Archive for February, 2010
Kevin Warsh: “No Firm Should Be Too Big To Fail”
The debate over Ben Bernanke’s reappointment, and his approach to the financial system, may after all have had some impact. In a speech yesterday, Kevin Warsh – the Federal Reserve Board Governor who liaises between Ben Bernanke and financial markets – signaled a major change in Fed thinking regarding “too big to fail”.
Warsh was much blunter than we have heard from the Fed in a long while: “Moral hazard in the financial system is higher than any of us should countenance”; “eradicating the too-big-to-fail problem should be the predominant policy goal”; and “in the new regime, no firm should be too big to fail.”
At some level, Warsh and his colleagues are finally learning the main lesson of 2008-09.
“We need a system in which insolvent firms fail. Market discipline only works if governments can demonstrably and credibly commit to allow firms to fail. This system isn’t just about giving government officials better options on Sunday nights. It is about making sure that market discipline is operative in the prior months and years to avoid altogether the proverbial Sunday night judgments.”
But there is still a major problem in the Fed’s thinking.
Full Story Kevin Warsh: “No Firm Should Be Too Big To Fail” « The Baseline Scenario.
OPS: No Shit Sherlock. Sen. Bernie Sanders has been saying this for years.
120 House Democrats demand public option
Over a hundred House Democrats are urging the Senate to use reconciliation to pass heatlhcare reform that includes a public option.
Progressives launched a campaign to revive the public option after Democrats lost their supermajority last month. Now that Democrats lack 60 votes to break a filibuster, it’s likely they will have to use reconciliation anyway in order to change parts of their bill that House Democrats object to.
In a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) today, 120 House Democrats say the Senate should seize that opportunity and include a public option.
Full Story 120 House Democrats demand public option – The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room.
‘Justice Denied’ in CIA Shootdown of Missionaries
Rep. Hoekstra Says CIA Has Not Been Held Accountable for Deaths of Roni Bowers and Her Baby Daughter
The CIA today was accused of lying to Congress and covering up its role in the deaths of two innocent Americans, a mother and her infant daughter, at the hands of the CIA and the Peruvian Air Force nine years ago.
“If there’s ever an example of justice delayed, justice denied, this is it,” said Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R.-Mich., ranking minority member of the House Intelligence Committee. “The [intelligence] community’s performance in terms of accountability has been unacceptable. These were Americans that were killed with the help of their government, the community covered it up, they delayed investigating.”
On April 20, 2001, Jim and Veronica “Roni” Bowers and their two children, six-year-old son Cory and infant daughter Charity, were returning to their home in Peru from a trip to Brazil in a small airplane piloted by Kevin Donaldson.
The Bowers’ worked as Christian missionaries along a stretch of the Amazon River near Iquitos, Peru, a remote jungle region near the Brazilian and Colombian borders heavily traveled by drug traffickers.
Full Story ‘Justice Denied’ in CIA Shootdown of Missionaries – ABC News.
OPS: Wanta bet that out brain-trust in congress is Shocked, Shocked to hear the CIA lied to them?
State Farm cancels thousands of Fla. policies
125,000 customers to be cut during hurricane season
The largest homeowners insurer in Florida is canceling the policies of 125,000 of its most vulnerable customers beginning Aug. 1, halfway through the 2010 hurricane season.
The company, State Farm Florida, began sending out cancellation notices this week to nearly a fifth of its 714,000 customers, most of them in the state’s hurricane-prone coastal regions.
A spokesman for State Farm said the decision was the direct result of its failure to win a 47.1 percent rate increase from state regulators.
Full Story State Farm cancels thousands of Fla. policies – Personal finance- msnbc.com.
OPS: It’s nothing personal, it’s just business. Wonder how Florida Republicans feel about less government regulation now?
Reports: Fewer workers doing more work
Jobless claims rose unexpectedly last week; productivity also jumped in Q4
More U.S. workers unexpectedly filed for jobless benefits last week, but another hefty gain in productivity in the fourth quarter offered hope that companies were getting close to adding payrolls.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits
increased 8,000 to a seasonally adjusted 480,000 in the week ended Jan. 30, the Labor Department said on Thursday. That was above market expectations for 460,000.
In another report, the department said non-farm productivity grew at a 6.2 percent rate in the fourth quarter as employers ramped up output at the quickest pace in six years and kept a tight lid on costs.
Full Story Reports: Fewer workers doing more work – Stocks & economy- msnbc.com.
ACORN mounts campaign to ’sting the stinger’
Community organizing group ACORN is calling on attorneys general in California and Maryland to investigate James O’Keefe following his arrest in Louisiana on charges stemming from an alleged attempt to tamper with Sen. Mary Landrieu’s phone lines.
In an email sent to supporters Wednesday morning, ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis said that secretly recording individuals without their consent is illegal in California and Maryland, two of the states where O’Keefe and accomplice Hannah Giles set up stings pretending to be a pimp and prostitute, in order to catch ACORN employees giving illegal advice.
“Now that he’s proven that [O'Keefe's] law-breaking isn’t a one-shot deal, we are demanding that the attorneys general in California and Maryland conduct formal investigations of O’Keefe’s actions from last year,” Lewis said in the email.
Full Story ACORN mounts campaign to ’sting the stinger’ | Raw Story.
US says it may kill Americans abroad
In a striking admission from the Obama Administration’s top intelligence officer, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair announced Wednesday that the United States may target its own citizens abroad for death if it believes they are associated with terrorist groups.
“We take direct action against terrorists in the intelligence community,” Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair told the House Intelligence Committee. He said US counter-terrorism officials may try to kill American citizens embroiled in extremist groups overseas with “specific permission” from higher up.
If “we think that direct action will involve killing an American, we get specific permission to do that,” Blair said in response to questions from the panel’s top Republican, Representative Pete Hoekstra.
Full Story US says it may kill Americans abroad | Raw Story.
OPS: No trial, No facing your accuser, No chance to defend yourself. Leave the country and we can kill you
China Hypocritically Crying Foul
China is a well-known perpetrator of protectionist policies, so much so that its tenure in the WTO has been marked by countless cases in front of the international trade arbitrator.
Without even a hint of irony, Chinese state-owned media on Tuesday, along with a prominent government official, lobbed criticism at the U.S. for what they claim is America’s blatant protectionism, saying it has severely harmed the Chinese economy.
Official press agency of the People’s Republican of China and alleged propaganda arm of the Chinese Communist Party, Xinhua News Agency, claimed that China “has become the biggest victim of American abuse of trade relief measures.”
Full Story China Hypocritically Crying Foul | Economy In Crisis.
OPS: It’s time we simply walked away from the WTO
U.S. Manufacturing Undergoing Profound Shift
To allow the nation’s industrial base to further decline would be dangerous, weakening not only the economy, but also putting the nation’s security at risk.
The terrible economic climate created by the worst recession since the Great Depression is hastening the decline of America’s manufacturing base – what is left of it, anyway – according to The Wall Street Journal.
To meet the challenges created by the recession, manufacturers both large and small, well-known and obscure, are streamlining production, making their operations more efficient and cost-effective, which usually means less factories and less workers.
In 2009, the auto industry’s industrial capacity fell 4.4 percent. The chemical sector’s capacity fell 1.7 percent. And overall, for the first time since the numbers were recorded, the manufacturing sector’s industrial capacity declined, falling by 1.0 percent, according to The Journal. The manufacturing sector lost some 2.3 million jobs last year, according to the paper.
Full Story U.S. Manufacturing Undergoing Profound Shift | Economy In Crisis.
OPS: Manufacturing isn’t just jobs, it IS a component of National Security
Dean Baker: The Big Bank Theory
How government helps financial giants get richer
Wall Street bankers, along with the rest of the players in the financial industry, like to think of themselves as swashbuckling capitalists. They battle cutthroat competition with one hand and oppressive government bureaucracy with the other. In reality, the financial industry is deeply dependent on the government. Far from the rugged, go-it-alone types they wish they were, they are more like well-dressed, coddled adolescents. And this is true in good times and bad.
The industry’s dependency takes five main forms:
• an explicit safety net provided by government deposit insurance;
• an implicit safety net provided by “too big to fail”;
• a special privilege of being the only untaxed casino;
• an open invitation to raid state and local governments for fees;
• a right to change contract terms after the fact.
These dependencies are entrenched, and, despite loud protests to the contrary, the removal of government from the financial sector is not really on the agenda. The issue up for debate is not the virtues of the free market versus government regulation. The industry wants government regulation, just not in a way that curtails its profits.
In thinking about regulation, then, we need a fuller appreciation of the industry’s dependency on government. This will not tell us what to do, but it should open the door to a debate about regulatory reform that takes up the real question: will regulation be structured in a way that advances the public interest or in a way that allows the financial sector to profit at society’s expense?
Full Story Boston Review — Dean Baker: The Big Bank Theory.
GOP Is the Party That Thinks Helping the Poor and Hungry Is Like Feeding ‘Stray Animals’
Jim Hightower -
Where else can raw ignorance rise to such high places — and then flaunt itself shamelessly for all to see?
American politics is a hoot! Where else can raw ignorance rise to such high places — and then flaunt itself shamelessly for all to see?
For example, who needs Jay Leno or Conan O’Brien for comic relief, when we’ve got Andre Bauer? He’s the Lieutenant governor of South Carolina (a state, by the way, that really is a comer on the political comedy circuit — especially after Gov. Mark Sanford’s madcap schtick last year involving his disappearance, the Appalachian Trail and an Argentine mistress.
But Sanford is leaving office, and Bauer, who is now a Republican contender for governor, is the state’s new star joker. He had ‘em rolling in the aisles recently when he did a wild, slapstick routine on food stamps at a town hall meeting. Andre proclaimed that much of his political thinking was shaped by his grandmother and that he had learned a valuable lesson from her.
Donna Edwards’ No Corporate Monopoly of Elections Amendment
John Nichols -
Maryland Congresswoman Donna Edwards turned to Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis for guidance in framing the Constitutional amendment she proposed Tuesday as the right and necessary response to the decision by Chief Justice John Roberts and a high court majority to abandon law and precedent with the purpose of permitting corporations to dominate the political discourse.
“We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both,” said Brandeis, the lion of law whose defenses of freedom of speech and the right to privacy renewed and extended the American experiment in the 20th century.
Brandeis knew that giving corporations monopoly power over our economic life or our politics would be deadly to democracy.
Full Story Donna Edwards’ No Corporate Monopoly of Elections Amendment.
The Right Gets Itself ‘Wired’
Robert Parry -
In past years when I talked to American progressives about the growing media imbalance – as the Right gained dominance in books, magazines, newspapers, talk radio and cable TV – a typical response was, “well, the Left is stronger on the Internet.” But now even that advantage is disappearing, as should have been expected.
After all, the Right built its powerful media advantage by investing billions and billions of dollars over three-plus decades, first in magazines and various print outlets; later in national talk-radio syndicates; then in making Fox News the leading cable news network. So, it didn’t take lots of smarts to figure out the Right would use its money to conquer the Internet, too.
And that is what is happening. Backed by deep-pocket conservatives, the Right has poured large sums of money into its Internet assets, integrating them with other media properties, helping star right-wing bloggers get rich, and still maintaining the veneer of “populism” – even making sure some sites look amateurish – to stay attractive to rank-and-file Americans.
Full Story Consortiumnews.com.
Shadow Elite: How the World’s New Power Brokers Are Upending Our Democracy
Click image to buy it now
Wedel argues in her new book that a group of corrupted elites are destroying the principles that define modern states, free markets and democracy itself.
We live in a world of flexibility. We have flex time, flex workers, flex spending, flex enrollment, flex cars, flex technology, flex perks, mind flex—even flex identities. “Flex” has become an integral part not only of how we live, but of how power and influence are wielded. While influencers flex their roles and representations, organizations, institutions, and states, too, must be flexible in ways they haven’t been before. The mover and shaker who serves at one and the same time as business consultant, think-tanker, TV pundit, and government adviser glides in and around the organizations that enlist his services. It is not just his time that is divided. His loyalties, too, are often flexible. Even the short-term consultant doing one project at a time cannot afford to owe too much allegiance to the company or government agency. Such individuals are in these organizations (some of the time anyway), but they are seldom of them.
Being in, but not of, an organization enables these players to pursue a “coincidence of interests,” that is, to interweave and perform overlapping roles that serve their own goals or those of their associates. Because these “nonstate” actors working for companies, quasi-governmental organizations, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) frequently do work that officials once did, they have privileged access to official information—information that they can deploy to their own ends. And they have more opportunities to use this information for purposes that are neither in the public interest nor easily detected, all the while controlling the message to keep their game going.
Full Story Shadow Elite: How the World’s New Power Brokers Are Upending Our Democracy | Books | AlterNet.
Aircraft gets personal with NASA’s Puffin
What takes off like a helicopter, flies like an airplane and makes about as much noise as an electric car?
Why that would be a Puffin, a prototype one-person aircraft that is part of a broader NASA initiative to develop technologies for personal air travel.
No one has ridden inside a Puffin as yet. Right now, it’s a subscale model without a body or tails. But the electric-powered vehicle already has aced one of its most difficult goals: quiet flight.
video at link
Full Story Aircraft gets personal with NASA’s Puffin – Discovery.com- msnbc.com.
Jeb Bush: GOP needs to set up ‘a shadow government.’
In an interview with the conservative online publication Newsmax, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said the GOP must broaden its appeal to avoid becoming “the old white-guy party,” and recommended that Republicans create a “shadow government” to work on its own agenda. Claiming this is still a “center-right country,” Bush urged Republicans not to move towards a “Democratic-lite” agenda.
Full Story Think Progress » Jeb Bush: GOP needs to set up ‘a shadow government.’.
OPS: this is from 2008 but strikes a note even more now. Follow the newsmax link
Report: Lobbyists helped launder millions
Washington lobbyists and lawyers helped launder millions of dollars for allegedly corrupt African politicians and their relatives, according to a two-year-long investigation by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
The report, to be released Thursday, is part of a push by the panel chairman, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), to strengthen anti-money laundering and anti-corruption measures, which aides suggest could be added to the financial regulatory reform package moving through Congress.
The report names a number of prominent foreign officials, including a former Nigerian vice president and the son of Equatorial Guinea’s president, as moving millions of dollars into the United States with little scrutiny.
Full Story Report: Lobbyists helped launder millions – TheHill.com.
US trade union membership at lowest level in more than a century
Union membership in the United States fell another 10 percent in 2009, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, with the number of workers belonging to unions falling 771,000 to 15.3 million. Overall, the percentage of union members continued to fall to 12.3 percent, from 12.4 percent in 2008.
The decline was in large part due to the loss of hundreds of thousands of manufacturing and construction jobs last year due to the economic recession. This is, however, part of a decades-long trend, which has seen the percentage of private sector workers in unions fall to 7.2 percent last year, the lowest level since 1901.
Private sector unionization peaked at 30 percent in 1958, and was still 20.8 percent as late as 1980.
Full Story US trade union membership at lowest level in more than a century.
German government prepares to implement two-tier health care system
The German government is forcing through the abolition of state health insurance in favour of a two-class medical insurance system. To this end, Health Minister Philipp Rösler (Free Democratic Party) has appointed Christian Weber, a private health insurance lobbyist, as head of health policy.
The FDP, working together with Christian Democrat (CDU) business lobbyists, has already made it a condition of the government coalition agreement to dismantle the state health insurance system. A key aim is to introduce the so-called “Kopfpauschal” (“per-head package price”) flat charge, whereby everyone in the state health insurance scheme has to pay the same amount, regardless of income.
The FDP had already raised the demand during their election campaign that all pension, medical and health care insurance schemes be privatized. Insurance policy holders should be able “to decide for themselves” what kind of insurance and level of coverage they can afford. The FDP election programme stated bluntly: “Voluntary contributions are essential for cost-effective and health-conscious performance.… The central role of the state is not to create absolute equality, but to ensure that everybody has the opportunity and the right to choose the level of coverage they want.
Full Story German government prepares to implement two-tier health care system.
McConnell Raised Big Bucks From Foreign Defense Contractor Probed For Bribery
In the wake of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has been quick to denounce a bid by Democrats to stop foreign corporations from pouring money into U.S. elections, claiming current law already bars such spending. As we’ve reported before, it’s not nearly as simple as that — but McConnell should know: The GOP Senate leader has raked in campaign cash from a subsidiary of a major foreign defense contractor that’s currently being investigated by the Justice Department for bribery.
As we reported yesterday, McConnell, a longtime foe of efforts to get money out of politics, last week took to the Senate floor to pooh-pooh the notion that the court’s decision could allow a flood of foreign money to sway our elections, citing an existing law that prevents foreign nationals, including corporations, from spending on U.S. elections. But that ban doesn’t cover the U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies, or to foreign-owned corporations that incorporate in the U.S.
That’s not just some technical loophole. Democrats and campaign-finance reform advocates argue it’s a very real weakness in the law, that, even before Citizens United, gave foreign corporations influence in our elections. And McConnell’s own ties to one foreign defense contractor offer a pretty good illustration.
Full Story McConnell Raised Big Bucks From Foreign Defense Contractor Probed For Bribery | TPMMuckraker.
Thom HartmannRevealed: Rumsfeld sent Bush a WSJ op-ed in 2005 which argued why he shouldn’t be fired
US troop death toll reached 2,000 on same day Rumsfeld wrote letter
Amidst a new batch of torture-related documents released to the American Civil Liberties Union on Monday, a letter bearing former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s signature stands out.
On October 25, 2005, Rumsfeld wrote to President George W. Bush, “Attached is an article on the subject of detainees that came from a staff reporter of the Wall Street Journal, which I think covers the subject pretty dam [sic] well.”
The letter (pdf link) contains a copy of an October 5, 2005 editorial written by the Wall Street Journal’s Robert L. Pollock entitled “The ‘Torture Narrative’ Unravels.”
Full Story Rumsfeld sent Bush 2005 WSJ op-ed dismissing torture allegations | Raw Story.
Planned Parenthood’s Tim Tebow Super Bowl Ad Response (VIDEO)
Tim Tebow’s Super Bowl ad, which is expected to convey an anti-abortion message and is funded by the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family, has generated controversy and drawn protests from women’s groups. One high power attorney has even alleged that the ad may be based on a falsehood, although the veracity of the claim is not certain.
Planned Parenthood released an ad today with former Viking Sean James and Olympic gold medalist Al Joyner. In the ad, the athletes say they “respect Ms. Tebow’s decision” not to have an abortion when she was pregnant with her son Tim, but they are also “working toward the day where… every woman’s decision about her health and her family will be respected.” Scroll down to watch the video.
WATCH:
Full Story Planned Parenthood’s Tim Tebow Super Bowl Ad Response (VIDEO).
Ed Schultz Pleads For Health Care Reform, Calls Lieberman A ‘Coward’ (VIDEO)
Ed Schultz made an impassioned plea for health care reform Wednesday during an on-location shoot at a temporary free clinic in Hartford, Connecticut.
Schlutz told of unemployed and under-insured Americans waiting for treatment and diagnoses to save their lives and told Congress to act. He noted that Connecticut passed a statewide health care reform bill that included a public option–only to have it vetoed by the state's Governor.
Schultz also called Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman a “coward” and invited politicians to visit the clinic and see how badly reform is needed.
WATCH:
Full Story Ed Schultz Pleads For Health Care Reform, Calls Lieberman A ‘Coward’ (VIDEO).
Prof. Francis Boyle: Israel Is Committing Genocide
`What we’re seeing in Gaza now, is pretty much slow-motion genocide against the 1.5 million Palestinians who live in Gaza…. If you read the 1948 Genocide Convention, it clearly says that one instance of genocide is the deliberate infliction of conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of a people in whole or in part,” stated Francis A. Boyle, professor of International Law at the University of Illinois in Champaign. “And that’s exactly what has been done to Gaza, since the imposition of the blockade by Israel; then the massacre of 1,400 Palestinians, two-thirds of whom were civilians, in Operation Cast Lead. And that also raises the element in the Genocide Convention, of murder, torture, and things of that nature.”
Boyle spoke to {EIR} on Jan. 15, 2010, giving his assessment of Gaza, one year after the Israeli attacks. He stressed that he was speaking only for himself.
While the Israelis stopped the artillery bombardment and air strikes just before the inauguration of President Barack Obama in 2009, the deaths of Palestinians continue–from lack of medicines, infrastructure, clean water, and everything else that the world community–as shown in emergency aid to Haiti–{knows} is necessary to sustain human life.
Full Story Scoop: Prof. Francis Boyle: Israel Is Committing Genocide.
Health Care Industry Front Group Cheers Death Of The Public Option With Large Washington Post Ad
One of the most aggressive industry front groups fighting to defeat health care reform has been the Conservatives for Patients’ Rights (CPR), run by disgraced hospital executive Rick Scott and represented by the same public relations (CRC Public Relations) firm that brought us the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth.
The group’s main target was the public option. CPR fear-mongered that President Obama wanted to bring scary, ineffective, socialized Canadian and British health care to the United States. It ran dishonest public relations campaign, even tricking British and Canadian citizens into appearing in an anti-government-run health care ad. While portraying itself to the public as an honest broker in the health care negotiations with President Obama, the industry was simultaneously pouring massive funds into front groups like CPR to kill reform.
Yesterday, Scott released a statement claiming credit for the defeat of the public option and saying he would be taking a “breather”:
Conservatives Use Rich Canadian Politician’s Trip To Deny High Quality Care For Millions Of Americans
Anti-health reform group Patients First — a project of Americans For Prosperity — cited Williams’ trip as a reason to oppose health care reform:
For the last nine months, we’ve fought against a government takeover of our health care not only because of its high cost but also its debilitating effect on the quality and accessibility of care to patients. Yesterday, we were given a reminder from fifty-nine-year-old Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams that this is the case in Canada where they have a single payer, government-run health care system…. The Premier’s upcoming trip underscores the brilliance of our system—something that hasn’t been emphasized enough lately. We have state-of-the-art facilities run by trained and caring professionals who quickly diagnose and treat health problems.
Will Sarah Palin call on Rush Limbaugh to apologize for saying liberal activists are ‘retards’?
Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel had called a group of liberal activists “f—ing retarded” last August for planning to air ads attacking conservative Democrats critical of health care reform. On Monday, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin called for Emanuel to be fired for his “slur on all God’s children with cognitive and developmental disabilities.” Emanuel, who had actually apologized for the remark to Special Olympics CEO Tim Shriver the week before, now plans to host “a delegation of advocates, including two people with mental disabilities, at the White House” as part of his effort to make amends. Claiming Emanuel’s regrettable remarks gave him permission, hate radio talker Rush Limbaugh endorsed the language and said the liberal activists truly are “retards”:
LIMBAUGH: Our political correct society is acting like some giant insult’s taken place by calling a bunch of people who are retards, retards. I mean these people, these liberal activists are kooks. They are looney tunes. And I’m not going to apologize for it, I’m just quoting Emanuel. It’s in the news. I think their big news is he’s out there calling Obama’s number one supporters f’ing retards. So now there’s going to be a meeting. There’s going to be a retard summit at the White House. Much like the beer summit between Obama and Gates and that cop in Cambridge.
Listen here
Thought-Controlled Lights At Olympics
Thought-controlled lights illuminating Niagara Falls during the winter Olympics? Maybe this will cheer up the Vancouver locals apparently dreading the upcoming games.
Toronto-based company InteraXon (which specializes in thought controlled computing) is planning an installation where visitors will be able to control live light shows at Niagara Falls with their thoughts, from Vancouver. The project, Bright Ideas, is described as the the wold’s largest thought-controlled experience.
As Gizmodo points out, it’s not exactly what it sounds like. Bright Lights “doesn’t let you decide what color the lights should be or how brightly they should shine, and it can’t tell if you’re specific thought is, say, ‘Lights, I command thee!’” Still, you put on the headset and the lights will respond to your brain’s electrical output.
From the press release:
Full Story Thought-Controlled Lights At Olympics: ‘Bright Lights’ Installation Lights Up Niagara Falls.
Blair ‘was ready to deceive to go to war’
Tony Blair was prepared to “deceive” Parliament over Iraq and freeze out opposition within his Government, because of his unshakeable belief that it was right to topple Saddam Hussein, a former Cabinet minister has said.
Clare Short, who was the International Development Secretary before resigning shortly after the March 2003 invasion, also revealed she was “jeered” at by Cabinet colleagues and told to be quiet by Blair when she attempted to dispute the legality of the war.
She added that Prime Minister Gordon Brown had complained to her that Blair was “obsessed with his legacy” and was determined to use a short, decisive victory in Iraq to secure it.
Full Story Blair ‘was ready to deceive to go to war’ – World – NZ Herald News.
Anti-Tax Bastion Colorado Springs Shows What America Would Look Like If Conservatives Have Their Way
This tax-averse city is about to learn what it looks and feels like when budget cuts slash services most Americans consider part of the urban fabric.
David Sirota -
As the recession drives state coffers into the deep red, we’re seeing many tax fights erupt all over the country – fights that are bringing out the best and worst in our politics.
On the good side you have swing-state victories like the one we saw in Oregon, where voters approved two ballot measures raising taxes on their state’s wealthiest residents and corporations. You also have a battle happening in the Colorado legislature, led by Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter and Democratic legislators, who are courageously pushing to suspend 13 tax subsidies and exemptions for corporate special interests (Listen to my Friday interview with Ritter about taxes starting at 28 minutes into this podcast – he threatens a veto of the regressive grocery tax corporate interests have been pushing as a replacement to Democrats’ proposals).
But you also have states like Indiana, which, according to the Wall Street Journal, are looking to cap property taxes “despite cuts in fire, police and other local services the limits have caused.”
Taxes are the price of admission to a civilized society
- Oliver Wendell Holmes
Andrew Wakefield research fraud exposed: the MMR investigation
With a series of stories spread over more than five years, Brian Deer has pursued a landmark public interest investigation for The Sunday Times of London and the United Kingdom’s Channel 4 Television network into allegations – first made in Britain – linking the three-in-one measles, mumps and rubella vaccine (MMR) with claims of a terrifying new syndrome of bowel and brain damage in children. These allegations led to a decade-long health crisis in the UK, and sparked epidemics of fear, guilt and infectious diseases, which have been exported to the United States and other developed countries, spawning every kind of concern over vaccinations.
Almost incredibly, the trigger for what is now a worldwide controversy was a single scientific research paper published in a medical journal, the Lancet, in February 1998. Written by a 41-year-old laboratory researcher, Dr Andrew Wakefield, and co-authored by a dozen other doctors, it reported on the cases of 12 anonymous children with developmental disorders, who were admitted to a paediatric bowel unit at the Royal Free hospital in Hampstead, north London, between July 1996 and February 1997.
Backed by a press conference and a video news-release, the five-page paper’s claims received huge media attention, and were followed by a sustained attack on the vaccine. This included further publications by Wakefield, criticising MMR, and led to an unprecedented collapse in public confidence in the shot, which, since the late 1980s in the UK and the early 1970s in the US, has been given almost universally to children, soon after they are one year old, almost eradicating measles and rubella
Full Story Andrew Wakefield research fraud exposed: the MMR investigation.
House to take up one piece of health care reform
Insurers’ anti-trust exemption to end?
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Tuesday the chamber will take up one piece of its health care bill as a separate provision next week.
The House passed a comprehensive health care bill last year, but progress has stalled over the inability to work out a compromise with a separate version passed by the Senate.
Faced with unanimous Republican opposition and concerns by some Democrats over specific issues, House Democrats want to move ahead on individual provisions to maintain momentum and keep the topic in the public eye.
Pelosi said the House plans to vote next week on a measure to strip the health insurance industry of its anti-trust exemption involving practices such as market allocation and price-fixing. Many Democrats believe removing the exemption will inject new competition into the industry, leading to lower prices for consumers.
Full Story House to take up one piece of health care reform – CNN.com.
Mortgage lenders pursue homeowners even after foreclosure
As terrible as it is to lose your house to foreclosure, at least it’s a relief to put your biggest financial headache behind you, right?
Wrong.
Former homeowners may still be on the hook if there’s a difference between what they owed on their mortgage and what the bank could sell it for at auction. And these “deficiency judgments” are ticking time bombs that can explode years after borrowers lose their homes.
It can even happen to people who got their bank to approve them selling their home for less than it is worth.
Vanessa Corey, for example, short sold her Fredericksburg, Va., home in April 2008. She and her husband built the house in 2004, but setbacks, both personal (divorce) and professional (housing bust), made it impossible for the real estate agent to keep her home. So she negotiated the short sale and thought that was the end of it.
“My understanding was that the deficiency was negotiated away,” she said. “Then, last November, I got a letter from a lawyer telling me I owed my lender $65,000. I had to declare bankruptcy. There was no way I could pay it.”
Full Story Mortgage lenders pursue homeowners even after foreclosure – Yahoo! Finance.
House Trio Moves to Block EPA
A bipartisan trio of House members announced yesterday that they are sponsoring a bill to block the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases. Agriculture Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) and Missouri Reps. Ike Skelton (D) and Jo Ann Emerson (R) introduced the measure.
Efforts to bar the agency from following through on their determination that planet-warming emissions threaten human health are already underway in the Senate, as we've reported, and Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-N.D.) has also introduced legislation on the subject in the House.
“I have no confidence that the EPA can regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act without doing serious damage to our economy,” Peterson said on Tuesday. “Americans know we’re way too dependent on foreign oil and fossil fuels in this country–and I’ve worked hard to develop practical solutions to that problem–but Congress should be making these types of decisions, not unelected bureaucrats at the EPA.”
Full Story House Trio Moves to Block EPA | Mother Jones.
Obama Calls Out Conservative Democrats For Their Timidity
Just as President Obama’s appearance before the House Republican caucus last Friday gave him an opportunity to push back against some of the most outlandish conservative caricatures of his presidency, his visit with Senate Democrats on Wednesday morning allowed him to confront, head on and in public, the timidity and centrism from within his own party.
VIDEO AND FULL TEXT AVAILABLE HERE.
In one key exchange this morning, Obama rebuked pleas from Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) that he moderate his agenda and work with Republicans to ease the current state of economic uncertainty.
Lincoln described a constituent who she said was “extremely frustrated because there was a lack of certainty and predictability from his government for him to be able to run his businesses.”
Full Story Obama Calls Out Conservative Democrats For Their Timidity.
Olbermann: New GOP strategy is ’say anything’
Keith Olbermann believes that Republicans are looking to old John Cusack movies for strategy tips.
“Between John McCain’s self-contradiction [on repealing Don't ask, don't tell] and John Luntz’ position, ‘just lie,’ [about regulatory reform],” Olbermann said Tuesday on his MSNBC show. “The Republicans are slowly revealing their newest policy: say anything.”
In 2006, John McCain said he would listen to the opinion of military leaders when it came to repealing ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell.’ “I listen to people like General Colin Powell, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and literally every military leader that I know and they testified before Congress that they felt that the ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy was the most appropriate way to conduct ourselves in the military,” McCain told a student during a Hardball college tour.
Full Story Olbermann: New GOP strategy is ’say anything’ | Raw Story.
The Roving Cavaliers of Credit
“Talk about centralisation! The credit system, which has its focus in the so-called national banks and the big money-lenders and usurers surrounding them, constitutes enormous centralisation, and gives this class of parasites the fabulous power, not only to periodically despoil industrial capitalists, but also to interfere in actual production in a most dangerous manner— and this gang knows nothing about production and has nothing to do with it.” [1]
Ten years ago, a quote from Marx would have one deemed a socialist, and dismissed from polite debate. Today, such a quote can (and did, along with Charlie’s photo) appear in a feature in the Sydney Morning Herald—and not a few people would have been nodding their heads at how Marx got it right on bankers.F
He got it wrong on some other issues,[2] but his analysis of money and credit, and how the credit system can bring an otherwise well-functioning market economy to its knees, was spot on. His observations on the financial crisis of 1857 still ring true today:
“A high rate of interest can also indicate, as it did in 1857, that the country is undermined by the roving cavaliers of credit who can afford to pay a high interest because they pay it out of other people’s pockets (whereby, however, they help to determine the rate of interest for all), and meanwhile they live in grand style on anticipated profits.
Full Story Steve Keen’s DebtWatch No 31 February 2009: “The Roving Cavaliers of Credit” | Steve Keen’s Debtwatch.
How to Kill the Filibuster with Only 51 Votes
Under the Supreme Court’s precedents, just 51 senators will have a brief opportunity to reform or eliminate the filibuster next January.
Let’s face it, the GOP’s “Party of No” strategy is working. Democrats lost a once-unlosable Senate seat to a no-name Republican last Tuesday. Progressive voters are depressed by the many pounds of flesh conservatives extracted from cherished priorities such as health-care reform. Right-wing voters are jubilant about the prospect of a government shutdown.
With conservatives salivating, and progressives seriously questioning whether American government is too crippled to solve major problems, it’s difficult to imagine that Democrats won’t take additional losses next November. Even if they don’t, however, a minority bent on total obstructionism now enjoys the power to veto nearly any bill or nominee. With the exception of the annual budget, literally nothing is likely to pass the Senate for the next three years.
It doesn’t have to be this way, however. A long line of Supreme Court decisions forbid former legislators from tying the hands of their successors. Thus, although current senators may choose to impose a supermajority rule on themselves, they cannot impose such a rule on a new Senate. Under the Supreme Court’s precedents, just 51 senators will have a brief opportunity to reform or eliminate the filibuster next January — but this opportunity will disappear if they do not act right away.
Full Story How to Kill the Filibuster with Only 51 Votes | The American Prospect.
Bair’s Damning Testimony: Bernanke and the Fat Cats
Mike Whitney:
The reappointment of Fed chairman Ben Bernanke means that the opportunity for change has passed and the reform movement is dead. It means that and that derivatives trading, off-balance sheet operations, securitization, dark pools and high frequency trading will go on much as they have before. It means that the public will continue to be gouged so that a handful of Wall Street sharpies can rake in obscene profits using complex “financial innovations” and over-leveraged debt instruments. It means that the entire system will continue to be put at risk to protect the interests of investment banks and hedge funds. It means that the subsidies, the preferential treatment, and the bailouts will continue to fuel populist rage and exacerbate deepening divisions in society. It means that the status quo has been preserved and that it’s “business as usual”.
No reform movement will succeed as long as Bernanke is at the Fed. He’s an agent of the big banks and a Wall Street loyalist. He’s also the author of “Too Big To Fail”, the controversial theory which provides unlimited state support for financial institutions that are deemed too large or interconnected to fail. TBTF means that capitalism’s vital market-clearing function can avoided if one is rich or powerful enough. Bernanke repealed capitalism to save his friends.
The Fed’s role in the housing fiasco, goes way beyond Alan Greenspan’s low interest rates which helped to ignite a frenzy of speculation. It’s clear now, that both Greenspan and Bernanke knew that the multi-trillion dollar credit expansion, was based on mortgages to applicants who had no way of repaying the money they had borrowed. It was a complete scam. Recent testimony by FDIC chairman Sheila Bair before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (Jan 14, 2010) provides many of the details. Naturally, Bair’s testimony has been ignored by the media.
Full Story Mike Whitney: Bair’s Damning Testimony.
Water Heist: Corporations Are Targeting Cash-Strapped Cities for Control of Their Public Water
From wastewater to drinking water, big business is looking to cash in on public water systems and they’ve got a new tactic.
Corporate interests are eyeing our water. From wastewater to drinking water, big business is looking to cash in on public water systems and they’ve got a new tactic: They’re using desperate economic times to convince city officials that they should place a corporation between families and their ability to eat, drink, and clean.
Take Akron, Ohio, for example. In September 2008 I wrote an article for Alternet about a ballot measure in Akron where voters were asked whether to lease the city’s wastewater system to a corporation in return for an immediate, one-time payment. The plan was roundly defeated. But more importantly, as the article suggested, the lease signaled a new direction for water privatization in the U.S. This involved a collaboration between water companies and Wall Street to snatch up control of water infrastructure for the better part of a century.
Since that vote, similar lease plans have been floated in Milwaukee and Chicago, presenting a dangerous possibility: In the near future, a major U.S. city could sign over unprecedented control of its water system to a corporation for a generation or longer. The silver lining in this narrative is that the same communities being targeted by water corporations for these deals are now charting out new ways to ensure their water remains in public hands. And for the moment, advocates of public control are winning.
Jobs funding is set to expire before it has chance to work
After a slow start, states struggling with record unemployment are scrambling to create and expand subsidized jobs programs that could employ thousands of poor adults, teens and even disabled people.
They’re running out of time, however, because nearly $4 billion in unspent stimulus money that would finance the efforts is set to expire on Sept. 30. As a result, many are pushing Congress to make the remaining funds available for another year.
Unless that happens, many states and local governments won’t have enough time to push new jobs programs through, and others will face cutbacks. In California, job programs in San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties already have imposed cutoff dates for new job placements because of the Sept. 30 deadline.
Full Story Jobs funding is set to expire before it has chance to work | McClatchy.
BUZZFLASH WINGS OF JUSTICE AWARD TO THOM HARTMANN
For Writing the First Book on the Outrage of Corporate Personhood, Thom Hartmann Merits BuzzFlash’s Wings of Justice Award
Many Americans, including many BuzzFlash readers, never heard of the concept of “corporate personhood” until January 21st when the corporate GOP 5 on the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are entitled to the same rights as people when it comes to financing elections.
Thom Hartmann wasn’t surprised. He wrote the first book on the topic years ago, “Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights.” (There is also a small expensive series of essays that only came out late last year for college use.) Hartmann, who is a colleague and friend of BuzzFlash, was a seer to see the disastrous impact the concept of corporate personhood was having on America, until January 21st when many in America took note, including the President of the United States who chastised the Supreme Court ruling on campaign financing.
Hartmann, who writes regular book reviews exclusively for BuzzFlash, saw the forest through the trees when it came to an obscure Supreme Court ruling in the late 1800s that mistakenly legally bestowed corporate personhood on companies (likely due to an intentional editing error on the part of a SCOTUS law clerk at the time). Moreover, Hartmann saw how the original intent of America’s revolution to put people first had been usurped by officially anointing businesses with the legal rights of individual citizens. The concept of corporate personhood set the ball rolling for the de facto corporate governance that runs Capitol Hill today, and the Supreme Court ruling of this year which allows companies to transparently buy elected officials.
Oregon Gubernatorial Candidate, Wants To Move State’s Money
Bill Bradbury, a Democratic candidate for governor in Oregon, is campaigning largely on a proposal to move the state’s money out of national banks and into local Oregon banks. His message to the big banks on Wall Street: Phooey!
“There’s a whole lot of anger because we bailed them out and now they won’t lend,” said Bradbury in an interview with the Huffington Post. “You’re not seeing lending to small- and medium-sized businesses. So, phooey! Phooey! Let’s just do it ourselves.”
Since Bradbury announced his proposal to create a “Bank of Oregon” on Jan. 20, he said he has gotten an overwhelmingly positive response from both Republicans and Democrats.
Full Story Bill Bradbury, Oregon Gubernatorial Candidate, Wants To Move State’s Money.
Pakistan Blast Kills U.S. Troops, Children, Say Local Officials
Pakistan — A roadside bomb killed three U.S. soldiers and partly destroyed a girls’ school in northwest Pakistan on Wednesday in an attack that drew attention to a little-publicized American military training mission in the al-Qaida and Taliban heartland.
They were the first known U.S. military fatalities in Pakistan’s lawless tribal regions near the Afghan border and a major victory for militants who have been hit hard by a surge of U.S. missile strikes and a major Pakistani army offensive.
The blast also killed three schoolgirls and a Pakistani soldier who was traveling with the Americans. Two more U.S. soldiers were wounded, along with more than 100 other people, mostly students at the school, officials said.
Full Story Pakistan Blast Kills U.S. Troops, Children, Say Local Officials.
Republicans Out of Touch as Middle Class Sinks
Jim Hightower
American politics is a hoot! Where else can raw ignorance rise to such high places — and then flaunt itself shamelessly for all to see?
For example, who needs Jay Leno or Conan O’Brien for comic relief, when we’ve got Andre Bauer? He’s the Lieutenant governor of South Carolina (a state, by the way, that really is a comer on the political comedy circuit — especially after Gov. Mark Sanford’s madcap schtick last year involving his disappearance, the Appalachian Trail and an Argentine mistress.
But Sanford is leaving office, and Bauer, who is now a Republican contender for governor, is the state’s new star joker. He had ‘em rolling in the aisles recently when he did a wild, slapstick routine on food stamps at a town hall meeting. Andre proclaimed that much of his political thinking was shaped by his grandmother and that he had learned a valuable lesson from her.
Full Story t r u t h o u t | Jim Hightower | Republicans Out of Touch as Middle Class Sinks.
The Corporate Takeover of U.S. Democracy
Noam Chomsky
Now corporate managers can in effect buy elections directly. The U.S. Supreme Court has just handed much more power to the small sector of the population that dominates the economy.
Jan. 21, 2010, will go down as a dark day in the history of U.S. democracy, and its decline.
On that day the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the government may not ban corporations from political spending on elections—a decision that profoundly affects government policy, both domestic and international.
The decision heralds even further corporate takeover of the U.S. political system.
To the editors of The New York Times, the ruling “strikes at the heart of democracy” by having “paved the way for corporations to use their vast treasuries to overwhelm elections and intimidate elected officials into doing their bidding.”
Full Story The Corporate Takeover of U.S. Democracy — In These Times.
Dutch crack down on marijuana tourism
And what's more, Dutch youth aren’t even interested in smoking weed.
In the back street cannabis den, a French-speaking Arab youth with a pierced lower lip and a rhinestone encrusted baseball cap leans across the bar to order his fix of choice.
“Hot chocolate, please,” he intones in heavily accentuated English.
“With whipped cream?” asks the fresh-faced young barrista in the 420 Cafe.
“Yes, please.”
A group of teenage English boys, their polite manners contrasting with the hair-raising heavy metal designs on their T-shirts, is also drinking the warm, frothy brew. Above them a large flat screen TV is showing a documentary about Antarctic bird life.
Full Story Marijuana Laws | Cannabis | Amsterdam | Dutch Pot.
Papantonio and Joseph Stiglitz on the Economic Freefall
Its been almost two years since the economy began its downward spiral, and to this day the very folks on Wall Street who caused this mess are still sitting in powerful positions at the top of Americas financial services companies. If you examine the root causes of our current crisis, it becomes painfully obvious that the big bankers decided that they could take as much risk as possible without any regard to the well-being of their clients. As a result, banks lost money, their clients lost money, and taxpayers lost money when we had to bail them out. Mike Papantonio talks about how this started and what we need to do prevent another meltdown with Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, author of the new book Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy.
Part 1
Bush and Blair did strike Iraq deal, says Welsh MP
A SENIOR Welsh MP said last night he knew “for certain” Tony Blair and George Bush struck a deal to invade Iraq at their notorious Crawford Ranch meeting in 2002 – a year before war was declared.
Elfyn Llwyd, Plaid Cymru’s parliamentary leader, said he had seen a confidential memo to that effect, although he would not divulge its exact contents.
Critics of the military action in Iraq have long suspected Mr Blair and President Bush came to an agreement at the president’s ranch in Crawford, Texas in April 2002, a claim Mr Blair denied in evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry last week.
Mr Llwyd said he had offered to give evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry himself, in private if necessary.
Full Story WalesOnline – News – Wales News – Bush and Blair did strike Iraq deal, says Welsh MP.
Parenting Advice: Tapping the Power of Scents to Enhance Learning
An electric purple bunch of grapes with goggle eyes and a silly grin stuck on the top of my homework was the greatest thing in the whole world, because when I scratched it smelled like a super-sugary version of grape. I can almost smell those scratch-n-sniff stickers from third grade. Why is this childhood memory of mine more crystal clear to me then many of things I saw and did last week? Is it simply nostalgia? Or is there something more to it? I went in search of answers to these questions to learn more about scent and memory. Laying in bed one night, my best friend’s dog, Mo, who was rescued as a puppy, leapt into my dream. A few inspired restless hours later I had landed on the concept for the “Mo’s Nose” scentsational books series. I knew that I wanted readers to be able to experience the world like Mo does — with their noses. Every time I wrote about “seeing” colors with the nose, my mind would return to those grape stickers from third grade.
Researching and creating these scent-filled adventures, I discovered that the sense of smell is a powerful and overlooked part of how we learn, experience and remember. Smells create “Proustian Memories,” which are long-term memories that elicit strong emotional responses. Primal, immediate and complex, the sense of smell is our most powerful sense: 10,000 times more powerful than the other senses and directly connected to the limbic system, which is the place in the brain where memories and emotions are processed. There have been many studies that link certain smells, especially from 100-percent essential oils or aromatherapy, with improved focus, learning and memory. A 2002 study in Russia tested peppermint aroma on schoolchildren and found that it consistently improved grades on tests. Duke University has also done a series of experiments with mice “that have shown that the part of the brain that processes scents is indeed a key to forming long-term memory.” Researchers have also consistently found that incorporating more senses when you are learning something has a more substantial and long-lasting effect on memory.
Full Story Margaret Hyde: Parenting Advice: Tapping the Power of Scents to Enhance Learning.
9 Coolest High-Tech Winter Accessories (PHOTOS)
Groundhog Punxsutawney Phil has spoken, and we’ve got another six weeks of winter to go.
But thanks to new tech that helps keep dry things dry, and warm things warm, there’s no need to suffer through the rest of the winter in icy discomfort.
From ski masks that use exhaled breath to heat your face (the robot look is an added bonus) to ski pole thermoses, HuffPostTech brings you the coolest, craziest winter wear to help you beat the winter blues.
Check out this awesome gear, then see our collection of the geekiest sweaters ever!
Full Story Winter Wear: 9 Coolest High-Tech Winter Accessories (PHOTOS).
Internet surfers caught in a web of depression
A “dark side” to the internet suggests a strong link between time spent surfing the web and depression, say psychologists.
British scientists found that the longer people spent online, the less likely they were to be happy.
A small group of the worst affected individuals were both depressed and addicted.
But it was not clear whether using the internet causes mental health problems, or whether people with mental health problems are drawn to the internet.
Full Story Internet surfers caught in a web of depression – Yorkshire Evening Post.
Top Spies Terror Warning: Shades of Bush
Which is it now — imminent terrorist threat, or no threat? Certain or uncertain?
Only last month U.S. intelligence officials were saying the Nigerian underwear bomber slipped through their nets because they didn’t think al Qaeda could or would mount another attack here.
Yesterday, they warned that a terror attack here was “certain.”
Meantime, we hear that the Miranda warning that FBI interrogators gave Umar Farouk Abdulmutullab caused the Nigerian to clam up.
But yesterday, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III said he was singing like the proverbial bird.
Moreover, in “case after case,” terrorists have provided actionable intelligence even after they were given their rights and charged with crimes, Muller said.
Full Story Jeff Stein: Top Spies Terror Warning: Shades of Bush.
Israeli commander: ‘We rewrote the rules of war for Gaza’
Civilians ‘put at greater risk to save military lives’ in winter attack – revelations that will pile pressure on Netanyahu to set up full inquiry
A high-ranking officer has acknowledged for the first time that the Israeli army went beyond its previous rules of engagement on the protection of civilian lives in order to minimise military casualties during last year’s Gaza war, The Independent can reveal.
The officer, who served as a commander during Operation Cast Lead, made it clear that he did not regard the longstanding principle of military conduct known as “means and intentions” – whereby a targeted suspect must have a weapon and show signs of intending to use it before being fired upon – as being applicable before calling in fire from drones and helicopters in Gaza last winter. A more junior officer who served at a brigade headquarters during the operation described the new policy – devised in part to avoid the heavy military casualties of the 2006 Lebanon war – as one of “literally zero risk to the soldiers”.
Full Story Israeli commander: ‘We rewrote the rules of war for Gaza’ – Middle East, World – The Independent.
Eliot Spitzer To Colbert: ‘Team Of Summers And Geithner Has Been An Abject Failure’
Video -
Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was a guest on “The Colbert Report” Tuesday for the first time since February of 2008, just weeks before his infamous prostitution scandal broke.
Right off the bat Colbert established Spitzer's bona fides, joking that the ex-governor must be honest because he's “got nothing to lose” and “no public image to uphold.”
Spitzer gamely played along, telling Colbert that “there is a certain virtue to being able to tell the absolute truth and being able to stick it to people without worrying about repercussions.”
Spitzer used the opportunity to continue his recent criticism of the Obama administration's handling of the economic crisis, quipping that “the same people running the banks, who destroyed our economy, are still there.”
“The team of Summers and Geithner,” Spitzer continued, “has been an… abject failure.”
WATCH:
Full Story Colbert To Eliot Spitzer: You’re Honest Because ‘You’ve Got No Public Image To Uphold’ (VIDEO).
Top BANNED Super Bowl Commercials (VIDEO)
One of the most entertaining parts about the Super Bowl, besides the game of course, is the anticipation of the new commercials. Now we know we won’t be seeing a new Pepsi commercial on Super Bowl Sunday, but not because of any controversial issues.
But believe it or not, there are scores of commercials that are too controversial for television (including one notable case this year), leading to many ads that are banned before they ever reach the airwaves. Scroll down to see some Super Bowl ads that were deemed too inappropriate to actually be aired. (WARNING: Some ads may be NSFW.)
Full Story Top BANNED Super Bowl Commercials (VIDEO).
NASA Spots Mysterious Space Debris Suggestive Of Asteroid Collision (PHOTO)
NASA scientists have spotted a mysterious X-shaped debris pattern with trailing streamers of dust that is unlike any image astronomers have seen before.
The behavior is not typical of comets, UCLA investigator David Jewitt explains, and researchers believe something unprecedented has been spotted:
This is quite different from the smooth dust envelopes of normal comets. [...] The filaments are made of dust and gravel, presumably recently thrown out of the nucleus. Some are swept back by radiation pressure from sunlight to create straight dust streaks. Embedded in the filaments are co-moving blobs of dust that likely originated from tiny unseen parent bodies.
Across the vastness of space, chances are slim that scientists would have a camera pointed in the right direction and set to capture images at the moment two random asteroids collide. These conditions, it seems, haven’t been met until now.
If what astronomers believe is correct, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 happened to be correctly oriented just as two asteroids slammed into each other 90 million miles away from the Earth.
Full Story NASA Spots Mysterious Space Debris Suggestive Of Asteroid Collision (PHOTO).
Man Denied French Citizenship Because Wife Wears Veil
A Moroccan man has been denied French citizenship because he demanded his French wife wear a full-face Islamic veil, Reuters reports.
“It emerged during the inquiry and the interview process that this person forced his wife to wear the full veil, deprived her of freedom of movement with her face exposed and rejected the principles of secularism and equality between men and women,” France’s Immigration Minister Eric Besson said in a statement Tuesday.
France’s Le Figaro newspaper obtained a copy of the ruling, which has also been published in English by The Guardian:
Full Story Man Denied French Citizenship Because Wife Wears Veil.
OPS: Sorry, if your full body disguise is a religious belief – go home. Your religious beliefs do not trump the public safety
Transportation secretary says owners of recalled Toyotas should stop driving them
Transportation Secretary LaHood advises owners to seek repair at dealers
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood suggested Wednesday that owners of recalled Toyota vehicles stop driving them and seek a repair for the sticking accelerator problems that have forced the automaker to recall a record number of autos.
“My advice is if anybody owns one of these vehicles: stop driving it. Take it to a Toyota dealer because they believe they have the fix for it,” LaHood said in testimony before a House committee.
Earier, Lahood said he plans to speak with Toyota President Akio Toyoda about the automaker’s spate of recalls in the United States. LaHood confirms that the government is investigating potential electrical problems in Toyota vehicles.
Full Story Transport chief: Stop driving recalled Toyotas – Autos- msnbc.com.
US Afghan Ambassador’s Report Warned Against Troop Escalation (VIDEO)
Many people are skeptical of President Obama’s escalation of the war in Afghanistan, sending an additional 30,000 troops there in an effort to boost US counterinsurgency efforts. One of the most prominent skeptics is the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry.
In November he contributed two reports to the Obama administration’s policy debate regarding the escalation, both of which argued against General McChrystal’s counterinsurgency strategy and questioned whether Afghan President Hamid Karzai could be counted a reliable partner:
“Sending additional forces will delay the day when Afghans will take over, and make it difficult, if not impossible, to bring our people home on a reasonable timetable,” he wrote Nov. 6. “An increased U.S. and foreign role in security and governance will increase Afghan dependence, at least in the short-term.” [...]
“Yet Karzai continues to shun responsibility for any sovereign burden, whether defense, governance or development. He and much of his circle do not want the U.S. to leave and are only too happy to see us invest further,” Mr. Eikenberry wrote. “They assume we covet their territory for a never-ending ‘war on terror’ and for military bases to use against surrounding powers.”
Full Story Karl Eikenberry Papers: US Afghan Ambassador’s Report Warned Against Troop Escalation (VIDEO).
OPS: and they did it anyway. Have to wonder – don’t you?
AIG Bonuses In 2010 Total $100 Million
White House Pay Czar: Bonuses Are ‘Outrageous’ But Legal
American International Group Inc. is set to pay out about $100 million in a fresh round of bonuses to employees of its financial products division, the unit whose risky bets helped sink the company leading to a $180 billion government bailout, according to reports published Tuesday.
AIG agreed to cut the retention bonuses by $20 million but will still hand out $100 million Wednesday, The New York Times reported, citing people with knowledge of the negotiations.
The Washington Post, also citing people familiar with the situation, said the retention payments are for employees at the division who agreed to accept 10 to 20 percent less than AIG had initially promised them two years ago. In return, they are getting their money more than a month ahead of schedule.
Full Story AIG Bonuses In 2010 Total $100 Million.
Pelosi: No Hope For Public Option At This Time
The public option already died once. Today it died again.
House progressives have been trying to use the health care stalemate to revive the public option. Almost 100 have signed a letter urging Congressional leaders to include a public option in a separate bill, which could in theory pass the Senate with a simple majority of votes. If that happened–a big if–it could then be included as part of comprehensive legislation, securing progressives a major victory. But on a conference call today, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi put a second set of nails in the public option's coffin, saying it would not be part of any grand bargain to push ahead with health reform. But in so doing, she took a veiled swipe at the White House for not standing enthusiastically behind the proposal.
“The Senate never supported the public option,” Pelosi said.
Full Story Pelosi: No Hope For Public Option At This Time | TPMDC.
Rep. John Murtha hospitalized in intensive care
Rep. John Murtha has been hospitalized in intensive care stemming from complications related to gallbladder surgery.
Spokesman Matt Mazonkey says the 77-year-old Pennsylvania congressman underwent scheduled surgery last week and is currently at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington.
Murtha was also hospitalized in December with gallbladder problems.
The 19-term Democrat was the first Vietnam veteran to serve in Congress. He leads the powerful House Appropriations subcommittee on defense spending.
Full Story Rep. John Murtha hospitalized in intensive care – Yahoo! News.
As Values Slide, More Weigh Walking Away From Mortgages
In 2006, Benjamin Koellmann bought a condominium in Miami Beach. By his calculation, it will be about the year 2025 before he can sell his modest home for what he paid. Or maybe 2040.
“People like me are beginning to feel like suckers,” Mr. Koellmann said. “Why not let it go in default and rent a better place for less?”
After three years of plunging real estate values, after the bailouts of the bankers and the revival of their million-dollar bonuses, after the Obama administration’s loan modification plan raised the expectations of many but satisfied only a few, a large group of distressed homeowners is wondering the same thing.
Full Story As Values Slide, More Weigh Walking Away From Mortgages – NYTimes.com.
Fox cuts away from Obama – AGAIN
Fox cuts away from Obama town hall to air health reform critic
For the second time in less than a week, Fox News on Tuesday cut away from a live broadcast of a presidential address to air comments from a critic of President Obama.
Speaking at a town hall meeting in New Hampshire, the president laid out his argument that health care reform would actually save the government money in the long term by reducing health care costs.
“Well there you have it, a rather long answer to a question about health care from a recovering cancer patient,” said Fox News host Megyn Kelley, before introducing Dr. Marc Siegel, a Fox News contributor and critic of the president's health care reform agenda.
Fox took some criticism from left-wing bloggers when it cut off the president's question-and-answer session with House GOP members at a retreat last Friday.
Full Story Fox cuts away from Obama town hall to air health reform critic | Raw Story.
Children lead way in record New York homelessness
Kariana, aged three, has a lonely existence in the New York homeless shelter her parents moved into last year. Lonely, but not alone — there are nearly 16,000 children just like her.
Homelessness in New York has soared as a result of the damaged US economy and children make up almost half of that growing population.
Shivering outside the forbidding gates to a Brooklyn shelter, Kariana’s petite mother, Karen Diaz, said she’d been homeless since arriving three months ago from Puerto Rico with her husband Pedro, Kariana, and a second daughter, aged six.
Full Story Children lead way in record New York homelessness – Yahoo! News.
Obama grows the drug war, with enforcement a clear priority
It was not long ago when President Barack Obama’s new drug czar, former Seattle police chief Gil Kerlikowske, swept into Washington, D.C. and declared the “drug war” a public policy relic.
The Obama administration, he said, would move toward handling drug addiction as a medical problem, moving away from the brash enforcement tactics that hallmarked prior administrations.
“We’re not at war with people in this country,” Kerlikowske told The Wall Street Journal in May.
However, if the Office of National Drug Control Policy’s (ONDCP) budget for fiscal year 2011 is to be believed, Kerlikowske was full of hot air.
According to 2011 funding “highlights” released by the ONDCP (PDF link), the Obama administration is growing the drug war and tilting its funds heavily toward law enforcement over treatment.
Full Story Obama grows the drug war, with enforcement a clear priority | Raw Story.
Consumer groups: Breaking up banks ‘crucial’ to avoid another meltdown
Volcker rule ‘most important reform initiative’
WASHINGTON — As the Senate debates financial reform, consumer groups are urging Congress to break up the biggest banks and impose strict limits on proprietary lending, virtually guaranteeing a “repeat” of the 2008 meltdown if those actions aren’t taken.
The two components comprise the “Volcker rule” for financial reform, named after former Fed chairman Paul Volcker, who proposed them. President Obama has backed it, citing Volcker as a key ally.
The prospects for its inclusion in the final bill are unclear. On Monday, dealReporter alleged that the proposal “will be either be dropped or significantly modified in the Senate” at the request of Banking Committee Chairman, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT). But on Tuesday, Dodd refuted the claim, telling Time Magazine he supports the Volcker rule.
Full Story Consumer groups: Breaking up banks ‘crucial’ to avoid another meltdown | Raw Story.
Republicans unite to halt trials of alleged 9/11 plotters
US lawmakers Tuesday unveiled plans to block public funding for US-based trials involving Guantanamo detainees who are accused of plotting the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Republican lawmakers Frank Wolf and Lindsey Graham joined forces to introduce legislation which “would explicitly block this dangerous and wasteful trial from any domestic civilian court,” Wolf said.
They also won support from Democrats Jim Webb and Blanche Lincoln, as well as independent senator Joe Lieberman.
If approved, the legislation would stop the Justice Department from using public funds to try the alleged mastermind of the 2001 attacks, Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, and his four co-accused, in domestic US courts.
Full Story Republicans unite to halt trials of alleged 9/11 plotters | Raw Story.
OPS: Originally posted 12.26.09 on AlterNet
Why America Needs to Focus on Policy Reform
A growing number of Americans are wondering where the results from the North American Free Trade Agreement are. The U.S. has gained better access to markets for its products, but it has also sent much of its production across the northern and southern borders.
A growing number of Americans are wondering where the results from the North American Free Trade Agreement are. We’ve seen lots of results from NAFTA, but no one can unilaterally point to something that was beneficial to all three nations.
Mexico has gained some jobs in manufacturing, but lost huge parts of its agricultural industry to agribusinesses in the United States and Canada. The U.S. has gained better access to markets for its products, but it has also sent much of its production across the northern and southern borders. Canada is now more integrated in the American economy, but it faces the same difficulties from low wage Mexican labor as the United States.
The Center for International Policy, in an article published on December 3, detailed the need for wide-ranging reform of NAFTA. The president has largely backed off his campaign rhetoric regarding “renegotiating” the terms of NAFTA. In fact, it will likely be a non-issue throughout the remainder of his presidency. Certain members of Congress recently introduced the TRADE Act of 2009, but it is not law and it may never become so.
The TRADE Act of 2009 is perhaps this nation’s best bet to enact real reform, because it highlights the areas in most dire need of attention.
Full Story Why America Needs to Focus on Policy Reform | Economy In Crisis.
Huge Deficits Altering U.S. Hegemony
The sun may finally be setting on the American Century, according to The New York Times, which claims that America‘s massive and unsustainable debt will be the cause of waning influence around the world in the near future.
Not only is the deficit out-of-control – expected to be 1.3 trillion in the 2011 fiscal year – but the nation’s projected long-term debt is even more unsustainable. By the end of the decade, deficits are projected to rise to over five percent of gross domestic product.
“[Obama’s] budget draws a picture of a nation that like many American homeowners simply cannot get above water,” The Times writes.
Full Story Huge Deficits Altering U.S. Hegemony | Economy In Crisis.
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mullen: ‘It is my personal belief’ that repealing DADT is ‘the right thing to do.’
Today, the Senate Armed Services Committee held hearing on the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, the first such session in 17 years. During the hearing, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Michael Mullen made the powerful announcement that he personally it is time to allow gay men and women to serve openly:
MULLEN: Mr. Chairman, speaking for myself and myself only, it is my personal belief that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do. No matter how I look at this issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy that forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens.
Watch it:
Tea Party Profiteers: How Republican Operatives Are Exploiting Economic Anxiety For Power, Cash
Republican partisans — aided by lobbyists and corporate front groups — are exploiting the legitimate feelings of anger and distrust among many struggling Americans. These operatives and profiteers, many of them experienced public relations professionals, have set up sophisticated social networking portals and online solutions to control the flow of information within tea party organizations. As gatekeepers to ostensibly open forums, these political operatives and profiteers have been able to set the political agenda of the tea parties and hand out marching orders. And tea party profiteers are making millions cashing in on the movement. They are selling tea party support to candidates and policies which continue the legacy of Bush-era unregulated capitalism and corporate bailouts:
– Eric Odom: Odom, who appears regularly on Fox News and on other venues as a spokesman for the tea party movement, is at the center of tea party profiteering. Odom maintains dozens, possibly hundreds of tea party websites and community forums which he controls through a “Ning” technology based social networking platform. Odom’s vast online control of county, state, and issue oriented tea party websites is done through his two for profit consulting companies: American Liberty Alliance and Strategy Activism, LLC. His American Liberty Alliance has served as a hub between disparate tea party groups and right-wing front groups. In a biographical video he posted on YouTube, Odom explained that he has worked for years on local and statewide Republican campaigns developing “stealth type marketing…some say ‘attack sites.’” He boasted that he built “sites behind the scenes, many of them to this day no one today knows I took part in, some of them were actually very effective in defeating the opponent.” While it is unclear exactly who is paying Odom now for his tea party profit ventures, Odom has delicately straddled independent populist rhetoric while proclaiming that his network will work exclusively for the election of Republican candidates this year.
All the funding for anti-marriage equality campaign in the nation’s capital came from outside of D.C.
On Dec. 19, Washington, D.C. officially legalized same-sex marriage. Mayor Adrian Fenty supported the legislation from the beginning, and it received the overwhelming support of the D.C. Council in an 11-2 vote. Congressional Republicans, however, immediately began calling for a referendum on the issue, suggesting that the majority of D.C. residents were actually against same-sex marriage. However, D.C. LGBT blog GLAA Forum reports that all the money funding Rev. Harry Jackson, who led the anti-marriage equality efforts, came from outside of Washington, D.C.:
It turns out that the $199,530.00 funding for his efforts come from only four main sources, all from outside of D.C. according reports filed with the D.C. Office of Campaign Finance. … Jackson’s largest contributor is his own Maryland church based non-profit group, High Impact Leadership Coalition. [...]
The next largest contributor is the Colorado headquartered national group, Focus on the Family. … [T]hey were able to contribute $40,000 to harming gay families in D.C. … National Organization for Marriage (NOM), the national group dedicated to keeping gay people from marrying contributed $32,138.00. … Family Research Council, the D.C. based national gay bashing group, donated $25,000 through it’s 501(c)(4) lobbying organization, Family Research Council –Action.
Bachmann Suggests Critics Of Health Care Reform Will Be Put On A ‘List’ And Denied Treatment
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) painted an Orwellian vision of health care reform yesterday, claiming that critics of the Democrats’ plan could be denied coverage. Citing an unnamed Japanese man who supposedly approached her in Washington, Bachmann suggested that critics of the Japanese government are placed on a “list” and prohibited from receiving medical care under Japan’s universal health care system. Saying “a government takeover of health care is the crown jewel of socialism,” Bachmann insinuated a similar situation could occur in “our future”:
BACHMANN: He said that in Japan, to wait and get health care is almost impossible. You get on a list and you wait and you wait and you wait. But he said this is something people don’t know: in Japan, people have stopped voicing their opinion on health care. There are things that are wrong with Japanese health care, but people are afraid of voicing. ‘Well why is that,’ I asked. [He said], ‘Because they know that would get on a list and they wouldn’t get health care. They wouldn’t get in. They wouldn’t get seen. And so people are afraid. They’re afraid to speak back to government. They’re afraid to say anything.’ Is that what we want for our future? That takes us to gangster government at that point!
Watch it (beginning at 0:50):
OPS: She’s projecting again. That’s the way the Republicans would handle it.
If You Liked Bovine Growth Hormone, You’ll Love Beta Agonists
What’s the Beef?
While researchers and scientists investigate the cause of our diabetes, obesity, asthma and ADHD epidemics, they should ask why the FDA approved a livestock drug banned in 160 nations and responsible for hyperactivity, muscle breakdown and 10 percent mortality in pigs, according to angry farmers who phoned the manufacturer.
The beta agonist ractopamine, a repartitioning agent that increases protein synthesis, was recruited for livestock use when researchers found the drug, used in asthma, made mice more muscular says Beef magazine.
But unlike the growth promoting antibiotics and hormones used in livestock which are withdrawn as the animal nears slaughter, ractopamine is started as the animal nears slaughter.
As much as twenty percent of Paylean, given to pigs for their last 28 days, Optaflexx, given to cattle their last 28 to 42 days and Tomax, given to turkeys their last 7 to 14 days, remains in consumer meat says author and well known veterinarian Michael W. Fox.
Full Story Martha Rosenberg: If You Liked Bovine Growth Hormone, You’ll Love Beta Agonists.
Whatever Happened to the Neocons’ Grand Schemes to Control Iraq’s Oil?
Dick Cheney thought the US occupation would see a quadrupling of Iraq’s capacity to pump oil, and a privatization of its production. Not quite.
Will Iraq’s Oil Ever Flow?
Americans have largely stopped thinking about Iraq, even though we still have approximately 110,000 troops there, as well as the largest “embassy” on the planet (and still growing). We’ve generally chalked up our war in Iraq to the failed past, and some Americans, after the surge of 2007, even think of it as, if not a success, at least no longer a debacle. Few care to spend much time considering the catastrophe we actually brought down on the Iraqis in “liberating” them.
Remember when we used to talk about Saddam Hussein’s “killing fields”? The world of mayhem and horror that followed the U.S. invasion and occupation delivered new, even larger “killing fields” that we don’t care to discuss, or that we prefer to consider the responsibility of the Iraqis themselves. Even with violence far lower today, Baghdad certainly remains one of the more dangerous cities on the planet. The bombs continue to go off there regularly and devastatingly, while the killing, even if not of American troops who rarely patrol any longer and are largely confined to their mega-bases, has not ended, not by a long shot; nor has the anger, suspicion, and depression that go with all of this.
A striking recent article in the British Guardian by reporter Martin Chulov seemed to catch something of what the U.S. actually accomplished in Iraq in a nutshell. It describes a country in “environmental ruin” (and, let’s not forget, taxed with an ongoing drought of monumental proportions). The headline tells the story: “Iraq littered with high levels of nuclear and dioxin contamination, study finds.” The contamination from depleted uranium weapons, bombed pipelines, and other disasters of the years of war, civil war, and chaos seems centered around Iraq’s population centers and, perhaps not surprisingly, coincides with a massive rise in birth defects.
Full Story TomDispatch.
More women dying from pregnancy complications; state holds on to report
The mortality rate of California women who die from causes directly related to pregnancy has nearly tripled in the past decade, prompting doctors to worry about the dangers of obesity in expectant mothers and about medical complications of cesarean sections.
For the past seven months, the state Department of Public Health declined to release a report outlining the trend.
California Watch spoke with investigators who wrote the report and they confirmed the most significant spike in pregnancy-related deaths since the 1930s. Although the number of deaths is relatively small, it’s more dangerous to give birth in California than it is in Kuwait or Bosnia.
“The issue is how rapidly this rate has worsened,” said Debra Bingham, executive director of the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative, the public-private task force investigating the problem for the state. “That’s what’s shocking.”
Full Story More women dying from pregnancy complications; state holds on to report | California Watch.
Obama Religious Adviser Wants President to Speak Against Ugandan ‘Kill the Gays’ Bill at Prayer Breakfast
At a press conference where a gay Ugandan was too frightened to show his face to the media, a member of Obama’s religion council and other clergy threw down the gauntlet.
After Thursday, the National Prayer Breakfast may never be the same again — that’s if President Obama takes the advice of a panel of clergy members, including one of his own advisers, and uses the breakfast podium to denounce a murderous law endorsed by two of its overseas members. At issue is a law proposed in Uganda that would severely criminalize lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender behavior, and carry the death sentence for gays who commit certain acts.
At a news conference sponsored by the American Prayer Hour yesterday at the National Press Club, Harry Knox, a member of the President’s Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Initiatives called on the president to use the podium at this week’s National Prayer Breakfast to denounce Uganda’s proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Conceived as an alternative to the National Prayer Breakfast, the American Prayer Hour is the title for a handful of progressive prayer events that will take place on Thursday in Dallas, Chicago, Berkeley, Anchorage, Washington, D.C., and Boynton Beach, Fla.
No Defense for This Budget
Katrina vanden Heuvel -
Deficit hysteria has reached new levels yet where is the attention to an out of control defense budget that is now the largest since World War II? While the Obama Admistration’s three-year freeze on discretionary spending is a bad idea, it’s made even worse because unprecedented Pentagon spending is exempted from it.
Who would know from all of the whining about budget deficits that military spending is the largest discretionary item in the federal government? Exempting all security-related expenditures from common sense cuts will have serious consequences for almost everything the government does–from job creation, poverty reduction and alternative energy development, to aid for cash-strapped state and local governments. In fact, the Economic Policy Institute reports that non-security-related discretionary spending is already at near-historic lows as a share of GDP. At a time when foreclosures are still rising, and we face double-digit unemployment, this freeze will make digging out from the Great Recession more difficult.
On Monday, the Obama Administration requested $708 billion for the Defense Department next year–including $549 billion for its base budget and $159 billion for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. This doesn’t even include the $33 billion supplement the White House will request for its escalation in Afghanistan this year.
Full Story No Defense for This Budget.
The Supreme Court: Corrupt to the core
Testifying under oath during confirmation hearings, Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito offered assurances about their respect for legal precedent and the appropriate role of the judiciary.
The recent decision of the court overturning settled campaign finance law achieved through bipartisan action of the elected legislative and executive branches was contemptuous of precedent, aggressive in its political intent, extremist in its impact and radical in its usurpation of power against the elected branches of government.
The “anything goes” ethic of a politics held in wide disrepute now extends to five Supreme Court justices who rule that unlimited sums of unregulated money can be spent to buy power over our republic.
They hold in contempt the warning of Madison in Federalist 10 that special-interest factions could overwhelm the nation. They ignore the warnings of Washington about the dangers of foreign entanglements that may, under this decision, if not clarified, further corrupt the governance of the nation. They hold in contempt the time-honored truth of Lincoln that America is the land of the people, by the people and for the people, and not the property of the money, by the money and for the money at the expense of people who lack the money.
Full Story The Supreme Court: Corrupt to the core | The Smirking Chimp.
We’ve All Been Reamed!
It’s S&L all over again – only worse
Mike Whitney -
The reappointment of Fed chairman Ben Bernanke means that the opportunity for change has passed and the reform movement is dead. It means that and that derivatives trading, off-balance sheet operations, securitization, dark pools and high frequency trading will go on much as they have before. It means that the public will continue to be gouged so that a handful of Wall Street sharpies can rake in obscene profits using complex “financial innovations” and over-leveraged debt instruments. It means that the entire system will continue to be put at risk to protect the interests of investment banks and hedge funds. It means that the subsidies, the preferential treatment, and the bailouts will continue to fuel populist rage and exacerbate deepening divisions in society. It means that the status quo has been preserved and that it’s “business as usual”.
No reform movement will succeed as long as Bernanke is at the Fed. He’s an agent of the big banks and a Wall Street loyalist. He’s also the author of “Too Big To Fail”, the controversial theory which provides unlimited state support for financial institutions that are deemed too large or interconnected to fail. TBTF means that capitalism’s vital market clearing function can avoided if one is rich or powerful enough. Bernanke repealed capitalism to save his friends.
The Fed’s role in the housing fiasco, goes way beyond Alan Greenspan’s low interest rates which ignited the frenzy of speculation that led to the crash. It’s clear now, that both Greenspan and Bernanke knew that the multi-trillion dollar credit expansion, was based on mortgages to applicants who had no way of repaying the money they had borrowed. It was a complete scam. Recent testimony by FDIC chairman Sheila Bair before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (Jan 14, 2010) provides many of the details. Naturally, Bair’s testimony has been ignored by the media.
Full Story We’ve All Been Reamed! | The Smirking Chimp.
Israel feels under siege. Like a victim. An underdog
Anyone who is anyone in Israel will come to Herzliya this week for a conference about the state of the Jewish nation. Our correspondent joined them and found a climate of unprecedented insecurity – and paranoia
So the propaganda war is on. Forget Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the 15,000 Lebanese and Palestinian dead. Forget the Sabra and Shatila massacre that same year by Israel’s militia allies as their troops watched. Erase the Qana massacre of 1996 – 106 Lebanese killed by Israeli shellfire, more than half of them children – and delete the 1,500 in the 2006 Lebanon war. And forget, of course, the more than 1,300 Palestinians slaughtered by Israel in Gaza last year (and the 13 Israelis killed by Hamas at that time) after Hamas rockets fell on Sderot. Israel – if you believe the security elite of Israel’s right wing here in Herzliya – is now under an even more dangerous, near-unprecedented attack.
Britain – this came yesterday from Israel’s ambassador in London, no less – is “a battlefield” in which Israel’s enemies wish to “de-legitimise” the 62-year-old Jewish state.
Even Israel’s erstwhile friend, that fine Jewish judge Richard Goldstone, is now, in the words of one of Israel’s staunchest American-Jewish supporters, Al Dershowitz, an “absolute traitor to the Jewish people” and “an evil, evil man”. (Headlines for this, of course, in Israel yesterday.)
A misreading of Iran that risks a fatal replay of Iraq
There is no evidence at all that Iran colluded with al-Qaida
Since its misfired election last June, Iran increasingly resembles a curled-up hedgehog: preoccupied with its own difficulties, while projecting general hostility to the outside world. I only hope the impression of introversion is true, because Tehran has been the target of some deeply misguided words, and perhaps also deeds, in recent days. Just now, it would be better if Iran were not listening.
From Washington come reports that the US is sending Patriot missiles to the Gulf States, and keeping two warships in the region capable of shooting down Iranian missiles. Now Patriots are neither state-of-the-art nor offensive weapons and deploying two warships is hardly the most aggressive stance a superpower can take. But the deployments – or their threat, it is not entirely clear which – hardly send a friendly message, especially not as “spun” to the US media. They speak of contingency planning and expecting the worst.
How Did an Idealistic President Become a Champion of Nuclear Power and By Default, Weapons Proliferation?
In 1983, Barack Obama, a senior at Columbia University described his visions of a “nuclear free world” in an article titled “Breaking the War Mentality” in the university newsmagazine, Sundial. He described discussions of “first- versus second-strike capabilities” that “suit the military-industrial interests” with their “billion-dollar erector sets,” and called for the abolition of the global arsenals of tens of thousands of deadly warheads.
As a candidate he acknowledged that he was worried for the safety of his children who lived in Illinois because it has the highest concentration of nuclear reactors in the US – and opposed further nuclear subsidies. “I am not a nuclear proponent,” he said:
Video at link
“America’s Secret Afghan Prisons”: Investigation Unearths New US Torture Site, Abuse Allegations in Afghanistan
Democracy NOW!
A new investigation by journalist Anand Gopal reveals harrowing details about US secret prisons in Afghanistan, under both the Bush and Obama administrations. Gopal interviewed Afghans who were detained and abused at several disclosed and undisclosed sites at US and Afghan military bases across the country. He also reveals the existence of another secret prison on Bagram Air Base that even the Red Cross does not have access to. It is dubbed the Black Jail and is reportedly run by US Special Forces.
includes rush transcript, Video, Mp3 Download
The Committee of Banned Words
Matt Taibbi -
Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Emanuel, exasperated upon learning that liberal special-interest groups were planning to run ads against conservative Democrats not supportive of health care reform, blasted the plan as “f—— retarded” over the summer. Naturally, some outrage ensued after Emanuel’s words came to light, with former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin taking to her Facebook page to call on President Obama to fire him for what she saw as the equivalent of a racial slur.
Palin, whose son Trig is afflicted with Down syndrome, said she was informed of Emanuel's comment by a fellow parent of a special-needs child and pleaded with the president to “show decency” to the political process by “eliminating” the Chicago native from his inner circle.
In a post titled “Are You Capable of Decency, Rahm Emanuel?,” Palin wrote, “Just as we’d be appalled if any public figure of Rahm’s stature ever used the ‘N-word’ or other such inappropriate language, Rahm’s slur on all God’s children with cognitive and developmental disabilities — and the people who love them — is unacceptable,” adding, “it’s heartbreaking.”
via Obama chief of staff’s ‘retarded’ insult brings fallout, Palin criticism – Yahoo! News.
One of the more interesting features of modern America is this mania people have for flipping over the usages of certain words. This thing with Rahm Emanuel is a perfect example. His outburst is now going to become a national news story because Sarah Palin took offense at the word “retarded,” as opposed to the reason it should be making news — the notion of Rahm Emanuel, a White House official, telling progressive activist groups not to run ads against Democrats, and those groups actually listening. The latter story is a billion times more shameful and obnoxious, but instead of any furor there, we’re going to have to get another soap opera over somebody using a naughty word.
Full Story The Committee of Banned Words – Matt Taibbi – Taibblog – True/Slant.
Monsanto Acquires World’s Largest Vegetable Seed Company
“Monsanto Company to Acquire Seminis, Inc., a Leading Vegetable and Fruit Seed Company
Acquisition Expected to Add Near-term Income Growth and Diversity to Monsanto’s Seed Portfolio
ST. LOUIS (Jan. 24, 2005) – Monsanto Company (NYSE: MON) announced today that it signed a definitive agreement to acquire Seminis, Inc., for $1.4 billion in cash and assumed debt… “
(From Monsanto Press Release)
Monsanto Goes Healthy?
The news of Monsanto’s agreement to purchase Seminis has received little attention from the media other than the financial pages and a few seed industry and anti-globalization web sites. But then again, why should it? How many consumers – of food or seed – have even heard of Seminis? And yet, as Seminis spinmeister Gary Koppenjan said, “If you’ve had a salad, you’ve had a Seminis product.”
It is estimated that Seminis controls 40 percent of the U.S. vegetable seed market and 20 percent of the world market—supplying the genetics for 55 percent of the lettuce on U.S. supermarket shelves, 75 percent of the tomatoes, and 85 percent of the peppers, with strong holdings in beans, cucumbers, squash, melons, broccoli, cabbage, spinach and peas. The company’s biggest revenue source comes from tomato and peppers seeds, followed by cucumbers and beans.
Full Story Organic Seed Alliance – Monsanto Acquires World’s Largest Vegetable Seed Company.
OPS: This is extremely dangerous to the World seed inventory
Senator probes tech firms operating in China
Democratic Whip Dick Durbin seeks details about human rights protections
A top Senate Democrat is asking 30 leading technology, Internet and communications companies to provide detailed descriptions of their operations and human rights practices in China.
Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois sent letters on Tuesday to technology companies including Apple Inc., Facebook and Twitter seeking information about their business in China and their plans for protecting human rights, free speech and privacy there.
Other companies that received letters include Amazon.com Inc., eBay Inc., AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc.
Full Story Senator probes tech firms operating in China – Security- msnbc.com.
The Makings of a Police State-Part VI
Sibel Edmonds -
A Nation of Suspects
Indeed, the interests of the oppressors lie in ‘changing the consciousness of the oppressed, not the situation which oppresses them‘- – Paulo Freire
The illegal domestic wiretapping of all Americans, the invasive search practices at every airport directed at every single US passenger, the compilation of all data on all citizens in not only one but multiple government databases, the unreasonable and warrantless search and seizure practiced on US masses facilitated arbitrarily by the FBI, are among many known and unknown government practices directed at the entire population of the United States of America.
Despite the current futility, many constitutionalists, legalists, analysts, and activists are writing, talking, and arguing about the legality or illegality, constitutionality or unconstitutionality, practicality or impracticality, of these surveillance and search practices of our ‘National Security State.’ There is a plethora of material out there for you to read or listen to on those points, so there is no need for me to cover all that has been covered already; over and over. I am not going to discuss the tedious and ambiguous laws, nor am I going to waste time on the vague and irrelevant notion of and argument on security. No. I intend to focus on the subjects of these practices; the people; the masses, in fact, the entire population as the willing recipients who have come to view and accept themselves as suspects. Isn’t this what we have become; a nation of suspects?
No one any longer questions the fact that our government has been engaged in domestic surveillance of our communication systems. The news came out. The practitioners admitted to it, in fact, proudly. These activities were challenged in courts and the challenges overridden, thus making the legality or illegality, constitutionality or unconstitutionality, all irrelevant; moot. Several years have passed and it has become, it is, a fact of life; a fact in every American’s life. And for the majority, not a painful or aggravating fact of life; just ‘a fact’ of life. Why?
Full Story Sibel Edmonds’ Boiling Frogs Post | Home of the Irate Minority.
The House Will Vote to Eliminate Health Insurance’s Anti-Trust Exemption Next Week
I just got off a conference call with Speaker Pelosi. While she had a lot of optimistic things to say about the passage of a Senate plus sidecar bill, the big piece of news is that the House will pass (meaning, I presume she has the votes) a bill eliminating the anti-trust exemption for insurers and medical malpractice companies next week.
As she pointed out, the insurers have had this exemption for 65 years, and “the result has not been good” for consumers. And the only other industry that has been given such an exemption is major league baseball.
She said that, among other things, eliminating the exemption will allow the federal government to investigation collusion and price-fixing among insurers.
I presume this is one of those bills designed to force Republicans to vote to protect the insurance industry–and as such, it is good politics. I’d be even happier if there were any prospect of it getting passed in the Senate, which I doubt. It would be nice to have on more piece of leverage to exercise with the insurance industry.
Full Story Emptywheel » The House Will Vote to Eliminate Health Insurance’s Anti-Trust Exemption Next Week.
People! Not Corporations! The 28th Amendment
What will the Free Speech for People Amendment say and what will it do?
The Free Speech for People Amendment will overrule the Citizens United v. FEC case and return the First Amendment to its longstanding purpose as a guarantee of the fullest rights of a free people and the press. The Free Speech for People Amendment will overrule the fabrication by activist judges of a “corporate rights doctrine” to defeat democratically enacted laws, and will restore the First Amendment to its meaning and intent for two centuries. The Amendment will ensure that all people have the most robust freedom of conscience, speech and debate and that a vibrant, diverse press remains free and unfettered, thus strengthening, rather than weakening, democracy.
The Free Speech for People Amendment Campaign will work with others to develop specific language for the Free Speech for People Amendment. Here is one example of language for the Free Speech for People Amendment:
Amendment XXVIII
Section 1. The sovereign right of the people to govern being essential to a free democracy, the First Amendment shall not be construed to limit the authority of Congress and the States to define, regulate, and restrict the spending and other activity of any corporation, limited liability entity, or other corporate entity created by state or federal law or the law of another nation.
Section 2. Nothing contained in this Article shall be construed to abridge the freedom of the press.
Full Story People! Not Corporations! How ’bout these apples: « COTO Report.
A Canadian Against the Prorogation of Parliament: Internet Justice for Canadians
Protest movement born of the internet is making history in Canada.
http://noprorogue.whyweprotest.net is hot off the presses, and it looks like it has a lot of potential. In case you haven’t heard, Canada had it’s very first internet spawned protests happen last Saturday January 23rd. It all started on a facebook group called “Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament”, now over 200 000 strong. Within a few weeks of its creation, Canadians had a national day of action with over 60 communities participating and an estimated 27 000 protesters.
This all started over what’s being called an ‘unprecedented abuse of power’, when Prime Minister Stephen Harper prorogued, or essentially just shut the doors of Parliament. He pulled this move without notice on December 30th, 2009…. while the elected representatives of Canada were home on holiday break.
Harper’s Conservatives don’t have a majority of seats in the house, so they need the votes of an opposition party to pass any laws… and technically, could be knocked out of power with any passed no confidence motion. Harper prorogued parliament barely a year before to avoid such a vote, which he was poised to lose. In this case, he’s trying to shut down a parliamentary committee investigation into a potential grave breach of the Geneva convention. Yeah, that’s right, he shut it down to avoid talk about complicity in a serious war crime.
Full Story A Canadian Against the Prorogation of Parliament: Internet Justice for Canadians.
Why Republicans should shut up about terrorism
The other day Republican senator Susan Collins appeared on one of the Sunday talk shows talking about Obama having a blind spot when it comes to terrorism. Her reason was the Obama Administration decision to try the Nigerian Christmas Day terrorist in a federal court ( the fact that the Bush Administration did the same thing twice is, of course, not mentioned).
This, according to Collins and to every other Republican who thinks they know something about terrorism, is that Obama doesn't understand the terrorist threat and that its all about it being a war.
But Collins, who said Obama has a blind spot about terrorism never demanded the impeachment of George W. Bush and neither did any other Republican, when the information was revealed that George W. Bush had known about and ignored every sign,every warning, every piece of hard intelligence, that told him the United States was about to be hit with a major terrorist attack. And he had that information from multiple sources as recently as August, 2001, less than one month before the 911 attacks. And he did nothing.
Full Story Why Republicans should shut up about terrorism.
On The Hill: Tired Of Republicans’ ‘Shameless, Cynical’ Games On Terrorism, Democrats Fire Back
Drawing a sharp distinction between the role they played as the opposition following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and that of the Republicans today, Democrats are punching back against what they see as political gamesmanship on the part of the GOP.
In an angry floor speech Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) sharply criticized Republican efforts to delay confirmation of key national security nominees for the Obama administration.
Over in the House, a member of the House Appropriations Committee subcommittee that oversees Justice Department spending denounced the “hypocrisy” in Republican attacks against President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder regarding their handling of the failed Christmas Day airline bombing attempt.
Full Story On The Hill: Tired Of Republicans’ ‘Shameless, Cynical’ Games On Terrorism, Democrats Fire Back.
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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. 
