Archive for January, 2010

Explosives planted on man to test airport security

Irish police have released a man held over an explosives find, after Slovak authorities admitted planting them in his luggage as part of a security test.

The explosives were among eight contraband items placed with passengers at Bratislava and Poprad-Tatry airports last weekend.

The 49-year-old man unwittingly brought the material into Dublin when he returned from his Christmas holidays.

He was arrested on Tuesday morning, but has since been released without charge.

Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern said he was very concerned that Irish police had not been alerted for three days.

Airport security detected seven of the illicit items, but the eighth – 90g of research development explosive – was planted on a Irish electrician.

Full Story BBC News – Explosives planted on man to test airport security.

OPS: Aw hell. Now the rightwing will want to add  profiling Slovak’s and the Irish to the list.

Court rules Obama’s detention powers not limited by laws of war

The Washington, D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling Tuesday that upholds the Bush administration’s broad claims of executive power to detain non-citizens.

The case, Al-Bihani v. Obama, “was the first by the Circuit Court to directly apply the Supreme Court’s 2008 decision in Boumediene v. Bush creating a constitutional right for Guantanamo Bay detainees to challenge their captivity,” according to the SCOTUS blog. “Unless reviewed and overturned either by the en banc Circuit Court or the Supreme Court, the new decision will control how scores of detainee cases are resolved in District Court in Washington.”

The defendant in the case, whose habeas petition was denied by the court, is Ghaleb Nassar Al Bihani, a citizen of Yemen who served Taliban fighters as a cook and claims he never even fired a shot.

“After all, as Napoleon himself was fond of pointing out, ‘An army marches on its stomach,’” wrote U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in early 2009, in a ruling that allowed Al-Bihani’s continued imprisonment.

Full Story Court rules Obama’s detention powers not limited by laws of war | Raw Story.

A New Year’s Message from IAC Founder Ramsey Clark

At this critical time in world history, we dare not let the plutocracy prevail, with its control of the media, the Congress, government bureaucracies, and its sophisticated use of misinformation and fear.

Dear friends,

Many of us relearned something obvious over the past year: elections offer only an opportunity to avoid tragedy, further exploitation and, at best, stagnation with a bad outcome or with a good outcome, a better chance for peace, the end of militarism, progress toward economic and social justice and a world of cooperation, not competition. Most often, our two-party national elections offer a slight difference, if any, on critical issues.

2008 broke the race barrier—a great victory for equality, only to be quickly subdued by the dominant powers in the United States—personal and corporate wealth, the plutocracy and its vast military apparatus which consumes more than half the federal budget and exceeds military expenditures of all other countries combined.

At this critical time in world history, we dare not let the plutocracy prevail, with its control of the media, the Congress, government bureaucracies, and its sophisticated use of misinformation and fear.

Real change takes more–the right priorities, constant vigilance, effective organizing, mass mobilization and unrelenting perseverance. This is the International Action’s Center’s role; it is known nationally and worldwide. IAC stands in solidarity with all harmed by imperialist aggression. Its bold, independent voice does not waver, compromise or concede.

In January, during Israel’s assault on Gaza, the IAC helped motivate people to protest nationally in solidarity with the Palestinians. IAC spread a petition worldwide; it called for ending the slaughter and lifting the blockade of Gaza. More than 500,000 messages were sent. In July, the IAC joined Viva Palestina–an aid caravan organized by British MP George Galloway, Ron Kovic, Cynthia McKinney and Charles Barron–to deliver desperately needed aid to Gaza, as the IAC did in Iraq from 1991 to 2003. Its significance rang loud and clear in Gaza, where solidarity was greatly needed and appreciated.

Last summer, the dangerous refrain of “weapons of mass destruction” was heard again–this time aimed at Iran. The IAC worked hard to turn the tide and talk common sense, helping to blunt the government’s pro-war propaganda, at least temporarily. This vital work set the stage for now, when the vitriol against Iran has begun again. Vigilance and ever-greater mobilization will be critical.

IAC recently sent a fact-finding delegation to Honduras, where the U.S. stood by while generals trained at the School of the Americas joined oligarchs in a coup. The importance of continuing vigilance and mass mobilization cannot be overstated here. The Honduran resisters have said, “They fear us because we are fearless.” They are confident because they have strong and well-informed supporters, including those who depend on the IAC for the truth and act accordingly.

The great progress in Latin America—Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador—following in the footsteps of incomparable Cuba, with Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay moving to break the chains of the nearly two-century stranglehold of the Monroe Doctrine are at work in Honduras. The tide must not turn!

Here, in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, a crime no less of concentrated wealth, the IAC helped to forge a Bail Out the People Movement. Together we have conducted a steady, systematic organizing effort, with a march on Wall Street, People’s Summits in New York and Detroit to counter the big business planners in Detroit and the “G-20” in Pittsburgh. The next step is a national campaign for jobs, like the campaign that won the Works Progress Administration and Civilian Conservation Corps 75 years ago.

There is no way of knowing for sure where the struggle will lead. Around the world and here at home, the dangers are immense. U.S. drone missiles rain down on Pakistani villages, killing civilians, as U.S. and NATO missiles increasingly destroy children, women and men in Afghanistan–where tens of thousands more U.S. troops are being sent.

Full Story A New Year’s Message from IAC Founder Ramsey Clark.

Questions mount over attempt to bomb Detroit-bound jetliner

Ten days after the failed attempt to explode a bomb onboard Northwest Flight 253 as it approached Detroit—an action that, if successful, would have killed nearly 300 people—there are mounting questions about the actions of US government agencies.

According to the official story, propagated by the Obama administration and uncritically parroted by the US media, the various components of the US national security apparatus were incapable of bringing together the following known facts:

• • In May, the British government withdrew its student visa for Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a young Nigerian who had studied at University College, London, and placed him on a watch list, barring him from reentering the country.
• • In August, US intelligence agencies learned of Al Qaeda discussions of an operation against a US target to be organized from Yemen, using a “Nigerian.”
• • On November 19, the father of Abdulmutallab, a prominent Nigerian banker, visited the US embassy in Abuja and told State Department and CIA personnel that his son had fallen under the influence of radical Islamists, gone to join them in Yemen, and broken off contact with his family.
• • Based on the father’s report, State Department and CIA officers at the embassy informed Washington on November 20 and a security file was opened on Abdulmutallab at the National Counterterrorism Center, the main Washington clearinghouse for terrorism information.
• • On December 16, Abdulmutallab visited a ticket office in Ghana and paid $2,831 in cash for a ticket on a Northwest Airlines flight from Lagos through Amsterdam to Detroit, landing on Christmas Day.
• • On December 25, Abdulmutallab boarded the flight in Amsterdam with only a carry-on bag for a trans-Atlantic journey. Following standard procedure, the US Department of Homeland Security was notified at least an hour before departure that he was a passenger on the flight.

Full Story Questions mount over attempt to bomb Detroit-bound jetliner.

Men’s Insurance Rates Could Skyrocket

Blue Cross Blue Shield Projects 119% Rise In Men’s Premiums Under Reform Bill

A local health insurance giant has predicted that young men could see their premiums more than double, if the health care reform proposal pending on Capitol Hill becomes law.

Actuaries for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois projected that, by year five after the proposal takes effect, the average cost of health insurance will rise by 61 percent in Illinois.

The legislation would ban the industry’s current practice of charging men and women different rates based on their gender’s average actual use of medical services. Because women typically use far more medical services, they currently pay about 40% more than men for health insurance.

In a statement, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois said:

“There is currently gender rating in underwriting based on the fact that women have higher medical costs at younger ages than do men for a variety of reasons. Men have higher costs than women at older ages and the rating and premiums at older ages reflect that fact, as well.

Full Story Men’s Insurance Rates Could Skyrocket – cbs2chicago.com.

OPS: Blackmail? Extortion? Corporate Crime?

Democratic Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota Retiring

Sen. Byron Dorgan, (D-North Dakota), announced Tuesday afternoon that he is retiring and won’t run for another term.

In a statement, which surprised his constituents and his Senate colleagues, the three-term senator said over the past several months he “began to wrestle with the question of whether making a commitment to serve in the Senate seven more years (next year plus a new six-year term) was the right thing to do.”

“Although I still have a passion for public service and enjoy my work in the Senate, I have other interests and I have other things I would like to pursue outside of public life,” Dorgan said. “I have written two books and have an invitation from a publisher to write two more books. I would like to do some teaching and would also like to work on energy policy in the private sector.

Full Story t r u t h o u t | Democratic Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota Retiring.

Union mocks Limbaugh’s new found ‘love’ of socialized medicine

When right-wing talker Rush Limbaugh praised the U.S. health care system as “just dandy” based on his experiences in a Hawaii hospital, chances are he didn't quite know his words were diametrically opposed to his politics.

“The treatment I received here was the best that the world has to offer,” he said of services rendered at Queen's Medical Center in Honolulu.

Hawaii, however, is the closest thing the United States has to socialized medicine; a point that has not gone unnoticed by the Service Employees International Union.

Full Story Union mocks Limbaugh’s new found ‘love’ of socialized medicine | Raw Story.

The Criminalization of Protest

Police and politicians ignore the First Amendment when we need it the most.

I’ve lived in the Washington, D.C., area for the better part of the last 10 years. So I’ve seen my share of demonstrations, although more often than not I just try to avoid the traffic nightmares they cause. Among the various classes of protests—pro-life, anti-war, environmental, and now tea parties—the most destructive are the anti-globalization marches. So when cops clashed with anti-globalization demonstrators at the Pittsburgh G-20 summit in September, it was easy to assume that most of the altercations represented justified police responses to overzealous protesters.

But a number of disturbing photographs, videos, and witness accounts told a different story. Along with similar evidence from other recent high-stakes political events, they reveal an increasing, disquieting willingness to smother even peaceful dissent.

On the Friday afternoon before the G-20 meeting kicked into high gear, a student at the University of Pittsburgh snapped a photo showing a University of Pittsburgh police officer directing traffic at a roadblock. What’s troubling is what he’s wearing: camouflage military fatigues. It’s difficult to discern a practical reason why a man working for an urban police department would need to wear camouflage, especially while patrolling an economic summit. He’s a civilian dressed like a soldier. The symbolism is clear, and it affects the attitudes of both the cops wearing the clothes and the people they’re policing.

Full Story The Criminalization of Protest – Reason Magazine.

US Spies In Afghanistan ‘Clueless,’ ‘Ignorant,’ Intelligence Chief Says

NATO Official: US Spy Work Only ‘Marginally Relevant’ In Afghanistan

NATO’s top intelligence official has ordered significant changes to information-gathering in Afghanistan, saying the U.S. intelligence community is now only “marginally relevant” to the mission there.

U.S. Maj. Gen. Michael Flynn’s stinging assessment and plan to focus less on the enemy and more on civilian life was published Monday by the Center for a New American Security think tank in Washington. Flynn acknowledges that releasing the 26-page report through a think tank is unconventional but the report was aimed at reaching not only officers in his command but also other intelligence officials and instructors in the field, including those outside of Afghanistan.

The report was compiled before the CIA suffered a deadly blow to its operations on Dec. 30 when a suicide bomber killed seven CIA employees and a Jordanian intelligence officer inside Camp Chapman, a highly secured forward base in Khost province in eastern Afghanistan. The CIA is not mentioned in Flynn’s report, which focuses on the thousands of uniformed and civilian intelligence personnel serving with the Defense Department and joint interagency operations in the country.

Full Story NATO Official: US Spy Work Only ‘Marginally Relevant’ In Afghanistan.

Florida GOP Chairman Resigns Under Pressure From Far-Right Activists

On Tuesday, the Republican Party of Florida's chairman Jim Greer announced his resignation.

Pressure had been mounting for Greer's ouster from the far-right of Florida's GOP.

The complaints centered on Greer's party spending, and his support for Gov. Charlie Crist (the more moderate candidate) over Marco Rubio, Crist's challenger in the U.S. Senate race.

Crist picked Greer for the position in 2007, and has continued to defend him.

Full Story Florida GOP Chairman Resigns Under Pressure From Far-Right Activists.

Bristol Palin Starts Political Consulting Firm

Bristol Palin’s New Company: BSMP LLC, Public Relations Firm (VIDEO)

On Rachel Maddow’s show Tuesday night, Maddow dug into some curious paperwork filed in Alaska last September by the 19-year-old Bristol Palin, daughter of Sarah, mother of Tripp. The paperwork established Bristol Palin as the organizer of a new company called BSMP LLC. (BSMP is Palin’s initials: Bristol Sharon Marie Palin).

According to the paperwork, the company “intends to provide lobbying, public relations, and political consulting services.”

From Maddow’s report:

[Palin's Lawyer] finally got back to us late this evening. He told us in an E-mail, quote, “The code for BSMP, LLC pertains to several areas but includes public relations. Bristol Palin provides public relations services and is currently an ambassador for the Candie`s Foundation.

Full Story Bristol Palin’s New Company: BSMP LLC, Public Relations Firm (VIDEO).

California Lawyer, Refuses To Pay Bank Of America Credit Card, Threatens To Sue

Ben Pavone told Bank of America in a letter last week that he refuses to pay off his credit card debt until the bank lowers his interest rate. And, he added, if they try to ruin his credit, he’ll sue ‘em.

“They’ve got to have some kind of obligation to not totally extort the public,” said Pavone.

The San Diego, Calif. attorney is angry about two things: his interest rate, which has gone up to 27.99 percent, and his credit limit, which has gone down to just above his balance. “I’m sure I’m going to be hit with penalties,” he said.

Pavone said he got “squeezed for cash” and asked Bank of America to raise his credit limit in October. The bank responded with a two-page letter. The first page declined the request; the second told him his limit would be reduced from $32,100 to $30,400. Bank of America cited “economic trends” in both decisions.

Full Story Ben Pavone, California Lawyer, Refuses To Pay Bank Of America Credit Card, Threatens To Sue.

Joan Rivers deemed a danger to national security, bumped off Costa Rica flight back to U.S.

The New York Daily News reports that comedian Joan Rivers was among the many travelers to get snared in the heightened-security frenzy that overtook airports after the December 25th failed terrorist attack. Rivers wasn’t allowed on her Newark-bound flight in Costa Rica this past weekend by a “jittery Continental Airlines gate agent” who thought the two names on her passport, which reads “Joan Rosenberg AKA Joan Rivers,” seemed “fishy.” Rivers wrote of her experience:

“If I were going to make up an alias, I wouldn’t pick Rosenberg. I’d pick Jolie or Pitt…Do terrorists wear Manolo Blahniks? I can tell you Donna Karan does not make anything that hides a bomb…I tried the tears; they didn’t work. I tried reasoning. I couldn’t bribe because I didn’t have any money. I said ‘I’m going to have a heart attack over this,’ so the woman called the paramedics.”

Full Story Think Progress » Joan Rivers deemed a danger to national security, bumped off Costa Rica flight back to U.S..

Trash to gas: Landfill energy projects increasing

Garbage to gas: Landfill energy projects on rise as government seeks to cut greenhouse gases

Hundreds of trash trucks across California are rumbling down city streets using clean fuel made from a dirty source: garbage.

The fuel is derived from rotting refuse that San Francisco and Oakland residents and businesses have been discarding in the Altamont landfill since 1980. Since November, the methane gas created from decaying detritus at the 240-acre (96-hectare) landfill has been sucked into tubes and sent into an innovative facility that purifies and transforms it into liquefied natural gas.

Almost 500 Waste Management Inc. garbage and recycling trucks run on this new source of environmentally friendly fuel instead of dirty diesel.

In a state that has passed the most stringent greenhouse gas reduction goals in the United States, the climate change benefits of this plant are twofold — methane from the trash heap is captured before entering the environment and use of the fuel produces less carbon dioxide than conventional gasoline.

“We’ve built the largest landfill-to-LNG plant in the world; this plant produces 13,000 gallons (49,400 liters) a day of LNG,” said Jessica Jones, a landfill manager for Houston-based Waste Management. “It will take 30,000 tons a year of CO2 from the environment.”

Full Story Trash to gas: Landfill energy projects increasing – Yahoo! Finance.

Bolivia refuses to be U.S. slave: VP

The Bolivian government said on Monday that it refuses to blindly cater to the economic or political desires of the United States.

Bolivia’s Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera said that as La Paz wanted to reset its diplomatic ties with Washington, based on mutual respect, the country should not become a slave of the United States, which he described as “the most important power and the market of the world.”

In an interview with Radio Erbol, Bolivia’s national radio, Garcia said Bolivia had been “the most subordinated” Latin American country to the United States in the past.

“We do not want a market in exchange for them (Americans) telling us who must be the master. We do not want tax preference in exchange for them telling us what must be our economic policy, because that will make us become a slave and a colony again,” Garcia said.

According to Garcia, U.S. President Barack Obama, like his predecessor George W. Bush, had a “strong war policy” which did not allow ties between the two countries to improve.

Full Story Bolivia refuses to be U.S. slave: VP_English_Xinhua.

Dick Cheney Encourages America’s Enemies – 01/04/10

Keith Olbermann Debuts “Quick Comment”

The Stock Market Illusion

Stock markets around the world started off the 2010 trading year with a bang Monday. The combination of year-end optimism with new year enthusiasm has flooded investments with cash, driving indexes to their highest point in more than one year.

According to Reuters, the Monday rush pushed MSCI’s world stock index to a level it had not reached since October 2008. The last time stocks were soaring in this territory the market was in a tailspin and the mega-investment bank Lehman Brothers had just collapsed.

Every major news service seems to be swept up in the stock market hysteria. But while the markets do account for a huge amount of private investment and can offer a cursory outline of the overall economy, they don’t tell the whole story.

The markets are going up as the dollar goes down, as is the case for all commodities – stocks, oil, metals, etc. – denominated in American dollars. The price increases in relation to the changes on currency exchange markets.

Once again, the system of floating currency exchange would, in other circumstances be a good indication for the U.S. Right now however it isn’t. As the value of the American dollar decreases in concert with increases in dollar denominated commodities we should see a move toward increasing American exports. A cheap dollar makes a manufactured good in the U.S. cheaper than in say, Germany, so it boosts our production and increased economic vitality.

Full Story The Stock Market Illusion | Economy In Crisis.

Looking Ahead to 2010

Those hoping for a major economic rebound in 2010 could be very disappointed.  In fact, those hoping for a true recovery over the course of the next decade could be even more disappointed

Those hoping for a major economic rebound in 2010 could be very disappointed. In fact, those hoping for a true recovery over the course of the next decade could be even more disappointed.

2010 will be marked by sagging consumer demand, a persistently weak housing market, slow job growth and the threat of inflation, according to CNNMoney.com.

While there will be some signs of recovery – overall the economy is expected to grow around two percent this year – the effects will unlikely be felt by the average American.

“We're on the right side of the economic cycle right now,” John Derrick, director of research with U.S. Global Investors in San Antonio told CNNMoney.com. “But the average individual may still be looking for jobs or not getting pay raises.”

The same forces that are likely to hold the economy back in 2010, could do so for the rest of the decade, according to economists at the annual American Economic Association's gathers.

Economists from across the political spectrum predicted that the U.S. will experience anemic economic growth for the next 10 years, according to Reuters. The consensus seems to be that the economy will grow roughly only two percent a year for the next 10 years, leading to what could be a lost economic decade.

Full Story Looking Ahead to 2010 | Economy In Crisis.

Fat and Kids: How to keep your kid from getting fat

If you’re like me, you considered it your duty, as a good father, to eat more than your share of rich fatty sugar-laden foods over the holidays, as a way of protecting your family from obesity. The instinct to protect one’s offspring is hardwired throughout the animal kingdom and a noble calling, so if you’ve gained 10-15 pounds since Thanksgiving, you are to be commended.

Now, Pork-Boy, it’s time to take your New Years’ resolutions seriously and lose a few pounds, particularly if part of your stay-at-home dad’s duties is to buy and prepare foods for your family. Odds are, you’re not the only one in your family who gained weight, or needs to shed it, including your kids.

I won’t bother you with a lot of statistics about the ongoing obesity epidemic (two thirds of adults and about forty percent of all children in this country are overweight) or what the health costs are (diabetes, hypertension, chronic heart disease etc) — if you don’t know this stuff already, you’ve been in a coma for the last ten years.

Kidding aside, it’s important. Bad eating habits are learned young – rarely do fat kids come from thin parents. If you really want to protect your kids, implement the following changes:

Full Story Fat and Kids: How to keep your kid from getting fat | Stay-at-Home Dads.

Reclaiming Legal Abortion as a Fundamental Right By Frances Kissling

How did we get to the point where denial of abortion funding for poor women has apparently become an acceptable tradeoff in the campaign for health insurance reform? Here, the former president of Catholics for Choice traces the history and tells us why justice demands the immediate repeal of the Hyde Amendment.

January 4, 2010

The debate about abortion coverage in health insurance reform is the latest disappointing moment in the efforts of feminists to ensure that the social transformation Roe promised women was equally available to all women, including those who were dependent on the government for health care. To hear President Obama call the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits the use of federal Medicaid funds for abortion, an “American tradition” is only the most recent of many misstatements about what a fundamental right entails. It seems that prochoice legislators, following the president’s lead, now explicitly consider that throwing women who cannot afford to pay for their own abortions under the bus is a reasonable compromise between those who favor and those who oppose legal abortion and a sensible concession to those who think abortion is immoral.

The compromise is the logical outcome of one of Roe’s essential weaknesses: the fact that the constitutional right to abortion was based on the principle of privacy rather than non discrimination. A private right, even a fundamental one, did not, according to the Supreme Court, require the state to pay for its implementation.

The Hyde Amendment, which was introduced in Congress starting in 1973 and passed for the first time in 1976, was the first and most important defeat the abortion rights movement sustained—and it embodied the profound disapproval and stigmatization of abortion that no other restriction on the right to choose represents. When affirmed by the Supreme Court in 1980 in the Harris v. McRae case, it sent the message that abortion was immoral and that no taxpayer should be obliged to pay for something they think is immoral.

Full Story Reclaiming Legal Abortion as a Fundamental Right By Frances Kissling.

Theology for atheists

Theology lets us talk about deep and irrational urges. This is seen by some atheists as weakness. But maybe it’s a strength as well

James Wood, a writer who himself has lived between the tugs of belief and unbelief, made an eloquent call in the New Yorker last August for “a theologically engaged atheism“. Concluding a review of Terry Eagleton’s recent attack on Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, he imagines something “only a semitone from faith [which] could give a brother’s account of belief, rather than treat it as some unwanted impoverished relative.”

At the American Academy of Religion meeting in Montreal last year, he may have gotten his wish, or something resembling it. Following an apocalyptic sermon from “death of God” theologian Thomas J.J. Altizer, to the podium came the ruffled Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, a self-described atheist and “materialist through and through”, before an audience of religion scholars, theologians, and costumed adherents. He spoke of truths Christianity alone possesses and how Christ’s death reveals that “the only universality is the universality of struggle.” Atheism, he explained, is true Christianity, and one can only be a real atheist by passing through Christianity. “In this sense, I am unconditionally a Christian”, said Žižek.

He is one of several leading thinkers in recent years who, though coming out of a deeply secular and often Marxist bent, have made a turn toward theology. In 1997, Alain Badiou published a study of the apostle Paul, whom he took as an exemplar of his own influential philosophy of the “event”. Three years later, Giorgio Agamben responded in Italian with The Time That Remains, a painstaking exegesis of the first ten words of Paul’s Letter to the Romans. The purpose of both was not a more enlightened piety, but an inquiry into the texture of revolution. Paul is significant to them because he ushered in, and in the process described, a genuinely transformational social movement.

Full Story Theology for atheists | Nathan Schneider | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

Matthews: Politico Serves As The Drudge-Like ‘News Conduit’ For Dick Cheney

Last month, Politico conducted an “interview” with former Vice President Dick Cheney. As ThinkProgress noted at the time, the paper’s top reporters — Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen — transcribed Cheney’s attacks on Obama without challenge, criticism, or rebuttal.

Indeed, Cheney has been using Politico as his print version of Fox News. In May, Politico’s Allen was leaked an “exclusive” preview of Cheney’s attacks on Obama’s decision to close Guantanamo. Again in October, Allen “broke news” that Cheney was attacking Obama’s Afghanistan policy. And just last week, Allen again reported a Cheney attack on Obama’s handling of the Christmas Day terrorist incident that was released “in a statement to Politico.”

Does Cheney “have a thing with Politico?” MSNBC’s Chris Matthews asked Politico’s Jonathan Martin today on Hardball. “He uses you like he’d use Drudge or somebody,” Matthews charged. A stunned Martin had no response for why Cheney has been so willing to give Politico “exclusives.” “You’d have to ask the Vice President, Chris,” Martin responded, “I’m not sure.” Matthews kept pressing the issue:

Full Story Think Progress » Matthews: Politico Serves As The Drudge-Like ‘News Conduit’ For Dick Cheney.

Hume Decries Persecution By Critics, Reiterates It Would Be ‘Magnificent’ To ‘Witness’ Tigers Woods’ Conversion

Hume Decries Persecution By Critics, Reiterates It Would Be ‘Magnificent’ To ‘Witness’ Tigers Woods’ Conversion

On Fox News Sunday last week, Brit Hume became the focus of controversy for saying that golfer Tiger Woods should convert to Christianity to deal with his marriage infidelities:

HUME: He’s said to be a Buddhist. I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So my message to Tiger would be, “Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.”

Many Buddhists quickly criticized Hume’s dismissal of their faith. “I don’t like to point out other’s faults, but given the record, I would think Christians would show a little more humility about offering advice to the sexually wayward,” wrote Barbara O’Brien on her Buddhism blog. Yesterday, Hume went on The O’Reilly Factor and complained about all the negative feedback he has received, saying that it amounted to religious persecution of him for being Christian:

HUME: I’ve heard a lot of terrible comments from people who claim that I was a pompous jerk who had no business mouthing off on the subject and that I shouldn’t have belittled the Buddhist faith and so on. I really wasn’t trying to belittle and demean. [...]

Full Story Think Progress » Hume Decries Persecution By Critics, Reiterates It Would Be ‘Magnificent’ To ‘Witness’ Tigers Woods’ Conversion.

Who’s Writing The Intro To Cheney’s Book — Mephistopheles?

Rep. Grayson (D-FL)

ESCAPE FROM POTTERSVILLE: THE NORTH DAKOTA MODEL FOR CAPITALIZING COMMUNITY BANKS

Ellen Brown –

The recent proposal to vote with our feet by shifting our deposits from Wall Street to community banks is a great start. However, community banks are not suffering from a lack of deposits so much as from a lack of the capital they need to make new loans, and investment capital today is scarce. There is a way out of this dilemma, demonstrated for over 90 years by the innovative state of North Dakota — a partnership in which community banks are backed by the deep pockets of a state-owned bank.

Arianna Huffington just posted an article on the Huffington Post that has sparked a remarkable wave of interest, evoking nearly 5,000 comments in less than a week. Called “Move Your Money,” the article maintains that we can get credit flowing again on Main Street by moving our money out of the Wall Street behemoths and into our local community banks. This solution has been suggested before, but Arianna added the very appealing draw of a video clip featuring Jimmy Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life. In the holiday season, we are all hungry for a glimpse of that wonderful movie that used to be a mainstay of Christmas, showing daily throughout the holidays. The copyright holders have suddenly gotten very Scrooge-like and are allowing it to be shown only once a year on NBC. Whatever their motives, Wall Street no doubt approves of this restriction, since the movie continually reminded viewers of the potentially villainous nature of Big Banking.

Pulling our money out of Wall Street and putting it into our local community banks is an idea with definite popular appeal. Unfortunately, however, this move alone won’t be sufficient to strengthen the small banks. Community banks lack capital – money that belongs to the bank — and the deposits of customers don’t count as capital. Rather, they represent liabilities of the bank, since the money has to be available for the depositors on demand. Bank “capital” is the money paid in by investors plus accumulated retained earnings. It is the net worth of the bank, or assets minus liabilities. Lending ability is limited by a bank’s assets, not its deposits; and today, investors willing to build up the asset base of small community banks are scarce, due to the banks’ increasing propensity to go bankrupt.

Full Story Web of Debt – ESCAPE FROM POTTERSVILLE: THE NORTH DAKOTA MODEL FOR CAPITALIZING COMMUNITY BANKS.

New scanners break child porn laws

The rapid introduction of full body scanners at British airports threatens to breach child protection laws which ban the creation of indecent images of children, the Guardian has learned.

Privacy campaigners claim the images created by the machines are so graphic they amount to “virtual strip-searching” and have called for safeguards to protect the privacy of passengers involved.

Ministers now face having to exempt under 18s from the scans or face the delays of introducing new legislation to ensure airport security staff do not commit offences under child pornography laws.

They also face demands from civil liberties groups for safeguards to ensure that images from the £80,000 scanners, including those of celebrities, do not end up on the internet. The Department for Transport confirmed that the “child porn” problem was among the “legal and operational issues” now under discussion in Whitehall after Gordon Brown’s announcement on Sunday that he wanted to see their “gradual” introduction at British airports.

Full Story New scanners break child porn laws | Politics | The Guardian.

William Greider: Looting Social Security, Part 2

He’s baaack–the Wall Street billionaire who wants to loot Social Security. This time, Pete Peterson has invented his own “news network” to promote his right-wing rants about shrinking the only retirement security system available to millions of working people. Peterson styles himself as a patriot saving the nation from fiscal insolvency and has committed $1 billion to that cause (a chunk of the wealth he accumulated at Blackstone Group, the notorious corporate-takeover firm). His efforts might be dismissed as ludicrous–except money does talk in Washington, and Peterson is now buying Washington reporters to spread his dire warnings.

The retired mogul has created a digital news agency he dubs “The Fiscal Times” and hired eight seasoned reporters to do the work there. “An impressive group of veteran journalists,” Peterson calls them. I hope they have shaken a lot of money out of this rich geezer. Because I predict doing hack work for him will seriously soil their reputations for objectivity and independence.

With his great wealth, Peterson could have also bought a newspaper to publish his dispatches, but he did better than that. He hooked up with the Washington Post, which has agreed to “jointly produce content focusing on the budget and fiscal issues.” (This media scandal was first uncovered by economist Dean Baker.) The newspaper is thus compromising its own integrity. It’s like buying political propaganda from a Washington lobbyist, then printing it in the news columns as if it was just another news story. Shame on the Post, my old newspaper. I predict a big stink like the one that greeted the Post when its publisher decided to hold pay-for-access “salons” for corporate biggies.

Full Story Looting Social Security, Part 2.

Poll: Most Americans would risk terror attack rather than be seen naked

It sounds like satire but it’s no joke. Well actually it is a joke, but it’s also true. MSNBC has reported that according to a new poll, a majority of Americans would rather take their chances of a terrororst attack on a plane than have full body scans at airports that would reveal them naked including their genitals.

This takes American lunacy about sex and nudity to new heights. Approximately 30,000 feet.

It makes one wonder if most of the people who object to the full body scans have looked at themselves naked in the mirror lately. What exactly do they object to? Do they think that the sight of them is going to send security personell into a frenzxy of arousal and orgasm? Do they think they are giving them lifetime memories?

Full Story Poll: Most Americans would risk terror attack rather than be seen naked.

How Goldman Sachs Made Tens Of Billions Of Dollars From The Economic Collapse Of America In Four Easy Steps

Investment banking giant Goldman Sachs has become perhaps the most prominent symbol for everything that is wrong with the U.S. financial system, but most Americans cannot even begin to explain what they do or how they have made tens of billions of dollars from the economic collapse of America. The truth is that what Goldman Sachs did was fairly simple, and there may not have even been anything “illegal” about it (although they are now being investigated by the SEC among others).

The following is how Goldman Sachs made tens of billions of dollars from the economic collapse of America in four easy steps….

Step 1: Sell mortgage-related securities that are absolute junk to trusting clients at vastly overinflated prices.

Step 2: Bet against those same mortgage-related securities and make massive bets against the U.S. housing market so that your firm will make massive profits when the U.S. economy collapses.

Step 3: Have ex-Goldman executives in key positions of power in the U.S. government so that bailout money can be funneled to entities such as AIG that Goldman has made these bets with so that they can get paid after they win their bets.

Step 4: Collect the profits – Goldman Sachs is having their “most successful year” and will end up reporting approximately $50 billion in revenue for 2009.

So is it right for the biggest fish on Wall Street to make tens of billions of dollars by betting that the U.S. housing market will collapse?

You see, when you are talking about a financial giant the size of Goldman Sachs, the line between “betting that something will happen” and “making something happen” gets blurred very quickly.

Full Story How Goldman Sachs Made Tens Of Billions Of Dollars From The Economic Collapse Of America In Four Easy Steps.

Fannie, Freddie, and the New Red and Blue

Matt Taibb  –

It has become conventional wisdom, perhaps even cliche, to pin the origins of the credit crisis on the big banks or, AIG or even the practice of financial modeling. Certainly, these actors have received the most play in the media, and have now endured the focus of populist ire for more than a year. We now think that the analysis leading commentators to focus blame on these entities is fatally flawed.

via Origins of an American Kleptocracy | zero hedge.

Over the Christmas holiday a nasty thing happened: Tim Geithner’s Treasury Department decided to lift the cap on aid to the Government-Sponsored Entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, apparently in response to Obama administration fears that the two agencies would become insolvent. The cap was raised from $200 billion on each and government backstopping of the mortgage market will apparently now extend into infinity for at least three years, through 2012.

The move has already inspired a mini-firestorm, with several outlets delving deeply into the recent history of the GSEs and uncovering some disturbing new facts. Chief among those were an analysis of the GSEs by a former chief credit officer of Fannie named Edward Pinto, who found that Fannie and Freddie routinely mismarked subprime or Alt-A (a sort of purgatory class of nonprime risky mortgage, resting between subprime and prime) mortgages as prime. The Wall Street Journal explains:

In general, a subprime mortgage refers to the credit of the borrower. A FICO score of less than 660 is the dividing line between prime and subprime, but Fannie and Freddie were reporting these mortgages as prime, according to Mr. Pinto. Fannie has admitted this in a third-quarter 10-Q report in 2008.

This is a damning fact and if true certainly supports the Journal claim that the GSE actions were a “principal cause of the financial crisis.” But having established this, the Journal then goes in this direction:

Full Story Fannie, Freddie, and the New Red and Blue – Matt Taibbi – Taibblog – True/Slant.

AP sources: Bomber at CIA base was a double agent

The suicide bomber who killed eight people inside a CIA base in Afghanistan was a Jordanian-born terrorist working as a double agent who had been invited to the base because he claimed to have information targeting Osama bin Laden’s second-in-command, a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a foreign government official confirmed Monday.

The bombing killed seven CIA employees — four officers and three contracted security guards — and a Jordanian intelligence officer, Ali bin Zaid, according to a second former U.S. intelligence official. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the incident.

The former senior intelligence official and the foreign official said the bomber was Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, a 36-year old doctor from Zarqa, Jordan, who had been recruited by Jordanian intelligence. Zarqa is the hometown of slain al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. NBC News first reported the bomber’s identity.

Full Story AP sources: Bomber at CIA base was a double agent – Yahoo! News.

The Makings of a Police State- Part V

Sibel Edmonds -

The Quest for Clearance

It was late spring 2007, and I had arrived right before sunset at Centerville’s new ‘in place’ for the 30 something techie crowd. I was supposed to meet two friends there, have a drink, and then head to the restaurant next door for an early dinner. As soon as I walked in I spotted both of them, and a third person, a man in his early thirties whom I’d never met before, I’ll call him ‘Joe,’ and headed towards their table. After brief introductions the trio resumed their conversation where they’d left off. The topic had to do with current hot jobs and the latest career trends in the area, which caters to the federal government…

I was listening only half-heartedly until one of my friends, a woman in her mid thirties who worked for a midsize travel agency, started talking about how she’d been waiting for the completion of the process to get her security clearance, and that she couldn’t wait to get ‘the darn thing,’ and with it her promotion and a 15% salary increase. Now that perked up my ears and grabbed my full attention. After all, I’d been intimately familiar with security clearances and related issues for several years and dealt with them extensively, working with hundreds of national security whistleblowers, and networking with attorneys. What I couldn’t understand was this:

Why in the world would a travel agent working in a private travel agency need or want to have a security clearance?!

So, I asked: ‘What do you need the clearance for?’

And she responded: ‘The agency I work for has a contract with the federal government. We provide airline tickets, rental car and hotel reservations for some federal employees…’

I asked again: ‘So why do you need clearance to do that?’

Full Story Sibel Edmonds’ Boiling Frogs Post | Home of the Irate Minority.

Reality: Military Repeatedly Fails to Meet Recruiting Goals (but the DoD Cleverly Cooks the Books to Claim Success)

On December 28, The Christian Science Monitor published an op-ed that was misleading – so misleading it was pure Pentagon propaganda.

The CSM column by Jamie Holmes falsely claimed that, “For the first time since the establishment of all-volunteer forces in 1973, the US military has met all of its recruiting goals.” Not only is this wrong, it ignores a mountain of evidence clearly available in the press showing the military remains in crisis.

The lead sentence is so far from reality that I stayed late at my office at Veterans for Common Sense on New Year's Eve to respond with facts. We progressives need to kill the myth of “successful” military recruiting dreamed up by someone who must read military press releases and then regurgitate them whole. The national recruiting failure is so bad, and the pressure on recruiters so overwhelming, that Houston, Texas, recently saw a cluster of recruiter suicides.

Full Story t r u t h o u t | Reality: Military Repeatedly Fails to Meet Recruiting Goals (but the DoD Cleverly Cooks the Books to Claim Success).

US overhauls terror watch lists

US terror watch lists have been radically overhauled after a foiled attack on a US-bound jet, the White House said Monday, as President Barack Obama readied for key talks on the security scare.

The news came as tougher screening procedures for all US-bound air travelers swung into effect in airports around the world.

Obama, who has denounced “systemic” intelligence failures in the Christmas Day plot, was preparing to meet with US intelligence chiefs and security officials on Tuesday to review the findings of two probes into the incident.

But White House spokesman Bill Burton said “safety and security measures are moving forward even as the review goes on” in a bid to plug security gaps.

Full Story US overhauls terror watch lists – Yahoo! News.

Hard times at the Washington Post

| Dean Baker –

The once proud Washington Post gets into bed with a right-wing billionaire and fills its news pages with his agenda

The Washington Post is a newspaper with a proud legacy. It has done much important reporting over the years, most famously its coverage of the Watergate scandal that resulted in the resignation of Richard Nixon. Unfortunately, it seems to have abandoned its journalistic standards. In its last issue of the decade, it published as a news piece an article by the Peter Peterson Foundation-funded Fiscal Times. This compromised the Post’s journalistic integrity to the extent that readers can no longer take it seriously.

Peter Peterson is a Wall Street billionaire and former Nixon administration cabinet member who has been trying to gut social security payments and Medicare for at least the last quarter of a century. He has written several books that warn of a demographic disaster when the baby boomers retire. These books often include nonsense arguments to make his case. For example, in one of the books making his pitch for cutting social security as matter of generational equity, Peterson proposes reducing the annual cost of living adjustment. Peterson justified this cut by arguing that the price index overstated the true rate of inflation, therefore the annual cost of living adjustment was overcompensating retirees.

The problem with Peterson’s logic is that if the price index really overstated inflation, then the country has been getting wealthier much faster than the standard data show. This means that the young people who he was so worried about would be far richer than anyone could have imagined. It would also mean that the most of the retirees whose benefits he wanted to cut grew up in poverty.

Full Story Hard times at the Washington Post | Dean Baker | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

How Democrats can avoid a midterm rout in 2010

E.J. Dionne Jr. -

As they enter this difficult election year, Democrats seem ready to engage yet again in a debate they never seem to tire of: whether winning demands “moving to the center” or “mobilizing the base.” If they get stuck on this, they're in for a very bad time.

The simple truth is that in midterm elections, no party can win without its base because turnout is lower than in presidential elections. Those who do vote are more committed to their parties and their ideological priorities.

Behind the 1994 Republican midterm sweep was a dispirited Democratic base unhappy about the failure of heath-care reform, grumpy about the economy and badly split over the North American Free Trade Agreement, for which President Bill Clinton pushed so hard. While Democrats stayed home, Republicans mobbed the polls and won races all the way down the ballot. It's the midterm rule: No base, no victory.

Full Story E.J. Dionne Jr. – How Democrats can avoid a midterm rout in 2010 – washingtonpost.com.

What’s Ahead for the Economy and Politics in 2010

Robert Reich  -

Just about everything you’ll hear coming out of Washington starting now is really about November’s mid-term election. The gravitational pull of the midterms was already apparent last year, as Republicans marched in perfect lockstep to vote against whatever the President and Dems proposed (Republicans always have authoritarian discipline on their side, which is why they’re Republicans) but you haven’t seen anything yet.

The Dems have enough votes to enact health care — the hurdle Bill Clinton failed to jump, contributing to the Republican takeover in 1994 — but when it’s enacted, expect the spin machines on both sides to be at full throttle. And because health care legislation won’t be implemented for another three or four years (depending whether the House or Senate versions prevail), Americans won’t be able to test the veracity of these wildly divergent claims. So don’t count on health reform to help Dems next November — nor harm them, either.

Foreign policy is just as unlikely to tip the scales. Sad to say, absent a draft most American families will read about American deaths in Afghanistan much the way they’ve absorb the U.S. body count in Iraq — as news items rather than personal tragedies. Nor will Iran’s nuclear capabilities, North Korea’s missile launches, Pakistan’s tumult, or Yemen’s terrorists have much electoral effect — unless terrorists commit an atrocity in America or on American travelers. Needless to say, China’s decision about whether and how much to revalue its currency, although important, will affect the votes of about three Americans (and I think I know all of them).

Full Story Robert Reich (What’s Ahead for the Economy and Politics in 2010).

Chertoff Linked to Body Scanner Manufacturer

Since the attempted bombing of a US airliner on Christmas Day, former Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff has given dozens of media interviews touting the need for the federal

What he has made little mention of is that the Chertoff Group, his security consulting agency, includes a client that manufactures the machines. Chertoff disclosed the relationship on a CNN program Wednesday, in response to a question.

An airport passengers’ rights group on Thursday criticized Chertoff’s use of his former government credentials to advocate for a product that benefits his clients.

“Mr. Chertoff should not be allowed to abuse the trust the public has placed in him as a former public servant to privately gain from the sale of full-body scanners under the pretense that the scanners would have detected this particular type of explosive,’’ said Kate Hanni, founder of FlyersRights.org, which opposes the use of the scanners.

Full Story Group slams Chertoff on scanner promotion – The Boston Globe.

Bachmann: GOP should ‘allow themselves to be re-defined by the tea party movement.’

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) addresses a crowdAt the inception of the tea party phenomena, organizers insisted that “the movement is not tied to the Republican Party.” But in recent weeks, the Republican Party has been going all out to bring the vocal activists into the GOP’s fold. “We need to stop looking at the tea parties as separate from the Republican party,” Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) told National Review last month. In a Dec. 29 interview on Fred Thompson’s radio show with guest host Jed Babbin, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) said that if the GOP were “wise,” they would “allow themselves to be re-defined by the tea party movement”:

BABBIN: What should the Republican Party be doing to capture this political energy and turn it into votes next year?

BACHMANN: Well, it’s embrace the tea party movement with full arms and hold as many open forums as they possibly can to bring people in and listen to them because the leadership right now is truly coming from the tea party movement because it is disaffected Democrats, Independents, Republicans. It’s really people who love the country and who brace what ultimately has been the mission statement of the Republican Party. If you look at the two parties, Democrat and Republican, there’s no question that the heartbeat of the tea party movement would be more in line with the mission state of the Republican party certainly than that of the Democrat party. So if the Republican Party is wise, they will allow themselves to be re-defined by the tea party movement. And I hope that that will be the case.

Listen here:

Full Story Think Progress » Bachmann: GOP should ‘allow themselves to be re-defined by the tea party movement.’.

OPS: This lunatic ultra rightwing insanity is what is allowing the Democratic Party to become what the Republican Party was 30 years ago.

GOP House candidate says defeating liberals is more important than defeating terrorists.

Former state legislator Allan Quist is a Republican running to replace Rep. Tim Walz (D-MN) in 2010. As the Minnesota Independent reports, Quist told an audience at the Wabasha County Republicans Christmas party that the “big battle” he thinks conservatives should be fighting is not against terrorists, but liberals in Washington, D.C.:

Allen Quist, a Republican who is seeking to defeat Rep. Tim Walz in southern Minnesota’s First Congressional District, told attendees of the Wabasha County Republicans Christmas Party in mid-December that beating the “radical” liberals in Washington, D.C., is a bigger battle than beating terrorism.

“Our country is being destroyed. Every generation has had to fight the fight for freedom… Terrorism? Yes. That’s not the big battle,” he said. “The big battle is in D.C. with the radicals. They aren’t liberals. They are radicals. Obama, Pelosi, Walz: They’re not liberals, they’re radicals. They are destroying our country.”

Watch Quist’s full speech:

Full Story Think Progress » GOP House candidate says defeating liberals is more important than defeating terrorists..

OPS:  If you are a multimillionaire,  billionaire, a Large Corporation, or Fascist he is correct.  If you are a poor or middle class American or just love Democracy and the Constitution he is wrong.  It’s that simple.

Bankruptcies Surge 32 Percent In 2009

U.S. consumers and businesses are filing for bankruptcy at a pace that made 2009 the seventh-worst year on record, with more than 1.4 million petitions submitted, an Associated Press tally showed Monday.

The AP gathered data from the nation’s 90 bankruptcy districts and found 1.43 million filings, an increase of 32 percent from 2008. There were 116,000 recorded bankruptcies in December, up 22 percent from the same month a year before.

While experts believe some of the increase is due to a natural recovery as consumers and attorneys become accustomed to a recent overhaul of bankruptcy laws, the numbers indicate clear correlations to recession-weary regions. Arizona saw the fastest increase, a jump of 77 percent from the year before, followed by Wyoming (60 percent), Nevada (59 percent) and California (58 percent).

Full Story Bankruptcies Surge 32 Percent In 2009.

NASA Kepler Telescope Discovers Mystery Space Objects

NASA’s new planet-hunting telescope has found two mystery objects that are too hot to be planets and too small to be stars.

The Kepler Telescope, launched in March, discovered the two new heavenly bodies, each circling its own star. Telescope chief scientist Bill Borucki of NASA said the objects are thousands of degrees hotter than the stars they circle. That means they probably aren’t planets. They are bigger and hotter than planets in our solar system, including dwarf planets.

“The universe keeps making strange things stranger than we can think of in our imagination,” said Jon Morse, head of astrophysics for NASA.

The new discoveries don’t quite fit into any definition of known astronomical objects, and so far don’t have a classification of their own. Details about the mystery objects were presented Monday at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Washington.

Full Story NASA Kepler Telescope Discovers Mystery Space Objects.

House-Senate Health Care Conference Begins In Earnest Tomorrow; PhRMA Deal Targeted

Henry Waxman, chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, announced at a constituent meeting today that he was headed to Washington tomorrow to begin discussions with Senate leaders and the White House, aimed at reconciling health care legislation to find a final bill which can pass both chambers of Congress. “The differences on the health bill will be hard to reconcile,” Waxman said to about 175 people at the Pacific Palisades Democratic Club. “But that’s our job.”

Discussions are beginning early on the health care bill, although the House is not returning to session until January 12, and the Senate not until a week later. This will not be a traditional conference committee, Waxman said, because the motions to select and instruct conferees in the Senate “would need 60 votes all over again.” Instead, whatever agreements made could be packaged in an amendment to the bills passed by the House and Senate.

While many observers expect the Senate bill to remain largely intact following the conference negotiations, Waxman vowed to fight hard on at least one issue: prescription drugs. “The President and the Senate made very poor deals with PhRMA,” Waxman said, explaining the deal whereby the drug industry offered $80 billion dollars in givebacks in exchange for their support for the overall bill. “Rahm (Emanuel) said that’s OK,” Waxman said, but he noted that under the deal, the industry would get millions of new customers and Americans would still pay far more than the rest of the industrialized world for prescription drugs.

Full Story FDL News Desk » House-Senate Health Care Conference Begins In Earnest Tomorrow; PhRMA Deal Targeted.

Foreclosures Hurting Home Appraisals

It wasn’t the first time that Katherine Scheri ruined a real estate agent’s day with a low property appraisal.

Scheri, a real estate appraiser, had sized up a three-bedroom, two-bath house in Santa Ana, Calif., for $30,000 less than what the buyers offered to pay. A typical deal-killer for a seller.

The agent urged the lender to force Scheri to consider several other properties that could back up the original $310,000 sale price. Then he tried good old-fashioned guilt, telling Scheri her appraisal was going to ruin the buyers’ shot at the American Dream.

“That’s what he laid on me,” Scheri recalled. “And I said, ‘Don’t you care they could be potentially spending $30,000 too much for a house?”

Full Story Foreclosures Hurting Home Appraisals.

Sandy Weill, Former Citi CEO, Has Trophy That Reads ‘Glass-Steagall Shatterer’

Don’t confuse Sandy Weill for those Wall Street execs who fret over “optics.”

In a melancholy NYT profile of Sandy Weill over the weekend, the former CEO and chair of Citigroup admitted to some errors of management during his tenure at the mega-bank, but spurned claims that the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act — which erased key banking regulations after heavy lobbying by Weill — was to blame for Citi’s woes.

In fact, as the NYT points out, Weill is still so staunchly in favor of the repeal that he displays a wooden trophy of sorts in his office. (In the banking equivalent of a stuffed lion’s head mounted on the wall, the plaque reads “Shatterer Of Glass-Steagall.”) And, appearances be damned, Weil apparently was not compelled to take this gloating piece of memorabilia down before being visited by a reporter.

Glass-Steagall — the legislation that required commercial and investment banking institutions to remain separate — was the key piece of legislation that helped Citigroup morph into the banking behemoth it has become. By extension, it helped Weill’s net worth skyrocket.

Full Story Sandy Weill, Former Citi CEO, Has Trophy That Reads ‘Glass-Steagall Shatterer’.

Republican retirements mount in House

The decision by South Carolina Rep. Henry Brown to retire brings Republican retirements to 14, a number that, if it continues to rise in the coming months, could curtail the expected GOP gains in the House in November.

While much of the focus for the last month (or so) has been on Democrats’ retirement problems — set off by a quartet of announcements in swing and Republican-leaning districts over the last month — a broad look at the open seat playing field suggests more parity in terms of the two parties’ opportunities and vulnerabilities than conventional wisdom suggests.

Republicans currently carry 14 open seats while Democrats have 10. Each side has three seats won by the other party’s presidential candidate in 2008; for Democrats, that’s Louisiana’s 3rd district and Tennessee’s 6th and 8th districts while for Republicans it’s Delaware’s at-large seat, Illinois’ 10th district and Pennsylvania’s 6th district.

Full Story The Fix – Republican retirements mount in House.

Move Your Money Success Stories

Nearly a week ago, Arianna Huffington and Rob Johnson launched the Move Your Money campaign urging Americans to send a message to big, bailed-out national banks by joining smaller, more stable community banks. Huffington Post readers responded almost immediately.

With the help of the IRA (Institutional Risk Analytics) database, readers moved their money to local banks and shared their stories with the rest of the HuffPost community. Through thousands of comments, banking consumers from San Diego, California to Bar Harbor, Maine and everywhere in between recounted both stories of frustration about their dealings with national banks and histories of supportive relationships with their local banks.

At a national level, a large number of readers criticized big banks for unexplained hikes in interest rates and unruly fees charged, sometimes, for no apparent reason.

One reader described a rate hike on her credit card with Citibank after years of loyalty:

Full Story Move Your Money Success Stories.

Fox News satellite blacks out Democrat’s comments on healthcare

Coincidence?

A moment of mild amusement ensued Saturday after a Fox News Channel satellite literally erased comments from a Democratic congressman.

The network, which is frequently lampooned by liberal organizations such as Media Matters for an alleged conservative bias, suffered a conveniently timed setback that eliminated the final words of a Democratic lawmaker talking up his party's healthcare reform.

Arizona Republican congressman Trent Franks, arguing for the conservative side, tells Fox's host that the Democrats' plan to reform healthcare will replace “free enterprise” with a “socialist system.”

The Senate Democrats' plan, in fact, does no such thing — Democrats bailed on more liberal versions of the bill after pressure from moderate Democratic senators.

Full Story Fox News satellite blacks out Democrat’s comments on healthcare | Raw Story.

Limbaugh’s ‘Dandy’ Health Care Provided By Union Nurses

Rush-LimbaughLast week, Rush Limbaugh was rushed to a hospital while vacationing in Hawaii after complaining of chest pains. Shortly after being released from Queen’s Medical Center in Honolulu, Limbaugh said his doctors didn’t know what caused his symptoms, and he praised the U.S. health care system based on his experience at the hospital:

“The treatment I received here was the best that the world has to offer,” Limbaugh said. “Based on what happened here to me, I don’t think there’s one thing wrong with the American health care system. It is working just fine, just dandy.”

ThinkProgress noted that it was odd that Limbaugh would cite his experience in Hawaii given that the state has previously passed a measure mandating that employers cover full-time employees, a provision that is similar to those being considered in Congress as part of comprehensive health care reform. SEIU’s blog notes that some of the health care reform measures before Congress wouldn’t even affect Hawaii:

In fact, Hawaii is so forward-thinking that the Senate bill excludes Hawaii from some of its provisions, because Hawaii’s requirements on employers go farther than the federal legislation.

Full Story Think Progress » Limbaugh’s ‘Dandy’ Health Care Provided By Union Nurses.

Surge in casualties predicted in Afghanistan

Americans should prepare to accept hundreds of U.S. casualties each month in Afghanistan during spring offensives with enemy forces.

The dire forecast was made by retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, an adjunct professor of international affairs at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, in a periodic assessment of political and security issues he has conducted in the war zone since 2003.

“What I want to do is signal that this thing is going to be $5 billion to $10 billion a month and 300 to 500 killed and wounded a month by next summer. That’s what we probably should expect. And that’s light casualties,” said McCaffrey, who is also president of his own consulting firm in Arlington, Va., and has conducted numerous trips to the war zones to assess the political and military challenges at hand.

As of Dec. 20, there had been 305 U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan in 2009, the large majority of those due to hostile action. The number of wounded as of the same date for 2009 was 2,102, with more than half of those unable to return to duty.

Full Story Surge in casualties predicted in Afghanistan – Army News, news from Iraq, – Army Times.

Yes, It Was Torture, and Illegal

NYT-Editorial

Bush administration officials came up with all kinds of ridiculously offensive rationalizations for torturing prisoners. It’s not torture if you don’t mean it to be. It’s not torture if you don’t nearly kill the victim. It’s not torture if the president says it’s not torture.

It was deeply distressing to watch the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit sink to that standard in April when it dismissed a civil case brought by four former Guantánamo detainees never charged with any offense. The court said former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and the senior military officers charged in the complaint could not be held responsible for violating the plaintiffs’ rights because at the time of their detention, between 2002 and 2004, it was not “clearly established” that torture was illegal.

The Supreme Court could have corrected that outlandish reading of the Constitution, legal precedent, and domestic and international statutes and treaties. Instead, last month, the justices abdicated their legal and moral duty and declined to review the case.

Full Story Editorial – Yes, It Was Torture, and Illegal – NYTimes.com.

The war on terror has been about scaring people, not protecting them

The ease with which the plane bomber could operate exposes the vacuity and recklessness at the heart of the US response to 9/11

So there was no ticking time bomb. No urgent need ever arose to torture anybody who was withholding crucial details, so that civilisation as we know it could be saved in the nick of time. No wires had to be tapped, special prisons erected or international accords violated. No innocent people had to be grabbed off the street in their home country, transported across the globe and waterboarded. Drones, daisy-cutters, invasions, occupations were, it has transpired, not necessary.

Indeed, when it actually came down to it, to forestall a near-calamitous terrorist atrocity in the US the authorities didn't even have to go in search of information or informants. The alleged terrorist's father came to the US embassy in Nigeria of his own free will and warned them that his son, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, had disappeared and could be in the company of Yemeni terrorists.

Meanwhile the National Security Agency had heard that al-Qaida in Yemen was planning to use an unnamed Nigerian in an attack on the US. If that were not enough, then came Abdulmutallab himself, a 23-year-old Nigerian bound for Detroit who bought his ticket in cash, checked in no bags and left no contact information. For seven years the American state manipulated the public with its multicoloured terror alerts. But when all the warning lights were flashing red, it did nothing.

Full Story The war on terror has been about scaring people, not protecting them | Gary Younge | Comment is free | The Guardian.

Obama quietly changes U.S. immigration policy

The Obama administration quietly announced last month that it would overturn one of the harsh immigration enforcement measures enacted by the Bush administration following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Beginning this month, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said, those who arrive in the United States fleeing torture or persecution abroad will no longer automatically be welcomed with handcuffs and months in a jail cell. Instead, many of those seeking protection will again be permitted to live freely in the country while their applications for permanent asylum are considered by an immigration judge.

The measure is the latest in a string of little-noticed initiatives by the Obama DHS to reconsider some of the most controversial enforcement policies of the past decade. The administration in August launched an overhaul of the immigration detention system, which had grown out of control as the number of detainees doubled in just five years to more than 440,000 annually. Some of those were simply lost in the system, while others fell ill and died due to poor medical care, and the administration has pledged to stop such abuses. That same month, it moved families out of the notorious T. Don Hutto immigrant detention facility in Texas, which had become a national disgrace after revelations that pregnant women and small children were being held there in prison-like conditions.

The administration has also largely halted workplace raids that resulted in jailing, deportation and even criminal charges for many unauthorized workers, and is focused instead on in-depth audits of companies suspected of hiring those workers. And DHS has curbed the authority of state and local police forces to demand immigration documents from anyone stopped for minor offenses like traffic violations, saying that such checks should be done only for those jailed on criminal charges, particularly for serious criminal offenses. To drive home the point, DHS in October stripped the notorious Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona of federal authority to make immigration-related arrests.

Full Story ISS – Obama quietly changes U.S. immigration policy.

Why Democrats Are Trying to Commit Electoral Suicide

Forty-five percent of the Democratic base now says they aren’t going to vote in 2010 or are thinking of not voting. This is a direct result of Democrats in Congress and the Presidency doing things the base disagrees with or not doing things the base wants to see done. It appears politically stupid to act as they have, and yet, they did. So why?

Elected Democrats at the Federal level are members of the national elite. If they weren’t a member when they were elected, they are quickly brought into the fold. They are surrounded by lobbyists, other members and staffers who were lobbyists, as a rule. They learn they need to raise immense amounts of money in the off years when normal people aren’t giving, and that the only way to raise that money is for corporate interests and rich people to write the checks. They also receive the benefits of elite status, very quickly. It’s not an accident that the every Senator except Bernie Sanders is wealthy.

Whatever Americans think, whether they support a public option or single payer; whether they’re for or against Iraq or Afghanistan; whether they agree with bailing out banks or not, elite consensus is much much narrower than American public opinion. It starts at the center right and heads over to reactionary (repeal the entire progressive movement and the New Deal, taking America back to the 1890s).

Full Story Open Left:: Why Democrats Are Trying to Commit Electoral Suicide.

Bankers Get $4 Trillion Gift From Barney Frank

To close out 2009, I decided to do something I bet no member of Congress has done — actually read from cover to cover one of the pieces of sweeping legislation bouncing around Capitol Hill.

Hunkering down by the fire, I snuggled up with H.R. 4173, the financial-reform legislation passed earlier this month by the House of Representatives. The Senate has yet to pass its own reform plan. The baby of Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, the House bill is meant to address everything from too-big-to-fail banks to asleep-at-the-switch credit-ratings companies to the protection of consumers from greedy lenders.

I quickly discovered why members of Congress rarely read legislation like this. At 1,279 pages, the “Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act” is a real slog. And yes, I plowed through all those pages. (Memo to Chairman Frank: “ystem” at line 14, page 258 is missing the first “s”.)

The reading was especially painful since this reform sausage is stuffed with more gristle than meat. At least, that is, if you are a taxpayer hoping the bailout train is coming to a halt.

Full Story Bankers Get $4 Trillion Gift From Barney Frank: David Reilly – Bloomberg.com.

Juan Cole: Ominous signs in Afghanistan

Obama’s presidency could be undone in a hurry if he can’t figure out multiple Afghan crises

You probably won’t see it in most U.S. news outlets, but on Monday morning in Kabul and Jalalabad, hundreds of university students demonstrated against U.S. strikes this weekend that allegedly killed a number of civilians. I want to underline the irony that the students in Tehran University are protesting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, while students in these two Afghan cities are calling for Yankees to go home. Nangarhar University in Jalalabad only has a student body of about 3200, so “hundreds” of students protesting there would be a significant proportion of the student body.

The demonstrations could be a harbinger of things to come, but there was worse news. CIA field officers blown up, four US troops killed Sunday, and the rejection of most of the cabinet nominees by parliament, all signal rocky times ahead.

The past two weeks have seen the situation in Afghanistan deteriorate palpably, raising significant questions about the viability of the Obama-McChrystal plan for the country. The chain of catastrophes has been reported in piecemeal fashion, but taken together these events are far more ominous than they might appear on the surface.

Full Story Afghanistan – Salon.com.

Former Bush Officials Refusing to Endorse Policies They Support Out of Pique

Peter Baker’s article on John Brennan and Obama-era counterterrorism is pretty conventional “friendly profile of important government official” stuff. But this is a good break with convention that more reporters should engage in:

A half-dozen former senior Bush officials involved in counterterrorism told me before the Christmas Day incident that for the most part, they were comfortable with Obama’s policies, although they were reluctant to say so on the record. Some worried they would draw the ire of Cheney’s circle if they did, while others calculated that calling attention to the similarities to Bush would only make it harder for Obama to stay the course. And they generally resent Obama’s anti-Bush rhetoric and are unwilling to give him political cover by defending him.

It’s really staggering what this says about the ethical caliber of the people we’re talking about. These are the toughest issues out there. Obama is, they think, doing the right thing. But some of them don’t want to say he’s doing the right thing because that might make Dick Cheney mad and they’re timid, gutless careerists? And others don’t want to say he’s doing the right thing because their feelings are hurt that a Democrat said bad things about his grossly unpopular Republican predecessor? For this they’re going to undermine support for policies that they themselves believe are keeping the country safe?

Full Story Matthew Yglesias » Former Bush Officials Refusing to Endorse Policies They Support Out of Pique.

Al-Qaeda benefits from a decade of missteps to become a threat in Yemen

Nearly a decade after the bombing of the USS Cole, a combination of U.S. and Yemeni missteps, deep mistrust and a lack of political will have allowed al-Qaeda militants here to regroup and pose a major threat to the United States, according to Yemeni and U.S. officials, diplomats and analysts.

The U.S. failures have included a lack of focus on al-Qaeda’s growing stature, insufficient funding to and cooperation with Yemen, and a misunderstanding of the Middle Eastern country’s complex political terrain, Yemeni officials and analysts said. U.S. policies in the region, they said, often alienated top Yemeni officials and did little to address the root causes of militancy.

Frustrated American officials say Yemen never made fighting al-Qaeda a top priority, which has stalled large-scale U.S. support.

These problems, which ultimately helped enable al-Qaeda militants here to plot an attack on a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day, have forced the United States to open a new front in its anti-terrorism efforts. It is part of a largely invisible war, stretching from the Arabian Peninsula to Africa, waged from the skies and from high-tech intelligence centers, with unmanned aircraft, CIA operatives and vivid satellite images serving as the weapons of choice.

Full Story Al-Qaeda benefits from a decade of missteps to become a threat in Yemen – washingtonpost.com.

Shanghai dairy shut down over melamine-tainted milk powder

Chinese authorities shut down a dairy producer here and arrested three of its executives after tests showed the company was producing milk powder contaminated with melamine, the same industrial chemical that in 2008 was blamed for one of this country’s worst food safety scandals.

The announcement was made just more than two weeks after three other men were arrested at a dairy company in Shaanxi Province for producing milk powder tainted with melamine.

The arrests suggest that regulators are more aggressively monitoring the dairy market after six children died and more than 300,000 others were sickened by melamine-tainted milk in 2008.

That scandal led to international bans on imports of Chinese-made dairy goods.

Full Story Shanghai dairy shut down over melamine-tainted milk powder – The Boston Globe.

Americans’ Role Seen in Uganda Anti-Gay Push

Last March, three American evangelical Christians, whose teachings about “curing” homosexuals have been widely discredited in the United States, arrived here in Uganda’s capital to give a series of talks.

The theme of the event, according to Stephen Langa, its Ugandan organizer, was “the gay agenda — that whole hidden and dark agenda” — and the threat homosexuals posed to Bible-based values and the traditional African family.

For three days, according to participants and audio recordings, thousands of Ugandans, including police officers, teachers and national politicians, listened raptly to the Americans, who were presented as experts on homosexuality. The visitors discussed how to make gay people straight, how gay men often sodomized teenage boys and how “the gay movement is an evil institution” whose goal is “to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity.”

Now the three Americans are finding themselves on the defensive, saying they had no intention of helping stoke the kind of anger that could lead to what came next: a bill to impose a death sentence for homosexual behavior.

Full Story Americans’ Role Seen in Uganda Anti-Gay Push – NYTimes.com.

Chinese Manufacturing Grows by Most Since April 2004

Chinese manufacturing expanded by the most in five years in December, supporting estimates that growth has accelerated to more than 10 percent in the world’s third- biggest economy.

A purchasing managers’ index rose to a seasonally adjusted 56.1, HSBC Holdings Plc and Markit Economics said today in an e- mailed statement. The measure is based on a survey of more than 400 manufacturing companies.

Today’s release may deepen concern that inflation pressures are building and parts of the Chinese economy could overheat this year. Liu Mingkang, China’s top banking regulator, said today that while asset bubbles are a threat, banks have “more than” enough capital and should extend loans to consumers and smaller businesses to sustain growth.

Full Story Chinese Manufacturing Grows by Most Since April 2004 (Update3) – BusinessWeek.

How China Partnered with the GOP to Screw America

Len Hart   -

Chinese rulers and the US elites partnered to enslave US workers and consumers. As a result, the US became a vassal state of China, a huge population which props up the buck so that it can sell us junk via Wal-Mart.

These deals were all worked out with China by Bush Sr et al in the years following Nixon’s infamous visit to the forbidden city. In these talks, US leaders, primarily the right wing/GOP, the US consumer and laborer was sold out. The US would become a vassal state, a slave state, a consumer society whose raison d’etre was to buy Chinese junk. The big losers are US workers and consumers.

I work at Wal-Mart (I’m involved in the UFCW’s effort to organize W-M). One day, right after I was hired, I went around on my lunch break and just sort of randomly looked at where a whole bunch of products were made.

I think I found a blender that had been made in Malaysia. EVERYTHING else had been made in China.

Full Story The Existentialist Cowboy: How China Partnered with the GOP to Screw America.

2010 Census Campaign Begins: Census Bureau Kicks Off Once-A-Decade Head Count

The Census Bureau kicks off its $300 million campaign Monday to prod, coax and cajole the nation’s more than 300 million residents to fill out their once-a-decade census forms.

The bureau will mail out the 10-question forms to about 120 million households in March.

On Monday, Census Director Robert Groves starts the nationwide campaign with an event in New York City where he is scheduled to unveil a 46-foot trailer called “Mail It Back.” In all, 13 vehicles are to be present at about 800 events around the country, from small community happenings to the Super Bowl and the NCAA Final Four.

“The whole purpose is to reach out to people at local events,” Groves said.

Residents can expect to receive letters in early March notifying them that census forms will arrive between March 15-17. Residents who don’t respond will get a follow-up postcard. Those who still don’t respond can expect a visit from a census taker by early May.

Full Story 2010 Census Campaign Begins: Census Bureau Kicks Off Once-A-Decade Head Count.

Jon Stewart’s Review Of 2009: Jim Cramer, Rush Limbaugh, And More! (VIDEO)

Anti-Gay Evangelicals Attempt To Distance Themselves From Ugandan Anti-Gay Bill They Inspired

Ten months ago, three American evangelicals trooped off to Uganda and, using the power of their words, helped convince officials there to create the Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009, that would make it illegal — and punishable by death — to be gay. If you hang in long enough while reading today’s New York Times article on the matter, the reporter eventually gets around to naming them!

The three Americans who spoke at the conference — Scott Lively, a missionary who has written several books against homosexuality, including “7 Steps to Recruit-Proof Your Child”; Caleb Lee Brundidge, a self-described former gay man who leads “healing seminars”; and Don Schmierer, a board member of Exodus International, whose mission is “mobilizing the body of Christ to minister grace and truth to a world impacted by homosexuality” — are now trying to distance themselves from the bill.

At this point, that’s sort of like the Velvet Underground attempting to distance themselves from “rock music.”

But for his part, Don Schmierer says he feels “duped,” and that he had “no idea some Ugandans were contemplating the death penalty for homosexuality” and that “some of the nicest people I have ever met are gay people.”

Full Story Anti-Gay Evangelicals Attempt To Distance Themselves From Ugandan Anti-Gay Bill They Inspired.

John Mackey, Whole Foods CEO: I Don’t Believe In Climate Change

I’ve been a big fan of Whole Foods’s CEO John Mackey for years.

I’ve talked with him twice on behalf of my elephant journal, and he’s agreed to an interview (which would sit nicely along our “Walk the Talk Show” videos with Deepak Chopra, Michael Pollan, Dr. Andrew Weil, Alice Walker, Arianna Huffington, Amy Goodman). I’ve defended WFM and Mackey through WildOatsGate, wherein Mackey denigrated the value of his rival on an online forum (while cloaked beneath a pseudonym, and throwing in a flattering comment about his own new haircut “he looks cute!”)

I urged the FTC to stop blocking WFM’s purchase of Wild Oats–though the consolidation was sad, Whole Foods had plenty of rivals left in the mainstream grocery chains who were, even then, selling more and more organics. I posted articles re: how Whole Foods no longer deserved its moniker Whole Paycheck. I gave Mr. Mackey kudos for honesty when he railed against Whole Foods’ own offerings, calling much of their offerings “junk.” And then, in an article that sat upon the home page of HuffPost for the better part of a week (traffic Mecca of the wwworld) and was picked up by the NY Times and Atlantic, I was a lonely “green” voice defending Whole Foods against progressive cries for a boycott after Mr. Mackey took on “Obamacare,” arguing in an infamous Wall Street Journal editorial that health care was not a right.

But I’m finally losing it, and he’s finally losing me.

Full Story Waylon Lewis: John Mackey, Whole Foods CEO: I Don’t Believe In Climate Change.

Parker Griffith Staff Resigns: Nearly Every Member Quits

Nearly every staff member of Democrat-turned-Republican Rep. Parker Griffith’s office quit Monday morning in response to his decision to switch parties. His chief of staff resigned, along with his entire legislative and communications team — many of whom have worked for Griffith since before he arrived in Washington.

“Alabama’s Fifth District has deserved and has benefited from great Democratic conservative leadership since Reconstruction. And until now they had it,” Chief of Staff Sharon Wheeler said. “I appreciate Congressman Griffith’s being a very dedicated congressman. But we believe he made a mistake — a well-intentioned but misguided mistake that is not in the interest of the great people of North Alabama who elected him a year ago as a Democrat. As his staff, we wish him only the best, and we all remain committed to the citizens of the Tennessee Valley. But we cannot, in good conscience, continue working for him. It is with deep sadness that we leave our work for the Fifth District. But because we are unwavering in our own principles, we have no choice but to move on. We do not know what the future holds, but we are taking a leap of faith with the belief we will soon find ourselves in the employment of principled public officials.”

Full Story Parker Griffith Staff Resigns: Nearly Every Member Quits.

EXCLUSIVE: Dems ‘Almost Certain’ To Bypass Conference

Now that both the House and Senate have passed health care reform bills, all Democrats have to do is work out a compromise between the two versions. And it appears they’re not about to let the Republicans gum up the works again.

According to a pair of senior Capitol Hill staffers, one from each chamber, House and Senate Democrats are “almost certain” to negotiate informally rather than convene a formal conference committee. Doing so would allow Democrats to avoid a series of procedural steps–not least among them, a series of special motions in the Senate, each requiring a vote with full debate–that Republicans could use to stall deliberations, just as they did in November and December.

“There will almost certainly be full negotiations but no formal conference,” the House staffer says. “There are too many procedural hurdles to go the formal conference route in the Senate.”

Full Story EXCLUSIVE: Dems ‘Almost Certain’ To Bypass Conference | The New Republic.

PPIP: Banks ‘Making A Killing’ On Government Toxic Asset Program

Remember the Public-Private Investment Program (PPIP)? The Treasury Department unveiled the program in March and intended it as a way to help banks unload hard-to-sell (read: often toxic) mortgage securities. In short, private investors partnered with the government to get bad loans off the banks’ books — and everyone, including taxpayers, was supposed to come out ahead on the proceeds of the asset sales.

But, as Bloomberg reports this morning, some of the nation’s largest banks have actually bought more risky home loans instead of getting them off their balance sheets.

In other words, the program that was supposed to help banks dispose of these toxic assets instead made those assets so marketable that banks bought more — which has pushed Wall Street’s titans to even greater exposure to the stalled housing market. The banks apparently decided that the government’s entry into the mortgage security market was simply a guaranteed money-making opportunity.

Full Story PPIP: Banks ‘Making A Killing’ On Government Toxic Asset Program.

Use of potentially harmful chemicals kept secret under law

Of the 84,000 chemicals in commercial use in the United States — from flame retardants in furniture to household cleaners — nearly 20 percent are secret, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, their names and physical properties guarded from consumers and virtually all public officials under a little-known federal provision.

The policy was designed 33 years ago to protect trade secrets in a highly competitive industry. But critics — including the Obama administration — say the secrecy has grown out of control, making it impossible for regulators to control potential dangers or for consumers to know which toxic substances they might be exposed to.

At a time of increasing public demand for more information about chemical exposure, pressure is building on lawmakers to make it more difficult for manufacturers to cloak their products in secrecy. Congress is set to rewrite chemical regulations this year for the first time in a generation.

Under the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act, manufacturers must report to the federal government new chemicals they intend to market. But the law exempts from public disclosure any information that could harm their bottom line.

Full Story Use of potentially harmful chemicals kept secret under law.

U.S. growth prospects deemed bleak in new decade

A dismal job market, a crippled real estate sector and hobbled banks will keep a lid on U.S. economic growth over the coming decade, some of the nation’s leading economists said on Sunday.

Speaking at American Economic Association’s mammoth yearly gathering, experts from a range of political leanings were in surprising agreement when it came to the chances for a robust and sustained expansion:

They are slim.

Many predicted U.S. gross domestic product would expand less than 2 percent per year over the next 10 years. That stands in sharp contrast to the immediate aftermath of other steep economic downturns, which have usually elicited a growth surge in their wake.

“It will be difficult to have a robust recovery while housing and commercial real estate are depressed,” said Martin Feldstein, a Harvard University professor and former head of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Full Story U.S. growth prospects deemed bleak in new decade | Reuters.

‘Experts’ justify profiling, body scanners with familiar paranoid rhetoric

In the wake of the failed Christmas Day attack on a Detroit-bound flight, a large number of so-called experts have raised the ire of civil libertarians in their pursuit of increasingly draconian security measures.

Appearing on Fox News Saturday, a retired U.S. general called for “very serious, harsh profiling,” singling out in particular all 18-28 year old Muslim men, calling for them to be “strip searched” at airports.

As new TSA regulations take effect, passengers flying into the country from abroad will be subject to random screening or so-called “threat-based” screens.

Retired Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney set up his egregious recommendation by claiming first that “in the next 30-100 days,” there is “very high probability a US airliner will come down.”

When the host blandly objected that racial profiling would not go over in the United States, he replied, “I agree, that's the problem.”

Full Story ‘Experts’ justify profiling, body scanners with familiar paranoid rhetoric | Raw Story.

GOP senator continues to block TSA appointee — despite attempted detonation of plane

A Republican senator who is blocking the confirmation of President Barack Obama’s choice to head the Transportation Security Administration said Monday that he will continue to block the nominee, saying that he’s concerned Obama pick Erroll Southers would allow TSA employees to have collective bargaining aggreements.

In essence, a key conservative senator believes that union bargaining agreements are more important than having a person running the Transportation Security Administration, despite a near-bomb attack on a commercial plane last week.

“The president took eight months to even nominate someone for that position and what I’ve asked for, Matt, is just some debate and a recorded vote,” DeMint said on NBC’s “Today” show.

Full Story GOP senator continues to block TSA appointee — despite attempted detonation of plane | Raw Story.

Gun Rights and Tea Party Activists Encourage People To Bring Guns To New Mexico Protest

Nearly 350 right-wing protestors crowded a New Mexico town’s busiest intersection yesterday to protest President Obama’s supposed anti-gun agenda and the “government takeover of our health care system.” While the event mostly looked like any other recent right-wing rally — complete with signs reading “replace the communists in DC” and “the sky is falling! A black man is president!” — what set this protest apart was that there “were plenty of handguns and rifles displayed.”

The local Tea Party and a group called the Second Amendment Task Force (2ATF, a reference to the ATF, which enforces gun laws) encouraged people to bring guns to the event in Alamogordo, NM, in order to “put a positive light on gun ownership,” said 2ATF’s founder Dan Woodruff. While the two protests were technically separate, they were planned together for the same day in adjacent locations. Otero Tea Party Patriots coordinator Don Omey said he was “proud” of the gun-toters. “That’s what we need to turn some minds around,” Omey said. Under New Mexico law, it’s legal for anyone over the age of 19 to open-carry a holstered firearm in most public places.

And while there was no violence during the event, one protestor wearing a Tea Party shirt said his loaded gun was a “very open threat” to anyone who might “try to take over the country completely as a socialist communist [state].” The New Mexico Independent attended the protest and put together a report on the event. Watch it:

Full Story Think Progress » Gun Rights and Tea Party Activists Encourage People To Bring Guns To New Mexico Protest.

ITC rules against China in Steel-Tube Dumping Case

According to the United Steelworkers Union, 2,420 jobs have been lost in the industry in the past year due to Chinese imports, resulting in the loss of $108 million in wages.

The International Trade Commission ruled on Dec. 30 that subsidized Chinese imports of oil industry tubular products, mainly steel tubes and pipes used for oil drilling, have unfairly harmed the domestic steel industry, paving the way for tariffs to be imposed on Chinese imports.

The ruling stems from an April complaint filed by a slew of American steel manufacturers and the United Steelworkers Union. It alleges that highly subsidized steel imports have caused steep jobs losses, wage and hour reductions and have put the entire U.S. industry in jeopardy.

Full Story ITC rules against China in Steel-Tube Dumping Case | Economy In Crisis.

A Less Than Honest Policy

There is a middle-class tax time bomb ticking in the Senate’s version of President Obama’s effort to reform health care.

The bill that passed the Senate with such fanfare on Christmas Eve would impose a confiscatory 40 percent excise tax on so-called Cadillac health plans, which are popularly viewed as over-the-top plans held only by the very wealthy. In fact, it’s a tax that in a few years will hammer millions of middle-class policyholders, forcing them to scale back their access to medical care.

Which is exactly what the tax is designed to do.

The tax would kick in on plans exceeding $23,000 annually for family coverage and $8,500 for individuals, starting in 2013. In the first year it would affect relatively few people in the middle class. But because of the steadily rising costs of health care in the U.S., more and more plans would reach the taxation threshold each year.

Full Story Op-Ed Columnist – A Less Than Honest Policy – NYTimes.com.

Right-Wing ‘Experts’ Justify Profiling, Body Scanners with Familiar Paranoid Rhetoric

A retired general makes egregious claims that that “in the next 30-100 days,” there is “very high probability a US airliner will come down.”

n the wake of the failed Christmas Day attack on a Detroit-bound flight, a large number of so-called experts have raised the ire of civil libertarians in their pursuit of increasingly draconian security measures.

Appearing on Fox News Saturday, a retired U.S. general called for “very serious, harsh profiling,” singling out in particular all 18-28 year old Muslim men, calling for them to be “strip searched” at airports.

As new TSA regulations take effect, passengers flying into the country from abroad will be subject to random screening or so-called “threat-based” screens.

Retired Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney set up his egregious recommendation by claiming first that “in the next 30-100 days,” there is “very high probability a US airliner will come down.”

Full Story Right-Wing ‘Experts’ Justify Profiling, Body Scanners with Familiar Paranoid Rhetoric | Rights and Liberties | AlterNet.

OPS:  Be Afraid…Be afraid…..  The problem is that these scanners do not look inside the body. The recent ‘crotch-bomber’ could have easily hid his explosives up his butt.  In August of 2009 a suicide bomber in Saudi Arabia did just that and killed a Saudi Prince.  Expensive scanning machines are a fraud.

The Best Chance Yet for Legalizing Marijuana

Tax Cannabis 2010 faces hurdles as it prepares for its test on the California ballot next November.

It’s Dec. 14 and news that the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010 has qualified for the California ballot next year has just exploded in time for the evening news cycle. I am sitting on a sofa in a nearly empty room at Oaksterdam University, filing an update to my scoop for AlterNet and waiting for a chance to speak more at length with Richard Lee, the man behind the measure.

For the better part of an afternoon I’ve observed — and waited for — Lee and his staff as they ably handle a flurry of calls from the media before disappearing into a campaign strategy meeting. It’s now dark out over downtown Oakland, as Oaksterdam students gather on the sidewalk after class.

The door opens and Lee parks his wheelchair, softly lands on the couch, and starts breaking up a bit of weed for a toke. After lucrative years in the advertising and marketing industry, he has reestablished himself as a pot entrepreneur and transformed a large sliver of downtown Oakland into Oaksterdam. As a major proponent of professionalizing the marijuana industry — Oaksterdam University is probably his biggest project in this effort — today is a big day for Lee. “It’s not a petition anymore, it’s an initiative,” he says with a grin, as he lights his joint.

Full Story The Best Chance Yet for Legalizing Marijuana | DrugReporter | AlterNet.

Juicy and Tender, Seitan Is Quite Possibly the Best Fake Meat — But There Is a Downside

Seitan is all the rage in vegan kitchens for its versatility and uncanny meatishness, but the bad news for some is that it’s made of wheat gluten.

What if the next big thing to revolutionize the lives of vegans and vegetarians was waiting in the wings? What if this next big thing was amazingly high in protein, amazingly low in fat and carbs, relatively low in sodium, and cholesterol-free, yet with a taste and texture more like real meat than those of any other analogue ever devised? What if the next big thing was chewy and exuded meaty juices and sometimes even required a knife to cut?

Imagine, then, its power as a secret weapon to convert carnivores and to solace those guilt-ridden vegans and vegetarians who still dream of bacon, brisket, sloppy joes, beef Stroganoff, souvlaki, pepperoni, pigs-in-blankets, corned-beef hash and chicken drumsticks: things that tofu cannot replicate, not even with the best imagination in the world.

Tofu is not God’s gift to herbivores, though this feels blasphemous to say. It’s slippery. It rushes down the throat so bland and unobtrusive as to be the gastronomical equivalent of an apology. It’s also made of soybeans. And while at least one recent Journal of the American Medical Association report credits soy foods with reducing the risk of death and recurrence among breast-cancer patients, soy still hasn’t emerged unscathed from the wave of bad press that has blamed it, these last few years, for hormone imbalances and health problems ranging from thyroid dysfunction to Alzheimer’s disease to gynecomastia, aka man-boobs. My doctor, an anti-big-pharma, pro-nutrition kind of guy, always rails against tofu because it’s a processed food. And seriously: How much of whatever is essential about the soybean really reaches you once it has been soaked for sixteen-plus hours, ground, boiled repeatedly to make it into milk, mixed with coagulants, curdled and drained? The preferred coagulant among major tofu manufacturers is calcium sulfate, aka gypsum, which is the main ingredient in plaster-of-Paris.

Full Story Juicy and Tender, Seitan Is Quite Possibly the Best Fake Meat — But There Is a Downside | Health and Wellness | AlterNet.

Paid Out: Washington State Makes Life Harder For The Poor

My True/Slant colleague Hilary Shenfield had a charming post yesterday, describing the many new laws taking effect across the country today. Indeed, this has become a sickening New Year’s Day ritual of mine: tallying up the latest lurches of the ever-enchroaching Nanny State. (Trust me, this “game” only makes the hangover worse.) As usual, the raft of new regulations range from the merely annoying to the truly Californian – which is to say, the even more annoying. But only Washington State has enacted a law which will, in effect, penalize poverty:

SEATTLE (AP) — After a new law imposing stricter regulations on the payday lending industry takes effect today, Ken Weaver is not optimistic his two check-cashing stores in eastern Washington will remain open.

The new law limits the size of a payday loan to 30 percent of a person’s monthly income, or $700, whichever is less. It also bars people from having multiple loans from different lenders, limits the number of loans a person can take out to eight per 12 months, and sets up a database to track the number of loans taken out by people.

Full Story Paid Out: Washington State Makes Life Harder For The Poor – Ethan Epstein – epstein’s razor – True/Slant.

Are America’s Mercenary Armies Really Drug Cartels?

Did Bush/Cheney rebuild Reagan’s “Iran Contra” drug gang?

News out of Afghanistan, Pakistan and India reports massive corruption at the highest levels of government, corruption that could only be financed with drug money. In Afghanistan, the president’s brother is known to be one of the biggest drug runners in the world.

In Pakistan, President Zardani is found with 60 million in a Swiss Bank and his Interior Minister is suspected of ties to American groups involved in paramilitary operations, totally illegal that could involve nothing but drugs, there is no other possibility.

Testimony in the US that our government has used “rendition” flights to transport massive amounts of narcotics to Western Europe and the United States has been taken in sworn deposition.

American mercenaries in Pakistan are hundreds of miles away from areas believed to be hiding terrorists, involved in “operations” that can’t have anything whatsoever to do with any CIA contract. These mercenaries aren’t in Quetta, Waziristan or FATA supporting our troops, they are in Karachi and Islamabad playing with police and government officials and living the life of the fatted calf.

The accusations made are that Americans in partnership with corrupt officials, perhaps in all 3 countries, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, are involved in assassinations, “unknown” criminal activities and are functioning like criminal gangs.

There is no oil. There is nothing to draw people into the area other than one product, one that nobody is talking about. Drugs.

Full Story Are America’s Mercenary Armies Really Drug Cartels? — Signs of the Times News.

Environmental Refugees Unable to Return Home

Mahe Noor left her village in southern Bangladesh after Cyclone Sidr flattened her family’s home and small market in 2007. Jobless and homeless, she and her husband, Nizam Hawladar, moved to this crowded megalopolis, hoping that they might soon return home.

Two years later, they are still here. Ms. Noor, 25, and Mr. Hawladar, 35, work long hours at low-paying jobs — she at a garment factory and he at a roadside tea stall. They are unable to save money after paying for food and rent on their dark shanty in Korail, one of the largest slums in Dhaka. And in their village, more people are leaving because of river erosion and dwindling job opportunities.

“We’re trapped,” Ms. Noor said.

Natural calamities have plagued humanity for generations. But with the prospect of worsening climate conditions over the next few decades, experts on migration say tens of millions more people in the developing world could be on the move because of disasters.

Full Story Environmental Refugees Unable to Return Home – NYTimes.com.

Former Peruvian President Fujimori gets 25 years

Apparently, it can happen to former presidents.

President Alberto Fujimori ruled Peru from 1990 to 2000; the country’s Supreme Court has unanimously upheld his sentence to 25 years in prison for violations of human rights during his presidency. For some, it’s not soon enough.

In the 1990′s, Fujimori earned the respect of his people when he put an end to the Shining Path guerillas (Peru’s Communist Party better known as Sendero Luminoso), and ended the country’s economic crisis.

In a trial that lasted sixteen months, the 71-year old ‘strongman’ was sentenced in April for his role in instigating the massacres of civilians in 1991-92 by death squads. The court announced its decision on its website Sunday.

Additionally, at the same trial, he was convicted of 2 massacres which killed 25 people and for ‘kidnapping with aggravating circumstances’ journalist Gustavo Gorritti and entrepreneur Samuel Dyer.

There’s more

Full Story Former Peruvian President Fujimori gets 25 years.

That 1937 Feeling

Paul Krugman -

Here’s what’s coming in economic news: The next employment report could show the economy adding jobs for the first time in two years. The next G.D.P. report is likely to show solid growth in late 2009. There will be lots of bullish commentary — and the calls we’re already hearing for an end to stimulus, for reversing the steps the government and the Federal Reserve took to prop up the economy, will grow even louder.

But if those calls are heeded, we’ll be repeating the great mistake of 1937, when the Fed and the Roosevelt administration decided that the Great Depression was over, that it was time for the economy to throw away its crutches. Spending was cut back, monetary policy was tightened — and the economy promptly plunged back into the depths.

This shouldn’t be happening. Both Ben Bernanke, the Fed chairman, and Christina Romer, who heads President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, are scholars of the Great Depression. Ms. Romer has warned explicitly against re-enacting the events of 1937. But those who remember the past sometimes repeat it anyway.

Full Story Op-Ed Columnist – That 1937 Feeling – NYTimes.com.

Natural Gas Drilling: What We Don’t Know

It takes brute force to wrest natural gas from the earth. Millions of gallons of chemical-laden water mixed with sand — under enough pressure to peel paint from a car — are pumped into the ground, pulverizing a layer of rock that holds billions of small bubbles of gas.

The chemicals transform the fluid into a frictionless mass that works its way deep into the earth, prying open tiny cracks that can extend thousands of feet. The particles of sand or silicon wedge inside those cracks, holding the earth open just enough to allow the gas to slip by.

Gas drilling is often portrayed as the ultimate win-win in an era of hard choices: a new, 100-year supply of cleaner-burning fuel, a risk-free solution to the nation’s dependence on foreign energy. In the next 10 years, the United States will use the fracturing technology to drill hundreds of thousands of new wells astride cities, rivers and watersheds. Cash-strapped state governments are pining for the revenue and the much-needed jobs that drilling is expected to bring to poor, rural areas.

Full Story Natural Gas Drilling: What We Don’t Know – ProPublica.

The Pictures of War You Aren’t Supposed to See

Chris Hedges  -

War is brutal and impersonal. It mocks the fantasy of individual heroism and the absurdity of utopian goals like democracy. In an instant, industrial warfare can kill dozens, even hundreds of people, who never see their attackers. The power of these industrial weapons is indiscriminate and staggering. They can take down apartment blocks in seconds, burying and crushing everyone inside. They can demolish villages and send tanks, planes and ships up in fiery blasts. The wounds, for those who survive, result in terrible burns, blindness, amputation and lifelong pain and trauma. No one returns the same from such warfare. And once these weapons are employed all talk of human rights is a farce.

In Peter van Agtmael’s “2nd Tour Hope I don’t Die” and Lori Grinker’s “Afterwar: Veterans From a World in Conflict,” two haunting books of war photographs, we see pictures of war which are almost always hidden from public view. These pictures are shadows, for only those who go to and suffer from war can fully confront the visceral horror of it, but they are at least an attempt to unmask war’s savagery.

“Over ninety percent of this soldier’s body was burned when a roadside bomb hit his vehicle, igniting the fuel tank and burning two other soldiers to death,” reads the caption in Agtmael’s book next to a photograph of the bloodied body of a soldier in an operating room. “His camouflage uniform dangled over the bed, ripped open by the medics who had treated him on the helicopter. Clumps of his skin had peeled away, and what was left of it was translucent. He was in and out of consciousness, his eyes stabbing open for a few seconds. As he was lifted from the stretcher to the ER bed, he screamed ‘Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy,’ then ‘Put me to sleep, please put me to sleep.’ There was another photographer in the ER, and he leaned his camera over the heads of the medical staff to get an overhead shot. The soldier yelled, ‘Get that fucking camera out of my face.’ Those were his last words. I visited his grave one winter afternoon six months later,” Agtmael writes, “and the scene of his death is never far from my thoughts.”

Full Story Chris Hedges: The Pictures of War You Aren’t Supposed to See – Chris Hedges’ Columns – Truthdig.

Concern as China clamps down on rare earth exports

A neodymium magnet, commonly used in motors, loudspeakers and other appliances. Neodymium is a rare earth element

Neodymium is one of 17 metals crucial to green technology. There’s only one snag – China produces 97% of the world’s supply. And they’re not selling

Britain and other Western countries risk running out of supplies of certain highly sought-after rare metals that are vital to a host of green technologies, amid growing evidence that China, which has a monopoly on global production, is set to choke off exports of valuable compounds.

Failure to secure alternative long-term sources of rare earth elements (REEs) would affect the manufacturing and development of low-carbon technology, which relies on the unique properties of the 17 metals to mass-produce eco-friendly innovations such as wind turbines and low-energy lightbulbs.

China, whose mines account for 97 per cent of global supplies, is trying to ensure that all raw REE materials are processed within its borders. During the past seven years it has reduced by 40 per cent the amount of rare earths available for export.

Full Story:  Concern as China clamps down on rare earth exports – Asia, World – The Independent.

OPS: We cannot make a missile or even cloth our soldiers without China’s permission. Right now. This is a matter of National Security and more than it being ignored by our Government and Corporate Media, it being promoted. The safety rope doesn’t reach THIS far down the rabbit hole.

Scientists say dolphins should be treated as ‘non-human persons’

Dolphins have been declared the world’s second most intelligent creatures after humans, with scientists suggesting they are so bright that they should be treated as “non-human persons”.

Studies into dolphin behaviour have highlighted how similar their communications are to those of humans and that they are brighter than chimpanzees. These have been backed up by anatomical research showing that dolphin brains have many key features associated with high intelligence.

The researchers argue that their work shows it is morally unacceptable to keep such intelligent animals in amusement parks or to kill them for food or by accident when fishing. Some 300,000 whales, dolphins and porpoises die in this way each year.

“Many dolphin brains are larger than our own and second in mass only to the human brain when corrected for body size,” said Lori Marino, a zoologist at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, who has used magnetic resonance imaging scans to map the brains of dolphin species and compare them with those of primates.

via Scientists say dolphins should be treated as ‘non-human persons’ – Times Online.

The 911 case against George W. Bush

There’s been a lot of finger pointing the last few days over the attempted bombing of flight 253, most of it coming from Republicans who have used words like “negligence” and Dick Cheney’s comment that Obama didn’t seem to take terrorism seriously.

But it was not taking terrorism seriously by George W.Bush, Dick Cheney and Condoleeza Rice that allowed the worst attack on American soil by a foreign enemy in history to take place on the morning of Sept 11,2001.

It was nothing less than gross, even criminal negligence and a violation of Bush’s oath of office to protect the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic, that should have resulted in George Bush’s impeachment over the 911. And in the process would have saved the country all the catastrophies brought on by Bush since that day.

via The 911 case against George W. Bush.

BBC: Al Qaeda NEVER Existed!

The BBC had revealed that Al Qaeda is a creation of US propaganda, in fact, a term never used by Bin Laden until after 911. The implications of the BBC documentary are enormous. It means that the US government of George W. Bush is guilty of the crimes of mass murder, high treason with respect to 911 and war crimes with respect to the mass murder of Iraqi civilians who had nothing whatsoever to do with 911. The specific crimes are violations of U.S. Codes, Title 18, Section 2441 which prescribes the penalty of death for violations thereof!

Bush –you and your administration are in deep shit! An every angrier American population will –one day –bring you and your CIA co-conspirators to justice. In the meantime, I suggest that all members of the Bush administration look up the relevent federal laws, some of which prescribe death. Start with US Codes, Title 18, Section 2441.

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

–U.S.C. § 2441 : US Code – Section 2441: War crimes

via The Existentialist Cowboy: BBC: Al Qaeda NEVER Existed!.

Evidence Mounts for US Complicity in Terrorism: Mutallab’s father is no ordinary ‘banker’

When nothing adds up, its time we starting looking at what we know. Our recent terrorist, now dubbed “the crotch bomber” is another dupe. He could have been working for anyone, drugged, brainwashed or simply influenced, maybe by crazy Arabs, maybe by the Mossad, maybe by the CIA. We only know the game is falling apart.

We do know a couple of things. Dad, back in Nigeria, ran the national arms industry (DICON) in partnership with Israel, in particular, the Mossad. He was in daily contact with them. They run everything in Nigeria, from arms production to counter-terrorism. Though Islamic, Muttalab was a close associate of Israel. He has been misrepresented. His “banking” is a cover. Next, what do we know about the two Al Qaeda leaders Bush had released, the ones who planned this?

According to ABC news, the Al Qaeda leaders running the insurgency in Yemen were released from Guantanamo, although two of the highest ranking known terrorists there, without trial.

Guantanamo prisoner #333, Muhamad Attik al-Harbi, and prisoner #372, Said Ali Shari, were sent to Saudi Arabia on Nov. 9, 2007, according to the Defense Department log of detainees who were released from American custody.

via Evidence Mounts for US Complicity in Terrorism: Mutallab’s father is no ordinary ‘banker’ — Signs of the Times News.

The Grim State of the States: Public Education Under Attack

Economist James Heintz is Associate Director of the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachussetts, Amherst.

Heintz has written on a wide range of economic policy issues, including job creation, global labor standards, egalitarian macroeconomic strategies, and investment behavior. He has worked as an international consultant on projects in Ghana and South Africa, sponsored by the International Labor Organization and the United Nations Development Program, that focus on employment-oriented development policy.

In 2000 Heintz co-authored with The Center for Popular Economics and Nancy Folbre The Ultimate Field Guide to the U.S. Economy: A Compact and Irreverent Guide to Economic Life in America, and is also author of a variety of other books and papers on employment and economics over the past decade or so.

His current work focuses on global labor standards, employment income, and poverty; employment policies for low- and middle-income countries; and the links between macroeconomic policies and distributive outcomes.

Heintz is recently the author of a new research paper: “The Grim State of the States: The Fiscal Crisis Facing State and Local Governments.” (.PDF), which opens with:

via The Grim State of the States: Public Education Under Attack | Antemedius.

McCaskill tells Demint his hold on TSA nominee is ‘nuts’.

McCaskill tells Demint his hold on TSA nominee is ‘nuts’.

Despite the attempted Christmas day airplane bombing, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) has continued to hold up the confirmation of President Obama’s nominee for the head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which handles airport security. Former FBI agent Erroll Southers was nominated for the position in September and has been approved by two Senate committees, but DeMint continues to obstruct the nomination because he wants Southers “to clarify his stand on unionizing the TSA.” Today, on CNN’s State of the Union, DeMint said that confirming Southers would “bring the security concerns of TSA under the authority of union bosses.” Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) responded, “with all due respect, this is nuts”:

With all due respect, this is nuts, holding him up over whether or not somebody’s going to be able to bargain for a better benefit.…This man will get confirmed and he’ll get confirmed by a wide margin. And playing games with the process, all it’s doing is hurting the traveling public because the most important frontline agency to protect Americans right now on flights is being held up over political stuff.

Watch it:

via Think Progress » McCaskill tells Demint his hold on TSA nominee is ‘nuts’..

Chertoff: More Ethnic ‘Profiling’ Could Be ‘Misleading And Arguably Dangerous’

As ThinkProgress has repeatedly noted, the right-wing has used the failed terrorist attack by Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to renew calls for greater ethnic profiling of Muslims. “There should be a separate line to scrutinize anybody with the name Abdul or Ahmed or Mohammed,” said conservative talk radio host Mike Gallagher on Fox News last week.

But when David Gregory asked former Bush CIA director Michael Hayden on Meet The Press today if we are “effectively ethnically profiling” potential terrorism suspects, Hayden pushed back against the idea of ethnic profiling as a solution:

HAYDEN: I’m not quite sure the context in which you’re asking the question David about ethnically profiling, but with regard to intelligence…

GREGORY: Isn’t there a profile of who we think the terrorists are?

HAYDEN: Of course there is, but it’s based more on behavior. I mean, for example, the individual in question here, Abdulmutallab, I mean he would not have automatically fit a profile if you were standing next to him in the visa line at Dulles, for example. So it’s the behavior that we’re attempting to profile. And it’s the behavior, these little bits and pieces of information that were in the databases that we didn’t quite stitch together at this point in time. But it wasn’t a question of ethnicity or religion. Those are contributing factors, but it’s what people do that we should be paying attention to.

via Think Progress » Chertoff: More Ethnic ‘Profiling’ Could Be ‘Misleading And Arguably Dangerous’.

Unhinged Republicans—In Their Own Words

A collection of quotes from Republican members of the 111th Congress weighing in on the important issues of the day: how health care reform will kill you; the nation’s descent into socialism, Nazism (or both); and why caribou like to mate next to oil pipelines:

Health Care Scaremongering

“Last week Democrats released a health care bill which essentially said to America’s seniors: Drop dead.” —Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite (R-Fla.)

“One in five people have to die because they went to socialized medicine!…I would hate to think that among five women, one of ‘em is gonna die because we go to socialized care.” —Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas)

The Republicans’ health care plan “is pro-life because it will not put seniors in a position of being put to death by their government.” —Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.)

“We’ve been battling this socialist health care, the nationalization of health care, that is going to absolutely kill senior citizens. They’ll put them on lists and force them to die early because they won’t get the treatment as early as they need.” —Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas)

“You have every right to fear. You shouldn’t have counseling at the end of life….We should not have a government program that determines if you’re going to pull the plug on grandma.” —Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa)

At a town hall meeting in August, Rep. Wally Herger (R-Calif.) described health care reform as a “threat to our democracy.” After a member of the audience volunteered, “I am a proud right-wing terrorist,” Herger replied, “Amen, God bless you. There is a great American.”

Full Story Unhinged Republicans—In Their Own Words | Mother Jones.

Google and India Test the Limits of Liberty

The rules of political speech on the Internet are usually pretty simple. In America, almost anything goes. In places like China, the censors call the shots. But in India — a boisterous democracy that’s riven by religious and ethnic tension — the game is far trickier, as Google is discovering.

In September, lawyers at Google Inc.’s New Delhi office got a tip from an Internet user about alarming content on the company’s social networking site, Orkut. People had posted offensive comments about the chief minister of India’s southern state of Andhra Pradesh, who had died just a few days earlier in a helicopter crash.

Google’s response: It removed not just the material but also the entire user group that contained it, a person familiar with the matter says. The Internet giant feared the comments could heighten tensions at a time when thousands of mourners of the popular politician were emptying into the street.

Full Story Google and India Test the Limits of Liberty – WSJ.com.

Project Censored: Top 25 Censored Stories

Top Censored Stories of 2009/2010

• 1. US Congress Sells Out to Wall Street
  
• 2. US Schools are More Segregated Today than in the 1950s
  
• 3. Toxic Waste Behind Somali Pirates
  
• 4. Nuclear Waste Pools in North Carolina
  
• 5. Europe Blocks US Toxic Products
  
• 6. Lobbyists Buy Congress
  
• 7. Obama’s Military Appointments Have Corrupt Past
  
• 8. Bailed out Banks and America’s Wealthiest Cheat IRS Out of Billions
• 9. US Arms Used for War Crimes in Gaza
• 10. Ecuador Declares Foreign Debt Illegitimate
• 11. Private Corporations Profit from the Occupation of Palestine
• 12. Mysterious Death of Mike Connell—Karl Rove’s Election Thief
• 13. Katrina’s Hidden Race War
• 14. Congress Invested in Defense Contracts
• 15. World Bank’s Carbon Trade Fiasco
• 16. US Repression of Haiti Continues
• 17. The ICC Facilitates US Covert War in Sudan
• 18. Ecuador’s Constitutional Rights of Nature
• 19. Bank Bailout Recipients Spent to Defeat Labor
• 20. Secret Control of the Presidential Debates
• 21. Recession Causes States to Cut Welfare
• 22. Obama’s Trilateral Commission Team
• 23. Activists Slam World Water Forum as a Corporate-Driven Fraud
• 24. Dollar Glut Finances US Military Expansion
• 25. Fast Track Oil Exploitation in Western Amazon
  

Full Story Top 25 Censored Stories for 2010 | Project Censored.

Obama’s Military Appointments Have Corrupt Past

Project Censored –

Obama’s retention of Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense makes Gates the first appointment from an outgoing administration of opposing party to be kept in the position. Over the last two years of the previous administration, Gates was a key implementer of Bush’s Iraq War “surge”—after he replaced Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who had opposed the escalation.

Obama’s appointees to the Department of Defense and National Intelligence embody many of the worst elements of US national security policy over the past three decades, including responsibility for what Obama himself has fingered as chief concerns, “politicized intelligence” and “lack of transparency.” The valued “decades of experience” these leaders bring with them are filled with ethical breeches, lies to Congress, and deep conflicts of interest and revolving doors within the US military industrial complex. Although Obama promised to keep lobbyists out of top government posts, many of those he appointmented are former lobbyists or former board members of companies directly doing business with the Pentagon.

Robert Gates, whose career has reflected and implemented neoconservative positions, also decried Obama’s plan for a phased withdrawal of US troops. Gates’s history as a career intelligence officer began under Nixon. But, as Robert Parry chronicles, it was as a senior CIA official in the 1980s under Reagan that Gates broke the back of the CIA analytical division’s commitment to objective intelligence.

In a recent book, Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA, former CIA analyst Melvin A. Goodman identifies Gates as “the chief action officer for the Reagan administration’s drive to tailor intelligence reporting to White House political desires.” As chief analyst under CIA director William Casey, Gates “guided the first institutionalized ‘cooking of the books’ at the CIA in the 1980s, with a particular emphasis on tailoring intelligence dealing with the Soviet Union, Central America, and Southwest Asia,” says Goodman, in order to justify increased US military spending and US support for bloody brushfire wars —central elements of Reagan’s foreign policy.

Full Story 7. Obama’s Military Appointments Have Corrupt Past | Project Censored.

Rick Warren Takes In $2.4 Million After Donations Plea

Evangelical pastor Rick Warren’s plea for donations to fill a $900,000 deficit at his Southern California megachurch brought in $2.4 million, Warren announced to cheers during a sermon at the church on Saturday.

Warren said the amount raised after the appeal was posted online Wednesday included only money parishioners brought in person to Saddleback Church by New Year’s Eve. More was arriving by hand and by mail, he said.

“This is pretty amazing,” said Warren, who made the announcement by bringing out 24 volunteers each holding a sign for $100,000. “I don’t think any church has gotten a cash offering like that off a letter.”

Full Story Rick Warren Takes In $2.4 Million After Donations Plea.

OPS:  God needs your money!

New Credit Card Tricks, Traps, and 79.9% APRs

The card industry is at it again, devising new tricks and traps to disguise the cost of its products and avoid price competition. Unfortunately, this was exactly what I predicted in the wake of the Credit CARD Act. I was a vocal supporter of the Credit CARD Act, but I also viewed it as a missed opportunity. Congress focused on prohibiting particular abusive credit card practices, but left the door wide open for the card industry to put all of its ingenuity to work devising new substitute practices. Far better if Congress had taken up a regulatory model that permitted card issuers to charge only certain specified types of fees (at whatever level).

Now, even before most of the Credit CARD Act’s provisions have gone effective, a new report from the Center for Responsible Lending finds that the card industry has already invented a new bunch of tricks and traps. (I’m still waiting to see an issuer implement my personal candidate–the “high risk transaction security fee”–which could be applied to pretty much any transaction the issuer wants to deem high risk.)

One thing the Credit CARD Act did quite effectively, however, was clamp down on so-called “Fee Harvester” cards-ultra subprime cards that charged extremely high upfront fees, but offered minimal lines of credit. The Credit CARD Act limits upfront fees to 25% of the line of credit, effective in February 2010.

Full Story New Credit Card Tricks, Traps, and 79.9% APRs – Credit Slips.