Archive for January, 2010
Scientists create model of monster ‘Frankenstorm’
Think the recent wild weather that hammered California was bad? Experts are imagining far worse.
As torrential rains pelted wildfire-stripped hillsides and flooded highways, a team of scientists hunkered down at the California Institute of Technology to work on a “Frankenstorm” scenario — a mother lode wintry blast that could potentially sock the Golden State.
The hypothetical but plausible storm would be similar to the 1861-1862 extreme floods that temporarily moved the state capital from Sacramento to San Francisco and forced the then-governor to attend his inauguration by rowboat.
Full Story Scientists create model of monster ‘Frankenstorm’ – Yahoo! News.
Wal-Mart cuts about 11,200 Sam’s Club staffers
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will cut about 11,200 jobs at Sam’s Club warehouses as it turns over the task of in-store product demonstrations to an outside marketing company.
The move is an effort to improve sales at Sam’s Club, which has underperformed the company’s namesake stores in the U.S. and abroad.
The cuts represent about 10 percent of the warehouse club operator’s 110,000 staffers across its 600 stores. That includes 10,000 workers, mostly part-timers, who offer food samples and showcase products to customers. The company also eliminated 1,200 workers who recruit new members.
Employees were told the news at mandatory meetings on Sunday morning.
“In the club channel, demo sampling events are a very important part of the experience,” said Sam’s Club CEO Brian Cornell in a phone interview with The Associated Press. “Shopper Events specializes in this area and they can take our sampling program to the next level.”
Full Story Wal-Mart cuts about 11,200 Sam’s Club staffers – Yahoo! News.
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.
The SEC, according to an email sent by a New York Fed lawyer on January 13, 2009, agreed to limit the number of SEC employees who would review the document to just two and keep the document locked in a safe while the SEC considered AIG’s confidentiality request.
Full Story SEC mulled national security status for AIG details | Reuters.
Bankruptcy Judge Set To Give Tribune Co. Executives $45 Million in Bonuses
The bankrupt Tribune Co. wants to give up to $45 million in bonuses to hundreds of their managers. A bankruptcy judge in Delaware is waiting for objections to their proposal and is set to make a final decision this week.
This summer, several organizations objected against the company's original proposal for $70 million in bonuses for executives. The Newspaper Guild wrote at the time:
“The proposed bonuses to top executives are excessive and may, in fact, have a detrimental effect on motivating others who contribute to the bottom line. Indeed, the payment of disproportionate bonuses to a select group of executives may have the opposite effect on the rank-and-file employees.”
Full Story Bankruptcy Judge Set To Give Tribune Co. Executives $45 Million in Bonuses.
Menendez calls out ‘unprecedented’ filibusters as DeMint backtracks on ‘Waterloo’
Senators from each of America’s two major political parties lashed out at one another on a Sunday morning talk show. Dodging questions with talking points is nothing new, but this morning Senator Robert Menendez went off script and challenged the defeatism infecting the country.
In July, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) said if Republicans were able to stop health care reform it would “break” President Barack Obama. “If we’re able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him,” he said.
But now, DeMint denies that his intention was to break the president. He was asked by ABC’s Terry Moran Sunday, “So did you break him, and is that really how Americans want you to behave here in Washington — Break the President?”
“I did not want this to be the president’s Waterloo,” DeMint replied.
Full Story Menendez calls out ‘unprecedented’ filibusters as DeMint backtracks on ‘Waterloo’ | Raw Story.
Ed Schultz to Robert Gibbs: ‘You are full of sh*t and losing your base’ | Raw Story
Addressing a crowd of progressive talk radio fans in Minnesota, MSNBC’s Ed Schultz revealed some of the harsh words he exchanged with White House spokesman Robert Gibbs off the air earlier in the week.
“I told him he was full of sh*t is what I told him,” Schultz said. “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.”
“I’m telling you, you’re losing your base,” he continued. “Do you understand that you’re losing your base? And that the American people don’t want public option, the American people want single-payer!?’”
Full Story Ed Schultz to Robert Gibbs: ‘You are full of sh*t and losing your base’ | Raw Story.
Details of Iraq whistleblower’s alleged suicide to be sealed 70 years
By 2080, anyone with a direct interest in learning how Dr. David Kelly died, will themselves be dead.
That’s how an Oxford coroner reacted to a recent ruling ordering the details of the former United Nations weapons inspector’s death locked away for 70 years, according to a Mail Online report.
Kelly’s story, however, was gravely important in 2003, just before he was found dead in the woods behind his home in Oxfordshire, U.K. As the BBC revealed in the wake of his passing, he had been the key source behind a story claiming intelligence on Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction was “sexed up.”
Hours before his death, he reportedly e-mailed New York Times reporter Judith Miller, warning her of “many dark actors playing games,” according to the BBC.
Full Story Details of Iraq whistleblower’s alleged suicide to be sealed 70 years | Raw Story.
OP:S doesn’t something like that usually mean that someone in the government was involved?
Oops: GOP governor pays felons to get out the vote
Republicans, who have long fought restoring felons as citizens who can vote, are now embroiled in a felon scandal of their own.
On Sunday, the Dallas Morning News revealed that GOP Gov. Rick Perry had signed up ex-felons as part of a Republican get-out-the-vote effort in Texas. Perry’s campaign was unshaken by the report.
“People in life make mistakes,” said Perry spokesman Mark Miner. “It doesn’t mean they can’t get a second chance and work hard. That’s what these people are doing. They are out there trying to change their lives and make a difference.”
Full Story Oops: GOP governor pays felons to get out the vote | Raw Story.
U.S. Advanced Technology Trade Gap Widening
Most Americans fail to grasp the fact that every good we purchase which comes from overseas is a good that could have supported an American job. Things made here are typically marginally more expensive, but the costs are worth the return.
For decades the United States prided itself on the power of its industries. The U.S. could outproduce any nation in the world, with the highest technologies and the best quality products. Now, the U.S. is losing its lead in the high-tech arena.
According to the United States Census Bureau, America’s trade deficit grew once again in November 2009. That is not in itself very surprising. However, it is surprising that the U.S. set new records in its monthly imports of advanced technology.
IndustryWeek listed the monthly deficit at $8.3 billion; by far a record worst for advanced technologies. The November deficit passes the previous record, $7.73 billion in October 2007, by more than 7 percent. Overall, our November deficit was a startling $36.4 billion – substantially more than the $33.2 billion deficit posted in October 2009.
Full Story U.S. Advanced Technology Trade Gap Widening | Economy In Crisis.
Disastrous Effects of Free Trade
The United States economy has lost over $7 trillion to international commerce in the past four decades, the majority of those losses have come in the past 10 years alone.
We know where the money is going: overseas.
We know how much of it is leaving this country: roughly $700 billion annually.
We know why this country is losing such astounding sums: “free trade”.
It is time to fix the situation and get America back on a path toward growth and prosperity once again. The only way to do this is by pursuing fair trade policies which counteract the decades of unsustainable imbalances brought on through “free trade.” We need policies that can be adapted quickly and that meet the needs of this nation first and foremost.
Many around the world argue that the United States has had its opportunity as the hyperpower, and now it is time to share the wealth. Still more argue that the U.S. is not yet doing enough to help the rest of the world grow economically. Unfortunately these critics overlook the fact that American prosperity was hard fought, it had to be earned. The U.S. cannot simply open the taps and give itself up as it has in the past, to do so would be to forsake its own citizens.
Full Story Disastrous Effects of Free Trade | Economy In Crisis.
Health insurers spent $38 million lobbying Congress in 2009.
The Hill reports today that insurance companies — who have fought hard against health reforms like the creation of a new public health insurance plan — spent $38 million in 2009 to influence the direction of the health care debate. Here are some of the biggest spenders:
WellPoint: The Indiana-based insurer spent $4.7 million lobbying Congress last year, an increase of 21 percent from its expenditures in 2008.
UnitedHealth Group: The largest of all health insurance companies spent $4.5 million on lobbyists last year, an increase of 7 percent from 2008.
Humana: The insurance mega-company “showed the biggest increase in its lobbying spending among…insurers.” It spent $3.2 million lobbying in 2009, which is an 80 percent increase from 2008.
America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP): The health insurance industry’s lobbying group spent $8.9 million on lobbyists in 2009, a 20 percent increase from the previous year.
Full Story Think Progress » Health insurers spent $38 million lobbying Congress in 2009..
A Constitutional Amendment to Wrench Control Away from the Corporations
Congresswoman Donna Edwards and constitutional law professor Jamie Raskin speak out against the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. FEC and call for a mass movement of people to support a constitutional amendment.
ACORN’s real “crime” is that it empowers the poor
Jim Hightower -
The name Felix Walker is not one you would recognize, but this 19th-century congressman inadvertently contributed a word to America’s political lexicon that you will recognize–a word that fairly well sums up a lot of what we’re getting these days from right-wing politicos and pundits.
In the 1820s, Walker was the U.S. representative for Buncombe County, North Carolina. In an age of great political orators, Walker was not one. He was a droner, a dull fellow known for expressing his dullness at great length on every topic. No matter what issue was up for debate in the House–no matter whether he had any real knowledge, facts, or insights to add–Walker would rise to speak, insisting that his constituents back home would want his voice heard. He would then launch into a wandering, wearisome, often-nonsensical discourse that he always called “a speech for Buncombe.”
Exasperated colleagues began to refer to Walker’s interminable prattling as “just so much buncombe,” a phrase that has been passed down to us as “bunk”–a synonym for meaningless political claptrap.
Full Story Hightower Lowdown | ACORN’s real “crime” is that it empowers the poor.
Americans Need Debt Relief — Is Obama Brave Enough to Make It Happen?
Danny Schechter -
Taking care of the victims of predatory rip-offs is only fair. Human rights must come before property rights.
Stung by the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts, the abandonment of his health care initiative by members of Congress and fearful of a political backlash, President Obama may have realized that he himself is not ”too big to fail.” He has now “pivoted,” to use a favorite phrase from the pundits, and shifted his focus to trying to fix a still deteriorating economy.
He has gone from coddling the banks to turning on them with strong rhetoric that has financial stocks reeling, and progressives cheering. Analysts who have looked at the content of his new rules though, say they are vague enough to dive a supertanker through. Another reform in name and gesture but not in reality!
The administration is also floating new proposals to reenergize a foreclosure relief program that has brought little relief to beleaguered homeowners. More liberal terms for loan repayments are being introduced especially for those who have trouble paying their mortgages because they have lost jobs.
The Obama Brand: Feel Good While Overlords Loot the Treasury and Launch Imperial Wars
Click here to Buy it now
Brand Obama makes us hopeful. We like our president and we believe he’s like us. But we’re being duped into doing a lot of things that are not in our interest.
…an excerpt from the book by Chris Hedges …
Barack Obama is a brand. And the Obama brand is designed to make us feel good about our government while corporate overlords loot the Treasury, armies of corporate lobbyists grease the palms of our elected officials, our corporate media diverts us with gossip and trivia, and our imperial wars expand in the Middle East. Brand Obama is about being happy consumers. We are entertained. We feel hopeful. We like our president. We believe he is like us. But like all branded products spun out from the manipulative world of corporate advertising, this product is duping us into doing and supporting a lot of things that are not in our interest.
What, for all our faith and hope, has the Obama brand given us? His administration has spent, lent, or guaranteed $12.8 trillion in taxpayer dollars to Wall Street and insolvent banks in a doomed effort to re-inflate the bubble economy, a tactic that at best forestalls catastrophe and will leave us broke in a time of profound crisis. Brand Obama has allocated nearly $1 trillion in defense-related spending and the continuation of our doomed imperial projects in Iraq, where military planners now estimate that 70,000 troops will remain for the next fifteen to twenty years. Brand Obama has expanded the war in Afghanistan, increasing the use of drones sent on cross-border bombing runs into Pakistan, which have doubled the number of civilians killed over the past three months. Brand Obama has refused to ease restrictions so workers can organize and will not consider single-payer, not-for-profit health care for all Americans. And Brand Obama will not prosecute the Bush administration for war crimes, including the use of torture, and has refused to dismantle Bush’s secrecy laws and restore habeas corpus.
Shrimp’s Dirty Secrets: Why America’s Favorite Seafood Is a Health and Environmental Nightmare
The environmental impact of shrimp can be horrific. But most Americans don’t know where their shrimp comes from or what’s in it.
Americans love their shrimp. It’s the most popular seafood in the country, but unfortunately much of the shrimp we eat are a cocktail of chemicals, harvested at the expense of one of the world’s productive ecosystems. Worse, guidelines for finding some kind of “sustainable shrimp” are so far nonexistent.
In his book, Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood, Taras Grescoe paints a repulsive picture of how shrimp are farmed in one region of India. The shrimp pond preparation begins with urea, superphosphate, and diesel, then progresses to the use of piscicides (fish-killing chemicals like chlorine and rotenone), pesticides and antibiotics (including some that are banned in the U.S.), and ends by treating the shrimp with sodium tripolyphosphate (a suspected neurotoxicant), Borax, and occasionally caustic soda.
Upon arrival in the U.S., few if any, are inspected by the FDA, and when researchers have examined imported ready-to-eat shrimp, they found 162 separate species of bacteria with resistance to 10 different antibiotics. And yet, as of 2008, Americans are eating 4.1 pounds of shrimp apiece each year — significantly more than the 2.8 pounds per year we each ate of the second most popular seafood, canned tuna. But what are we actually eating without knowing it? And is it worth the price — both to our health and the environment?
Obama shifts power away from Geithner
Matt Taibbi –
Senior administration officials say there is now broad consensus within the White House and the Treasury for the plan advanced by Volcker, who leads an outside economic advisory group for the president. At its heart, Volcker’s plan restricts banks from making speculative investments that do not benefit their customers. He has argued that such speculative activity played a key role in the financial crisis. [Source]
Obviously this is good news, but what I find irritating about it is that the government only starts listening to its voters once the more corrupt option turns out to be untenable. They are making these moves out of necessity now, and that’s great — but it’s too bad they had to drive us right to the edge of the cliff before they thought about backing up.
Full Story Obama shifts power away from Geithner – Matt Taibbi – Taibblog – True/Slant.
Obama’s Argument Leads to Impeachment of Supreme Court Justices – Democratic Underground
David Swanson -
Here’s the president:
“When this ruling came down, I instructed my administration to get to work immediately with Members of Congress willing to fight for the American people to develop a forceful, bipartisan response to this decision. We have begun that work, and it will be a priority for us until we repair the damage that has been done.”
Forget the “bipartisan” BS, the point is that this statement advocates a forceful response from Congress. What could such a thing be? Legislation could lessen the damage, but not reverse it, and could hardly be seen as forceful. A Constitutional Amendment gets closer and is ultimately what’s needed, but it requires that the states take action, as well as, or instead of, Congress. The only forceful response Congress can offer, regardless of whether it’s uni-partisan, bi-partisan, tri-partisan, or non-partisan, is impeachment.
Oh, but you can’t impeach justices for rendering decisions you don’t like. They have to have truly abused power in a serious way. They have to have done something that could fit this description from President Obama:
“We’ve been making steady progress. But this week, the United States Supreme Court handed a huge victory to the special interests and their lobbyists – and a powerful blow to our efforts to rein in corporate influence. This ruling strikes at our democracy itself. By a 5-4 vote, the Court overturned more than a century of law – including a bipartisan campaign finance law written by Senators John McCain and Russ Feingold that had barred corporations from using their financial clout to directly interfere with elections by running advertisements for or against candidates in the crucial closing weeks.
Full Story Obama’s Argument Leads to Impeachment of Supreme Court Justices – Democratic Underground.
Democracy in America Is a Useful Fiction
Chris Hedges:
Corporate forces carried out a coup d’état in slow motion. The coup is over. We lost.
Corporate forces, long before the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, carried out a coup d’état in slow motion. The coup is over. We lost. The ruling is one more judicial effort to streamline mechanisms for corporate control. It exposes the myth of a functioning democracy and the triumph of corporate power. But it does not significantly alter the political landscape. The corporate state is firmly cemented in place.
The fiction of democracy remains useful, not only for corporations, but for our bankrupt liberal class. If the fiction is seriously challenged, liberals will be forced to consider actual resistance, which will be neither pleasant nor easy. As long as a democratic facade exists, liberals can engage in an empty moral posturing that requires little sacrifice or commitment. They can be the self-appointed scolds of the Democratic Party, acting as if they are part of the debate and feel vindicated by their cries of protest.
Much of the outrage expressed about the court’s ruling is the outrage of those who prefer this choreographed charade. As long as the charade is played, they do not have to consider how to combat what the political philosopher Sheldon Wolin calls our system of “inverted totalitarianism.”
Full Story Chris Hedges: Democracy in America Is a Useful Fiction – Chris Hedges’ Columns – Truthdig.
The Bernanke Conundrum
Paul Krugman
A Republican won in Massachusetts — and suddenly it’s not clear whether the Senate will confirm Ben Bernanke for a second term as Federal Reserve chairman. That’s not as strange as it sounds: Washington has suddenly noticed public rage over economic policies that bailed out big banks but failed to create jobs. And Mr. Bernanke has become a symbol of those policies.
Where do I stand? I deeply admire Mr. Bernanke, both as an economist and for his response to the financial crisis. (Full disclosure: before going to the Fed he headed Princeton’s economics department, and hired me for my current position there.) Yet his critics have a strong case. In the end, I favor his reappointment, but only because rejecting him could make the Fed’s policies worse, not better.
How did we get to the point where that’s the most I can say?
Mr. Bernanke is a superb research economist. And from the spring of 2008 to the spring of 2009 his academic expertise and his policy role meshed perfectly, as he used aggressive, unorthodox tactics to head off a second Great Depression.
Full Story Op-Ed Columnist – The Bernanke Conundrum – NYTimes.com.
OPS Bernanke is , and has been part of the problem. he needs to go away
ACLU slams Senators: The Constitution is not ‘optional’ | Raw Story
Four U.S. Senators are pursuing legislation they believe would fix the “mistake” President Obama made with the man who allegedly failed to blow up a Christmas Day flight into Detroit.
That “mistake” was treating him like a serious criminal, tossing him in jail and planning a trial.
Nevertheless, Senators Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), Susan Collins (R-ME), Robert Bennett (R-UT) and John Ensign (R-NV) are pushing legislation that would require civilian authorities to consult with intelligence leaders when taking an accused terrorist into custody.
“[This] legislation would not deprive the President of any investigative tool,” Sen. Lieberman's Web site claims. “It would not preclude a decision to charge a foreign terrorist in our military tribunal system or in our civilian criminal justice system.”
Full Story ACLU slams Senators: The Constitution is not ‘optional’ | Raw Story.
Origins of the Tea Bagger Movement: Santelli’s Rant, Ron Paul’s Fundraiser or a 1974 Pro-Segregation Rally in Boston?
There is a debate out there about the origins of the tea bagger movement. Some say it was during a rant by CNBC’s Rick Santelli on Thursday, Feb. 19, 2009, about the new administration’s plan to help mortgage holders who were underwater:
RICK SANTELLI: The government is promoting bad behavior. Because we certainly don’t want to put stimulus forth and give people a whopping $8 or $10 in their check, and think that they ought to save it, and in terms of modifications… I’ll tell you what, I have an idea.
You know, the new administration’s big on computers and technology– How about this, President and new administration? Why don’t you put up a website to have people vote on the Internet as a referendum to see if we really want to subsidize the losers’ mortgages; or would we like to at least buy cars and buy houses in foreclosure and give them to people that might have a chance to actually prosper down the road, and reward people that could carry the water instead of drink the water?
TRADER ON FLOOR: That’s a novel idea.
Freedom Forum CEO Tied to For-Profit Prisons
An advocate for–and against–freedom of information
Charles Overby has a foot planted firmly in two very different worlds. In one, he is a champion of the free press. In the other, he is part of a group at the helm of a corporation that has worked hard to limit freedom of information and the ability of the press to inform the public.
In one world, Overby is chief executive officer of the Freedom Forum, a foundation created by former USA Today publisher Al Neuharth, and its Newseum—located on Pennsylvania Avenue, blocks from the Smithsonian and the Capitol, and which literally has the First Amendment etched onto its 75-foot marble edifice. He is a Pulitzer Prize–winning editor and reporter, former vice president of news and communications for Gannett, the largest U.S. newspaper chain, and former management committee member of both Gannett and its flagship paper USA Today.
What Overby’s Freedom Forum biography does not disclose is that since 2001, he’s been a director of the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA).
This omission is easy to understand when you juxtapose the Freedom Forum’s guiding principles—“free speech, free press and free spirit”—against CCA’s recent actions and attitudes toward the press and freedom of information.
Full Story Freedom Forum CEO Tied to For-Profit Prisons.
White House Signals That It Will Fight Back Against GOP Abuse Of Filibuster
The Republican minority in the Senate has used and abused the practice of filibusters to obstruct the Democrats’ agenda. The number of Senate cloture votes, which require a supermajority of 60, “more than doubled — from 54 to 112 — from the 109th Congress (2005-2006) to the 110th (2007-2008), according to the Senate historical office.” James Fallows points to this Wikipedia chart for evidence of how “a-historical the current Senate practice” is:
The White House is giving new indications that it is preparing to go to battle against this abuse. At a fundraiser last week, Vice President Joe Biden said, “No democracy has survived needing a supermajority.”
Biden’s communications director, Jay Carney, further made the case: “When one looks at the soaring number of cloture votes required to do business in the Senate — double the numbers of a decade ago, triple the numbers of 20 years ago — it raises a legitimate question about whether this power
Full Story Think Progress » White House Signals That It Will Fight Back Against GOP Abuse Of Filibuster.
US Democracy’s End of the Road
Robert Parry -
This past week had the feel of “game, set, match,”
This past week had the feel of “game, set, match,” the end to a long string of miscalculations by the American Left and a crowning victory for the cynical American Right – a triple whammy of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling to unleash corporate campaign spending, Air America’s dissolution, and the Massachusetts Senate election.
Especially after the Supreme Court ruling allowing corporations to spend whatever they want to punish some politicans and reward others, it is hard to see a road back for American democracy.
The United States is now at the very dark terminus of a four-decades-long journey, one in which – at nearly each fateful juncture – the Right made the smart maneuver and the Left mostly hurt itself, most notably by allowing its divisive squabbles over purity vs. pragmatism to destroy the best opportunities for progress.
In retrospect, one can see key turning points as far back as 1968, the year when the Vietnam War and the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy swallowed the optimism of a generation and divided the Democratic Party to such a degree that many progressives sat out the election, even though it meant that Richard Nixon would win and continue the war for four more years.
Full Story Consortiumnews.com.
U.S. enables Chinese hacking of Google
Google made headlines when it went public with the fact that Chinese hackers had penetrated some of its services, such as Gmail, in a politically motivated attempt at intelligence gathering. The news here isn't that Chinese hackers engage in these activities or that their attempts are technically sophisticated — we knew that already — it's that the U.S. government inadvertently aided the hackers.
In order to comply with government search warrants on user data, Google created a backdoor access system into Gmail accounts. This feature is what the Chinese hackers exploited to gain access.
Google's system isn't unique. Democratic governments around the world — in Sweden, Canada and the UK, for example — are rushing to pass laws giving their police new powers of Internet surveillance, in many cases requiring communications system providers to redesign products and services they sell.
Full Story U.S. enables Chinese hacking of Google – CNN.com.
Ex-IBM Employee Reveals TV Abandoned Analog Band to Make Room for RFID
Clearing out the high power analog tv emissions will improve signal to noise ratio for RFID emitting in the 700MHz band, and potentially allow passive satellite tracking of these RFID signals.
I’m thinking about getting a stainless steel wallet to protect against having any “enhanced” RFID cards tracked or skimmed remotely.
————
(AFP/dprogram.net) According to a former 31-year IBM employee, the highly-publicized, mandatory switch from analog to digital television is mainly being done to free up analog frequencies and make room for scanners used to read implantable RFID microchips and track people and products throughout the world.
So while the American people, especially those in Texas and other busy border states, have been inundated lately with news reports advising them to hurry and get their expensive passports, “enhanced driver’s licenses,” passport cards and other “chipped” or otherwise trackable identification devices that they are being forced to own, this digital television/RFID connection has been hidden, according to Patrick Redmond.
So while the American people, especially those in Texas and other busy border states, have been inundated lately with news reports advising them to hurry and get their expensive passports, “enhanced driver’s licenses,” passport cards and other “chipped” or otherwise trackable identification devices that they are being forced to own, this digital television/RFID connection has been hidden, according to Patrick Redmond.
Full Story Ex-IBM Employee Reveals TV Abandoned Analog Band to Make Room for RFID « COALITION OF THE OBVIOUS.
CRACK THE CIA
Proves beyond a shadow of a doubt how the war on drugs is a farce just like everything else the government has a war on!!!
What the “I’m Mad-As-Hell” Party Could Do
Robert Reich -
A third political party is emerging in America. Call it the I’m-Mad-As-Hell party.
It’s a mistake to see the Mad-As-Hell party as just a right-wing phenomenon – the so-called Tea Partiers now storming the gates of the Republican Party. There are plenty of mad-as-hellers on the left as well – furious at Wall Street, health insurers, pharmaceutical manufacturers, and establishment Democrats.
Mad-as-hellers don’t trust big government. But they don’t trust big business and Wall Street, either. They especially hate it when big government gets together with big business and Wall Street – while at the same time Main Street is in shambles and millions of people are losing their jobs and homes.
Full Story Robert Reich (What the “I’m Mad-As-Hell” Party Could Do).
Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Fascism
Len Hart, -
As events this week have proven, SCOTUS is too highly venerated. Their latest outrage is the decree that ‘corporations are people’ and may spend as much money as they like in order to get their stooges into public office.
It is the worst decision since Bush v Gore which was, at the time, compared to Dred-Scott, a decision which in 1857, seven out of nine Supreme Court Justices declared that no slave or descendant of a slave could be a U.S. citizen. As a non-citizen, the court stated, Dred Scott had no rights whatsoever and could not sue in a Federal Court! The court ruled that he must remain a slave.
The court was wrong then. It was wrong again with Bush v Gore! The court is wrong now, dead wrong! Corporations are not people and should, by right, have no rights whatsoever and should, by right, exist as long as the people may find them useful or tolerable. Of late, their venal behavior and the wars of naked aggression that are fought on their behalf alone have become intolerable. It is time to reassess the status that is given both the Supreme Court and to the corporations. Perhaps both institutions should be not so gently reminded that ‘we the people’ are sovereign. ‘We the people’ are the boss’. ‘We the people’ have financed this farce with our moneys! ‘We the people’ demand a change NOW! Perhaps a real revolution will consider extensive reforms in the one case or abolition in another. Revolution now!
Full Story The Existentialist Cowboy: Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Fascism.
Oil Spilled At East Texas Port As Ships Collide
As much as 450,000 gallons of crude oil spilled in a southeast Texas port Saturday after two vessels collided, the U.S. Coast Guard said. No injuries have been reported, but part of the port has been closed and some nearby residents have been evacuated.
Port Arthur police Sgt. Ken Carona told television station KFDM that fewer than 100 people were evacuated from the area because of hydrogen sulfide — a hazardous gas with a rotten egg smell — that was emanating from the oil.
He told the station that people will be allowed back when the levels go down.
Full Story Oil Spilled At East Texas Port As Ships Collide – News Story – KFOX El Paso.
Watchdog groups warn: ‘Corporate globalization’ of US elections is upon us
In other words, noted The Sunlight Foundation, the Supreme Court “might support allowing foreign companies to spend freely in elections in the United States.”
The Supreme Court may have ruled in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission days ago, but the decision's shockwaves are still rippling across American democracy.
Key among them is a concern first raised by Justice John Paul Stevens, who wrote in his dissent that the court, by removing all prohibitions against corporate or union money in U.S. elections, “would appear to afford the same protection to multinational corporations controlled by foreigners as to individual Americans.”
“I guess this would be the corporate globalization of the U.S. electoral system,” he opined.
Full Story Watchdog groups warn: ‘Corporate globalization’ of US elections is upon us | Raw Story.
USGS claims Venezuela sits on Earth’s largest oil reserves
Venezuela may have just become the center of an energy-starved world.
The Orinoco Belt, situated squarely underneath the South American nation, may hold some 513 billion barrels of crude oil, according to a new report by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
That’s twice the size of Saudi Arabia’s oil reserves, placing Venezuela firmly atop the list of oil-rich nations.
The timing of the USGS announcement is striking. On Jan. 28, international firms will take part in an auction for contracts to drill in the Orinoco Belt. The deadline for auction registration was Jan 18, according to industry publication Petroleum World. Results will be announced on Feb. 10.
However, the USGS did not make an estimate of how much oil is actually recoverable. The Orinoco Belt’s reserves are typically thick and tar-like, with some patches difficult to reach with current drilling technology.
Full Story USGS claims Venezuela sits on Earth’s largest oil reserves | Raw Story.
OPS: Aw shit. Here comes our next war and occupation for the next 20 years. Unless China gets there first. Soon we will be hearing how AlQaeda has taken up residence in Chavez’s palace. Venezuela just became the next target for Blackwater
Bill’s Late Father Irving Kristol: ‘My Poor Son Has Got It Wrong Again’
“He would rather take an interesting wrong position than a dull correct one,”
Despite all the failures of the neoconservative movement in foreign policy over the last eight years, Newsweek writes that we are witnessing “the return of the neocons.” However, the article provides little hard evidence that neoconservative foreign policy has actually gained renewed credibility. Neocons simply “agree…that they are not about to go away.” And despite the premise of the piece, the article notes why neoconservatism is, in the words of Newsweek, “alive and well“:
“They are effectively insulated from failure,” says Stephen Walt of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, one of the neocons’ most frequent antagonists. “Even if you’ve totally screwed up in office and things you’ve advocated in print have failed, there are no real consequences, either professionally or politically. You go back to AEI and Weekly Standard and continue to agitate or appear on talk shows as if nothing has gone wrong at all.”
One such prominent neocon is Bill Kristol, whom Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart once asked, “Are you ever right?” But it hasn’t just been Kristol’s ideological opposites that have criticized him. According to Newsweek, neocons, other Republicans, and even his own late father have criticized him:
Full Story Think Progress » Bill’s Late Father Irving Kristol: ‘My Poor Son Has Got It Wrong Again’.
SC Lt. Gov. compares people getting gov’t help to ‘stray animals’ who ‘breed’ because they don’t know better.
South Carolina Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer, who is running for the Republican nomination for governor, held a town hall meeting yesterday where he argued government should be tougher on families whose children receive free and reduced-price lunches. Bauer said that parents should be required to “pass drug tests or attend parent-teacher conferences or PTA meetings.” To make this argument, however, he compared people receiving government assistance to stray animals:
“My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You’re facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don’t think too much further than that. And so what you’ve got to do is you’ve got to curtail that type of
OPS: At some point the reset of us are going to have to accept the fact, and act accordingly: Republicans are emotionally damaged individuals. It’s appears to be the common thread among them
US Marines End Role In Iraq, Biden Holds Talks In Baghdad
The U.S. Marines marked the end of nearly seven years in Iraq on Saturday by handing the Army their command of Anbar province, once one of the war’s fiercest battlefields but now a centerpiece of U.S.-Iraqi cooperation.
The changing of the guard – overseen by military brass and some of Anbar’s influential Sunni sheiks – signals the start of an accelerated drawdown of American troops as the U.S. increasingly shifts its focus to the war in Afghanistan.
American commanders are trumpeting security gains in places such as the western Anbar province as a sign that their partnership with Iraqi security forces is working, and that the local troops can keep the country safe.
Full Story US Marines End Role In Iraq, Biden Holds Talks In Baghdad.
OPS: ….so they can be trotted off to some other dumb-ass occupation. Not so they can some home.
Opposition Grows Against Second Term for Bernanke
The Obama administration struggled on Friday to secure confirmation of Ben S. Bernanke to a second term as chairman of the Federal Reserve, underscoring the political upheaval as both parties tried to find their footing amid a powerful wave of populism.
Two Democratic senators who are up for re-election this year announced that they would oppose Mr. Bernanke, whose four-year term as head of the central bank expires at the end of this month. Their decisions reflected a surge of opposition among some Democrats and Republicans to Mr. Bernanke, a primary architect of the bailout of the financial system and a contributor to policies that critics contend put the economy at risk in the first place.
With no vote scheduled and Capitol Hill abuzz with the possibility that more senators would use the nomination to show voters they understood the anger about bailouts and economic hardship, the uncertainty about Mr. Bernanke’s fate spread to Wall Street.
Full Story Opposition Grows Against Second Term for Bernanke – NYTimes.com.
Full Body Scanner FAILS To Detect Bomb Parts During Demonstration (VIDEO)
A German television program’s demonstration of full body scanners revealed that the controversial security devices may be able to make out such intimate details as breast implants, but can fail to detect bomb-making components.
In the TV broadcast, the scanner, which produces x-ray images so graphic it’s been likened to ‘virtual strip-searching,’ caught the person’s cell phone and Swiss Army knife, but missed a variety of objects hidden around his person that could be used to create and detonate a bomb.
Schneier on Security observes,
Admittedly, he only faced the scanner from the front and not from the side. But he also didn’t hide anything in a body cavity other than his mouth — I didn’t think about that one — he didn’t use low density or thinly sliced PETN, and he didn’t hide anything in his carry-on luggage.
Full Story Full Body Scanner FAILS To Detect Bomb Parts During Demonstration (VIDEO).
OPS: Here’s what does work – No expensive equipment – no taking the shoes off – just well paid, smart /trained people asking questions…. The Toughest Airline Security of All
Haiti officials say efforts continue to find survivors
Haitian government officials say they are still looking for earthquake survivors, despite earlier reports that they had called off search and rescue efforts.
“There has been a misinterpretation of the president’s declaration,” Haitian Minister of Communications Marie Laurence Lassegue told The Miami Herald.
Before making a final decision on future search and rescue efforts, Haitian officials are waiting for operators on the ground to give President Rene Preval their recommendation.
Full Story Haiti officials say efforts continue to find survivors | McClatchy.
Why Five Members of SCOTUS Are Nuttier Than Fruit Cakes!!
In the worst decision since Bush v Gore, the US Supreme Court has worked a ‘miracle’. Five ‘justices’ –John G. Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Antony Kennedy –have conspired to turn mere words on paper into living, breathing ‘human beings’ and have decreed that these corporations, mere ‘legal abstractions’, have the same rights of free speech as do living breathing human beings. Who is the ‘conspiracy theorist’, who is nuttiest when five ideologues in robes can dictate to you that you treat mere ‘abstractions’ –pieces of paper –as if they were people?
The crooks on K-street may resume their on-going auction of the United States knowing that their nefarious bargains have been blessed by the ‘high court’, a cult of weird robed people who believe weird things! ‘Corporations’ –mere abstractions –are given license to sell out the nation and call it ‘free speech’!
Should you dare to use the term ‘conspiracy’ to describe the activities of these crooks on K-street –the lobbies for Israel and other foreign entities –you will be labeled a ‘conspiracy theorist’! But SCOTUS, meanwhile, gets away with calling words on paper a ‘person’ and giving them rights! I ask you: who is nuttier? You for believing what volumes of federal laws have called ‘conspiracies’? Or –the SUPREME court who believes an embossed piece of paper with a corporate seal from Delaware on it is a real, living breathing person? I will tell you what I think! I think that five members of the Supreme Court of the United States are nuttier than fruit cakes!
Full Story The Existentialist Cowboy: Why Five Members of SCOTUS Are Nuttier Than Fruit Cakes!!.
7 Things About The Economy Everyone Should Be Worried About
An extraordinary series of articles recently appeared on the Nieman Watchdog Web site, anchored by investigative reporter John Hanrahan and mostly based on interviews with some of the nation’s most perceptive, prescient and prophetic economists. The series laid out a broad landscape of economic issues that have been largely overlooked during the reporting of the nation’s economic collapse — to our great peril.
Hanrahan’s articles explore key elements of the story that reporters should have been — and should still be — writing about. Among them: The endemic fraud at the heart of the collapse, the resultant need for a comprehensive dissection of some key financial institutions, how the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have weakened the economy, the dramatic effects of the crash on domestic poverty and world poverty, and underlying it all, the critically important role of government spending in a recovery, be it through a second stimulus or expanded entitlements or jobs programs, all of which requires that deficits be seen, for the short run at least, as the solution, not the problem.
As a coda to Hanrahan’s series, here is a list of seven things all of us should be more alarmed by than we currently are, going forward.
No. 1: The middle class may never be the same again….
Full Story 7 Things About The Economy Everyone Should Be Worried About.
Paul Krugman For The Fed Chair
The case for Ben Bernanke’s reappointment was weak to start with, weakened with his hearings, and is now held together by string and some phone calls from the White House. Bernanke is an airline pilot who pulled off a miraculous landing, but didn’t do his preflight checks and doesn’t show any sign of being more careful in the future – thank him if you want, but why would you fly with him again (or the airline that keeps him on)?
The support for Bernanke in the Senate hangs by a thread – with Harry Reid providing a message of support, albeit lukewarm, after the markets close. The White House is telling people that if Bernanke is not reconfirmed there will be chaos in the markets and the economic recovery will be derailed. This is incorrect.
The danger here is uncertainty – the markets fear a prolonged policy vacuum. Fortunately, there is a way to address this. Ben Bernanke should withdraw and the president should nominate Paul Krugman to take his place.
Full Story Paul Krugman For The Fed « The Baseline Scenario.
U.S. Law Inhibits China Currency Probe
As it currently stands, there is no clear distinction as to who has the authority to deal with currency manipulation. Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke wants Congress to put together a bipartisan bill which would give his office more authority
Virtually all officials in the United States agree that the government in Beijing is manipulating its currency and affecting the balance of global trade. Unfortunately there is very little anyone in the government can do about it. Most officials avoid publicly stating anything against this manipulation, and when someone does speak out they often quickly recant the statement.
Part of the reason we refuse to properly acknowledge the unfair manipulation by the Chinese government is the fact that Beijing dominates such a large proportion of our budget and finances. Another part of the reason is the fact that our own laws often impeded our ability to investigate or enforce currency manipulation.
According to Reuters, United States Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke notified Congress in a letter that it must act to free his department to fully investigate currency. As it currently stands, there is no clear distinction as to who has the authority to deal with currency manipulation. The Treasury Department has assumed some of the role, along with the Commerce Department, but the two do not agree on methods or even the importance of the issue.
Full Story U.S. Law Inhibits China Currency Probe | Economy In Crisis.
Stemming the Job Crisis
The Economic Policy Institute believes that the only way to stave off long-term negative effects from our employment downturn is to approach them head-on with bold and decisive action
President Barack Obama campaigned on many promises. He promised stability, jobs, recovery, and hope. Unfortunately, after one year many of those promises have gone unresolved. Our economic downfall seems to have stabilized, at least on the surface, but many metrics are still trending in the wrong direction.
Our government and media have tried to sell the idea that stability in finance, and gains on the stock market, are signals of recovery. Most Americans, on the other hand, look at jobs first and foremost as the leading indicator of economic well-being.
The non-partisan Economic Policy Institute (EPI) has come up with its own project to solve America’s job crisis. The “American Jobs Plan” is a five-point study on how to create and sustain jobs over the long-term.
Full Story Stemming the Job Crisis | Economy In Crisis.
Out with the New, In with the Old
In announcing his banking reform plans Thursday, President Obama not only struck an unusually tough tone with Wall Street, but he also may have effectively marginalized the two most prominent Wall Street-friendly members of his economic team.
Standing alongside former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker and Vice President Joe Biden, both of whom have reportedly been pushing Obama to take a harder stance on Wall Street excesses and demonstrate his empathy for the middle class, Obama laid out a series of initiatives that would scale back the size of the nation’s largest banks and better separate commercial and investment banking.
Those announced reforms reportedly came much to the consternation of current Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Director of the White House’s Economic Council Larry Summers, both of whom have been viewed as allies of the titans of Wall Street and have been blamed by some for the administration’s less than adversarial relationship with Wall Street businesses.
Full Story Out with the New, In with the Old | Economy In Crisis.
GOP wants pollution declared not harmful
Republican Senator Aims to Keep E.P.A. From Regulating Climate-Altering Gases
In a direct challenge to the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority, Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, introduced a resolution on Thursday to prevent the agency from taking any action to regulate carbon dioxide and other climate-altering gases.
Ms. Murkowski, joined by 35 Republicans and three conservative Democrats, proposed to use the Congressional Review Act to strip the agency of the power to limit emissions of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. The Supreme Court gave the agency legal authority to regulate such emissions in a landmark 2007 ruling.
The agency has declared carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to be a threat to human health and the environment and is moving to write regulations to restrict emissions from vehicles, power plants and other major sources. The action could impose significant costs on the economy but would also rein in production of the heat-trapping gases that most scientists link to worrisome changes in the global climate.
Full Story Senator Aims to Keep E.P.A. From Regulating Climate-Altering Gases – NYTimes.com.
Poll: Oregon voters likely to raise taxes on corporations, wealthy | Raw Story
A new poll indicates that Oregon voters strongly favor two ballot measures that would raise taxes on corporations, as well as on individuals making over $125,000 and households with an income over $250,000.
Measure 66, which would raise taxes on higher-earning taxpayers, is favored by 52% to 39%. Measure 67, which would increase both the corporate minimum tax and certain corporate tax rates, is favored by 50% to 40%.
The increased revenue would go to maintain public services, schools, health care, and public safety. Over $1 billion is at stake — $733 million in direct revenue and the rest in matching funds from federal programs. The bulk of the increases would be temporary.
Full Story Poll: Oregon voters likely to raise taxes on corporations, wealthy | Raw Story.
Electronic Passports May Make Traveling Americans Targets, Critics Say – PC World
A State Department plan to introduce electronic passports this summer has raised concern among a number of observers that, in an attempt to help protect Americans at home, the government could put U.S. travelers abroad at risk from terrorists and thieves.
Some privacy advocates and travel groups charge that a remotely readable chip in the passports, which the State Department intends to begin issuing after a roll-out to government employees in August, could be scanned by criminals or terrorists out to target Americans.
Under current plans, the chip, called a radio-frequency ID or RFID chip, will contain the same identifying information as is printed in the passport–name, passport number, birthday, and place of birth. The data will be unencrypted, and will also include a digital picture for use with facial recognition technology.
Full Story Electronic Passports May Make Traveling Americans Targets, Critics Say – PC World.
OPS: be aware that these remotely accessible personal data transmitters are showing up in all kinds of places
GOP-linked company tracks online users’ ‘loan-worthiness’
Want a bank loan? Get yourself more Facebook friends — but make sure they pay their bills on time.
Banks are beginning to look at user accounts on Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites to determine if an applicant is loan-worthy, raising privacy concerns as well as questions over whether a person’s online friends, likes and dislikes can actually measure their financial stability.
Everything a person does publicly on their social-networking accounts can be found by market researchers if the user’s privacy settings allow it. Researchers are now looking at a person’s online conversations, the groups they join, products they look at and even who their friends are to determine loan-worthiness.
Full Story GOP-linked company tracks online users’ ‘loan-worthiness’ | Raw Story.
Hatch Admits Hypocrisy: ‘A Lot Of Things Weren’t Paid For’ When Republicans Ran Congress During Bush Years
In 2003, when the Bush administration was already projecting a budget deficit of $475 billion in fiscal year 2004, the Republican-controlled Congress passed a Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit that raised the deficit by $395 billion between 2004 and 2013. Despite enacting a massive, unpaid for entitlement expansion while in power, Republicans have attacked the cost of health care reform sought by President Obama and Democrats in Congress — even though the bill with the best chance of passage would reduce the deficit by $132 billion over 10 years and by $1.3 trillion over 20 years.
On MSNBC today, Andrea Mitchell pressed Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) on the hypocrisy of Republicans all of a sudden getting religion “about paying for everything.” Hatch replied that it “wasn’t right” that they didn’t pay for the legislation, but it was understandable because they were “trying to solve a problem for millions of millions of Americans”:
HATCH: Well, in those days, a lot of things weren’t paid for and that wasn’t right. I have to admit that. On the other hand, we were trying to solve a problem for millions of millions of Americans who were unable to get their drugs.
OPS: ‘Hypocrisy’ is a gentle sanitary term in the minds of most people. blatant FRAUD would better explain it.
Right-wing Saudi dynasty endorses right-wing Fox News dynasty.
This week, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal al-Saud of Saudi Arabia — the largest shareholder of News Corp outside the Murdoch family — endorsed Rupert Murdoch’s son James to succeed the elder Murdoch when he retires. Alwaleed, King Abdullah’s nephew, is Saudi Arabia’s richest person and the world’s 22nd wealthiest (Murdoch is number 132). He holds large stakes in many American companies, including Citi. The prince met with Murdoch last week to discuss a “future potential alliance with News Corp,” and he told Charlie Rose Wednesday about his respect for the Murdoch dynasty:
ALWALEED: I met with Mr. Rupert Murdoch and Mr. James Murdoch. We are always in tough. I’m second biggest shareholder there. And no doubt that News Corp is moving on all the fronts. You’ve seen how FOX rating is skyrocketing. … James is now managing Europe and Asia. … I’ll be the first one to nominate him to be the successor of Mr. Rupert Murdoch, god forbid if something happens to him. … I have full confidence in [James], full trust in him, and he’s capable. He’s really Rupert Murdoch in the making, and he’s almost there now.
Full Story Think Progress » Right-wing Saudi dynasty endorses right-wing Fox News dynasty..
Business Leaders Speak Out on Citizens United 41 Industry Leaders tell Congress to Pass Fair Elections
Press Releases – Common Cause
Forty-one business leaders from a diverse cross-section of industries sent a letter to Congressional leadership in response to the Roberts’ Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC. According to the distinguished group, the Fair Elections Now Act is the most comprehensive response to yesterday’s terrible decision.
“Yesterday’s decision by the Supreme Court makes it imperative that Congress pass the Fair Elections Now Act,” said Alan Hassenfeld, chairman of Hasbro. “It is long past the time to stop requiring that our elected officials moonlight as telemarketers raising money for their re-election campaigns rather then devoting all their time to solving the problems before this nation. Is there a difference between campaign contributions and bribery?”
From the letter:
With additional money flowing into the system due to the Court’s decision, the fundraising pressure on members of Congress will only increase.
“We believe Congress must address both the Citizens United decision and the problems of the current campaign finance system by passing the Fair Elections Now Act (S. 752 and H.R. 1826). This measure would enact a voluntary alternative system for financing federal elections, giving candidates the option to run for office on a mixture of small contributions and limited public funds.”
Sponsored by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.), the Fair Elections Now Act would allow candidates to spend most of their time talking to voters and working on our nation’s challenges and less time dialing for dollars. The House legislation currently has the broad bipartisan and cross-caucus support of 127 members.
The letter was sent to both Democratic and Republican leadership in the House and Senate on January 22, 2010. Signatories include Edgar Bronfman, former president and CEO of Seagram’s; Arnold Hiatt, former CEO of Stride Rite; Gordon Segal, chairman of Crate & Barrel; and William Ruckleshaus, strategic director of Madrona Venture Group and EPA director in the Nixon administration*.
To view the full letter and signatories visit HERE
*Corporation affiliations used for identification purposes only.
Full Story Press Releases – Common Cause.
For House Cosponsors (126 as of 01/23/10):
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:HR01826:@@@P
For Senate Cosponsors (5 as of 01/23/10):
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/D?d111:1:./temp/~bd1JYR:@@@P|/bss/111search.html|
Goldman under investigation for its securities dealings
One of Congress’ premier watchdog panels is investigating Goldman Sachs’ role in the subprime mortgage meltdown, including how the firm sold securities backed by risky home loans while it simultaneously bet that those bonds would lose value, people familiar with the inquiry said Friday.
The investigation is part of a broader examination by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations into the roots of the economic crisis and whether financial institutions behaved improperly, said the individuals, who insisted upon anonymity because the matter is sensitive.
Disclosure of the investigation comes amid a darkening mood at the White House, in Congress and among the American public over the long-term economic impact of the subprime crisis, prompting demands to hold the culprits accountable.
Full Story Goldman under investigation for its securities dealings | McClatchy.
Elizabeth Warren WORRIED about the state of our economy
Thom Hartmann with Elizabeth Warren (COP – Congressional Oversight Panel on TARP)
Foreclosures WORST NOW, Banks Still Have TOXIC Assets
January 22, 2010
Rep. Grayson on Supreme Court Decision: We Can’t Let Blackwater Take Over The Government
The Supreme Court’s recent decision to open the floodgates and allow corporate funds to be used in federal elections will further strengthen the influence of the military-industrial complex. We talked to U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson (FL-08) about his efforts to push back against the influence of war contractors and other corporations in our elections.
Corporations Speak Out Against SCOTUS Ruling, Call On Congress To Approve Public Financing Of Campaigns
Yesterday, “all five of the [Supreme] Court’s conservatives joined together … to invalidate a sixty-three year-old ban on corporate money in federal elections,” a move that Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) said “opens the floodgates for the purchases and sale of the law” by big corporations.
Today, in response to the Supreme Court’s catastrophic decision, “dozens of current and former corporate executives” from corporations including Delta, Ben & Jerry’s, and Crate & Barrel sent a letter to Congress asking it to immediately pass the Fair Elections Now Act, which would publicly finance all congressional campaigns out of a special fund created by a fee levied on TV broadcasters:
Roughly 40 executives from companies including Playboy Enterprises, ice cream maker Ben & Jerry’s, the Seagram’s liquor company, toymaker Hasbro, Delta Airlines and Men’s Wearhouse sent a letter to congressional leaders Friday urging them to approve public financing for House and Senate campaigns. They say they are tired of getting fundraising calls from lawmakers — and fear it will only get worse after Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling. [...]
Do Employers Really Need to Give Drug Tests for Pot?
Many former police officers, city officials, even corrections officers now favor a new drug paradigm. Surely it is time to revisit a system that protects few and harms many.
Some months back, at the behest of a former boss, I attempted to register with a work agency. The work was data cleaning at the hospital where previously I was a well-regarded employee. During the physical exam, I had a mandatory drug screen. It came up positive for marijuana and I am now banned from this agency. What is it about my story that is important or germane? I cooked my own goose, deserve no pity, but the experience has had the exemplary effect of clarifying my thoughts regarding the whole subject.
I admit to smoking marijuana. Smoking makes me a calmer, more balanced person. I’m also a fool for getting caught. Time was when I was both a frequent and enthusiastic user; I am now an infrequent, but no less enthusiastic, user. I believe that responsible marijuana use is a benign activity; drug use needs to be distinguished from drug abuse. Consciousness-altering techniques range from prayer and wine to music and dance; evidence shows that humans have used these methods as far back in the history of our species as we can see. (Please note that I am not defending those who would indulge in any substance and then risk harm to others.)
I have a Master’s in Public Health (GPA 3.54). I am the mother of three bright, well-adjusted children. I am considered polite, articulate and generous. My house is relatively clean; meals are tasty and nutritious; laundry is dealt with in a timely fashion. My failing, according to some misplaced rules of law, is that I enjoy smoking marijuana a few nights a week after the kids are asleep. I do not drive or go to work after using even minimal amounts of marijuana. I can, however, tell my children about using Prozac, I can drink alcohol in front of them, I could even neglect them to play computer solitaire, but hike or play chess with marijuana in my system and I’m open to criminal prosecution.
Full Story Do Employers Really Need to Give Drug Tests for Pot? | DrugReporter | AlterNet.
The Search for Autism’s Missing Piece
Autism Research Slowly Turns Its Focus to Environmental Toxicity -
Autism cases are on the rise. Or so the most recent data would have us believe. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that 1 in 100 children in the U.S. have been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD)—up from 1 in 150 in 2007. A study in the journal Pediatrics in October 2009 revealed similar numbers—parents of 1 in 90 children reported that their child had ASD. With boys, the rate of ASD was 1 in 58. Without a doubt, autism is the country’s fastest-growing developmental disability, affecting more children than cancer, diabetes and AIDS combined. Still, in dealing with a childhood disorder that ranges from “highly functioning” to uncommunicative, and such a long list of potential triggers and treatments, even the numbers themselves are subject to questioning.
“It irritates me to no end that we still argue over whether there is an increase in incidence,” says Michael Merzenich, Ph.D., a neuroscientist at the University of California San Francisco who has pioneered research in brain plasticity (essentially, retraining brains) and leads the brain-training software company Posit Science. “I think there is lots of evidence for increased incidence,” Merzenich says. “Overwhelmingly it supports that there are things in the environment that are contributing to the rate of incidence. But people still argue.”
Doubters point out that autism is better understood today and more frequently diagnosed. Some have even suggested that an autism diagnosis may be a means to an end—a way for parents to get the immediate speech and physical therapies their children need to prevent long-term delays. Massachusetts-based health writer Lisa Jo Rudy, mother to one autistic child, Tom, 13, as well as to a 10-year-old daughter, Sara, is one such skeptic. “Are we simply calling what used to be called being a ‘dweeb’ autism?” Rudy asks. The National Institute of Mental Health writes: “It is unclear from the report in Pediatrics whether the 1 in 90 estimate is measuring a true increase in ASD cases or improvements in our ability to detect it.”
Blackwater in Pakistan: Gates Confirms
Jeremy Scahill -
On Thursday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates confirmed that Blackwater is operating in Pakistan. In an interview on Express TV, Gates, who was visiting Islamabad, said, “They [Blackwater and another private security firm, DynCorp] are operating as individual companies here in Pakistan,” according to a DoD transcript of the interview. “There are rules concerning the contracting companies. If they’re contracting with us or with the State Department here in Pakistan, then there are very clear rules set forth by the State Department and by ourselves.”
Today, the country’s senior minister for the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), Bashir Bilour, also acknowledged that the company is operating in Pakistan’s frontier areas. Bilour told Pakistan’s Express News TV that Blackwater’s activities were taking place with the “consent and permission” of the Pakistani government, saying he had discussed the issue with officials at the US Consulate in Peshawar, who told him that Blackwater was training Pakistani forces.
When Gates was asked what the US response would be if the Pakistani parliament passed a law banning private security companies, Gates said, “If it’s Pakistani law, we will absolutely comply.”
Full Story Blackwater in Pakistan: Gates Confirms.
Manchurian Candidates: Supreme Court allows China and others unlimited spending in US elections
…expect the Supreme Court to next rule that Wal-Mart can run for President.
In today’s Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Court ruled that corporations should be treated the same as “natural persons”, i.e. humans. Well, in that case, expect the Supreme Court to next rule that Wal-Mart can run for President.
The ruling, which junks federal laws that now bar corporations from stuffing campaign coffers, will not, as progressives fear, cause an avalanche of corporate cash into politics. Sadly, that’s already happened: we have been snowed under by tens of millions of dollars given through corporate PACs and “bundling” of individual contributions from corporate pay-rollers.
The Court’s decision is far, far more dangerous to U.S. democracy. Think: Manchurian candidates.
I’m losing sleep over the millions — or billions — of dollars that could flood into our elections from ARAMCO, the Saudi Oil corporation’s U.S. unit; or from the maker of “New Order” fashions, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. Or from Bin Laden Construction corporation. Or Bin Laden Destruction Corporation.
Full Story Greg Palast » Manchurian Candidates:Supreme Court allows China and othersunlimited spending in US elections.
Poverty Spreads In The Suburbs
When hundreds camped out in the south suburban town of Park Forest last summer in the hopes that they would be added to an affordable housing waiting list, it illuminated how the economic downturn had reached beyond urban and rural areas to the suburbs. A new study (PDF) from the Brookings Institution backs that up, finding that the poverty rate in the Chicagoland suburbs grew by 9 percent between 2000 and 2008 (while remaining more or less flat in the city itself). Factor in the historic loss of jobs in 2009, and the report estimates that the number of poor suburbanites may have grown by another 2.3 percent. But this trend isn’t unique to the Chicago area, as the study’s authors note:
Between 2000 and 2008, suburbs in the country’s largest metro areas saw their poor population grow by 25 percent—almost five times faster than primary cities and well ahead of the growth seen in smaller metro areas and non-metropolitan communities. As a result, by 2008 large suburbs were home to 1.5 million more poor than their primary cities and housed almost one-third of the nation’s poor overall.
Check out this adjoining fact sheet (PDF, page 20), which boils down some stats from the six-county Chicago-area. Missing from the breakdown, however, is the fact that nowhere is the population of poor suburbanites as large, or the challenge as great, as in Chicago’s southeast suburbs. In towns like Ford City, Dolton, and Harvey, unemployment hit double digits long before the recession began. In response, anti-hunger advocates from the Greater Chicago Food Depository have deemed (PDF) it one of the top three most food-insecure areas in the region. Brookings’ Emily Barr ponders the recovery of such distraught communities, noting that the data “brings questions of access to service providers, transportation, and jobs even further to the forefront of debate.”
Full Story Poverty Spreads In The Suburbs | Progress Illinois.
Time to Reign in Out-of-Control Corporate Influences on Our Democracy
Ralph Nader -
Yesterday’s 5-4 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission shreds the fabric of our already weakened democracy by allowing corporations to more completely dominate our corrupted electoral process. It is outrageous that corporations already attempt to influence or bribe our political candidates through their political action committees (PACs), which solicit employees and shareholders for donations.
With this decision, corporations can now directly pour vast amounts of corporate money, through independent expenditures, into the electoral swamp already flooded with corporate campaign PAC contribution dollars. Without approval from their shareholders, corporations can reward or intimidate people running for office at the local, state, and national levels.
Much of this 183 page opinion requires readers to enter into a fantasy world and accept the twisted logic of Justice Kennedy, who delivered the opinion of the Court, joined by Chief Justice Roberts, and Justices Scalia, Alito, and Thomas. Imagine the majority saying the “Government may not suppress political speech based on the speaker’s corporate identity.”
Full Story Time to Reign in Out-of-Control Corporate Influences on Our Democracy – The Nader Page.
CCTV in the sky: police plan to use military-style spy drones
Arms manufacturer BAE Systems developing national strategy with consortium of government agencies
Police in the UK are planning to use unmanned spy drones, controversially deployed in Afghanistan, for the ”routine” monitoring of antisocial motorists, protesters, agricultural thieves and fly-tippers, in a significant expansion of covert state surveillance.
The arms manufacturer BAE Systems, which produces a range of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for war zones, is adapting the military-style planes for a consortium of government agencies led by Kent police.
Documents from the South Coast Partnership, a Home Office-backed project in which Kent police and others are developing a national drone plan with BAE, have been obtained by the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act.
Full Story CCTV in the sky: police plan to use military-style spy drones | UK news | The Guardian.
Corporate Personhood – The Floodgates were Opened Today
Thom Hartmann on the Supreme Court decision on 01.21.10: Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission (video)
Revisiting The Shock Doctrine in the Wake of Haiti Disaster | CommonDreams.org
Naomi Klein
Editor’s note: In the aftermath of the January 12th earthquake that ravaged (and continues to ravage) Haiti, as we witness the bravery and dignity of survivors and relief workers, we are wise to examine the deeper outlines of the historical roots that created the conditions for such a massive loss of life. We must simultaneously, however, begin to ponder what lies ahead for the people of Haiti as they emerge from the immediate calamity of the quake. As Naomi Klein meticulously revealed in her 2007 book, The Shock Doctrine, we understand that disasters of this kind can be moments of great upheaval and uncertainty, and that in these moments space is created that paves the way for new policies and new realities to emerge. In the following excerpt from her book, Klein explores those who were able to resist the worst inclinations of “disaster capitalism” – in this case Thai villagers whose homes were decimated by the India Ocean tsunami – by harnessing the power of community and solidarity to supplant the role that financial interests and neo-liberal elites sought to play in the aftermath of crisis:
Despite all the successful attempts to exploit the 2004 tsunami, memory also proved to be an effective tool of resistance in some areas where it struck, particularly in Thailand. Dozens of coastal villages were flattened by the wave, but unlike in Sri Lanka, many Thai settlements were successfully rebuilt within months. The difference did not come from the government. Thailand’s politicians were just as eager as those elsewhere to use the storm as an excuse to evict fishing people and hand over land tenure to large resorts. Yet what set Thailand apart was that villagers approached all government promises with intense skepticism and refused to wait patiently in camps for an official reconstruction plan. Instead, within weeks, hundreds of villagers engaged in what they called land “reinvasions.”
Full Story Revisiting The Shock Doctrine in the Wake of Haiti Disaster | CommonDreams.org.
Invasive species threat growing globally, experts warn
Threat to native species from alien invaders is growing and posing one of the greatest threats to wildlife around the world, conservationists say
Hundreds of invasive species – from rats to diseases – are posing one of the greatest threats to wildlife around the world, conservationists warned today.
A study of 57 countries coordinated by the Global Invasive Species programme (pdf) found 542 types of animals and plants were putting native wildlife at risk in places where they are not naturally found.
On average, around 50 non-native species are having a negative impact on existing plants and animals in each country, ranging from nine in Equatorial Guinea to a massive 222 in New Zealand.
On the list of invasive aliens are 316 plants, 101 marine species, 44 freshwater fish, 43 mammals, 23 birds and 15 types of amphibian.
Full Story Invasive species threat growing globally, experts warn | Environment | guardian.co.uk.
A Haiti Disaster Relief Scenario Was Envisaged by the US Military One Day Before the Earthquake
A Haiti disaster relief scenario had been envisaged at the headquarters of US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) in Miami one day prior to the earthquake.
The holding of pre-disaster simulations pertained to the impacts of a hurricane in Haiti. They were held on January 11. (Bob Brewin, Defense launches online system to coordinate Haiti relief efforts (1/15/10) — GovExec.com, complete text of article is contained in Annex)
The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), which is under the jurisdiction of the Department of Defense (DoD), was involved in organizing these scenarios on behalf of US Southern Command.(SOUTHCOM).
Defined as a “Combat Support Agency”, DISA has a mandate to provide IT and telecommunications, systems, logistics services in support of the US military. (See DISA website: Defense Information Systems Agency).
On the day prior to the earthquake, “on Monday [January 11, 2010], Jean Demay, DISA’s technical manager for the agency’s Transnational Information Sharing Cooperation project, happened to be at the headquarters of the U.S. Southern Command in Miami preparing for a test of the system in a scenario that involved providing relief to Haiti in the wake of a hurricane.” (Bob Brewin, op cit, emphasis added)
Full Story A Haiti Disaster Relief Scenario Was Envisaged by the US Military One Day Before the Earthquake.
‘Invisible Hands’: The Dangerous Power of Business
Invisible Hands: The Businessmen’s Crusade against the New Deal” is a book about the power of business in America. It’s about the deep roots of the conservative movement in the history of the twentieth century, telling the story of how a small group of business leaders who were fiercely, passionately opposed to even the most minor reforms of the 1930s tried to organize to turn the clock back to the late nineteenth century. And it is about how they were able to grow their ranks over time, so that today business interests are able to exercise immense power regardless of which political party is in the White House.
I began writing the book late in 2001. Much of the writing on conservatism has focused on the decline of the New Deal electoral coalition, especially the “culture wars” and the disaffection of white working-class voters from a liberal economic agenda. These are important parts of the story, but I thought that the debate left out something important: the immense opposition of very wealthy people to even minimal economic regulations, progressive taxation, and union power. After all, these are the people who have benefited tremendously from economic deregulation–they are the ones at the top who have been able to capture such a large proportion the wealth created in the past decade, as inequality overall has risen to levels not seen in a century. Didn’t they also have something to do with shaping the politics that has come to help them so much?
Full Story Kim Phillips-Fein: ‘Invisible Hands’: The Dangerous Power of Business.
‘Shadow Elite’: Information Is Power And Who’s Controlling Our Information?
Janine Wedel’s “Shadow Elite”–particularly her chapter on “U.S. Government, Inc.”– struck a familiar chord with me. She writes that our national and public interests risk being sold out because core government functions like running intelligence operations, controlling homeland security databases, and managing federal taxpayer monies doled out under the stimulus plans and bailouts are being outsourced to private contractors. Contracting is rampant: Today three-quarters of people working for the U.S. government are not government employees but private contractors. And it is no longer just printing and cleaning and food services that are being contracted out; it is the primary work of government.
Working for the last 17 years in information technology organizations for Missouri state government, I have seen a similarly alarming (and growing) trend on the state level. Over 25 years, as an information systems developer, manager, and administrator in both state and private organizations, I have increasingly come to the conclusion that we are putting our state’s operations at risk and compromising the trust of the people of our state by outsourcing core government functions. And outsourcing does not come cheaply.
Full Story Gary Lyndaker: ‘Shadow Elite’: Information Is Power And Who’s Controlling Our Information?.
Global Ruling Class: Billionaires and How They ‘Made It’
Even as the world’s billionaires grew in number from 793 in 2006 to 946 this year, major mass uprisings became commonplace in China and India. In India, which has the highest number of billionaires (36) in Asia with total wealth of $191 billion, Prime Minister Singh declared that the greatest single threat to ‘India’s security’ were the Maoist-led guerrilla armies and mass movements in the poorest parts of the country. In China, with 20 billionaires with $29.4 billion net worth, the new rulers, confronting nearly a hundred thousand reported riots and protests, have increased the number of armed special anti-riot militia a hundred fold, and increased spending for the rural poor by $10 billion in the hopes of lessening the monstrous class inequalities and heading off a mass upheaval.
The total wealth of this global ruling class grew 35 per cent year to year topping $3.5 trillion, while income levels for the lower 55 per cent of the world’s 6-billion-strong population declined or stagnated. Put another way, one hundred millionth of the world’s population (1/100,000,000) owns more than over 3 billion people. Over half of the current billionaires (523) came from just 3 countries: the US (415), Germany (55) and Russia (53). The 35 per cent increase in wealth mostly came from speculation on equity markets, real estate and commodity trading, rather than from technical innovations, investments in job-creating industries or social services.
Among the newest, youngest and fastest-growing group of billionaires, the Russian oligarchy stands out for its most rapacious beginnings. Over two-thirds (67 per cent) of the current Russian billionaire oligarchs began their concentration of wealth in their mid to early twenties. During the infamous decade of the 1990′s under the quasi-dictatorial rule of Boris Yeltsin and his US-directed economic advisers, Anatoly Chubais and Yegor Gaidar the entire Russian economy was put up for sale for a ‘political price’, which was far below its real value. Without exception, the transfers of property were achieved through gangster tactics assassinations, massive theft, and seizure of state resources, illicit stock manipulation and buyouts. The future billionaires stripped the Russian state of over a trillion dollars worth of factories, transport, oil, gas, iron, coal and other formerly state-owned resources.
Full Story Global Ruling Class: Billionaires and How They ‘Made It’.
Harkin, Dem Groups Working To End Filibuster
Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) is asking his Senate colleagues to join his effort to effectively take away the minority party’s power to filibuster legislation.
The Iowa Democrat is planning to introduce legislation in the next few weeks that would alter the parliamentary procedures that have so easily allowed Republicans to derail legislation in this Congress.
“The Senate’s current rules allow for a minority as small as one to make elections meaningless,” he writes in a letter to colleagues (see below). “The filibuster was once an extraordinary tool used in the rarest of instances… Today, rather than an unusual event, the filibuster (or the threat of a filibuster) is a regular occurrence…”
Full Story Harkin, Dem Groups Working To End Filibuster.
OPS: Great. Why did they do this last year, or the year before? Too little too late?
The how – and why – of switching banks
– You May Want To Move Your Money -
Arianna Huffington made waves recently when she went on national television calling on consumers to dump their big banks and deposit all their money into local, community banks. Huffington’s site, HuffingtonPost.com, threw its weight behind a Web site designed to make breaking up with your bank a little easier — MoveYourMoney.info. It includes a ZIP-code based locator to help consumers pick through the thousands of banks in the U.S. It even sports a short, cleverly edited video that juxtaposes the classic film “It’s a Wonderful Life” with images from testy congressional hearings about the banking industry.
Driven largely by Huffington’s media popularity, the site quickly gained traction. Huffington’s appearances on MSNBC’s Countdown and CNN’s Larry King Live, among many others, had some observers calling MoveYourMoney a movement. One of Huffington’s partners in the venture, Dennis Santiago of Institutional Risk Analytics, says visitors have searched for banks in more than 16,000 ZIP codes — better than half the ZIP codes in the country.
It’s far too early to tell if Huffington has done something that might genuinely take a bite out big banks — real data probably won’t be available for months. But Huffington is tapping into frustration that has been building since 2008 banking collapse and bailout, say advocates for credit unions and smaller, community banks.
Full Story The how – and why – of switching banks – The Red Tape Chronicles – msnbc.com.
Dems join effort to block global warming rules
Three Democratic senators are joining an effort to block the Obama administration from taking steps to reduce the pollution blamed for global warming.
Democrats Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas have signed onto a resolution introduced Thursday by Republican Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. The measure, which must pass Congress and be signed by the President, would bar the Environmental Protection Agency from issuing regulations to control greenhouse gases.
The EPA has taken steps to reduce greenhouse gases using existing law as it has waited for Congress to pass legislation. A Senate bill limiting heat-trapping gases has stalled.
Full Story Dems join effort to block global warming rules – Yahoo! News.
Obama’s Half-Baked Bank Reform
Wall Street has already figured out how to game the president’s proposal to reform the banking system. Former Goldman executive Nomi Prins on how to stop the trickery.
Seeing Paul Volcker, former Fed Chair and chairman of the Economic Recovery Advisory Board, lord over President Obama yesterday as he made his proposal to limit the scope and size of financial institutions, it was easy to imagine him saying “I told you so.” Volcker, after all, has been a long time advocate of slicing up banks and prohibiting them from the majority of speculative activities.
But as I called around New York and Washington yesterday, it already seems that Wall Street has figured out ways to circumvent the administration’s plan, which centers on “proprietary trading”—risky bets the banks make for their own accounts.
Full Story Obama’s Half-Baked Bank Reform – The Daily Beast.
U.S. Feeds One Quarter of its Grain to Cars While Hunger is on the Rise | EPI
The 107 million tons of grain that went to U.S. ethanol distilleries in 2009 was enough to feed 330 million people for one year at average world consumption levels. More than a quarter of the total U.S. grain crop was turned into ethanol to fuel cars last year. With 200 ethanol distilleries in the country set up to transform food into fuel, the amount of grain processed has tripled since 2004.
The United States looms large in the world food economy: it is far and away the world’s leading grain exporter, exporting more than Argentina, Australia, Canada, and Russia combined. In a globalized food economy, increased demand for food to fuel American vehicles puts additional pressure on world food supplies.
From an agricultural vantage point, the automotive hunger for crop-based fuels is insatiable. The Earth Policy Institute has noted that even if the entire U.S. grain crop were converted to ethanol (leaving no domestic crop to make bread, rice, pasta, or feed the animals from which we get meat, milk, and eggs), it would satisfy at most 18 percent of U.S. automotive fuel needs.
Six Deadly Chemicals You’re Carrying in Your Body
A recent biomonitoring study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Fourth National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals, has revealed that out of 212 chemicals tested, all 212 were found to be in the blood and urine of most Americans. Six chemicals in particular, found in virtually every person, were identified by the CDC as probable health hazards.
Every two years the CDC conducts the chemical study which identifies human exposure to toxic chemicals. This year 75 new chemicals were added to the assay that had never before been studied in the U.S. population. Every chemical tested in the study, including the 75 new ones, was found to be present in most or all of the study participants.
The six most widespread chemicals identified, all of which are also highly dangerous, include polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PDEs), bisphenol A (BPA), Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), acrylamide, mercury, and methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE).
Full Story Six Deadly Chemicals You’re Carrying in Your Body.
Obama Puts Social Security on the Chopping Block
James Ridgeway –
Hope for lasting liberal change was washed away on Tuesday—not just with the loss of the Democrats' super-majority in the Senate, but with a closed-door deal that would lead to cuts in bedrock liberal programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. While Massachusetts voters were casting their ballots to install Republican Scott Brown in Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat, President Obama was hammering out an agreement with Democratic leaders to support a commission on the deficit with the power to propose reductions to entitlement programs. This proposal represents a capitulation to conservatives in both parties, and leaves liberals surrendering not only on health care, but on the core achievements of the New Deal and the Great Society
As the Washington Post explains this morning:
Under the agreement, President Obama would issue an executive order to create an 18-member panel that would be granted broad authority to propose changes in the tax code and in the massive federal entitlement programs — including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security — that threaten to drive the nation’s debt to levels not seen since World War II.
The accord comes a week before Obama is scheduled to deliver his first State of the Union address to a nation increasingly concerned about his stewardship of the economy and the federal budget. After a year in which he advocated spending hundreds of billions of dollars on a huge economic stimulus package and a far-reaching overhaul of the health-care system, Obama has pledged to redouble his effort to rein in record budget deficits even as he has come under withering Republican attack.
Full Story Obama Puts Social Security on the Chopping Block | Mother Jones.
Will Obama Recess-Appoint Former TSA Nominee Erroll Southers?
On Wednesday, Transportation Security Administration head nominee Erroll Southers withdrew himself from the nomination. Southers withdrew due to fierce opposition from Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), who placed a hold on Southers over the nominee’s support for unionization rights.
Last night, Southers appeared on The Rachel Maddow Show to explain why he decided to withdraw. He explained that he “felt like he was on his heels constantly” during his confirmation battle and didn’t feel like he would be able to convince DeMint to lift his hold. Maddow asked him if he would consider re-submitting himself for the nomination if President Obama decided to appoint him with a recess appointment, which would allow Obama to get around congressional obstructionism. Southers responded that he would:
MADDOW: There are a lot of people in the country who look at the politics of your nomination and want this administration to have fought for you, to have made an example of Jim DeMint for dismissing national security in favor of this no-win dog-and- pony show about unions, to have recess-appointed you if need be, to have made a fist-pounding speech about it to ward off any other obstructionist shenanigans like that. that. If the administration hypothetically had second thoughts and decided to renominate you and handle it like that, would you do it? Would you try it again? [...]
Full Story Think Progress » Will Obama Recess-Appoint Former TSA Nominee Erroll Southers?.
After hottest decade in history, senators attempt to outlaw science of global warming.
As scientists announce that the 2000s were the hottest decade in recorded history, U.S. senators are working to outlaw the reality of global warming. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration reported yesterday that 2009 is “tied with a cluster of other years — 1998, 2002, 2003, 2006 and 2007 — as the second warmest year since recordkeeping began,” after 2005, the hottest year in history. Meanwhile, thirty-nine senators introduced a resolution to reverse the finding that global warming pollution is a threat to public health and welfare:
Ms. [Lisa] Murkowski (R-AK), joined by 35 Republicans and three conservative Democrats, proposed to use the Congressional Review Act to strip the agency of the power to limit emissions of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. The Supreme Court gave the agency legal authority to regulate such emissions in a landmark 2007 ruling.
Full Story Think Progress » After hottest decade in history, senators attempt to outlaw science of global warming..
Supreme Court hands governance of the United States over to corporations
Today the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that corporations can be treated as individuals under the First Amendment, giving corporations as well as unions, the right to pour untold amounts of cash into political campaigns. In essence, the corporations with the most money can now give any amount of money they choose to any candidate they choose to do so during an election campaign.
The decision is good news for conservative Republicans who typically vote for laws that favor large corporations over individuals.
Republicans have successfully complained that Democrats hold all the power with a majority in both houses of Congress along with a Democrat in the White House. They have used the line successfully as shown by the recent Massachusetts election where Republican Scott Brown won Senator Edward Kennedy’s senate seat. Many of the voters who planned to vote for Brown in Massachusetts were won over by the idea that there shouldn’t be a majority by either party in the nation’s capitol. Some voters told reporters that they wanted to even things up in the Senate by sending a Republican, voiding the 2008 election’s super majority by Democrats in the Senate.
Full Story Supreme Court hands governance of the United States over to corporations.
It’s Time for a Shareholder Protection Act
Robert Reich
Five members of the Supreme Court have defied logic by assuming that corporations are people. They are not. They are legal fictions, nothing more than bundles of contractual agreements. They are owned by their shareholders.
So what do we do now, other than wait for another Supreme Court opening, and for the President to appoint another Justice who understands this?
Push Congress to enact the “Shareholder Protection Act.”
Full Story Robert Reich (It’s Time for a Shareholder Protection Act).
EFF Plans Appeal of Jewel v. NSA Warrantless Wiretapping Case
Court Rules That Mass Surveillance of Americans is Immune From Judicial Review
San Francisco – A federal judge has dismissed Jewel v. NSA, a case from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) on behalf of AT&T customers challenging the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans’ phone calls and emails.
“We’re deeply disappointed in the judge’s ruling,” said EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn. “This ruling robs innocent telecom customers of their privacy rights without due process of law. Setting limits on Executive power is one of the most important elements of America’s system of government, and judicial oversight is a critical part of that.”
In the ruling, issued late Thursday, U.S. District Court Chief Judge Vaughn Walker held that the privacy harm to millions of Americans from the illegal spying dragnet was not a “particularized injury” but instead a “generalized grievance” because almost everyone in the United States has a phone and Internet service.
“The alarming upshot of the court’s decision is that so long as the government spies on all Americans, the courts have no power to review or halt such mass surveillance even when it is flatly illegal and unconstitutional,” said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston. “With new revelations of illegal spying being reported practically every other week — just this week, we learned that the FBI has been unlawfully obtaining Americans’ phone records using Post-It notes rather than proper legal process — the need for judicial oversight when it comes to government surveillance has never been clearer.”
Full Story EFF Plans Appeal of Jewel v. NSA Warrantless Wiretapping Case | Electronic Frontier Foundation.
WTO Chief: U.S.-China Trade Friction Rising
Trade friction between the United States and China over everything from cars to chemicals will increase in the coming years as the world’s biggest importer and exporter buy and sell more of each other’s goods, the World Trade Organization’s director general said Thursday.
Pascal Lamy said his institution was up to the task of ensuring that Washington and Beijing never get into an all-out trade war that could have devastating consequences for the global economy. The WTO will be challenged over the next two years as unemployment figures remain high and test the free trade credentials of world leaders, he predicted.
“There is no risk of slipping into a trade war,” Lamy said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Full Story WTO Chief: U.S.-China Trade Friction Rising.
Elizabeth Warren: Obama Is Pushing Back Against Wall Street (VIDEO)
Financial reform advocate Elizabeth Warren appeared on The Rachel Maddow Show Thurday to discuss President Obama’s new proposals to rein in banks.
Warren, a Harvard professor and the chief of the TARP Congressional Oversight Panel, told Maddow that she’s encouraged not only by the new proposals to limit banks, but also by the president’s renewed commitment to an independent consumer financial protection agency. Warren:
“I feel better than I’ve felt in a long time. Because what I’ve heard the president saying on the Consumer Financial Protection Agency is, ‘It’s not going down. I’m here, I’m not giving up on it. There is not going to be a compromise to cave in on it.’ I heard him say that we’re going to tax those large financial institutions, and we’re going to make them pay back all of the money under TARP. And then today, I heard him say we’re gonna break apart too-big-to-fail. And we’re going to have an answer, so that every financial institution, if it makes big enough mistakes, if it takes big enough risks and loses, every one of them, can in the end, die…. And what I hear in that is that… the financial institutions have pushed him hard… [Obama] is pushing right back.”
Full Story Elizabeth Warren: Obama Is Pushing Back Against Wall Street (VIDEO).
Goldman Sachs Had Bomb-Sniffing Dogs, Police Barricades At Its Headquarters Before Earnings Announcement
As Goldman Sachs prepared to announce its fourth quarter earnings and employee compensation levels yesterday, the bank had bomb-sniffing dogs and police barricades on hand at its New York City headquarters, the New York Post reports.
The decision to boost security as its offices was apparently driven by growing fervor over the bank’s huge profits and bonuses. Yesterday, the bank announced that it earned $13.4 billion for the year, and set aside $16 billion for employee compensation. Goldman was widely expected to set aside approximately $20 billion for employee pay, but CFO David Viniar suggested yesterday in a call with reporters that the bank wasn’t blind to the “pain and suffering in the world” and “wasn’t deaf to the calls for restraint.”
Viniar’s remarks indicate an abrupt change in tone among Goldman Sachs execs. In November, CEO Lloyd Blankfein — who had previously bragged that the bank was doing “God’s work” — said the following at an industry
Full Story Goldman Sachs Had Bomb-Sniffing Dogs, Police Barricades At Its Headquarters Before Earnings Announcement.
Dodd Opposes Fed Audit
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd opposes including a provision to audit the Federal Reserve in the Senate’s regulatory reform package, the retiring Connecticut Democrat told the Huffington Post Thursday.
The measure made it into the House bill in November after an unusual insurgency led by Reps. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) beat back a concerted effort by the Fed to kill the provision, and won an overwhelming and bipartisan vote in the House Financial Services Committee. It was an unprecedented legislative defeat for the Federal Reserve, which has never had a real audit in its history. Little is known of what it does with the trillions of dollars at its disposal.
And if Dodd has his way, it will stay that way.
“No, no,” Dodd said firmly of the audit requirement. “It’s not in the Senate bill.”
Full Story Dodd Opposes Fed Audit.
OPS: Just another rightwing Corporatists proving that he is in the pocket of Wall Street. The Nation will be better off when he’s gone.
Treasury Looking to Fix Its Making Home Affordable Program
Treasury May Offer Cash, Extended Grace Periods For Struggling Borrowers
The Obama administration plans next week to revamp its $75 billion program aimed at sparing homeowners from foreclosure, streamlining the documents required of borrowers seeking lowered payments, according to financial industry executives and others who have met in recent days with Treasury officials.
The latest effort to accelerate the Making Home Affordable program — now widely viewed as a disappointment — comes as the administration faces growing pressure to do less for banks and more for households struggling with double-digit unemployment.
The changes by the Treasury Department are expected to include greater assistance for homeowners no longer able to make mortgage payments because their paychecks have shrunk, said banking industry representatives privy to the department’s deliberations who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of alienating government officials.
Full Story Treasury Looking to Fix Its Making Home Affordable Program – NYTimes.com.
Opposition To Bernanke Growing In Wake Of Mass. Vote
Exclusive: Sen. Barbara Boxer Is Latest ‘No’ Vote On Bernanke
California Democrat Barbara Boxer has become the latest senator to oppose the nomination of Ben Bernanke to a second term as Chairman of the Federal Reserve.
Boxer’s opposition, which she announced in an exclusive statement to the Huffington Post, is a blow to Bernanke. Boxer is no firebreather on economic issues, but considered a more mainstream Democrat from a state that was considered comfortably blue — until Tuesday’s special election in Massachusetts, that is.
“I have a lot of respect for Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. When the financial crisis hit in late 2008, he took some important steps to prevent what many economists believe could have been an even greater economic catastrophe,” said Boxer.
Full Story Opposition To Bernanke Growing In Wake Of Mass. Vote.
Banks already finding ways around Obama financial reforms
If these folks want a fight, it’s a fight I’m ready to have’: Obama
On the same day that President Barack Obama announced an ambitious plan to reform the US financial system, bankers at the largest Wall Street institutions indicated that they are already finding ways around the proposed changes.
Sources at three Wall Street banks told BusinessInsider’s John Carney that “they are already finding ways to own, invest in and sponsor hedge funds and private equity funds” despite the proposed restrictions on those activities. One unnamed operative at a major bank said his firm expects the reforms to affect no more than one percent of its business.
President Obama announced two major reforms of the financial system on Thursday. The first would see the US in effect return to the separation of commercial and investment banking that was mandated by law until 1999, when that rule in the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act was abandoned.
Full Story Banks already finding ways around Obama financial reforms | Raw Story.
California’s medical marijuana possession limits are dropped
The California Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the state cannot impose legal limits on the amount of pot that medical marijuana users can grow or possess.
In a ruling certain to exacerbate debate over the governance of medical marijuana in California, the court threw out legislation that limited medical pot users to 8 ounces of dried marijuana and six mature or 12 immature marijuana plants.
The court ruled that the Legislature violated the state constitution when it passed Senate Bill 420 in 2003. The judges found that the plant limits set by the legislation improperly amended the Compassionate Use Act voters passed in 1996 legalizing marijuana for medical use in California.
Full Story California’s medical marijuana possession limits are dropped | McClatchy.
California single-payer plan advances
As national health care reform grew more uncertain, the California Legislature on Thursday pushed forward a controversial proposal to create a single-payer health system in the state.
The Senate Appropriations Committee voted 6-3 along party lines, with Democrats in favor of the proposal, which will be considered by the full Senate next week.
The vote came two days after Massachusetts voters elected a Republican U.S. senator to fill the seat long held by Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy – putting President Obama’s national health bill in jeopardy. Backers of the California plan said the timing was coincidental and due to legislative timelines.
But political observers said the vote could come back to hurt state Democrats in November and viewed the move as motivated by the turmoil in Washington, D.C. Similar incarnations of the California plan have twice been passed by the Legislature and both were vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. A spokeswoman for the Republican governor said Thursday he would veto this bill if it comes to his desk.
Full Story California single-payer plan advances.
Critics: ‘Destructive’ Supreme Court decision ‘empowers corruption’
Obama vows ‘forceful response’
The US Supreme Court on Thursday lifted a 20-year ruling which had set limits on campaign financing by US businesses, and critics, including nonpartisan watchdogs and Congressional Democrats, are up in arms about the decision, which most had feared for a long time. Meanwhile, aside from Senator John McCain (R-AZ), Republicans appear to be gleeful about their second apparent victory of the week.
The nine justices ruled that American corporations could dip freely into their general funds to finance campaign ads either in support or against a particular political candidate.
The move overturns a ruling made two decades ago which had forced companies to only use specially earmarked funds from a political action committee.
Full Story Critics: ‘Destructive’ Supreme Court decision ‘empowers corruption’ | Raw Story.
OPS: Talk is Cheap, and has been – so far. Let’s see it Mr. President.
Grayson: Fight now or ‘kiss your country goodbye’ to Exxon, Wal-Mart
Inaction will create ‘Congressman from Wal-Mart’
Responding to the Supreme Court’s ruling Thursday to overturn corporate spending limits in federal elections, progressive firebrand Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) immediately highlighted a series of moves to “avoid the terrible consequences of the decision.”
“If we do nothing then I think you can kiss your country goodbye,” Grayson told Raw Story in an interview just hours after the decision was announced.
“You won’t have any more senators from Kansas or Oregon, you’ll have senators from Cheekies and Exxon. Maybe we’ll have to wear corporate logos like Nascar drivers.”
Grayson said the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling — which removes decades of campaign spending limits on corporations — “opens the floodgates for the purchases and sale of the law.”
Full Story Grayson: Fight now or ‘kiss your country goodbye’ to Exxon, Wal-Mart | Raw Story.
Inhofe: ‘I believe in racial and ethnic profiling’ because ‘all terrorists are Muslims or Middle Easterners.’
Since the Fort Hood shootings and the failed Christmas Day terror attack, some on the right have called for more racial and ethnic “profiling” and “discrimination,” saying that the Obama administration is more interested in “protecting the rights of terrorists” than “protecting the lives of Americans.” Today during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing looking into the Fort Hood rampage, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) became perhaps the most powerful proponent of outright ethnic profiling, saying it’s “by and large true” that “all terrorists are Muslims or Middle Easterners”:
INHOFE: I’m, for one — I know it’s not politically correct to say it — I believe in racial and ethnic profiling. I think if you’re looking at people getting on an airplane and you have X amount of resources to get into it, you get at the targets, and not my wife. And I just think it’s something that should be looked into. The statement that’s made, it’s probably 90 percent true with some exceptions like the Murrah federal office building in my state, Oklahoma. Those people, they were not Muslims, they were not Middle Easterners. But when you hear that not all Middle Easterners or Muslims between the age of 20 and 35 are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims or Middle Easterners between the age of 20 and 35, that’s by and large true.
Watch it:
OPS: Conveniently ignoring the fact that The Shoe Bomber was British, the Underpants bomber was Nigerian and Timothy McVey – the Oklahoma City Bomber was White, Christian Republicans and American. If your going to profile is has to be done based on more rational thinking
After Whining About Being ‘Suppressed,’ Chamber Discloses It Spent $123 Million In Lobbying
Today’s Supreme Court ruling that opens the floodgates to unprecedented political spending by corporations is another major victory for the corporate lobbying giant — the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
In July, the organization declared its support for Citizens United in an amicus brief arguing that there is “no basis for restricting its core First Amendment right to engage in independent electoral advocacy.” In spite of the fact that the U.S. Chamber has topped lobbying spending year after year, the group had the gall to complain to the Supreme Court that its voice is being “suppressed”:
In particular, the electoral advocacy of the Chamber – a not-for-profit corporation – and of millions of its corporate members has been suppressed. This has occurred even though 96% of Chamber members are businesses with fewer than 100 employees, far from the immense aggregations of wealth hypothesized in Austin. Suppression has been imposed even when candidates have directly attacked business interests and when corporations have unique and valuable insight into the likely consequences of electing or defeating particular candidates. Although this Court has protected the ability of corporations to discuss “issues,” that is no substitute for direct and explicit speech about candidates.
Full Story Think Progress » After Whining About Being ‘Suppressed,’ Chamber Discloses It Spent $123 Million In Lobbying.
Emphasis on Profit Above Other Values Led to Crisis
In the United States animosity still lingers between the highly compensated financial elite, and the average working American. Now, bankers and finance executives are rewarding themselves handsomely – with your money – for the good work they did in staving off disaster
In the United States animosity still lingers between the highly compensated financial elite, and the average working American. Billions of taxpayer dollars were pumped into insolvent financial institutions in 2008 and 2009 to keep them from collapsing completely.
Now, bankers and finance executives are rewarding themselves handsomely – with your money – for the good work they did in staving off disaster.
At least, that is the case in the United States; where financiers have been able to walk away with billions of dollars and virtually no government regulatory framework. In Europe the situation is much different.
Full Story Emphasis on Profit Above Other Values Led to Crisis | Economy In Crisis.
Conservative Senate Win Is Another Victory for the Billionaire Bailout Society, and a Failure for Progressives
You can blame Obama for the Senate loss in Mass, but much of the failure also rests with the progressive community.
The Obama administration bears much of the responsibility for the debacle in Massachusetts. It didn’t go hard enough against Wall Street, and it didn’t recognize the depth and breadth of the jobs crisis — and the connection between the two.
But don’t stop there. Much of the failure also rests with the progressive community which is clueless about how to respond to our new billionaire bailout society.
Over the past thirty years we’ve gone from a quasi-social democratic/capitalist economy to a full-fledged billionaire bailout society whose primary purpose is to maintain the wealth and prominence of a tiny handful of elites, even if it means raiding the national treasury to protect, restore and enhance its riches.
Why Do Democrats Keep Calling the Alarm and Pressing the Snooze?
It is time for the majority party in this country to prove they have the convictions of the soul that gave them the opportunity to serve in the public’s interest.
The shock and dismay of Republican Scott Brown’s Senate victory in Massachusetts is still with us. Yet again the people have spoken, putting someone in office who in no way represents their real interests. Scott Brown was catapulted into power because of anger. It’s time to stop blaming politicians and take responsibility ourselves; time to get involved and understand that if you don’t like something in a democracy, make sure the people you have elected stand up for what you are passionate about. That’s the people’s role; how about the politicians who have some power in their hands?
With all the complaints about the need for better standards for math in our schools, it is ironic that our elected leaders cannot seem to understand the difference between a majority and a minority. When was the last time 41 was greater than 59? Get real. Our elected leaders are weaker by the day because they are scared the tide is turning and they think they have to catch the next wave the vocal minority creates. In the last year, the Republican Party has never come together to lay out a positive plan that might actually help this country. Instead, they have used obstructionist tactics and the Fox News machine to preach the “gospel of no” to a nation that is easily scared. As they did with 9/11, these very people have preyed upon the public to terrorize us into believing that progressive ideals are the damnation of this nation. They hold Ronald Reagan as the savior and FDR as the devil.
Back in the Nixon/Agnew era, Agnew used the phrase, “the silent majority” to rally the people who needed to have their voices heard if they were ever going to see their agenda come to life. Today we have degenerated into a country that is run by the vocal minority. That vocal minority has realized that as long as they can manipulate the press, they can use their message to stand in the way of progress. The polarization that has occurred in this country is an intentional ploy to scare weak-minded politicians into believing that they need to answer to this minority voice.
Full Story Why Do Democrats Keep Calling the Alarm and Pressing the Snooze? | Politics | AlterNet.
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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. 
