Archive for December, 2009

Major victory for ACORN and the Constitution

Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com

In a new approach, researchers from the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science have genetically modified a cyanobacterium to consume carbon dioxide and produce the liquid fuel isobutanol, which holds great potential as a gasoline alternative. The reaction is powered directly by energy from sunlight, through photosynthesis.

The research appears in the Dec. 9 print edition of the journal Nature Biotechnology and is available online.

This new method has two advantages for the long-term, global-scale goal of achieving a cleaner and greener energy economy, the researchers say. First, it recycles carbon dioxide, reducing greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the burning of fossil fuels. Second, it uses solar energy to convert the carbon dioxide into a liquid fuel that can be used in the existing energy infrastructure, including in most automobiles.

Full Story Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.

Bacteria engineered to turn carbon dioxide into liquid fuel

Global climate change has prompted efforts to drastically reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas produced by burning fossil fuels.

In a new approach, researchers from the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science have genetically modified a cyanobacterium to consume carbon dioxide and produce the liquid fuel isobutanol, which holds great potential as a gasoline alternative. The reaction is powered directly by energy from sunlight, through photosynthesis.

The research appears in the Dec. 9 print edition of the journal Nature Biotechnology and is available online.

This new method has two advantages for the long-term, global-scale goal of achieving a cleaner and greener energy economy, the researchers say. First, it recycles carbon dioxide, reducing greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the burning of fossil fuels. Second, it uses solar energy to convert the carbon dioxide into a liquid fuel that can be used in the existing energy infrastructure, including in most automobiles.

Full Story Bacteria engineered to turn carbon dioxide into liquid fuel.

OPS:  These always sound great at first glance.  One of these Frankensteins  will eventually get us.

Blackwater Loses a Job for the C.I.A.

The Central Intelligence Agency has terminated a contract with the security company formerly called Blackwater Worldwide that allowed the company to load bombs on C.I.A. drones in Pakistan and Afghanistan, intelligence officials said Friday.

The contract gave employees with the company an operational role in one of the Central Intelligence Agency’s most significant covert programs, which has killed dozens of militants with Predator and Reaper drones. The company’s involvement highlighted the extent to which the C.I.A. had outsourced critical jobs to private companies since the 9/11 attacks.

The contract with the company, now called Xe Services, was canceled this year by Leon E. Panetta, the C.I.A. director, according to a C.I.A. spokesman. In August, The New York Times first revealed the existence of the contract, which was run by a division of the company called Blackwater Select, which handles classified contracts.

Full Story Blackwater Loses a Job for the C.I.A. – NYTimes.com.

Supporting the ACLU

Glenn Greenwald –

As The New York Times reported yesterday, the ACLU this year, largely without warning, lost its single largest source of funding as a result of the financial crisis. The loss of that individual donor, who had been contributing $20 million per year, was a major blow to the organization, “punching a 25 percent hole in its annual operating budget and forcing cutbacks in operations.” That loss came on top of substantial fundraising losses last year from the financial crisis and the Madoff fraud, which had already forced the group to lay-off numerous employees and cut back substantially on its activities. The lost donor made clear yesterday that he continues to support the ACL’s work emphatically but is simply now financially unable to continue his support.

It is not hyperbole to say that, over the past decade, there has been no organization more important to the United States, the Constitution, and basic political liberties than the ACLU. From the start of the Bush/Cheney assault on core civil liberties — when most organizations and individuals were petrified of opposing any efforts justified by “terrorism” — the ACLU was one of a small handful of groups which defied that climate of fear by vigorously and fearlessly opposing those erosions. Along with that same small handful of civil liberties and human rights groups, the ACLU since then has been at the center of virtually every fight against government incursions into basic rights. They defend core Constitutional principles regardless of party or ideology, and they continue to lead this fight even now that Bush is gone from office. As I detailed here, their crucial efforts extend far beyond litigating and lobbying, as they have often been forced to fulfill the investigative and oversight role intended for — but abdicated by — our national media and Congress. Indeed, most of what we know about the Bush torture regime and other lawbreaking schemes is the result not of newspapers or Congressional investigations but the ACLU.

Full Story Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.

Marijuana’s Big Fat Zero

Alcohol: 2 million, Tobacco: 5 million, Cannabis ZERO

It appears that legal does not mean good.

The World Health Organization has released a new report stating that about 5 million people die each year from smoking legal tobacco. They want this to change, for some reason.

And they don’t think that laws are sufficient for protecting us. If things don’t change, the WHO says up to 8 million people will be dying each year from this legal product.

We’re from the Government and we are here to help

The WHO appears to want more government intervention:

LONDON – Tobacco use kills at least 5 million people every year, a figure that could rise if countries don’t take stronger measures to combat smoking, the World Health Organization said Wednesday.

In a new report on tobacco use and control, the U.N. agency said nearly 95 percent of the global population is unprotected by laws banning smoking. WHO said secondhand smoking kills about 600,000 people every year.

*****

“People need more than to be told that tobacco is bad for human health,” said Douglas Bettcher, director of WHO’s Tobacco-Free Initiative. “They need their governments to implement the WHO Framework Convention.

Full Story Marijuana’s Big Fat Zero | The Smirking Chimp.

We’re Number One – In Financial Damage From Climate Change

This week, just in time for the Copenhagen climate convention, the annual Global Climate Risk Index was released, telling how vulnerable each country in the world is to the costs of climate change. Guess who was number one in financial losses from climate change? The United States.

Surprised? There’s a reason you haven’t heard much about the extent of climate change threat to the US. Strange bedfellows are trying to conceal the threat posed to the US by global warming. No, they’re not the crowd that denies global warming even exists, or that it isn’t cause by man-made greenhouse gasses. They’re people who don’t deny the scientific findings about climate change, but who for political reasons underplay its devastating impact on the US.

One group of strange bedfellows are the advocates from and for developing countries who emphasize the indisputable face that the impact of climate change will be most devastating for the poor countries of the global South. They argue that the rich countries are overwhelmingly responsible for greenhouse gas emissions, but the effects are disproportionately on the poor countries. They use this argument to justify their demand that the costs of climate change fall on the rich rather than the poor. However valid their argument it tends to obscure the damage that is occurring to rich countries as well.

Full Story We’re Number One – In Financial Damage From Climate Change | CommonDreams.org.

US: Soldiers Forced to Go AWOL for PTSD Care

With a military health care system over-stretched by two ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, more soldiers are deciding to go absent without leave (AWOL) in order to find treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Eric Jasinski enlisted in the military in 2005, and deployed to Iraq in October 2006 as an intelligence analyst with the U.S. Army. He collected intelligence in order to put together strike packets – where air strikes would take place.

Upon his return to the U.S. after his tour, Jasinski was suffering from severe PTSD from what he did and saw in Iraq, remorse and guilt for the work he did that he knows contributed to the loss of life in Iraq.

“What I saw and what I did in Iraq caused my PTSD,” Jasinski, 23-years-old, told IPS during a phone interview, “Also, I went through a divorce – she left right before I deployed – and my grandmother passed away when I was over there, so it was all super rough on me.”

In addition, he lost a friend in Iraq, and another of his friends lost his leg due to a roadside bomb attack.

Full Story US: Soldiers Forced to Go AWOL for PTSD Care – IPS ipsnews.net.

How a Few Private Health Insurers Are on the Way to Controlling Health Care

Robert Reich  –

The public option is dead, killed by a handful of senators from small states who are mostly bought off by Big Insurance and Big Pharma or intimidated by these industries’ deep pockets and power to run political ads against them. Some might say it’s no great loss at this point because the Senate bill Harry Reid came up with contained a public option available only to 4 million people, which would have been far too small to exert any competitive pressure on private insurers anyway.

To provide political cover to senators who want to tell their constituents that the intent behind a robust public option lives on, the emerging Senate bill makes Medicare available to younger folk (age 55), and lets people who aren’t covered by their employers buy in to a system that’s similar to the plan that federal employees now have, where the federal government’s Office of Personnel Management selects from among private insurers.

But we still end up with a system that’s based on private insurers that have no incentive whatsoever to control their costs or the costs of pharmaceutical companies and medical providers. If you think the federal employee benefit plan is an answer to this, think again. Its premiums increased nearly 9 percent this year. And if you think an expanded Medicare is the answer, you’re smoking medical marijuana. The Senate bill allows an independent commission to hold back Medicare costs only if Medicare spending is rising faster than total health spending. So if health spending is soaring because private insurers have no incentive to control it, we’re all out of luck. Medicare explodes as well.

Full Story Robert Reich’s Blog: How a Few Private Health Insurers Are on the Way to Controlling Health Care.

Children on Medicaid Found More Likely to Get Antipsychotics

New federally financed drug research reveals a stark disparity: children covered by Medicaid are given powerful antipsychotic medicines at a rate four times higher than children whose parents have private insurance. And the Medicaid children are more likely to receive the drugs for less severe conditions than their middle-class counterparts, the data shows.

Those findings, by a team from Rutgers and Columbia, are almost certain to add fuel to a long-running debate. Do too many children from poor families receive powerful psychiatric drugs not because they actually need them — but because it is deemed the most efficient and cost-effective way to control problems that may be handled much differently for middle-class children?

The questions go beyond the psychological impact on Medicaid children, serious as that may be. Antipsychotic drugs can also have severe physical side effects, causing drastic weight gain and metabolic changes resulting in lifelong physical problems.

On Tuesday, a pediatric advisory committee to the Food and Drug Administration met to discuss the health risks for all children who take antipsychotics. The panel will consider recommending new label warnings for the drugs, which are now used by an estimated 300,000 people under age 18 in this country, counting both Medicaid patients and those with private insurance.

Full Story Children on Medicaid Found More Likely to Get Antipsychotics – NYTimes.com.

FDIC Closes Banks in Ariz., Fla., Kansas

Three Firms Shut by Regulators; Bank Failures for 2009 Now Number 133

Regulators on Friday shut down banks in Florida, Arizona and Kansas, bringing to 133 the number of U.S. banks that have failed to hold up this year against the struggling economy and a cascade of loan defaults.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over Miami-based Republic Federal Bank, with $433 million in assets and $352.7 million in deposits. A bank based in Boca Raton, Fla., 1st United Bank, agreed to assume all the deposits and $267.1 million of the assets of the failed bank. The FDIC will retain the rest for eventual sale.

In addition, the FDIC and 1st United Bank agreed to share losses on $210.4 million of Republic Federal’s loans and other assets.

The FDIC also took over Valley Capital Bank, based in Mesa, Ariz., with $40.3 million in assets and $41.3 million in deposits; and SolutionsBank in Overland Park, Kans., with $511.1 million in assets and $421.3 million in deposits.

Enterprise Bank & Trust, based in Clayton, Mo., agreed to assume the assets and deposits of Valley Capital, while Arvest Bank, based in Fayetteville, Ark., is buying the assets and deposits of SolutionsBank.

Full Story FDIC Closes Banks in Ariz., Fla., Kansas – CBS News.

Leaders of the rich world are enacting a giant fraud

Johann Hari:

Corporate lobbyists can pressure or bribe governments to rig the system in their favor

Every delegate to the Copenhagen summit is being greeted by the sight of a vast fake planet dominating the city’s central square. This swirling globe is covered with corporate logos – the Coke brand is stamped over Africa, while Carlsberg appears to own Asia, and McDonald’s announces “I’m loving it!” in great red letters above. “Welcome to Hopenhagen!” it cries. It is kept in the sky by endless blasts of hot air.

This plastic planet is the perfect symbol for this summit. The world is being told that this is an emergency meeting to solve the climate crisis – but here inside the Bela Centre where our leaders are gathering, you can find only a corrupt shuffling of words, designed to allow countries to wriggle out of the bare minimum necessary to prevent the unravelling of the biosphere.

Staggering across the fringes of the summit are the people who will see their countries live or die on the basis of its deliberations. Leah Wickham, a young woman from Fiji, broke down as she told the conference she will see her homeland disappear beneath the waves if we do not act now. “All the hopes of my generation rest on Copenhagen,” she pleaded. Dazed Chinese and Indian NGOs explain how the Himalayan ice is rapidly vanishing and will be gone by 2035 – so the great rivers of Asia that are born there will shrivel and cease. They provide water for a quarter of humanity.

Full Story Johann Hari: Leaders of the rich world are enacting a giant fraud – Johann Hari, Commentators – The Independent.

Obama slams ‘fat cat bankers’

US President Barack Obama has hit out at Wall Street “fat cats”, expressing anger that banks bailed out by the government plan huge bonuses while millions of Americans battle poverty and unemployment.

“I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street,” Obama said Friday in excerpts of an interview with CBS television to be aired on Sunday.

With unemployment still hovering at around 10 percent, amid a recession triggered in part by the excesses of financial institutions, Obama voiced frustration that “some people on Wall Street still don’t get it.”

Lavish pay and bonuses on Wall Street have been blamed for encouraging the excessive risk-taking that with the subprime mortgage housing crisis fueled the global maelstrom and brought the US financial sector to the brink of collapse a year ago.

That prompted the US administration to unveil a rescue package topping 700 billion dollars, in part to shore up troubled institutions.

Full Story Obama slams ‘fat cat bankers’ – Yahoo! News.

Bolton’s Moral Compass: ‘We’re Not Going To Eliminate Violent Conflict’

In his speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize this week in Oslo, Norway, President Obama noted that “we will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes,” but he also expressed “fundamental faith in human progress” that one day, humans will not have to resort to violence to resolve disputes:

OBAMA: But we do not have to think that human nature is perfect for us to still believe that the human condition can be perfected. We do not have to live in an idealized world to still reach for those ideals that will make it a better place. The non-violence practiced by men like Gandhi and King may not have been practical or possible in every circumstance, but the love that they preached — their fundamental faith in human progress — that must always be the North Star that guides us on our journey.

For if we lose that faith — if we dismiss it as silly or naïve; if we divorce it from the decisions that we make on issues of war and peace — then we lose what’s best about humanity. We lose our sense of possibility. We lose our moral compass.

Conservatives of all stripes praised Obama’s speech. Newt Gingrich called it “historic,” and Charles Krauthammer said it was “his best speech” he’s given on foreign soil. But there’s one right winger that refuses to sign on. Last night on Fox News, John Bolton explained why he thought it was a “pretty bad speech” that was “sort of at high school level”:

Full Story Think Progress » Bolton’s Moral Compass: ‘We’re Not Going To Eliminate Violent Conflict’.

Right-wing activists demand that Rep. Periello move office to make protesting him easier.

One of the members of Congress most targeted by the tea party movement and other far-right political actors has been Rep. Tom Periello (D-VA). Last month, tea party demonstrators even threatened to burn Periello in effigy, citing his support for health care legislation that recently passed the House of Representatives. Now, tea party demonstrators and the University of Virginia College Republicans have enlisted the help of a Christian civil liberties organization to make the demand that Periello move his office so that protesters will no longer have their ability to protest him be “hindered“:

A Christian civil liberties organization on Thursday asked centrist Rep. Tom Perriello (D-Va.) to move his district office to a location more favorable to protesters.

The Rutherford Institute, which was founded by conservative constitutional lawyer John W. Whitehead, penned a letter to the freshman Perriello citing the concerns of a local tea party group and the University of Virginia College Republicans that the location of his Charlottesville office interferes with their right to protest there.

Full Story Think Progress » Right-wing activists demand that Rep. Periello move office to make protesting him easier..

Gingrich’s New Contract With America: ‘Our Commitment Should Be Simple…We’re Repealing’ Health Care

Yesterday, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich stumped for Ethan Hastert, the son of former House Speaker Dennis Hastert and candidate for Illinois’ 14th congressional district. Gingrich, of course, was the architect of the Republicans’ “Contract with America” in 1994 that helped the GOP regain the majority. Now, Gingrich is apparently rallying Republicans behind a new “contract” with Americans — a pledge to take away their health care.

Gingrich reiterated his call for all Republicans to commit to repealing any form of a health care bill that Democrats might pass before the 2010 elections:

GINGRICH: If the left manages to drive through a bill which is opposed by 65 percent of the country on health care, our commitment should be simple — when we get a majority, we’re repealing the whole thing. (applause)

And I want every Democrat who is about to sacrifice their seat for socialized medicine to understand: after you lose your seat, you’re going to lose the socialized medicine too.

Watch it:

Full Story Think Progress » Gingrich’s New Contract With America: ‘Our Commitment Should Be Simple…We’re Repealing’ Health Care.

OPS: Republicans preparing to take out ANOTHER -  Contract On America

The Loss of America’s Innovational Prowess

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

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

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

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

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

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

VAT Could Be Cure For Deficits

The idea of implementing a consumption tax in the U.S. gained a little more steam Friday a former Reagan administration official said he believed a VAT was the most “obvious” way to bring down the bloated federal deficit.

The idea of implementing a consumption tax in the United States gained a little more steam Friday as The New York Times reported that a former Reagan administration official said that he believed a value-added tax was the most “obvious” way to bring down the bloated federal deficit.

“We have to start paying our bills eventually,” Charles E. McLure, a tax economist in the Reagan administration, told The New York Times. “This strikes me as the best and most obvious way of doing it.”

McLure is just the latest in a long line of prominent figures to endorse the idea of implementing a VAT in the U.S.

In October, John Podesta, former White House chief of staff under Bill Clinton and co-chairman of President Obama’s transition team, floated the idea of a VAT, saying that raising taxes on the wealthy and cutting spending would not be enough to rein in the deficit.

Podesta said that not only would the VAT raise the necessary revenues to bring the budget under control, but it would also encourage savings, level the playing field with America’s trading partners and increase the competitiveness of American industries.

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

American Manufacturing Can No Longer Compete

Over the past 20 years 3.7 million manufacturing jobs has been lost. These figures are a grim reminder that America can no longer manufacture competitively.

Today there are fewer manufacturing employees than in 1955, and over the past 20 years 3.7 million manufacturing jobs has been lost. These figures are a grim reminder that America can no longer manufacture competitively.

How did this happen? Two causes stand out: low international wage rates in countries like China and Mexico that America will not and can not compete with, and America’s abandonment of capital and knowledge intensive industries.

American workers can not and should not have to compete with third world wage rates. Some Chinese manufacturers are paid 33 cents an hour according to a 2005 AFLCIO report. This cents-an-hour pay in many countries around the world has caused American companies and entire industries to move abroad (see the lost industry list here). It also lead Princeton economist Alan Blinder to estimate 42-56 million jobs could potentially be sent overseas.

Japan has successfully navigated the problem of China’s low wage rates. China is one of Japan’s biggest trading partners and yet Japan maintains a trade surplus with them. The labor in Japan is leveraged; one person operates equipment that can do the work of 100 ordinary laborers. America used to manufacture this way but now produces little by comparison and increasingly depends on imports at a net cost of $1.5 million per minute ($765 billion per year) to maintain our standards of living.

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

Now and for the Long Run

The government, like households, should hunker down, stop spending where it can, and plug the hole of offshoring jobs in the ship of state.

Sen. Ernest F. “Fritz” Hollings, with video by Craig Harrington

The United States has always paid for its wars. For 200 years we paid for the Revolution, World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, even LBJ’s Great Society, and had yet to reach a national debt of $1 trillion – until 1982. In the past eight years our government has borrowed, spent, and added $5 trillion to the national debt.

The Congressional Budget Office reported that in the first four years of the Bush term deficits were caused by: 48 percent tax cuts, 37 percent wars, and 15 percent increased spending. We kept the government on steroids during the Bush years and household debt of $7 trillion joined the binge. By the time Obama took office, the Federal Reserve had injected another $2 trillion worth of steroids. With $14 trillion in stimulation, we were losing jobs like gangbusters. Stimulation was not working. Last year we stimulated exactly $1 trillion, $35 billion, and lost jobs. According to the Secretary of the Treasury, we have a deficit or “stimulated the economy” $960 billion this fiscal year (3/16/09) and are still losing jobs. On Sunday, Ben Bernanke on Sixty Minutes said he saw light at the end of the tunnel at the end of the year. So any more stimulation is politically out of the question. The government, like households, should hunker down, stop spending where it can, and plug the hole of offshoring jobs in the ship of state.

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

Bill Moyers: We Have a Nobel Peace President Who Won’t Ban Land Mines

The Nobel Committee said Obama won the prize for his respect of international law and his efforts at disarmament, yet he won’t even sign on to end a barbaric weapon.

Many people are troubled that Barack Obama flew to Oslo to receive the Nobel Peace Prize so soon after escalating the war in Afghanistan. He is now more than doubling the number of troops there when George W. Bush left office.

The irony was not lost on the President, and he tried to address it in his Nobel acceptance speech. “I am responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land,” he said. “Some will kill. Some will be killed. And so I come here with an acute sense of the cost of armed conflict — filled with difficult questions about the relationship between war and peace, and our effort to replace one with the other.”

Granted, there’s a gap here between the rhetoric and the reality. But there’s always been something askew about Nobel Peace Prize, in no small part because it’s given in the name of the man who invented dynamite, one of the most powerful and destructive weapons in the human arsenal.

Full Story Bill Moyers: We Have a Nobel Peace President Who Won’t Ban Land Mines | Politics | AlterNet.

Contractors Watching Contractors

Jeremy Scahill, The Nation  -

The special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction (SIGAR) has hired a private corporation to help prepare government reports for Congress about US government contracts with other corporations in Afghanistan. The massive consulting firm Deloitte and Touche was hired on a one-year contract signed with the US Army’s Contracting Center of Excellence in May for $3.7 million. In the end, the contract could be worth up to $7.5 million, according to federal contract data reviewed by The Nation. In 2008, former Republican Congressman Tom Davis was hired by Deloitte as a director. Davis once chaired the powerful House Government Reform Committee.

As part of its work for SIGAR, according to contracts obtained by The Nation, the firm helps prepare the agency’s quarterly reports to Congress, assists in preparing Congressional testimony for agency officials and helps develop SIGAR’s responses to “questions for the record” from lawmakers.

SIGAR hired Deloitte “as an interim measure while we, as a new organization, built the internal capability we needed to provide the quality reports that the Congress requires,” SIGAR spokesperson Susan Phalen told The Nation. “The SIGAR quarterly reports require an extraordinary amount of detail and attention.” Phalen downplayed Deloitte’s role in preparing Congressional reports, saying they “have assisted the SIGAR staff on certain sections of the quarterly reports.”

Full Story Contractors Watching Contractors.

House Approves Tougher Rules for Wall Street

The House approved a Democratic plan on Friday to tighten federal regulation of Wall Street and banks, advancing a far-reaching Congressional response to the financial crisis that rocked the economy.

After three days of floor debate, the House voted 223 to 202 to approve the measure. It would create an agency to protect consumers from abusive lending practices, set rules for the trading of some of the sophisticated financial instruments that fueled the crisis, and take steps to reduce the threat that the failure of one or two huge banks or investment firms could topple the entire economy.

Whether all of those measures will become law, however, is uncertain because the Obama administration wants certain revisions and the Senate will not take up its version of the legislation until next year.

The Democratic authors of the House legislation hailed the bill as the biggest change in oversight of Wall Street since the Great Depression, and said they believed they had struck a careful balance between protecting the public and the economy while not stifling economic growth and market forces.

Full Story House Approves Tougher Rules for Wall Street – NYTimes.com.

The People Speak: Howard Zinn on Moyers Journal

(Video) Renowned historian Howard Zinn has chronicled centuries of people’s struggles against oppression. He joins Bill Moyers to discuss the voices of today’s people — facing big interests’ outsized influence — and his new film THE PEOPLE SPEAK.

Howard Zinn’s documentary, based on his book A Voices of People’s History of the United States

Full Video here

Official Lies about 911 Exposed

The many lies about 911 are evidence of guilt. The guilty are most always most motivated to cover up their crimes and only an idiot would suppress evidence if it would exonerate him!

Although John Farmer’s “The Ground Truth” has attracted a lot of favorable attention, it is a deeply flawed book, containing misleading claims and providing an extremely one-sided account of 9/11.

Much of the attention received by the book has been prompted by misleading claims made by Farmer and his publisher. The book’s dust-jacket calls it the “definitive account” of 9/11, but it actually deals almost entirely with only one question about that day: why the airliners were not intercepted.

Also, the book’s subtitle calls it “the untold story” of 9/11 and its dust-jacket says that it “breathtakingly revises” our understanding of that day. In reality, however, it simply provides new support for the story told about the planes in “The 9/11 Commission Report,” which appeared in 2004, and in two publications that appeared in 2006: Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton’s book “Without Precedent,” and Michael Bronner’s essay in “Vanity Fair.”

Most provocatively, Farmer presents his book as a rejection of the “official” account of 9/11, which was given by “the government,” by which he means primarily the FAA and the Pentagon. But this rhetoric is misleading for three reasons.

First, Farmer’s book is a defense of the 9/11 Commission’s report, which he calls “accurate, and true” (2), and the Commission was itself a governmental body: its chairman, Thomas Kean, was appointed by Bush; the other members were appointed by Congress; and the executive director, Philip Zelikow, was essentially a member of the Bush White House.

Full Story The Existentialist Cowboy: Official Lies about 911 Exposed.

VIDEO Included with article

Teabaggers Play Dead While Trying to Conceal Secret Rendezvous With Their True Love: Big Pharma Front Groups

It seems that the tea party organizers finally learned what a “grassroots” group looks like and how to pretend that that’s what they are. The key is to combine clumsy theatrics with a manufactured chance meeting.

A slew of liberals and progressives and people with a sense of humor have picked up on the teabaggers’ plans to “storm Senate offices” and then play dead.

It amounts to a lot of free press, which is why I didn’t necessarily want to jump on the “look at how adorable those teabaggers are being right now” bandwagon again. But it is kind of hilarious. From the Tax Day Tea Party Web site (emphasis mine):

So here’s the plan. On Tuesday, December 15 at 8:45 AM thousands of us will meet in Washington, DC at the fountain in Upper Senate Park. From there we will march to the Senate offices, go inside, and demonstrate our opposition to the government takeover of health care. We call this plan “Government Waiting Rooms”. The intention is to go inside the Senate offices and hallways, and play out the role of patients waiting for treatment in government controlled medical facilities. As the day goes on some of us will pretend to die from our untreated illnesses and collapse on the floor. Many of us plan to stay there until they force us to leave.

Full Story Teabaggers Play Dead While Trying to Conceal Secret Rendezvous With Their True Love: Big Pharma Front Groups | BuzzFlash.org.

The strange consensus on Obama’s Nobel address

Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com –

Reactions to Obama’s Nobel speech yesterday were remarkably consistent across the political spectrum, and there were two points on which virtually everyone seemed to agree:   (1) it was the most explicitly pro-war speech ever delivered by anyone while accepting the Nobel Peace Prize; and (2) it was the most comprehensive expression of Obama’s foreign policy principles since he became President.  I don’t think he can be blamed for the first fact; when the Nobel Committee chose him despite his waging two wars and escalating one, it essentially forced on him the bizarre circumstance of using his acceptance speech to defend the wars he’s fighting.  What else could he do?  Ignore the wars?  Repent?

I’m more interested in the fact that the set of principles Obama articulated yesterday was such a clear and comprehensive expression of his foreign policy that it’s now being referred to as the “Obama Doctrine.”  About that matter, there are two arguably confounding facts to note:  (1) the vast majority of leading conservatives — from Karl Rove and Newt Gingrich to Peggy Noonan, Sarah Palin, various Kagans and other assorted neocons — have heaped enthusiastic praise on what Obama said yesterday, i.e., on the Obama Doctrine; and (2) numerous liberals have done exactly the same.  That convergence gives rise to a couple of questions:

Why are the Bush-following conservatives who ran the country for the last eight years and whose foreign policy ideas are supposedly so discredited  — including some of the nation’s hardest-core neocons — finding so much to cheer in the so-called Obama Doctrine?

How could liberals and conservatives — who have long claimed to possess such vehemently divergent and irreconcilable worldviews on foreign policy — both simultaneously adore the same comprehensive expression of foreign policy?

Full Story Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.

The American Health Care Pyramid

The Great Marginalization

By CARL GINSBURG

The extraordinary creativity and commitment of the US government has given birth finally to what appears to be a new health care financing scheme which, like everything in Obama’s America, harkens back to the age of pyramids. There are hints in the Obama bio that he knew well of things pyramid –- a post-college stint writing financial briefs on such topics as interest-rate swaps; an embrace of behavioral economics while on the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School. The health care plan takes this president’s commitment to hierarchy to new heights, in effect adding several layers to the bottom of the American Health Care Pyramid. As everyone concerned with the runaway costs, profiteering and huge voids in the health care feared, Obama’s failure ab inicio to call for fundamental change in the health care system simply builds pyramids, shifting more money from working people and the poor to the health care sector.

By the recent reckoning of one forthright New York City radiologist, health care in the US today exists on six tiers. Under the new plan, it will increase to ten. Stratification is the name of the game, not just in health care, but in wages, credit access, education: the Great Marginalization on the march.

The same prescription –greater stratification of health care services – has been decried by a number of US physicians more inclined to truthfulness and, well, public health than most. Adding Medicaid recipients and integrating them by income level will lead to the creation of “high-level” Medicaid facilities in middle-income neighborhoods. At three or four times poverty income, these new Medicaid-qualified families will be a bit less unappealing to urban health care providers, whose antipathy for the poor is well known. And there will be “mid-level” Medicaid clinics for the one-to-two times poverty income crowd – as in crowded – and on down. Don’t count on state-of-the-art medicine at any of these clinics, especially as you bottom out at the pyramid’s base. Afterall, had you saved, and planned, and worked harder in school — been more like the Obamas –you would not be at the bottom rung. Or, good care comes to those who’ve cared for themselves. Education starts at home. Savings are possible no matter the wage. Kill more in Afghanistan now to kill less later. Etc., etc.

Full Story Carl Ginsburg: The American Health Care Pyramid.

Carl Ginsburg is a Medicare lawyer and journalist based in New York.

Updated: US Senators: More Coal, Oil and Nukes Are “Solution” for Global Warming

The once-demonized nuclear industry got its biggest boost in years Thursday.

A bipartisan coalition of US senators put forward a “framework” for climate legislation that aims to dramatically increase off-shore oil drilling, ensure a “future for coal” and, above all, ramp up subsidies for the financially risky nuclear power industry. The announcement was timed, in part, to send a signal to negotiators at the climate conference in Copenhagen that the US Senate is supposedly serious about climate reform.

Sen. John Kerry, Lindsey Graham and Joseph Lieberman are taking the lead in pushing an industry-friendly package that aims to bring down carbon emissions 17 percent from 2005 levels – a modest goal shared by House-passed legislation and President Obama. As The Hill reported: “White House press secretary Robert Gibbs called the framework a ‘significant step’ and said Obama believes it shows movement toward reaching a bipartisan Senate agreement.”

The influential Center for American Progress’s Climate Progress blog also declared, in bold letters:

The bottom line: We are likely to get a bipartisan, economy-wide bill on the Senate floor “early next year” as Kerry put it. Lieberman said the bill would become law “in this session of Congress.”

Full Story t r u t h o u t | Updated: US Senators: More Coal, Oil and Nukes Are “Solution” for Global Warming.

Vulnerable nations at Copenhagen summit reject 2C target

Alliance of Small Island States say any deal that allows temperatures to rise by more than 1.5C is ‘not negotiable’

More than half the world’s countries say they are determined not to sign up to any deal that allows temperatures to rise by more than 1.5C – as opposed to 2C, which the major economies would prefer.

But any agreement to reach that target would require massive and rapid cuts in greenhouse gas emissions combined with removal of CO2 in the atmosphere. An extra 0.5C drop in temperatures would require vastly deeper cuts in carbon dioxide and up to $10.5 trillion (£6.5tr) extra in energy-related investment by 2030, according to the International Energy Agency.

Holding temperatures to an increase of 1.5C compared to preindustrial levels would mean stabilising carbon concentrations in the atmosphere at roughly 350 parts per million (ppm), down from a present 387ppm. No technology currently exists to feasibly remove CO2 from the atmosphere on a large scale.

Full Story Vulnerable nations at Copenhagen summit reject 2C target | Environment | guardian.co.uk.

Why Is the Federal Government Supporting Evangelism?

Why does Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, which teaches students to be “Champions for Christ,” get tax-exempt status?

When progressive pro-choicers think about enemies of reproductive justice, Blue Dog Democrats and the Republican Party come to mind. Of course, these forces merit our constant scrutiny on both the state and federal levels. At the same time, we’re missing the boat if we don’t also look at the many government-sanctioned institutions that are training the next generation of evangelical leaders to become what they call “Champions for Christ.”

Take, for example, tax-exempt Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. The 38-year-old school boasts a 5000-acre campus, complete with 123 buildings, 60 accredited undergraduate majors, and schools of aeronautics, arts and sciences, business, communications, education, government, religion, and law. More than 11,000 residential students were enrolled in September 2009 and an additional 24,000 were online distance learners. This makes LU the largest evangelical Christian university in the world, quite a legacy for founder Jerry Falwell. It’s also one of the most affordable private colleges in the US: tuition, room, and board fees come to $21,200 a year, about half the cost of its competitors.

The Helms School of Government—yes, it’s named for deceased lawmaker Jesse Helms—crows that it turns out “Christ-centered leaders, able to apply God’s word in every area of life.” What’s more, LU’s webpage showcases its mission, promising students an “action-oriented curriculum dedicated to world evangelism and repudiation of political correctness.”

Full Story Why Is the Federal Government Supporting Evangelism? | Reproductive Justice and Gender | AlterNet.

Bachmann tied for voice GOP insiders most want to ‘mute’

Hotline On Call gives a sneak preview of National Journal’s new survey of beltway insiders on “the member they’d like most to shut up, the brightest thinkers and strategists in their parties and much more.” Topping the list of GOP voices these insiders would like to “mute” is Minnesota’s Rep. Michele Bachmann — but there’s a five-way tie. Eleven percent of Republicans polled would also like Fox’s Glenn Beck, Iowa Rep. Steve King, Sarah Palin and Georgia Rep. Tom Price to pipe down.

Sixteen percent of Republican congressional insiders — a list of 65 senators and representatives, including Bachmann and Rep. John Kline — said they didn’t want to mute anyone.

But among GOP “political insiders” — an even bigger group that includes the likes of Gary Bauer, Ed Gillespie and Charlie Crist — the most-mutable figure was Sarah Palin. Twenty-eight percent of people in this group wanted her to shut up; 12 percent selected RNC chair Michael Steele.

Democrats in both groups, congressional insiders and political insiders, would prefer Joe Lieberman be muted, getting 22 and 23 percent of the vote, respectively.

Other results worth noting:

Full Story Bachmann tied for voice GOP insiders most want to ‘mute’ « Minnesota Independent: News. Politics. Media..

Couch potato lifestyle may speed up ageing

Being a couch potato in your free time could make you a decade older biologically than someone who is physically active, according to a major study of people’s “chromosomal clocks”.

Tim Spector at St Thomas’ hospital in London, UK, and colleagues measured the lengths of telomeres – the DNA that bookends our chromosomes – in the white blood cells of 2401 twins.

Telomeres shorten each time a cell divides, and when they become too short a cell can no longer divide, so telomeres act as a kind of timer counting down our biological age.

The researchers found that people who did not exercise in their spare time had shorter telomeres than very active people.

Full Story Couch potato lifestyle may speed up ageing – health – 29 January 2008 – New Scientist.

Not Smoking But Still Dying —

Americans have swapped one vice for another, and it could be taking months, if not years, off our lives. New research suggests that although the number of smokers in the United States has decreased by 20% in the past 15 years, the number of obese Americans has increased by 48%. If the trends continue, the dangers of obesity will overshadow the public health gains from reduced smoking over the next decade.

The study draws upon data from national health surveys conducted over the past few decades, some stretching back to 1971, which covered a few hundred thousand people. The authors calculated how smoking and obesity affected life span between 1990 and 2005 (the most recent year for which data were available) and extrapolated those rates forward until 2020. According to this analysis, obesity will rob a typical 18-year-old in 2020 of 0.71 years (260 days) of life and 0.91 years (332 days) of quality of life.

More specifically, the average life span gain from not smoking, 0.31 years, was one-third of the average harm done by adding weight, 1.02 years. The paper also reports that, in the highly unlikely event that all Americans quit smoking and reach a normal weight by 2020, the average life span would increase by 3.76 years and 5.16 quality-adjusted years.

Full Story Not Smoking But Still Dying — Kean 2009 (1202): 2 — ScienceNOW.

Long-term physical activity has an anti-aging effect at the cellular level

Intensive exercise prevented shortening of telomeres, a protective effect against aging of the cardiovascular system, according to research reported in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

Researchers measured the length of telomeres — the DNA that bookends the chromosomes and protects the ends from damage — in blood samples from two groups of professional athletes and two groups who were healthy nonsmokers, but not regular exercisers.

The telomere shortening mechanism limits cells to a fixed number of divisions and can be regarded as a “biological clock.” Gradual shortening of telomeres through cell divisions leads to aging on the cellular level and may limit lifetimes. When the telomeres become critically short the cell undergoes death. The 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to researchers who discovered the nature of telomeres and how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase.

“The most significant finding of this study is that physical exercise of the professional athletes leads to activation of the important enzyme telomerase and stabilizes the telomere,” said Ulrich Laufs, M.D., the study’s lead author and professor of clinical and experimental medicine in the department of internal medicine at Saarland University in Homburg, Germany

Full Story Long-term physical activity has an anti-aging effect at the cellular level.

Americans Want Government to Spend for Jobs, Send Bill to Rich

Americans want their government to create jobs through spending on public works, investments in alternative energy or skills training for the jobless.

They also want the deficit to come down. And most are ready to hand the bill to the wealthy.

A Bloomberg National Poll conducted Dec. 3-7 shows two- thirds of Americans favor taxing the rich to reduce the deficit.

Even though almost 9 of 10 respondents also say they believe the middle class will have to make financial sacrifices to achieve that goal, only a little more than one-fourth support an increase in taxes on the middle class. Fewer still back cuts in entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare or a new national consumption tax.

Full Story Americans Want Government to Spend for Jobs, Send Bill to Rich – Bloomberg.com.

Max Baucus gave girlfriend $14K raise

Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, gave a nearly $14,000 pay raise to a female staffer in 2008, at the time he was becoming romantically involved with her, and later that year took her on a taxpayer-funded trip to Southeast Asia and the Middle East, though foreign policy was not her specialty.

Late last Friday, Baucus acknowledged his relationship with Melodee Hanes, whom he nominated for the job of U.S. attorney in Montana, after it was first reported on the website MainJustice.com. But he said that Hanes withdrew from consideration for the job when the relationship became more serious. The next day, he dismissed calls for an ethics investigation, saying, “I went out of my way to be up and up.”

Since his announcement, more details of the relationship have emerged, raising questions about a workplace romance between a boss and employee that Baucus tried to keep quiet and also contradicting his explanation for why Hanes’s nomination was withdrawn.

Full Story Max Baucus gave girlfriend $14K raise – - POLITICO.com.

Official: KGB chief ordered Hitler’s remains destroyed

The remains of Adolf Hitler were burned in 1970 by Soviet KGB agents and thrown into a river in Germany on direct orders from the spy agency’s chief, a top Russian security official said this week.

The head archivist of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) — the successor to the former Soviet Union’s KGB — confirmed for the first time the chain of events that led to the disposal of Hitler’s body, and who ordered the operation, in an exclusive interview with Russia’s Interfax news agency.

Gen. Vasily Khristoforov told Interfax in an interview published Monday that previously secret documents show that KGB chief Yuri Andropov, with prior consent from the Soviet Communist Party leadership, ordered a top secret operation to destroy the remains of Hitler, his wife Eva Braun, Nazi Germany’s propaganda chief, Joseph Goebbels; and Goebbels’ entire family.

Full Story Official: KGB chief ordered Hitler’s remains destroyed – CNN.com.

Google under attack after CEO’s anti-privacy remarks

Switch from Google to Bing, browser-maker urges

“The innocent have nothing to fear.”

That seems to be more or less the position of Google CEO Eric Schmidt when it comes to online privacy, and Schmidt's comments to that effect have set off a firestorm of controversy over the web company's commitment to its users' privacy.

In an interview broadcast late last week, CNBC's Maria Bartiromo asked Schmidt if people could trust the world's leading search engine company with their private information.

“I think judgment matters,” Schmidt responded. “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place. If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines, including Google, do retain this information for some time and it’s important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act. It is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities.”

Full Story Google under attack after CEO’s anti-privacy remarks | Raw Story.

Bachmann laments that foreign citizens have rights

Republican congresswoman Michele Bachmann, never one to miss an opportunity to promote conservative boilerplate, is now claiming that offering a federal court trial to the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks is a “slap in the face” to not only victims of the tragedy — but all Americans everywhere.

The right to a fair trial, Bachmann said in a press release Wednesday, is one of the “benefits and perks reserved for American citizens.”

Bachmann's words echo the claims made by a number of others at a recent rally in New York, where protesters lamented that 9/11 perpetrators had “the same rights as U.S. citizens” and argued that due process was “reserved for U.S. citizens.”

The Washington Independent counters:

Full Story Bachmann laments that foreign citizens have rights | Raw Story.

Bankers might be feeling public’s wrath — literally

A Los Angeles lawyer who had represented a failed subprime mortgage lender is found dead outside his home, having been shot in the head.

Three men allegedly invade the home of a former subprime lender, and are arrested after reportedly injuring three people inside.

Vandals target the home of the former CEO of the Royal Bank of Scotland, smashing windows in the banker's home and car.

Those are just three notable incidents of violence aimed at people who were in some way linked to the financial crisis that has unfolded over the past year. And while in many of those cases it's unclear whether the incidents were politically motivated, or motivated by financial issues, or just a coincidence, the cases fit into a pattern of escalating crime and violence in the wake of the recession.

Matthew Padilla of the Orange Country Register reports on a series of violent incidents in California in some way linked to the financial collapse.

Full Story Bankers might be feeling public’s wrath — literally | Raw Story.

Republicans now arguing that the Senate health care bill isn’t long enough.

A constant whine of congressional Republicans about health care reform is that the legislation is just too long and too complicated. “All you need to know is there are 1,990 pages,” griped House Minority Leader John Boehner about the House bill. “It is longer than War and Peace and not near as funny,” said Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX). As the Washington Times has noted, Republican senators have “rotated three other copies of the bill among their desks so a giant stack is never more than a desk or two away from any senator who wants to thump it, poke it or heft it for viewers to see.” But today, Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) opened the 11th day of Senate debate by arguing that the bill is not long enough:

And we talk about 2,074 pages, which seem like a lot, and it would be for a normal bill that you could debate in a limited period of time, which is what we’re being asked to do. But 2,074 pages isn’t nearly enough to cover health care for America. So why is it only 2,074 pages?

Watch it:

Full Story Think Progress » Republicans now arguing that the Senate health care bill isn’t long enough..

Tea Party activists to ‘storm Senate offices’ and ‘stay there until they force us to leave.’

Tea Party Patriots — the right-wing organizers controlled by FreedomWorks — sent an urgent call to action today, asking supporters to come to Washington December 15th to “storm Senate offices” in order to “play out the role of patients waiting for treatment in government controlled medical facilities.” The e-mail says organizers plan to “stay there until they force us to leave,” and incites supporters to “flex our muscle” and “hold the line in our fight against the government takeover of health care”:

It is time, once again, to flex our muscle and exert that influence to hold the line in our fight against the government takeover of healthcare. The Senate is busy working on the details of a government run health care bill and they would like to pass it as quickly as possible. Some of them are under the false impression that we’ve given up and gone away just because they haven’t heard much from us in the past few days. [...]

Full Story Think Progress » Tea Party activists to ‘storm Senate offices’ and ‘stay there until they force us to leave.’.

Rick Warren Finally Issues A Statement Condemning Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill

For weeks, Pastor Rick Warren has been under fire for refusing to condemn the Anti-Homosexuality Bill going through the Ugandan parliament, which would make certain homosexual acts punishable by death. Last month, he told Newsweek that it wasn’t his “personal calling” to “comment or interfere in the political process of other nations.”

After facing intense criticism over his statement, Warren then went on Twitter and wondered why there was so much fuss over the rights of gay men and women: “Globally last yr 146,000 Christians were put to death because of their faith. No one, except Christians, said anything.” But dozens of Christian leaders disagreed with Warren’s cowardice and forcefully spoke out against the legislation. From a Dec. 7 letter they signed:

As Americans, some may wonder why we are raising our voices to oppose a measure proposed in a nation so far away from home. We do so to bear witness to our Christian values, and to express our condemnation of an injustice in which groups and leaders within the American Christian community are being implicated. We appeal to all Christian leaders in our own country to speak out against this unjust legislation.

Full Story Think Progress » Rick Warren Finally Issues A Statement Condemning Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

Oil Lobby Adds Diversity To Its Anti-Clean Energy Pamphlet By Photoshopping Minorities Into Stock Photos

In August, The Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson noted that the coal industry had contracted a PR firm to promote its “FACES of Coal” campaign. To attack clean energy reform, the campaign featured pictures of seemingly normal individuals opposed to cap and trade legislation. However, the Appalachian Voices’ Front Porch blog revealed that the “FACES” of the coal campaign were actually stock images purchased from iStockPhotos.com.

The oil industry, under the umbrella lobbying group American Petroleum Institute (API), is copying that strategy. In a newly-released pamphlet, API fear-mongers that “hard working Americans,” like ordinary “valets,” “painters,” “day care providers,” and “rocket scientists,” will lose their job and be “hurt” by clean energy reform. To show the great diversity of those affected by the legislation, API decided to buy a stock image also from iStockPhoto.com. Apparently, the stock image was insufficient for API’s purposes. Upon close examination, it’s clear API photoshopped two of the people to turn them into minorities. One of the minorities, the individual on the left, is poorly photoshopped though — his face is brown, yet his hands are still white:

Full Story Think Progress » Oil Lobby Adds Diversity To Its Anti-Clean Energy Pamphlet By Photoshopping Minorities Into Stock Photos.

Thousands Who Lack Adequate Coverage Attend Free Medical Clinic In Kansas City

The latest U.S. Census report concluded that there are 46.3 million uninsured Americans. These individuals and the millions more who are underinsured are unable to pay for comprehensive and preventive care, which means they often have to depend on charity in order to get help.

One such charity is the National Association of Free Clinics (NAFC), who MSNBC host Keith Olbermann has been raising money to support. Starting yesterday, NAFC opened a two-day free clinic in Kansas City, and thousands of people have been attending to get care they otherwise could not afford. The Kansas City Star highlighted some of the stories of patients who attended seeking care:

More than 1,600 volunteers are helping with the Kansas City clinic, including more than 100 doctors and nurse practitioners. People seeking free health care waited in a lobby and then moved in groups up an escalator to the main hall. After checking in, they sat in a waiting area until their numbers were called:

• A 24-year-old college student who had been dropped by her mother’s insurance.

• A factory worker laid off in August, worried about his blood pressure and the lingering effects of an injury.

• A part-time bartender with a history of health problems and no health insurance.

Full Story Think Progress » Thousands Who Lack Adequate Coverage Attend Free Medical Clinic In Kansas City.

Forty-four lawmakers sign onto Christmas resolution, despite Boehner’s tirade against frivolous bills.

Yesterday, Steve Benen noted that 19 House Republicans had signed onto H. Res. 951, a resolution to honor Christmas and “strongly” disapprove of attempts to ban Christmas references. Today, ThinkProgress obtained an e-mail sent around to Republican and Democratic legislative directors by Rep. Henry Brown’s (R-SC) office, asking them to have their bosses sign onto the legislation. Brown’s chief of staff, Chris Berardini, wrote:

We have added 44 cosponsors in just the first 24 hours since H. Res 951 was introduced and we would love to have your boss join us.

Full Story Think Progress » Forty-four lawmakers sign onto Christmas resolution, despite Boehner’s tirade against frivolous bills..

In Attempting To Justify Her Denier Op-Ed, Palin Lies About Her Past Climate Change Views

Yesterday, the Washington Post published a “falsehood-laden” op-ed by Sarah Palin attacking the science underpinning climate change. In her piece, Palin cast doubt on the science of global warming, stating that she “recognize[s]” global warming as merely “cyclical environmental trends” that are unrelated to the burning of fossil fuels. Responding to Palin’s misinformation about climate change science, Al Gore said yesterday:

The deniers are persisting in an era of unreality. The entire North Polar ice cap is disappearing before our eyes. What do they think is happening? [...] It’s a principle in physics. It’s like gravity, it exists.

In turn, Palin responded on her Facebook, writing incredulously:

Full Story Think Progress » In Attempting To Justify Her Denier Op-Ed, Palin Lies About Her Past Climate Change Views.

Grassley: I’m Too Busy To Comment On The Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill

Sen. Chuck Grassley In recent weeks, One Iowa, the state’s largest LGBT organization, has been pressuring Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) to denounce the Anti-Homosexuality Bill currently being considered by the Ugandan parliament. A major reason for the emphasis on Grassley is his relationship with the The Family, an international Christian organization that has pushed extreme right-wing policies in Africa (as reported by author Jeff Sharlet).

On Wednesday, Grassley finally responded to his constituents. However, he refused to condemn the legislation, saying he was too busy to be concerned about such matters:

Full Story Think Progress » Grassley: I’m Too Busy To Comment On The Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

Sarah Palin To Speak At A Fundraiser For A Socialist Canadian Hospital

According to the Hamilton Spectator, Sarah Palin has been contracted to speak at a fundraiser for the Juravinski Cancer Centre and St. Peter’s Hospital in Canada. “This is quite the coup,” said Gabe Macaluso, an organizer for the event.

Palin might be surprised to learn that the hospital she is fundraising for runs counter to her professed beliefs:

– St. Peter’s Hospital is a public hospital within the national Canadian healthcare system. In Palin’s worldview, universal, government-insured health care is “socialism.”

Full Story Think Progress » Sarah Palin To Speak At A Fundraiser For A Socialist Canadian Hospital.

Mum’s the Word on “Free Trade”: Money Controls

Sen. Ernest F. “Fritz” Hollings, with video by Craig Harrington -

The President has the country headed in the wrong direction by continuing to get rid of our economy with “free trade.”

“Free trade” means different things to different people. To economists in the United States, “free trade” means an open market where goods are unfettered or unprotected by tariffs, quotas or subsidies. To one of John F. Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage, Henry Clay, “free trade” was pure fantasy. Clay thought “free trade” was an oxymoron. In 1832, he cried: “Free trade, free trade … It never existed … It never will.” Teddy Roosevelt thought “free trade” was dumb economics. He exclaimed in a letter: “Thank God I’m not a free trader.”

After World War II, Japan took our Marshall Plan money and started globalization or a trade war for market share by closing its domestic market, subsidizing its manufacturing, selling its exports at near cost, and making up the profit in its closed market. It took over market share in textiles and then globalized by seeking a country cheaper to produce, moving its textile manufacturing to Malaysia and changing its trade war from textiles to watches, to cameras, to electronics, to radios, to TVs, to computers, to communications, to automobiles.

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

GE Awarded Contract for World’s Largest Wind Farm

The wind farm, owned by independent power producer Caithness Energy, will cover some 30 square miles in the north-central Oregon region and provide enough electricity to power 235,000 California homes.

General Electric announced Thursday that it has been awarded a $1.4 billion contract to provide wind turbines for what will be the world’s largest wind farm when completed, according to a company press release.

“This is a smart investment in a well structured, contracted power project with an experienced developer using the nation’s best technology,” said Alex Urquhart, president & CEO of GE Energy Financial Services.

The wind farm, owned by independent power producer Caithness Energy, will cover some 30 square miles in the north-central Oregon region and provide enough electricity to power 235,000 California homes.

“This project underscores our commitment to harness the power of wind to meet present and future energy needs while reducing greenhouse emissions. The Shepherds Flat project will add more renewable energy to the west coast’s energy mix and help the region meet its demand for clean energy,” said Les Gelber, a partner at Caithness Energy, in a press release.

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

Six Ways to Strengthen the Economy

In Saving Capitalism Dr. Choate outlines six “game changing” proposals to get America back on its feet.

Economist and best-selling author Pat Choate has crusaded for fiscal responsibility and long-term management in government for many years. He campaigned as the 1996 Reform Party vice-presidential candidate on a platform of responsible spending, balanced international commerce, and government encouragement for domestic employment. He has written several books and news articles on the topic, and his most recent work Saving Capitalism: Keeping America Strong may be his best to date.

In Saving Capitalism Dr. Choate outlines six “game changing” proposals to meet the challenge presented by global competition and get America back on its feet. The first is to impose strict federal supervision of financial markets, refurbishing the regulatory framework destroyed during each presidency from Reagan to George W. Bush.

The second is to replace most income and corporate taxes with a consumption based value-added tax. This would be in line with the practices of every other country on earth and allow the U.S. to raise enough revenue to fund itself and pay down its debt.

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

China’s Asian neighbors don’t like mercantilist tactics

China's mercantilism is not just dragging us down, as the importer of choice. It is dragging down their Asian neighbors.

Now, [China] is finding it harder to cast itself as a friendly alternative to an imperious American superpower. For many in Asia, it is the new colossus.

China has run up a $74B trade surplus with its ASEAN neighbors, “prompting some rethinking of the conventional wisdom that China’s rise is a windfall for the whole neighborhood.”

Full Story TradeReform.org – China’s Asian neighbors don’t like mercantilist tactics.

The Unreal and the Real Economy – Part II

Lost in the immediacy of the current crisis, we continue to overlook a glaring reality. The nation’s structural and fundamental problems that existed before 2008 are not only still present but have worsened.

Main Street Americans – the real economy – have not realized most of the benefits of federal outlays and efforts. The damage to the real economy has been enormous and has left permanent scars. Americans are impatient. Many are angry. They no longer anticipate strong and decisive leadership from the White House. Congress is dysfunctional and detached from mainstream America. The efforts at health care reform reveal an out-of touch and ineffective government. The health care legislation, largely a product of corporate lobbying, extends expensive new benefits and enriches its corporate sponsors but does not provide basic health care reform or control of rising costs. Its estimates of future costs are riddled with budget gimmicks and, ultimately, dishonest accounting.

Lost in the immediacy of the current crisis, we continue to overlook a glaring reality. The nation’s structural and fundamental problems that existed before 2008 are not only still present but have worsened. Our government and financial institutions are failing us. Public finance is severely weakened by massive deficits and debts. Persistent U.S. foreign and military outreach continues to cost trillions of dollars. Oil dependence grows. The dollar continues to decline. Wages and salaries for most Americans are flat or declining and gaping inequality among segments of American society worsens. Global competition and global pressures have intensified. The world’s economic balance of power is shifting from West to East and from a long-standing concert of Western powers to the Group of 20. Unsustainable trade imbalances persist. U.S. manufacturing continues its inexorably downward slide – with automakers on life support and commercial aircraft companies at the mercy of unreliable foreign suppliers. The nation’s competitive advantage in the world economy erodes. Financialization and its activities are replacing tangible export products as the nation’s most profitable economic output.

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

Heartbreaking Stories Warn New Yorkers of What May Be in Store if the State OKs Controversial Gas Drilling

Residents of others states are issuing words of warning for New Yorkers who may soon allow companies to use the “fracking” process to drill for natural gas.

I live and work in Marcellus shale ground zero — central New York State, just south of the Finger Lakes, one of the biggest and best watersheds in the hemisphere. My home is in economically challenged, mostly rural Tioga County, and I work in Tompkins County. Almost all our neighbors for several miles around have signed gas leases. I participate regularly and actively as a client, colleague, patient, or volunteer with businesses, organizations, and institutions in 19 other New York counties.

I have been economically poor and landless, economically comfortable and landless, comfortable and landed, and poor and landed. I’ve been rural, suburban, and urban. And I’ve spent most of my adult life paying state and local taxes in New York State (and a whole lot of national taxes, most of which have gone toward things I do not condone). I am a farmer, writer, editor, actor, and educator. My spouse, who was laid off a couple years ago and has been underemployed and looking for work ever since, and I struggle to make ends meet. Yet we love this part of the world and have been glad to call it home. This is all by way of showing we are stakeholders in this region, dubbed “Marcellus shale” for the natural gas reserves hidden underground. Because we care a whole lot and wanted to learn firsthand, my spouse and I recently traveled around West Virginia and Pennsylvania, talking to people whose lives have been affected by the same sort of hydrofracturing (or “fracking”), a technique used in drilling for natural gas that is likely to soon take place in New York State.

Most of these Pennsylvanians told us they rue the day they signed the gas leases. Some of them “inherited” gas leases — or bought property on which there was a mineral rights lease they were unaware of — and now are paying the consequences.

Full Story Heartbreaking Stories Warn New Yorkers of What May Be in Store if the State OKs Controversial Gas Drilling | Water | AlterNet.

Catholic Church Threatens to End Social Services in DC if Gay Marriage is Approved

Washington, DC has joined several other states in its quest for same-sex marriage. The DC Council voted 11 to 2 in favor of same-sex marriage on December 1st. According to DC Law, they must vote a second time on December 15th and then the bill goes to Capitol Hill for Congressional review. Congress then has 30 days to vote on it, or it becomes law by default.

When news of the impending vote came out in early November, the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, DC threatened to end all social service contracts that Catholic Charities has with the city if the same-sex marriage bill becomes law. They don’t want to pay spousal benefits to the partners of their gay and lesbian employees. Neither do they want to allow gay or lesbian couples to adopt children through their adoption services. All in all, the Catholic church doesn’t want to honor same-sex marriage rights in any way, shape, form or fashion. As a church, they are entitled to their opinion and their stance on same-sex marriage.

However, Catholic Charities is not just the social service branch of the Catholic Church. It is also a non-profit which receives funding from the DC Government. Churches don’t have to perform same-sex marriages or allow them to be performed in their space. But businesses may not discriminate against the LGBT community. Therefore, the crux of the issue is whether Catholic Charities should be allowed to assert its position as a branch of the Catholic Church and get a special exemption that doesn’t require them to honor same-sex marriage rights or if they should be treated as a business and not be allowed to discriminate against gays and lesbians, pedophile priests notwithstanding.

Full Story Catholic Church Threatens to End Social Services in DC if Gay Marriage is Approved | RHRealityCheck.org.

Zinn’s ‘People’s History’ Masterwork Hits the History Channel

Don’t miss Howard Zinn’s ‘Voices of a People’s History’ debut on the History Channel on December 13th.

On December 13th, a date I’ve basically had tattooed on my arm like the guy from Memento, The People Speak finally makes its debut on the History Channel. This is more than just must-see-TV. It is nothing less than the life’s work of “people’s historian” Howard Zinn brought to life by some of the most talented actors, musicians, and poets in the country. Howard Zinn and his partner Anthony Arnove chose the most stirring political passages in Zinn’s classic A People’s History of the United States, creating a written anthology called Voices of a People’s History of the United States. Those “voices” have now been fully resurrected by a collection of performers ranging from Matt Damon to hip hop artist Lupe Fiasco to poet Staceyann Chin.

The People Speak also showcases John Legend reading the words of Muhammad Ali, Kerry Washington as Sojourner Truth, David Strathairn’s take on the soaring oratory of Eugene Debs, and Morgan Freeman as Frederick Douglass asking, “What is the 4th of July to the American Slave?” There are also the words of women factory workers read by Marisa Tomei, rebellious farmers personified by Viggo Mortensen, and escaped slaves voiced by Benjamin Bratt.

Certainly the lunatic right will howl to the heavens after seeing “liberal Hollywood” perform the words of labor radicals, anti-racists, feminists, and socialists. In fact, aided by the craven Matt Drudge, they are already in full froth, campaigning online to get the History Channel to drop The People Speak before its air-date. If it weren’t so contemptible, their actions would be almost quaint, like a virtual book burning.

Full Story Zinn’s ‘People’s History’ Masterwork Hits the History Channel | Rights and Liberties | AlterNet.

Supreme Court’s Ruling Would Allow Bin Laden to Donate to Sarah Palin’s Presidential Campaign

I’m biting my nails waiting for the Supreme Court’s ruling  — here’s why you should be too.

I thought that headline would get your attention. And it’s true.

I’m biting my nails waiting for the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which could come down as early as Tuesday. At issue: whether corporations, as “unnatural persons,” can make contributions to political campaigns.

The outcome is foregone: the five GOP appointees to the court are expected to use the case to junk federal laws that now bar corporations from stuffing campaign coffers.

Technically, there’s a narrower matter before the court in this case: whether the McCain-Feingold Act may prohibit corporations from funding “independent” campaign advertisements such as the “Swift Boat” ads that smeared John Kerry. However, campaign finance reformers are steeling themselves for the court’s right wing to go much further, knocking down all longstanding rules against donations by corporate treasuries.

Full Story Supreme Court’s Ruling Would Allow Bin Laden to Donate to Sarah Palin’s Presidential Campaign | Rights and Liberties | AlterNet.

Rick Warren denies he’s “conspiring” to “rid the world of homosexuals”

Rick Warren’s missives reach over 140,000 pastors around the world and in early 2009 Warren gave the opening prayer at Barack Obama’s inauguration. But the “Purpose Driven” pastor has increasingly been dogged by controversy.

Mega-pastor Warren has just released a statement condemning pending legislation, before Uganda’s parliament, which critics have characterized as a “kill the gays” bill. Warren’s newly stated opposition to the bill is, of course, welcome. But Warren’s declaration contains blatant lies and statements that verge on the bizarre. Why does Rick Warren feel the need tell the world that he has not “conspired” with C. Peter Wagner (an under-publicized but powerful religious leader), or anyone, to “rid the world of homosexuals” ?

Warren’s statement presents a list of “Key Facts Concerning Recent Media and Blog Reports on Rick Warren’s Position on Uganda” which contains nine “questions,” written by Warren himself, with answers written by Rick Warren too. Question #9 is, “Are you and Peter Wagner attempting to rid the world of homosexuals?” Warren answers his own question: “Absolutely not.” But who has accused Warren of such an evil plan ?

Warren’s statement also contains several blatant lies. in one, he claims that C. Peter Wagner wasn’t his key advisor for Warren’s 1993 doctoral dissertation. But the abstract of Warren’s 350-plus page tome lists one academic figure, C. Peter Wagner, as Warren’s “mentor” for the dissertation.

Full Story Talk To Action | Rick Warren denies he’s “conspiring” to “rid the world of homosexuals”.

Comcast-NBC Merger : Controlling Content and Delivery

With a monopoly on delivery, what’s to stop a new breed of ISPs/cable providers from dictating content to customers?

A scary thing happened last week when the Comcast Corporation, the largest cable provider in the U.S. and ISP to some 15 million customers, decided to to purchase NBC Universal in order to delve further upstream from the pipe that simply delivers content to the world where’s it created.

“We believe this venture represents a natural evolution in the world of communications and entertainment, a marketplace that becomes more open, more competitive, and more global every day,” it says. “The opportunity to combine these assets makes possible some innovative programming opportunities that will permit the new company to better serve the interests of many key segments of the viewing audience, including local viewers in the markets served by NBCU’s owned-and-operated stations, and the particular interests of Hispanics, African Americans, children and families, and other key audience segments. This combination also permits us to hasten the arrival of the multiplatform, ‘anytime, anywhere’ future that Americans want.”

In other words, it has seen the writing on the wall in terms of streaming video-on-demand services. Consumers increasingly want to watch content when and where they want.

Full Story The Rag Blog: Comcast-NBC Merger : Controlling Content and Delivery.

The School-to-Prison Pipeline

by Robert C. Koehler

I hope the Dignity in Schools Campaign overflows its banks, spilling awareness into every corner of the country.

“Millions of children and youth are denied educational opportunities in the United States,” begins the National Resolution for Ending School Pushout, which some 200 organizations in 43 states have so far signed. “This injustice results from systemic inequality and a lack of public commitment to doing what is necessary to keep all young people in school.”

Can we sit with this statement a moment, please? Can we sit with it without blame, denial or quick opinions, and simply let it wash at the edges of our sense of national greatness? Our military, political and cultural thrust reaches every corner of the globe. We're the world's only superpower. And we're feeding our own children — a shocking percentage of them, at any rate — into a sort of Darwinian meat grinder of low expectations, zero tolerance and fend-for-yourself hopelessness.

This is our school system in much of Poverty America: an ill-funded, desperate and deteriorating bureaucracy of bad ideas and entrenched disrespect for everyone — especially those who care. When I was an outside writing consultant, some years ago, at several high schools on the West Side of Chicago, I saw first-hand the us-vs.-them mentality that prevailed, as though the schools were colonial outposts in these low-income neighborhoods, run by an occupying army.

Full Story The School-to-Prison Pipeline | CommonDreams.org.

The Demoralized Democratic Base

David Sirota –

The Associated Press is insisting that Americans don’t give a shit about President Obama’s Afghanistan War escalation. An outlier poll from CNN goes even father, asserting that Americans actually love the idea of intensifying the war. So maybe it’s true — maybe President Obama and Democrats won’t face the same price Democrats faced, say, durning the NAFTA debacle when a Democratic president rolled “over the dead bodies” of the progressive base and then watched Democrats get crushed at the polls.

There’s just one problem — more specific polls about the state of the Democratic base show. For instance, new polls show much of the erosion in support for Democrats’ health care effort is coming from the progressive base that believes Democrats have compromised away too much to the insurance industry. More broadly, those polls show a general demoralization among self-identified Democratic voters:

Among Republican respondents, 81 percent said they were definitely or probably going to vote, versus only 14 percent who were definitely or not likely to do so. Among independent voters, it was 65-23. Among Democrats? A woeful 56-40: Two out of every five Democrats are currently unlikely to vote.

A look at key Democratic constituencies shows how demoralized the party’s base currently is. Among African-Americans, just 34 percent are likely to vote, versus 54 percent unlikely to do so. Republican-leaning white voters clocked in at 66-29. Only 41 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds, a key constituency for Democrats in both 2006 and 2008, are likely to vote, compared to 49 percent likely to sit things out.

Full Story The Demoralized Democratic Base | The Smirking Chimp.

Death by Privatization

In These Times  –

For-profit prison healthcare system implicated in death of inmate.

Ashley Ellis’s misdemeanor arrest turned into a death sentence. Her crime: “careless and negligent operation of a motor vehicle.” Less than two days after entering a Vermont prison on a 30-day sentence, she died from the careless and negligent operation of a privatized for-profit prison healthcare system.

Her death shows what can, and does, happen across the country when states outsource prisoner medical services: states cut corners on monitoring, and contractors skimp on care.

Ellis’ death “is a pretty blatant and obvious and extreme case of gross negligence,” says Seth Lipschutz, supervising attorney at the Vermont Defenders office. “We figured out in a day that they killed her.”

Full Story Death by Privatization — In These Times.

Blackwater Guards Tied to Secret Raids by the C.I.A.

Blackwater ‘became an extension’ of CIA

Private security guards from Blackwater Worldwide participated in some of the C.I.A.’s most sensitive activities — clandestine raids with agency officers against people suspected of being insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan and the transporting of detainees, according to former company employees and intelligence officials.

The raids against suspects occurred on an almost nightly basis during the height of the Iraqi insurgency from 2004 to 2006, with Blackwater personnel playing central roles in what company insiders called “snatch and grab” operations, the former employees and current and former intelligence officers said.

Several former Blackwater guards said that their involvement in the operations became so routine that the lines supposedly dividing the Central Intelligence Agency, the military and Blackwater became blurred. Instead of simply providing security for C.I.A. officers, they say, Blackwater personnel at times became partners in missions to capture or kill militants in Iraq and Afghanistan, a practice that raises questions about the use of guns for hire on the battlefield.

Full Story Blackwater Guards Tied to Secret Raids by the C.I.A. – NYTimes.com.

Miracle light: Can lasers solve the energy crisis?

Next year will mark the 50th birthday of the laser, one of the most productive and widely used mega-inventions of the last century. Scientists hope that 2010 also will see the launch of laser technology’s greatest challenge: creating an inexhaustible supply of clean, carbon-free energy.

In the five decades since lasers were developed, they’ve found a host of applications — from the everyday to the exotic — in industry, science, medicine, entertainment and national security.

Lasers read bar codes at checkout counters, write and read DVDs, operate laser printers, perform surgery, diagnose and treat cancers, spot military targets and measure the distance to the moon. They even remove unwanted body hair.

Next year, scientists will take lasers to a new level, trying to produce energy by imitating the way the sun creates the light and heat that support life on Earth.

“Creating star power in the laboratory,” is how Edward Moses, the director of the Department of Energy’s National Ignition Facility in Livermore, Calif., describes the system.

Full Story Miracle light: Can lasers solve the energy crisis? | McClatchy.

It’s time to talk about human rights in the climate debate

It is clear that climate change is having an effect on the lives of many people. Even though there may still be areas of disagreement among states, the scientific community and some politicians as to these precise effects (and the mitigating action needed), all agree that some form of legal regulation is necessary.

This is even more important given the impact that climate change has on human security, habitation and, ultimately, on human rights.

These considerations are prescient given that today marks the anniversary of the adoption in 1948 by the United Nations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, an event that is often regarded as the ”birth” of modern international human rights law.

The declaration remains one of the most important documents ever created. It represented the first clear formal statement of the fundamental rights to which all humans are entitled. Guinness World Records describes it as the world’s ”Most Translated Document”.

Full Story Copenhagen Climate Conference | Human Rights And Climate Change.

Private Health Care Costs Driving Force Behind Debt Burden

Center for Economic and Policy Research

Taming the Deficit: Saving Our Children from Themselves

Many proponents of conservative fiscal policies talk of the budget deficit as being a matter of intergenerational equality. However, this paper shows the younger generations (and those yet to be born) will contribute more to the deficit than older generations. This analysis uses data from the CBO Long-Term Budget Outlook and the authors’ calculations to show that the driving force behind the deficit is our broken health care system and that this should be the focus of the debate.

Full report in PDF and Flash at link

Full Story Taming the Deficit: Saving Our Children from Themselves – CEPR.

Over A Million Innocent People Perished In A War Based On A Lie!

Congressman Dennis Kucinich

YouTube – Over A Million Innocent People Perished In A War Based On A Lie! Congressman Dennis Kucinich.

Kucinich Challenges Linking Unemployment Benefits to War Spending

Congressman Dennis Kucinich –

“War Spending will Cost 2 million Jobs”

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

“According to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, the sharp increase in war spending is taking up a greater portion of our Gross Domestic Product, which will cost the U.S. about two million jobs because such spending ‘is a direct drain on the economy, reducing efficiency, slowing growth and costing jobs.’ Contrary to popular assumptions, massive spending for war does not create jobs. It costs jobs. War spending is capital-intensive, not labor-intensive. War creates unemployment.

“The current plans to make extension of unemployment benefits contingent on Congress passing a war spending bill raises serious questions about basic decency and common sense.

“We are telling people that as long as we are at war, they will get their unemployment benefits. And, of course as long as we are at war, there will be more people unemployed.

“Instead of unemployment benefits, people need work. Instead of war, people need work. War drives up our deficit. War takes away money from job creation. War results in unemployment. War is a weapon of mass destruction.”

Full Story Congressman Dennis Kucinich.

Bernanke’s Unfinished Mission

Paul Krugman –

Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, recently had some downbeat things to say about our economic prospects. The economy, he warned, “confronts some formidable headwinds.” All we can expect, he said, is “modest economic growth next year — sufficient to bring down the unemployment rate, but at a pace slower than we would like.”

Actually, he may have been too optimistic: There’s a good chance that unemployment will rise, not fall, over the next year. But even if it does inch down, one has to ask: Why isn’t the Fed trying to bring it down faster?

Some background: I don’t think many people grasp just how much job creation we need to climb out of the hole we’re in. You can’t just look at the eight million jobs that America has lost since the recession began, because the nation needs to keep adding jobs — more than 100,000 a month — to keep up with a growing population. And that means that we need really big job gains, month after month, if we want to see America return to anything that feels like full employment.

How big? My back of the envelope calculation says that we need to add around 18 million jobs over the next five years, or 300,000 jobs a month. This puts last week’s employment report, which showed job losses of “only” 11,000 in November, in perspective. It was basically a terrible report, which was reported as good news only because we’ve been down so long that it looks like up to the financial press……

Full Story Op-Ed Columnist – Bernanke’s Unfinished Mission – NYTimes.com.

OPS:  More reasons why Bernanke should be replaced ASAP!

CIA Efforts to Control World Distribution of ‘Illicit’ Drugs

Len Hart  -

DEA agents were photographed among first responders on 911. That’s curious. What interest have drug enforcement agents in this alleged act of ‘terrorism’?

Connect some dots: upon the 911 pretext, the US invaded Afghanistan whose ‘cash crop’ of ‘poppies’ was under threat. Without poppies, US drug dealers may be hard pressed to stay in business. That applies, as well, to the CIA which most certainly financed Iran-Contra almost entirely ‘off the books’.

If the US/CIA hoped to control this lucrative trade, the Taliban had to go. I wonder how many CIA ‘black ops’ have been financed ‘off the books’ (as was Iran/Contra) with the proceeds of its various drug sales?

An August, 1996, series in the San Jose Mercury News by reporter Gary Webb linked the origins of crack cocaine in California to the contras, a guerrilla force backed by the Reagan administration that attacked Nicaragua’s Sandinista government during the 1980s. Webb’s series, “The Dark Alliance,” has been the subject of intense media debate, and has focused attention on a foreign policy drug scandal that leaves many questions unanswered.

This electronic briefing book is compiled from declassified documents obtained by the National Security Archive, including the notebooks kept by NSC aide and Iran-contra figure Oliver North, electronic mail messages written by high-ranking Reagan administration officials, memos detailing the contra war effort, and FBI and DEA reports. The documents demonstrate official knowledge of drug operations, and collaboration with and protection of known drug traffickers. Court and hearing transcripts are also included.–The Contras, Cocaine, and Cover Operations

Full Story The Existentialist Cowboy: CIA Efforts to Control World Distribution of ‘Illicit’ Drugs.

Lending Industry Still Fighting Mortgage Modification as Foreclosure Crisis Continues

Common Cause –

The House of Representatives is debating the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009 (HR 4173), the most significant overhaul of the financial industry since the New Deal. The legislation is meant to address the underlying causes of the real estate and financial collapse last year, which continues to be felt around the country. Housing foreclosures set a new record during the third quarter, as one in every 136 U.S. housing units received a foreclosure filing during this three-month period.[i]

Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-MI) and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) are offering an amendment to the bill that would help some families stay in their homes by allowing a bankruptcy judge to adjust the value of a mortgage to reflect the current value of the home. The House passed a similar proposal in March, but it ran aground in the Senate. Some House members want the Senate to reconsider the proposal as most major lenders have not responded to the voluntary initiatives adopted instead of the bankruptcy provision. The Treasury Department estimates that only one in five eligible households have received government assistance through these voluntary programs.

Some of the financial institutions that have lobbied against this proposal are also the biggest recipients of federal bailout money, including Citigroup, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase & Co. Data from the Center for Responsive Politics shows that big financial companies that have lobbied on this provision have spent more than $80 million on lobbying and more than $6 million on campaign contributions this year.

Full Story Lending Industry Still Fighting Mortgage Modification as Foreclosure Crisis Continues – Common Cause.

Mr. President, War Is Not Peace

by Norman Solomon  –

Eloquence in Oslo cannot change the realities of war.

As President Obama neared the close of his Nobel address, he called for “the continued expansion of our moral imagination.” Yet his speech was tightly circumscribed by the policies that his oratory labored to justify.

Lofty rationales easily tell us that warfare is striving for the noble goal of peace. But the rationales scarcely intersect with actual war. The oratory sugarcoats the poisons, helping to kill hope in the name of it.

A few months ago, when I visited an Afghan office for women's empowerment, staffers took me to a pilot project in one of Kabul's poorest neighborhoods. There, women were learning small-scale business skills while also gaining personal strength and mutual support.

Two-dozen women, who ranged in age from early 20s to late 50s, talked with enthusiasm about the workshops. They were desperate to change their lives. When it was time to leave, I had a question: What should I tell people in the United States, if they ask what Afghan women want most of all?

After several women spoke, the translator summed up. “They all said that the first priority is peace.”

Full Story Mr. President, War Is Not Peace | CommonDreams.org.

That unpopular bank bailout? Geithner wants to extend it

A day ahead of testimony in which he's sure to be grilled about the controversial taxpayer-funded bank bailout program, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner announced Wednesday that he wants to extend it into late 2010.

“History suggests that exiting prematurely from policies designed to contain a financial crisis can significantly prolong an economic downturn,” Geithner wrote in a letter Wednesday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

The Troubled Asset Relief Program, widely known as TARP, will continue until October 3, 2010, Geithner said, arguing for prudence in keeping an unpopular program afloat until almost the end of next year.

“We must not waver in our resolve to ensure the stability of the financial system and to support the nascent recovery that the administration and Congress have worked so hard to achieve,” he said.

Full Story That unpopular bank bailout? Geithner wants to extend it | McClatchy.

Ocean acidification rates pose disaster for marine life, major study shows

Report launched from leading marine scientists at Copenhagen summit shows seas absorbing dangerous levels of CO2

Full Story Ocean acidification rates pose disaster for marine

The world’s oceans are becoming acidic at a faster rate than at any time in the last 55m years, threatening disaster for marine life and food supplies across the globe, delegates at the UN climate conference in Copenhagen have been warned.

A report by more than 100 of Europe’s leading marine scientists, released at the climate talks this morning, states that the seas are absorbing dangerous levels of carbon dioxide as a direct result of human activity. This is already affecting marine species, for example by interfering with whale navigation and depleting planktonic species at the base of the food chain.

Ocean acidification – the facts says that acidity in the seas has increased 30% since the start of the industrial revolution. Many of the effects of this acidification are already irreversible and are expected to accelerate, according to the scientists.

life, major study shows | Environment | guardian.co.uk.

Matt Taibbi: Obama’s Big Sellout

The president has packed his economic team with Wall Street insiders intent on turning the bailout into an all-out giveaway

Rolling Stone

Barack Obama ran for president as a man of the people, standing up to Wall Street as the global economy melted down in that fateful fall of 2008. He pushed a tax plan to soak the rich, ripped NAFTA for hurting the middle class and tore into John McCain for supporting a bankruptcy bill that sided with wealthy bankers “at the expense of hardworking Americans.” Obama may not have run to the left of Samuel Gompers or Cesar Chavez, but it’s not like you saw him on the campaign trail flanked by bankers from Citigroup and Goldman Sachs. What inspired supporters who pushed him to his historic win was the sense that a genuine outsider was finally breaking into an exclusive club, that walls were being torn down, that things were, for lack of a better or more specific term, changing.

Then he got elected.

What’s taken place in the year since Obama won the presidency has turned out to be one of the most dramatic political about-faces in our history. Elected in the midst of a crushing economic crisis brought on by a decade of orgiastic deregulation and unchecked greed, Obama had a clear mandate to rein in Wall Street and remake the entire structure of the American economy. What he did instead was ship even his most marginally progressive campaign advisers off to various bureaucratic Siberias, while packing the key economic positions in his White House with the very people who caused the crisis in the first place. This new team of bubble-fattened ex-bankers and laissez-faire intellectuals then proceeded to sell us all out, instituting a massive, trickle-up bailout and systematically gutting regulatory reform from the inside.

How could Obama let this happen? Is he just a rookie in the political big leagues, hoodwinked by Beltway old-timers? Or is the vacillating, ineffectual servant of banking interests we’ve been seeing on TV this fall who Obama really is?

Full Story Obama’s Big Sellout : Rolling Stone.

US: Whistleblower Psychiatrist Warns of Soldier on Soldier Violence

Kernan Manion, a psychiatrist who was hired last January to treat Marines returning from war who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other acute mental health problems borne from their deployments, fears more soldier-on-soldier violence without radical changes in the current soldier health care system.

Working for a personnel-recruiting company which was contracted by the Defence Department at Camp Lejeune, Manion became alarmed at the military’s inability to give sufficient treatment to returning soldiers. He was also concerned by their reports of outright abuse meted out by some commanders against lower-ranking soldiers who sought help.

Manion told IPS that last April two Marines urgently sought his help soon after the clinic opened at 7am. They told him, “One of these guys is liable to come back [from Iraq or Afghanistan] with a loaded weapon and open fire.”

This episode is just one that is indicative of pervasive and worsening systemic problems afflicting a military mental health care system that is overburdened, overstressed, under-staffed, and ill equipped, but one that, according to Manion. Care is also administered by career military officers who are “ill- trained to provide the complex psychiatric expertise necessary to effectively treat psychologically impaired soldiers.”

Full Story US: Whistleblower Psychiatrist Warns of Soldier on Soldier Violence – IPS ipsnews.net.

Editor and Publisher Closing After 108 Years

The Nielsen Co. is selling some of its most prominent trade journals — including The Hollywood Reporter and Billboard — and shutting down Editor & Publisher, which has chronicled the newspaper business for 108 years.

In all, Nielsen is selling eight titles to e5 Global Media LLC, a new company formed by private equity firm Pluribus Capital Management and Guggenheim Partners, a financial services company. James Finkelstein, who founded Pluribus this year with George Green and Matthew Doull, will serve as e5′s chairman.

Thursday’s closure of E&P ”was a shock,” said its editor, Greg Mitchell. ”We knew that something big was happening but we didn’t think the aftermath was that we wouldn’t be sold and it would be folded.”

Full Story Editor and Publisher Closing After 108 Years – NYTimes.com.

Americans’ net worth grows for 2nd straight quarter, but still far below pre-recession peak

Americans got wealthier for a second straight quarter in the fall, thanks to gains in stock investments and home values.

Net worth — the value of assets such as homes, bank accounts and investments, minus debts like mortgages and credit cards — rose 5 percent from the second quarter to $53.4 trillion, the Federal Reserve said Thursday.

Yet even with that gain, Americans' net worth remains far below the revised peak of $64.5 trillion reached before the recession began. That underscores the vast loss of wealth over the past two years. Net worth would need to rise an additional 21 percent just to return to its pre-recession peak

Full Story Americans’ net worth grows for 2nd straight quarter, but still far below pre-recession peak | StarTribune.com.

Kucinich seeks 60 percent excise tax on TARP executive bonuses

Cleveland Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich wants to impose a 60 percent excise tax on the fat bonuses that were paid to executives of companies that took money from last year’s bank bailout.

On Wednesday, he proposed an amendment to a pending financial industry reform bill that would do that and impose an additional 70 percent tax on TARP recipients’ corporate profits.

“Without the extraordinary actions of the federal government, many of these institutions would have collapsed a long time ago,” Kucinich told the House Rules Committee, arguing that his amendment would hold “to account those institutions and individuals that made the decisions that led to the crisis.”

The Rules Committee did not permit his amendment to be considered on the House of Representatives floor because it was opposed the Financial Services Commitee, a Rules spokesman said.

Full Story Kucinich seeks 60 percent excise tax on TARP executive bonuses | OPEN: Ohio Politics – cleveland.com – - cleveland.com.

Bush Deficit Hurting Obama: Reports

The emerging narrative in political circles is that the White House has a deficit problem. Glenn Beck, over at Fox News, insists that Obama is “spending us into oblivion.” Politico called the recent round of job-stimulus appropriations a “spending binge.” Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) deemed this an era of “fiscal recklessness and irresponsibility,” the extent of which is “shocking to the American taxpayer.”

The drumbeat is loud enough to put Democrats on notice. The president has increasingly discussed the need to get the deficit under control in recent speeches. And in Congress, a proposal to set up a bipartisan commission to force deficit reduction is gaining steam among the party’s more conservative members.

All of which may be vital, say budget analysts say. But the hysteria over the deficit misses a fundamental point: the country’s fiscal problems largely aren’t due to Obama but rather his predecessor.

Full Story Bush Deficit Hurting Obama: Reports.

The Diabesity Epidemic Part 1: How Diabetes And Obesity Are Ravaging America Today

Do you fear for your health or feel exhausted all the time? Are you overweight? Or do you just have too much belly fat? Do you suffer from diabetes, monitor your blood sugar all the time, have serious blood sugar and insulin imbalances, or have elevated cholesterol, blood pressure, and triglyceride levels? If so, you may find this remarkable story of one my patient's very interesting.

One evening, after a lecture in New York, a man approached me about becoming my patient. He was rotund, with a round, ruddy face, a booming voice, and a gentle manner. Everything about him was large–his appetite, his belly, and his heart.

Sam was nearly 60 years old, and his love of everything big was waning as he felt the encroachment of death. As we talked, he described years of feeding his fat, drinking a pint of heavy whipping cream every night before bed to keep his weight up.

Full Story Mark Hyman, MD: The Diabesity Epidemic Part 1: How Diabetes And Obesity Are Ravaging America Today.

Colbert Destroys The GOP Purity Test (VIDEO)

Poll: Public Option Way More Popular Than Senate Health Care Compromise

Here’s something that adds a bit of perspective to the Senate’s decision to compromise by dropping the public option: The new CNN poll’s internals show that the public option is more popular than the current Senate health care compromise by a whopping 17 point difference.

The poll finds that only 36% favor the Senate compromise, versus 61% who oppose it.

By contrast, the poll finds that 53% favor the public option, versus 46% who oppose it.

Thirty-six percent for the Senate bill. Fifty-three percent for the public option.

It would be hard to find a clearer expression of how badly the need for a supermajority in the Senate is perverting democracy.

One other interesting tidbit: The spread between Dems and Republicans has tightened dramatically. Only 40% say the country is better off with Dems running Congress, versus 39% who pick Republicans. And Americans trust Dems over Republicans to make major changes to the health care system by only three points, 43%-41%.

Full Story Poll: Public Option Way More Popular Than Senate Health Care Compromise | The Plum Line.

Jeffrey Immelt, GE CEO: Era Of Meanness, Greed Drawing to End

General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt has come clean about the financial crisis.

In prepared remarks during a speech at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, NY on Wednesday, Immelt was remarkably candid about the causes of the near collapse of world financial market’s last year.

While GE is generally not considered to be a major recipient of taxpayer funds, Immelt has publicly admitted that last year’s bailout of the financial industry greatly benefited his company. As the Washington Post pointed out earlier this year, GE’s lending arm, GE Capital, saved billions from the government’s Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program. Because it was not classified as a bank, GE Capital was able to evade some of the restrictions placed upon its peers on Wall Street.

Here’s Immelt:

Full Story Jeffrey Immelt, GE CEO: Era Of Meanness, Greed Drawing to End.

OPS: You don’t mind if we don’t hold our collective breath do you?

Outline Of Senate Health Bill Agreement Emerging

Senate Democrats emerged from a caucus-wide meeting Wednesday evening tight-lipped about the elements of the “broad agreement” that has been reached on health care reform – in some cases literally so: Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) declined to answer questions by pointing at his sealed lips.

There's a reason for the opacity. If details of the policy proposals sent to the Congressional Budget Office are leaked, the CBO no longer feels as if it needs to keep the analysis confidential. Keeping the many pieces secret for a few more days gives Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) the opportunity to share them first with colleagues and combine them in a way that gets all 60 members of the caucus on board.

Reid reiterated the importance of confidentiality during the meeting. Fortunately, HuffPost spoke to Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) before the gathering began.

Full Story Outline Of Senate Health Bill Agreement Emerging.

France to impose tax on bank bonuses

President Nicolas Sarkozy is to follow Britain’s lead and impose a one-off tax on bonus pay-outs by banks operating in France.

The French government is still working out the details, but intends to bring Paris in line with London by forcing banks to pay 50 per cent in tax on bonus pay-outs for 2009 above €27,000.

Full Story FT.com / Europe – France to impose tax on bank bonuses.

New Jobless Claims Rise More Than Expected To 474K

The economic recovery is likely to draw strength from exports such as farm products, autos, aircraft and industrial machinery – all of which helped lower the nation’s trade deficit in October.

Exports of U.S. goods rose for a sixth straight month. Further gains in exports should bolster manufacturers, who struggled during the recession. Heavy equipment maker Caterpillar Inc., for instance, has predicted that its sales will rise next year, reflecting in part greater demand from China and other Asian markets.

Economists noted that much of the improvement in the trade gap reflected a fall in oil imports. But David Resler, chief economist at Nomura Securities, said U.S. exporters are benefiting from growing economies overseas and a weaker dollar. A weak dollar makes their goods cheaper in other countries.

Full Story New Jobless Claims Rise More Than Expected To 474K.

Bayer Admits GMO Contamination is Out of Control

EXTRACT: Bayer has admitted it has been unable to control the spread of its genetically-engineered organisms despite ‘the best practices [to stop contamination]‘(1). It shows that all outdoors field trials or commercial growing of GE crops must be stopped before our crops are irreversibly contaminated.

$2 million US dollar verdict against Bayer confirms company’s liability for an uncontrollable technology

Greenpeace welcomes the United States federal jury ruling on 4 December 2009 that Bayer CropScience LP must pay $2 million US dollars to two Missouri farmers after their rice crop was contaminated with an experimental variety of rice that the company was testing in 2006.

This verdict confirms that the responsibility for the consequences of GE (genetic engineering) contamination rests with the company that releases GE crops.

Bayer has admitted it has been unable to control the spread of its genetically-engineered organisms despite ‘the best practices [to stop contamination]‘(1). It shows that all outdoors field trials or commercial growing of GE crops must be stopped before our crops are irreversibly contaminated.

Full Story Bayer Admits GMO Contamination is Out of Control.

Bank-Friendly Dems Extract Big Win For Wall Street

The compromise reached late Wednesday between pro-reform House Democrats and the banker-friendly wing of the party could significantly weaken consumer protection in states where lawmakers support tougher rules against tactics such as predatory lending and excessive ATM fees than historically submissive federal regulators.

Members of the New Democrat Coalition — whose deference to big banks is reflected in the massive amounts of money they have taken from the financial services industry since 2008 — temporarily blocked the landmark financial regulatory reform bill from hitting the House floor on Wednesday.

At issue was whether federal regulations should be a floor or a ceiling for consumer protection in the states, particularly as they affect big national banks like JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, Bank of America and Wells Fargo.

The Obama administration, Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, state attorneys general and a coalition of consumer advocates and law professors want states to be able to enforce tougher consumer financial protections.

Full Story Bank-Friendly Dems Extract Big Win For Wall Street.

OPS:  Bean, still selling us out every chance she gets

Keiser Report №4: Markets! Finance! Scandal!

This week Max Keiser and co-host Stacy Herbert look at an application for worshiping Ronald Reagan and growing fears of the next sovereign debt crisis. Keiser also speaks to economist Steve Keen about wages, deflation and zombie capitalism.

Full Story YouTube – Keiser Report №4: Markets! Finance! Scandal!.

Health Insurers Caught Paying Facebook Gamers Virtual Currency To Oppose Reform Bill

Health insurance industry trade groups opposed to President Obama’s health care reform bill are paying Facebook users fake money — called “virtual currency” — to send letters to Congress protesting the bill.

Here’s how it’s happening:

Facebook users play a social game, like “FarmVille” or “Friends For Sale.” They get addicted to it. Eager to accelerate their progress inside the game, the gamers buy “virtual goods” such as a machine gun for “Mafia Wars.” But these gamers don’t buy these virtual goods with real money. They use virtual currency.

The gamers get virtual currency three ways:

* Winning it playing the games

* Paying for it with real money

* By accepting offers from third-parties — usually companies like online movie rentals service Netflix — who agree to give the gamer virtual currency so long as that gamer agrees to try a product or service. This is done through an “offers” provider — a middleman that brings the companies like Netflix, the Facebook gamemakers, and the Facebook gamemaker’s users together.

Full Story Health Insurers Caught Paying Facebook Gamers Virtual Currency To Oppose Reform Bill.

OPS: One way to get around the Child Labor Laws

McCain slapped with ethics complaint over robo-calls

A Washington political watchdog group has filed an ethics complaint with the Senate over robo-calls Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) made, urging voters to pressure their senators into supporting a McCain-led amendment to the Senate health care bill.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, filed the complaint with the Senate Ethics Committee on Wednesday, saying the Arizona senator and former presidential candidate violated Senate ethics rule 38, which prohibits senators from using political money to fund official Senate business.

CREW says when McCain used money from the National Republican Senatorial Committee to fund the robo-calls, he broke rule 38.

Full Story McCain slapped with ethics complaint over robo-calls | Raw Story.

Alan Grayson tells Dick Cheney to ‘STFU!’

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL), the congressman who gained nationwide fame after declaring that the Republican plan for health care amounts to hoping that people “die quickly,” has a few choice words — or, rather, one choice acronym — for former Vice President Dick Cheney: “STFU.”

For those not familiar with the expression, that's Internet parlance for “shut the fuck up.”

Grayson made the comment during an interview on MSNBC's Hardball Wednesday night. Host Chris Matthews had asked the Florida congressman about Cheney's comments on Fox News Tuesday, in which the former VP called Obama a “radical” and said the president's decision to bring accused 9/11 plotters to Manhattan to face trial was “a huge mistake.”

“On the Internet there's an acronym that's used to apply to situations like this. It's called 'STFU,'” Grayson told Matthews. “I don't think I can say that on the air, but I think you know what that means.”

“Well give me the first part,” Matthews asked.

Full Story OMG! Alan Grayson tells Dick Cheney to ‘STFU!’ | Raw Story.

House GOP Introduces Christmas Resolution, Despite Boehner’s Tirade Against Frivolous Democratic Bills

GOP Christmas Ornament In late October, Congress passed a resolution honoring the birthday of Chinese philosopher Confucius. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) blasted the Democratic leadership for wasting Congress’ time:

While Democrats get ready to celebrate the birth of an ancient Chinese philosopher, House Republicans will talk about our better solutions to create jobs and make health care more affordable and accessible for America’ s seniors. It is unacceptable for Congress to take it easy at a time when the nation’s unemployment rate is nearing 10 percent and millions of out-of-work families struggling to make ends meet are asking, “where are the jobs?”

But Steve Benen points out that 19 Republican members have now introduced an important resolution to…honor Christmas:

Full Story Think Progress » House GOP Introduces Christmas Resolution, Despite Boehner’s Tirade Against Frivolous Democratic Bills.

How The Right-Wing Noise Machine Manufactured ‘Climategate’

In mid-November, thousands of emails from the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit webmail server — a top climate research center in the United Kingdom — were hacked and dumped on a Russian web server. Polluter-funded climate skeptics, along with their allies in conservative media and the Republican Party, sifted through the e-mails, and quickly cherry picked quotes to falsely accuse climate scientists of concocting climate change science out of whole cloth. The skeptics also propelled the story, dubbed “Climategate,” to the cover of the New York Times and newspapers across the globe. According to a Nexis news search, the Climategate story has been reported at least 325 times in the American press alone.

While the hacked e-mails may reveal that scientists might not have nice things to say about climate change deniers at times, they do nothing to change the scientific consensus that carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel use are raising temperatures and making oceans more acidic. As the right attempts to use the Climategate story to derail the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference this week, arctic sea ice is still at historically low levels, Australia is still on fire, the northern United Kingdom is still underwater, the world’s glaciers are still disappearing and today NOAA confirmed that not only is it the hottest decade in history, but 2009 was one of the hottest years in history. But how did the right-wing noise machine hijack the debate?

The methods for the right-wing political hit machine were honed during the Clinton years. Columnist and language-guru William Safire, a former aide to actual Watergate crook President Nixon, attached “-gate” to any minor post-Nixon incident as a “rhetorical legerdemain” intended “to establish moral equivalence.” (See phony manufactured scandals “Travelgate,” “Whitewatergate,” etc.) A right-wing echo chamber — including the Rev. Moon-funded Washington Times, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, talk radio, and the constellation of various conservative front groups and think tanks — would then blare the scandal incessantly, regardless of the truth. But the more troubling aspect of this gimmick is the increasing willingness for traditional media outlets, from the Evening News to the Washington Post, to largely reprint unfounded right-wing smears without context or critical reporting.

Full Story Think Progress » A Case Of Classic SwiftBoating: How The Right-Wing Noise Machine Manufactured ‘Climategate’.

O’Reilly: ‘We triple-check everything’ that goes on my show.

O’Reilly: ‘We triple-check everything’ that goes on my show.

In an interview with TV Guide published on Monday, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly said that he was proud that he has “not had to retract a story in 13 years” on Fox News. Admitting that he had “made mistakes” on the air, O’Reilly said they were always corrected “quickly.” He attributed his lack of a retraction to the “brain room here at Fox” where they “triple-check everything.” Despite his claim of rigorous fact-checking, O’Reilly opened his show last night with the false claim that President Obama’s 47 percent approval rating released by Gallup on Monday was “the lowest number ever recorded for any president at this point in his term.” Watch it:

Full Story Think Progress » O’Reilly: ‘We triple-check everything’ that goes on my show..

Beck: We Should ‘Just Abolish Medicare’

Glenn Beck Yesterday, Senate Democrats working on health care reform reached a compromise on the public option that will create a network of nonprofit insurers and allow Americans between the ages of 55 and 64 to buy into Medicare. The right has hypocritically opposed a government-run public-option while simultaneously defending Medicare. On his radio show today, Fox News host Glenn Beck called Medicare what it is — a “government-run health care plan.”

Beck attacked the new compromise and proposed a simple solution of his own — “abolish Medicare”:

CO-HOST: This is unbelievable, because the whole thing with the public option, is we were saying this is going to be like Medicare, they just want to make a big — make another Medicare program. And then they said no, public option is just competition.

BECK: And, wait wait wait. And I also said why don’t you just abolish Medicare, because it’s so wildly corrupt and out of control. It’s so inefficient, it is so bad and there’s $47 billion in suspected wrong payments, okay, in Medicare. So what are they saying — now remember, what we’re going to do — the compromise is we’re going to expand Medicare. That way there won’t be a public option, we’ll just — which doesn’t make any sense — we’re going to expand Medicare.

Listen:

Full Story Think Progress » Beck: We Should ‘Just Abolish Medicare’.

Poll: Strong majority of Americans still ‘favor’ a public option.

by a 30 point margin.

On Tuesday night, reports trickled out that Senate Democrats had “reached a deal to replace the opt-out public option in the Senate health care bill with a network of nonprofit insurers administered by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).” Thought the compromise is reportedly gaining support, a poll released today by the New York Times and CBS News serves as a reminder that the full-blown public option that has been abandoned by the Senate is still quite popular with the American public as 59 percent would favor a public option:

Public option is supported by 59 percent of Americans

Last night, Rachel Maddow said that the stable popularity of the public option suggests that Americans may want the expansion of existing public programs. The numbers imply that “what people really like — and are attached to — is just the idea of having an option for health coverage that’s public,” she said.

Full Story Think Progress » Poll: Strong majority of Americans still ‘favor’ a public option..

Poll Shows NRA Members Are More Moderate Than Their Leaders, Support Some Restrictions On Firearms

Poll Shows NRA Members Are More Moderate Than Their Leaders, Support Some Restrictions On Firearms

NRA Since the 2008 presidential campaign season, gun associations have been fear-mongering about President Obama to boost their membership, increase their relevancy, and fuel gun sales. The National Rifle Association (NRA) claimed that Obama has a “a deep-rooted hatred of firearm freedoms” and spent tens of millions of dollars during the campaign lobbying against Obama trying to portray him as a threat to the Second Amendment. Even during the transition, the NRA claimed that Obama was discriminating against gun owners in his hiring for government positions.

The NRA’s campaign has been based almost entirely on falsehoods. As FactCheck.org noted, the NRA largely dismissed “Obama’s stated position [on gun rights] as ‘rhetoric‘ and substitute[d] its own interpretation of his record as a secret ‘plan.’” More recently, the Gun Owners of America has been mobilizing against health care by claiming that “wellness and prevention” provisions would lead the Obama administration to issue a “no guns” decree.

Part of the NRA’s strategy of instilling fear is a “never-pass-any-new-gun-laws imperative,” which lawmakers often abide by out of concern that they will be punished at the polls by gun owners. But in his Washington Post column today, E.J. Dionne highlights a new survey of 832 gun owners (including 401 NRA members) by conservative pollster Frank Luntz. The poll finds that NRA members are “more reasonable than the organization’s leaders and supporters in Congress in understanding the urgency of keeping guns out of the wrong hands:

Full Story Think Progress » Poll Shows NRA Members Are More Moderate Than Their Leaders, Support Some Restrictions On Firearms.