Archive for January, 2010
The U.S. Needs a New Market System
Ever since the 1980s, the leading theories in economics were typically tied somehow to “supply side” mechanics. It is obvious that we cannot tackle modern problems with antiquated strategies. Now is the time to come up with new ideas.
Ever since the 1980s, the leading theories in economics were typically tied somehow to “supply side” mechanics. The idea, which gained fame during the Reagan administration, of supply side economics is that by supporting those who produce goods – through tax cuts, subsidies, etc. – market forces are manipulated so as to ensure that prosperity “tickled down” to the rest of the economy.
The people at the top would become even wealthier, and everyone underneath would benefit someway from that wealth.
The people at the top of this economic pyramid certainly preferred to think that they and they alone were the driving force of global production. After nearly three decades of dominance, and multiple destructive recessions, supply side thinking seems to have finally died. Now, the world’s economic brain trust must struggle to find a better mode of building wealth.
The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, scheduled to run January 27-31, may be just the place to start.
Full Story The U.S. Needs a New Market System | Economy In Crisis.
Obama to Seek Three Year Spending Freeze
White House officials acknowledge that the freeze is more symbolic than substantive – in the most recent fiscal year, discretionary spending represented just $447 billion of the mutli-trillion dollar budget.
In a move designed to demonstrate the administration’s commitment to fiscal responsibility, the president will use his State of the Union address Wednesday night to call for a partial, non-security, discretionary spending freeze, multiple media outlets are reporting.
While details are still vague, anonymous White House officials have told sources that the proposed spending freeze would save $250 billion over the next decade. The freeze would take effect for the 2011 fiscal year which begins October 1, and last for a period of three years.
Exempt from the freeze are agencies that deal with security matters such as Defense, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs and State. Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security, for which money is allocated yearly based on a formula, would also be exempt.
Full Story Obama to Seek Three Year Spending Freeze | Economy In Crisis.
Right-wing Texas Education Board accidentally bans popular children’s book author.
Last week, ThinkProgress reported on the Texas Board of Education’s push to change the state’s social studies curriculum to marginalize progressives. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reveals that the latest to be nixed is actually popular children’s author Bill Martin Jr.:
In its haste to sort out the state’s social studies curriculum standards this month, the State Board of Education tossed children’s author Martin, who died in 2004, from a proposal for the third-grade section. Board member Pat Hardy, R-Weatherford, who made the motion, cited books he had written for adults that contain “very strong critiques of capitalism and the American system.”
Trouble is, the Bill Martin Jr. who wrote the Brown Bear series never wrote anything political, unless you count a book that taught kids how to say the Pledge of Allegiance, his friends said. The book on Marxism was written by Bill Martin, a philosophy professor at DePaul University in Chicago.
Full Story Think Progress » Right-wing Texas Education Board accidentally bans popular children’s book author..
Fox News Devastated Over Arrest Of ACORN Pimp, Says The Story Probably Needs ‘A Lot Of Context’
Fox News has been one of the biggest supporters of James O’Keefe, who is infamous for dressing up as a pimp and videotaping ACORN staffers offering to help the supposed pimp and his prostitutes secure funding for a brothel. The network constantly replayed coverage from his operation. In September, Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace named O’Keefe his “Power Player of the Week,” calling him an “undercover reporter” and a “fascinating character.”
Yesterday, the FBI arrested O’Keefe and three others — “charged with entering federal property under false pretenses with the intent of committing a felony” — saying that they were plotting to wiretap Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office (D-LA). One of the other men, Robert Flanagan, is the son of William Flanagan, the acting U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana. Two of the men “dressed as telephone company employees” and showed up to Landrieu’s New Orleans office, saying they had to “fix phone problems.” O’Keefe was already there and was “positioning his cell phone in his hand to videotape the operation”:
After being asked, the staffer gave Basel access to the main phone at the reception desk. The staffer told investigators that Basel manipulated the handset. He also tried to call the main office phone using his cell phone, and said the main line wasn’t working. Flanagan did the same.
OPS: You can bet that their creative writing department is creating that ‘Context’ ASAP. We’re still wondering if O’Keefe has cashed any News Corp checks lately.
Why Is Nelson OK With Using Reconciliation For Tax Cuts For Millionaires But Not For Health Care For Americans?
Following the election of Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) in the Massachusetts special election, Democrats have been discussing ways to pass a comprehensive health care bill that will not be killed by a GOP-led filibuster. One idea that has been floated is for the House to pass the Senate’s health care bill and also immediately amend the bill to make it more progressive and acceptable to members in the House via a reconciliation bill, which requires only a simple majority vote in the Senate to pass.
Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) rejected this path, telling the Politico that he does not support the reconciliation process and that the health care bill should be broken up and voted on “a piece at a time, as opposed to a comprehensive approach.” He explained, “We’ve tried a comprehensive approach and it’s clear that it won’t be possible.” While Nelson rules reconciliation out of the question for health care, he was singing a different tune in the past. The Nebraska senator has voted in favor of four of the five bills passed through reconciliation since he came to office in 2001, including Bush’s tax cuts for the super-wealthy:
– Nelson voted to use reconciliation to pass Bush’s 2001 tax cuts for the wealthy. The senator was one of twelve Democrats who voted for the $1.3 trillion in tax cuts contained in the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, which included billions of dollars of tax cuts for the super-wealthy. [5/26/2001]
O’Reilly Gripes That Haiti Benefit Organizers Are Ignoring Him — After His Network Refused To Air The Event
Last night on his Fox News show, Bill O’Reilly bashed the Hope for Haiti Now global benefit, which aired live on Jan. 22. The telethon has so far raised $61 million in donations from the general public for Haiti relief efforts. O’Reilly said that he had concerns about how the money was going to be distributed, and the fact that the telethon “could not or would not supply us a spokesperson” to go on his show was “not a good sign”:
O’REILLY: Factor Follow-up segment tonight, getting charity to Haiti. As you may know, a TV telethon last Friday raised nearly $60 million to help the folks at Factor, but now comes the hard part: getting the money to the people who are suffering. Now, we tried to get someone attached to the telethon to speak with us tonight. We were not successful, and that is not a good sign. [...]
I want to be very careful in this discussion. I want Americans to be charitable to the Haitian people. I think they need it. I, myself, have given money to that island nation for a long time. We called up the telethon, which was based out of MTV, and said, Look, we just need somebody to just run through the process where the money goes, how it’s distributed, what the time frame is, all of that. We’ve got DVD albums in play. We’ve got all kinds of stuff coming in.
ACORN Smear Journalist Arrested for Alleged Attempt to Bug Sen. Mary Landrieu’s Office
Four young right-wing activists were arrested by Federal marshals for attempting to bug the Louisiana Senator’s office.
James O’Keefe, the young right-wing activist who posed as a pimp to “break” the ACORN “scandal,” has been arrested by the FBI, along with three alleged accomplices, for attempting to bug the New Orleans offices of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA).
According to a federal affidavit, O’Keefe, along with Joseph Basel, Stan Dai and Robert Flanagan, all 24 years of age, entered the federal building on Monday dressed as telephone company repairmen. According to the Times-Picayune, O’Keefe had entered the office and told a staffer that he was waiting for someone else to arrive. The three other men wore “jeans, fluorescent green vests, tool belts, and hard hats.”
By accounts, it was a clownish operation. Basel and Flanagan said they were there to repair a phone problem, gained access to the phone system, and were caught when they told a General Services Administration employee that they’d left their credentials in the car. According to the Times-Picayune, O’Keefe attempted to record the entire incident on his cell phone.
Blocking Bernanke is Smart Economics, Smart Politics for Dems
John Nichols -
If the Democratic Party wants to lose – or, to be more precise, wants to lose badly in 2010 and 2012, it need only maintain its current loyalty to the most powerful interests on Wall Street.
The United States already has a party of Wall Street. It does not need two.
Yet, despite an occasional populist turn (like his current bank bashing), President Obama has with his absurd nominations and even more absurd policies given every indication that he intends to position the Democratic Party closer to corporate interests than all but the most reprehensible Republicans.
Forget about Obama’s rhetorical flourishes. As a candidate and as a president, he has too frequently chosen to side with multinational corporations rather than working Americans.
Full Story Blocking Bernanke is Smart Economics, Smart Politics for Dems.
Geithner Must Go–and the Future of the Fed
William Greider -
The first casualty of the president’s political debacle will likely be Timothy Geithner, the severely over-confident treasury secretary well known as a lapdog of Wall Street. Geithner was effectively repudiated by the president last week when Barack Obama abruptly announced a new, more aggressive approach to financial reform. But the immediate threat to Geithner is the scandal of collusion and possibly illegal behavior gathering around the Federal Reserve Bank of New York for its megabillion-dollar takeover of insurance giant AIG.
Tim Geithner is standing in the middle of the muck because he was still president of the New York Fed in the fall of 2008 when it rescued AIG with tons of public money (now totaling $180 billion). The facts of the deal are catching up with him now and none are good, since they raise doubts about his competence and his public integrity. This scandal has smoldered for several weeks in newspaper business sections, but is about to grab front-page attention.
The House Oversight Committee, chaired by Edolphus Towns, has turned up damning evidence and called Geithner to testify the week of January 27. Committee investigators are poring through some 250,000 e-mails and subpoenaed documents and finding smoking revelations. House Republicans smell blood. House Democrats, given the present climate of popular discontent, are unlikely to rally around tainted goods.
Perhaps the most explosive revelation is that Geithner’s subordinates at the New York Fed instructed AIG executives to evade securities law and conceal from the public the $62 billion the insurance company paid out on contracts with the largest investment houses and banks. AIG was already bankrupt and 80 percent owned by the government, kept afloat solely with the billions being injected by the central bank. Yet the Fed told the company to pay off the bankers at full value–100 percent on the dollar–without negotiating a better deal for the public. The bankers would not have collected a dime if the government hadn’t come to the rescue.
Full Story Geithner Must Go–and the Future of the Fed.
Is Eating Sugar Really That Bad for Us?
Americans eat 156 pounds of sugar per person per year. How did this happen and how concerned should we be?
Want to gross yourself out? Imagine eating eight teaspoons of sugar straight out of the bag. Yeek, right? That's how much sugar is in a can of Coke. A Grande Vanilla Starbucks Frappuccino has 11. A McDonald’s Strawberry Triple Thick Shake has 27.
The American Heart Association’s latest guidelines stipulate that a moderately active woman should eat no more than six teaspoons of sugar per day; her male counterpart no more than nine. Yet according to the AHA’s latest statistics, the average American devours 22, and the average teenager devours 34.
Sugar is being blamed far and wide for the catastrophic rise in obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease — not to mention acne and tooth decay. In his bestselling book Anticancer: A New Way of Life (Viking, 2009), Doctors Without Borders cofounder David Servan-Schreiber avows that refined sugars “directly fuel the growth of cancer.” Killjoy. I gave up sweet drinks years ago, but I would live on ice cream if it wasn’t so embarrassing.
Full Story Is Eating Sugar Really That Bad for Us? | Food | AlterNet.
Obama and Volcker Must Go After the Big Banks
Nomi Prins -
Thus far, President Obama’s financial reform strategy has reeked of political expediency—talk tough to Wall Street, act gentle, ride out the populist anti-banker tide, hope for the best, change nothing. But Obama may have awakened to the smell of one-term coffee after last week’s Massachusetts Senate race results. It’s certainly heartening to see Obama eschewing the advice of Wall Street-placating Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner for that of the sager, former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker. Nevertheless, demonstrating the serious financial reform behind the political fluff talk will take more than a stint of administrative realignment.
Big bank stocks tanked after Obama rolled out the new Volcker rule, and mainstream media headlines attributed the declines to investor concerns that the crazy days of unregulated bank trading will be coming to an end. But the President’s actual proposals were not enough to seriously rattle anyone on Wall Street. If anything, the banks were fretting over the prospect of losing the tag-team of Geithner and Fed Chief Ben Bernanke, whose joint brainpower has showered $6.4 trillion in subsidies upon the industry.
Full Story Obama and Volcker Must Go After the Big Banks | Economy | AlterNet.
America Increasingly Looks Like A Developing Nation As 30% Of Americans Rapidly Approach Poverty, Or Are Already There
A shocking report from Brookings exposes just how massive America’s poverty problem is. While substantial reductions in poverty were made during the 1990′s, America’s poor have been rocked by the dual economic downturns since 2000.
The result is that poverty grew at twice the rate of U.S. population growth from 2000 – 2008, and now encompasses 39.1 million Americans.
If one were to expand the definition of poverty to merely ‘poor’ (yet still very poor), then a eye-popping 30% of the nation lives no higher than twice the poverty base line.
Home Depot to lay off 1,000
Home Depot to cut 1,000 staffers as it consolidates jobs, ends some pilot programs
Home Depot Inc., the largest U.S. home-improvement retailer, said Tuesday it is laying off 1,000 staffers as it cuts three pilot programs and cuts some support positions.
An internal memo sent to staffers by CEO Frank Blake said about 900 of the cuts stem from consolidating some support functions in its human resources, finance and other divisions.
The rest come from the company closing a small-format pilot store in Wilson, N.C.; a temporary hurricane recovery outlet in Waveland, Miss.; and a clearance outlet in Austell, Ga. Blake said in the memo there were no plans to close any full-size Home Depot stores.
The cuts are less than 1 percent of Home Depot’s more than 300,000 workers.
Full Story Home Depot to lay off 1,000 – Yahoo! Finance.
EU has doubts as ISP rolls out DPI for copyright enforcement
Virgin rolls out packet inspection
Back in November, UK ISP Virgin Media announced that it would start using deep packet inspection gear to start riffling through user traffic. The goal was to search some of the leading P2P networks in order to measure copyrighted material passing through them. Today, the European Commission indicated that the plan is problematic, and it will keep a close eye on the trial.
In the middle of last year, Virgin announced a stunning music plan: unlimited streaming and downloads of non-DRMed music files from Universal (with deals hopefully to come from other labels). The music would be part of your ISP subscription fee, and downloads would be yours to keep forever.
After giving Virgin permission to use the “carrot,” though, labels wanted a bit more “stick” applied to users who continued to infringe copyright. Virgin had no real way to measure the effective rate of copyright infringement by its users, so in November 2009 it turned to Detica, a unit of European arms contractor BAE systems.
Full Story EU has doubts as ISP rolls out DPI for copyright enforcement.
Congressional Democrats call ‘time-out’ on Obama’s health reforms
Democrats retreated Tuesday from a quick push to pass President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, lacking a workable strategy to salvage the sweeping legislation that has consumed Congress for more than a year.
“There is no rush,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said after a meeting of Senate Democrats. His comments came as two centrists said they would oppose the plan Democratic leaders were considering to reconcile differences between the House and Senate bills and put comprehensive legislation on Obama’s desk.
A week after the loss of a Massachusetts Senate seat — their 60th vote — cost Democrats undisputed control of the congressional agenda, leaders are still casting about for a way forward. Given the congressional schedule, it could be weeks — late February at the earliest — before they act.
Full Story Congressional Democrats call ‘time-out’ on Obama’s health reforms | Raw Story.
OPS: Democrats, in retreat as usual.
HuffPost Comedy’s State Of The Union Drinking Game 2010
| Event | Instructions |
|---|---|
| Obama says “let me be clear” | Do one shot |
| Obama says “change isn’t easy” | Do one shot |
| Obama says “make no mistake” | Do one shot |
| Obama says “Let me be clear, change isn’t easy, make no mistake.” | He’s screwing with you to get you drunk, so five shots |
| Joe Wilson yells something | Do two shots |
more….
HuffPost Comedy’s State Of The Union Drinking Game 2010.
Markus Reinhardt Dead: Davos Security Chief Dies In Apparent Suicide
Marcus Reinhardt, the head of security at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos Switzterland, has died in apparent suicide, according to a multiple news reports. Reinhardt was 61 and was found dead in his hotel room early Tuesday morning.
The Associated Press reports the following from Davos:
A regional official said that the police commander in charge of security for the World Economic Forum has died in an apparent suicide.
The regional governor said Markus Reinhardt was found dead Tuesday in his Davos hotel room.
The five-day forum starts Wednesday and will attract 2,500 of the world’s business and political elite to the Swiss Alpine resort.
Reinhardt, 61, was captain of Graubuenden’s cantonal police and was responsible for organizing Davos’ security.
The death and apparent suicide was announced by Graubuenden’s governor Claudio Lardi.
Full Story Markus Reinhardt Dead: Davos Security Chief Dies In Apparent Suicide.
OPS: IF you believe that one – we have this bridge……
House And Senate Discussing Reconciliation For Health Care
Final Health Care Negotiations To Be Televised
Laying out the way forward on health care reform Tuesday, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) confirmed that Congress and the White House are discussing the use of reconciliation to “correct” the Senate legislation with a supplemental bill that would require only a simple majority in the upper chamber.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) avoided using that particular parliamentary tactic for health care last year, partly because reconciliation bars the inclusion of policy provisions that don’t affect overall cost. But since the Senate has already passed the fundamental health reform bill, reconciliation could be used to fast-track a bill that simply amends cost provisions in the existing legislation — if the House votes to pass the main Senate bill as is. The alternative, crafting a compromise bill in conference, would require 60 votes in the Senate again.
The reconciliation proposal has gained serious attention in the week since Senate Democrats lost their filibuster-proof supermajority with the election of Scott Brown to Ted Kennedy’s former seat. At his weekly press briefing Tuesday, Hoyer said the use of a supplemental health reform bill is “certainly” one of the top four options being considered.
Full Story Hoyer: House And Senate Discussing Reconciliation For Health Care.
Deep In Recession Red Ink, Bush-era Tax Break Robs States of Funds That Could Help
It’s burdened by the nation’s highest unemployment, and a staggering 14 percent of its residents live in poverty. But at a time when the state of Michigan could be reaching out to help the unemployed, its leaders are retrenching with cuts to Medicaid, education — even training to help workers find new jobs — as they attempt to make up a budget shortfall north of $1.5 billion.
Sadly, much of this pain is needless suffering. Michigan, along with two dozen other states, are losing tax dollars they could have collected — and today so desperately need — if only for a federal corporate tax break enacted by Congress in 2004 that the states themselves had no direct say in, according to an analysis by a Washington think tank that deals with matters important to low- and moderate-income Americans.
It’s called the “domestic production deduction,” and because most states base their own tax codes on the federal tax code, the domestic production deduction was carried over into many states without specific legislative scrutiny or a vote, say the authors of the analysis, Nicholas Johnson and Ashali Singham of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP).
Full Story On The Hill: Deep In Recession Red Ink, Bush-era Tax Break Robs States of Funds That Could Help.
Is Bernanke Hiding A Smoking Gun?
A Republican senator said Tuesday that documents showing Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernake covered up the fact that his staff recommended he not bailout AIG are being kept from the public. And a House Republican charged that a whistleblower had alerted Congress to specific documents provide “troubling details” of Bernanke’s role in the AIG bailout.
Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.), a Bernanke critic, said on CNBC that he has seen documents showing that Bernanke overruled such a recommendation. If that’s the case, it raises questions about whether bailing out AIG was actually necessary, and what Bernanke’s motives were.
A letter Bunning sent Monday to Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) also refers to an “[e]mail exchange regarding restructuring of assistance to AIG, initiated by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner” in March 2009.
Full Story Is Bernanke Hiding A Smoking Gun?.
ACORN gotcha man among four arrested for attempting to tamper with Mary Landrieu’s office phones
Alleging a plot to tamper with phones in Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office in the Hale Boggs Federal Building in downtown New Orleans, the FBI arrested four people Monday, including James O’Keefe, 25, a conservative filmmaker whose undercover videos at ACORN field offices severely damaged the advocacy group’s credibility.
Also arrested were Joseph Basel, Stan Dai and Robert Flanagan, all 24. Flanagan is the son of William Flanagan, who is the acting U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, the office confirmed. All four were charged with entering federal property under false pretenses with the intent of committing a felony.
According to the FBI affidavit, Flanagan and Basel entered the federal building at 500 Poydras Street about 11 a.m. Monday, dressed as telephone company employees, wearing jeans, fluorescent green vests, tool belts, and hard hats. When they arrived at Landrieu’s 10th floor office, O’Keefe was already in the office and had told a staffer he was waiting for someone to arrive.
“Obama Putting His Credibility On the Line By Criticizing Wall Street While Pushing Bernanke”
There’s an increasing – if still unlikely – chance that enough rogue Senate Democrats will finally join with rank-and-file Senate Republicans to vote down Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s renomination. The fact that there is even this chance is a testament to the parts of the progressive movement and courageous progressive senators like Bernie Sanders, Jeff Merkley, Byron Dorgan, Barbara Boxer and Russ Feingold that have been willing to call for Bernanke to be rejected.
Bernanke has the entire political and financial Establishment – ie. the corporatocracy – behind him, from the Obama administration to both parties’ congressional leadership to the Wall Street banks. But the argument against him, which I summed up in a recent newspaper column, is about as powerful as it gets: Reappointing someone who fell down on the regulatory job and then doled out trillions of no-strings-attached taxpayer dollars to clean up his mess would create a political moral hazard that tells all other regulators they can do the same exact thing and expect to retain their jobs.
Unfortunately, the truism in that argument is not a trump card. The Obama administration, rather than using all of its political capital to actually fix the economy and deliver genuine “change,” is now fighting tooth and nail to make sure Bernanke – a Bush appointee – is reappointed. Underscoring the sordid corporatist politics behind this nomination is a Politico dispatch noting that White House “strategy on the Bernanke confirmation was being led by former Enron lobbyist Linda Robertson, who is viewed as an effective advocate for the banking chief on Capitol Hill.”
Full Story Open Left:: “Obama Putting His Credibility On the Line By Criticizing Wall Street While Pushing Bernanke”.
OPS: that horse has just about left the barn.
Greenpeace Calls For Arctic Ocean Drilling Ban
Greenpeace Calls For Arctic Ocean Drilling Ban As Oil Industry And Governments Meet
Tromsø, Norway, 24 January 2010 – Greenpeace is calling for an immediate moratorium on all activity by extractive industries in the Arctic Ocean, as representatives from oil companies, governments and scientists meet to discuss the future of the region at the Arctic Frontiers Conference, (25-29 January) in Tromsø, Norway.
Greenpeace Nordic Executive Director Mads Flarup Christensen will address the conference plenary on Tuesday 26 January at 14.50-15.20
he moratorium needs to cover the part of the Arctic Ocean that has historically been covered by sea ice and remain in place until a permanent international agreement is established, similar to the agreement that protects the Antarctic.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the Arctic Ocean seabed contains over 20% of the world’s fossil fuel resources. With the urgent need to cut carbon emissions drastically and avert catastrophic climate change, these must stay underground.
Full Story Scoop: Greenpeace Calls For Arctic Ocean Drilling Ban.
Double Standard For Bernanke: Only 50 Votes Needed In Senate
When it comes to progressive priorities in the Senate, there’s one standard: 60 votes are needed. But for Ben Bernanke, there’s a second standard: 50 will be just fine, thank you.
Democratic leaders in the Senate are asking colleagues who are reluctant to support Bernanke’s nomination for a second term as Federal Reserve chairman to nevertheless vote with them to end a filibuster and allow a vote on the actual nomination. The reluctant members would then be free to vote no to express their displeasure. Several Democrats have committed to just that and others are considering it.
The public health insurance option was stripped from health care reform because it didn’t have 60 votes. An expansion of Medicare took its place but it, too, was dropped for having fewer than 60. Both proposals had at least 50 votes. Dawn Johnsen, a nominee to head the Office of Legal Counsel, has the backing of progressive organizations, but a 60-vote threshold has held her up for a year.
Full Story Double Standard For Bernanke: Only 50 Votes Needed In Senate.
Dean Baker: Don’t be stupid with the economy
If Ben Bernanke is approved for a second term as chair of the Federal Reserve Board, the decision will ignore his key mistakes
The US Senate’s decision on approving Ben Bernanke for a second term as chair of the Federal Reserve Board is coming down to the wire and the Wall Street crew is once again pulling out all the stops. To get the 60 votes they need for Senate approval they are reaching into the treasure chest of tall tales they used to push through the troubled asset relief programme (Tarp). They are once again telling the American people that the world will end if we don’t do exactly what they want.
The main story they are pushing is that if Bernanke is not approved then the markets will panic and send the economy tumbling. Both parts of this story deserve some serious scepticism. First, there undoubtedly will be some uncertainty in the financial markets if Bernanke is not reappointed. Markets like continuity. A new Fed chair means a break in continuity. Therefore, we can expect to see some decline in the stock market, probably about the same as we get when there is a worse-than-expected jobs report.
However, focusing on day-to-day movements in the stock market is no way to make economic policy. For practical purposes, the daily movements in the market have no impact on the economy. Furthermore, there is no way to move the economy away from its current Wall Street bubble-driven growth path to one built on a productive economy without at least some temporary decline in stock prices.
Full Story Don’t be stupid with the economy | Dean Baker | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.
The Orgasm Wars
Evolutionary biologists think female orgasms may pick the best sperm.
For years, scientists have been debating the function of female orgasm. Now they’ve finally figured it out. For women, the psychology of sexual satisfaction turns out to be much more sophisticated than most (male) scientists have been willing to concede. Of course.
Ever since Alfred Kinsey and Masters and Johnson made the subject of human sexual response safe for respectable scientists, laboratory studies of the physiologic “hows” of sexual arousal have flourished. Volunteers have been prodded, filmed, tape-recorded, interviewed, measured, wired, and monitored, quantifying for the annals of science the shortened breath, arched backs and feet, grimacing faces, marginally intentional vocalizations, and jumping blood pressure of human orgasm.
While physiological details abound, fewer scientists have attempted to answer the “why” questions about human orgasm. To those who view human behavior in an evolutionary framework, which we believe adds an invaluable perspective, male orgasm is no great mystery. It’s little more than a physiologically simple ejaculation that is accompanied by a nearly addictive incentive to seek out further sexual encounters. The greater the number of inseminations a male achieves, the better his chances of being genetically represented in future generations.
Full Story The Orgasm Wars | Psychology Today.
Cover-up of the Flight 253 Affair
Relevant questions begging for answers include: Who made the decision not to “connect the dots”? Are right-wing elements and holdovers from the previous administration actively conspiring to destabilize the Obama government? Was the attempted bombing a planned provocation meant to incite new conflicts in the Middle East and restrict democratic rights at home?
As with the 9/11 attacks, these questions go unasked by corporate media. Indeed, such lines of inquiry are entirely off the table and are further signs that a cover-up is in full-swing, not a hard-hitting investigation.
Nearly one month after passengers foiled an attempted suicide bomb attack aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 as it approached Detroit on Christmas Day, new information reveals that the White House and U.S. security agencies had specific intelligence on accused terrorist, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, far earlier than previously acknowledged.
Along with new reports, evidence suggests that the administration's cover-up of the affair has very little to do with a failure by the intelligence apparatus to “connect the dots” and may have far more serious political implications for the Obama administration, and what little remains of a functioning democracy in the United States, than a botched bombing.
Full Story The Obama Administration’s Cover-up of the Flight 253 Affair.
Senate rejects Gregg’s ill-conceived plan to create a deficit commission.
In recent weeks, the country’s financial debt has been in national headlines, and policymakers have been debating ways to eventually close the $1.4 trillion budget deficit. One such solution to the national debt has been proposed by “deficit peacock” Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH), who wants to create a commission “charged with crafting ways to reduce the country’s long-term deficits.” This afternoon, the Senate voted on Gregg’s commission, and it failed to attain the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster:
greggThe Senate Tuesday rejected a plan to create a tough, powerful commission to recommend ways of slashing the federal debt, but the close vote made it clear that tackling the problem is an urgent priority. [...]
Though the vote to approve the commission plan was 53 to 46, it failed because under Senate rules, 60 votes were needed for passage.
Full Story Think Progress » Senate rejects Gregg’s ill-conceived plan to create a deficit commission..
It only gets worse this year for commercial real estate
Commercial real estate is expected to remain a drag on the U.S. economy through 2010 and beyond.
“You do see stress in the market. We’ve seen delinquency rates increasing; we’ve seen by a whole variety of measures increased stress in the commercial real estate market,” said Jamie Woodwell, the vice president of commercial real estate research for the Mortgage Bankers Association.
Commercial real estate encompasses everything from shopping malls and storefronts to industrial parks and hotels. Delinquencies on bonds backed by pools of commercial real estate loans continue climbing to record levels.
Full Story It only gets worse this year for commercial real estate | McClatchy.
There is no help. We need food and water. Urgently
In front of the presidential palace, its roof folded in like a collapsed soufflé, Marcellus Samuel, a Haitian preacher, grabs my notebook and scribbles frantically on to the page.
“There is no help. Everybody is sleeping in the streets. We need food, water and clothes,” he writes. “URGENTLY!”
Around him, hundreds of Haitians left homeless by the recent earthquake crowd into a rag-tag refugee camp cobbled together from black tarpaulins, filthy carpets and branches, and erected in the square in front of the palace’s wreckage.
Even before the earthquake, life was seldom easy in the slums of Port-au-Prince, some of the poorest areas of the poorest country in the Americas. World Bank statistics show that life expectancy here is 57, against an average of 69 in Latin and Central America. More than 80% of the population of Haiti survives on less than the equivalent of £2 a day, while HIV and unemployment rates are staggeringly high.
The latest catastrophe, however, has taken the city to a new level of hellishness.
Full Story There is no help. We need food and water. Urgently – Herald Scotland | News | World News.
Obama’s Spending Freeze: A Return To Infantilism
The lack of merit to the idea of a three-year spending freeze has already been well picked over. Suffice it to say, as Robert Reich points out, it’s a huge jobs killer. It excludes significant sources of debt, like defense spending. It indicates that the White House has all but abandoned making the case for health care reform as a means of reducing long-term structural deficits.
And since powerful lobbies still exist and continue to exert influence on policy, the programs that find themselves in the crosshairs will inevitably be those without powerful, moneyed influence groups behind them. So it won’t be wasteful farm subsidies that are eliminated — it will be programs that benefit middle and lower class Americans.
So much for that alliance between the White House and ACORN, I guess!
Beyond the bad economics, however, there’s a more fundamental betrayal of principles, which I think Ryan Avent explains very eloquently in his blog for The Economist:
Full Story Obama’s Spending Freeze: A Return To Infantilism.
As Health Files Go Digital, Patients May Spot Unpleasant Surprises
When Kaiser Permanente started giving patients online access to their medical records nearly five years ago, it offered the same lab reports doctors saw–complete with warning flags highlighting any abnormal results.
The capital letters – such as “H” for “high” — alarmed many patients. So now the giant health plan has modified the policy for most of its members. It displays lab results in a more neutral way, showing patients how they compare to normal ranges and advising them to contact their health practitioner with any questions.
The experience at Kaiser reflects the sensitivities that can arise over how much medical data patients should be entitled to view and how quickly–a debate that’s intensifying as medicine enters the digital era.
Full Story As Health Files Go Digital, Patients May Spot Unpleasant Surprises.
A Tale Of Two SOTUs
Paul Krugman
In 1982 Ronald Reagan gave his first State of the Union address. His approval rating was about the same as Barack Obama’s now. His economic track record was considerably worse: instead of presiding over the end of a recession, he had presided over the beginning of one, and the economy was in free fall. Nonetheless, Reagan mounted an unapologetic defense of his economic ideology, combined with a harsh critique of his precedecessors.
We haven’t heard Obama’s SOTU yet. But the big news seems to be the spending freeze. What I hear from bat-squeaks is that it’s not a big deal on economic substance, and that admin officials hope it will clear the way for some modest job-creation efforts. We’ll see about that. Rhetorically, however, Obama is clearly, conspicuously endorsing his opponents’ world-view — which will buy him precisely nothing in return.
I don’t think I’m going to watch the SOTU; all indications are that it will be deeply, deeply depressing.
Full Story A Tale Of Two SOTUs – Paul Krugman Blog – NYTimes.com.
Obama Allies Struggle To Defend Spending Freeze
Some of President Obama’s strongest allies in the labor world and the Democratic community struggled on Tuesday to defend his plan to implement a three-year freeze on discretionary “non-security” spending.
SEIU President Andy Stern, who is closely allied with the White House, did his best to put a good face on the plan but expressed doubts about its effectiveness. Noting that the freeze in spending will only become operational in 2011, he argued that the administration has enough time to spend money on job creation initiatives and government programs that can turn the economy around.
“We are in 2010 and there is a lot that can be done (between now and then),” the union boss told the Huffington Post. “You can do state and local fiscal relief, you can do jobs, you can do many things this year. So I want to see what they are doing this year. You can always fix the future. You can’t change the present.”
But Stern also emphasized that if people thought a spending freeze was going to solve the nation’s fiscal problems, they didn’t “get the nature of what needs to be done right now to get people back to work.”
Full Story Obama Allies Struggle To Defend Spending Freeze.
OPS: By November it will have become impossible
Paulson To Testify With Geithner On AIG Payments
Former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, the Bush-era architect of the massive bailout of ailing financial firms, will testify alongside his successor Timothy Geithner at Wednesday’s hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Paulson, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs, has accepted the committee’s invitation to testify on his knowledge of the government’s controversial decision to pay $27 billion to AIG’s counterparties in 2008, says a spokesman for the committee’s ranking Republican Darrell Issa.
In addition, former New York Federal Reserve chairman Stephen Friedman will testify. He resigned in May 2009 amid a controversy over his role as a director of Goldman Sachs and his purchases of the firm’s shares.
Full Story Paulson To Testify With Geithner On AIG Payments.
Passing Health Reform Would Contribute To Obama’s Deficit Reduction Goals
This morning, Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe to (unsurprisingly) endorse President Obama’s new proposal to institute a discretionary spending freeze for two years. “The freeze would affect $447 billion in spending, or 17% of the total federal budget,” but it would “exempt security-related budgets for the Pentagon, foreign aid, the Veterans Administration and homeland security, as well as the entitlement programs that make up the biggest and fastest-growing part of the federal budget: Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.”
Bayh supported Obama’s new approach but criticized him for spending too much time on health care reform. “We can have progressive government in this country, but you’ve got to take it a step at a time. You’ve got to be in touch with the times you’re in,” he said:
And going with the large bill in the middle of the worst recession since the 1930s and a major new expenditure at a time we were running a $30 trillion deficit just didn’t resonate real well. Monday morning quarterbacking is not something I’m into, but you’ve gt to learn from these sorts of things, and going forward let’s do what we can in a common sense way.
Watch it:
Full Story Think Progress » Passing Health Reform Would Contribute To Obama’s Deficit Reduction Goals.
Halliburton/KBR Goes After Rape Survivor Jamie Leigh Jones’ Personal Integrity In Its Supreme Court Petition
In 2005, Jamie Leigh Jones was gang-raped by her co-workers while she was working for Halliburton/KBR in Baghdad. The attack occurred while she was out with a “small group of Halliburton firefighters,” just four days after her arrival in Iraq. After taking a few sips of her drink, she later woke up in the barracks, “naked” and “severely beaten.” Her “breasts were so badly mauled that she is permanently disfigured.”
In an apparent attempt to cover up the incident, the company then put her in a shipping container for at least 24 hours without food, water, or a bed, and “warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she’d be out of a job.” Even more insultingly, the DOJ resisted bringing any criminal charges in the matter.
Jones tried to sue the company for failing to protect her, but KBR argued that Jones’ employment contract — created for the company by then-CEO Dick Cheney — warranted her claims being heard in private arbitration, without jury, judge, public record, or transcript of the proceedings. Basically, KBR argued that Jones’ brutal rape was a workplace injury — nothing more. But in September, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Jones. “Jones’ allegations do not ‘touch matters’ related to her employment, let alone have a ’significant relationship’ to her employment contract,” wrote the court.
Democrats: Bar Foreign Money from U.S. Politics
Van Hollen Says Supreme Court’s Decision in Citizens United Case Left Door Open to Overseas Donors
Rep. Chris Van Hollen said Monday that Democrats are crafting legislation to prevent foreign owned corporations from funneling money into American political campaigns, saying the prospect of overseas influence is a “big danger” in the aftermath of a landmark Supreme Court opinion that changed the rules for political fundraising.
Van Hollen said a ban on foreign-owned companies from donating will be part of broad legislation being crafted by Democratic leaders in Congress, in consultation with the White House. Van Hollen and Sen. Chuck Schumer, D.-N.Y., will be drafting the bill, which will try and unwind the court’s action.
Full Story Democrats: Bar Foreign Money from U.S. Politics – ABC News.
10 Ways to Stop the Corporate Dominance of Politics following Ctizens United v. FEC
It’s not too late to limit or reverse the impact of the Supreme Court’s disastrous decision in Citizens United v. FEC.
The recent Supreme Court decision to allow unlimited corporate spending in politics just may be the straw that breaks the plutocracy’s back.
Pro-democracy groups, business leaders, and elected representatives are proposing mechanisms to prevent or counter the millions of dollars that corporations can now draw from their treasuries to push for government action favorable to their bottom line. The outrage ignited by the Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission extends to President Obama, who has promised that repairing the damage will be a priority for his administration.
But what can be done to limit or reverse the effect of the Court’s decision? Here are 10 ideas:
- Amend the U.S. Constitution to declare that corporations are not persons and do not have the rights of human beings. Since the First Amendment case for corporate spending as a free speech right rests on corporations being considered “persons,” the proposed amendment would strike at the core of the ruling’s justification. The push for the 28th Amendment is coming from the grassroots, where a prairie fire is catching on from groups such as Public Citizen, Voter Action, and the Campaign to Legalize Democracy.
Full Story 10 Ways to Stop the Corporate Dominance of Politics following Ctizens United v. FEC.
For corporate media, all advocacy isn’t created equal
In 2004, the United Church of Christ produced a television commercial promoting its inclusive approach to organized faith. The ad showed two nightclub-style bouncers guarding the rope line of a church as they denied entry to a gay male couple, several people of color, and a man in a wheelchair. By contrast, a white family of four had no problems getting through.
“Jesus didn’t turn people away” was the ad’s tagline, but CBS did, turning down the commercial which was intended for broadcast during that year’s Super Bowl. The 30-second spot apparently violated the network’s policy of “prohibiting advocacy ads, even ones that carry an ‘implicit’ endorsement for a side in a public debate.”
Now, six years later, CBS has agreed to run an ad by the notoriously anti-reproductive rights, anti-gay organization Focus on the Family, featuring college football star and anti-choice crusader Tim Tebow.
The network’s blatantly hypocritical decision has sparked intense controversy and brought new light to the shadowy world of corporate media policy governing political or issue-advocacy commercials.
Full Story For corporate media, all advocacy isn’t created equal | Media Matters for America.
The Republican Spending Explosion
CATO Institute ( a Libertarian ‘think’-tank)
Another excuse given for the current fed- eral spending binge is that national security needs are driving up the budget. Certainly, defense spending has increased dramatically since the late 1990s, particularly since 9/11. However, Figure 4 shows that discretionary nondefense spending has risen almost as rapidly as defense spending in recent years. The president’s new budget shows that real discretionary defense spending will increase 36 percent between FY2001 and FY2005 and nondefense spending will increase 25 per- cent. These increases are much larger than increases under most recent presidents.
…
Bush increased the Discretionary Nondefense spending more than half a trillion dollars in his first 3 years as President. Perhaps Pres. Obama wants to take a bite out of that. Unless you all think that 1/2 a trillion spent by Bush and the Neocons in Congress was worthwhile spending…. you should be waiting to see what Obama’s plan is before jumping to conclusions.
Full Story: bp87.pdf (application/pdf Object).
GM Doubles Down On Plug-In Technology
As long as the federal government is handing out money to encourage the development of plug-in cars in the U.S., General Motors says it will invest in the necessary technologies.
GM is expected to announce Tuesday a $246 million investment in a new U.S. factory that will build electric motors, a technology that is every bit as important as advanced batteries for the development of hybrids, plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles.
By designing and building electric motors in-house, GM says it will be able to lower costs and improve performance, quality and reliability by controlling the design, purchasing and manufacturing processes.
Full Story GM Doubles Down On Plug-In Technology – Forbes.com.
How to Beat a Red Light Violation Ticket Based on a Traffic Camera
The most common traffic ticket is probably a citation for running a red light. These days, cops don’t even have to be there to cite you. Instead, cameras capture the violation and officers use that evidence in court to convict you. Follow these instructions to beat them at their own game!
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Step 1
Once you’ve been issued a citation for running a red light, captured on a traffic camera (NOT cited by an officer) appear in court on the date you are notified of.
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Step 2
Rather than immediately paying the ticket when you get to the courthouse, request a trial. It will be a bench trial because running a red light is a traffic infraction. For all infractions, there is not right to a jury trial so it will be a “bench trial;” that is, it will be a trial decided by a judge not a jury of your peers.
Full Story How to Beat a Red Light Violation Ticket Based on a Traffic Camera | eHow.com.
- Should corporations have human rights?Rise in teenage pregnancy rate spurs new debate on arresting it
The pregnancy rate among teenage girls in the United States has jumped for the first time in more than a decade, raising alarm that the long campaign to reduce motherhood among adolescents is faltering, according to a report released Tuesday.
The pregnancy rate among 15-to-19-year-olds increased 3 percent between 2005 and 2006 — the first jump since 1990, according to an analysis of the most recent data collected by the federal government and the nation's leading reproductive-health think tank.
Teen pregnancy has long been one of the most pressing social issues and has triggered intense political debate over sex education, particularly whether the federal government should fund programs that encourage abstinence until marriage or focus on birth control.
Full Story Rise in teenage pregnancy rate spurs new debate on arresting it – washingtonpost.com.
One Cubic Foot Of Life (PHOTOS): More Than One Thousand Organisms Found In Small Spaces
Special from National Geographic by Edward O. Wilson, photographs by David Liittschwager
“When you thrust a shovel into the soil or tear off a piece of coral, you are, godlike, cutting through an entire world,” writes biologist E.O. Wilson in the current issue of National Geographic Magazine. “You have crossed a hidden frontier known to very few.”
Read E.O. Wilson’s full article.
Check out David Liittschwager’s photos of some of the species you can find in a single cubic foot of coral:
Full Story One Cubic Foot Of Life (PHOTOS): More Than One Thousand Organisms Found In Small Spaces.
Deficit Task Force Will Likely Be Rejected By Senate
The latest congressional budget estimates due Tuesday predict a $1.35 trillion deficit for this year, a top Capitol Hill aide says.
The Congressional Budget Office figures confirm the massive problem facing President Barack Obama and his Democratic allies just days before his Feb. 1 budget submission. The White House says Obama will propose a three-year freeze on domestic agency budgets, though the savings would barely make a dent.
The deficit would slide to $480 billion by 2015, CBO says, but only if tax cuts on income, investments and large estates are allowed to expire at the end of this year. Most budget experts see deficits as far higher once tax cuts and other policies are factored in.
Full Story Deficit Task Force Will Likely Be Rejected By Senate.
Obama Liquidates Himself
Paul Krugman -
A spending freeze? That’s the brilliant response of the Obama team to their first serious political setback?
It’s appalling on every level.
It’s bad economics, depressing demand when the economy is still suffering from mass unemployment. Jonathan Zasloff writes that Obama seems to have decided to fire Tim Geithner and replace him with “the rotting corpse of Andrew Mellon” (Mellon was Herbert Hoover’s Treasury Secretary, who according to Hoover told him to “liquidate the workers, liquidate the farmers, purge the rottenness”.)
It’s bad long-run fiscal policy, shifting attention away from the essential need to reform health care and focusing on small change instead.
Full Story Economics and Politics – Paul Krugman Blog – NYTimes.com.
Search For Aliens Should Start On Earth Not Outer Space, Says Scientist
Scientists and other experts are gathering in London to consider new ways – and new places – to search for alien beings.
Britain’s Royal Society – an eminent group equivalent to the U.S. Academy of Sciences – is hosting a two-day event to consider the progress made and the challenges posed in the hunt for alien beings.
One astrobiologist says the best place to look for aliens may be right here on Earth. Paul Davies of Arizona State University said Tuesday that extraterrestrial life may have found its way to this planet at several different times.
If so, Davies says, the aliens could be “right under or noses – or even in our noses.”
Full Story Search For Aliens Should Start On Earth Not Outer Space, Says Scientist.
GOP Sends Letter Appearing To Be Census Form
The Republican Party is seeking input and money from GOP voters – seemingly under the guise of the U.S. Census Bureau.
“Strengthening our Party for the 2010 elections is going to take a massive grass-roots effort all across America. That is why I have authorized a Census to be conducted of every Congressional District in the country,” GOP Chairman Michael Steele says in a letter mailed nationwide.
The letter was sent in plain white envelopes marked “Do Not Destroy, Official Document.” Labeled “2010 Congressional District Census,” the letter uses a capital “C,” the same as the Census Bureau. It also includes a “Census Tracking Code.”
Full Story GOP Sends Letter Appearing To Be Census Form.
Colbert Rips Harold Ford Jr. For Flip Flopping On Abortion, Gay Marriage (VIDEO)
Colbert took some shots at Harold Ford Jr. last night, “commending” him for not only establishing residency in New York, but blatantly changing his political views. Colbert proudly called the former Tennessee Congressman his “Alpha Dog of Week.”
Since emerging as a primary challenger to Senator Kirsten Gillibrand in New York’s 2010 election, Ford has had the “musty sack” change his stance on abortion and gay marriage. On the latter issue, Colbert understood Ford’s admission to Matt Lauer that he supported gay marriage, flashing a dashing photo of NBC personality.
While a lot of politicians flip flop on issues, Colbert was most impressed with Ford’s decision to do all this in the media dominated New York City. Applauding the gumption, he saluted the former Congressman, saying,”Bravo Harold Ford for who you are, and who you might be in 15 minutes.”
Full Story Colbert Rips Harold Ford Jr. For Flip Flopping On Abortion, Gay Marriage (VIDEO).
Dem leaders unite on health care strategy
Democratic congressional leaders are uniting around their last, best hope for salvaging President Barack Obama’s sweeping health care overhaul.
Their plan is to pass the Senate bill with some changes to accommodate House Democrats, senior Democratic aides said Monday. Leaders will present the idea to the rank and file this week, but it’s unclear that they will have the votes to move forward.
Last week’s victory by Republican Scott Brown in Massachusetts cost Democrats the 60th vote they need to maintain undisputed control of the Senate, jeopardizing the outcome of the health care bill just when Obama had brokered a final deal on most of the major issues.
Full Story Dem leaders unite on health care strategy – washingtonpost.com.
OPS: United on the Corporate give-away. In other news – the Dems are giving up on the preexisting condition, and anti-trust issues. So who really benefits from this bill?
MSNBC host has ‘no response’ after White House spokesman suggests he lies
In 2009, Obama’s White House fought a much-publicized “war” with Fox News. In 2010, they might have a new opponent; but instead of battling conservatives who consider themselves “fair and balanced,” the White House press secretary took aim at the liberal host of a network widely perceived as “liberal-leaning.”
Addressing a crowd of progressive talk radio fans in Minnesota Saturday, MSNBC’s Ed Schultz claimed he exchanged harsh words with White House spokesman Robert Gibbs off the air last week.
“I told him he was full of sh*t is what I told him,” Schultz claimed. “And then he gave me the Dick Cheney f-bomb the same way Senator Leahy got it on the Senate floor. I told Robert Gibbs, I said, ‘I’m sorry you’re swearing at me, but I’m just trying to help you out.”
Full Story MSNBC host has ‘no response’ after White House spokesman suggests he lies | Raw Story.
OPS: What’s interesting about this is that FOX and other Reich wing media have been lying about Obama on a daily basis for over a year – and the White House has never come out like this against them
Under fire, Obama’s chief of staff calls liberal strategy ‘fucking retarded’
Conservatives have had it with President Barack Obama — in the latest Gallup poll, he earned a just 23 percent approval rating from Republican voters. Liberal Democrats, meanwhile, have the president’s back, awarding him an 88 percent backing.
But liberal support — at least for the president’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel — seems to be waning. And Emanuel seems to be slapping back.
According to a report Tuesday in the Wall Street Journal, Emanuel told a liberal strategy group in August that a plan to run advertisements against conservative Democrats who were “balking at Mr. Obama’s health-care overhaul” was grossly unwise.
Full Story Under fire, Obama’s chief of staff calls liberal strategy ‘fucking retarded’ | Raw Story.
Candidate Obama criticized McCain’s proposed spending freeze as ‘hatchet’ | Raw Story
President Obama’s plans to implement a spending freeze on domestic programs (which a few exceptions) have taken an interesting turn just hours after they were unveiled.
Critics quickly unearthed videos where Obama, as a presidential candidate in 2008, criticized his Republican opponent John McCain for suggesting a similar plan during the debates.
In all three of the debates Obama returned to the theme that such an idea was like using a “hatchet” when a “scalpel” was necessary.
“The problem with a spending freeze is you’re using a hatchet where you need a scalpel,” then-Senator Obama said in his first presidential debate against McCain. “There are some programs that are very important that are underfunded.”
Full Story Candidate Obama criticized McCain’s proposed spending freeze as ‘hatchet’ | Raw Story.
Change for Obama
Senator Ernest F. Hollings
The message of Massachusetts is like the answer to a question of multiple choices – “all of the above.” But the one thing that stands out is “jobs” – and Washington is not competing for jobs. Yes, we’ve had two $750 billion stimuli to create consumption for jobs, but nobody is consuming; everybody is saving. Thus, we are experiencing a “jobless recovery.” Even if the economy is stimulated, most of the jobs would go to China. We’re importing over half of what we consume and the problem is not just to create jobs, but to compete in globalization for jobs. Globalization is nothing more than a trade war with production looking for a cheaper country to produce. It‘s a competition for jobs. The “comparative advantage” in international trade or globalization is government. But our government plays the Wall Street and bonus crowd game: “Protectionism;” “Free Trade;” “Don’t start a trade war.” This keeps the United States AWOL in globalization or the trade war. If the president and Congress continue to wait for “free trade” in globalization, the country will go the way of General Motors – bankrupt.
Trade is a game. All games must be played by the rules; as in football with “roughing the kicker,” we must have rules. We don’t want “free trade.” We want rules. That’s why we have price fixing and anti-trust rules in domestic trade, and it’s the same in international trade. David Ricardo’s “comparative advantage” of English woolens and Portuguese wine was the country’s advantage. China now controls international trade and globalization.
The United States was founded in a trade war. The Mother Country prohibited manufacturing in the colony and exports from the colony had to be carried in English bottoms. The Townsend Act triggered the Boston Tea Party, which triggered the Revolution. After adopting a seal, the first act of Congress in history on July 4, 1789, was a protectionist 50 percent tariff. Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution didn’t call for free trade. It called on Congress “to regulate Commerce with foreign nations, ….” Regarding free trade, Henry Clay cried on the floor of the United States Senate: “It never existed … it never will exist.” Abraham Lincoln was a protectionist, and Teddy Roosevelt wrote in a letter to a friend: “Thank God I’m not a Free Trader.” We didn’t pass the income tax until 1913. For the first one hundred years the United States was built into an industrial power with protectionist tariffs. The nation’s trade laws assume industrial production, industrial power.
Full Story Change for Obama | Economy In Crisis.
Opposition to Bernanke Mounting
Top White House officials and key members of the U.S. Senate spent the weekend circling the wagons for suddenly embattled Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke after a flurry of criticism last week called into question his reconfirmation prospects.
Last Friday, U.S. Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Russ Feingold (D-WI) announced that they would not vote to reconfirm Bernanke, sending the White House scrambling in an effort to save the Fed Chairman's job, fearing that a failed confirmation vote would be a reflection on the president, according to multiple reports.
“It is time for a change — it is time for Main Street to have a champion at the Fed,” Boxer said in a statement. “Dr. Bernanke played a lead role in crafting the Bush administration's economic policies, which led to the current economic crisis. Our next Federal Reserve Chairman must represent a clean break from the failed policies of the past.”
Bernanke was appointed to his current post by former President George W. Bush and played an instrumental role in the bailout of the financial sector and the administration’s other responses to the crisis. For that, some have levied effusive praise on him, crediting his actions with saving the economy from total collapse.
Full Story Opposition to Bernanke Mounting | Economy In Crisis.
Throw Out Bernanke!
It’s up to progressives to take action around Bernanke, Haiti, anti-choice ads, and the corporate take-over of our democracy. Get involved now!
We find ourselves in a rather curious political moment. In the 2008 election cycle, Americans kicked the neo-cons out of office and landed Barack Obama in the White House — with a filibuster-proof Democratic majority in Congress, to boot.
As President Obama prepares for his first State of the Union tomorrow, his address will likely contain many of the hope-and-change flourishes that won him the presidency, but it will also underscore how many of Democratic and independent voters’ goals — particularly those of liberals and progressives — were not met in this first year. The speech also comes soon after Ted Kennedy’s four-decade Senate seat was turned over to a TeaParty-boosted Republican, highlighting the fact that the sweeping reforms we need may be even harder to come by here on out.
Full Story AlterNet Take Action: Throw Out Bernanke! | News & Politics | AlterNet.
The Overuse of Antibiotics in Lifestock Feed Is Killing Us
Over 70,000 Americans die each year because of antibiotic resistance, thanks to the overuse of antibiotics in medical treatments, factory farming and soaps.
The 2000s were go-go years for antibiotic resistance. Thanks to the overprescription of antibiotics in medical settings and the non-therapeutic use of antibiotics in concentrated animal feeding operations (or CAFOs), we’ve aided the emergence of ‘superbugs’ — or drug resistance microorganisms. Antibiotic resistance (AR) has led to the deaths of 70,000 Americans a year.
You’d think this would elicit some immediate action to prevent this public health nightmare from growing. But in 2007 when the (now) late Sen. Edward Kennedy introduced legislation to discourage the overuse of the antibiotics responsible for AR, it gained no traction. The reason? Kennedy stepped directly on the toes of two of the country’s most powerful lobbying interests — Big Ag and Big Pharma.
Agribusiness, it seems, cannot keep up its unsustainable feedlot system of raising thousands of animals in confinement, with poor sanitation and unhealthy diets, if it the animals weren’t being pumped full of copious amounts of antibiotics.
Full Story The Overuse of Antibiotics in Lifestock Feed Is Killing Us | Personal Health | AlterNet.
Why Progressives Shouldn’t Fall For the Deficit Reduction Trap
By James Galbraith -
The fetish of long-term deficit reduction is politically poisonous — and economically pointless. In reality, we need big budget deficits. We need them now — and down the road.
Shockingly, President Obama has announced his support for a commission whose purpose is to ramrod Social Security and Medicare cuts through Congress. Thinly disguised as a program for “deficit reduction,” the proposed commission will meet its first test today, when the Senate may vote to authorize it as part of a bill to raise the national debt ceiling. A large progressive coalition is already on record against it. But the progressives' case is flawed; it's not tough enough. Here's why.
According to a press release issued by the Campaign for America's Future on January 20, describing the progressive coalition:
Full Story Why Progressives Shouldn’t Fall For the Deficit Reduction Trap | News & Politics | AlterNet.
Got Milk? A Disturbing Look at the Dairy Industry
Most dairy enthusiasts would be horrified to know the conditions cows endure and how closely dairies are tied to veal operations and the rest of the meat industry.
The bucolic scene of Holsteins grazing on a grassy hill that adorns milk cartons and cheese wrappers is nothing more than fantasy these days. While the meat industry has come under intensive scrutiny (and with good reason) for the massive factory farm system of raising cattle in confinement, animals in the dairy industry are arguably worse off.
Eating milk, cheese, sour cream, ice cream, and other dairy yumminess is impossible to do with a clear conscience — and I’m not referring to the fat or cholesterol. Calves born into the industrial grip of today’s dairy industry have a road ahead of them that is short, but not merciful. Dairy cows are subject to brutal conditions before being sent to slaughter for beef and male calves are worth next to nothing in the dairy business. Some are simply left to die after birth. Many are slaughtered for low-grade “bob veal” a few days after they are born and will end up as cheap hot dogs or dog food.
While a small number of dairies are bucking the industrial trend, the vast majority of dairy products we eat come from factories that are nothing short of horrific in many cases.
Full Story Got Milk? A Disturbing Look at the Dairy Industry | Food | AlterNet.
Wall Street Bonuses Can Create One Million Green Jobs
President Obama may be joining the populist crusade against Wall Street. In the span of one week he opened up a three front war: a tax on big banks, full support for a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency, and the embrace of Paul Volcker's plan to break up the big banks.
It's about time. Or has the time already passed?
Yes, there is enormous popular anger against Wall Street and the bailouts. However, the deepest anger is rooted in the enormous fears and hardships caused by the lack of jobs.
Obama is responding with a call for another stimulus in the form tax breaks for small businesses and for the weatherization of homes. Not good enough. The scale and scope of his proposals are unlikely to alleviate enough of the pain and suffering experienced by jobless Americans. Unfortunately, the Administration does not realize how deeply the crisis of employment is built into our billionaire bailout society.
So what should Obama do?
Full Story Les Leopold: Wall Street Bonuses Can Create One Million Green Jobs.
Exclusive: Group Receives ‘Tsunami of Vile Hate’ After ABC Exposé on U.S. Military ‘Jesus Rifles’
Anti-Semitic email, threats sent to Mikey Weinstein, founder of Military Religious Freedom Foundation
Rifle sight contractor Trijicon reportedly describes group as ‘not Christian’; MRFF responds with threat of possible legal action…
And what they will never tell you on Fox “News,” and probably not even on CNN or MSNBC, etc., is contained in the following three emails sent to Mikey Weinstein of the Nobel Prize-nominated Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), following an ABC News exposé last week on the bible verses that are encoded on the rifle scopes made by Trijicon, Inc., and used by our military serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The first disturbing email below is from a U.S. soldier who happens to be a Caucasian Muslim, horrified by the dangers of having such verse referenced on military equipment used in the Middle East, particularly in the event of capture. The soldier shares an appalling alleged account of his superior officer’s description of the weapon as the “the Fire Arm of Jesus Christ.” All the better, said the officer according to the soldier, than what they might have received, since “Uncle Sam had seen fit not to give us a ‘pussy “Jewzzi” (combination of the word ‘Jew’ and Israeli made weapon “Uzi”).’”
45 Americans claim asylum in Britain
Home Office statistics reveal dozens of applications by people claiming persecution in the US
They hail from the land of the free, the home of the brave, a place where it is said anyone can prosper regardless of colour, creed or religion. But dozens of Americans have tried in recent years to gain asylum in the UK by claiming they were persecuted in their homeland, according to figures released to the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act.
Home Office statistics show that between 2004 and 2008, 45 Americans submitted asylum applications to the UK Border Agency claiming they had fled the US and were unable to go back because they had a well-founded fear of persecution. Fifteen Canadians also applied. All 60 were turned down.
A US government source said the American applications were most likely submitted by self-declared “political refugees” claiming they faced discrimination under the last administration. The applications from the US peaked in 2008, the final year of George Bush’s presidency, when 15 Americans submitted asylum claims.
Full Story 45 Americans claim asylum in Britain | UK news | guardian.co.uk.
Obama’s Tiny Jobs Ideas for Main Street, A Big Spending Freeze for Wall Street
Robert Reich -
President Obama today offered a set of proposals for helping America’s troubled middle class. All are sensible and worthwhile. But none will bring jobs back. And Americans could be forgiven for wondering how the President plans to enact any of these ideas anyway, when he can no longer muster 60 votes in the Senate.
The bigger news is Obama is planning a three-year budget freeze on a big chunk of discretionary spending. Wall Street is delighted. But it means Main Street is in worse trouble than ever.
A pending freeze will make it even harder to get jobs back because government is the last spender around. Consumers have pulled back, investors won’t do much until they know consumers are out there, and exports are miniscule.
Full Story Robert Reich (Obama’s Tiny Jobs Ideas for Main Street, A Big Spending Freeze for Wall Street).
The Silence and the Shield: Depraved Indifference to the Atrocities of Power
Scott Horton draws tellingly on Auden and Homer in this follow-up to his remarkable piece, “The Guantanamo ‘Suicides’,” the story of three captives – all of them innocent men, cleared for later release – who were almost certainly murdered in a secret site in the American concentration camp in 2006, apparently for protesting prison conditions. (We examined Horton’s story here.)
The men were evidently killed during “strenuous interrogation” — i.e., they had rags stuffed down their throat while being beaten. When they died, a ludicrous story of a mutual suicide pact — under impossible physical conditions — was concocted by American authorities, complete with outright lies about the men being “hardcore” terrorists who killed themselves as an act of “asymmetrical warfare.” The cover-up of these killings goes up to the highest levels of the U.S. government – and it continues most forcefully to this day under the Obama Administration. It is a sickening — but most instructive — story.
In his latest piece, Horton notes:
The three men who died in Guantánamo on the night of June 9, 2006 certainly had failings and foibles as all men do; no one will portray them as angels. To its credit, the Bush Administration even seems to have determined to set two of them free; the third had only to await resolution of diplomatic problems between the United States and his homeland. These men were not warriors engaged in some vicious military campaign against the United States, nor was there a scintilla of evidence linking them to any crime. “They were small/ And could not hope for help and no help came,” Auden writes. And what was the reaction of the world to their plight? Auden describes it perfectly, and indeed it was only to be expected: “A crowd of ordinary decent folk/ Watched from without and neither moved nor spoke.” The only difference here is the sentries, who at great risk to themselves and their families have stepped forward to place on the record exactly what they saw. They know it defies the official story; they know they may suffer retribution for it; and they know that what they saw is not conclusive in any event. It is only a fragment of the truth, which needs to be put forward and made a part of the historical record. It was offered out of respect for the dignity of the dead and out of conviction that the truth should not be suppressed, no matter how unpleasant. In the corridors of power, however, a river surges past, indifferent to all these questions, viewing them as an insignificant distraction from the troubles of a war.
Full Story The Silence and the Shield: Depraved Indifference to the Atrocities of Power.
Flight 253 Cover-Up: “No Smoking Gun” Claims Undercut by New Disclosures
Nearly one month after passengers foiled an attempted suicide bomb attack aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 as it approached Detroit on Christmas Day, new information reveals that the White House and U.S. security agencies had specific intelligence on accused terrorist, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, far earlier than previously acknowledged.
Along with new reports, evidence suggests that the administration’s cover-up of the affair has very little to do with a failure by the intelligence apparatus to “connect the dots” and may have far more serious political implications for the Obama administration, and what little remains of a functioning democracy in the United States, than a botched bombing.
What the White House and security officials have previously described only as “vague” intercepts regarding “a Nigerian” has now morphed into a clear picture of the suspect–and the plot.
Full Story Dissident Voice : Flight 253 Cover-Up: “No Smoking Gun” Claims Undercut by New Disclosures.
Gov. Suggests Building Prison In Mexico
Schwarzenegger Speaks To Sacramento Press Club
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger floated an unusual suggestion Monday on how to cut the state’s bloated prison costs with a private venture — build a private prison in Mexico.
“We pay them to build a prison down in Mexico and then we have those undocumented immigrants be down there in a prison and with their prison guards and all this,” Schwarzenegger told a gathering of the Sacramento Press Club. “It will halve the costs to build the prisons and halve the costs to run the prisons.
“The governor’s remark came amid alarm from law enforcement and crime victim groups about a new program meant to thin the state’s prison population through early release.
Full Story Gov. Suggests Building Prison In Mexico – Politics News Story – KCRA Sacramento.
Obama’s Credibility Gap
Bob Herbert -
Who is Barack Obama?
Americans are still looking for the answer, and if they don’t get it soon — or if they don’t like the answer — the president’s current political problems will look like a walk in the park.
Mr. Obama may be personally very appealing, but he has positioned himself all over the political map: the anti-Iraq war candidate who escalated the war in Afghanistan; the opponent of health insurance mandates who made a mandate to buy insurance the centerpiece of his plan; the president who stocked his administration with Wall Street insiders and went to the mat for the banks and big corporations, but who is now trying to present himself as a born-again populist.
Mr. Obama is in danger of being perceived as someone whose rhetoric, however skillful, cannot always be trusted. He is creating a credibility gap for himself, and if it widens much more he won’t be able to close it.
Full Story Op-Ed Columnist – Obama’s Credibility Gap – NYTimes.com.
Walmart Sam’s Club Lowering Worker and Community Standards
Layoffs Raise Important Questions About Commitment to its Workforce
(Washington, DC) – The following is a statement from Wake Up Walmart:
Walmart launched another assault on living and working standards in communities across the country yesterday, by laying off more than ten thousand Sam’s Club employees. The company is outsourcing jobs, many of them part-time, to a company based in Arkansas.
Workers report that Walmart called them into mass meetings where they were offered boxes of tissues and told they were no longer needed by the nation’s largest private employer…..
Full Story Walmart Sam’s Club Lowering Worker and Community Standards.
Fed Wanted All Communications From AIG Run By Its Law Firm
As the controversy over massive AIG overpayments to its counterparties — paid for with government money — has unfolded, one key question has been just how much control the Federal Reserve had over whether information about the bailout and subsequent payoffs would be made public.
The Fed has claimed that it had little control and that AIG made the decision to hide relevant details, but reports have emerged in recent weeks casting that claim in doubt.
And a newly disclosed email increases the doubt substantially. All “significant communications,” a senior New York Fed official writes in the email, “should be run by DPW first.” DPW is Davis Polk & Wardwell, the New York Fed’s law firm.
Full Story Fed Wanted All Communications From AIG Run By Its Law Firm.
Democrats consider dropping insurance ban on pre-existing conditions
Among the casualties of President Barack Obama’s healthcare agenda may be those who suffer from pre-existing medical conditions and can’t get insurance.
Thought the ban on denying health insurance coverage for pre-existing conditions was going the way of the dodo? Not so fast.
An astute blogger noted that the new proposals floated by Democrats in the wake of the massive health care bill’s collapse is a provision that would bar denying coverage for those with pre-existing conditions — but only if they were under 19. “Did someone just chuck pre-existing conditions overboard?” he wrote.
Full Story Democrats consider dropping insurance ban on pre-existing conditions | Raw Story.
Poll Confirms Massachusetts Election Was Not A Rejection Of Health Care Reform
Following the surprise victory of Sen.-elect Scott Brown (R-MA) in last week’s special election, conservatives have attempted to paint the election as a rejection of healthcare reform and progressive policies more generally.
Appearing on ABC’s This Week yesterday, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) said, “what happened in Massachusetts” shows that “people are alarmed and angry about the spending, the debt, the government takeovers [including health care].” Conservative Washington Post columnist George Will said on This Week that Massachusetts “really was a health care election.” “This was a referendum on a particular piece of legislation that is the signature legislation of the administration, and the people of Massachusetts and the country are hotly angered over its substance,” Will said.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), on Meet the Press yesterday, said, “the message in Massachusetts was absolutely clear. The exit polls that I looked at said 48 percent of the people in Massachusetts said they voted for the new senator over health care.” McConnell added: “The people are telling us, ‘Please don’t pass this bill.’”
Full Story Think Progress » Poll Confirms Massachusetts Election Was Not A Rejection Of Health Care Reform.
Lieberman: ‘It’s Possible’ I Could Be ‘A Good Old-Fashioned New England Moderate Republican’
During the 2008 presidential campaign, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) supported Republican John McCain and attacked then-candidate Obama while speaking at the Republican National Committee. Though he currently caucuses with Democrats in the Senate, Lieberman has repeatedly stated that he views running for re-election in 2012 as an option.
In an interview on Connecticut’s Face The State program this weekend, Lieberman once again said that it was “possible” he could run for re-election as a Republican. Noting that “it would be harder, to be honest, to get the nomination in the Democratic party,” Lieberman said that while he is “most likely” to remain an independent, he could see himself as a Republican:
HOST: Could you see yourself being a Republican or is that…
LIEBERMAN: It’s possible.
HOST:…far-fetched.
LIEBERMAN: Yeah, yeah. No, it’s possible. A good old-fashioned New England moderate Republican.
Watch it:
OPS: He’s been one all along.
Obama: I’d rather be a ‘really good one-term president’ than ‘mediocre two-term president.’
In an interview with ABC’s Diane Sawyer that will be aired tonight, President Obama said he will not back off his agenda despite the political hazards that might lie ahead:
change“I’d rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president,” he told ABC’s “World News” anchor Diane Sawyer in an exclusive interview today. […]
“You know, there is a tendency in Washington to believe our job description, of elected officials, is to get reelected. That’s not our job description,” Obama said. “Our job description is to solve problems and to help people.”
Seated across from Sawyer in the White House, the president added, “I don’t want to look back on my time here and say to myself all I was interested in was nurturing my own popularity.”
Read the full transcript here.
Full Story Think Progress » Obama: I’d rather be a ‘really good one-term president’ than ‘mediocre two-term president.’.
OPS: apparently he already realizes he wont’ get re-elected. He’s screwed it up too badly already.
Ford Adding 1,200 Workers in Chicago
Ford plans to add 1,200 jobs when it begins making the Explorer sport-utility vehicle in Chicago, CNBC has learnt.
The automaker plans to make the announcement Tuesday morning, according to the report. The Explorer model is currently made in Louisville, Kentucky.
Full Story Ford Adding 1,200 Workers in Chicago – CNBC.
Kucinich Announces Program To Add A Million New Jobs
An Ohio congressman pushed for a new program to add a million new jobs Monday.
Congressman Dennis Kucinich unveiled his plan Monday afternoon at his Lakewood office.
Kucinich is proposed offering early retirement with social security benefits and health insurance subsides to people as young as 60 years old. He said that will free up as many as a million new positions in businesses that have already shed jobs.
“In every business, people are cutting to the point of where they’re not functioning the way they used to. So, this gives business a chance to get new blood in. At the same, be able to do it in a way that they don’t have to have access more money to do it,” Kucinich said.
Full Story Kucinich Announces Program To Add A Million New Jobs – News Story – WEWS Cleveland.
After the Massachusetts Massacre
Frank Rich -
It was not a referendum on Barack Obama, who in every poll remains one of the most popular politicians in America. It was not a rejection of universal health care, which Massachusetts mandated (with Scott Brown’s State Senate vote) in 2006. It was not a harbinger of a resurgent G.O.P., whose numbers remain in the toilet. Brown had the good sense not to identify himself as a Republican in either his campaign advertising or his victory speech.
And yet Tuesday’s special election was a dire omen for this White House. If the administration sticks to this trajectory, all bets are off for the political future of a president who rode into office blessed with more high hopes, good will and serious promise than any in modern memory. It’s time for him to stop deluding himself. Yes, last week’s political obituaries were ludicrously premature. Obama’s 50-ish percent first-anniversary approval rating matches not just Carter’s but Reagan’s. (Bushes 41 and 43 both skyrocketed in Year One.) Still, minor adjustments can’t right what’s wrong.
Obama’s plight has been unchanged for months. Neither in action nor in message is he in front of the anger roiling a country where high unemployment remains unchecked and spiraling foreclosures are demolishing the bedrock American dream of home ownership. The president is no longer seen as a savior but as a captive of the interests who ginned up the mess and still profit, hugely, from it.
Full Story Op-Ed Columnist – After the Massachusetts Massacre – NYTimes.com.
Freedom vs. the Public Option
by: George Lakoff, -
Which would you prefer, consumer choice or freedom? Extended coverage or freedom? Bending the cost curve or freedom?
John Boehner, House minority leader, speaking of health care, said recently, “This bill is the greatest threat to freedom that I have seen in the 19 years I have been here in Washington…. It's going to lead to a government takeover of our health care system, with tens of thousands of new bureaucrats right down the street, making these decisions [choose your doctor, buy your own health insurance] for you.”
This is exactly what Frank Luntz advised conservatives to say. They have repeated it and repeated it. Why has it worked to rally conservative populists against their interests? The most effective framing is more than mere language, more than spin or salesmanship. It has worked because conservatives really believe that the issue is freedom. It fits the conservative moral system. It fits how conservatives see the world.
Full Story t r u t h o u t | Freedom vs. the Public Option.
FUNDING PUBLIC HEALTH CARE WITH A PUBLICLY-OWNED BANK: HOW CANADA DID IT
Ellen Brown, –
The story goes that Churchill offered a woman 5 million pounds to sleep with him. She hedged and said they would have to discuss terms. Then he offered her 5 pounds. “Sir!” she said. “What sort of woman do you think I am?” “Madam,” he replied, “We’ve already established that. Now we’re just haggling over the price.”
The same might be said of President Obama’s health care bill, which was sold out to corporate interests early on. The insurance lobby had its way with the bill; after that they were just haggling over the price. The “public option” was so watered down in congressional deal-making that it finally disappeared altogether.
However, the bill passed both Houses by razor-thin margins, and the stunning loss on January 19 of the late Ted Kennedy’s Democratic seat to a Republican may force Obama to start over with his agenda. The good news is that this means there is still a chance of getting legislation that includes what Obama’s supporters thought they were getting when they elected him – a universal health care plan on the model of Medicare.
Full Story Web of Debt – FUNDING PUBLIC HEALTH CARE WITH A PUBLICLY-OWNED BANK: HOW CANADA DID IT.
It’s Time for Kucinich, Conyers, Feingold and Other `Progressives’ in Congress to Take a Stand
What’s missing in Congress these days is real progressive leadership and real political courage.
Over the past several decades, the Democratic Party has been entirely taken over by corporate shills and money-grubbing sleazes while those who might still have some vestigial remnant of a conscience or genuine concern for the plight of the common person have been co-opted or intimidated into silence or powerlessness.
Look at Dennis Kucinich (D-OH). He says all the right things. He’s fought all the good fights. And yet after 15 years in Congress, he is chair of what? The House subcommittee on domestic policy of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Heck, his post doesn’t even merit capitalization in the AP Stylebook! And when he submits an important bill, like his articles of impeachment of both former President George W. Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney, he can’t even get a hearing in the House Judiciary Committee.
Which, of course, is chaired by another long-standing allegedly progressive House member, Rep. John Conyers (D-MI). Conyers, despite being chair of the House Progressive Caucus (the largest, and least powerful Democratic Party caucus in the Congress) and despite his having served 22 terms in the House, couldn’t even manage to get “permission” from the Speaker (Rep. Nancy Pelosi–once a member of the Progressive Caucus!) to hold a hearing on impeachment during the Bush/Cheney years in the Judiciary Committee that he chairs. And more recently, he was even barred from having his own health reform proposal–an expansion of Medicare to cover all Americans–get a lousy hearing in the House.
Wanted: Tony Blair for war crimes. Arrest him and claim your reward
Chilcot and the courts won’t do it, so it is up to us to show that we won’t let an illegal act of mass murder go unpunished
The only question that counts is the one that the Chilcot inquiry won’t address: was the war with Iraq illegal? If the answer is yes, everything changes. The war is no longer a political matter, but a criminal one, and those who commissioned it should be committed for trial for what the Nuremberg tribunal called “the supreme international crime”: the crime of aggression.
But there’s a problem with official inquiries in the United Kingdom: the government appoints their members and sets their terms of reference. It’s the equivalent of a criminal suspect being allowed to choose what the charges should be, who should judge his case and who should sit on the jury. As a senior judge told the Guardian in November: “Looking into the legality of the war is the last thing the government wants. And actually, it’s the last thing the opposition wants either because they voted for the war. There simply is not the political pressure to explore the question of legality – they have not asked because they don’t want the answer.”
Others have explored it, however. Two weeks ago a Dutch inquiry, led by a former supreme court judge, found that the invasion had “no sound mandate in international law”. Last month Lord Steyn, a former law lord, said that “in the absence of a second UN resolution authorising invasion, it was illegal“. In November Lord Bingham, the former lord chief justice, stated that, without the blessing of the UN, the Iraq war was “a serious violation of international law and the rule of law“.
SEC mulled national security status for AIG details
U.S. securities regulators originally treated the New York Federal Reserve’s bid to keep secret many of the details of the American International Group bailout like a request to protect matters of national security, according to emails obtained by Reuters.
The request to keep the details secret were made by the New York Federal Reserve — a regulator that helped orchestrate the bailout — and by the giant insurer itself, according to the emails.
The emails from early last year reveal that officials at the New York Fed were only comfortable with AIG submitting a critical bailout-related document to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission after getting assurances from the regulatory agency that “special security procedures” would be used to handle the document.
Full Story SEC mulled national security status for AIG details | Reuters.
December Home Sales Take Largest Monthly Drop In More Than 40 YEARS
Sales of previously occupied homes took the largest monthly drop in more than 40 years last month, sinking more dramatically than expected after lawmakers gave buyers additional time to use a tax credit.
The report reflects a sharp drop in demand after buyers stopped scrambling to qualify for a tax credit of up to $8,000 for first-time homeowners. It had been due to expire on Nov. 30. But Congress extended the deadline until April 30 and expanded it with a new $6,500 credit for existing homeowners who move.
“It’s ‘exit stage left’ for first-time homebuyers,” wrote Guy LeBas, an analyst with Janney Montgomery Scott.
Full Story December Home Sales Take Largest Monthly Drop In More Than 40 YEARS.
General Petraeus Suggests U.S. Withdrawal From Afghanistan Will Be Delayed
In his December 1, 2009 speech at West Point, President Obama was crystal clear: American troops would begin to withdraw from Afghanistan in July 2011:
But taken together, these additional American and international troops will allow us to accelerate handing over responsibility to Afghan forces, and allow us to begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011.
Yet, at a January 21, 2010 event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, General Petraeus tried to move the goalposts, asserting that in August 2011 U.S. forces would begin to transfer tasks to Afghan forces, a clear rollback of the President's statement that U.S. troops would begin to withdraw by July 2011.
Full Story Derrick Crowe: Watch General Petraeus Try to Move the Goalposts on the Afghanistan War.
OPS: Oh, there’s a suprise
Gibbs responds: I told Ed Schultz he was intentionally lying to ‘get people to watch his show.’
As ThinkProgress first reported yesterday, MSNBC host Ed Schultz told a progressive gathering in Minnesota that he recently engaged in a testy confrontation with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. In an off-the-air conversation, Schultz told Gibbs he was “full of sh*t,” leading Gibbs to respond with “the f-bomb.” The Plum Line’s Greg Sargent followed up with Gibbs to explain what happened:
gibbs[Gibbs] says he pointedly accused Schultz of misleading viewers about the Dem health care plan in order to “get people to watch his show.” […]
Asked about Schultz’s account, Gibbs emailed that in their private talk, he strongly took issue with Schultz’s claim that the health care bill is a gift to the insurance industry.
Gibbs adds that he demanded Schultz tell him “why he’d tell his viewers something so completely and knowingly wrong in an attempt to get people to watch his show.
Obama targets middle class with new aid plans
President seeks to offer some attractive options to taxpayers
President Barack Obama on Monday offered help for people struggling to pay bills and care for their families, appealing to a middle-class he says has been “under assault for a long time.”
In a partial preview of a State of the Union address that aims to answer voter angst about the economy and reconnect with the public, Obama outlined the series of proposals from the White House. The product of a middle class task force headed by Vice President Joe Biden, the proposals will also be included in Obama’s budget request due to be submitted to Congress next week.
Among the initiatives: a doubling of the child care tax credit for families earning under $85,000; a $1.6 billion increase in federal funding for child care programs and a program to cap student loan payments at 10 percent of income above “a basic living allowance.”
Full Story Obama targets middle class with new aid plans – White House- msnbc.com.
OPS: We’ll see…..
Ford’s ‘Clueless’ Math: Balance The Budget By Doling Out Billions In Tax Cuts For The Wealthy
As part of his theatrical flirtation with a run for New York’s Senate seat, former congressman Harold Ford Jr. had an op-ed in today’s New York Times, in which he said that Democrats “need to shift attention away from health care and toward a bold effort to create jobs, improve the economy and rein in the size of government.” Ford laid out four steps that he believes “we must take immediately to put us, and the nation, on a better course”:
We can start by giving any companies that are less than five years old an exemption from payroll taxes for six months; extending the current capital gains and dividend tax rates through 2012; giving permanent tax credits for businesses that invest in research and development; and reducing the top corporate tax rate to 25 percent from 35 percent…Finally, we need to address budget deficits now rather than waiting for some ideal future economic situation…By focusing on job creation and deficit reduction, we can expand our economy and balance the budget.
As Paul Krugman pointed out, the economic vision Ford outlines “has to set some kind of new standard for cluelessness.” Indeed, Ford’s op-ed is based on a total contradiction: he advocates a slew of supply-side tax cuts (including a big cut in the corporate tax rate) that would balloon the deficit, while laying out nothing in terms of real steps toward deficit reduction, beyond paying lip service to a commission that would recommend some spending cuts.
OPS: Phucking Republicans pretending they are Democrats. Any question that Ford in in the pocket of the Corporations?
Iraq inquiries: families of dead soldiers call for private meeting with Tony Blair
The families of soldiers killed in Iraq are to approach Sir John Chilcot and ask for a private session with Tony Blair after he has given evidence to the official inquiry into the war.
The families have drawn up a list of questions for the former Prime Minister who they claim has refused to meet them and discuss the war. They are requesting a 15-minute session behind closed doors.
More than 40 relatives are expected to attend this Friday’s hearing when Mr Blair is due to give evidence. Sir John has set up a special “overspill” room for relatives to watch the evidence session after the ticket allocation was over-subscribed.
Full Story Iraq inquiries: families of dead soldiers call for private meeting with Tony Blair – Telegraph.
BIPARTISANLY YOURS: COAKLEY WON THE HAND COUNTS
This article is about our right to know, not about Martha Coakley or Scott Brown. And lest you think something here favors a Democrat, just you wait, I'm still working on anomalies in the NY-23 election that are just plain hard to 'splain. As Richard Hayes Phillips says when people tell him to forget it, “I'm a historian, I've got all the time in the world.” NY-23 still has history to be written. My public records are starting to arrive. But that's another story.
Back to Massachusetts, I think you have a right to know that Coakley won the hand counts there.
That's right.
According to preliminary media results by municipality, Democrat Martha Coakley won Massachusetts overall in its hand counted locations,* with 51.12% of the vote (32,247 hand counted votes) to Brown's 30,136, which garnered him 47.77% of hand counted votes. Margin: 3.35% lead for Coakley.
Massachusetts has 71 hand count locations, 91 ES&S locations, and 187 Diebold locations, with two I call the mystery municipalities (Northbridge and Milton) apparently using optical scanners, not sure what kind.
ES&S RESULTS
Full Story Black Box Voting – America’s Elections Watchdog Group.
The Quiet Coup
- The Atlantic -
The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time.
One thing you learn rather quickly when working at the International Monetary Fund is that no one is ever very happy to see you. Typically, your “clients” come in only after private capital has abandoned them, after regional trading-bloc partners have been unable to throw a strong enough lifeline, after last-ditch attempts to borrow from powerful friends like China or the European Union have fallen through. You’re never at the top of anyone’s dance card.
The reason, of course, is that the IMF specializes in telling its clients what they don’t want to hear. I should know; I pressed painful changes on many foreign officials during my time there as chief economist in 2007 and 2008. And I felt the effects of IMF pressure, at least indirectly, when I worked with governments in Eastern Europe as they struggled after 1989, and with the private sector in Asia and Latin America during the crises of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Over that time, from every vantage point, I saw firsthand the steady flow of officials—from Ukraine, Russia, Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea, and elsewhere—trudging to the fund when circumstances were dire and all else had failed.
Full Story The Quiet Coup – The Atlantic (May 2009).
Senate Bill Based On Christmas Terror Attempt Would ‘Discard The Constitution’
Proposed legislation in response to the Obama administration’s handling of the so-called Christmas Day bomber would essentially make constitutional protection optional in cases of suspected terrorism, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which opposes the measure.
Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins of Maine, chairman and ranking Republican, respectively, of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, are leading the charge behind a bill that would require that top U.S. intelligence officials be consulted following a foreign terrorist’s detention by the United States.
The lawmakers say the legislation is in response to “a serious error” that occurred in the handling of the so-called Christmas Day bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who was charged in civilian criminal court. In a statement, Lieberman, Collins, and the other senators backing the bill say the need for the legislation came to light last week during a hearing that examined the incident in which Nigerian Abdulmutallab allegedly attempted to destroy Northwest-Delta Airlines flight No. 253 to Detroit on Christmas Day by trying to detonate an explosive. The attempt was unsuccessful.
Full Story On The Hill: Senate Bill Based On Christmas Terror Attempt Would ‘Discard The Constitution’.
Stuyvesant Town, Peter Cooper Village Turned Over To Creditors
The financially troubled owners of two massive apartment complexes that sold for a record $5.4 billion a few years ago said Monday they’re turning them over to their creditors.
The joint venture ownership team led by Tishman Speyer Properties and BlackRock Realty, hurt by the real estate market collapse, couldn’t make a multimillion-dollar loan payment earlier this month for the Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village apartments in Manhattan.
Over the last few days it became clear the only viable alternative to bankruptcy would be to transfer to lenders control and operation of the 110 buildings and 11,000 apartments overlooking the East River, partnership spokesman Bud Perrone said.
Full Story Stuyvesant Town, Peter Cooper Village Turned Over To Creditors.
Texas State Board of Education puts right-wing swill into children’s textbook’s
The Texas State board of education is our public face of Christian Evangelical Fundamentalist fervor down here in Dumbutt. The 15 members of the board are made up of 7 hardcore Evangelical fundamentalist creationists, 3 conservative Republicans, and 5 Democrats. They not only dictate classroom curriculum but decide how text books for Texas children should be written. Texas being as large as it is, every 10 years the initial buy of these text books is so great that the publishers sell these Texas Taliban influenced editions to many smaller states and school districts.
Last year the board had a shake up! Governor Perry had to come in after they lost the war to insert Intelligent Design into our biology textbooks and classrooms. A change of leadership was needed! Don McLeroy, a dentist and Evangelical fundamentalist creationist now takes second position to their new leader, Gail Lowe who is an Evangelical fundamentalist creationist but not a dentist.
After losing the science battle last year they have decided to win the history/social sciences battle this year by injecting their right-wing swill into our children come Hell or Highwater. Both of which seem to be on the near horizon.
More Terrorist Threats against the American People from the Fed / Banksters / Wall Street
Geithner Warns That Markets Could Dive If Bernanke Is Not Reconfirmed (VIDEO)
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, in a recent interview with Mike Allen of Politico warned that the financial markets could react negatively if Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke isn’t confirmed for a second term. (READ Politico’s full story here.)
Geithner suggested that the market would see a failed Bernanke confirmation as “very troubling,” but claimed that he was “very confident” Bernanke would receive enough Senate votes to win a second term.
“The markets would view this as very troubling thing for the economy as the whole,” Geithner said. “I don’t think they should be uncertain. I think they can be confident because we’re very confident.”
Predicting that the U.S. economy will begin to show positive job growth by this Spring, Geithner added that Bernanke has done a “remarkable job of guiding this economy through the recession.”
Full Story Geithner Warns That Markets Could Dive If Bernanke Is Not Reconfirmed (VIDEO).
OPS: Terrorism. The Gansters on Wall Street and the Gansters in the Fed are threatening the American People yet again.
McChrystal sees Taliban role
‘As a soldier, my personal feeling is that there’s been enough fighting’
General Stanley McChrystal, the Nato commander in Afghanistan, has raised the prospect that his troop surge will lead to a negotiated peace with the Taliban.
Gen McChrystal will urge his allies to renew their commitment to his strategy at a conference in London this week.
In a Financial Times interview, he acknowledged growing scepticism about the war, but said he was poised to make “very demonstrably positive” progress this year as a result of the arrival of an extra 30,000 US troops.
Full Story FT.com / Asia-Pacific / Afghanistan – McChrystal sees Taliban role.
Pope’s Message to Priests: We Must Blog
Pope Benedict XVI has a message for priests of the Catholic Church: they must proclaim the gospel by not only having a website, but by blogging and utilizing new web communication tools.
The 265th Pope of the Catholic Church has been an unexpectedly strong proponent of social media. Last year, he launched a YouTube channel, and six months ago, he released Facebook and iPhone apps to spread the Church’s message. It looks like that he hopes Catholic priests will follow his digital example.
In his message, the Pope acknowledges that priests face new challenges due to cultural shifts that have brought the conversation online. Thus, priests must do more than just take the Word of the gospel to the web.
Here’s a small excerpt from the entire message from the Pope:
Full Story Pope’s Message to Priests: We Must Blog.
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Republicans Don't Care about Voter Fraud....owa Republicans are trying to dismiss claims that the vote count in Tuesday's Iowa Caucus was wrong. An Iowa voter told a local TV station yesterday that he noticed a 20-vote discrepancy in the count - and that Rick Santorum was the real winner of the Caucuses. Republican Party officials, though, are sticking to their first count - showing Mitt Romney as the winner by 8-votes - and there will be no recount.The Republican Party has launched a war on voters around the nation this year with strict new laws that will disenfranchise over 5 million Americans. They claim these laws are necessary to combat so-called voter fraud. Yet in Iowa - where there are no such laws - and where a very, very close and questionable election was just held - Republicans don't seem to care at all about getting it right.Clearly - the war on voters isn't about making sure the people's voices are represented accurately - it's about making sure poor people, young people, and minorities who tend to vote for Democrats - can't vote at all.-Thom(Who do you think won? Tell us here.) -
LEGALIZE Democracy
" We the corporations" On January 21, 2010, with its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons, entitled by the U.S. Constitution to buy elections and run our government. __________
MOVE to AMEND
a project of the CAMPAIGN TO LEGALIZE Democracy
Help end Corporate personhood
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The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. 
