Archive for December, 2009
Too Fat to Serve: How Our Unhealthy Food System Is Undermining the Military
Americans have become so overweight that a large percentage of young people no longer qualify for military service. How did we get here?
Michael Pollan coined the term “vegetable-industrial complex” to describe our corporate-driven food system decades after President Eisenhower warned us of the “military-industrial complex.” For much of that time, one served the other. President Truman created the National School Lunch Program in 1948 to ensure that young men were healthy enough for military service and as a subsidy to agribusiness. Feeding hungry children was not reason enough to justify the creation of the program.
Mark Winne, author of Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty says, “That so many young men had such substandard diets that they were unfit for military service [during World War II] was a matter of national chagrin and a threat to national security. This was the impetus for the creation of the national meal program to feed malnourished children and thus to ensure the nation’s future soldiers were fit to fight its battles.”
America has come a long way since then. Nowadays, diet-related diseases are due to eating too much food, not too little. As such, the vegetable-industrial complex and the military-industrial complex have collided head on. Many of today’s would-be recruits are too fat to serve, according to a new report by the non-profit Mission: Readiness. The report found that 75 percent of young people ages 17 to 24 are unable to enlist in the United States military. Over one-third of those unable to serve are unfit because they are overweight. The military turns away 15,000 potential recruits every year because they are too heavy. The U.S. spends more on defense than the entire rest of the world combined, and while much of our military largesse consists of machinery and contractors, the military still relies on a steady stream of recruits. This is particularly true now, as troops cycle through Iraq and Afghanistan again and again until many are no longer physically or mentally capable of returning for another tour of duty.
Full Story Too Fat to Serve: How Our Unhealthy Food System Is Undermining the Military | Health and Wellness | AlterNet.
OPS: So, Fast Food becomes a matter of National Security?
EU, IMF Revolt: Greece, Iceland, Latvia May Lead the Way
Ellen Brown – -
Total financial collapse, once a problem only for developing countries, has now come to Europe.
The International Monetary Fund is imposing its “austerity measures” on the outer circle of the European Union, with Greece, Iceland and Latvia the hardest hit. But these are not your ordinary third world debtor supplicants. Historically, the Vikings of Iceland repeatedly repulsed British invaders; Latvian tribes repulsed even the Vikings; and the Greeks conquered the whole Persian empire. If anyone can stand up to the IMF, these stalwart European warriors can.
Dozens of countries have defaulted on their debts in recent decades, the most recent being Dubai, which declared a debt moratorium on November 26, 2009. If the once lavishly-rich Arab emirate can default, more desperate countries can; and when the alternative is to destroy the local economy, it is hard to argue that they shouldn’t. That is particularly true when the creditors are largely responsible for the debtor’s troubles, and there are good grounds for arguing the debts are not owed. Greece’s troubles originated when low interest rates that were inappropriate for Greece were maintained to rescue Germany from an economic slump. And Iceland and Latvia have been saddled with responsibility for private obligations to which they were not parties.
The Dysfunctional EU: Where a Common Currency Fails
Full Story Ellen Brown: EU, IMF Revolt: Greece, Iceland, Latvia May Lead the Way.
Lieberman Wins: Medicare Compromise On Chopping Block
Joe Lieberman has forced his will on the Senate Democratic caucus and the nation as a whole. After the party reached a compromise last week to effectively drop the public option in exchange for allowing 55- to 64-year-olds to buy into Medicare, that compromise is now in doubt.
Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, told Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Sunday that he will block any bill that includes the buy-in. As the 60th vote needed to overcome a Republican filibuster, he can do that.
Following a caucus-wide meeting Monday evening, the measure was all but scuttled.
“It’s looking like that’s the case. I can’t guarantee it. At this point, at this stage, that seemed to be the case,” acknowledged Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.). Asked why it had been dropped, he said, “I didn’t confirm that now. It’s just a matter of getting support from 60 senators.”
Full Story Lieberman Wins: Medicare Compromise On Chopping Block.
GRAIN publications back call for action on agriculture to address climate change
On December 15th, La Via Campesina and a number of other groups will be leading a day of action in Copenhagen to put agriculture front and centre in the discussions over climate change. Although the official Convention is sure to disappoint, these groups will be carrying a message of hope. What they want the world to know is that, in their on-going struggle for food sovereignty, there is a way out of the climate crisis.
GRAIN couldn’t agree more. Today’s global food system needs an overhaul. According to our calculations, the expansion of the industrial food system is the leading cause of climate change. Through its reliance on fossil fuels, massive exports, market concentration, erosion of soils and expansion of plantations, it generates 44-57% of the total global green house gas (GHG) emissions. This industrial food system is also completely incapable of assuring people’s food and livelihood needs as the world moves further into climate change. Already it has left a billion people without enough food to eat, and hundreds of millions of more people will go hungry in the coming years if the food system is not reorganised.
The most devastating consequence of this industrial food system, however, is that it is destroying other food systems that can turn climate change around and provide for the world’s food needs.
Full Story GRAIN | Other GRAIN publications and collaborations | 2009 | Climate crisis – Copenhagen -.
DOE begins Open Energy Information website
On December 14, Secretary Chu announced that the Department of Energy is launching Open Energy Information (www.openEI.org).
A wiki style open source evolving web platform that can be used by anyone to deploy clean energy technologies across the country and around the world.
The website was launched as part of a broader effort at DOE, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and across the Obama Administration to promote the openness, transparency, and accessibility of the federal government.
The site currently houses more than 60 clean energy resources and data sets, including maps of worldwide solar and wind potential, information on climate zones, and best practices. OpenEI.org also links to the Virtual Information Bridge to Energy (VIBE), which is designed as a data analysis hub that will provide a dynamic portal for better understanding energy data. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) will continue to develop, monitor, and maintain both sites.
Full Story DOE begins Open Energy Information website.
Is Copenhagen Melting Down?
Mother Jones – -
On Monday morning, negotiators from African nations shut down the climate talks at Copenhagen. The Bella Center is rife with rumors that rich countries are trying to do backroom deals with poor nations in a bid to drive a wedge in the developing-country bloc. Is the climate summit on the verge of a meltdown?
Hovering over all this conflict is the ghost of the Kyoto Protocol. As David Corn has explained, there are two separate tracks of talks at the summit—one involving signatories to the Kyoto protocol and one that encompasses the few countries like the US that did not sign the 1997 accord. The African countries want the Kyoto process to be extended because it holds certain developing nations to binding emissions cuts, not mere goals. But the US prefers a brand new political deal that is not legally enforceable. This is partly because US negotiators are apprehensive about getting a formal treaty approved by the Senate and partly because Kyoto’s mandatory cuts don’t apply to developing behemoths like China and India that will fuel most of the future growth in emissions.
Full Story Is Copenhagen Melting Down? | Mother Jones.
Democrats cede more on health bill, including Medicare buy-in
Senate Democrats have ceded yet more crucial components of President Obama’s health reforms, dropping proposals for both a public option and Medicare buy-in, apparently caving to push-back from Republicans and centrist Democrats, according to a published report.
“The general consensus was that [...] we shouldn’t make the perfect the enemy of the good and in order to get all the insurance reforms accomplished and a number of other good things in the bill,” Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN) told reporters, according to Bloomberg News. Dropping the Medicare expansion “would be necessary to get the 60 votes,” he said.
Asked whether Democrats had truly dropped both provisions, Senator Max Baucus (D-) said, “It’s looking like that’s the case,” according to Reuters.
Full Story Democrats cede more on health bill, including Medicare buy-in | Raw Story.
OPS: The Corporate Whore wins – AGAIN
Radiation from CT scans linked to cancers, deaths
CT scans deliver far more radiation than has been believed and may contribute to 29,000 new cancers each year, along with 14,500 deaths, suggest two studies in today’s Archives of Internal Medicine. One study, led by the National Cancer Institute’s Amy Berrington de Gonzalez, used existing exposure data to estimate how many cancers might be caused by CT scans.
Another study in the journal suggests the problem may even be worse. In that study, researchers found that people may be exposed to up to four times as much radiation as estimated by earlier studies. While previous studies relied on dummies equipped with sensors, authors of the new paper studied 1,119 patients at four San Francisco-area hospitals, says author Rebecca-Smith Bindman of the University of California-San Francisco. Based on those higher measurements, a patient could get as much radiation from one CT scan as 74 mammograms or 442 chest X-rays, she says.
Young people are at highest risk from excess radiation, partly because they have many years ahead of them in which cancers could develop, Smith-Bindman says. Among 20-year-old women who get one coronary angiogram, a CT scan of the heart, one in 150 will develop cancer related to the procedure.
Full Story Radiation from CT scans linked to cancers, deaths – USATODAY.com.
Chevron and Cultural Genocide in Ecuador
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Traces of paradise are still visible. From the air, the rainforest region in northern Ecuador – known as the Oriente – appears as silvery mist and swaths of verdant green.
But beneath the cloud cover and canopy, the jungle is a tangle of oil slicks, festering sludge, and rusted pipeline. Smokestacks sprout from the ground, spewing throat-burning fumes into the air. Wastewater from unlined pits seeps into the groundwater and flows into the rivers and streams.
This nightmarish landscape is the legacy of Texaco. Between 1964 and 1990, Texaco (which was acquired by Chevron in 2001) drilled roughly 350 wells across 2,700 square miles of Amazon rainforest. It extracted some $30 billion in profits while deliberately dumping 18 billion gallons of toxic soup, known as production water a mixture of oil, sulphuric acid, and other carcinogens into the streams and rivers where people collect drinking water, fish, bathe and swim.
Full Story Chevron and Cultural Genocide in Ecuador | TERRAVIVA Copenhagen.
Bush birth control policies helped fuel Africa’s baby boom
At age 45, after giving birth to 13 children in her village of thatch roofs and bare feet, Beatrice Adongo made a discovery that startled her: birth control.
“I delivered all these children because I didn't know there was another way,” said Adongo, who started on a free quarterly contraceptive injection last year. Surrounded by her weary-faced brood, her 21-month-old boy clutching at her faded blue dress, she added glumly: “I fear we are already too many in this family.”
On a continent where fewer than one in five married women use modern contraception, an explosion of unplanned pregnancies is threatening to bury Adongo’s family and a generation of Africans under a mountain of poverty.
Full Story Bush birth control policies helped fuel Africa’s baby boom | McClatchy.
States With No Death Penalty Share Lower Homicide Rates
The dozen states that have chosen not to enact the death penalty since the Supreme Court ruled in 1976 that it was constitutionally permissible have not had higher homicide rates than states with the death penalty, government statistics and a new survey by The New York Times show.
Indeed, 10 of the 12 states without capital punishment have homicide rates below the national average, Federal Bureau of Investigation data shows, while half the states with the death penalty have homicide rates above the national average. In a state-by- state analysis, The Times found that during the last 20 years, the homicide rate in states with the death penalty has been 48 percent to 101 percent higher than in states without the death penalty.
The study by The Times also found that homicide rates had risen and fallen along roughly symmetrical paths in the states with and without the death penalty, suggesting to many experts that the threat of the death penalty rarely deters criminals.
Full Story States With No Death Penalty Share Lower Homicide Rates – NYTimes.com.
Scientists Sound Biomass Alarm; Is Copenhagen Listening?
Current climate legislation and the Kyoto Protocol are undermining the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Or so contends a cautionary article that appeared in October's peer-reviewed journal of Science.
The authors, led by Timothy D. Searchinger of Princeton University, wrote in their essay, “Fixing a Critical Climate Accounting Error,” that these climate agreements do not account for carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from biomass in their overall estimates.
CO2 is considered the number one contributor to anthropogenic climate change.
Full Story t r u t h o u t | Scientists Sound Biomass Alarm; Is Copenhagen Listening?.
Eric Cantor refuses to say that Sarah Palin is qualified to be president.
On Fox News last night, House Minority Whip Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) fielded questions about Sarah Palin from host Geraldo Rivera. In a near-repeat of a similar exchange on MSNBC last month, when Haley Barbour refused to say that Palin is qualified to be president, Cantor refused to tout the qualifications of Palin. Rivera then quipped that both Cantor and Barbour seem to be “scared” of Palin’s rise:
RIVERA: Haley Barbour question: yes or no, is she qualified to be president?
CANTOR: Haley Barbour, he is an expert. That guy is one of the smartest people I know and he’s a real leader. [...]
RIVERA: And he didn’t answer the question, and neither did you. Alright Congressman Eric Cantor, thank you very much. Like I said to my friend Mike Huckabee last night, I think Sarah Palin scares mainstream Republicans like Eric Cantor and Haley Barbour as much as she scares the Democrats.
Watch it:
Full Story Think Progress » Eric Cantor refuses to say that Sarah Palin is qualified to be president..
Thom HartmannInsurance Stocks Soar With Joe Lieberman’s Statements
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that health insurance stocks are up dramatically today after Joe Lieberman’s threat to filibuster health care reform. Lieberman has a new-found strong opposition to the Medicare buy-in proposal–a massive flip-flop from his earlier support.
Wells Fargo Securities analyst Matthew Perry said Lieberman’s comments are good news for managed-care stocks as anything that delays health-care reform is a positive for the group.
“Every time the reform seems less likely that it will happen, the entire group trades higher,” said Perry, who has advised his clients to buy shares of Wellcare Health Plans Inc. (WCG), recently up 1.3% to $36.74, and Humana Inc. (HUM), up 1% to $42.26.
Among the other recent gainers in the sector, Aetna rose 2.7% to $32.65, Cigna Corp. (CI) added 2.3% to $36.41 and Well Point Inc. (WLP) gained 2.7% to $58.07. Meanwhile, UnitedHealth Group Inc. (UNH) added 1.6% to $30.99.
Joe Lieberman is the rain man for big health insurance companies. Every time he tries to bring down real reform with his nonsensical attacks on the public option or the Medicare buy-in, the stocks of health insurance corporations jump.
Full Story FDL Action » Insurance Stocks Soar With Joe Lieberman’s Statements.
Super-Earths Found Around Sun-Like Stars
Four newfound planets orbiting two nearby stars add weight to the promise of detecting habitable worlds within the next few years, researchers said today.
Two of the extrasolar planets are considered super-Earths, more massive than Earth but less massive than Uranus and Neptune. Spotting true Earth-sized planets is challenging with current technology, but the presence of super-Earths suggests finding a world like ours is just a matter of time, researchers say.
“These detections indicate that low-mass planets are quite common around nearby stars,” said study team member Steven Vogt, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. “The discovery of potentially habitable nearby worlds may be just a few years away.”
The astronomers are not sure if the super-Earths are rocky like our own world or if they have some other composition.
Full Story SPACE.com — Super-Earths Found Around Sun-Like Stars.
H-1B visa use by U.S. firms holds steady in ’09
Indian IT firms cut back, but some U.S. companies used more than in ’08
U.S. companies were still getting H-1B visa petitions even as they cut jobs, according to data from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) that shows who received the visas in the 2009 fiscal year.
A couple of trends are immediately apparent.
First, some of the big India IT services cut back on their H-1B use during the softening job market. For instance, Infosys Technologies Ltd. received only 440 visas in the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, 2008 and ended on Sept. 30, 2009. In the prior fiscal year, it received more than 10 times that number, or 4,559. And while Wipro Ltd. led the FY09 list with 1,964 visas, that number is still down more than 25% from the 2,678 visas it got the year before.
Secondly, U.S. firms, despite cutbacks in their own staffs and an overall decline in IT employment, continued to hire people using H-1B visas. That list includes Microsoft, Intel and IBM’s India operation.
Full Story H-1B visa use by U.S. firms holds steady in ’09.
Disgraceful: Discredited E-Voting Vendor VP Appointed to U.S. EAC Advisory Panel
Federal body tasked with overseeing U.S. certification of e-voting systems appoints scammer Edwin Smith, VP of e-voting companies Sequoia, Dominion, Hart-Intercivic…
Incredible. This would be the equivalent of appointing the sitting Vice President of Exxon Mobil to an EPA advisory committee, but Ed Smith has now been appointed to the disastrous U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC)’s Technical Guidelines Development Committee as one of their new “Technical and Scientific Experts”.
From the EAC’s email announcement on Friday (posted in full at end of article):
Edwin B. Smith, III, vice president of compliance and certification at Dominion Voting Systems. Before joining Dominion Voting Systems, Mr. Smith was vice president of manufacturing, compliance, quality and certification at Sequoia Voting Systems. He also served as the operations manager at Hart InterCivic and the senior director of operations at K*TEC Electronics. He holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of Phoenix and a Bachelor of Science in engineering technology from Texas A&M.
Full Story The BRAD BLOG : Disgraceful: Discredited E-Voting Vendor VP Appointed to U.S. EAC Advisory Panel.
Exclusive: Kellner: Stop Electronic Voting
New York State Elections Board Co-Chair Doug Kellner testifed to the NY Senate last month that the state should “Stop talking about trying to go to electronic voting.”
Mr. Kellner further stated that he has “advocated keeping the lever voting machines permanently.” During his testimony, Kellner cited many problems in the State’s “Pilot Program” for the electronic voting machines used in upstate NY during the Nov. 3rd, 2009 elections.
In one of the most glaring examples, Kellner verified that an ES&S machine in use in Erie county incorrectly tabulated votes – assigning votes from either candidate in the election to only one of the candidates.
Kellner stated that the problem occurred during the configuation of the machine by local election officials but strongly illustrates one of the potential pitfalls of electronic vote tabulation.
With electronic voting machines like the ES&S or Dominion’s ImageCast, votes are tabulated secretly inside the box, not in plain view of the public, or even of election officials.
Full Story Exclusive: Kellner: Stop Electronic Voting.
Copenhagen talks suspended, but resume after 3-hour delay
Negotiations at the UN climate summit were suspended after developing countries withdrew their co-operation over controversy surrounding the future of the Kyoto protocol , according to a BBC News report on Monday. The talks resumed three-hours later.
Delegations were angry at what they saw as moves by the Danish host government to sideline talks on more emission cuts under the Kyoto Protocol.
As news spread around the conference centre, activists chanted “We stand with Africa – Kyoto targets now”.
But talks between the parties were expected to resume in the afternoon and informal discussions continue.
The countries that have suspended co-operation are those which make up the G77-China bloc of 130 nations. These range from wealthy countries such as South Korea, to some of the poorest states in the world.
The G77-China bloc speaks for developing countries in the climate change negotiation process.
Full Story Copenhagen talks suspended, but resume after 3-hour delay.
Child diabetes blamed on food sweetener – Fructose
Scientists have proved for the first time that Fructose can damage human metabolism and is fuelling the obesity crisis
Fructose syrup is increasingly being used as a substitute for more expensive types of sugar
Scientists have proved for the first time that a cheap form of sugar used in thousands of food products and soft drinks can damage human metabolism and is fuelling the obesity crisis.
Fructose, a sweetener derived from corn, can cause dangerous growths of fat cells around vital organs and is able to trigger the early stages of diabetes and heart disease.
It has increasingly been used as a substitute for more expensive types of sugar in yoghurts, cakes, salad dressing and cereals. Even some fruit drinks that sound healthy contain fructose.
Experts believe that the sweetener — which is found naturally in small quantities in fruit — could be a factor in the emergence of diabetes among children. This week, a new report is expected to claim that about one in 10 children in England will be obese by 2015.
Full Story Child diabetes blamed on food sweetener – Times Online.
Millions of missing Bush admin. e-mails found
Computer technicians have uncovered 22 million messages believed lost.
Computer technicians have found 22 million missing White House e-mails from the administration of President George W. Bush
, according to two groups that are settling lawsuits they filed over the failure by the Bush White House to install an electronic record keeping system.
The two groups made the announcement as they settled lawsuits that they filed against the Executive Office of the President in 2007.
But the public might not see any of the e-mails for quite some time because they will now go through the National Archives normal process for releasing presidential and agency records.
Full Story Millions of missing Bush admin. e-mails found – Politics- msnbc.com.
Steele’s Economic Plan: Take Away Unemployment Benefits
Today President Obama will meet with the nation’s top bank executives in the President’s “latest push for lenders to take greater responsibility as the nation combats an economic crisis that began on Wall Street.” “The president is looking forward…[to discussing] the need to increase small business lending and the Administration’s plans for financial reform,” a White House spokesperson said.
This morning on NBC’s Today, RNC chair Michael Steele said that in order for banks to start lending to small businesses, the federal government should reduce the unemployment tax:
STEELE: Well, I think, first off, he should recognize that banks aren’t going to lend money to people who can’t pay them back. … So there’s — there’s this whole cycle of not understanding exactly how the economy works with respect to small-business owners. Take that pressure off of them. Let’s — let’s eliminate the capital gains tax. Let’s reduce the unemployment tax.
Watch it:
Full Story Think Progress » Steele’s Economic Plan: Take Away Unemployment Benefits.
Senate Democratic Policy Committee turns to Holtz-Eakin for job creation ideas.
The Senate Democratic Policy Committee (DPC) has announced that, on Wednesday, it “will hold an important hearing on jobs creation.” “This is a terrific opportunity to learn more about the job creation legislation as it is developed,” said the DPC in an email. Earlier this month, House Republicans held a similar job creation roundtable with a lineup full of former Bush administration and McCain staffers, which House Democrats agreed was worth disparaging. So then why are Senate Democrats calling on two of the same people: Larry Lindsey and Douglas Holtz-Eakin? The inclusion of Holtz-Eakin is especially disheartening because, at the GOP event, he said that the single best jobs policy would be ending “crippling regulation” and “intrusive government expansion”:
Full Story Think Progress » Senate Democratic Policy Committee turns to Holtz-Eakin for job creation ideas..
China’s Hu unveils landmark Turkmenistan pipeline
China’s President Hu Jintao on Monday unveiled a landmark pipeline to transport Turkmen natural gas to China, a key victory for Beijing in its drive for access to Central Asian resources.
Hu, together with the presidents of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, turned a symbolic wheel at a refinery in Samandepe in Turkmenistan’s vast Karakum desert which opened the pipeline to start the first gas flowing.
“China is positive about our cooperation and the opening of this gas pipeline is another platform for collaboration and cooperation between our friendly nations,” Hu told reporters.
The 7,000 kilometre (4,350 mile) gas pipeline is a significant victory for Beijing, marking the culmination of years of lobbying for influence over the region’s strategic energy resources, traditionally dominated by Moscow.
Full Story The Raw Story | China’s Hu unveils landmark Turkmenistan pipeline.
OPS: East meets West in the Pipeline Zone. Another excuse for war
New NASA satellite blasts off on space-map mission
NASA launched Monday a new breed of satellite called WISE on a mission to orbit Earth and map the skies to find elusive cosmic objects, including potentially dangerous asteroids.
The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) will use infrared rays to map the locations and sizes of roughly 200,000 asteroids and give scientists a clearer idea of how many space rocks loom and what danger they pose.
“When we find them, we will give the information to policy-makers to decide what to do to try to prevent these near-Earth asteroids colliding with our planet,” NASA public affairs officer J. D. Harrington told AFP.
The launch, which had been delayed from Friday after problems were discovered in a rocket booster steering engine, went ahead flawlessly at 6:09 am (1409 GMT) from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
WISE, which has been called “the most sensitive set of wide-angle infrared goggles ever,” will orbit 300 miles (500 kilometers) above Earth's surface for 10 months as it hunts for and collects data on dim objects such as dust clouds, brown dwarf stars and asteroids in the dark spaces between planets and stars.
Full Story New NASA satellite blasts off on space-map mission – Yahoo! News.
Rep. Gordon is fourth Democratic retirement
Democratic retirements are beginning to mount, after the announcement Monday that Rep. Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.) will not seek reelection next year.
Gordon [Blue Dog] said in a statement that, after a quarter-century in Congress, it’s time to retire.
“Every decision I have made in Congress has been with [constituents'] best interests in mind,” he said. “I hope the people here at home feel that I have served them as well as their good advice and views have served me.
“When I was elected, I was the youngest member of the Tennessee congressional delegation; now I’m one of the oldest. In fact, I have members of my staff who weren’t even born when I took office. That tells me it’s time for a new chapter.”
Full Story Rep. Gordon is fourth Democratic retirement – TheHill.com.
Businessman linked to Ted Stevens under investigation for underage sex
An Alaska businessman who was the key witness in the corruption trial of former Sen. Ted Stevens is under investigation by local and federal authorities over allegations he had sex with underage girls in the 1990s.
Bill Allen, the founder and former CEO of oil services company VECO, has been under investigation by Anchorage police since last year over allegations he engaged in sexual relations with at least two 15-year-old girls in the mid-1990s. The age of consent in Alaska is 16.
A report in the Anchorage Daily News details allegations by Lisa Moore, a former girlfriend of Allen, that Allen had a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old girl in 1996, and that he potentially attempted to cover up the relationship when it appeared it would be made public. Moore says when her brother got into legal trouble and it appeared Allen’s alleged sexual conduct would be revealed in court, the businessman sent Moore, her brother and her fiance to California, to avoid a subpoena.
Full Story Businessman linked to Ted Stevens under investigation for underage sex | Raw Story.
Fox News: cutting minimum wage ‘better for workers’
As the recession continues to weigh heavily on the livelihoods of millions, the Fox News Channel effectively made a case on Monday for lowering the minimum wage, suggesting it could be “better for workers.”
“The minimum wage is kind of like a sacred cow in Washington, with many, many lawmakers thinking it’s a win-win for low-skilled workers,” said Fox anchor Juliet Huddy. “But what if those good intentions backfired?”
“One school of thought says lowering the minimum wage will actually create more jobs,” she continued, without mentioning any counterargument.
Laws enacted by Congress following the Democratic takeover in 2007 have increased the federal minimum wage to $7.25 an hour as of this July. Prior to that, the minimum wage hadn’t been raised since 1997.
Full Story Fox News: cutting minimum wage ‘better for workers’ | Raw Story.
‘Whack-A-Banker’ Game A Hit In Britain
A British arcade game that allows gamers to take out their anger on bankers has proved a hit, its creator says.
The BBC reports that inventor Tim Hunkin introduced his “Whack-A-Banker” game to his seaside pier arcade in Southwold, in eastern England. It’s now proved so popular he has had to replace the worn out mallets.
Based upon the popular “Whac-A-Mole” game, players hit bankers on the head when they emerge from holes. The game allows angry Brits a chance to vent some fury about the role bankers played in the current financial crisis. However, as Hunkin told AFP:
Full Story ‘Whack-A-Banker’ Game A Hit In Britain.
Supreme Court Rejects Guantanamo Detainees’ Torture Case
The Supreme Court has refused to take up an appeal from former Guantanamo Bay detainees who say they were tortured and denied religious rights.
The justices rejected the appeal without comment Monday. Four British men say they were beaten, shackled in painful stress positions and threatened by dogs during their time at the U.S. naval base in Cuba from 2002 to 2004.
They also say they were harassed while practicing their religion, including forced shaving of their beards, banning or interrupting their prayers, denying them copies of the Quran and prayer mats and throwing a copy of the Quran in a toilet.
Full Story Supreme Court Rejects Guantanamo Detainees’ Torture Case.
Tom Harkin May Reintroduce Legislation To Kill Filibuster
With the news that Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) plans to filibuster the current health care bill, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) options are looking increasingly limited. But one Democratic senator may introduce legislation that would make health care reform a lot easier.
Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa told reporters this weekend that he might reintroduce legislation to end the filibuster, something he first proposed in 1994. The Hawk Eye reports:
“I think, if anything, this health care debate is showing the dangers of unlimited filibuster,” Harkin said Thursday during a conference call with reporters. “I think there’s a reason for slowing things down … and getting the public aware of what’s happening and maybe even to change public sentiment, but not to just absolutely stop something.”
Under Harkin’s proposal, debate could be prolonged by the minority — just not forever.
Full Story Tom Harkin May Reintroduce Legislation To Kill Filibuster.
‘Smokey Joe’ Barton: Global Warming ‘Is A Net Benefit To Mankind’
Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), nicknamed “Smokey Joe” for his persistent advocacy on behalf of polluters, sat for an interview with C-Span this weekend to discuss a variety of environmental issues.
Barton expressed concern that regulation of carbon dioxide pollution would restrict his “convenient” and “modern lifestyle.” “I don’t want to go back to the 1870s where my great-grandparents lived on a dry land cotton farm in Texas with no running water and no electricity and their power source was their own muscles or animal power,” Barton feared.
He then argued that the warming of the planet is actually a “net benefit” for humans:
CO2 is odorless, colorless, tasteless – it’s not a threat to human health in terms of being exposed to it. We create it as we talk back and forth. So, and if you go beyond that, on a net basis, there’s ample evidence that warming generically — however it is caused — is a net benefit to mankind.
Watch it:
Full Story Think Progress » ‘Smokey Joe’ Barton: Global Warming ‘Is A Net Benefit To Mankind’.
Despite Market Plunge, DeMint Calls For Privatizing ‘Socialistic’ Social Security
Last week, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) sent out a recruitment call for “new Republicans,” confirming that he sees “little use for a big-tent approach for his party.” As South Carolina’s The State put it, DeMint is setting himself up as a kingmaker, wading into national races to endorse far-right candidates.
And one of the issues about which DeMint feels very strongly is Social Security. In an interview with Bloomberg News’ Al Hunt, DeMint blasted Social Security as “socialistic,” and advocated reviving President George Bush’s Social Security privatization scheme:
DeMint considers Social Security a “socialistic” measure and blasts the American Association of Retired Persons for promulgating “socialist solutions”…In the interview, he talks of reviving President George W. Bush’s failed plan to partially privatize Social Security by having workers put a small percentage of the current levy in a personal savings account.
As CNN Money’s Allan Sloan wrote back in January, “someday, Social Security privatization will come back into vogue. When that happens, I’ve got two words that will remind you why it’s a bad idea: Remember 2008.” It’s quite shocking that we’re not even through 2009 yet, and 2008, at least for DeMint, is already forgotten.
Full Story Think Progress » Despite Market Plunge, DeMint Calls For Privatizing ‘Socialistic’ Social Security.
Tucker Carlson: Was George W. Bush Preparing to Wage War on Space Aliens?
An excerpt from Tucker Carlson’s show:
And speaking of aliens, is President Bush preparing for intergalactic war with our comrades in outer space? Former Canadian defense minister and deputy prime minister, Paul Hellyer, says, “Oh, yes.” He‘ll join us in just a few minutes to explain.
But we start tonight with the new RNC ad that blasts Democrats for having a, quote, “retreat and defeat plan for Iraq.” It also includes recent comments about the war from some prominent Democrats.
The Situation with Tucker Carlson
VIDEO AT LINK
Full Story The Existentialist Cowboy: Tucker Carlson: Was George W. Bush Preparing to Wage War on Space Aliens?.
Unemployment Insurance in a War Bill
David Swanson
Sometimes it’s relief for victims of Hurricane Katrina, sometimes it’s hate crimes legislation, sometimes it’s education funding for veterans. One day soon it will be free kittens for children with cancer. It’s always something. It’s always something that could pass just fine on its own. But it’s included as lipstick on the recurring and ever-fattening pigs of U.S. politics: war funding bills.
Next week, the warfunding bill that was passed in June will come up for a final vote, as part of a larger military bill that is part of a still larger spending package. How would any member of Congress dare to vote against such a thing? Well, just in case any of them might begin to consider it, our congressional “leaders” will include in the war funding bill a special treat: funding for unemployment insurance (plus possibly COBRA health and food stamp benefits, tax breaks for small businesses, and funding for state and local governments). How’s that for alluring lipstick?
As in every case in the past, congress members could easily vote No until the war funding is removed and the unemployment insurance money left in. And there is an additional level of hypocrisy this time. Unemployment insurance is now being included in a bill that increases unemployment.
Full Story Unemployment Insurance in a War Bill | AfterDowningStreet.org.
Financial ‘Reform’ Preserves Too Big Banks, Too Much Speculation
John Nichols, The Nation
most of the “reforms” are so mild…big bankers will be breathing sighs of relief
The U.S. House has voted for legislation that is described as “financial services reform.”
But most of the “reforms” are so mild that the savviest of the nation’s big bankers will be breathing sighs of relief, rather than worrying about being regulated into good behavior.
That's not to say that the House bill is meaningless. It proposes some valuable shifts, including the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency that could – if infused with proper authority and backed by a White House and Congress that want to tip the regulatory balance in favor of the great mass of Americans – give bankers and speculators some headaches.
Unfortunately, that’s a vague promise rather than a firm one.
Full Story Financial ‘Reform’ Preserves Too Big Banks, Too Much Speculation.
Under the icy north lurks a ‘carbon bomb’
Tropical deforestation is a climate change crisis, but scientists fear for boreal wilderness, too
North of Canada’s capital, underneath an endless expanse of spruce, pine, and birch, ticks what some scientists are calling a carbon bomb: Peat.
A thick layer of the black spongy soil, the remnants of ancient forests, wraps the globe’s northern tier. Deeper than 15 feet in places, the peat layer extends over more than 6 million square miles across Russia, Scandinavia, China, Canada, and the United States.
Carbon that those forests absorbed from the air over thousands of years is stored in the peat and suspended in waterlogged bogs or permafrost. When it is disturbed or drained – as is happening in some areas – the peat can start to decompose and dry out, unleashing greenhouse gases. In North America alone, the peat and the trees growing in it hold as much carbon as would be emitted worldwide by 26 years of burning fossil fuels at current rates.
Full Story Under the icy north lurks a ‘carbon bomb’ – The Boston Globe.
Secret reports, Secret budgets, Secret operations, Secret courts … A Secret Government!
Sibel Edmonds
The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them. — Patrick Henry
As stated by Patrick Henry with conviction and passion, a democratic government will not last if its operations and policies are not visible to its public. The foundation of our democratic republic is supposed to be based on an open and accountable government. Transparency is what enables accountability.
For several decades post 1945, under the guise of the Cold War, with the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency and an aggressive foreign policy based on overt and covert intervention abroad, the seeds of excessive secrecy were planted, aggressively nurtured, and taken to heights not imaginable in our founding fathers’ vision of transparent and accountable government. Although the Watergate Scandal brought a short-lived wave of awakening, and to a certain degree defiance, by getting Americans to question the extent of and the real need for governmental secrecy, the subsequent political movements were eventually halted with no real action ever taken, thanks to a Congress unwilling to truly exercise its oversight authority over the intelligence community.
Full Story Sibel Edmonds’ Boiling Frogs Post | Home of the Irate Minority.
Hit-listed Targeted Individuals call for Senate Judiciary Committee investigation
Surviving Targeted Individuals (TIs), victims of covert criminal activities, have gone unchecked far too long says a large group of Americans allegedly on a government sanctioned hit list that is now appealing to the Senate Judiciary Committee Chair, Senator Patrick Leahy for congressional investigation.
The hit-list program, believed to be part of the New Global Phoenix Program that Marshall Thomas identifies as the Monarch Program (see video below), consists of a campaign of lies, cover-ups, suppression, control, harassment, and domestic torture, ruining lives on U.S. soil, including slow-kill and fast-kill assassinations.
Across the United States and the globe, transnational covert harassment groups have organized and victimize mostly those considered to be disenfranchised and those exposing truth that mainstream media refuses to do.
Victim complaints of the alleged criminal activities escalated after September 11, 2001.
The treatment applies to blacks, women, children, the elderly, gays and lesbians, those institutionalised with mental illness, prisoners, newly immigrated citizens, plus many unsuspecting people, law abiding Americans.
Full Story Hit-listed Targeted Individuals call for Senate Judiciary Committee investigation.
Google Phone To Hit Stores Next Year (PHOTOS, UPDATED)
Pictures reported to be of the Nexus One Google phone have been leaked on Picasa. See the slideshow below for photos. (via Mashable and EnGadget)
AllThingsDigital has also reported that although Google will be selling its phone directly to consumers through its web site, sources have suggested that the handset creator will also be teaming up with wireless carrier T-Mobile for help in launching the Nexus One device.
* * * * *
On Saturday, Google posted a message on its Mobile Blog referring ambiguously to a new mobile phone ‘concept’ device that Google’s employees had been given to test. This new device, the blog said, “combines innovative hardware from a partner with software that runs on Android to experiment with new mobile features and capabilities.”
Full Story NEXUS ONE (PHOTOS): Google Phone To Hit Stores Next Year (PHOTOS, UPDATED).
Citigroup To Repay $20 Billion In TARP Bailout Money
Citigroup Inc. said Monday it is repaying $20 billion in bailout money it received from the Treasury Department, freeing the banking giant from the close scrutiny and pay restrictions that came with the rescue program. The government will also sell its stake in the company.
The New York-based bank was among the hardest hit by the credit crisis and rising loan defaults and got one of the largest bailouts of any banks during the financial crisis. The government gave it $45 billion in loans and agreed to protect losses on nearly $300 billion in risky investments. Wells Fargo & Co. remains the last national bank that has yet to pay back its bailout money.
Citi is selling $20.5 billion in stock and debt to repay the government. It only has to pay back $20 billion because the remaining $25 billion was converted into a 34 percent ownership stake in the bank earlier this year. The government plans to sell that entire stake – which has risen in value by more than 20 percent – during the next year. The loss-sharing
Full Story Citigroup To Repay $20 Billion In TARP Bailout Money.
Dubai gets $10B from Abu Dhabi to cover debt
Dubai got a $10 billion lifeline from oil-rich Abu Dhabi to save one of its prized companies from imminent default Monday, calming fears for now about the city-state’s shaky finances. Dubai’s main stock market spiked more than 10 percent on the news.
Dubai World – a sprawling conglomerate with assets ranging from the oceanliner Queen Elizabeth 2 to luxury retailer Barney’s New York – had been up against a Monday deadline to repay a pile of loans from its Nakheel property division. Some $4.1 billion of the emergency funds will be used to pay off those bills. The rest will go to shore up Dubai World itself.
Dubai officials’ reluctance to fully stand behind Dubai World’s $60 billion in debts had raised serious concerns about the emirate’s creditworthiness, and the move by Abu Dhabi appeared aimed at quashing those worries before they undercut confidence in the United Arab Emirates as a whole. The two emirates share control of the UAE, a federation of seven semiautonomous city-states.
Full Story Dubai gets $10B from Abu Dhabi to cover debt.
Tullett Preborn To Help Employees Relocate To Avoid UK Bonus Tax
Tullett Prebon, a London-based inter-dealer broker described as one of the City’s biggest trading firms, will help employees relocate to avoid the United Kingdom’s 50 percent tax on bankers’ bonuses. The firm is also thinking about relocating its headquarters, Reuters reports:
A Tullett spokesman said the group would look into relocating staff who expressed a wish to quit the UK because it would otherwise run the risk of losing star brokers to rivals.
“The board has concluded that it is in the best interests of shareholders to respond to requests from desks to relocate out of the UK, and will seek to facilitate, were possible and appropriate, relocation to the company’s other offices around the world which have more certain taxation regimes,” the spokesman said.
Full Story Tullett Preborn To Help Employees Relocate To Avoid UK Bonus Tax.
81% Of Dems Want Lieberman Punished For Health Care Filibuster
More than 80 percent of Democrats say they believe Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn) should be stripped of his powerful chairmanship in the Senate if he ends up supporting a Republican filibuster of health care reform, according to a new poll.
The liberal action groups Progressive Change Campaign Committee and Democracy for America commissioned a survey several days ago, in which they asked more than 800 voters whether Lieberman's position on health care should affect his status as head of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
Eighty-one percent of Democrats said they would like to see the senator's chairmanship — which he was allowed to keep despite campaigning for Sen. John McCain in 2008 — taken away should he sustain a filibuster. Only 10 percent of Democrats said there should be no punishment. Even fewer (nine percent) said they had yet to make up their minds, underscoring just how divisive Lieberman is within the party.
Full Story 81% Of Dems Want Lieberman Punished For Health Care Filibuster.
Copenhagen Climate Talks SUSPENDED, In Chaos, As Countries Walk Out Of The Conference
The UN international climate change conference is in chaos as the G77, which represents 130 developing countries “pulled the emergency plug” suspending the talks over wealthy countries’ reluctance to discuss a legally binding emissions treaty.
Jeremy Hobbs, Executive Director of Oxfam put out this statement:
Africa has pulled the emergency cord to avoid a train crash at the end of the week. Poor countries want to see an outcome which guarantees sharp emissions reductions yet rich countries are trying to delay discussions on the only mechanism we have to deliver this – the Kyoto Protocol.
This not about blocking the talks – it is about whether rich countries are ready to guarantee action on climate change and the survival or people in Africa and across the world.
Full Story Copenhagen Climate Talks SUSPENDED, In Chaos, As Countries Walk Out Of The Conference (BREAKING).
War and public opinion
Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com
In May, 2008, Dick Cheney caused an uproar when he told ABC News’ Martha Raddatz that public opposition to the war in Iraq was, in essence, irrelevant:
RADDATZ: Two-third of Americans say it’s not worth fighting.
CHENEY: So?
RADDATZ: So? You don’t care what the American people think?
CHENEY: No. I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls.
Today, New York Times Editorial Page — which has become one of the most vehement supporters of the war in Afghanistan (and Pakistan) — echoed Cheney’s sentiment when demanding that European leaders escalate their commitments to the war despite overwhelming and growing opposition among their citizenry:
Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, and France’s president, Nicolas Sarkozy, have repeatedly stated that their countries have a stake in the future of Afghanistan and the future of NATO. But both are wary of pushing their voters too far, too fast. (Both have essentially postponed their decisions on further troop contributions until late next month.) Democratically elected leaders cannot ignore public skepticism, but they should not surrender to it when they know better.
Full Story Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.
G77 Group Of Developing Countries Walk Out As Protest
Developing countries have returned to talks at the Copenhagen climate change summit after staging a mass walkout.
The main sessions of the UN conference were halted after the protest, which was led by African countries and backed by the G77 group of developing nations.
They accused developed countries of trying to back out of the Kyoto Protocol on carbon emissions.
But they agreed to continue negotiations after securing guarantees that the talks would focus more on the future of the treaty, European and African delegates said.
“A range of developing countries have expressed their concerns and acted accordingly,” Australian climate change minister Penny Wong said after the walkout.
“This is not the time for people to play procedural games.
“We need to resolve the process issues and get onto the substance.”
Taibbi vs. Obama | Mother Jones
Matt Taibbi’s long polemic about Barack Obama’s economic team in the current issue of Rolling Stone has attracted its share of both support and derision in the blogosphere over the past couple of days. Big surprise, eh? Digby rounds up some of the reaction here.
Well, after reading the piece this afternoon you can basically count me among the supporters. Is it over the top? Of course it is. Are there some matters of interpretation that I think Taibbi gets a bit wrong? Sure. For example: the conceit of the piece is that Obama chose to build his economic team around people who were acolytes of Bob Rubin, and this strikes me as misguided. Basically, Obama chose to build his economic team around mainstream Democratic economists with previous government experience, and virtually all of these guys have ties to each other and therefore to Rubin. That’s every bit as bad — maybe worse, in fact — but it changes the problem from one of personal influence to one of systemic influence. There’s a real difference there. What else? Taibbi spends a lot of time on Rubin pal Michael Froman, who led Obama’s search for an economic team during the transition, and this leads him to say that Tim Geithner was “hired to head the U.S. Treasury” by Froman. But that’s kind of silly. At the cabinet level, Obama didn’t need Froman’s advice. He chose Geithner all on his own. Taibbi also commits one of my pet peeves, suggesting that the bailout may eventually cost taxpayers $23 trillion. That’s ridiculous. He also fails to emphasize enough that virtually all of the bailout money was directed by the Fed and virtually all of it predates Obama’s presidency.
Full Story Taibbi vs. Obama | Mother Jones.
Sunspots do not cause climate change, say scientists
Key claim of global warming sceptics debunked
Leading scientists, including a Nobel Prize-winner, have rounded on studies used by climate sceptics to show that global warming is a natural phenomenon connected with sunspots, rather than the result of the man-made emissions of carbon dioxide.
The researchers – all experts in climate or solar science – have told The Independent that the scientific evidence continually cited by sceptics to promote the idea of sunspots being the cause of global warming is deeply flawed.
Studies published in 1991 and 1998 claimed to establish a link between global temperatures and solar activity – sunspots – and continue to be cited by climate sceptics, including those who attended an “alternative” climate conference in Copenhagen last week.
Full Story Sunspots do not cause climate change, say scientists – Climate Change, Environment – The Independent.
Mexican lawmaker: Oil-stealing cartel now ‘a parallel government’
Profits driven by the prohibition of drugs and other criminal enterprises have enabled the Zeta cartel to become “a parallel government,” according to a Mexican lawmaker quoted in a Sunday report by The Washington Post.
The Zetas, founded by former Mexican military commandos, are a prime player in the theft of over $1 billion of Mexico's crude oil, according to the report.
“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 Post noted.
Oil stolen by Mexican cartels is often smuggled into the U.S. and sold for obscene profits. Pemex said that it lost over $715 million to theft in 2008 and expects to lose over $300 million in 2009.
Eduardo Mendoza Arellano, a Mexican lawmaker charged with energy policies, reportedly claimed the cartel has become so powerful thy could be considered “a parallel government.”
Full Story Mexican lawmaker: Oil-stealing cartel now ‘a parallel government’ | Raw Story.
Army suicides reach all-time high
Suicides climb 5 straight Army Counseling Fights Soldier PTSD and Rising Suicides
Neither the U.S. military nor the American public would tolerate a conflict in which U.S. losses mounted for five straight years. Yet, that’s what’s happening in the Army’s battle with suicides. The recently released figure for November show that 12 soldiers are suspected of taking their own lives, bringing to 147 the total suicides for 2009, the highest since the Army began keeping track in 1980. Last year the Army had 140 suicides.
Although Army officials don’t blame the spike on repeated deployments to war zones, evidence is mounting to the contrary. Only about a third of Army suicides happen in war zones, officials note, and another third are among personnel who had never deployed. But that means two-thirds of Army suicides have deployed, many returning home with mental scars that make them prone to take their own lives, the Army’s No. 2 officer said last week. (See pictures of an Army town’s struggle with PTSD.)
“Soldiers who are suffering from posttraumatic stress are six times more likely to commit suicide than those that are not,” General Peter Chiarelli told the House Armed Services Committee last Thursday. “The greatest single debilitating injury of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan is posttraumatic stress.” Nearly 1 in 5 soldiers — more than 300,000 — comes home from the wars reporting symptoms of PTSD. Army officials also acknowledge that substance abuse, fueled by repeated combat tours, and a war-created shortage of mental-health professionals, contribute to mental ills that can lead to suicide.
Full Story Army Counseling Fights Soldier PTSD and Rising Suicides – TIME.
Study: Cleaners ‘worth more to society’ than bankers
Hospital cleaners are worth more to society than bankers, a study suggests.
Cleaners: + 10 to 1, Bankers -7 to1
The research, carried out by think tank the New Economics Foundation, says hospital cleaners create £10 of value for every £1 they are paid.
It claims bankers are a drain on the country because of the damage they caused to the global economy.
They reportedly destroy £7 of value for every £1 they earn. Meanwhile, senior advertising executives are said to “create stress”.
The study says they are responsible for campaigns which create dissatisfaction and misery, and encourage over-consumption.
Full Story BBC News – Cleaners ‘worth more to society’ than bankers – study.
US business interests suspected in ‘fabricated’ climate scandal
Business interests and US partisan politics are behind the furor over leaked emails that have whipped up a controversy at the Copenhagen climate talks, Canadian experts say.
The global talks to hammer out a deal on curbing greenhouse gas emissions are being derailed by public attention on the so-called “Climategate,” scientist Andrew Weaver and author James Hoggan told AFP.
Intercepted from scientists at Britain’s University of East Anglia, a top center for climate research, the emails have been seized upon by skeptics as evidence that experts twisted data in order to dramatize global warming.
Some of the thousands of messages expressed frustration at the scientists’ inability to explain what they described as a temporary slowdown in warming.
The controversy “gives voice to dissenters at the table in Copenhagen, like Saudi Arabia and Russia,” said Hoggan, author of “Climate Cover-up” about big-business funding of opponents of environmental causes.
Full Story US business interests suspected in ‘fabricated’ climate scandal | Raw Story.
Ben Nelson follows Lieberman in opposing health compromise
Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) has followed the fastidious Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) in withdrawing his support from the Senate health care compromise, which jettisoned the public insurance option in favor of a Medicare buy-in program for people 55 years and up.
“I am concerned that it’s the forerunner of single payer, the ultimate single-payer plan, maybe even more directly than the public option,” Nelson said on Sunday in an appearance on CBS’ “Face The Nation.”
The Nebraskan also declared he’s concerned about the potential costs of the provision.
Nelson and Lieberman both appeared on the program, and said that the Medicare expansion provision doesn’t have 60 votes in the Senate.
It bears pointing out that they are the only two non-Republican members of the upper chamber that have thus far opposed it — with their support, there would be 60.
Full Story Ben Nelson follows Lieberman in opposing health compromise | Raw Story.
OPS: It’s time to throw Nelson and Lieberman out of the Democratic Party. They are not Democrats – they are Judas Goats
Outraged Brits want Blair prosecuted for war crimes
Tony Blair’s admission that Britain would have backed the Iraq war even if he knew it did not have weapons of mass destruction sparked outrage Sunday and calls for his prosecution for war crimes.
The former British prime minister, who backed the US-led invasion in 2003, told the BBC he would “still have thought it right to remove” Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein because of the threat he posed to the region.
Lawyers representing the deposed Iraqi leadership said they would seek to prosecute Blair following his remarks, while one newspaper commentator said it was a “game-changing admission” for the ongoing official inquiry into the war.
Former UN weapons inspector Hans Blix added: “The war was sold on the WMD, and now you feel, or hear that it was only a question of deployment of arguments, as he said, it sounds a bit like a fig leaf that was held up.”
Blair is due to give evidence to the inquiry into the war, led by former civil servant John Chilcot, early next year, and the commentator in the Sunday Telegraph said the investigation's focus must now change.
Full Story Outraged Brits want Blair prosecuted for war crimes | Raw Story.
OPS: If the Brits pull this off – the Bush Crime Family will be som much closer …..
Tuvalu representative: The fate of my country rests in the hands of the U.S. Senate.
Yesterday, Ian Fry, the Tuvalu delegate to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, made an impassioned plea for legally binding agreements to be made by world leaders to save his nation and other low-lying island states. The tiny Pacific island nation of Tuvalu and other small island states have proposed a new treaty to protect these nations. Fry noted that is is “an irony of the modern world that the fate of the world is being determined by some senators in the US Congress”:
It appears that we are waiting for some senators in the U.S. Congress to conclude before we can consider this issue properly. It is an irony of the modern world that the fate of the world is being determined by some senators in the U.S. Congress.
Watch it:
Full Story Think Progress » Tuvalu representative: The fate of my country rests in the hands of the U.S. Senate..
4 Huge Loopholes in the Derivatives Reform Legislation
The world financial system nearly melted down in 2008. This was a result of the interlocking web of exposures between major financial institutions caused by the unregulated and completely opaque over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives market. The U.S. taxpayer was forced to pledge nearly $24 trillion in cash and loan guarantees to avert financial Armageddon. That amounts to approximately $200,000 for every household in America!
Even though the system was saved from total collapse, still the economic pain inflicted upon America and the world was devastating. Trillions of dollars in savings were obliterated and millions of jobs were destroyed as the world’s economy was crushed. All of this could have been averted if OTC derivatives had been properly regulated.
The risk to our financial system must be eliminated, not simply regulated. We as Americans should not tolerate our system being put at risk. All OTC derivatives should clear through a Central Counterparty (CCP) with novation and daily margin, so that all swaps counterparties are forced to make good on their bets every day. In addition, all derivatives that can trade on a public exchange should trade on a public exchange so that regulators have real-time transparency and the ability to police these markets for fraud and manipulation.
Full Story 4 Huge Loopholes in the Derivatives Reform Legislation — Seeking Alpha.
Michael Moore on Q TV: Capitalism and Democracy.
The director of ‘Capitalism; A Love Story’ sat down in Studio Q to talk about the film.
Full Story YouTube – Michael Moore on Q TV.
CLIMATE CHANGE: Scientists Turn to Inuit for Clues
The Inuit people who live in and around the Arctic are among the worst victims of global warming, and scientists are now turning to their experience and indigenous knowledge to understand the staggering effects of climate change.
“The Arctic is at the epicentre of climate change. Inuit traditions and subsistence practices have already been assaulted,” stated the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC) in a call for action at the 15th Conference of Parties (CoP15) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, underway in the Danish capital.
“Government leaders at CoP15 must take the strongest possible measures to protect our Arctic homeland,” read the call for action from the ICC, which represents approximately 160,000 Inuit living in Greenland, Russia, Canada and the United States.
Not only are political leaders around the world not doing enough to limit global warming, but also the best of mainstream science still cannot properly predict the impact of climate change in the Arctic.
Full Story CLIMATE CHANGE: Scientists Turn to Inuit for Clues – IPS ipsnews.net.
Cone of silence over Blair evidence
Key parts of Tony Blair’s evidence to the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war will be given in secret, sources close to the hearings have revealed.
His conversations with President George W. Bush when he was British Prime Minister, and details of the decision-making process that led Britain into war, will fall under the scope of national security and the protection of Britain’s relations with the United States. But well-placed sources also suggested anything “interesting” would also be shrouded in secrecy, leaving Blair’s public appearance containing little more than is known.
The revelation will dash hopes that Blair will finally detail in public why he committed British troops to the invasion on the basis of flimsy intelligence. Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg said if a significant proportion of Blair’s evidence were held in private, the public would “rightly conclude that the inquiry is simply too weak to give us the truth”.
Full Story Cone of silence over Blair evidence – World – NZ Herald News.
2010: “The year of severe economic contraction”
Mike Whitney –
The upbeat reports in the financial media, belie the effects of the ongoing credit contraction. Massive injections of central bank liquidity have prevented the collapse of financial markets, but have done nothing to ease the deleveraging of households or stimulate activity the broader economy. The crisis has stripped $13 trillion in equity from working families who now find their access to credit either cut off or severely curtailed by the same banks that received hefty taxpayer-funded bailouts. The fiscal strangulation of the millions of people who are no longer considered “creditworthy” is progressively weakening demand and spreading pessimism across all income levels. Growing public desperation was the focus of a special weekend report by Bloomberg News:
“Americans have grown gloomier about both the economy and the nation’s direction over the past three months even as the U.S. shows signs of moving from recession to recovery. Almost half the people now feel less financially secure than when President Barack Obama took office in January, a Bloomberg National Poll shows.
The economy is the country’s top concern, with persistently high unemployment the greatest threat the public sees. Eight of 10 Americans rate joblessness a high risk to the economy in the next two years, outranking the federal budget deficit, which is cited by 7 of 10. An increase in taxes is named as a high risk by almost 6 of 10.
Fewer than 1 in 3 Americans think the economy will improve in the next six months….
Full Story 2010: “The year of severe economic contraction” | The Smirking Chimp.
Highlights of $1.1T spending bill
Highlights of a $1.1 trillion spending bill before the Senate funding government agencies:
_$519 billion in routine payments for Medicare and Medicaid.
_$3.9 billion for more than 5,000 “earmarks,” or home-state projects sought by lawmakers.
_A pay raise for federal employees averaging 2 percent.
_Establishes an appeals process for automobile dealers closed by General Motors and Chrysler.
_Permits the District of Columbia government to provide abortions with locally raised revenue, permits needle exchange programs in the city and allows implementation of a medical marijuana referendum.
_Eases restrictions on federal funding of needle exchange programs nationwide to combat the spread of disease by drug users.
_Allows Amtrak passengers to transport firearms in checked luggage.
Full Story Highlights of $1.1T spending bill – Yahoo! News.
Ralph Nader: Dubya and Obama are “a Seamless Transition” on the War
On Sat., Dec. 12, 2009, Ralph Nader, a political gadfly par excellence, a distinguished and best selling author and a persistent Third Party presidential candidate, was one of the featured speakers at the emergency End-the-U.S.-Wars rally.
Full Story YouTube – Ralph Nader: Dubya and Obama are “a Seamless Transition” on the War.
Obamania
Matt Taibbi
There is an important parallel between those who believe all criticism of Obama to be illegitimate and those on the Right who despise him without pause. The latter is every bit as personality-driven as the former: they despise Obama not for any specific policy decisions (often, those are aligned with their ostensible views), but because of personality caricatures they’ve adopted: he’s a narcissistic, vacant, Socialist Muslim and therefore nothing he does is right. That is simply the opposite side of the same coin as those who revere his personality and thus believe that nothing he does merits real criticism.
That’s unsurprising, given that many of the most vehement Obama-haters were the same ones who most loved Bush and now love Palin: this is all about cultural identification and personality admiration and has nothing to do with the factors that ought to be used to judge political leaders.
I supported Barack Obama. I still do. If I had to vote tomorrow between Obama and Tim Pawlenty, or Sarah Palin, it wouldn’t be a choice that required a whole lot of thought. He’s done some good things. He’s restored some confidence in the United States among foreign leaders. We had something of a revolutionary regime for eight years under George Bush, and Obama has put the United States back into the club of rule-abiding nations, at least to some degree.
But I’m a little mystified by the letters I’m getting from people who suggest that being a supporter of a politician means that you should “give him a break” on this or that shortcoming, and behave more like a fan than a citizen. The above post by the always-intelligent Glenn Greenwald perfectly describes this mindset — he talks about this bizarre phenomenon of Obama fans threatening to “leave the left” because of criticism of Obama trickling up from those ranks. I was particularly struck by his analysis of the now-infamous video of Sarah Palin book-buyers explaining to a snarky interviewer how they support her despite the fact that they can’t really identify any of her positions. Greenwald notes the obvious parallel:
Full Story Obamania – Matt Taibbi – Taibblog – True/Slant.
Was Iceland a Target for Economic Hit Men?
John Perkins
John Perkins, author of Hoodwinked and Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, blames Iceland’s economic collapse on the tactics of economic hit men from multi-national corporations .
Economic hit man John Perkins has confessed the sins of predatory politicians and analyzed the reasons for the current meltdown. A reformed economist, he warns that returning to our “normal” blueprints for the global economy would prove disastrous. Perkins details the steps to transform “the mutant form of capitalism” into a system based on sustainability and justice. – Commonwealth Club
John Perkins spent three decades as an Economic Hit Man, business executive, author, and lecturer. He lived and worked in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and North America. Then he made a decision: he would use these experiences to make the planet a better place for his daughter's generation. Today he teaches about the importance of rising to higher levels of consciousness, to waking up – in both spiritual and physical realms – and is a champion for environmental and social causes. He has lectured at universities on four continents, including Harvard, Wharton, and Princeton.
Full Story YouTube – Was Iceland a Target for Economic Hit Men? – John Perkins.
Disaster and Denial
Paul Krugman
When I first began writing for The Times, I was naïve about many things. But my biggest misconception was this: I actually believed that influential people could be moved by evidence, that they would change their views if events completely refuted their beliefs.
And to be fair, it does happen now and then. I’ve been highly critical of Alan Greenspan over the years (since long before it was fashionable), but give the former Fed chairman credit: he has admitted that he was wrong about the ability of financial markets to police themselves.
But he’s a rare case. Just how rare was demonstrated by what happened last Friday in the House of Representatives, when — with the meltdown caused by a runaway financial system still fresh in our minds, and the mass unemployment that meltdown caused still very much in evidence — every single Republican and 27 Democrats voted against a quite modest effort to rein in Wall Street excesses.
Let’s recall how we got into our current mess.
Full Story Op-Ed Columnist – Disaster and Denial – NYTimes.com.
Amy Goodman: Why Climate Agreement Is Needed Now
Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman is passionate about solving climate change. She’s seen the damage it has already done to some small island nations. She tells The UpTake’s Mike McIntee why she and Democracy now has come to Copenhaagen for the UN Climate Change Conference. She also says that corporate media is blocking action on climate change and suggests people fight back by supporting independent media such as Democracy Now and The UpTake. Distributed by Tubemogul.
Full Story YouTube – Amy Goodman:Why Climate Agreement Is Needed Now.
Hollywood’s Brilliant Coda to America’s Dark Year
Frank Rich –
ON Christmas Day, Hollywood will blanket America with a most unlikely holiday entertainment. That’s when “Up in the Air,” the acclaimed new movie starring George Clooney, will spread from its big-city engagements to more than 2,000 screens. Clooney plays Ryan Bingham, a corporate road warrior for a small, Omaha-based contractor hired to lay off employees for companies that prefer to outsource that unpleasant task. Ryan has fired so many people in so many cities that he is approaching a frequent-flier status unknown to all but a few Americans.
How could a film with that premise be a Christmas hit in a country reeling from the highest unemployment rate in decades? By using the power of pop culture to salve national wounds that continue to fester in the real world.
“Up in the Air” is not a political movie. It won’t be mistaken for either a Michael Moore or Ayn Rand polemic on capitalism. What makes it tick is Ryan’s struggle to reclaim his own humanity, a story that will not be described or spoiled here. But the film’s backdrop is just as primal — and these days perhaps more universal — than the personal drama so movingly atomized by Clooney in the foreground.
Here is an America whose battered inhabitants realize that the economic deck is stacked against them, gamed by distant, powerful figures they can’t see or know. “Up in the Air” may be a glossy production sprinkled with laughter and sex, but it captures the distinctive topography of our Great Recession as vividly as a far more dour Hollywood product of 70 years ago, “The Grapes of Wrath,” did the vastly different landscape of the Great Depression.
Full Story Op-Ed Columnist – Hollywood’s Brilliant Coda to America’s Dark Year – NYTimes.com.
ACLU Blasts Obama on Bush’s Crimes
Despite Barack Obama’s high-minded words about “just wars” and human rights – most recently in his Nobel Peace Prize speech – the U.S. President has shielded officials from George W. Bush’s administration from accountability for torture and other war crimes, prompting stern rebukes from leading advocates of civil liberties.
Shortly after his speech in Oslo on Thursday, Obama came under withering criticism over his administration’s refusal to comply with legal obligations that require all countries to prosecute their government officials implicated in torture.
“We’re increasingly disappointed and alarmed by the current administration’s stance on accountability for torture,” said Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project, during a conference call with reporters.
Full Story Consortiumnews.com.
A pervasive war mentality has invaded and occupied America
It’s as if a giant octopus has wrapped its tentacles around the body of America and is smothering any attempts at honest dissension, rejection or even debate over the never-ending promotion of war. That octopus, the ultra powerful military-industrial complex, is the tight-knit combination of the U.S. government, the armed forces and the industrial sector.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in his farewell address in 1961, warned that, “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together.”
This was a Republican president and the former Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe that achieved victory over Hitler’s powerful war machine in World War II. This famous general, because of his long military career, might have been thought to be a war hawk but he certainly was not. He was a brilliant war strategist but he knew from personal experience the horrors of war and that it was not a thing to take lightly.
Full Story OpEdNews – Article: A pervasive war mentality has invaded and occupied America.
Chris Hedges: “We Live in a Time of Radical Evil!”
On Sat., Dec. 12, 2009, Chris Hedges, journalist/author, was one of the speakers at the emergency “End-the-U.S.-Wars” rally. See, for background: http://www.enduswars.org/ The event was held in Lafayette Park, opposite the White House.
Full Story YouTube – Chris Hedges: “We Live in a Time of Radical Evil!”.
Joseph Lieberman Says He Can’t Support Current Health Bill
In a surprise setback for Democratic leaders, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, said on Sunday that he would vote against the health care legislation in its current form.
The bill’s supporters had said earlier that they thought they had secured Mr. Lieberman’s agreement to go along with a compromise they worked out to overcome an impasse within the Democratic Party.
But on Sunday, Mr. Lieberman told the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, to scrap the idea of expanding Medicare and abandon any new government insurance plan or lose his vote.
On a separate issue, Mr. Reid tried over the weekend to concoct a compromise on abortion that would induce Senator Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska, to vote for the bill. Mr. Nelson opposes abortion. Any provision that satisfies him risks alienating supporters of abortion rights.
In interviews on the CBS News program “Face the Nation,” Mr. Lieberman and Mr. Nelson said the bill did not have the 60 votes it would need in the Senate.
Full Story Joseph Lieberman Says He Can’t Support Current Health Bill – NYTimes.com.
Iraq: the crime of the century
The purpose of the Chilcot inquiry is to normalise an epic crime by providing enough of a theatre of guilt to satisfy the media
I tried to contact Mark Higson the other day, only to learn that he had died nine years ago. He was just 40, an honourable man. We met soon after he resigned from the Foreign Office in 1991 and I asked him if the government knew that Hawk fighter-bombers sold to Indonesia were being used against civilians in East Timor.
“Everyone knows,” he said, “except parliament and the public.”
“And the media?”
“The media – the big names – have been invited to King Charles Street [the Foreign Office] and flattered and briefed with lies. They are no trouble.”
As Iraq desk officer at the Foreign Office, he had drafted letters for ministers reassuring MPs and the public that the government was not arming Saddam Hussein. “This was a downright lie,” he said. “I couldn’t bear it.”
Giving evidence before the arms-to-Iraq inquiry, Higson was the only British official commended by Lord Justice Scott for telling the truth. The price he paid was the loss of his health and marriage, and constant surveillance by spooks. He ended up living on benefits in a Birmingham bedsit where he suffered a seizure, struck his head and died alone. Whistleblowers are often heroes; he was one.
Full Story New Statesman – Iraq: the crime of the century.
Blair Iraq war admission sparks fresh outrage, Calls For War Crimes Prosecution
Tony Blair’s admission that Britain would have backed the Iraq war even if he knew it did not have weapons of mass destruction sparked outrage Sunday and calls for his prosecution for war crimes.
The former British prime minister, who backed the US-led invasion in 2003, told the BBC he would “still have thought it right to remove” Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein because of the threat he posed to the region.
Lawyers representing the deposed Iraqi leadership said they would seek to prosecute Blair following his remarks, while one newspaper commentator said it was a “game-changing admission” for the ongoing official inquiry into the war.
Former UN weapons inspector Hans Blix added: “The war was sold on the WMD, and now you feel, or hear that it was only a question of deployment of arguments, as he said, it sounds a bit like a fig leaf that was held up.”
Full Story Blair Iraq war admission sparks fresh outrage – Yahoo! News.
Monsanto Squeezes Out Seed Business Competition, AP Investigation Finds
Monsanto’s patented genes in 95% of soy, 80% of corn in US
Confidential contracts detailing Monsanto Co.’s business practices reveal how the world’s biggest seed developer is squeezing competitors, controlling smaller seed companies and protecting its dominance over the multibillion-dollar market for genetically altered crops, an Associated Press investigation has found.
With Monsanto’s patented genes being inserted into roughly 95 percent of all soybeans and 80 percent of all corn grown in the U.S., the company also is using its wide reach to control the ability of new biotech firms to get wide distribution for their products, according to a review of several Monsanto licensing agreements and dozens of interviews with seed industry participants, agriculture and legal experts.
Declining competition in the seed business could lead to price hikes that ripple out to every family’s dinner table. That’s because the corn flakes you had for breakfast, soda you drank at lunch and beef stew you ate for dinner likely were produced from crops grown with Monsanto’s patented genes.
Full Story Monsanto Squeezes Out Seed Business Competition, AP Investigation Finds.
Tourist killed by hotel water – Miami
After a hotel’s powerful filter removed all the chlorine from city water, bacteria grew — killing one and making two others ill.
A foreign visitor has died and at least two other people have become sick after staying at a downtown Miami luxury hotel, and health officials are blaming an unusual type of pneumonia called Legionnaire’s Disease.
Guests at the Epic Hotel have been relocated upon request to nearby hotels to prevent further contact with the Legionella bacteria in the water, according to the Miami-Dade County Health Department.
An investigation this week by county and state officials revealed that the hotel had installed a water filter powerful enough to remove chlorine from its city-supplied water, a move that encouraged bacterial growth.
“What’s ironic is the hotel installed a special filtration system to enhance the quality of their drinking water,” said Dr. Vincent Conte, the county’s top epidemiologist.
Studies show this type of bacteria is not easily transmitted through simple person-to-person contact because water droplets must enter a person’s lungs. Instead, the culprit is typically a building ventilation system or water supply.
Full Story Tourist killed by hotel water – Miami-Dade – MiamiHerald.com.
Hospital study shows full moons werewolf effect
A study in an Australian hospital has identified a spike in out-of-control “werewolf” patients when a full moon is out.
There were 91 emergency patients rated as having violent and acute behavioural disturbance at the Calvary Mater Newcastle hospital from August 2008 to July 2009.
Leonie Calver, a clinical research nurse in toxicology, said almost a quarter of the cases (23 per cent) occurred on a night of full moon and this was double the number for other lunar phases.
The patients all had to be sedated and physically restrained to protect themselves and others.
“Some of these patients attacked the staff like animals – biting, spitting and scratching,” Ms Calver said.
“One might compare them with the werewolves of the past, who are said to have also appeared during the full moon.”
Full Story Hospital study shows full moons werewolf effect.
Matt Taibbi On “Colbert Report”: Wall Street Is ‘One Ponzi Scheme After Another’ (VIDEO)
Matt Taibbi took his crusade against Goldman Sachs to “The Colbert Report” last night, accusing the investment colossus of using its influence in government to repeatedly manipulate financial bubbles.
Taibbi pointed to three examples — the dot-com bubble in the late nineties, the housing bubble and commodities speculation last year — which he says Goldman Sachs used to get rich at taxpayers' expense. In the case of the tech stock bubble, Taibbi accused Goldman of underwriting a high number of risky internet IPOs and manufacturing a “collapse in underwriting standards.”
Wall Street is no longer “about helping investors find good business opportunities which in turn would create jobs,” Taibbi told Colbert, but rather “one Ponzi scheme after another.” And when Wall Street's bets fail? Friends in government — Taibbi named Robert Rubin, who left Goldman Sachs to be Treasury Secretary in both Clinton administrations and now advises President Obama — come to the rescue: “they know the government is going to bail them out,” he says.
Full Story Matt Taibbi On “Colbert Report”: Wall Street Is ‘One Ponzi Scheme After Another’ (VIDEO).
Poor Women Turned Away From Free Cancer Screenings
As the economy falters and more people go without health insurance, low-income women in at least 20 states are being turned away or put on long waiting lists for free cancer screenings, according to the American Cancer Society's Cancer Action Network.
In the unofficial survey of programs for July 2008 through April 2009, the organization found that state budget strains are forcing some programs to reject people who would otherwise qualify for free mammograms and Pap smears. Just how many are turned away isn't known; in some cases, the women are screened through other programs or referred to different providers.
“I cried and I panicked,” said Erin LaBarge, 47. This would have been her third straight year receiving a free mammogram through the screening program in St. Lawrence County. But the Norwood, N.Y., resident was told she couldn't get her free mammogram this year because there isn't enough money and she's not old enough.
Full Story Poor Women Turned Away From Free Cancer Screenings.
Lawsuit Reveals the Problems Inside Wall Street’s Mortgage Machine
DURING the lending mania, as Wall Street’s mortgage machinery hummed and the money poured in, millions of loans were bought and sold, zipping across town or around the world.
Now that this giant factory is pretty much shuttered, details are emerging about how its assembly lines actually operated. And as a dispute between two European banks and Bank of America indicates, the revelations aren’t pretty.
Starting in late 2007, Deutsche Bank invested $1.2 billion in a mortgage financing vehicle known as Ocala Funding; alongside it was BNP Paribas, a French bank that put $481 million into the same vehicle.
Full Story Fair Game – Lawsuit Reveals the Problems Inside Wall Street’s Mortgage Machine – NYTimes.com.
Prince William to share Queen’s duties: Treasury document reveals secret plan to make him the ‘Shadow King’
The Queen is to hand over a substantial part of her public duties to Prince William to help him prepare for the day when he becomes King, according to a confidential document obtained by The Mail on Sunday.
Secret papers reveal that plans to ease the strain on the 83-year-old monarch and her 88-year-old husband, Prince Philip, are at an advanced stage.
The disclosures come despite months of denials from the Palace that the Queen was planning to step back from her official work in favour of her 27-year-old grandson.
The information is contained in a briefing note written by Chancellor Alistair Darling’s Treasury officials about new financial arrangements for Prince Charles and his sons.
Key paragraphs, disclosing the reason for the changes, are blacked out.
But this newspaper has obtained an uncensored version of the document which confirms that the Queen is grooming William as a ‘Shadow King’.
Lieberman: Dems Haven’t Given Up Enough On Health Care
Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) encouraged Democratic leadership in the Senate to wipe health care legislation clean of provisions held dear by progressives (and the majority of Democrats) in order to get reform passed on a bipartisan basis.
Appearing on “Face the Nation” this Sunday, the Connecticut independent said he thought the chamber could pass legislation this week if it just took “a few things out” first. Those things: a public option for insurance coverage (which is already gone), a provision that would expand Medicare to those as young as 55, and a new national insurance program that would help finance long-term care (known as the CLASS Act.)
“We’ve got to stop adding to the bill,” said Lieberman. “We have to start subtracting some controversial things. I think the only way to get this done before Christmas is to bring in some Republicans who are open minded on this like [Sen.] Olympia Snowe…”
Full Story Lieberman: Dems Haven’t Given Up Enough On Health Care.
Berlusconi ATTACKED, Punched In Face At Rally
Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi was punched in the face at the end of a rally in Milan on Sunday, news reports said.
The attack occurred as the 73-year-old Berlusconi was signing autographs near his car, state TV said.
TV showed the stunned leader with blood under his nose and on his mouth as he was lifted to his feet by aides.
Berlusconi was hustled into the back of a car by the aides, but he immediately got out, apparently in an effort to show he was not badly injured. After looking out into the crowd, the aides pulled the leader back into the vehicle.
Sky TG24 TV said Berlusconi was taken to a Milan hospital to be treated.
News reports said a man, in his 30s or early 40s, was immediately detained as the suspected assailant and taken to police headquarters.
Full Story Berlusconi ATTACKED, Punched In Face At Rally.
Openly Gay Mayor Elected In Houston, Texas
Annise Parker has an unbeatable lead over Gene Locke in Houston’s hotly contested mayoral election, meaning she will become the city’s first openly gay mayor.
The Harris County elections Web site says 53.62 percent of voters who turned out Saturday chose Parker.
Her rival, former city attorney Gene Locke, was pitching to become the city’s second black mayor.
The election battle leading up to Saturday’s balloting was marked by fierce campaigning and anti-gay rhetoric. Parker is a lesbian who has never made a secret or issue of her sexual orientation. If she wins, Houston will become the largest U.S. city to ever have an openly gay mayor.
The Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund put out a press release calling this “a watershed moment in American politics.” Full press release below:
Lesbian elected mayor of Houston, Texas
Full Story Annise Parker: Openly Gay Mayor Elected In Houston, Texas.
Senate Democrats Consider Nightmare Scenario On Health Care
There is, currently, a nightmare scenario afflicting Democrats on Capitol Hill with regards to health care reform. And it goes like this: Sometime early next week, leadership gets word from the Congressional Budget Office on their latest outline of reform. The legislative language on which they’ve settled — the one with the clearest promise yet of getting the votes needed to cut off a Republican filibuster — has actually scored quite poorly, saving less money over time and covering fewer people than earlier versions of the bill.
Should this occur, it could complicate the entire process. It certainly will prolong it. Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) has said that, in exchange for stripping the public option from the bill, Democrats should have to find another way to save $25 billion in health care costs (savings that, the CBO said, a government-run plan would have produced). It seems likely he would up this demand if the latest scoring turns out poor.
Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), meanwhile, told the Huffington Post this week that if the supplemental approach for the public plan — a provision that would expand Medicare to people as young as 55 — were to prove more costly or ineffective than the public option itself, then senators would have to “go back to the drawing board” and figure out another approach.
Full Story Senate Democrats Consider Nightmare Scenario On Health Care.
The Ten Brands That Will Disappear In 2010
24/7 Wall St. has prepared its list of the ten brands that will disappear in 2010. This list is based on a review of each firm’s financial situation and other operating data, the current and ongoing value of its brand, and whether the company that controls that brand can sell its assets.
This year a number of famous brands have closed or their parents have announced that they will be shut down shortly. This includes decades-old magazines like Gourmet and famous car brands like Pontiac. The recession took whatever economic value these brands had left and destroyed it.
The brands on the 24/7 list for 2010 include companies that have been in trouble for years. Some have been in slow decline and others were irreparably damaged by the credit crisis. Most of these companies will be bought and the rest will simply be closed.
Full Story The Ten Brands That Will Disappear In 2010 – 24/7 Wall St..
In New Orleans, Chaos in the Streets, and in Police Ranks Too
During the turbulent days after Hurricane Katrina made landfall, New Orleans police shot 10 civilians, at least four of whom died, according to interviews and internal police documents.
Some incidents involving police were widely publicized and have prompted a U.S. Justice Department inquiry into the conduct of the New Orleans Police Department that has brought dozens of officers before federal grand juries to testify.
But a fresh examination of the post-storm period — a joint effort by ProPublica, The New Orleans Times-Picayune, and PBS “Frontline” — raises additional questions about the actions of police who shot civilians. It also reveals deep flaws in the department’s efforts to investigate its officers’ use of deadly force in the chaos after the storm.
Full Story In New Orleans, Chaos in the Streets, and in Police Ranks Too – ProPublica.
Wars or Jobs: Decide Now
David Swanson
Speech at White House, December 12, 2009
Can you imagine the outcries of national shame from liberal commentators if George W. Bush had accepted a peace prize by advocating for war and announcing his right to launch wars of aggression? What an embarrassment that would have been!
But Bush would have made such a speech with fewer troops in the field, fewer mercenaries in the field, a smaller war budget, a smaller military budget, bases in fewer nations, the imperial powers of the presidency less firmly established, and — of course — worse pronunciation.
And isn't that what matters? The current president is smart and belongs to a different party, so when he continues and escalates wars we despised, wars we made great sacrifices to try to end, well either the wars must be better than we thought, or escalating them must be the really super smart way of ending them. After all, the other war mongering party calls the president a foreign-born socialist traitor. Except that they loved his speech in Oslo.
One reason Obama believes he can claim the power to launch wars is that Bush's lawyers produced on October 23, 2002, a memo proclaiming that presidents have that power. And do you know what their central argument was? Bill Clinton did it. Bill Clinton launched minor attacks on Iraq and other parts of the world, not to mention the former Yugoslavia, and so therefore Bush had the right to do the same sort of things on a larger scale.
In right-wing rhetoric, Clinton was another socialistic traitor. In legalistic arguments, he was the justification for Bush's crimes. It's the same deal with Obama. In the surface-level charade of partisan bickering, he's a socialist – a term applied without any particular meaning. But underneath, his efforts to protect the criminals who preceded him and to continue their crimes are honored and appreciated.
Full Story Wars or Jobs: Decide Now | AfterDowningStreet.org.
The AMA turns tail on health care reform
You knew it was only a matter of time.
On Tuesday, the Democrats revealed their latest effort to craft a breakthrough in the health care reform fiasco. The centerpiece of the new plan involves lowering the age of Medicare participation to 55.
Within hours, the American Medical Association was giving the proposal the big thumbs down.
Here’s what AMA President, Dr. J. James Rohack, had to say on his blog,
Now by considering to allow Baby Boomers to accelerate their entry into the Medicare program by 10 years, we would add millions of more patients to a program where it is difficult for a new enrollee to get an appointment with a physician.
Yet some in the Senate must be assuming that the benefits of providing coverage outweigh the risks of reduced access caused by forcing more physicians to stop accepting Medicare patients because payment rates are too low to keep their practices viable — they will win in the court of public opinion by pointing to how many of the uninsured now have coverage.
But coverage without access is not a goal the AMA can accept. We know that will result in continued use of the default access to emergency rooms, where medical conditions will need to be treated at later stages with resulting increased cost due to the lack of access. A better solution would be to deal with the uninsured under the age of 64 to allow the individual to buy into the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP).
This is quite a statement.
Full Story The AMA turns tail on health care reform – Rick Ungar – The Policy Page – True/Slant.
Science not faked, but not pretty
E-mails stolen from climate scientists show they stonewalled skeptics and discussed hiding data — but the messages don't support claims that the science of global warming was faked, according to an exhaustive review by The Associated Press.
The 1,073 e-mails examined by the AP show that scientists harbored private doubts, however slight and fleeting, even as they told the world they were certain about climate change. However, the exchanges don't undercut the vast body of evidence showing the world is warming because of man-made greenhouse gas emissions.
The scientists were keenly aware of how their work would be viewed and used, and, just like politicians, went to great pains to shape their message. Sometimes, they sounded more like schoolyard taunts than scientific tenets.
The scientists were so convinced by their own science and so driven by a cause “that unless you're with them, you're against them,” said Mark Frankel, director of scientific freedom, responsibility and law at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He also reviewed the communications.
Full Story The Associated Press: AP IMPACT: Science not faked, but not pretty.
Violence erupts outside Copenhagen climate summit
Police in Copenhagen say they detained 968 people during climate protests in the Danish capital Saturday.
The Associated Press reports that the protests — which attracted 40,000 to 100,000 people, depending on the source — were “mostly peaceful.”
Police said they rounded up 968 people in a preventive action against a group of youth activists at the tail end of the demonstration. Officers in riot gear moved in when some of the activists, masking their faces, threw cobblestones through the windows of the former stock exchange and Foreign Ministry buildings.
The mostly peaceful demonstrations in Copenhagen on Saturday provided the centerpiece of a day of global climate activism stretching from Europe to Asia. Police assigned extra officers to watch protesters marching toward the suburban conference center to demand that leaders act now to fight climate change.
Full Story Violence erupts outside Copenhagen climate summit | Raw Story.
Ventura’s ‘Conspiracy Theory’ show probes 9/11 mysteries
Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura has seen some stuff that will blow your mind.
Or, at least that’s the tagline to “Conspiracy Theory,” his new show on US cable station TruTV. In episode two, the one-time wrestler and movie star goes after one of America’s greatest sacred cows: the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
It is, as far as this reporter can tell, the first time a syndicated program on U.S. cable has given a serious look at arguments made by members of the 9/11 truth movement.
In the show, Ventura speaks to key 9/11 truth figures such as former BYU professor Steven Jones and William Rodriguez, a nationally-acclaimed hero credited with saving dozens as he tried to escape from the World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11.
Ventura explores theories ranging from the missing black box recorders to the possibility that previously-planted explosives brought down the WTC towers.
Full Story Ventura’s ‘Conspiracy Theory’ show probes 9/11 mysteries | Raw Story.
Grassley finally condemns Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill: It’s ‘un-Christian and unjust.’
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) On Wednesday, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) refused to condemn the Anti-Homosexuality Bill being considered by the Ugandan parliament, saying that he was too busy to comment on it, and despite weeks of international and national news attention (and pressure from the group One Iowa), he didn’t know anything about it. His silence quickly criticized, especially since other busy lawmakers have spoken out forcefully about it. But on Friday, Grassley finally came out with a statement, calling the Ugandan bill “un-Christian and unjust“:
Grassley said his “commitment to traditional values” and “respect for life” holds true both in the United States and around the world. So with that in mind, after he learned more about the proposed legislation through the U.S. State Department, he was able to conclude that it is wrong and should be rejected.
Court Ruling Vindicates Grayson’s Argument That The ACORN Funding Ban Is Unconstitutional
One of the right’s loudest crusades has been its effort to undermine the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN). Following the release of a series of videos showing a handful of ACORN employees behaving inappropriately, conservatives in Congress have done everything they can to single out ACORN to be stripped of all federal funding (while hypocritically opposing the defunding of companies that cover-up rape).
Rep. Alan Grayson challenged his conservative colleagues — and even reduced Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) to incoherent defenses — to prove that the ACORN de-funding measures were an unconstitutional “bills of attainder,” given the fact that they were singling out one organization for punishment without trial. Yesterday, a federal judge ruled that Grayson was right and that the ACORN funding ban is unconstitutional:
A federal judge today issued an injunction preventing the implementation of a congressional ban on funding for ACORN. Judge Nina Gershon concluded that the ban amounted to a “bill of attainder” that unfairly singled out ACORN.
Full Story Think Progress » Court Ruling Vindicates Grayson’s Argument That The ACORN Funding Ban Is Unconstitutional.
US: Reconsidering War on Drugs
As the war on drugs moves closer to home and a new administration presents new ideas, policymakers in Washington are taking notice of 30 years worth of ineffectual drug policy and beginning to think about different ways of addressing the northward flow of narcotics.
The U.S. House of Representatives unanimously approved a bill last week that would create an independent commission to re-evaluate and make recommendations on domestic and international drug policies. This is being seen as an acknowledgment that current strategies meant to control illicit drugs are not working – and have not worked for a while.
“The premise of the commission is not, of course, that we’re doing great but that our policies aren’t working and we need a rethink,” says John Walsh, who works on drug policy at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA). He says actions like this “speak to the level of frustration” over the impotence of past drug policies.
WOLA released its own recommendations Tuesday on new directions these policies could take. Their report says past policies that have focused on eradication of coca and opium crops are counter-productive unless they are preceded by rural development. “Proper sequencing is crucial: development must come first,” it reads, or else, without alternative livelihoods firmly in place, people will have no choice but to return to growing crops for illicit markets.
Full Story US: Reconsidering War on Drugs – IPS ipsnews.net.
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Republicans Don't Care about Voter Fraud....owa Republicans are trying to dismiss claims that the vote count in Tuesday's Iowa Caucus was wrong. An Iowa voter told a local TV station yesterday that he noticed a 20-vote discrepancy in the count - and that Rick Santorum was the real winner of the Caucuses. Republican Party officials, though, are sticking to their first count - showing Mitt Romney as the winner by 8-votes - and there will be no recount.The Republican Party has launched a war on voters around the nation this year with strict new laws that will disenfranchise over 5 million Americans. They claim these laws are necessary to combat so-called voter fraud. Yet in Iowa - where there are no such laws - and where a very, very close and questionable election was just held - Republicans don't seem to care at all about getting it right.Clearly - the war on voters isn't about making sure the people's voices are represented accurately - it's about making sure poor people, young people, and minorities who tend to vote for Democrats - can't vote at all.-Thom(Who do you think won? Tell us here.) -
LEGALIZE Democracy
" We the corporations" On January 21, 2010, with its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons, entitled by the U.S. Constitution to buy elections and run our government. __________
MOVE to AMEND
a project of the CAMPAIGN TO LEGALIZE Democracy
Help end Corporate personhood
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The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. 
