinstein said in a statement.

“The Commission’s action today seeks to remedy the damage that Intel has done to competition, innovation, and, ultimately, the American consumer,” he said.

The FTC complaint said Intel’s anticompetitive tactics were designed to put the brakes on superior competitive products that threatened its monopoly in the central processing unit (CPU) microchip market.

“Over the last decade, this strategy has succeeded in maintaining the Intel monopoly at the expense of consumers,” the FTC statement said. “In the process, Intel deprived consumers of choice and innovation.”

Full Story US Federal Trade Commission files suit against Intel – Yahoo! News.

Up to 56,000 more contractors likely for Afghanistan, congressional agency says

The surge of 30,000 U.S. troops into Afghanistan could be accompanied by a surge of up to 56,000 contractors, vastly expanding the presence of personnel from the U.S. private sector in a war zone, according to a study by the Congressional Research Service.

CRS, which provides background information to members of Congress on a bipartisan basis, said it expects an additional 26,000 to 56,000 contractors to be sent to Afghanistan. That would bring the number of contractors in the country to anywhere from 130,000 to 160,000.

The tally “could increase further if the new [administration] strategy includes a more robust construction and nation building effort,” according to the report, which was released Monday and first disclosed on the Web site Talking Points Memo.

The CRS study says contractors made up 69 percent of the Pentagon’s personnel in Afghanistan last December, a proportion that “apparently represented the highest recorded percentage of contractors used by the Defense Department in any conflict in the history of the United States.” As of September, contractor representation had dropped to 62 percent, as U.S. troop strength increased modestly.

Full Story Up to 56,000 more contractors likely for Afghanistan, congressional agency says.

Fed to keep rates near zero but exit strategy looms

The US Federal Reserve was likely to reaffirm its ultra-stimulative monetary policy at the end a two-day meeting Wednesday being watched for signs of an “exit strategy” from a massive stimulus effort.

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) was widely expected to keep the base federal funds rate in the range of zero to 0.25 percent, where it has been since last December.

In a statement, expected around 1915 GMT Wednesday, the central bank is also likely to maintain its commitment to a range of programmes to flood the financial system with money to restore credit flows.

Among those is a pledge to pump more than one trillion dollars into the financial system to keep credit flowing.

Fed officials have said that they have an exit plan to move away from stimulus measures that will be implemented when the economy has recovered, but recent indications suggest no major policy changes are likely soon.

Fed chairman Ben Bernanke last week went out of his way to quash the notion that the Fed was closer to rate hikes in view of better economic news, especially in the labor market, analysts noted.

Full Story channelnewsasia.com – Fed to keep rates near zero but exit strategy looms.

Franken slams GOP on Senate floor: ‘You’re not entitled to your own facts’ | Raw Story

In a few moments of heated but controlled anger on the Senate floor Monday evening, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) slammed Sen. John Thune (R-SD) and the GOP for essentially lying about the nature of the Democratic health care bill, suggesting they haven’t read it.

“We are entitled to our own opinions; we’re not entitled to our own facts,” Franken said. “Benefits kick in right away.”

Thune then took the floor and stressed that “tax increases start 18 days from now” while “spending benefits don’t start till 2014.”

Franken got angrier and reclaimed his time. “Spending benefits start right away,” he stammered, also rebuffing Thune’s claim that the bill in all pain and no gain in the short-run. It “will prohibit insurance from imposing lifetime limits on benefits starting day one.”

“He doesn’t want to hear it,” Franken said in a heated voice, while pointing to Thune. “We are entitled to our own opinions; we’re not entitled to our own facts.”

Full Story Franken slams GOP on Senate floor: ‘You’re not entitled to your own facts’ | Raw Story.

135,000 uninsured Americans will die before health reform takes effect, analysis finds

Over 6,600 uninsured veterans will die by 2013: estimate

memorial%20day%20flag 135,000 uninsured Americans will die before health reform takes effect, analysis findsIf Democrats manage to pull off efforts to reform the US healthcare system and ensure coverage for millions who are currently without insurance, the new system — by design — will likely still leave tens of thousands to die without insurance before reforms kick in.

A Raw Story analysis, based on a recent Harvard Medical School study, estimates that 135,000 American citizens and over 6,600 US veterans will die due to a lack of health insurance before current proposed healthcare reform measures would take effect.

One hundred and thirty-five thousand US lives far exceeds the total number of Americans who died in the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the attacks of 9/11 combined. The lives of over 6,600 US veterans is more — by over 1,300 — than the total number of US soldiers who have thus far died in both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a professor of medicine at Harvard University and co-author of the Harvard Medical School study, called Raw Story’s estimates “quite reasonable.”

Full Story 135,000 uninsured Americans will die before health reform takes effect, analysis finds | Raw Story.

Dean says kill the Senate health bill: report

Update: Dean tells Good Morning America that he thinks health bill should be scrapped: Video at bottom

WASHINGTON — deanheated Dean says kill the Senate health bill: reportFollowing the jettisoning of both the public option and the Medicare buy-in provision, one of the nation’s leading progressive voices on health care reportedly said Tuesday that the Senate bill is no longer worth supporting.

“This is essentially the collapse of health care reform in the United States Senate,” former Gov. Howard Dean told political reporter Bob Kinzel of Vermont Public Radio. Kinzel relayed the news to The Plum Line’s Greg Sargent, and the full VPR interview will air at 5:50 pm today.

“Honestly the best thing to do right now is kill the Senate bill, go back to the House, start the reconciliation process, where you only need 51 votes and it would be a much simpler bill,” he said.

Dean has been an outspoken champion of the public insurance option, describing it as the central component of the legislation. A health care bill without it, he has said, is not worth supporting.

Full Story Dean says kill the Senate health bill: report | Raw Story.

Revealed: Bush officials e-mailed bogus rumor blaming Gore for failure to kill Bin Laden

Missing” Bush White House emails found

White House emails retrieved from Bush administration records reveal that top Bush Justice Department officials circulated a memo falsely blaming Al Gore for U.S. failure to get Osama bin Laden. The apocryphal Osama-Al Gore-Oliver North story, already debunked on snopes.com, was forwarded internally to administration personnel by David M. Israelite, Deputy Chief of Staff and Counselor to Attorney Gen. John Ashcroft (pictured above right).

The existence of such politicized emails may help explain why millions of emails sent to and from the previous White House have gone missing despite rules for preserving presidential records. This particular email, spreading a bogus rumor, has not been reported before.

Full Story Revealed: Bush officials e-mailed bogus rumor blaming Gore for failure to kill Bin Laden | Raw Story.

Lieberman says he won’t rule out running as a Republican in 2012.

In 2006, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) was defeated in his Democratic primary by insurgent challenger Ned Lamont, largely due to Lieberman’s unyielding support for the Iraq war. After forming the independent “Connecticut for Lieberman” Party, Lieberman ran as an independent and went on to defeat Lamont in the general election. In an interview with CNN yesterday, Lieberman said he’s “unsure” which party’s ticket he will run on in 2012, and even left the door open to running as a Republican:

Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman, a former Democrat who sits with Democratic caucus, said Tuesday that he would not rule out running for re-election in 2012 as a Republican. Lieberman angered his colleagues in the Democratic caucus this week by threatening to torpedo health care legislation if it contains a government-run public health insurance or an expansion of Medicare.

Lieberman said he wasn’t sure which party, if any, he would represent in his next election.”I like being an independent, so that’s definitely a possibility,” the Connecticut senator said. “But I’d say all options are open.” He called running as a Republican “unlikely” but added that he wouldn’t “foreclose any possibility.”

Full Story Think Progress » Lieberman says he won’t rule out running as a Republican in 2012..

Chamber of Commerce using Hooters gift certificates to fight health care reform.

Chamber of Commerce using Hooters gift certificates to fight health care reform.

Hooters The U.S. Chamber of Commerce — one of the Obama administration’s staunchest opponents — is using “incentivized” web ads to get people involved in their campaign to fight health care reform. The incentive? A $150 gift card for Hooters. TPM Muckraker reports that pop-up ads offer readers the gift cards in exchange for completing surveys, one of which is sponsored by the Chamber and urges people to sign up for free emails about “how to protect your family’s future and bring common sense solutions to the health-care debate”:

The Chamber contracts with Adfero Group, a PR firm specializing in web outreach. Adfero then sub-contracts with an online marketing firm that handles the process of actually signing people up for the Chamber’s campaign, an industry source explained. The Hooters card is the draw. Blinking pop-up ads and web pages offer readers the card in return for entering their names and personal information, and filling out a survey asking if they want to sign up for various offers. … If other online campaigns are any guide, readers who sign up to receive the Chamber’s anti-reform emails are then enlisted in the business lobby’s campaign in a more active way — for instance, by being asked to send letters to lawmakers.

Full Story Think Progress » Chamber of Commerce using Hooters gift certificates to fight health care reform..

Healthcare: First They Came for the Banksters

With apologies to Pastor Niemöller:

First they came for the banksters, and showered them with money and put them in the Administration in a way that was not change we could believe in.

Then they came for the military industrial complex, and sent more and more of our children to die in faraway lands that had never attacked us in a way that was not change we could believe in.

And now they’ve sold out our hope for a national health care system not run by millionaire gangsters in suits. And who is left to speak for us?

President Obama is playing the Bill Clinton game of throwing people a bone and telling them it’s steak. Perhaps he’s doing it because he thinks it’s his only choice; perhaps it’s because he’s surrounded himself with Bill Clinton advisors (and Hillary as Secretary of State); whatever the reason, while it worked for Clinton, it won’t work for Obama.

It worked for Reagan, and for the first Bush, and even worked somewhat for George W. Bush.

But it won’t work anymore. Here’s why.

Full Story Healthcare: First They Came for the Banksters | CommonDreams.org.

A Sucker-Punched Harry Reid Throws in the Towel on Real Reform

John Nicoles, The Nation –

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is, famously, an ex-boxer.

Put an emphasis on “ex.”

As the health-care debate made its way to the Senate, the chamber's top Democrat refused to take tactical steps that would have allowed for the passage of meaningful legislation with a majority vote.

No, no, no, Reid argued. He did not need to alter the filibuster rule that required 60 votes to act.

No, no, no, Reid argued. He did not need to consider using the budget reconciliation process that Republicans had employed to move controversial legislation when they were the majority party in the Senate.

No, no, no, Reid argued. He could use the power of persuasion to get the chamber's 58 Democrats, two independents and maybe even a few Republicans to vote for real reform.

Full Story A Sucker-Punched Harry Reid Throws in the Towel on Real Reform.

OPS: Don’t believe Reid was sucker-punched.

Are we seeing – Good Cop, Bad Cop? BO hasn’t given a rats ass about the Public Option or Medicare Buy in or HR676 type efforts. Now we can all blame Lieberman (who is not re-electable) If Lieberman was able to ‘sucker-punch’- Reid AT THIS POINT, Reid needs to be fired. He is utterly incompetent.

BO made his deal with the Corporate Powers on this some time ago – everything that has happened since has been a stage-play for the benefit of the peons.

Maybe Lieberman is providing cover for BO….we can blame it all on Lieberman now – right?
Maybe this is the quid pro quoa for BO campaigning for the rat-bastard…
Maybe this is why BO has kept the rat-bastard around… He wasn’t going to get elected again anyway.

They are, and have been the Silent Partners of the Reich. With the exception of a very few – the Democrats are in on it – including BO. There is no other scenario that explains it all as well.

Buy stock in Lipstick companies. The idiots will be using it LIBERALLY on this pig over the next month

As population grows in Africa, so does a world of trouble

Africa’s spiraling population rate is sending children into a life of poverty and uncertainty as they are cast off by their overwhelmed families.

The boy stepped into the grubby street, looking both ways for traffic. He was wearing the clothes he wore yesterday and seemingly all the days before: a pair of too-big cotton pants and a black shirt so tattered that it seemed ready to fall off his body. His bony shoulders peeked through the holes where the sleeves once were stitched.

Until a year ago, 10-year-old Ghaddafi Auwalu lived with his family on their small plot outside this fast-growing city in northern Nigeria. His parents sent him away, Ghaddafi said, because they had too many children, and they couldn’t afford to look after him.

“I’m less of a burden to my mom if I am here,” said the polite boy, the 11th child in a family of 12. “Now, she’ll have more time for my sisters and brothers.”

Full Story As population grows in Africa, so does a world of trouble – World – MiamiHerald.com.

Is Joe Lieberman Protecting Israel?

By Robert Parry  – 

Sen. Joe Lieberman’s latest threat to scuttle health-care reform – vowing to join a Republican filibuster to block an over-55 buy-in to Medicare, a proposal that he has long championed – is raising questions about his motives. But no one is mentioning the unmentionable, the cause that has come to define Lieberman’s career: Israel.

Is it possible that Lieberman’s obstructionist behavior doesn’t relate to Connecticut’s insurance industry or to his political ego – the two most cited explanations – but rather to a calculation that he can use his leverage on health care to limit the pressure that President Barack Obama can put on Israel to make concessions on a Mideast peace plan?

After all, the more common explanations of Lieberman’s behavior have holes in their logic.

While it is true that Lieberman’s constituent Hartford-based insurance companies fear any government intrusion in their industry, the actual proposals for the Medicare buy-in or the tightly constrained “public option” actually would benefit the industry in the near term.

Those uninsured Americans 55 to 64 are customers whom the insurance industry doesn’t want. They are the part of the uninsured population that is most likely to need medical care, which is why private insurers have driven up the rates so high that these people can’t afford to buy health insurance.

Full Story Consortiumnews.com.

War Crimes Catch Up With Israeli Officials: They Can No Longer Visit The UK

Ha’aretz is now confirming that the United Kingdom had in fact issued a warrant for former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni’s arrest — for alleged war crimes committed during Israel’s Gaza offensive, called ‘Operation Cast Lead’:

British sources reported late Monday that though a British court had issued an arrest warrant for Livni over war crimes allegedly committed in Gaza while she served as foreign minister, it annulled it upon discovering she was not in the U.K.

Livni served as foreign minister alongside Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak during the Israel Defense Forces offensive in Gaza. The three figures comprised the “troika” of top decision-makers who charted the course of the war.

The Guardian points out the significance of this arrest warrant, and goes on to explain that former Israeli leaders (no longer serving) lose their diplomatic immunity granted under the State Immunity Act:

Full Story The Seminal » War Crimes Catch Up With Israeli Officials: They Can No Longer Visit The UK.

Stop uranium train

Despite concerns that the plan could be a figurative train wreck, a train load of depleted uranium is set to depart the federal Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, bound for Utah.

The DOE announced last week that the first of three train loads of the radioactive waste will soon be shipped as part of a project in which federal stimulus money is unfairly being used to clean up the Palmetto State at the Beehive State’s expense. In all, 14,800 drums containing 11,000 tons of DU, a byproduct of uranium enrichment, are earmarked for EnergySolutions’ low-level radioactive waste disposal facility at Clive in Tooele County.

But the decision to ship is premature because the verdict is still out on the best way to dispose of DU.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, while classifying DU as Class A waste suitable for disposal at Clive, has never actually studied the risks posed by burying large quantities of the material in shallow landfills like EnergySolutions’ Utah dump. That review, which is expected to take several years to complete, is still in the early stages. Plus, Utah’s Radiation Control Board is requiring EnergySolutions to write a technical report assessing the long-term safety of the site, a process that will take about a year.

Full Story Stop uranium train – Salt Lake Tribune.

Rights activist who protested Honduras coup killed

Honduran police promised to thoroughly investigate the killing of a gay rights activist who joined in protests against the June coup that ousted President Manuel Zelaya.

The anti-coup National Resistance Front said gunmen in a car shot Walter Trochez on Sunday as he walked in downtown Tegucigalpa. Friends rushed him to a hospital, where he died.

“Trochez was an active militant in the resistance and an example of the fight against the dictatorship,” the group said in a statement released on the day the victim was buried.

The front, which until recently staged daily protests to demand Zelaya’s restoration to the presidency, blamed the attack “on the repressive forces that the oligarchy uses to stop the demands of the Honduran people for liberty and democracy.”

Full Story Rights activist who protested Honduras coup killed – Yahoo! News.

PhRMA Hack: Campaign Promises Are Just That

Matt Taibbi

The dispute traps Obama between his campaign rhetoric and the political realities of health-care reform, which depends in large part on tacit support from drugmakers and other industry groups. Under the earlier agreement with the White House, the pharmaceutical industry agreed to contribute $80 billion toward reform over 10 years in exchange for protection from further cuts.

“It’s about being a candidate as opposed to being president,” said Ken Johnson, senior vice president of the Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America (PhRMA). “When you become president, you realize that the sound bites don’t always work in reality. . . . I think they’ve looked at the problems now and have concluded there’s no way to ensure the safety of medicines reimported into the United States right now.”

via Drugmakers fight plan to allow drug reimportation.

This is hilarious and doesn’t really need much in the way of commentary.

As a candidate, Barack Obama endorsed the idea of allowing consumers to import cheaper pharmaceuticals from other industrialized countries. In the Senate he co-sponsored a bill that pushed the idea.

But now that he’s president and is taking money from the pharmaceutical lobby (PhRMA) to help get his bullshit health care bill passed, his administration is backtracking. His FDA chief Margaret Hamburg is pulling out the old safety canard. The CBO has estimated that a bill sponsored by Byron Dorgan to allow drug re-importation would save the government $19 billion over 10 years, and save consumers $80 billion.

Full Story PhRMA Hack: Campaign Promises Are Just That – Matt Taibbi – Taibblog – True/Slant.

This is bigger than climate change. It is a battle to redefine humanity

It’s hard for a species used to ever-expanding frontiers, but survival depends on accepting we live within limits

This is the moment at which we turn and face ourselves. Here, in the plastic corridors and crowded stalls, among impenetrable texts and withering procedures, humankind decides what it is and what it will become. It chooses whether to continue living as it has done, until it must make a wasteland of its home, or to stop and redefine itself. This is about much more than climate change. This is about us.

The meeting at Copenhagen confronts us with our primal tragedy. We are the universal ape, equipped with the ingenuity and aggression to bring down prey much larger than itself, break into new lands, roar its defiance of natural constraints. Now we find ourselves hedged in by the consequences of our nature, living meekly on this crowded planet for fear of provoking or damaging others. We have the hearts of lions and live the lives of clerks.

The summit’s premise is that the age of heroism is over. We have entered the age of accommodation. No longer may we live without restraint. No longer may we swing our fists regardless of whose nose might be in the way. In everything we do we must now be mindful of the lives of others, cautious, constrained, meticulous. We may no longer live in the moment, as if there were no tomorrow.

Full Story This is bigger than climate change. It is a battle to redefine humanity | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian.

After Voting For Gitmo Closure, Mark Kirk Now Says ‘The Safer Policy’ Is To Keep It Open

The Obama administration announced today that it will acquire the prison facility in Thomson, IL to help house a limited number of detainees from Guantanamo. Many residents of Thomson have indicated that they welcome the move, hoping that it will “improve the economic conditions” in their area.

Two months ago, Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) voted on a homeland security bill that contained a provision that authorized the transferring of prisoners out of Guantanamo Bay. Now that he’s running for Senate and trying to court the right-wing base, Kirk is staking a different position. Commenting on Fox News today about the Obama administration’s announcement, Kirk said he would instead opt to keep Gitmo open:

The much safer policy would be to keep them at Guantanamo Bay. The taxpayer has paid for a $275 million state-of-the-art facility there. And it doesn’t present any of the other security or legal risks that this plan does.

Watch it:

Full Story Think Progress » After Voting For Gitmo Closure, Mark Kirk Now Says ‘The Safer Policy’ Is To Keep It Open.

Beck Defends Founding Fathers’ Decision To Count African-Americans As Three-Fifths Of A Person

On his radio show today, an African-American caller questioned Glenn Beck’s deification of the Founding Fathers by bringing up the fact that the Constitution “didn’t even recognize my people as even human.” The caller was referring to the three-fifths clause — a provision which counted slaves as three-fifths of a person for purposes of congressional representation and taxation. Beck hit back with a full-throated defense of the three-fifths law, saying it was actually an abolitionist provision:

CALLER: I notice you reference the founding fathers a lot, and to me it’s kind of offensive because most of those guys were slave owners, the Constitution that they wrote up — they didn’t even recognize my people as even human. [...]

BECK: That is a common misconception. … Do you know who wanted slaves to be counted as a full person? … Slave owners. … The reason why they wanted that is because of the balance of power. The South could control the numbers in Congress. Their representation would go through the roof. … That’s why, in the Constitution, African-Americans were deemed three-fifths people, because the Founders wanted to end slavery and they knew if the South could count slaves as full individuals you would never get the control to be able to abolish it.

Listen here:

Full Story Think Progress » Beck Defends Founding Fathers’ Decision To Count African-Americans As Three-Fifths Of A Person.

Latino Group Invokes The Bible To Counter A Pastor’s Census Boycott Campaign, Encourage Participation

Earlier this year, the Rev. Miguel Rivera, chairman of the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders, began encouraging a full-out boycott of the U.S. Census on behalf of the Latino and immigrant community in protest of the failure to enact immigration reform. Rivera’s efforts have been widely perceived as damaging to the Latino and immigrant community he claims to be empowering. In response, the National Association of Latino Elected Officials (NALEO) has started using the Bible to target religious Latinos with a different message: What would Jesus do?

NALEO is handing out posters that illustrate the arrival of Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem. NALEO explains that the Gospel of Luke indicates that the reason Jesus was born in Bethlehem is because Joseph and Mary were fulfilling their civic duty by returning to the town to be counted by the Roman census. A poster printed by NALEO reads: “This is how Jesus was born, Joseph and Mary participated in the Census.” Nick Kimball, spokesman at the Commerce Department (which oversees the Census Bureau), said that the government played no role in creating the posters.

Full Story Think Progress » Latino Group Invokes The Bible To Counter A Pastor’s Census Boycott Campaign, Encourage Participation.

Alan Grayson: Afghan war ‘futile’

Florida Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson said Tuesday that the war in Afghanistan is “futile” and vowed to vote against the Pentagon’s appropriations bill to protest President Barack Obama’s decision to send more U.S. troops there.

“This is an 18th century strategy being employed against a 14th century enemy,” Grayson said. “ Other countries, one after the other, have given up on this strategy over the years. This war is costing us much too much in both lives and money. There’s too much blood being shed in Afghanistan. There’s too much blood being shed in Iraq. And there are simply better ways to accomplish the same goals.”

Grayson answered with a definitive “yes” when asked if he intends to vote against the pending Department of Defense appropriations bill.
Full Story Alan Grayson: Afghan war ‘futile’ – - POLITICO.com.

Howard Dean: “Kill The Senate Bill”

In a blow to the bill grinding through the Senate, Howard Dean bluntly called for the bill to be killed in a pre-recorded interview set to air later this afternoon, denouncing it as “the collapse of health care reform in the United States Senate,” the reporter who conducted the interview tells me.

Dean said the removal of the Medicare buy-in made the bill not worth supporting, and urged Dem leaders to start over with the process of reconciliation in the interview, which is set to air at 5:50 PM today on Vermont Public Radio, political reporter Bob Kinzel confirms to me.

The gauntlet from Dean — whose voice on health care is well respsected among liberals — will energize those on the left who are mobilizing against the bill, and make it tougher for liberals to embrace the emerging proposal. In an excerpt Kinzel gave me, Dean says:

“This is essentially the collapse of health care reform in the United States Senate. Honestly the best thing to do right now is kill the Senate bill, go back to the House, start the reconciliation process, where you only need 51 votes and it would be a much simpler bill.”

Full Story Howard Dean: “Kill The Senate Bill” | The Plum Line.

Hope for the Holidays 2009 – Wake Up WalMart

This holiday season, join us in sending an open letter to Walmart CEO Mike Duke calling for safe products, responsible business practices, and accountability.

As a November 2009 China Labor Watch report found, Walmart uses its size and clout to push suppliers to produce at a lower cost, forcing them to cut corners to meet Walmart’s price demands and still make a profit. One of the areas that suppliers could cut corners is product safety. Walmart has repeatedly carried products that have been identified as unsafe or dangerous by reputable consumer safety organizations.

Right now, there are children’s holiday gifts offered for sale at stores and online with high levels of dangerous substances including lead, chlorine, arsenic, cadmium, and bromine according to HealthyStuff.org, a project of the Ecology Center and the Center for Environmental Health. These products include Mrs. Potato Head manufactured by Playskool, a Walmart brand black and yellow frog wallet, a Disney Princesses pink belt, and an iCarly pink belt manufactured by Viacom.

This holiday season, join us in sending an open letter to Walmart CEO Mike Duke calling for better business practices and safer products for a safer holiday for all.

Full Story WakeUpWalMart.com – Hope for the Holidays 2009.

Want to Stick it to the Banks? Join a Credit Union

Dave Lindorff:

A few months ago, like many struggling Americans, I had my credit line frozen at my local bank. I hadn’t done anything wrong, and have always paid my monthly installment payment on time, but I learned from a bank employee at the institution, which had once been a small family-owned operation but had earlier this year been acquired by a regional bank, that most of the bank’s home-equity lines of credit were being similarly frozen and “reviewed” because the bank had lent a lot of money to a housing development that was underwater and facing bankruptcy. I was told I could simply apply for a new credit line, and pay off the old one, but there was a hitch: I’d be paying almost 3% more per month in interest than with the old loan.

More recently, I went in to the bank with a check I had just received, a bit late, from a magazine for which I write regularly. Because the payment was late, so were some of my bills, so I asked a bank officer, as I had occasionally done over the years, to okay the check for immediate credit as a courtesy, which would allow me to pay those bills. I was turned down. “We don’t offer that service anymore,” he said. “Your check has to clear, which could take two days.” When I pointed out that what I wanted to pay was my mortgage, which was owed to the same bank, and that the money, in any case, would be in the bank’s hands either way, he said, “Sorry, that’s our policy.” The final blow came when I learned that some company in China had accessed my account, pulling out first a few pennies in two trial electronic transactions, and then hundreds of dollars. The bank put a stop to the problem when I notified them, but it took a month for them to refund me my money, even though the fraud should have been spotted by them right away, and it was the bank’s fault, not mine.

Fed up with all these rip-offs, I went looking for an alternative, and happily found one: a local credit union, in this case one called Freedom Credit Union.

Full Story Dave Lindorff: Want to Stick it to the Banks? Join a Credit Union | BuzzFlash.org.

Connecticut Democrat calls for Joe Lieberman recall

A House Democrat from Connecticut said Tuesday that Sen. Joe Lieberman should be recalled from office over his opposition to the Senate health care bill.

“No individual should hold health care hostage, including Joe Lieberman, and I'll say it flat out, I think he ought to be recalled,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) told POLITICO.

Connecticut has no recall law for state officials, and the Constitution does not authorize states to recall members of Congress since each house has the authority to police its own members. DeLauro acknowledged that she didn’t know “what the Connecticut process is because I never found myself in this position — but I think it is unconscionable that he would hold up health care.”

She said that millions of people die because they lack health insurance.

Full Story Connecticut Democrat calls for Joe Lieberman recall – - POLITICO.com.

OPS:  Where the hell was Rosa two years ago? Why wait until it’s too damned late? Rosa, are you Shocked- SHOCKED to find that this piece of crap is a dickwad?This is all kabuki and a waste of time. It’s a facade. Political, emotional, and Mental masturbation. It’s fun for a while but it can never produce anything except a mess. The Democrats are part of the stage-play.   BO IS a chess player – and WE are his opponents.

Secret war purposes and justifications

Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com

In a post yesterday about public opinion and war, I noted that Joe Klein justified the war in Afghanistan by claiming it was necessary to prevent war between Pakistan and India — a justification and purpose never cited by the U.S. Government. To justify the fighting of a war for reasons different than the stated official reasons, Klein propounded the highly undemocratic proposition that “some of the best arguments about why this war is necessary must go unspoken by the President.” Yesterday Klein and Andrew Sprung, writing at Andrew Sullivan’s blog, both responded to what I wrote — Klein by pointing to Obama’s statements in a 2008 interview about the need to diplomatically resolve the India-Pakistan dispute and Sprung by pointing to statements made by various commentators and experts about the importance of the India-Pakistan dispute in the region.

None of that really disputes, but rather bolsters, what I wrote. I wasn’t disputing Klein’s reporting that many people, including inside the administration, privately claim that we need to stay in Afghanistan to prevent conflict between India and Pakistan, nor was I criticizing him for reporting that this was the case, nor was I even commenting on whether that war justification is valid. My objection is that the U.S. Government, in all the times it explained why this war was necessary, never cited that as a justification or a goal. If, as Klein and Sprung both claim, that is truly one of the Government’s primary goals, then we’re fighting this war for reasons different than what the public is being told. Klein basically acknowledges this (“Over the past few weeks, especially since Obama’s West Point speech, I’ve been struck by the narrowness of the Afghan discussion–by the President and the press”), as does Sprung (“you can argue that the Administration should itself air these concerns more fully”). Indeed, Klein not only acknowledges, but justifies, the disparity between our stated war justifications and our real ones (“some of the best arguments about why this war is necessary must go unspoken by the President”). That is what I find profoundly undemocratic and dangerous.

Full Story Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.

Map released of expanded cancer cluster

Families in the expanded cancer cluster region received a detailed map Monday at their first meeting with the Ohio Department of Health and the Environmental Protection Agency.

The map shows the complete area that the two groups believe is included in the cancer cluster, which now includes much of Fremont. The cancer cluster study involves at least 35 cases.

Full Story Map released of expanded cancer cluster – WTOL.com, Toledo’s News Leader, News 11 |.

NYPD Must Show GOP Convention Surveillance

Federal Judge: 2,000 Pages of Documents on Protestors during 2004 Convention to Be Released

A federal judge has ruled the New York Police Department must release 2,000 pages of documents related to its surveillance of protesters before the 2004 Republican National Convention.

Judge Richard Sullivan’s ruling was made public Monday. It supports conclusions reached two years ago by a federal magistrate judge, who ordered redactions to protect police sources and said only attorneys can view the documents.

The ruling stems from two lawsuits filed because of the four-day convention at Madison Square Garden, where President George W. Bush accepted his party’s nomination for a second term. The New York Civil Liberties Union lawsuits challenged the arrests of 1,800 protesters and the long waits they faced before seeing judges.

City lawyer Celeste Koeleveld says the city is disappointed by the ruling and is considering its legal options.

Full Story NYPD Must Show GOP Convention Surveillance – CBS News.

Murtha hospitalized with gallbladder problem

U.S. Rep. John Murtha rested in a hospital Monday after being admitted the previous night due to abdominal pains caused by a gallbladder issue, his spokesman said.

“He’s currently resting and doing well,” said Matt Mazonkey, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Democrat.

Murtha is chairman of the House appropriations subcommittee on defense, and a strong critic of President Barack Obama’s recent decision to deploy an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan.

He was scheduled to chair a subcommittee hearing Tuesday addressed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Due to Murtha’s illness, the hearing has been canceled.

Full Story CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive – Murtha hospitalized with gallbladder problem « – Blogs from CNN.com.

Sports Illustrated puts Stephen Colbert on cover

Stephen Colbert has joined the legions of athletes and swimsuit models to grace the cover of Sports Illustrated.

The host of Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report” appears on the front of the magazine’s latest issue wearing an Olympic speedskating uniform. The issue is devoted to sports media. It’s on newsstands Wednesday.

In November, devoted Colbert fans known as the Colbert Nation became the official primary sponsor of U.S. Speedskating. The team’s largest annual cash sponsor, DSB Bank NV, left the team in the lurch after it declared bankruptcy in October.

With contributions from fans, more than $250,000 has been raised.

Colbert has made Olympics-related material a nearly nightly fixture on his show.

Full Story Sports Illustrated puts Stephen Colbert on cover.

AUSTRALIA ICEBERG ALERT:’MONSTER’ ICEBERG SPLITTING APART!!

Hundreds of smaller slabs are breaking off a huge mass of ice as it makes its way toward Australia.

Australia issues a shipping alert over giant iceberg spotted 1,700 kilometers (1,056 miles) off the country’s southwestern coast.

Hadassah Lieberman under attack over industry ties

Sen. Joe Lieberman – whose opposition to a public insurance option has drawn outrage from liberal groups for months – is used to finding himself in progressive crosshairs.

Now it’s his wife’s turn.

Activists are setting their sights on Hadassah Lieberman, launching a celebrity-studded petition drive to convince the nation’s largest breast cancer non-profit to end the Connecticut senator’s wife role as a spokeswoman.

The move to pressure the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation came the same day Lieberman’s husband angered Democrats by announcing that he would not support an expansion of Medicare to cover individuals under the age of 55. Organizers did not point to that decision, instead citing Hadassah Lieberman’s own ties to the health care industry.

Lieberman has worked as a consultant for companies including Pfizer and ALCO.

Full Story CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive – Hadassah Lieberman under attack over industry ties « – Blogs from CNN.com.

The Problem of Inflation

The current fiscal disorder within the United States has many negative side effects on the economy and the nation as a whole. One of the gravest hazards presented by our fiscal mismanagement is that of inflation.

As it coped with the restrictions of the recession and a growing need to build up liquid assets, our government pumped money into the financial system, flooding it with excess cash.

According to John Williams, of ShadowStats.com, the United States is on a trajectory toward runaway “hyperinflation” which it would not be able to contain.

As he sees it the U.S. may, within a decade or less, find itself buried under a worthless currency akin to Zimbabwe today or the Depression-era Weimar Republic.

The claim that America will soon see its dollar driven into the sand the way the Zimbabwe dollar or German mark once were is a bit extraordinary, but it does highlight an important point. The U.S. is undermining its own financial foundations through continuing its “loose money” policies.

Some nations, Japan in particular, have been able to survive and prosper despite having virtually zero interest on central bank loans. However, Japan also keeps tight control of its money supply, it does not organize multibillion dollar industry bailouts, and it exports more than it imports. The U.S. and Japan may share common zero interest rates, but that is where the economic similarities end.

Full Story The Problem of Inflation | Economy In Crisis.

The Loss of America’s Innovational Prowess

While most Americans are very aware that the current recession has cost the nation dearly in terms of jobs, wealth and international stature, they may not know that perhaps the most costly price of the recession is America’s loss of innovational prowess.

While most Americans are very aware that the current recession has cost the nation dearly in terms of jobs, wealth and international stature, they may not know that perhaps the most costly price of the recession is America’s loss of innovational prowess.

According to CNNMoney.com, patent filings fell for the first time in 30 years, based on preliminary numbers released by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

According to the report, U.S. patents were down 2.3 percent during the year. Perhaps even more worrisome is the fact that U.S. patents issued to foreign nations and inventors jumped 6.3 percent over the same time period.

“We are in a dire economic situation, so its not unreasonable for businesses to have to cut their budgets,” Bijal Vakil, partner in White & Case’s intellectual property team in Palo Alto, Calif, said, according to CNNMoney.com. “But this trend could spell financial ruin for some U.S. companies. We’ve lost our competitive edge, and other companies from other countries stand to benefit.”

Much of the problem is the recession, but that doesn’t fully explain the recent lack of American innovation.

Full Story The Loss of America’s Innovational Prowess | Economy In Crisis.

Obama May Launch Drone Attacks on Major Pakistani City

Drone attacks may be expanded in Pakistan

U.S. officials seek to push CIA drone strikes into the major city of Quetta to try to pressure Pakistan into pursuing Taliban leaders based there.

Reporting from Washington – Senior U.S. officials are pushing to expand CIA drone strikes beyond Pakistan’s tribal region and into a major city in an attempt to pressure the Pakistani government to pursue Taliban leaders based in Quetta.

The proposal has opened a contentious new front in the clandestine war. The prospect of Predator aircraft strikes in Quetta, a sprawling city, signals a new U.S. resolve to decapitate the Taliban. But it also risks rupturing Washington’s relationship with Islamabad.

The concern has created tension among Obama administration officials over whether unmanned aircraft strikes in a city of 850,000 are a realistic option. Proponents, including some military leaders, argue that attacking the Taliban in Quetta — or at least threatening to do so — is crucial to the success of the revised war strategy President Obama unveiled last week.

Full Story Drone attacks may be expanded in Pakistan — latimes.com.

OPS: Well, they have to practice somewhere before they have to start doing it here

Congress Drafts Bill To Turn Volume Down On TV Commercials

Television viewers jarred by abrupt spikes in volume during commercial breaks may someday be able to give their mute buttons a rest.

“I not only dive for the mute button, but I end up having to close my windows so that the blast doesn’t affect by neighbors,” says Congresswoman Anna Eshoo. “I live on a cul-de-sac, and so the sound resonates.”

Irritated with loud commercials, the California Democrat found it was also a common complaint with the Federal Communications Commission. So she drafted a bill aimed at preventing TV ads from playing noticeably louder than the programs they sponsor.

Full Story Congress Drafts Bill To Turn Volume Down On TV Commercials.

Most Disgusting TV Commercial of all Time?

Man Drinking Fat. NYC Health Anti-Soda Ad. Are You Pouring on the Pounds?

Disgusted? Most people don’t realize how easy it is to gain weight from drinking sugary sodas, juice drinks, sport drinks and sweetened tea and coffee drinks. Just one 20-ounce bottle of soda can pack 250 calories and more than 16 teaspoons of sugar. Is the lemon-flavored iced tea any better? Not by much with 210 calories and 14½ teaspoons of sugar. Sugar-sweetened beverages add hundreds of calories to your diet each day. Don't drink yourself fat. Try water. Its good.

Full Story YouTube – Man Drinking Fat. NYC Health Anti-Soda Ad. Are You Pouring on the Pounds?.

Poll Reveals Havoc of Unemployment on Workers and Family

More than half of the nation’s unemployed workers have borrowed money from friends or relatives since losing their jobs. An equal number have cut back on doctor visits or medical treatments because they are out of work.

Almost half have suffered from depression or anxiety. About 4 in 10 parents have noticed behavioral changes in their children that they attribute to their difficulties in finding work.

Joblessness has wreaked financial and emotional havoc on the lives of many of those out of work, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll of unemployed adults, causing major life changes, mental health issues and trouble maintaining even basic necessities.

Full Story Poll Reveals Havoc of Unemployment on Workers and Family – NYTimes.com.

General David Rodriguez: Afghanistan Troop Surge Will Take Longer

The military may not finish its surge of 30,000 American troops to Afghanistan until nearly a year from now, a senior U.S. commander said Monday – a slower pace than President Barack Obama has described. The White House insisted it was sticking with a goal of completing the buildup by late summer.

The reinforcements begin arriving next week, and the bulk of the troops are scheduled to be in Afghanistan by the end of summer. But it will probably be nine to 11 months before all the troops are in place, Lt. Gen. David Rodriguez said.

The timing is important. The sooner the full complement of 30,000 can get there, the sooner the added firepower might have an effect on turning around the war and creating conditions that will allow the Pentagon to proceed with Obama’s promise to begin withdrawing troops in July 2011.

“We’re still working the speed at which they can come in, and so we’ll see how much faster that they can come in,” said Rodriguez, the second-highest U.S. commander in Afghanistan.

Full Story General David Rodriguez: Afghanistan Troop Surge Will Take Longer.

OPS: Well, that lie didn’t last very long

Obama to investment guru Buffett: Hi cuz

U.S. President Barack Obama, who won political support and has sought advice from investment guru Warren Buffett, may now feel even closer to the world’s second richest man.

According to their family trees, the two men who at times shared the stage together during the 2008 presidential campaign are seventh cousins three times removed.

Genealogists at ancestry.com announced on Tuesday that Obama and Buffett are related through a 17th century Frenchman named Mareen Duvall.

According to the online genealogists, Duvall — who immigrated to Maryland from France in the 1650s — is Obama’s 9th great grandfather and Buffett’s 6th great grandfather.

The discovery was made by accident when the same team of genealogists who had researched Obama’s family tree went on to investigate details about Buffett’s relatives.

Full Story Obama to investment guru Buffett: Hi cuz – Yahoo! News.

Ill prison to get some Gitmo detainees

Taking an important step on the thorny path to closing the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay Cuba, the White House plans to announce Tuesday that the government will acquire an underutilized state prison in rural Illinois to be the new home for a limited number of terrorist suspects held at Guantanamo.

Administration officials as well as Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin and Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn will make an official announcement at the White House.

Officials from both the White House and Durbin's office confirmed that President Barack Obama had directed the government to acquire Thomson Correctional Center in Thomson, Ill., a sleepy town near the Mississippi River about 150 miles from Chicago.

A Durbin spokesman said the facility would house federal inmates and no more than 100 detainees from Guantanamo Bay.

Full Story AP sources: Ill prison to get some Gitmo detainees.

Lieberman cites Finance Committee bill he opposed to justify Medicare flip-flop.

After Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) let it be known that he would filibuster a health care reform bill with Medicare buy-in, many bloggers, including ThinkProgress, pointed out that he campaigned in favor of such a proposal in 2000 and reiterated that support just three months ago. In an effort to explain the flip-flop, Lieberman spokesperson Erika Masonhall told the Daily Beast that Lieberman changed his position after the health care reform bill reported out of the Senate Finance Committee “contained extensive health insurance reforms” that “would benefit” those between 55 and 64 who would be eligible for the buy-in. Masonhall says extending Medicare would thus be “duplicative”:

Masonhall explained to The Daily Beast via e-mail. “Senator Lieberman’s comment reported by the Connecticut Post in September was made before the Finance Committee reported out the Baucus bill, which contained extensive health insurance reforms, including a more narrow age rating for pricing health insurance premiums and extensive affordability credits that would benefit this specific group of individuals. These health insurance reforms and affordability credits have been strengthened in Senator Reid’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and will provide even greater relief for those 55-65 years old. Any inclusion of a Medicare buy-in for that same age group would be duplicative of what is already in the bill, would put the government on the hook for billions of additional dollars, and would potentially threaten the solvency of Medicare, which is already in a perilous state.

Full Story Think Progress » Lieberman cites Finance Committee bill he opposed to justify Medicare flip-flop..

Medical Marijuana Apartheid: Different Rules Apply for Rich and Poor Pot Smokers | Rights and Liberties | AlterNet

A California hipster can hit the vaporizer without fear of harassment, but a lower-class person smoking a blunt may not be so lucky.

About 80 percent of Americans approve of medical marijuana laws, but some conservatives are incensed that state legislatures keep passing them. In a recent column, George F. Will, the Washington Post’s bow-tied curmudgeon, decried the reefer madness he sees taking over California, sweeping across Colorado and perhaps even coming to a normal state near you.

The pundit seemed especially incensed that states like Colorado and California had effectively legalized the drug through a “back-door” process, writing that medical dispensaries “serve the fiction that most transactions in the store — which is what it really is — involve medicine.”  He lamented that “fifty-six percent of Californians support legalization,” and concluded: “They essentially have this.”

But Will is only half right. Pot in California is only legal for those of a certain class, or those who live in certain areas. It is effectively illegal in most communities of color. It’s not legal for pot smokers in many conservative counties and municipalities. And it’s effectively out of reach for California’s poor.

Full Story Medical Marijuana Apartheid: Different Rules Apply for Rich and Poor Pot Smokers | Rights and Liberties | AlterNet.

Natural Organic Aphrodisiac Foods for Great Healthy Sex

If you’ve got sex on the brain but your body’s feeling unsexy, put away the blue pill! You don’t need Viagra, you need food. (Just not potato chips.) Sexual health and energy is synonymous with a healthy, energized you. An active lifestyle, balanced diet and self-confidence are the best ways to get the sexual charge you need – but that doesn’t mean there aren’t a few foods out there that can give you that extra…boost you’re looking for.

Full Story Natural Organic Aphrodisiac Foods for Great Healthy Sex | EcoSalon.

Nice Try: 12 Outrageous Examples of Greenwashing

When companies like Exxon-Mobil and McDonalds think “green”, they’re thinking of cash, not the earth. And after all, what matters to unscrupulous marketers isn’t so much the reality of their brand or product, but how the public perceives it – which often results in greenwashing so absurd, it’s almost funny. These 15 examples of extreme greenwashing range from woefully ignorant to downright malicious.

Full Story WebEcoist.

Can Boob Jobs Serve the Public Good?

A tax on plastic surgery may generate $6 billion in ten years. But feminist groups oppose it. Why?

During the Senate’s debates over who should bear the cost of the nearly $900 billion healthcare bill, there emerged a surprising suggestion: plastic surgery patients. A proposed tax, dubbed the “Bo-Tax” after the wrinkle-reducing injections, would add a 5 percent additional charge to elective cosmetic procedures. The tax could help raise $6 billion over the next ten years to offset the cost of health reform. It was included in the original healthcare bill the Senate considered, and it is likely to make it into the modified bill, when the details of the newly brokered Senate compromise are finally announced. Apparently breast enhancements and liposuction can be channeled to benefit the public good.

Plastic surgeons have decried the tax with as much ferocity as Americans once denounced taxation without representation. It is not just Playboy bunnies and Hollywood starlets who get breast enhancements, liposuction and face-lifts, they claim, but also middle-class Americans. According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, which is lobbying against the proposed tax, nearly 90 percent of people seeking cosmetic surgery are women, and 60 percent of them earn between $30,000 and $90,000 a year. This has led plastic surgeons to brand it the “soccer mom tax.”

That plastic surgeons oppose the Bo-Tax is not surprising. But that the head of one of America’s most stalwart feminist organizations, the National Organization for Women (NOW), has also come forward to oppose the bill certainly is. NOW has railed against silicone breast implants and cosmetic surgery in the past. The group sponsors an annual “Love Your Body Day” to encourage women to appreciate their natural bodies–uncut, unenhanced and un-Botoxed.

Full Story Can Boob Jobs Serve the Public Good? | Reproductive Justice and Gender | AlterNet.