Archive for January, 2010
The Real Obama: Sticking it to the Working Stiffs
David Lindorff – 
If you want to see the unvarnished, true nature of our latest president, you need look no farther than two issues: whether to tax health plans that are deemed “too generous” and whether or how to tax the banks that brought about the financial crisis.
In the case of the health insurance tax, President Obama, after opposing the idea as a candidate when it was proposed by Republican candidate John McCain, is endorsing the Senate bill’s approach, which would levy a 40% tax on all insurance plans that cost more than $8500 for an individual or $23,000 for a family. According to the union movement such a tax would hit one in four union members, who over years of struggle have negotiated decent medical benefits, often foregoing pay increases in order to provide members with health coverage. It would also hit employers with older workforces, smaller employers, who have to pay more for insurance, and also employers in parts of the country where the overall payscales and cost of living are higher, such as the Northeast and the West Coast.
Obama says he thinks that taxing such plans (which are hardly “Cadillac” in today’s health marketplace), would help restrain health inflation. More important, he and the Senate backers of the measure, like that it is estimated by the Congressional Budget Office to bring in $149 billion in revenue over 10 years. (Note that we’re talking about just $14.9 billion per year–a rather minor sum compared to the total US healthcare bill of $2.5 trillion a year, or the taxpayer’s share of that bill–$1.2 trillion.)
Full Story The Real Obama: Sticking it to the Working Stiffs | This Can’t Be Happening!.
Shamus Cooke: The Death Of Liberalism In The United States
It’s no exaggeration to say that President Obama was the Democrats’ last chance to maintain some level of political legitimacy in the eyes of working class Americans.
Now, after a year of solid pro-corporate policies, it’s obvious Obama has failed; and with him the Democratic Party.
Well-known “liberals” are beginning to denounce Obama’s polices, but not the Democrats as a whole. Instead, these esteemed liberals are promoting “real progressive Democrats,” i.e. the Democrats who are used as props by the leadership of the party, and completely ignored by the corporate media. The Democrat-promoting liberals are a mixed bunch, ranging from university professors to television personalities. Their ideology has moved distinctly to the right over the decades, to conform to the general rightward movement of the U.S. political/economic establishment.
And yes, liberals and many “progressives” do constitute a wing of the political establishment — they do not propose measures that would overhaul our economic and political system, but only minor reforms to make things less blatantly exploitative. Sometimes, real reforms — like single payer health care — are proposed, but quickly abandoned so that the Party agenda can be pursued (corporate health care and corporate welfare).
Full Story The Death Of Liberalism In The United States By Shamus Cooke.
The fundamental unreliability of America’s media
Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com
Consider the record of the American media over the last two weeks alone. Justin Elliott of TPM documents how an absolute falsehood about the attempted Christmas Day airline bombing — that Abdulmutallab purchased a “one-way ticket” to the U.S., when it was actually a round-trip ticket — has been repeated far and wide by U.S. media outlets as fact. Two weeks ago, Elliott similarly documented how an equally false claim from ABC News — that two of the Al Qaeda leaders behind that airliner attack had been released from Guantanamo — became entrenched as fact in media reports (at most, it was one, not two). This week, Dan Froomkin chronicles how completely discredited claims about Guantanamo recidivism rates continue to be uncritically “reported” by The New York Times and then inserted into our debates as fact.
As I documented two weeks ago, government claims about which “top Al Qaeda fighters” were killed by our airstrikes turn out to be untrue far more often than not, yet are always mindlessly featured by our media, ensuring little questioning of those actions; and now, at least two of the three Top Terrorists claimed to have been killed by our recent airstrikes in Yemen — and possibly all three — are quite likely alive. As Greg Sargent writes, one of the most provocative and inflammatory claims of the trashy Halperin/Heilemann gossip book — that Bill Clinton told Ted Kennedy that Obama would have been “getting us coffee” just a couple years earlier — is not only completely unsourced (like virtually every one of their sleazy claims), but also “paraphrased.”
Full Story Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.
Losing the Internet as We Know It
How much have you already used the Internet today?
We don’t think twice about how much we rely on the Internet. Imagine not being able to map directions on Google or check the weather online. A business that doesn’t have a Web site? Forgettable. Or rather, unsearchable. Remember when we didn’t have e-mail? Would you want to go back to those Dark Ages? Me neither.
The Internet is in the very fabric of how we communicate, learn, shop, conduct business, organize, innovate and engage. If we lost it, we’d be lost.
But did you know that we’re at risk of losing the Internet as we know it? Millions of Americans don’t know that a battle over the future of the Internet is being played out right now in Washington. How it ends will have deep repercussions for decades to come.
Full Story Megan Tady: Losing the Internet as We Know It.
My Crazy Trip to a Goldman Sachs Executive’s Brazilian Slave Plantation, or Why We Need a Special Prosecutor
I have made friends with a lot of people in my life. But as working-class kid from Pittsburgh, perhaps my most unusual friendship was with a Goldman Sachs executive, Pedro Henrique Fragoso Pires Garcia.
Typically in Brazil, people abbreviate their names, but Pedro used his full name. including his mother’s maiden name, Fragoso Pires, to signal his membership in the Fragoso Pires , a legendary aristocratic family in Brazil.
Born into a wealthy family, Pedro didn’t work for Goldman Sachs because he needed the money, but because he wanted more.
Lobbyists aided Alaska’s Murkowski in writing EPA limits bill
Two lobbyists had a hand in writing language proposed by Sen. Lisa Murkowski that could curtail the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate major emitters of greenhouse gases.
Their involvement, first reported Monday by The Washington Post, came at the request of a staffer on the Senate Energy and Environment Committee, where the Alaska senator is the top Republican. Both of the lobbyists, Jeff Holmstead and Roger Martella Jr., represent a number of high-profile energy clients. Both had top positions in the EPA during the Bush administration.
Murkowski has led the charge against the EPA's role in regulating greenhouse gas emissions, saying she has concerns about an executive branch agency, rather than Congress, writing such regulations. Her original amendment would have been attached to a spending bill and it would have prohibited the EPA for one year from spending any money on developing regulations for greenhouse gases
Full Story Lobbyists aided Alaska’s Murkowski in writing EPA limits bill | McClatchy.
Britain’s cold snap does not prove climate science wrong
Climate sceptics are failing to understand the most basic meteorology – that weather is not the same as climate, and single events are not the same as trends
It’s as predictable a feature of the British winter as log fires and roasting chestnuts: a national outpouring of idiocy every time some snow falls.
Here’s what Martyn Brown says in today’s Express:
As one of the worst winters in 100 years grips the country, climate experts are still trying to claim the world is growing warmer.
There’s a clue as to where he might have gone wrong in that sentence: “country” has a slightly different meaning to “world”. Buried at the bottom of the same article is the admission that ” … other areas including Alaska, Canada and the Mediterranean were warmer than usual.” But that didn’t stop Brown from using the occasion to note that “critics of the global warming lobby said the public were no longer prepared to be conned into believing that man-made emissions were adding to the problem.”
Is this the end of food as we know it?
A new film paints an apocalyptic picture of a world reduced to tinned goods. But could it ever happen here, asks Bee Wilson
In Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, (the film of which is out this weekend), the only food left is in cans. In a post-apocalyptic wasteland, a father and son scavenge for tinned goods. “Chili, corn, stew, soup, spaghetti sauce. The richness of a vanished world.”
Is this a vision of our not-too-distant future? Will we soon be stockpiling canned mandarin segments and clawing one another’s eyes out for the last tin of powdered milk in Tesco? It’s not a nice thought, but it’s one that food campaigners have been begging us to face up to for some time now. In this uncertain world, we can no longer take our food supply for granted. For years, academics such as Tim Lang, Professor of Food Policy at City University, gave warning that we were “sleepwalking” into a future where our food security was likely to be seriously undermined, whether by natural disasters, rising fuel costs, climate change or the massive pressures placed on the global food system by a rising population. We shrugged it off, setting off in our cars for another wasteful trolley of ready-meals.
Full Story Is this the end of food as we know it? – Telegraph.
MEXICO: Activists Worried About “Secret” Internet Treaty
An international treaty to combat copyright infringement and piracy, being negotiated by Mexico and other countries, could curtail expansion of the internet, violate people’s rights to privacy and freedom of expression, and undermine multilateral accords on intellectual property, activists warn.
Canada, the European Union, Japan, Switzerland and the United States announced their intentions to negotiate the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) in October 2007, and a number of other countries including Australia, Jordan, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates have joined the subsequent formal negotiating sessions.
Six rounds of ACTA negotiations have taken place, and the seventh is to be held in Mexico in late January. After that the negotiators are scheduled to meet in New Zealand in April, and they aim to finalise the treaty document this year.
The draft treaty contains six chapters on topics including respect for intellectual property rights, international cooperation and institutional arrangements. The chapter on the legal framework for enforcing intellectual property rights deals with civil and criminal enforcement, border measures and internet issues.
Full Story MEXICO: Activists Worried About “Secret” Internet Treaty – IPS ipsnews.net.
Counterparty On, Garth!
Matt Taibbi -
Targeting an industry whose political deafness has vexed his administration, President Barack Obama is weighing recovering tax dollars from government-rescued financial institutions with a levy.
The proposed levy could put Obama on the popular side of public opinion that is decidedly against Wall Street and angry over shortfalls in a $700 billion bank bailout fund.
A senior administration official said Monday that Obama would seek modifications to the law that sent billions in bailout money in 2008 and 2009 to a flailing Wall Street that was approaching collapse. The government official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the president's thinking.
One has to wonder whether Goldman Sachs and Lloyd Blankfein are finally having their come-to-Jesus moment today. It seems an awful lot like the Obama administration is seriously considering going after bailout monies given out last year, almost certainly involving counterparty payments made to banks like Goldman via the AIG bailout.
via FOXNews.com – Source: Obama Considering Tax on Rescued Banks.
Full Story Counterparty On, Garth! – Matt Taibbi – Taibblog – True/Slant.
Angry Iceland defies the world
Iceland’s president has blocked a Bill to pay Britain and Holland up to £3.4bn for Icesave depositors, acknowledging that popular feeling in the island nation is too strong to proceed without a referendum.
The move reopens a bitter dispute and greatly complicates Iceland’s loan agreement with the International Monetary Fund. It has already led to a fresh downgrade to BB+ by Fitch Ratings, which called the decision “a significant setback to Iceland’s efforts to restore normal financial relations with the rest of the world.”
The Icesave law was passed by Iceland’s parliament in a knife-edge vote late last year, but a petition by the InDefense movement has changed the political landscape. The lobby collected 56,000 signatures – a quarter of voters.
Full Story Angry Iceland defies the world – Telegraph.
Blackwater and The Hurt Locker
Jeremy Scahill -
One of the stars of the widely acclaimed Iraq war film The Hurt Locker has claimed that the filmmakers hired the mercenary firm Blackwater while shooting the film in the Middle East, including in Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan.
“We had these Blackwater guys that were working with us in the Middle East and they taught us like tactical maneuvers and stuff–how to just basically how to position yourself and move with a gun,” said Hurt Locker star Anthony Mackie in an interview with the New York Times‘s Carpetbagger blog. “We were shooting in Palestinian refugee camps. We were shooting in some pretty hard places. It wasn’t like we were without enemies. There were people there looking at us, ‘cuz we were three guys in American military suits runnin’ around with guns. It was nothing easy about it. It was always a compromising situation.”
After The Nation‘s coverage of the New York Times blog was originally posted, Hurt Locker screenwriter Mark Boal contacted The Nation. “As the producer and supervising producer on set, I can say that The Hurt Locker never hired Blackwater in any capacity on this movie. We did hire a number of former military personnel as advisors, as well as guys from the Jordanian military,” says Boal, who supervised all of the hiring of military consultants for the film. “I think Anthony [Mackie] was doing a kind of stunt where the Oscar blogger for the Times was going to shoot paint guns with him. I think he was using the term ‘Blackwater’ colloquially to refer to contractors or mercenaries, which we had plenty of on set.” When asked about comments made by the film’s director, Kathryn Bigelow, in other interviews mentioning the presence of Blackwater men on set, including as technical advisers, Boal said, “It’s possible that at some point somebody on set worked for Blackwater, but we never hired Blackwater.”
Full Story Blackwater and The Hurt Locker.
STIMULUS WATCH: White House changes job-count rule
Despite mounting a vigorous defense of its earlier count of more than 640,000 jobs credited to the stimulus, even after numerous errors were identified, the Obama administration now is making it easier to give the stimulus credit for hiring. It’s no longer about counting a job as saved or created; now it’s a matter of counting jobs funded by the stimulus.
That means that any stimulus money used to cover payroll will be included in the jobs credited to the program, including pay raises for existing employees and pay for people who never were in jeopardy of losing their positions.
Full Story STIMULUS WATCH: White House changes job-count rule – Yahoo! News.
Is Laughter the Best Medicine?
“I believe that if people can get more laughter in their lives, they are a lot better off,” says Steve Wilson, MA, CSP, a psychologist and laugh therapist. “They might be healthier too.”
Yet researchers aren't sure if it's actually the act of laughing that makes people feel better. A good sense of humor, a positive attitude, and the support of friends and family might play a role, too.
Full Story Is Laughter the Best Medicine? by R. Morgan Griffin — YES! Magazine.
Tucker Carlson’s Funding Model for The Daily Caller Combines Religious Right Sugar Daddy With Corporate Lobbyists’ Ad Revenue
In case you hadn’t heard, the Internets made a new site this week.
While the desperate misogyny of Matt Lebash as a sad reflection upon the identity of the conservative male, the manufactured I-wish-I-was-Ann-Coulter faux bitchiness of S.E. Cupp and the utterly inane and un-newsworthy ramblings of Tucker Carlson are all entirely boring to me in their predictability, there is one thing that interests me about the new HuffPo/Politico hybrid known as The Daily Caller.
Call me wonky, but — while everyone seems more happy arguing whether or not the new political news site from the conservative pundit who used to wear bow ties will be right-leaning or centrist, or whether that even matters — I’m wondering about funding.
Media watcher Howard Kurtz began his Washington Post piece on the new venture thusly:
10 Courageous Things You Can Do to Build Community
We can speed up the realization of good community building ideas if we live our lives consistent with community priorities. The good news: practically every activity and every moment grants us the opportunity to practice community-minded behavior.
Here are 10 ways you can start the courageous work of building community today.
Full Story 10 Courageous Things You Can Do to Build Community by Milenko Matanovic — YES! Magazine.
Congressional GOP wants to keep Steele ‘out of sight, out of mind.’
Last week, RNC chair Michael Steele angered the Republican Party’s congressional leaders when he said that he does not think the GOP can win majorities in Congress in 2010 and that the Party is not ready to lead. “You really just have to get him to stop. It’s too much,” one top Republican congressional aide said. U.S. News reports today that instead of ousting Steele, they’re planning to just ignore him:
“He’s become our Howard Dean,” says a top Republican leadership aide. Steele’s latest remarks that the party won’t take control of the House in the November midterm elections — a prediction he later backed away from — have revived talk of replacing him. But senior party officials say they plan something worse: just ignoring Steele. “It’s going to be out of sight, out of mind,” says one aide. And firing him won’t work. “That would just expedite the talk show where he bashes us all the time,” he says.
Full Story Think Progress » Congressional GOP wants to keep Steele ‘out of sight, out of mind.’.
Feingold wary of upcoming ruling on campaign finance
Supreme Court decision on case that challenges legislation expected soon
The court’s decision, which could come as early as this week, could have monumental consequences for the influence of corporate and union money on elections.
The case, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, centers on one of two primary provisions in the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act of 2002, commonly known as the McCain-Feingold bill after authors Feingold and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. The law banned ”soft” money, or large unregulated donations, and limited electioneering communications such as political advertising.
Citizens United, an independent group, has challenged an FEC ruling that prohibited the group from airing a documentary on 2008 presidential candidate
Hillary Clinton titled “Hillary: The Movie.” The FEC said the group, which received corporate donations, could not run the documentary because it advocated the defeat of a political candidate within 60 days of a general election. The group had intended to air the documentary via a video-on-demand service.
Full Story Feingold wary of upcoming ruling on campaign finance | htrnews.com | Manitowoc Herald Times Reporter.
How Banks Got Too Big to Fail
The nation’s 10 largest financial institutions hold 54 percent of our total financial assets; in 1990, they held 20 percent. In the meantime, the number of banks has dropped from more than 12,500 to about 8,000. Some major mergers and acquisitions over the past 20 years:
Full Story How Banks Got Too Big to Fail | Mother Jones.
OPS: and how they got too big to Flail
Study sees parking lot dust as a cancer risk
Sealant doesn’t stay put on pavements, raising health concerns
Chemicals in a cancer-causing substance used to seal pavement, parking lots and driveways across the U.S. are showing up at alarming levels in dust in homes, prompting concerns about the potential health effects of long-term exposure, a new study shows.
The substance is coal tar sealant, a waste product of steel manufacturing that is used to protect pavement and asphalt against cracking and water damage, and to impart a nice dark sheen. It is applied most heavily east of the Rockies but is used in all 50 states.
But scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey say the sealant — one of two types commonly used in the U.S. — doesn’t stay put. It slowly wears off and is tracked into homes on the shoes of residents.
Full Story Study sees parking lot dust as a cancer risk – Environment- msnbc.com.
AOL Layoffs Begin: 1,200 Jobs SLASHED
The struggling Internet company AOL was laying off up to 1,200 workers this week because it didn’t get enough volunteers to accept buyouts.
AOL spokeswoman Tricia Primrose said Monday that only 1,100 had volunteered to leave. That means AOL would need to shed up to 1,200 positions to reach its previously announced reduction target of up to 2,300, or about a third of its work force.
The cuts, which were on top of thousands of positions shed in recent years, came as AOL separated from Time Warner Inc. last month. AOL acquired Time Warner at the height of the dot-com boom in 2001, but the combination proved disastrous, prompting Time Warner to spin AOL off as a separate company.
Full Story AOL Layoffs Begin: 1,200 Jobs SLASHED.
1602 Map Unveiled, Shows China At Center Of World
A rarely seen 400-year-old map that identified Florida as “the Land of Flowers” and put China at the center of the world went on display Tuesday at the Library of Congress.
The map created by Matteo Ricci was the first in Chinese to show the Americas. Ricci, a Jesuit missionary from Italy, was among the first Westerners to live in what is now Beijing in the early 1600s. Known for introducing Western science to China, Ricci created the map in 1602 at the request of Emperor Wanli.
Ricci's map includes pictures and annotations describing different regions of the world. Africa was noted to have the world's highest mountain and longest river. The brief description of North America mentions “humped oxen” or bison, wild horses and a region named “Ka-na-ta.”
Full Story 1602 Map Unveiled, Shows China At Center Of World.
Labor Not Ready To Commit To Health Reform, Meeting With House Dems Soon
Labor leaders are not yet ready to commit to supporting comprehensive health care reform legislation despite meeting with the president to discuss their concerns with aspects of health care legislation.
Union leaders, who are fighting a proposal to tax high-end health care plans (which would hit many union and non-union workers), have been working closely with House Democratic leadership to fight the provision and are slated to go to the Hill to talk strategy soon. (Updated Below)
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Cali.), along with Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.), have both stressed their opposition to the so-called Cadillac Tax, on both policy and political grounds. In its place, they want to finance reform by issuing a tax on the wealthy — a provision that labor supports.
Full Story Labor Not Ready To Commit To Health Reform, Meeting With House Dems Soon.
USB 3.0 Finally Arrives
Adoption is faster than with previous versions — but we want more, now. Here’s why.
When you’re in front of your PC, waiting for something to trans
fer to removable media, that’s when seconds feel like minutes, and minutes feel like hours. And data storage scenarios such as that one is where the new SuperSpeed USB 3.0′s greatest impact will be felt first. As of CES, 17 SuperSpeed USB 3.0-certified products were introduced, including host controllers, adapter cards, motherboards, and hard drives (but no other consumer electronics devices). Still more uncertified USB 3.0 products are on the way, and they can’t get here fast enough.
Glance Backward
The beauty of USB 3.0 is its backward compatibility with USB 2.0; you need a new cable and new host adapter (or, one of the Asus or Gigabyte motherboards that supports USB 3.0) to achieve USB 3.0, but you can still use the device on a USB 2.0 port and achieve typical USB 2.0 performance. In reducing some overhead requirements of USB (now, the interface only transmits data to the link and device that need it, so devices can go into low power state when not needed), the new incarnation now uses one-third the power of USB 2.0.
Full Story USB 3.0 Finally Arrives – PC World.
US trade deficit widens on surging imports
The US trade deficit widened in November to a 10-month high on surging imports, the government said Tuesday as rising trade suggested the global economic recovery was on track.
The goods and services deficit for the penultimate month in 2009 jumped to 36.4 billion dollars from a revised 33.2 billion dollars in October, as imports grew faster than exports, the Commerce Department said in a report.
The deficit, surpassing the 34.68 billion dollars forecast by most economists, reached its highest level since January 2009.
Trade volume, a key indicator of economic growth, has been on the rise since late last spring with both exports and imports having returned to their levels from the beginning of 2009.
Full Story US trade deficit widens on surging imports – Yahoo! News UK.
Suicide Rate of Young Veterans Soars
Suicide Rate for 18- to 29-Year-Old Men Who’ve Left Military Went Up 26% from 2005 to 2007, Data Shows
The suicide rate among 18- to 29-year-old men who’ve left the military has gone up significantly, the government said Monday.
CBS News first revealed that young veterans in their early 20’s were killing themselves at an unusually high rate back in late 2007. Using never-before-seen 2004 and 2005 data, CBS News discovered that the rate of suicide among young veterans was an estimated two to four times higher than any other age group.
The new preliminary data released by the Department of Veterans Affairs shows the suicide rate went up 26 percent from 2005 to 2007. It’s assumed that most of the veterans in this age group served in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Full Story Suicide Rate of Young Veterans Soars – CBS News.
Health Ills Abound as Farm Runoff Fouls Wells
All it took was an early thaw for the drinking water here to become unsafe.
There are 41,000 dairy cows in Brown County, which includes Morrison, and they produce more than 260 million gallons of manure each year, much of which is spread on nearby grain fields. Other farmers receive fees to cover their land with slaughterhouse waste and treated sewage.
In measured amounts, that waste acts as fertilizer. But if the amounts are excessive, bacteria and chemicals can flow into the ground and contaminate residents’ tap water.
In Morrison, more than 100 wells were polluted by agricultural runoff within a few months, according to local officials. As parasites and bacteria seeped into drinking water, residents suffered from chronic diarrhea, stomach illnesses and severe ear infections.
Full Story Health Ills Abound as Farm Runoff Fouls Wells – Series – NYTimes.com.
Wal-Mart to close 10 Sam’s Club stores in U.S.
Wal-Mart said Monday it will close 10 money-losing Sam's Club stores and cut 1,500 jobs to reduce costs.
The stores will close Jan. 22. They are in Nampa, Idaho; La Quinta, Calif.; Louisville, Colo.; Vista, Calif.; Rolling Meadows, Ill.; Clay, N.Y.; and Irvine, Calif. The cities of Houston, Phoenix and Sacramento, will each lose one store.
“Despite the outstanding efforts of our associates, these clubs continued to lose money and we have decided to close them,” Sam’s Club CEO Brian Cornell said in a statement.
Full Story Wal-Mart to close 10 Sam’s Club stores in U.S. – USATODAY.com.
Dodd: Health reform bill ‘hanging by a thread’
On his way out the door, retiring Senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn) has some bad news for health reform advocates still cheering the late December Senate vote.
“Health care reform is ‘hanging on by a thread,’ and one or two votes could determine the outcome of the heavily-debated bill, Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd told CNBC Monday,” the cable business news network reports.
Dodd said you would have to be “living on the moon” not to know what senators have already gone on the record with having issues with the plan, citing Nebraska’s Ben Nelson, Connecticut’s Joe Lieberman and Senator Blanche Lincoln from Arkansas.
Full Story Dodd: Health reform bill ‘hanging by a thread’ | Raw Story.
Even in a Recovery, Some Jobs Won’t Return
Even when the U.S. labor market finally starts adding more workers than it loses, many of the unemployed will find that the types of jobs they once had simply don’t exist anymore.
The downturn that started in December 2007 delivered a body blow to U.S. workers. In two years, the economy shed 7.2 million jobs, pushing the jobless rate from 5% to 10%, according to the Labor Department. The severity of the recession is reshaping the labor market. Some lost jobs will come back. But some are gone forever, going the way of typewriter repairmen and streetcar operators.
Many of the jobs created by the booms in the housing and credit markets, for example, have likely been permanently erased by the subsequent bust.
Full Story Even in a Recovery, Some Jobs Won’t Return – WSJ.com.
OPS: None will return unless we change the Tax and Tariff laws. The US is the only industrialized country to NOT protect it’s manufacturing
Police taser 83-year-old woman in altercation
Niles police officers stunned an 83-year-old woman with a Taser last month after she threatened them with a knife, police say.
Sylvia Ziecina of 887 Washington St., Niles, was charged with aggravated assault of a peace officer Jan. 6, after being released from a mental health evaluation at Lutheran General Hospital.
Police say that two officers went to Ziecina’s residence Dec. 8 because she was complaining about noise coming from the apartment next door.
Full Story Police taser 83-year-old woman in altercation :: News :: PIONEER PRESS :: Niles Herald-Spectator.
Some Fear Kan. Ruling May Spur Abortion Violence
Some fear Kansas decision allowing voluntary manslaughter defense may spur abortion violence
Before the first juror is selected or witness called, a decision allowing a confessed killer to argue he believes the slaying of one of the nation's few late-term abortion providers was a justified act aimed at saving unborn children has upended what most expected to be an open-and-shut case.
Some abortion opponents are pleasantly stunned and eager to watch Scott Roeder tell a jury his slaying of Wichita doctor George Tiller was voluntary manslaughter. Tiller's colleagues and abortion rights advocates are outraged and fear the court's actions give a more than tacit approval to further acts of violence.
“This judge has basically announced a death sentence for all of us who help women,” said Dr. Warren Hern of Boulder, Colo., a longtime friend of Tiller who also performs late-term abortions.
Full Story Some Fear Kan. Ruling May Spur Abortion Violence – ABC News.
Public says health care bill doesn’t go ‘far enough’
Far from overreaching on health care reform, a plurality of the public thinks President Obama and Democrats have done too little to regulate the insurance industry, hold down costs and extend coverage, a new poll finds.
Forty-three percent of Americans said the health care bill goes “not far enough” in regulating health insurance companies, according to a new CBS survey released Monday evening. Just 18 percent deemed it “about right” and 27 percent thought it “go[es] to far.”
Thirty-nine percent said the legislation doesn't achieve strong enough cost controls one of the leading goals of reform as opposed to 24 percent who believed it goes too far and 21 percent that are satisfied.
Full Story Public says health care bill doesn’t go ‘far enough’ | Raw Story.
Iraq invasion in 2003 was illegitimate: Dutch probe
THE HAGUE (AFP) – The 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq lacked legitimacy under international law, an independent commission probing Dutch political support for the still controversial war said on Tuesday.
“There was insufficient legitimacy under international law for a military invasion of Iraq” for which the Netherlands gave political but no military support, commission chairman Willibrord Davids told journalists in The Hague.
The commission’s report said the Dutch government decision “was based mainly on international political considerations.”
Full Story Iraq invasion in 2003 was illegitimate: Dutch probe – Yahoo! Canada News.
Obama received $20 million from healthcare industry in 2008 campaign
Almost three times the amount given to McCain
While some sunlight has been shed on the hefty sums shoveled into congressional campaign coffers in an effort to influence the Democrats’ massive healthcare bill, little attention has been focused on the far larger sums received by President Barack Obama while he was a candidate in 2008.
A new figure, based on an exclusive analysis created for Raw Story by the Center for Responsive Politics, shows that President Obama received a staggering $20,175,303 from the healthcare industry during the 2008 election cycle, nearly three times the amount of his presidential rival John McCain. McCain took in $7,758,289, the Center found.
The new figure, obtained by Raw Story through an independent custom research request performed by the Center for Responsive Politics — a nonprofit, nonpartisan group that tracks money in politics — is the most comprehensive breakdown yet available of healthcare industry contributions to Obama during the 2008 election cycle.
Full Story Obama received $20 million from healthcare industry in 2008 campaign | Raw Story.
Fox News VP: We ‘hope’ Palin will be ‘polarizing’ as a Fox News contributor.
Yesterday, Fox News announced that former Alaska governor Sarah Palin had signed a multi-year deal as a contributor to the conservative cable network. “Governor Palin has captivated everyone on both sides of the political spectrum and we are excited to add her dynamic voice to the FOX News lineup,” said Fox News Executive Vice President for Programming Bill Shine in a statement. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Shine also said that he hopes Palin will be a “polarizing” voice on the network:
With her hiring, Fox News gets a high-profile figure whose pronouncements on issues such as healthcare reform have helped drive contentious partisan debate — it was her Facebook post that first raised the term “death panels.”
“She is one of the most talked about and politically polarizing figures in the country,” said Bill Shine, the network’s executive vice president of programming. “First off, we hope she brings that.”
Full Story Think Progress » Fox News VP: We ‘hope’ Palin will be ‘polarizing’ as a Fox News contributor..
Right Wing Mounts Witch Hunt To Smear TSA Nominee With Flailing, Off-Target Attacks
“Republicans are stepping up their effort to block Erroll Southers from becoming head of the Transportation Security Administration,” Politico reports. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) has been holding up Southers’ nomination in a political effort “to prevent TSA workers from joining a labor union.”
Southers, a counterterrorism expert, is currently working as a senior official for homeland security and intelligence for the police division of Los Angeles World Airports. He is also an associate director of the University of Southern California’s security studies program, has developed and implemented anti-terrorism measures for a variety of public institutions, and wrote a doctoral study on “Predictive Indicators of Homegrown Islamic Terror Cells.” Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) said Southers is “more than qualified” to lead TSA.
Despite Southers’ impressive resume and qualifications, the right wing is intent on playing politics with his nomination. Conservative bloggers and activists have begun mounting a campaign to smear Southers with fallacious attacks. Some examples below:
Full Story Think Progress » Right Wing Mounts Witch Hunt To Smear TSA Nominee With Flailing, Off-Target Attacks.
No Signs of Robust Jobs Recovery
Despite the Obama administration’s efforts to create jobs and improve jobless reports each month, jobs growth in the U.S. remains anemic, and it could be some time before the economy experiences a robust period of growth, according to a report by the Economic Policy Institute.
Since the recession began in December 2007, the economy should have created roughly 3.8 million jobs over that time. Instead, the economy shed 8.1 million jobs over that period, putting the U.S. economy 10.6 million jobs below pre-recession levels.
The massive number of unemployed Americans will be problematic even when the economy begins to create jobs. As those millions of Americans reenter – or attempt to – the workforce, it will cause the unemployment rate to rise even higher.
Full Story No Signs of Robust Jobs Recovery | Economy In Crisis.
WTO Opening Investigation on Tariffs Imposed on Chinese Tires
Tariffs imposed on imports of Chinese tires are in jeopardy of being struck down by the World Trade Organization after less than one year. ABC News reports that the international body that governs trade has agreed to open an investigation, at the request of Beijing officials, into whether the tariffs imposed are a violation of international trade laws.
U.S. officials were able to delay the investigation last month through procedural objections, however, they have run out of delay tactics, and it appears that the investigation will move forward.
That does not bode well for U.S. tire producers. The U.S. loses in nine out of 10 trade disputes that it is involved in at the WTO, according to Public Citizen.
In September, the White House announced that it would impose tariffs on imports of Chinese tires for a period of three years. The first year, Chinese-made tires are hit with a tariff of 35 percent, followed by a 30 percent tariff the following year and a 25 percent tariff the final year.
Full Story WTO Opening Investigation on Tariffs Imposed on Chinese Tires | Economy In Crisis.
China Overtakes U.S. to Become World’s Largest Auto Market in ’09
The Asian Century continued unabated after it was reported last week that China had surged passed the U.S. to become the world’s largest auto market in 2009.
According to reports, Chinese auto sales totaled 13.5 million last year, a 48 percent increase from 2008.
U.S. sales, meanwhile, were down 21 percent from 2008, hitting a 27-year low of 10.4 million.
China’s newfound title as the world’s largest auto market is indicative of China’s meteoric rise economically. In the past year alone, China has passed Japan to become the world’s second largest economy and recently passed Germany to become the world’s largest exporter of goods.
Full Story China Overtakes U.S. to Become World’s Largest Auto Market in ’09 | Economy In Crisis.
Obama’s Big Sellout
Matt Taibbi & Robert F. Kennedy, Jr – 
During his campaign, Barack Obama surrounded himself with progressive leaders who believed that we could prevent another economic crisis by enforcing tougher regulations for Wall Street. However, once he took office, he sent those progressives packing, and filled his cabinet with former Wall Street insiders who want to keep the system operating out of the scope of the government. This isn’t the “change” that we were expecting, and this is one of the reasons that the president is now facing an uphill battle to win back the votes of his base. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. talks about the president’s sell out with Matt Taibbi, political correspondent for Rolling Stone magazine.
VIDEO: Obama’s Big Sellout – Matt Taibbi: Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3
Full Story Ring of Fire Radio | Obama’s Big Sellout – Matt Taibbi.
10 Pounds Overweight? Got High Cholesterol? It Could Cost You Big Unless the Dems Fix the Health Care Bill
A little-discussed provision of the Senate bill allows insurers to penalize subscribers by hundreds — and even thousands — of dollars for not meeting certain “wellness targets.”
When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid agreed to negotiate a final health care bill without a formal conference committee, they did so to cut short the number of procedural obstacles Republicans could place in the path to a final health care package. The downside of that decision means that the contours of the less progressive Senate bill—with no public health insurance plan and a tax on employers who offer excellent health insurance for their employees—are likely to shape the final outcome. And that could mean even less reform than we thought we were about to settle for.
After the ditching of the public option and the trashing of a Medicare buy-in, the Senate health care bill, we were told, was still worth passing because it would end discrimination by insurers based on a subscriber’s health status. No more discrimination based on preexisting conditions, right? Well, not exactly.
A little-discussed provision of the Senate bill allows insurers to expand so-called wellness programs that allow insurers to penalize subscribers by hundreds—and even thousands—of dollars for not meeting certain “wellness targets,” such as a particular cholesterol number, blood sugar measurement or body-weight target.
Drumbeat to Boot Geithner Gets Louder, on Eve of Hearings on Disastrous Economic Crash
Danny Schechter -
The Treasury Secretary’s pro-Wall Street policies, along with those of adviser Larry Summers, are failing. Time to give them the boot.
When a pitcher gets tired, starts throwing walks or being hit, most attentive managers take him out of the game. When policies break down, as in the case of the security system that failed to spot the alleged Christmas bomber, the president starts talking tough about the buck stopping here and orders to straighten out a failed system.
But when tens of thousands of workers, once again, lose their jobs, the people responsible get winked at, not wanked. The president is contrite, his rhetoric subdued, even as the recovery he keeps talking about goes south.
Yes, there needs to be a cabinet shake-up. It’s time to yank Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner from the game, along with economic adviser Larry Summers. Their pro-bank, pro-Wall Street policies are failing. Isn’t it obvious? According to an AP investigation, their road construction projects have had no impact on the jobs crisis.
The Last Big Question: Will Health Care Reform Be Paid For By The Rich or the Middle Class?
Robert Reich -
There’s only one big remaining issue on health care reform: how to pay for it. The House wants a 5.4 percent surtax on couples earning at least $1 million in annual income. The Senate wants a 40 percent excise tax on employer-provided “Cadillac plans.” The Senate will win on this unless the public discovers that a large portion of the so-called Cadillacs are really middle-class Chevys, expensive not because they deliver more benefits but because they have higher costs.
The dirty little secret under the hood is that less than 4 percent of the variation in the cost of current health-care plans has to do with how many benefits they provide. Most plans that cost more do so because (1) a particular set of employees is older and tends to get sicker than the average set of employees (that’s true for a lot of old rust-belt firms), (2) the plan is offered by a small business that lacks bargaining clout with insurers (small businesses pay, on average, 16 percent more for the health insurance they provide, per capita), (3) the work that employees do subjects them to greater risk of medical problems (health-care workers, for example), or (4) most employees are women (who tend to have higher health-care costs than men because women are the ones who bear children). Plans could also cost more but deliver average benefits because (5) insurers in the area don’t face much competition (one main reason for the public option).
So by taxing so-called Cadillac plans, the Senate bill would actually end up taxing the Chevy plans of a large portion of the middle class. And as time goes by, a still larger portion, since the Senate plan is geared to the overall rate of inflation rather than to the (much higher) rate of increases in health-care costs.
Full Story Robert Reich (The Last Big Question: Will Health Care Reform Be Paid For By The Rich or the Middle Class?).
Desperate Indonesians sell organs online
Cash-strapped Indonesians are cutting out the middleman and selling their organs online, exploiting a loophole in local laws and fueling a dangerous and illegal trade in human body parts.
Hundreds of advertisements have appeared on Indonesian personal advertising websites offering kidneys for as little as 50 million rupiah (5,300 dollars) each.
Among the usual cars, jewellery and beauty products, one advertisement on www.iklanoke.com states: “16-year-old male selling a kidney for 350 million rupiah or in exchange for a Toyota Camry.”
Many of the advertisers — students, professionals and even housewives — are not shy about using their real names or leaving their contact numbers.
Full Story AFP: Desperate Indonesians sell organs online.
Professor John Yoo to Teach New “Secret Class” at UC Law School
With anti-torture protest continuing to focus on the presence on the University of California faculty of former Bush administration lawyer John Yoo, UC officials have adopted a new tactic. Yoo will again teach spring semester at Berkeley Law (Boalt Hall) – but the location of his classroom is being kept secret from the public, and Yoo himself is unlikely to be physically present for the first night of his class Tuesday, January 12
Yoo’s course is listed on Boalt’s schedule by day and time only, with location only as “To Be Announced.” Calls requesting the UC Registrar and Berkeley Law divulge the information are being rebuffed. Although Yoo formerly taught major courses including Constitutional Law, Separation of Powers, and Ethics, in the spotlight of controversy over his role as legal architect of the Bush-Cheney torture program Yoo has now been re-assigned to teach only a single course on the California constitution, to a class limited to 24 students, and has been given a co-teacher.
Protesters including the national organization World Can’t Wait have announced they will arrive at the office of the dean of Berkeley Law, Christopher Edley, Jr. earlier that afternoon, to ask for more information about UC’s new “secret classes” policy:
What will be taught behind closed doors that needs to be kept secret?
Full Story Scoop: Professor John Yoo to Teach New “Secret Class”.
President Obama Signs Executive Order Establishing Council of Governors
Executive Order will Strengthen Further Partnership Between the Federal and State and Local Governments to Better Protect Our Nation
The President today signed an Executive Order (attached) establishing a Council of Governors to strengthen further the partnership between the Federal Government and State Governments to protect our Nation against all types of hazards. When appointed, the Council will be reviewing such matters as involving the National Guard of the various States; homeland defense; civil support; synchronization and integration of State and Federal military activities in the United States; and other matters of mutual interest pertaining to National Guard, homeland defense, and civil support activities.
The bipartisan Council will be composed of ten State Governors who will be selected by the President to serve two year terms. In selecting the Governors to the Council, the White House will solicit input from Governors and Governors’ associations. Once chosen, the Council will have no more than five members from the same party and represent the Nation as a whole.
Federal members of the Council include the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, the Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Americas’ Security Affairs, the U.S. Northern Command Commander, the Commandant of the Coast Guard, and the Chief of the National Guard Bureau. The Secretary of Defense will designate an Executive Director for the Council.
Full Story President Obama Signs Executive Order Establishing Council of Governors | The White House.
Bank Profits Means Stocks at 15% Discount to S&P 500
No U.S. industry has faster profit growth than banks and brokers, and no group is more hated by investors.
Analysts say earnings at financial companies rose 120 percent in the fourth quarter, accounting for all of the income increase in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, and will triple by 2011, climbing four times as fast as the market. Should the estimates prove correct, the shares are trading at a 15 percent discount to the index, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
That’s not enough for money managers burned by the 84 percent drop in the stocks from February 2007 through March and more than 160 U.S. bank failures in the past two years. Financial companies are the least-favored equities, according to a Bank of America Corp. survey of investors with $617 billion in assets that showed 38 percent of 123 money managers are holding fewer shares than are in benchmark indexes.
Full Story Bank Profits Means Stocks at 15% Discount to S&P 500 (Update3) – Bloomberg.com.
2009 and 2010 stealth tax on job seekers, the old, and sick
The deduction for personal use of your car for job seeking, work expenses, and for travel for medical treatment has decreased substantially from 2008 levels.
This means you pay more out of your own pocket to look for a job or go to the doctor. This is just a stealth tax. A 9.1% decrease for business travel from 2009 to 2010 and a 31% reduction for medical and moving is documented in IRS publications listed below.
The reasoning for the change (appended below) is based on “lower transportation costs for 2009.”
Full Story 2009 and 2010 stealth tax on job seekers, the old, and sick.
kill wall street bonuses or tax ‘em to death MIT’s simon johnson says:
Bashing big banks is all the rage this week, with White House officials and New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo scolding Wall Street fat cats ahead of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, which gets underway Wednesday.
At issue is what level of bonuses are appropriate for publicly traded firms that posted record profits in 2009 thanks to the government’s largess and after being rescued in 2008.
Simon Johnson, professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and former chief economist of the IMF, says there’s a simple solution to this seemingly complex problem: “People working at our largest banks – say over $100 billion in total assets – should get zero bonus for 2009.”
Full Story kill wall street bonuses or tax ‘em to death mit’s simon johnson says: Tech Ticker, Yahoo! Finance.
Federal Reserve Seeks to Protect U.S. Bailout Secrets
The Federal Reserve asked a U.S. appeals court to block a ruling that for the first time would force the central bank to reveal secret identities of financial firms that might have collapsed without the largest government bailout in U.S. history.
The U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan will decide whether the Fed must release records of the unprecedented $2 trillion U.S. loan program launched after the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. In August, a federal judge ordered that the information be released, responding to a request by Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News.
“This case is about the identity of the borrower,” said Matthew Collette, a lawyer for the government, in oral arguments today. “This is the equivalent of saying ‘I want all the loan applications that were submitted.’”
Full Story Federal Reserve Seeks to Protect U.S. Bailout Secrets (Update1) – Bloomberg.com.
Does Congress Want to Default on the National Debt?
Dean Baker - The deficit hawks in Congress are pushing again to establish a special commission to deal with the problem of the deficit. They are trying to include a provision establishing such a commission as part of a bill to increase the country’s debt ceiling.
The deal is that this commission would produce a set of recommendations to reduce the deficit. Its recommendations would then be fast-tracked so that they would not be subjected to the normal Congressional procedures. This means that they could not be amended or filibustered. They would be subject to a straight up or down vote by the lame duck Congress after the November election. This means that many of the people who were just voted out of office would get to decide the future of our Social Security and Medicare benefits: so much for democracy.
While the commission idea is bad enough by itself, it especially troubling that the proposal would place major cuts in Social Security on the table. This is troubling for two reasons. First, current and near retirees will badly need their Social Security after the Wall Street boys’ machinations destroyed their home equity and retirement accounts. The vast majority of middle-income families will have very little other than Social Security to support them in retirement.
Full Story t r u t h o u t | Does Congress Want to Default on the National Debt?.
Simple Brain Washing
This is an example of people who follow the crowd,no matter if the crowd is right or wrong,its all about being like everyone else.Have you ever wondered why otherwise intelligent people can’t see what’s right in front of their own faces?
Fascists and other liars know that if they can just make enough noise, they can start a stampede of public opinion which will become very hard for the average person to question.
Full-Body Scanners Used on Air Passengers May Damage Human DNA
In researching the biological effects of the millimeter wave scanners used for whole body imaging at airports, NaturalNews has learned that the energy emitted by the machines may damage human DNA.
Millimeter wave machines represent one of two primary technologies currently being used for the “digital strip searches” being conducted at airports around the world. “The Transportation Security Administration utilizes two technologies to capture naked images of air travelers – backscatter x-ray technology and millimeter wave technology,” reports the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a non-profit currently suing the U.S. government to stop these electronic strip searches.
In order to generate the nude image of the human body, these machines emit terahertz photons — high-frequency energy “particles” that can pass through clothing and body tissue.
Full Story t r u t h o u t | Full-Body Scanners Used on Air Passengers May Damage Human DNA.
Alastair Campbell had Iraq dossier changed to fit US claims
WMD in a year’ allegation halved original timescale after compilers told to compare contents with Bush speech
Fresh evidence has emerged that Tony Blair’s discredited Iraqi arms dossier was “sexed up” on the instructions of Alastair Campbell, his communications chief, to fit with claims from the US administration that were known to be false.
The pre-invasion dossier’s worst-case estimate of how long it would take Iraq to acquire a nuclear weapon was shortened in response to a George Bush speech.
As Campbell prepares to appear before the Iraq inquiry on Tuesday, new evidence reveals the extent to which – on his instructions – those drafting the notorious dossier colluded with the US administration to make exaggerated claims about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.
Full Story Alastair Campbell had Iraq dossier changed to fit US claims | UK news | The Guardian.
Get Organ-Damaging Monsanto Corn off the Market
The first-ever public study of the health effects of genetically modified corn shows that three patented crops developed and owned by agriculture giant Monsanto cause liver, kidney and heart damage in mammals.
The FDA has approved all three varieties for sale and consumption in the U.S. and all three are in our food supply right now.
More shocking, the raw data used in the study was from Monsanto’s own testing — the company simply ignored clear indications that their genetically modified corn was causing organ damage.
According to the study’s author, the company’s own data “clearly underlines adverse impacts on kidneys and liver, the dietary detoxifying organs, as well as different levels of damages to heart, adrenal glands, spleen and haematopoietic system.”
The FDA should immediately investigate and at least temporarily rescind approval for all three varieties of corn while research continues. By allowing Monsanto to sell its proprietary but dangerous corn, the FDA is failing to protect the public from needless risk.
Tell the FDA to halt the sale of all three crops and re-investigate their health effects immediately.
Full Story Get Organ-Damaging Monsanto Corn off the Market | Change.org.
OPS: Don’t forget to sign the Petition
When House Majority Leader Dick Armey Called Rep. Frank a ‘Fag,’ No One Called for Him to Resign
Republicans are trying to gin up an equivalance between this comment about then-Sen. Barack Obama by Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid during the 2008 presidential campaign:
[Reid] was wowed by Obama’s oratorical gifts and believed that the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama — a “light-skinned” African American “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one,” as he later put it privately.
…And this statement by former GOP Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott during festivities at the 100th birthday party for Sen. Strom Thurmond in 2002:
Obama and the Global Police: More Friendly Fascism?
“The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.”– James Madison
By John W. Whitehead
Over the course of his first year in office, Barack Obama has shown himself to be a skillful and savvy politician, saying the things Americans want to hear while stealthily and inexorably moving forward the government's agenda of centralized power. For example, in one breath, Obama pays lip service to the need for greater transparency in government, while in another, he issues an executive order that will result in even more government secrecy.
He is aided in this Machiavellian mindset by a trusting populace inclined to take him at his word and a mainstream media seemingly loath to criticize him or scrutinize his actions too closely. A perfect example of this is the media's relative lack of scrutiny over Obama's recent transformation of Executive Order (EO) 12425 from a document that constitutionally limits the International Criminal Police Organization's (Interpol) activities domestically to one that establishes it as an autonomous police agency within the U.S.
Those who have voiced their concerns about this domestic empowerment of Interpol by President Obama–and that's exactly what it is–have been soundly criticized for fomenting political hysteria. But there is legitimate cause for concern. This presidential directive could undermine civil liberties and render the Fourth Amendment null and void.
Full Story The Rutherford Institute – Commentary.
World’s biodiversity ‘crisis’ needs action, says UN
The UN has launched the International Year of Biodiversity, warning that the ongoing loss of species around the world is affecting human well-being.
Eight years ago, governments pledged to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010, but the pledge will not be met.
The expansion of human cities, farming and infrastructure is the main reason.
Speaking at the launch in Berlin, German premier Angela Merkel urged the establishment of a new panel to collate scientific findings on the issue.
Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), urged governments and their leaders to renew their commitment to curbing biodiversity loss even though the 2010 goal will be missed.
Full Story BBC News – World’s biodiversity ‘crisis’ needs action, says UN.
President Obama, the CIA and the Master of the Cover-Up
The Obama administration quietly announced Friday the appointment of John McLaughlin, former deputy CIA director, to head the internal investigation of the intelligence failures that led to the Christmas Day attempted bombing of a Delta airliner headed for Detroit as well as the events leading to the shootings at Fort Hood in November.
With this appointment, President Barack Obama has assured that the culture of intelligence cover-up will continue. McLaughlin has participated in and sought to cover-up many of the CIA’s most egregious failures and misdeeds of the past decade. When he left the CIA, he then served as the agency’s chief apologist.
So, who is John McLaughlin? Most of official Washington and the mainstream media view McLaughlin as the mild-mannered, professorial CIA bureaucrat, who former CIA director George Tenet called the “smartest man he had ever met.”
Full Story t r u t h o u t | President Obama, the CIA and the Master of the Cover-Up.
“Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go To Work”
Click image and buy it now
Thom Hartmann’s Independent Thinker Book Review of the Month: For January 2010
For about half of the 20th Century, corporate excesses were kept on a relatively short leash. Then, in the last two years of his administration, Jimmy Carter began drinking the Milton/Thomas Friedman Kool-Aid and “deregulation” hit a series of industries from travel to trucking.
Two years later, Reagan became president under dubious circumstances (involving his campaign manager and his VP candidate working with the Iranians to hold US hostages through the election campaign), and he blew the doors wide open. Corporations could ignore the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and its more recent updates, and get as large as they wanted. An unprecedented era of “Mergers and Acquisitions” or “M&A” activity exploded across the corporate landscape, mostly fueled by Leveraged Buyouts (LBAs). The mantra was “greed is good.” Bigger was better. Efficiency was the magic word, even when it meant destroying the lives of workers and employees.
The most recent incarnation of the sharks that came to both swim in and then dominate the waters of American business are called “Private Equity” companies, although they’re most often engaged in the same “pump and dump” and “slash and burn” techniques their “M&A” and “LBO” predecessors did.
Move Your Money Campaign Helps Trustco Bank
Aside from taking the media world by storm, the Move Your Money campaign is having a real-world effect.
Albany’s WTEN reports that Glenville-based Trustco Bank has seen a surge in business ever since the Move Your Money campaign began calling for consumers to stop lining the pockets of the too-big-to-fail banks and to support their local community banks. Trustco saw 30 new accounts opened in one day, including one worth seven-figures.
Bank officials say that other branches of the bank are seeing similar results.
Watch the report below:
Full Story Move Your Money Campaign Helps Trustco Bank.
AFL-CIO President: Democrats Are Inviting Historic Electoral Loses
One of the top union leaders in the country warned on Monday that the Democratic Party risked suffering electoral losses of historic proportions if they pass watered-down health care legislation and refuse to seriously tackle financial regulatory reform.
In a speech before the National Press Club (and comments beforehand), AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka insisted that Democrats are “inviting a repeat” of the 1994 midterm elections by instituting a tax on high-end insurance plans as part of their final health care compromise, among other things.
“It could well be” a recipe for disaster in 2010, Trumka told a group of reporters. “I just came back from southern California. I was in five or six places out there… it is amazing the number of people that come up to you unsolicited and say, ‘I’m really worried about this health care bill.’”
Full Story Trumka: Democrats Are Inviting A Repeat Of 1994.
Privatized War, and Its Price
A federal judge in Washington, Ricardo Urbina, has provided another compelling argument against the outsourcing of war to gunslingers from the private sector. In throwing out charges against Blackwater agents who killed 17 Iraqis in Baghdad’s Nisour Square in September 2007, Judge Urbina highlighted the government’s inability to hold mercenaries accountable for crimes they commit.
Judge Urbina correctly ruled that the government violated the Blackwater agents’ protection against self-incrimination. He sketched an inept prosecution that relied on compelled statements made by the agents to officials of the State Department, who employed the North Carolina security firm to protect convoys and staff in Iraq. That, he said, amounted to a “reckless violation of the defendants’ constitutional rights.”
During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton competed over who would take the toughest line against mercenaries. It is clear that the only way for President Obama to make good on the rhetoric is to get rid of the thousands of private gunmen still deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Full Story Editorial – Privatized War, and Its Price – NYTimes.com.
White House Readies Aggressive Midterm Push
Axelrod Says Focus Will Be On Republican Alternatives
The White House strategy for contesting the midterm election is beginning to take shape.
In an interview with National Journal, senior White House political adviser David Axelrod laid down several keys to strengthening the Democratic position in an election that all signs suggest is shaping up as extremely difficult for his party. Axelrod’s checklist includes improvement in the economy, some (but not vastly more) legislative action and, most pointedly, an effort to draw sharper contrasts with Republican positions. His comments may foreshadow a much more pugnacious Democratic message as the election approaches.
“It’s almost impossible to win a referendum on yourself,” Axelrod insisted. “And the Republicans would like this to be a referendum. It’s not going to be a referendum.”
Asked what has to happen in the next 10 months to produce the best possible result for Democrats in November, Axelrod didn’t hesitate in identifying his top priority: an economy that is adding, rather than losing, jobs each month. “I think job growth is certainly number one,” he said. “I think that’s how most people measure a recovering economy.”
Full Story National Journal Online – White House Readies Aggressive Midterm Push.
Cuomo Demands Bank Bonus Data: New York Attorney General Wants Details From 8 Bailed-Out Banks
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo on Monday pressed the nation’s eight biggest banks to reveal how much they plan to pay out in employee bonuses for 2009.
Cuomo told reporters that he also wants to know how the size of the banks’ bonus pool would have been affected if the banks hadn’t received a taxpayer rescue at the height of the financial crisis in late 2008.
The fact-finding effort comes as Wall Street banks this month prepare to hand out near-record compensation for last year’s performance. Several banks earned huge profits in 2009, aided by billions in government bailout funds and a rebounding stock market.
Full Story Cuomo Demands Bank Bonus Data: New York Attorney General Wants Details From 8 Bailed-Out Banks.
Chris Hedges on Obama, Michael Jackson, ‘Empire of Illusion’ – Video
Never one to shrink away from a strong debate, “Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle” author and Truthdig columnist Chris Hedges comes out swinging in this lecture recorded last month, giving his audience at the New School in New York City more than a few big ideas to grapple with regarding our current president, the state of our democracy and the cancer of celebrity culture in contemporary American society.
Democracy Now!:
Full Story Chris Hedges on Obama, Michael Jackson, ‘Empire of Illusion’ – Truthdig.
The Case Against Bernanke
Much of the mainstream press has played the rising opposition to Senate confirmation of Ben Bernanke as a case of misplaced populist rage. The fact that the opposition within the Senate began with that chamber’s left (Bernie Sanders) and right (Jim Bunning) seems to confirm the premise that it’s only the fringe that opposes his reappointment as Fed Chairman. The Boston Globe, for example, recently profiled Sanders and his case against Bernanke under the remarkable headline, “Sanders a Growing Force on the Far, Far Left.” (I’ve always thought of the far, far left as Chairman Mao and Che Guevara. Bernie is a European style social-democrat.)
In fact, when the Senate votes on Bernanke, Sanders will have a lot of company — and he should. Bernanke’s high-profile speech to the American Economic Association in Atlanta, January 3, was his latest effort to redeem himself. But it provides ample evidence for why the Senate should deny him a second term.
Bernanke devoted most of a remarkable abstruse speech to a straw man. “Some observers have assigned monetary policy a central role in the crisis,” he said. “Specifically, they claim that excessively easy monetary policy by the Federal Reserve in the first half of the decade helped cause a bubble in house prices in the United States.”
Full Story Robert Kuttner: The Case Against Bernanke.
Carbon Trading Nonsense
History has seen attempts to commodify land, food, labor, forests, water, genes and ideas…carbon trading follows in the footsteps of this history and turns the earth’s carbon cycling capacity into property to be bought and sold in a global market. Through this process of creating a new commodity, carbon, the earth’s ability and capacity to support a climate conducive to life and human societies is now passing into the same corporate hands that are destroying the climate.
–from the Durban Declaration on Climate Justice
For those paying attention to the unfolding disaster of climate change, last year ended with a hideous thud. The Copenhagen debacle which resulted in a largely meaningless “accord”, left many climate activists shattered and desperately in need of a stiff drink on New Years Eve. For others, however, spirits remain high as the politics of climate disaster represent profitable new opportunities.
Many of these people, representing some of the most powerful institutions and industries in the world, will get together this week to see just how (and how much) they can squeeze out of the Earth’s impending woes. On January 12th and 13th – within the conference rooms of the Embassy Suites Hotel in New York City – the Second Annual Carbon Summit will convene, bringing together representatives from industry, finance, government, and the corporate environmental groups.
Full Story Carbon Trading Nonsense | CommonDreams.org.
America slides deeper into depression as Wall Street revels
December was the worst month for US unemployment since the Great Recession began.
The labour force contracted by 661,000. This did not show up in the headline jobless rate because so many Americans dropped out of the system. The broad U6 category of unemployment rose to 17.3pc. That is the one that matters.
Wall Street rallied. Bulls hope that weak jobs data will postpone monetary tightening: a silver lining in every catastrophe, or perhaps a further exhibit of market infantilism.
The home foreclosure guillotine usually drops a year or so after people lose their job, and exhaust their savings. The local sheriff will escort them out of the door, often with some sympathy –– just like the police in 1932, mostly Irish Catholics who tithed 1pc of their pay for soup kitchens.
Full Story America slides deeper into depression as Wall Street revels – Telegraph.
Midterm Elections: Five Roadblocks to the GOP’s Revival
Republicans can hardly believe their good fortune. First, Democratic Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota announced that he would not run for re-election, giving Republicans a good shot at taking his seat. Then the Democratic governor of Colorado, Bill Ritter, said he was bowing out. Ditto the Democrats’ top candidate for governor in Michigan. And all of it happened on the same day.
The Democratic politicians’ decisions to step back both reflect and contribute to the party’s grim prospects this November. The weak economy and public anxiety about President Obama’s agenda are making Democrats think twice about running. But when they don’t run, they make the party’s predicament worse. (The exception is when Democratic officeholders are in such bad shape that their retirement actually helps the party come up with a stronger candidate. It was good news for Democrats when Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd called it a career on the same day that his fellow Dems bowed out.) (See the top 10 political defections.)
Nobody expects the Republicans to take control of the Senate — they’re too far down for that — but most observers expect them to make big gains at all levels, and some Republicans even dream of taking control of the House. GOP strategists are especially interested in picking up governor’s mansions and state legislatures: the states will soon be drawing the borders of congressional districts for the next decade’s elections, and each party wants them drawn to its advantage.
Full Story Midterm Elections: Five Roadblocks to the GOP’s Revival – TIME.
As Rainier’s glaciers recede, debris chokes rivers
The fallout from Mount Rainier’s shrinking glaciers is beginning to roll downhill, and nowhere is the impact more striking than on the volcano’s west side.
“This is it in spades,” said Park Service geologist Paul Kennard, scrambling up a 10-foot-tall mass of dirt and boulders bulldozed back just enough to clear the road.
As receding glaciers expose crumbly slopes, vast amounts of gravel and sediment are being sluiced into the rivers that flow from the Northwest’s tallest peak. Much of the material sweeps down in rain-driven slurries called debris flows.
“The rivers are filling up with stuff,” Kennard said from his vantage point atop the pile. He pointed out ancient stands of fir and cedar now up to their knees in water.
Full Story As Rainier’s glaciers recede, debris chokes rivers.
Will Supreme Court Rule For One-Dollar-One-Vote?
The Supreme Court could say as soon as Monday [today] that corporate executives are free to use huge amounts of corporate resources to directly influence elections. The vote will probably be 5-4 and we know which 5 and which 4 and why.
If this happens it will fundamentally change the way our elections are decided, our leaders are chosen, and our laws are made. The ruling will complete the transition, already underway, from a one-person-one-vote ideal to a corrupt one-dollar-one-vote system run for the benefit of those with the most dollars to throw into elections. And of course those with access to the most corporate dollars will use their new influence to increase their own dollars – and influence – at the expense of those with fewer dollars. Monopoly capitalism will be the New World Order.
It is simple to imagine how unlimited direct use of corporate resources will change our lives. Just for example, suppose executives at a chemical company want to save money by dumping toxins into a nearby river. Suppose a county or state government is trying to block this. Imagine the effect unlimited direct corporate money can have in a county or even a state election. Of course those executives will be able put in place a local or state government that lets them dump into the river. They probably will be able to get laws passed preventing their company from being sued for the resulting cancers. I know that this sounds pretty darn close to the political system that we have today but with direct use of corporate resources to influence elections the corrupting influence will be much more direct and corrosive.
Full Story Will Supreme Court Rule For One-Dollar-One-Vote? | OurFuture.org.
The Religious Case for Moving Your Money Where Your Heart Is
In my sermon at the Princeton University Chapel this Christmas, I brought in good, old George Bailey from It’s a Wonderful Life. My reference to It’s a Wonderful Life was to pose the troubling question of which portrait looked more familiar: the bucolic final scene of Bedford Falls, or George’s nightmare of the brutal and callous Pottersville? Which depiction of America was a closer representation of the economic reality as we enter the second decade of the 21st century? One of the questions I asked my congregation to consider was the moral agency each of us possess to do good in this world by fulfilling God’s desire for the economic well being of all humanity.
A week later I heard about the Move Your Money movement, went to the website moveyourmoney.info and coincidentally saw a video that featured George Bailey vs. Potter. The video uses these archetypes to set up the distinction between big banks and community banks. The site encourages us to shift at least part of our money out of the banks that were too big to fail, and are now too big to loan money, and into community banks which are more likely to serve the needs of local people.
Full Story Paul Raushenbush: The Religious Case for Moving Your Money Where Your Heart Is.
Comcast Launches ‘TV Everywhere’: Say Goodbye to Free Web TV — In These Times
At its core, TV Everywhere is about ensuring consumers don’t cancel their overpriced cable TV subscriptions.
On Monday, public interest groups called on federal authorities to investigate a plan by the largest cable, satellite and phone companies that threatens the future of Web-based video. “TV Everywhere” gets programmers like TNT, TBS and CBS to keep their content offline unless a viewer also pays for TV through a traditional company like Comcast or AT&T (phone companies are starting to offer TV service, too).
TV Everywhere is designed to protect the current cable TV subscription model and block competition from upstart online video ventures like Vuze, Roku and Hulu. Cleverly marketed as a consumer-friendly product, TV Everywhere is really a desperate bid by old media giants to crush the emerging market for online TV. Cable giant Comcast just became the first company to launch TV Everywhere under the brand “Fancast Xfinity,” and the other dominant cable, satellite and phone companies have announced plans to follow suit.
At its core, TV Everywhere is about ensuring consumers don’t cancel their overpriced cable TV subscriptions that provide companies like Comcast with huge profits ($6.7 billion in 2008 alone.) But the current scheme also prevents competition between existing TV distributors. Instead of being offered to all Americans, including those living in Cox, Cablevision and Time Warner Cable regions, Fancast Xfinity is only available in Comcast regions. The other distributors plan to follow Comcast’s lead, meaning that the incumbents will not compete with one another outside of their “traditional” regions.
Full Story Comcast Launches ‘TV Everywhere’: Say Goodbye to Free Web TV — In These Times.
Political Parodists Strike Back Against Chamber of Commerce In 1st Amendment Lawsuit
A group of political activists including members of the Yes Men and the Action Factory have moved to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce accusing the activists of infringing the Chamber’s trademarks in the course of a political parody highlighting the Chamber’s controversial stance on climate change.
In a motion filed last week, the activists — represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the law firm Davis Wright Tremaine, LLP — argue that the Chamber’s suit was designed to punish political speech, rather than to vindicate any actual trademark harm, and should therefore be dismissed.
“U.S. courts have long recognized that trademark rights do not include the right to control language and silence critics,” says EFF senior staff attorney Corynne McSherry. “This political parody was clearly protected by fair use and the First Amendment.”
Full Story On The Hill: Political Parodists Strike Back Against Chamber of Commerce In 1st Amendment Lawsuit.
Who’s Sleeping Now?
China is leaving US in the dust
C. H. Tung, the first Chinese-appointed chief executive of Hong Kong after the handover in 1997, offered me a three-sentence summary the other day of China’s modern economic history: “China was asleep during the Industrial Revolution. She was just waking during the Information Technology Revolution. She intends to participate fully in the Green Revolution.”
I’ll say. Being in China right now I am more convinced than ever that when historians look back at the end of the first decade of the 21st century, they will say that the most important thing to happen was not the Great Recession, but China’s Green Leap Forward. The Beijing leadership clearly understands that the E.T. — Energy Technology — revolution is both a necessity and an opportunity, and they do not intend to miss it.
We, by contrast, intend to fix Afghanistan. Have a nice day.
more……
Full Story Op-Ed Columnist – Who’s Sleeping Now? – NYTimes.com.
China banks eclipse US rivals
Chinese banks have cemented their position as the most highly valued financial institutions, taking four of the top five slots in a ranking of banks’ share prices as a multiple of their book values.
China Merchants Bank, China Citic, ICBC and China Construction Bank lead the table, followed by Itaú Unibanco of Brazil, all with a price-to-book multiple of more than three.
Over the past six years, the average price-to-book value of the biggest 50 banks has halved from two to one
Full Story FT.com / Companies / Banks – China banks eclipse US rivals.
OPS: Thanks to 30 years of Reaganomics China is leaving US in the dust.
Ford Fusion Hybrid: 2010 Car Of The Year
Ford Motor Co.’s market momentum got a lift Monday by winning both the 2010 North American Car and Truck of the Year awards.
Ford’s Fusion Hybrid midsize sedan took top car honors and its versatile Transit Connect compact van snagged truck of the year at the Detroit auto show.
It was only the third time in 17 years that an automaker has won both awards, selected by 49 auto journalists and given annually since 1994. Finalists for the car award included the Buick LaCrosse and Volkswagen Golf GTI and TDI diesel. The Chevrolet Equinox, Ford Transit Connect and Subaru Outback were finalists for the truck award.
Full Story Ford Fusion Hybrid: 2010 Car Of The Year.
Obama budget likely to include (as yet undetermined) fee on banks to help taxpayers recoup cost of bailout
EXCLUSIVE: Top administration officials tell Morning Money that President Obama’s budget, to be unveiled next month, is likely to include a fee on banks designed to recoup some of the cost taxpayers incurred in the bailout, which specified that the U.S. government should be made whole. This will stop short of a financial transactions tax, and the administration has decided that a tax on compensation packages would be too easily evaded. The officials said the final approach has not been locked down. The chief goal is a fee that is not easily passed along.
BREAKING: New York Fed general counsel Thomas C. Baxter writes in a letter to Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), ranking members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee: “I write to clarify that matters relating to AIG securities law disclosure were not brought to the attention of Mr. Geithner. … In my judgment as the New York Fed’s chief legal officer, disclosure matters of this nature did not warrant the attention of the president. Further, Mr. Geithner played no role in, and had no knowledge of, the disclosure deliberations and communications referenced in those e-mails.” We posted Baxter’s letters to Issa and Chairman Townes (misspelled on letter)
FROM ISSA’S RESPONSE LAST NIGHT: “Mr. Baxter statement’s provides a very short and narrow account that addresses specific e-mails and related deliberations but not larger questions about Secretary Geithner’s role in approving payments for AIG counterparties.”
Full Story POLITICO Morning Money – POLITICO.com.
OPS: talk is cheap.
Gas: A Cost We Cannot Bear
Every $0.10 increase in gasoline prices costs the United States roughly $14 billion annually. Most of the profit from this money is added to our trade deficit and shipped overseas.
At the height of the oil shock in 2008, midsummer futures had climbed to a record $147 per barrel on some markets in the United States and Europe. Since reaching a staggering peak, oil prices have declined to as low as $40 per barrel. Unfortunately, for the past year oil has marched unflinchingly up the charts.
As oil prices march forward, fuel prices follow, dragging the economy down with them. Higher gas prices increase the cost of all goods and services in the economy; with our economy still struggling to find its way the increases on the oil market could seriously hinder any chances of recovery.
According to AAA’s FuelGaugeReport.com, the national average for a gallon of gasoline has risen from $1.762 to $2.725 in the past twelve months. In just one week the average price has gone up $0.07. These increases hurt American consumers, squeezing more money out of their wallets and into the sunk cost of travel, rather than allowing it to flow freely in a bustling economy.
Full Story Gas: A Cost We Cannot Bear | Economy In Crisis.
Beijing May Be Violating its WTO Obligations
China’s censorship policies are not only an affront to human and free-speech rights, but they are also a blatant form of protectionism that is likely illegal under the current international trading regime, according to two experts on the matter.
Fredrik Erixon and Hosuk Lee-Makiyama, members of the European Centre for International Political Economy in Brussels writing in The Wall Street Journal, claim that China’s censorship policies may be illegal, according to the World Trade Organization, because they not only block political speech and thought, but international commerce as well.
“Blocking the Internet blocks commerce and trade, and China's latest moves may well run afoul of its World Trade Organization commitments,” they write.
Full Story Beijing May Be Violating its WTO Obligations | Economy In Crisis.
Pope slams gay marriage as ‘attack’ on creation
POPE Benedict XVI has called laws ignoring the difference between the sexes an “attack” on creation just days after Portugal moved to legalise gay marriage.
Creatures, including humans, “can be protected or endangered”, the pope, 82, told the Vatican diplomatic corps in a traditional January address focusing mainly on environmental issues.
“One such attack comes from laws or proposals which, in the name of fighting discrimination, strike at the biological basis of the difference between the sexes,” he said, citing “certain countries in Europe or North and South America”.
Full Story Pope slams gay marriage as ‘attack’ on creation | News.com.au.
Amish families exempt from insurance mandate
Federal health care reform will require most Northern New Yorkers — but not all, it turns out — to carry health insurance or risk a fine.
Hundreds of Amish families in the region are likely to be free from that requirement.
The Amish, as well as some other religious sects, are covered by a “religious conscience” exemption, which allows people with religious objections to insurance to opt out of the mandate. It is in both the House and Senate versions of the bill, making its appearance in the final version routine unless there are last-minute objections.
Full Story Watertown Daily Times | Amish families exempt from insurance mandate.
Obama promises ‘no intention’ of sending troops to Yemen
President Barack Obama says he has “no intention” of sending US troops to fight militants in Yemen and Somalia and that Al-Qaeda’s activities are still centered along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
“I have every intention of working with our international partners in lawless areas around the globe to make sure that we’re keeping the American people safe,” Obama said in a People interview to be published Friday. The magazine released a transcript Sunday.
“I never rule out any possibility in a world that is this complex… In countries like Yemen, in countries like Somalia, I think working with international partners is most effective at this point.
Full Story Obama promises ‘no intention’ of sending troops to Yemen | Raw Story.
OPS: If you believe this – we have a bridge…… by the way, a Bush Family friend R.Hunt owns a gas pipeline in Yemen, it’s in jeopardy….. connect the dots kids.
US General: Iran ‘certainly can be bombed’
The United States has developed contingency plans to address Iran’s nuclear ambitions if negotiations falter between the Islamic republic and Western nations, a top US general said Sunday — raising questions again over the US military’s secret strategies on Iran.
“It would be almost literally irresponsible if CENTCOM were not to have been thinking about the various ‘what ifs’ and to make plans for a whole variety of different contingencies,” said General David Petraeus, who heads the US Central Command that oversees the Middle East, the Gulf region and Central Asia.
Petraeus declined to comment on reports that Israel, which says Iran presents an existential threat to the Jewish state, may attack its arch-foe’s nuclear facilities.
Full Story US General: Iran ‘certainly can be bombed’ | Raw Story.
OPS: Same could be said for Huston – doesn’t mean it’s a good idea
Right Wing Rallies Around Trent Lott’s Segregationist Remarks To Attack Harry Reid
Yesterday, Republicans moved swiftly to make political hay of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) “racially-tinged” reference to Barack Obama as “light-skinned” with “no Negro dialect.” In an effort to stir the faux controversy, top conservatives claimed a “double standard” exists because former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) was forced from office for making segregationist comments, while Reid remains.
“If [Lott] should resign, then Harry Reid should,” Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-AZ) said. Karl Rove piled on: “If you didn’t accept Lott’s apology, to be consistent, wouldn’t have to reject Reid’s, as well?” RNC Chairman Michael Steele — who resisted calling for Lott’s ouster in 2002 — said “it is” right for Reid to step down, citing the Lott precedent.
Recall, Lott argued in 2002 that “we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years” had segregationist Strom Thurmond been elected President. Fox News contributor Juan Williams noted this morning, “I don’t think Barack Obama would be in the White House if we had a segregationist country. That’s a major, major difference.”
Full Story Think Progress » Right Wing Rallies Around Trent Lott’s Segregationist Remarks To Attack Harry Reid.
The Growth of Citizen Co-Ops Is a Positive Development As Corporations Fail Us in Every Way
As economic hardship threatens communities, there is one bright light in the fog — cooperatives — which already serve 4 in 10 Americans and are growing strong.
During Andrew McLeod’s 10-day visit to the Basque Country of northern Spain, he met a 34-year-old man named Aitor Garro, who makes aluminum car components. For the last 13 years, this man has worked at Fagor Ederlan, a division of the Mondragon Cooperative Corporation, which is the world’s largest system of worker-owned businesses. Mondragon’s 100 global businesses employ 120,000 people and produce sales exceeding $20 billion annually. Garro grew up knowing only this system, as both his parents also worked in co-ops. “It was interesting to watch his perception of co-ops,” McLeod said. “He took them for granted. It was like water to a fish.”
McLeod, a California-based cooperative development specialist, spent the past year and a half traveling around the world and throughout the United States to learn about the valuable role cooperative systems can play during economic hard times. His travels took him to the Trentino region of northern Italy, the Pacific Northwest, the U.S. Rust Belt and Spain.
Michael Pollan’s New ‘Food Rules’: 64 Easy Steps to Better Health
Pollan’s new book is a set of straightforward, memorable, everyday rules for eating that aim to nudge people onto a healthier and happier path.
The idea for this book came from a doctor–a couple of them, as a matter of fact. They had read my last book, “In Defense of Food”, which ended with a handful of tips for eating well: simple ways to navigate the treacherous landscape of modern food and the often-confusing science of nutrition. “What I would love is a pamphlet I could hand to my patients with some rules for eating wisely,” they would say. “I don’t have time for the big nutrition lecture and, anyway, they really don’t need to know what an antioxidant is in order to eat wisely.” Another doctor, a transplant cardiologist, wrote to say “you can’t imagine what I see on the insides of people these days wrecked by eating food products instead of food.” So rather than leaving his heart patients with yet another prescription or lecture on cholesterol, he gives them a simple recipe for roasting a chicken, and getting three wholesome meals out of it — a very different way of thinking about health.
Make no mistake: our health care crisis is in large part a crisis of the American diet — roughly three quarters of the two-trillion plus we spend on health care in this country goes to treat chronic diseases, most of which can be prevented by a change in lifestyle, especially diet. And a healthy diet is a whole lot simpler than the food industry and many nutritional scientists — what I call the Nutritional Industrial Complex — would have us believe. After spending several years trying to answer the supposedly incredibly complicated question of how we should eat in order to be maximally healthy, I discovered the answer was shockingly simple: eat real food, not too much of it, and more plants than meat. Or, put another way, get off the modern western diet, with its abundance of processed food, refined grains and sugars, and its sore lack of vegetables, whole grains and fruit.
Full Story Michael Pollan’s New ‘Food Rules’: 64 Easy Steps to Better Health | Health and Wellness | AlterNet.
The 2010 Political Timebomb Is Unemployment
John Nichols, The Nation
American employers eliminated 4.2 million jobs in 2009 and sent unemployment soaring into double digits for the first time in more than a quarter century.
Since the fall of last year, the official jobless rate has been over ten percent, while the unofficial rate (taking in the severely underemployed and those who have given up looking) has been over 17 percent.
And, despite the ridiculous “green-shoots” speculation of the Obama administration and overblown “recovery” fantasies of the financial media that has blown every major economic story of recent years, the situation is getting worse.
Full Story The 2010 Political Timebomb Is Unemployment.
Fund-flows firm suggests government bought [Manipulated] stocks
MarketWatch -
Analysts say government’s financial rescues have fueled conspiracy theories
The unusual circumstances that led the U.S. market to rally powerfully in 2009 might be explained by secret government moves to buy stocks, according to Charles Biderman, the founder and chief executive of TrimTabs, a research firm that tracks liquidity flows in the market.
“We cannot identify the source of the new money that pushed stock prices up so far so fast,” Biderman said in a statement Tuesday.
The source of approximately $600 billion net new cash necessary to lift the market’s overall capitalization by $6 trillion last year could not be identified by TrimTabs, Biderman said. The money, he said, didn’t come from traditional players such as companies, retail investors, foreign investors, hedge funds or pension funds.
Full Story Fund-flows firm suggests government bought stocks – MarketWatch.
Pelosi says Congress close to health deal
U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Wednesday congressional Democrats were close to agreement on merging their healthcare bills but still faced challenges in blending the two approaches.
For the second consecutive day, Pelosi and other House Democratic leaders met with President Barack Obama at the White House to discuss ways to reconcile the House’s healthcare overhaul with a version passed by the Senate.
“We’ve had a very intense couple of days,” Pelosi told reporters after the White House meeting. “I think we are very close to reconciliation, respectful of the challenges.”
Full Story Pelosi says Congress close to health deal – Yahoo! News.
Voter Turnout Analysis Proves Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (BARD) that the 2004 Election was Stolen
The impossible 2004 National Exit Poll returning Bush/Gore 43/37% split of the electorate has been discussed ad nauseam. It required at least 5 million more returning Bush 2000 voters than were still alive in 2004. A feasible returning voter mix combined with National Exit Poll vote shares proves that Kerry won beyond a reasonable doubt (BARD). The mix was calculated over a wide range of estimated turnout of LIVING 2000 voters after applying a 5% mortality rate.
To handle uncertainty in LIVING Gore and Bush 2000 voter turnout in 2004, a 92-98% range of turnout assumptions was applied to calculate the True Vote. But since the 98% turnout estimate is solid, the range should be reduced to 97-99%. This would also increase confidence in the resulting True Vote calculation.
Given that LIVING voter turnout had to be less than 100%, we can set an upper limit of 99% turnout. But to maintain an overall 98% AVERAGE turnout, the lower limit must be 97%. Because of this constraint, there are just three plausible Gore/Bush turnout scenarios: 98/98, 99/97 and 97/99. Again, this assumes that 98% is an accurate estimate. Let’s look at confirming evidence that it is.
We need to consider two cases.
Full Story Progressive Independent – Viewing message.
The Craziest Tax: Lost Your Job? The IRS Thinks You’re Loaded
[snip] When people lose their jobs, they spend their savings. They take out loans against their house. They’re poor–but that’s not how the federal government sees them. The IRS sees them as big, fat cash cows. Hey, someone has to pay for those missiles we shoot at Afghan wedding parties–not to mention those bonuses for executives at AIG and Goldman Sachs. Why not people a couple of months away from foreclosure? The unemployed are living phat!
The bizarre unemployment tax goes back to 1985, while the Reagan Administration was busily waging class war against the poor and middle class.
It was Reagan’s idea, marketed as an easy way to raise $2.3 billion over five years. But it was Congressional Democrats, exhibiting their characteristic cowardice, who pushed through the measure. “This is a real step back from a traditional Democratic position,” said Rep. Brian Donnelly (D-MA) at the time. “Under the guise of tax reform, we agreed to raise $2.3 billion from people who don’t have jobs.”
Full Story The Craziest Tax: Lost Your Job? The IRS Thinks You’re Loaded | The Smirking Chimp.
Chernobyl nuclear accident: figures for deaths and cancers still in dispute
• Suspected infant mortality rise difficult to prove
• Predicted deaths range from 4,000 to half a million
At the children’s cancer hospital in Minsk, Belarus, and at the Vilne hospital for radiological protection in the east of Ukraine, specialist doctors are in no doubt they are seeing highly unusual rates of cancers, mutations and blood diseases linked to the Chernobyl nuclear accident 24 years ago.
But proving that infant mortality hundreds of miles from the stricken nuclear plant has increased 20-30% in 20 years, or that the many young people suffering from genetic disorders, internal organ deformities and thyroid cancers are the victims of the world’s greatest release of radioactivity, is impossible.
The UN’s World Health Organisation and the International Atomic Energy Agency claim that only 56 people have died as a direct result of the radiation released at Chernobyl and that about 4,000 will die from it eventually.
Full Story Chernobyl nuclear accident: figures for deaths and cancers still in dispute | Environment | The Guardian.
BOMBSHELL: Evidence Clearly Indicates Staged Attack on Detroit Flight
CNN Airs Witness Testimony that ‘Well Dressed’ Indian accomplice helped Abdulmutallab board
without passport and that man on plane filmed entire flight and bombing attempt
Evidence is emerging that clearly indicates Abdulmutallab was able to board only with the help of an unidentified well dressed man seen at the boarding gate.
Kurt Haskell and his wife, who were witnesses on board Northwest Airlines Flight 253 saw Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab at the boarding gate in Amsterdam. Haskell told CNN that the accused bomber appeared strikingly ‘poor’ next to the well-dressed man he said was obviously wealthy and appeared to be of Indian ethnicity. According to Haskell, that man did the talking for him, explaining to the flight personnel at the gate that Abdulmutallab needed to board without a passport, claiming that he was a Sudanese refugee. more…..
Full Story YouTube – BOMBSHELL: Evidence Clearly Indicates Staged Attack on Detroit Flight.
Popular kids’ trinkets loaded with toxic metal
Barred from using lead, Chinese makers using more dangerous cadmium
Barred from using lead in children’s jewelry because of its toxicity, some Chinese manufacturers have been substituting the more dangerous heavy metal cadmium in sparkling charm bracelets and shiny pendants being sold throughout the United States, an Associated Press investigation shows.
The most contaminated piece analyzed in lab testing performed for the AP contained a startling 91 percent cadmium by weight. The cadmium content of other contaminated trinkets, all purchased at national and regional chains or franchises, tested at 89 percent, 86 percent and 84 percent by weight. The testing also showed that some items easily shed the heavy metal, raising additional concerns about the levels of exposure to children.
Cadmium is a known carcinogen. Like lead, it can hinder brain development in the very young, according to recent research.
Full Story Popular kids’ trinkets loaded with toxic metal – Kids and parenting- msnbc.com.
Perfectly legal: Toxic cadmium, up to 91%, added to kids’ jewelry as China gets lead out
Children don’t have to swallow an item to be exposed…
Barred from using lead in children’s jewelry because of its toxicity, some Chinese manufacturers have been substituting the more dangerous heavy metal cadmium in sparkling charm bracelets and shiny pendants being sold throughout the United States, an Associated Press investigation shows.
The most contaminated piece analyzed in lab testing performed for the AP contained a startling 91 percent cadmium by weight. The cadmium content of other contaminated trinkets, all purchased at national and regional chains or franchises, tested at 89 percent, 86 percent and 84 percent by weight. The testing also showed that some items easily shed the heavy metal, raising additional concerns about the levels of exposure to children.
Cadmium is a known carcinogen. Like lead, it can hinder brain development in the very young, according to recent research.
Health Care Denial as Social Control
Implicit in the contemporary American health care system is a threat: Conform and spend your life behaving yourself in limited jobs or we will deny you insurance and put your health and your family’s future at risk.
Restrictions on health care availability are an effective form of social control. We often talk about this in terms of women’s health care. But too often lost in the health care debate is the broader truth: health care is used as a weapon of control. In a certain sense, we can be healthy or we can be truly free. So much for Patrick Henry.
Just one of the bizarre ironies of the current debate is the libertarian view that universal health care threatens our freedom. If libertarian-minded Americans would open their eyes, they’d see that just the opposite is true. How many Americans remain in dead-end jobs for the health benefits, however meager they might be? How many entrepreneurs never launch their independent initiatives because they can’t risk the loss of health care?
Full Story Firedoglake » Health Care Denial as Social Control.
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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. 
