Archive for February, 2010
America’s 2020 Broadband Vision
In a month, the Federal Communications Commission will deliver a National Broadband Plan, as it was asked to do by Congress and the President in the Recovery Act. This will be a meaningful plan for U.S. global leadership in high-speed Internet to create jobs and spur economic growth; to unleash new waves of innovation and investment; and to improve education, health care, energy efficiency, public safety, and the vibrancy of our democracy.
I believe this plan is vitally important to America's future.
Studies from the Brookings Institute, MIT, the World Bank, and others all tell us the same thing — that even modest increases in broadband adoption can yield hundreds of thousands of new jobs. Broadband empowers small businesses to compete and grow and will ensure that the jobs and industries of tomorrow are created in the United States.
The economic benefits of broadband go hand-in-hand with social benefits and the potential for vast improvements in the quality of life for all Americans. The National Broadband Plan will describe concrete ways in which broadband can be a part of 21st century solutions to some of our nation's most pressing challenges, including:
Full Story Julius Genachowski: America’s 2020 Broadband Vision.
Kansas lawmaker compares rape to auto theft.
Kansas lawmakers are currently considering a law that would bar insurance providers from covering elective abortions — unless a woman pays extra for a special plan. The problem with such coverage, however, is that it forces women to “plan for a completely unexpected event.” The bill “wouldn’t apply to abortions performed to save the life of a woman, or to pregnancies resulting from rape or incest.” However, in the latter case, women would first be forced to file a police report:
The bill would require a police report to be filed if the woman wants an abortion to be covered by her insurance under the incest or rape exemptions. [...]
“You’d have to have a report that someone stole your car,” said Rep. Steve Brunk, a Bel Aire Republican. “This is kind of the same thing.”
Full Story Think Progress » Kansas lawmaker compares rape to auto theft..
Dan Coats’ Lobbying Firm Pitches Clients To Exploit Citizens United To Influence Elections In ‘Dynamic’ Ways
Following the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, the “floodgates” have opened for enhanced corporate spending on elections. As ThinkProgress has reported, foreign-owned subsidiaries and foreign shareholders in American corporations are preparing to pour their resources into defeating and electing candidates of their choice.
While Democrats in Congress have already put forward proposals to develop clean elections, the GOP is largely championing the new status quo of limitless power for corporations. Guiding corporations into this new uncharted territory of election law, lobbyists and specialized law firms have stepped up to the plate. Among lobbying shops offering post-Citizens United assistance to corporate clients is a firm called King and Spalding, the firm of Indiana GOP Senate candidate Dan Coats. King and Spalding recently released a document promising to corporate clients:
New Opportunities for Corporations to Engage in Election Campaigns: [...] Citizens United provides corporations with the ability to engage in the political process in dynamic ways. [...] While not every corporation will want to buy advertisements that simply ask the public to vote for or against a candidate, every corporation should view the Citizens United decision as providing new tools to assist it in advancing policies and legislation that are in its shareholders’ interests.
Second City: SNOWMAGEDDON ETIQUETTE – at work
By Andy Cobb and The Second City
You shouldn’t hurt people who disagree with you. But a little urine never hurt anybody who wasn’t drowning in it.*
Stay warm, everybody.
Featuring Second City Alumni Andy Cobb and Nyima Funk
*Anyone drowning in urine probably has more pressing issues to worry about then their carbon footprint anyway, and can be excused from this whole nasty climate argument. Good luck to them all.
Peak oil notes – Energy Bulletin
Prices and production
Oil prices have been volatile this week, opening at $75 on Monday, falling below $73 on Tuesday and closing at $77.33 on Wednesday. The prospects for a Greek bail-out, movement of the Euro, and hopes for a US economic recovery were major factors behind the activity. On Tuesday, oil prices gained nearly 4 percent on a falling dollar and a stock market rally. While the weekly stocks report has been delayed until Thursday because of the President’s day holiday, the API reported that US crude inventories fell by 63,000 barrels; gasoline and distillate inventories increased by nearly 3 million barrels, suggesting that demand remains weak.
MasterCard reported that US gasoline demand fell to the lowest level in since the 2008 Gulf hurricanes last week; however, record snowstorms across the much of the US kept drivers off the roads.
Iran
The US stepped up the pressure on Iran this week with Secretary of State Clinton, National Security Advisor Jones and JCS Chairman Admiral Mullins all making public statements concerning the situation. Clinton said evidence is accumulating that Iran intends to produce nuclear weapons and is headed towards a Revolutionary Guard military dictatorship, while Jones and Mullins talked of imposing tough sanctions on Iran. According to the Israeli press, Mullins told reporters in Israel that a military strike option is still on the table. The New York Times ran a story saying that after a year of diplomatic efforts, the Obama administration was nearing the end of its patience with Tehran.
Full Story Peak oil notes – Feb 18 | Energy Bulletin.
Honda – solar hydrogen prototype in Los Angeles
Honda has started operations for a solar powered hydrogen fuelling station, at the Los Angeles Center of Honda Research and Development Americas.
The power station is intended to used in people’s homes, so they can fill up hydrogen vehicles themselves. The unit will fit in a garage.
The system has been designed so it does not need a compressor (the compressor was the largest and most expensive component).
Full Story The Hydrogen Journal.
Matt Taibbi: Wall Street’s Bailout Hustle
Goldman Sachs and other big banks aren’t just pocketing the trillions we gave them to rescue the economy – they’re re-creating the conditions for another crash
On January 21st, Lloyd Blankfein left a peculiar voicemail message on the work phones of his employees at Goldman Sachs. Fast becoming America’s pre-eminent Marvel Comics supervillain, the CEO used the call to deploy his secret weapon: a pair of giant, nuclear-powered testicles. In his message, Blankfein addressed his plan to pay out gigantic year-end bonuses amid widespread controversy over Goldman’s role in precipitating the global financial crisis.
The bank had already set aside a tidy $16.2 billion for salaries and bonuses — meaning that Goldman employees were each set to take home an average of $498,246, a number roughly commensurate with what they received during the bubble years. Still, the troops were worried: There were rumors that Dr. Ballsachs, bowing to political pressure, might be forced to scale the number back. After all, the country was broke, 14.8 million Americans were stranded on the unemployment line, and Barack Obama and the Democrats were trying to recover the populist high ground after their bitch-whipping in Massachusetts by calling for a “bailout tax” on banks. Maybe this wasn’t the right time for Goldman to be throwing its annual Roman bonus orgy.
Not to worry, Blankfein reassured employees. “In a year that proved to have no shortage of story lines,” he said, “I believe very strongly that performance is the ultimate narrative.”
Full Story Wall Street’s Bailout Hustle : Rolling Stone.
The European Bosses Are Ready To Crucify Goldman For Their Sins
The practice wasn’t secret and it wasn’t illegal, and some of it happened 10 or 15 years ago. But the practice of European governments reportedly using complex financial transactions to move debt off their books is getting closer attention from markets and the European Union.
The deals, known as swaps, let some governments shrink the apparent size of ther deficits, unsettling news at a time when markets are taking stock of Europe’s struggle with increased levels of government debt.
Greece has until Friday to disclose to the European Commission how it used complex currency swap deals and whether they were used to conceal the real scale of its debt — specifically a 2002 deal that Greek officials said they did with U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs.
Under the deal, known as a currency swap, Greek dollar and yen debt was reportedly exchanged for euro debt for a period at an advantageous rate to be reversed at a later date. The effect was to show less debt in the near-term.
Full Story The European Bosses Are Ready To Crucify Goldman For Their Sins.
CPAC: Brought To You By Unionized Workers
The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), an annual congregation of archconservative activists and right-wing politicos, is beginning today in Washington D.C. thanks to a labor union.
The event, taking place at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel until this Sunday, is being run by unionized staff who will serve drinks and other amenities to those who are attending the convention.
“It’s been here for a very long time,” says one hotel worker, noting that the hotel has been unionized for years. Another server next to him dons a Unite Here Local 25 button on his uniform. The union represents around 7,000 workers in the hotel and food service industries in the Washington area.
Full Story CampusProgress.org | The Bullhorn: CPAC: Brought To You By Unionized Workers.
US new jobless claims post surprise jump
New claims for jobless insurance benefits in the United States posted a surprise rise, the Labor Department said Thursday amid concerns unemployment could dampen economic recovery.
The seasonally adjusted initial claims in the week ending February 13 rose to 473,000, an increase of 31,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 442,000, the Labor Department said.
The latest claims reading was larger than the forecast of most economists of around 430,000, as the world's largest economy emerged from its worst recession in decades with unemployment posing a key challenge.
Full Story US new jobless claims post surprise jump – Yahoo! News.
Coup under way in Niger
A coup attempt is under way in Niger with the country’s President Mamadou Tandja described by a senior French official is ‘not in a good position’.
Smoke was seen rising from Niger’s presidential palace in what an intelligence officer said was a coup attempt President Mamadou Tandja’s guardsmen were trying to put down.
President Tandja, ruler of the uranium exporting central African nation for a decade, has come under heavy domestic and international criticism for last year orchestrating a reshuffle of the constitution to entrench and extend his power.
Full Story RTÉ News: Coup under way in Niger.
In a doomsday cyber attack scenario, answers are unsettling
What if a crippling attack struck the country’s digital infrastructure? Experts including current and former officials tackle the question. The results show that the peril is real and growing.
Reporting from Washington – The crisis began when college basketball fans downloaded a free March Madness application to their smart phones. The app hid spyware that stole passwords, intercepted e-mails and created havoc.
Soon 60 million cellphones were dead. The Internet crashed, finance and commerce collapsed, and most of the nation’s electric grid went dark. White House aides discussed putting the Army in American cities.
That, spiced up with bombs and hurricanes, formed the doomsday scenario when 10 former White House advisors and other top officials joined forces Tuesday in a rare public cyber war game designed to highlight the potential vulnerability of the nation’s digital infrastructure to crippling attack.
The results were hardly reassuring.
“We’re in uncharted territory here,” was the most common refrain during a three-hour simulated crisis meeting of the National Security Council, the crux of the Cyber Shockwave exercise.
Full Story In a doomsday cyber attack scenario, answers are unsettling – latimes.com.
OPS: Of course our eVoting machines are perfectly safe 
Pew Study Finds States Face $2.73 Trillion Bill for Retiree Benefits
States have promised at least $2.73 trillion in pension, health care and other retirement benefits for public employees over the next three decades, according to a report released today by The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Center on the States. Promises with a Price, the first 50-state analysis of its kind, finds that states have saved enough to cover about 85 percent of their long-term pension costs, but only 3 percent of the funds needed for promised retiree health care and other non-pension benefits. All told, states already have set aside about $2 trillion to meet their long-term obligations. But they still need to come up with about $731 billion—a conservative figure that does not include all costs for teachers and local government employees.
Pensions Report Chart“Now we know the magnitude of this bill—and paying it will require an enormous investment of taxpayer dollars,” said Susan Urahn, managing director of the Pew Center on the States. “For states that have dug themselves into a deep hole, there are no quick and easy solutions—but there are fiscally responsible steps all states can take. These will require time, attention and, above all, political will.”
Full Story Pew Study Finds States Face $2.73 Trillion Bill for Retiree Benefits – The Pew Charitable Trusts.
Lawmakers to launch bipartisan effort to rewrite No Child Left Behind
Senior House Republicans and Democrats plan to announce Thursday that they will team up to rewrite the No Child Left Behind education law, a rare show of bipartisanship in the polarized Congress.
Last month, the Obama administration launched talks with lawmakers on an overhaul of the 2002 law, which mandated an expansion of standardized testing and established a national framework for school accountability. This month, President Obama‘s budget proposed eliminating the standard of “adequate yearly progress” for schools to close test-score achievement gaps, a key element of the law.
Many analysts say time is growing short for passage of a major education bill before the midterm elections because Congress is consumed by the economy, health care and financial regulation, among other issues.
Full Story Lawmakers to launch bipartisan effort to rewrite No Child Left Behind – washingtonpost.com.
OPS: …because bipartisan efforts have worked so well up to this point? They must have finally answered Bush’s question “Is our children learning?” and found the answer to be – no.
HHS warns of double-digit spike in health premiums
Eye-popping health insurance premium increases of up to 39 percent are not an exception but a worrisome sign of the times, the Obama administration said in a report Thursday.
Proposed premium increases by Anthem Blue Cross for Californians purchasing their own coverage set off a wave of criticism and forced the company last week to announce a postponement. Now, the Health and Human Services Department says similar pressure on premiums is being felt in at least six other states.
“This shocking increase isn’t unique,” said the report, being presented by Secretary Kathleen Sebelius at a news conference Thursday. “Across the country, families have seen their premiums skyrocket in recent years, and experts predict these increases will continue.”
Full Story HHS warns of double-digit spike in health premiums – Yahoo! News.
Obama’s Nuclear Option
Amy Goodman -
President Barack Obama is going nuclear. He announced the initial $8 billion in loan guarantees for construction of the first new nuclear power plants in the United States in close to three decades. Obama is making good on a campaign pledge, like his promises to escalate the war in Afghanistan and to unilaterally attack in Pakistan. And like his “Af-Pak” war strategy, Obama’s publicly financed resuscitation of the nuclear power industry in the U.S. is bound to fail, another taxpayer bailout waiting to happen.
Opponents of the plan, which includes a tripling of existing nuclear plant construction-loan guarantees to $54.5 billion, span the ideological spectrum. On its most basic level, the economics of nuclear power generation simply doesn’t make sense. The cost to construct these behemoths is so huge, and the risks are so great, that no sensible investor, no banks, no hedge funds will invest in their construction.
No one will loan a power company the money to build a power plant, and the power companies refuse to spend their own money. Obama himself professes a passion for the free market, telling Bloomberg BusinessWeek, “We are fierce advocates for a thriving, dynamic free market.” Well, the free market long ago abandoned nuclear power. The right-wing think tank Heritage Foundation remarked, “Expansive loan guarantee programs … are wrought with problems. At a minimum, they create taxpayer liabilities, give recipients preferential treatment, and distort capital markets.”
Full Story Amy Goodman: Obama’s Nuclear Option – Truthdig.
Broad New Hacking Attack Detected – But Not Stopped
Global Offensive Snagged Corporate, Personal Data at nearly 2,500 Companies; Operation Is Still Running
Hackers in Europe and China successfully broke into computers at nearly 2,500 companies and government agencies over the last 18 months in a coordinated global attack that exposed vast amounts of personal and corporate secrets to theft, according to a computer-security company that discovered the breach.
The damage from the latest cyberattack is still being assessed, and affected companies are still being notified. But data compiled by NetWitness, the closely held firm that discovered the breaches, showed that hackers gained access to a wide array of data at 2,411 companies, from credit-card transactions to intellectual property.
The hacking operation, the latest of several major hacks that have raised alarms for companies and government officials, is still running and it isn’t clear to what extent it has been contained, NetWitness said. Also unclear is the full amount of data stolen and how it was used. Two companies that were infiltrated, pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. and Cardinal Health Inc., said they had isolated and contained the problem.
Full Story Broad New Hacking Attack Detected – WSJ.com.
Yvo de Boer, UN Climate Chief, Resigns To Work For KPMG
Top U.N. climate change official Yvo de Boer told The Associated Press Thursday that he was resigning after nearly four years, a period when governments struggled without success to agree on a new global warming deal.
His departure takes effect July 1, five months before 193 nations are due to reconvene in Mexico for another attempt to reach a binding worldwide accord on controlling greenhouse gases.
De Boer is known to be deeply disappointed with outcome of the last summit in Copenhagen, which drew 120 world leaders but failed to reach more than a vague promise by several countries to limit carbon emissions – and even that deal fell short of consensus.
Full Story Yvo de Boer, UN Climate Chief, Resigns To Work For KPMG.
OPS: Bought off?
Agreement Is Near on New Overseer of Banking Risks
Treasury Expected To Lead Bank Oversight Council
The Senate and the Obama administration are nearing agreement on forming a council of regulators, led by the Treasury secretary, to identify systemic risk to the nation’s financial system, officials said Wednesday.
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The issue is one of the most fundamental in the contentious effort to overhaul regulation after the financial crisis, and addresses one of the primary lessons of the near debacle: that no one had been assigned to ensure the stability of the system as a whole and detect the kinds of excessive risk-taking and imbalances that could rock an entire economy.
Assigning the Treasury Department the job of spotting incipient trouble and addressing it quickly has support among senators from both parties, though several important provisions, including whether the council would have the ability to bypass existing banking regulators and impose its own rules on huge financial firms, remain to be worked out.
Full Story Agreement Is Near on New Overseer of Banking Risks – NYTimes.com.
Half of world’s primate species endangered, report says
Nearly half the world’s primate species are in danger of extinction, according to a report released Wednesday by a major conservation group.
The main threat facing primates — including apes, monkeys, and lemurs — is tropical forest destruction, with the illegal wildlife trade and commercial bush meat hunting also playing roles.
Scientists say primates are humankind’s closest animal relatives.
Of the world’s 634 primate species, 48 percent are threatened with extinction, according to the report, issued by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The Switzerland-based group calls itself the world’s oldest global environmental organization.
Full Story Half of world’s primate species endangered, report says – CNN.com.
South Carolina Lawmaker Seeks to Ban Federal Currency
South Carolina Rep. Mike Pitts has introduced legislation that would mandate that gold and silver coins replace federal currency as legal tender in his state.
As the Palmetto Scoop first reported, Pitts, a Republican, introduced legislation this month banning “the unconstitutional substitution of Federal Reserve Notes for silver and gold coin” in South Carolina.
In an interview, Pitts told Hotsheet that he believes that “if the federal government continues to spend money at the rate it’s spending money, and if it continues to print money at the rate it’s printing money, our economic system is going to collapse.”
Full Story South Carolina Lawmaker Seeks to Ban Federal Currency – Political Hotsheet – CBS News.
Jobless Rate: The Truth Bubble?
Worse than destroying the middle class, we are creating a Lower Class like that found in third world countries.
Can you trust national averages? As bad as the jobless data you hear are, you have not been told the whole truth. If you think the terrible impact of America’s Great Recession is shown by an official unemployment rate of about 10 percent, think again.
Economic inequality and the myth of Reagan trickle down logic are shown by new data from the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston. The report noted: “What has been missing from the public debate over the labor market crisis is an honest and detailed analysis of which American workers have been most adversely affected by the deep deterioration in labor markets.” The researchers found a correlation between household income and unemployment rate in the last quarter of 2009: Look carefully at these numbers and see how unemployment rises as income drops:
$150,000 or more, 3.2 percent
$100,000 to 149,999, 8 percent
$75,000 to $99,999, 5 percent
$60,000 to $75,000, 6.4 percent
$50,000 to $59,000, 7.8 percent
$40,000 to $49,000, 9 percent
$30,000 to $39,999, 12.2 percent
$20,000 to $29,999, 19.7 percent
$12,500 to $20,000, 19.1 percent
$12,499 or less, 30.8 percent
Full Story Jobless Rate: The Truth Bubble? | Economy In Crisis.
BofA Sought outsourcing patent, ex-Sen. Coats’ firm lobbied on its behalf
In May 2008, in the midst of the recession, Bank of America sought to turn exporting American jobs into a profitable business based solely on a formula.
Even with Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh bowing out of November’s U.S. Senate race in Indiana, Democrats are continuing to attack the likely Republican nominee, former Sen. Dan Coats.
[Bank of America] In a report in the Evansville Courier & Press last week, it was revealed that Coats’ lobbying firm represented Bank of America while it sought approval to patent an outsourcing formula.
In May 2008, in the midst of the recession, the banking giant that would later receive $45 billion in TARP money, $118 billion in potential losses guaranteed by the federal government and another $5.2 billion in taxpayer money channeled to it through American International Group, sought to turn exporting American jobs into a profitable business based solely on a formula.
Full Story BofA Sought outsourcing patent, ex-Sen. Coats’ firm lobbied on its behalf | Economy In Crisis.
We Need to Rescind Permanent Normal Trade Relations With China
Byron Dorgan -
There are many good examples that illustrate the failure of U.S. trade policy over the last two decades – but none is as significant as our trading relationship with China.
Our country has short-sightedly embraced the following bargain. We get all kinds of cheap products from China, produced and exported under unfair conditions and sold at big-box retailers like Wal-Mart. In exchange, we allow our manufacturing base to be decimated and we assume a growing debt with the Chinese.
The numbers tell the story. In 2000, when the United States granted permanent normal trade relations with China, our merchandise trade deficit with China stood at $83 billion. By the end of last year, that trade deficit had exploded to $233 billion. Today, for every six dollars of merchandise that we buy from China, the Chinese buy only one dollar of merchandise from us.
Full Story We Need to Rescind Permanent Normal Trade Relations With China | Economy In Crisis.
Going To Economic War With Failed Intelligence
The actions by foreign governments for their companies make it impossible for US companies to compete
When Congress and the President enacted NAFTA in 1994, membership in the WTO in 1995, and gave permanent normalized trade relations (PNTR) to China in 2000, they took away the final defenses this country had in defending its industry and standard of living
Failed intelligence: They did so with the belief that such policy would encourage exports out of this country and raise the standard of living in other countries. The results couldn’t have been more completely opposite.
Here are the facts in the 16 years since NAFTA passed:
We had a small trade surplus with Mexico in 1993 before signing onto NAFTA. By 2007, 14 years after signing NAFTA, that surplus turned into a $91 billion deficit with Mexico. The combined deficit with Canada and Mexico together increased to $190 billion – an astounding 691 percent increase.
Full Story Going To Economic War With Failed Intelligence | Economy In Crisis.
Cheney’s Crimes and Confessions: Torture Is the Least of It
David Swanson - Dick Cheney’s statutory crimes are notable for their severity, their number, and his public confessions to them. Torture is the least of it.
We can start with the crimes found in the three articles of impeachment contained in H Res 333 in the 110th Congress:
1. “Cheney has purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States by fabricating a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to justify the use of the United States Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq in a manner damaging to our national security interests, to wit:” (H Res 333 goes on to list evidence).
2. “Cheney purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States about an alleged relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda in order to justify the use of the United States Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq in a manner damaging to our national security interests, to wit” (H Res 333 goes on to list evidence).
Full Story Cheney’s Crimes and Confessions: Torture Is the Least of It | Let’s Try Democracy.
Senator John Mellencamp? Grassroots Movement Swells for Rocker to Run for Bayh’s Indiana Seat
He’s got the home-state credibility and a history of issue-oriented political engagement that rival of any of the Democratic contenders for the spot.
The guy who put populist politics on the charts with a song title “Pink Houses” John Mellencamp performed at the White House last week, as part of a program titled: “In Performance at the White House: A Celebration of Music from the Civil Rights Movement.”
The Rock-and-Roll Hall of Fame member sang the song “Jim Crow” with veteran folkie Joan Baez — as well as a terrific song version of “Keep Your Eyes on the Prize” — on a night that also featured performances by Smokey Robinson, Natalie Cole, Yolanda Adams, the Five Blind Boys from Alabama and Bob Dylan, among others.
That was powerful company, but Mellencamp was up to it.
For the past quarter century, he has been penning and performing smart, often very political songs — focusing on the farm crisis, economic hard times and race relations. He’s been a key organizer of Farm Aid and other fund-raising events for good causes, and he’s been a steady presence on the campaign trail in recent years, appearing at the side of numerous Democratic presidential candidates, including Barack Obama.
New Rule Crushes Organic Mega-Dairies and Is Good News for Small Farms
A new ruling closes several loopholes that mega-dairies have been using to exploit the organic market with milk from farms that hardly resemble real organic farms
Proponents of small farms and organic watchdog groups found themselves in unfamiliar waters recently: cheering the USDA for tightening the definitions of organic meat and dairy. On February 12th the agency passed what some are calling the most sweeping rewrite of federal organic standards since their inception in 2002.
The ruling, called Access to Pasture, closes several loopholes that mega-dairies have been using to exploit the organic market with milk from farms that hardly resemble the farms that inspired the now $24.6 billion organic industry.
The ruling also leaves wide open a huge question on feeding restrictions — or lack thereof — for organic beef cows. A 60-day comment period is open until April 19.
Access to Pasture mandates organic meat and dairy cattle must graze for the entirety of the growing season, with a minimum of 120 days spent on pasture. At least 30 percent of total annual caloric intake must come from grazing.
Full Story New Rule Crushes Organic Mega-Dairies and Is Good News for Small Farms | Food | AlterNet.
3 Easy Ways to Smack Down Wall Street
A strategy for winning the next round of the finance debate sets up the progressive case for real reform, for the next time the bankers wreck our economy.
Sad, but true: The Democrats are already well on their way to screwing up financial reform the exact same way they screwed up health reform.
Yes, it’s depressing to think about, but the telltale signs are all there: we’ve got Democratic senators negotiating with Republicans to water down reform legislation passed in the House. For the past year Capitol Hill has been teeming with lobbyists working overtime to kill any significant reform. And of course, GOP flacks like Frank Luntz are penning sleazy memos advising Republicans on the best ways to kill financial reform before it even comes up for a vote.
So the chances of getting real, effective reform passed this year are somewhere between zero and some incredibly minuscule number science has yet to discover. Fortunately, this gives progressives the chance to engage in some long-term messaging to set up for stronger, better action in the future. Because when the next major financial collapse comes, progressives have to put ourselves in a position to say, “We tried to warn you, dummies.” The following is a strategy blueprint for winning the next round of the finance debate, something that will hopefully set up the progressive case for real reform once the bankers break our economy again.
Full Story 3 Easy Ways to Smack Down Wall Street | Economy | AlterNet.
How the Unconscious Mind Can Act Out Our Prejudices
Most people report feeling no prejudice, making bias hard to identify. But a new book explores how our unconscious minds color every individual and collective decision we make.
The following is an excerpt from The Hidden Brain: How Our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars, and Save Our Lives by Shankar Vedantam (Random House, 2010).
Lilly Ledbetter’s life followed a clockwork routine. When she worked the night shift at the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company plant in Gadsden, Alabama, she came home from work around nine-thirty in the morning. She took a hot bath, laid out her work clothes for her next shift, and slept until the afternoon. At around five, she set off again for the plant. Her shift did not start until seven, but the route from her home in Jacksonville involved a stretch of about ten miles on a country road, where she sometimes got stuck behind a slow vehicle.
The rubber plant was solid, stolid work. During each shift, managers such as Lilly were given instructions that told them what they needed to get done. If the instructions-which were called a “schedule”-required Lilly’s team to make tread belts one night, she had to make sure she had all the components and labor in place before the shift started. The shift ran for twelve hours, but Lilly usually got to the plant early and stayed late. Lilly had once worked for a group of gynecologists, but she felt she was not cut out for medical work. She joined Goodyear when she was forty, straight out of a position with H&R Block. The tire company was a man’s world, and Lilly was the only female manager on the night shift. It didn’t bother her. If she kept her head down and worked hard, she knew she would be treated the same as everyone else.
Full Story How the Unconscious Mind Can Act Out Our Prejudices | Books | AlterNet.
Hypocritical Obama and Corporate Media Are Agressively Undermining Pot Normalization
While marijuana is more mainstream than ever, legalization still faces backlash from the powers that be.
Fourteen states have legalized marijuana for medicinal purposes; 13 more have medical marijuana ballot or legislative measures on the horizon. And medical pot has paved the way for all-out legalization; for the first time ever, polls consistently show that a majority of Americans — albeit a slim one — believe marijuana should be legalized for adults over 18.
Drug reform observers and activists are excitedly awaiting the results of the Tax Cannabis ballot initiative in California this November. While it is not the first time electorates will vote on marijuana legalization (Nevada and Colorado rejected similar measures in 2006; the city of Breckenridge, Colo. legalized it late last year), experts believe California is the first statewide initiative that stands a fighting chance, as AlterNet has reported.
Yet in spite of the positive trend, there are some ominous harbingers indicating that common-sense drug reform relating to marijuana still has a ways to go. Here are five signs that pot legalization faces government and corporate backlash (which may affect public opinion as well), in no particular order:
Full Story Hypocritical Obama and Corporate Media Are Agressively Undermining Pot Normalization | Drugs | AlterNet.
Israel Tightens Vice on Gaza Strip, UN Reports
The ability to bring essential commodities into Gaza, already under an Israeli blockade that is undermining health care, the economy and rehabilitation after last year’s devastating Israeli offensive, was further cut in January by more crossing closures, according to the latest United Nations update.
The UN and other humanitarian organizations have repeatedly called on Israel to immediately open all border crossings not only for basic necessities, which it allows in limited amounts, but for the reconstruction material needed to rebuild the scores of buildings destroyed by the offensive, which Israel says it launched to halt rocket attacks by Palestinian militants in Gaza.
Full Story Scoop: Israel Tightens Vice on Gaza Strip, UN Reports.
“Bipartisan” campaign targets US working class
Behind Obama’s overtures to Republican right
The Obama administration is announcing Thursday a new initiative for joint action by the Democratic Party and the Republican Party against American working people, when the leaders of a new bipartisan commission to slash the federal deficit are introduced at the White House.
Obama has selected Democrat Erskine Bowles, a banker and former White House chief of staff in the Clinton administration, and Republican Alan Simpson, a retired senator from Wyoming, to head the new commission. It will have a mandate to propose major cuts in entitlement programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, as well as regressive taxes such as a national sales tax or value-added tax, targeting working class consumers rather than the wealthy.
Under plans outlined by White House officials, Obama will select six commission members, four Democrats and two Republicans, while congressional Democratic and Republican leaders will select six members apiece. Given that the Democrats control both houses of Congress by large majorities, a narrow 10-8 Democratic majority on the 18-member commission is already a major concession to the ultra-right, and insures that tax increases on the wealthy will be excluded from consideration.
Full Story “Bipartisan” campaign targets US working class.
Banks Want to Foreclose on You: Here’s Why
I am a real estate broker, and as you can guess from my handle, in the (truly) great state of Texas. I watched this whole mortgage house of cards get built and I’ve watched it come crashing down. Here we didn’t get the skyrocketing prices experienced in CA, NV, FL, NY, AZ, et al. Instead, we got sprawl. And a lot of people who should not have been able to buy houses were able to buy houses, and it made the village idiot George W. Bush very very happy.
You know who else it made happy? Everyone collecting fees who were invited to the party, from mortgage lenders to home builders (to build a home here was to print money). That “giant sucking sound”? That was from Wall Street as it sucked up every and any mortgage that any mortgage broker or bank could originate, as the Wall Street banks stuffed these “bundles” of mortgages into their balance sheets, knowing full well that the risk of default was driven by a systemic problem: an economic downturn, which was inevitable at some point. In this I am positive that Wall Street knew damn well what they were doing with these exotic debt instruments and derivatives. They were loading every mortgage they could onto their books in a bid to become “too big to fail.” It’s not a conspiracy theory, it’s Occam’s Razor.
Full Story Daily Kos: Banks Want to Foreclose on You: Here’s Why.
Civil rights activist seeks to prove anti-terrorism law a violation of free speech
Ralph Fertig, a 79-year-old professor who has fought for civil rights most of his life, wants to be a public advocate for the oppressed Kurdish minority in Turkey.
The problem?
He's worried the US government, which calls the group a terrorist organization, will throw him in prison for 15 years as a collaborator.
So Fertig has challenged the law as the lead plaintiff in a case the Supreme Court will hear early next week.
Full Story Civil rights activist seeks to prove anti-terrorism law a violation of free speech | Raw Story.
‘By normal beliefs,’ Cheney committed war crime: John Dean
Former Vice President Dick Cheney may have acknowledged his complicity in a war crime when he told an interviewer on Sunday that he was “a big supporter” of the Bush administration’s use of waterboarding on suspected terrorists.
Legal expert and one-time Nixon White House counsel John Dean appears to agree with that conclusion, although he cautiously told MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann on Tuesday that Cheney had merely “admitted to torture, which once was a war crime.”
“I’m not quite sure after the Bush administration lawyers got finished with it that it was,” Dean continued, though his tone of voice made it clear that he didn’t actually mean his words. “At least [Cheney] doesn’t seem to believe that it is. But by normal beliefs, it is a war crime.”
Full Story ‘By normal beliefs,’ Cheney committed war crime: John Dean | Raw Story.
Abuses in Student Debt Industry
We at the Investigative Fund are partnering with a team of graduate students at the Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism at Columbia University. The topic of their investigation is the student lending and debt collection industry, and they are asking for your help:
$527 billion.
That’s how much money Americans owe in student loan debt.
Last school year alone, U.S. students took out about $95 billion in loans.
And, according to the latest figures, college students are, on average, saddled with a record $23,200 in debt upon graduation.
As students and recent graduates confront the toughest job market in a generation, the squeeze to repay their school loans has incited countless conflicts with lenders and debt collectors.
Full Story Help Us Investigate: Abuses in Student Debt Industry | The Huffington Post Investigative Fund.
Accutane Lawsuit: Andrew McCarrell Wins $25 Million After Having Colon Removed
A New Jersey jury has hit the pharmaceutical company that makes Accutane with a $25.16 million judgment in a lawsuit filed by an Alabama man who blamed the drug for his inflammatory bowel disorder.
Thirty-eight-year-old Andrew McCarrell of Moody, Ala., took the acne drug in his 20s. He says Hoffmann-La Roche Inc. failed to adequately warn of its side effects. McCarrell eventually had his colon removed.
The compensatory damages award came Tuesday in a retrial. An appeals court overturned a $2.6 million judgment he won in May 2007.
Full Story Accutane Lawsuit: Andrew McCarrell Wins $25 Million After Having Colon Removed.
Tea Party Speaker: Hang Senator Patty Murray
A tea party gathering in Asotin County, Washington turned more than a bit ugly on Saturday when a featured speaker actually called for the hanging of Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash), the fourth ranking Democrat in the Senate and a vulnerable re-election candidate.
“How many of you have watched the movie Lonesome Dove?,” asked an unidentified female speaker from the podium. “What happened to Jake when he ran with the wrong crowd? What happened to Jake when he ran with the wrong crowd. He got hung. And that's what I want to do with Patty Murray.”
Full Story Tea Party Speaker: Hang Patty Murray.
Campaign Contributions Up Five Percent In Fourth Quarter As Big Donors Beg For The Begging To Stop
Campaign contributions to members of the House of Representatives increased 5.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009, according to a preliminary analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics. Contributions to members of the Senate increased by 2 percent.
“The fact that the economy is pretty weak and fundraising seems to be robust may speak to the idea that 2010 will be a big year,” said CRP spokesman Dave Levinthal in an interview with HuffPost. “If you look at business, charitable giving — everything’s struggling, and politics doesn’t seem to be.”
House members raised $78 million in campaign contributions (which HuffPost commenters like to call “bribes”) in the last three months of the year, bringing the total for 2009 to $294 million, according to CRP. The average representative raked in $680,000. Senators raised $36 million in the fourth quarter, $152 million for the year. The average senator raised $1.6 million.
Full Story Campaign Contributions Up Five Percent In Fourth Quarter As Big Donors Beg For The Begging To Stop.
Tax Rates For America’s Top 400 Earners Fell As Income Soared In 2007, According To IRS
The earnings of the 400 highest-income Americans hit new highs in 2007 while the tax rates they paid hit new lows, according to a recent IRS report.
Former New York Times tax reporter David Cay Johnston reported the findings of the newly uncovered report for Tax Analysts:
In 2007 the top 400 taxpayers had an average income of $344.8 million, up 31 percent from their average $263.3 million income in 2006, according to figures in a report that the IRS posted to its Web site without announcement that were discovered February 16.
Bloomberg noted that the wealthy’s low tax rate can be directly attributed to the George W. Bush tax cuts. Bloomberg:
Almost three-quarters of the highest earners’ income was in capital gains and dividends taxed at a 15 percent rate set as part of Bush-backed tax cuts in 2003, the statistics show. Of the 400 earners, 289 paid a total effective federal tax rate of 20 percent or less in 2007, the last year for which figures were available, the data show.
Full Story Tax Rates For America’s Top 400 Earners Fell As Income Soared In 2007, According To IRS.
The Marijuana Conspiracy – The Real Reason Hemp is Illegal
Pot is NOT harmful to the human body or mind. Marijuana does NOT pose a threat to the general public. Marijuana is very much a danger to the oil companies, alcohol, tobacco industries and a large number of chemical corporations. Various big businesses, with plenty of dollars and influence, have suppressed the truth from the people. The truth is if marijuana was utilized for its vast array of commercial products, it would create an industrial atomic bomb! Entrepreneurs have not been educated on the product potential of pot. The super rich have conspired to spread misinformation about an extremely versatile plant that, if used properly, would ruin their companies.
Where did the word ‘marijuana’ come from? In the mid 1930s, the M-word was created to tarnish the good image and phenomenal history of the hemp plant…as you will read. The facts cited here, with references, are generally verifiable in the Encyclopedia Britannica which was printed on hemp paper for 150 years:
Full Story Make A History.
Hundreds of economists call for tax on currency speculation
Some 350 prominent economists from all over the world have written to the leaders of the G20 calling on them to implement the so-called "Robin Hood tax" on the banks "as a matter of urgency".
Two Nobel prizewinners, including the outspoken critic of the financial system Joseph Stiglitz, and scores of professors at universities from Harvard to Kyoto, are calling on G20 governments to back a financial transactions tax on speculative dealings in foreign currencies, shares and other securities of 0.05 per cent – say £500 on a £1m transaction.
Full Story Hundreds of economists call for tax on currency speculation – Business News, Business – The Independent.
More States Move Toward Single-Payer Healthcare
by: David Swanson,
A bill to create single-payer healthcare in California has passed that state’s senate for the third time now. Californians just need to persuade a governor to sign it. Single-payer healthcare bills are advancing in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Minnesota, Massachusetts, and a growing list of states, including New Mexico, where State Senator Jerry Ortiz y Pino, a long-time supporter of single-payer healthcare, is running for Lieutenant Governor.
Now North Carolina house candidate Marcus Brandon has pledged to introduce a bill to create single-payer healthcare in that state. Brandon, whom I know and like and who worked for Congressman Dennis Kucinich’s 2008 presidential campaign, is a candidate in North Carolina House District 60. That’s near Greensboro, where I can just picture Marcus sitting at a lunch counter and refusing to be provoked.
Brandon has promised that if he is elected, the first piece of legislation he will introduce will be the “North Carolina Healthcare Act” which will provide universal single-payer healthcare to every citizen of the state.
Full Story t r u t h o u t | More States Move Toward Single-Payer Healthcare.
Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell Rolls Back Non-Discrimination Protections For Gay State Workers
Gay and lesbian state workers in Virginia are no longer specifically protected against discrimination, thanks to a little-noticed change made by new Gov. Bob McDonnell.
McDonnell (R) on Feb. 5 signed an executive order that prohibits discrimination “on the basis of race, sex, color, national origin, religion, age, political affiliation, or against otherwise qualified persons with disabilities,” as well as veterans.
It rescinds the order that Gov. Tim Kaine signed Jan. 14, 2006 as one of his first actions. After promising a “fair and inclusive” administration in his inaugural address, Kaine (D) added veterans to the non-discrimination policy – and sexual orientation.
Full Story Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell Rolls Back Non-Discrimination Protections For Gay State Workers | TPMDC.
Report on Marines’ water omitted cancer chemical
An environmental contractor dramatically underreported the level of a cancer-causing chemical found in tap water at Camp Lejeune, then omitted it altogether as the Marine base prepared for a federal health review, an Associated Press review has found.
The Marine Corps had been warned nearly a decade earlier about the dangerously high levels of benzene, which was traced to massive leaks from fuel tanks at the base on the North Carolina coast, according to recently disclosed studies.
For years, Marines who served at Camp Lejeune have blamed their families' cancers and other ailments on tap water tainted by dry cleaning solvents, and many accuse the military of covering it up. The benzene was discovered as part of a broader, ongoing probe into that contamination.
Full Story Report on Marines’ water omitted cancer chemical – AP News Wire, Associated Press News – Salon.com.
Greece Bans Cash Transactions Over 1,500 Euros
Greece outlined on Tuesday its public sector incomes policy and a tax reform bill, as part of an EU-endorsed plan to increase state revenues and reduce its huge deficit.
Bonds
The following are comments by Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou at a press conference:
IMPACT OF REFORMS
“The total benefit of our incomes policy will be around 800 million euros.
EU
“EU partners and markets will closely monitor the implementation of our fiscal plan, I believe that the response will be positive. The measures that we have announced are becoming action”
Full Story HIGHLIGHTS-Greek FinMin unveils tax reform, wage policy | Reuters.
OPS: Will this happen in the US?
Five Reasons NOT to Invest in Nuclear Power
Yesterday, President Obama announced that the Energy department will provide an $8.3 billion loan guarantee to the Southern Co. for its proposed nuclear power plant near Augusta, GA. “The loan guarantee program for new nuclear power plants not only will further the nation’s commitment to clean energy, Obama said, “but also will assist in creating jobs in American communities.” Unfortunately, nuclear energy isn’t safe or clean and it’s too costly for the nation.
News coverage has been mostly supportive and, in some cases, bordering on cheerleading. In his blog for the Atlantic magazine, Editor Daniel Indiviglio laid out “five reasons to cheer Obama’s ambition.” Let’s take a closer look at these “five reasons.”
Reason #1: “Nuclear power is a known quantity. The U.S. has been successfully using this energy source for a very long time.”
Nuclear power is certainly well known to Wall Street, which despite its recent debacles, has refused to fund power reactors for more than 30 years because of their financial risks. Reactor construction costs climbed as high as 380 percent above expectations during the boom period for nuclear in the 1970s. Nuclear investors eventually wrote off about $17 billion. Consider the 1979 Three Mile Island Accident, in which TMI investors lost about $2 billion in about an hour, when the reactor core started to melt. Nuclear energy has depended primarily on the financial burden being born by the tax payer and rate payer. This is hardly a success story.
Full Story Robert Alvarez: Five Reasons NOT to Invest in Nuclear Power.
Did Lobbyists Push Off Regulation of BPA?
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported last weekend that the Environmental Protection Agency delayed regulation 
of the controversial chemical A – known as BPA – just eight days after industry lobbyists met with White House officials and “aggressively pleaded its case that BPA should not be flagged for greater regulation.”
Hundreds of studies have linked the chemical, which lines most food and beverage cans, to a litany of health problems, including cancer. Last month, the Food and Drug Administration reversed its 2008 conclusion that BPA was safe for everyone. (That decision, the Journal Sentinel reported previously in its series on BPA [4], was based on two studies paid for by the chemical industry.) And the National Toxicology Program has also expressed concern about BPA’s effect on fetuses and children, after analyzing 700 studies.
On Dec. 30, the EPA – which, the Journal Sentinel noted, has “a broader regulatory reach [than the FDA] when it comes to chemicals” – produced its list of chemicals that would be subject to stricter regulation. BPA was not on it, which surprised some, given that EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has publicly singled out BPA as high on her list of chemicals deserving tougher regulation. Now the agency says “it won't develop a tougher regulatory plan for the chemical for at least two years” (in the words of the Journal Sentinel).
Full Story On The Hill: Did Lobbyists Push Off Regulation of a Controversial Chemical?.
Paul Craig Roberts: A Country of Serfs
Rule by Oligarchs
The media has headlined good economic news: fourth quarter GDP growth of 5.7 percent (“the recession is over”), Jan. retail sales up, productivity up in 4th quarter, the dollar is gaining strength. Is any of it true? What does it mean?
The 5.7 percent growth figure is a guesstimate made in advance of the release of the U.S. trade deficit statistic. It assumed that the U.S. trade deficit would show an improvement. When the trade deficit was released a few days later, it showed a deterioration, knocking the 5.7 percent growth figure down to 4.6 percent. Much of the remaining GDP growth consists of inventory accumulation.
More than a fourth of the reported gain in Jan. retail sales is due to higher gasoline and food prices. Questionable seasonal adjustments account for the rest.
Productivity was up, because labor costs fell 4.4 percent in the fourth quarter, the fourth successive decline. Initial claims for jobless benefits rose. Productivity increases that do not translate into wage gains cannot drive the consumer economy.
Housing is still under pressure, and commercial real estate is about to become a big problem.
Full Story Paul Craig Roberts: A Country of Serfs.
Michael Hudson: Wall Street Moves in for the Kill
The War on Consumers and Labor Heats Up
By MICHAEL HUDSON
Former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson wrote an op-ed in The New York Times yesterday, February 16 outlining how to put the U.S. economy on rations. Not in those words, of course. Just the opposite: If the government hadn’t bailed out Wall Street’s bad loans, he claims, “unemployment could have exceeded the 25 per cent level of the Great Depression.” Without wealth at the top, there would be nothing to trickle down.
The reality, of course, is that bailing out casino capitalist speculators on the winning side of A.I.G.’s debt swaps and CDO derivatives didn’t save a single job. It certainly hasn’t lowered the economy’s debt overhead. But matters will soon improve, if Congress will dispel the present cloud of “uncertainty” as to whether any agency less friendly than the Federal Reserve might regulate the banks.
Paulson spelled out in step-by-step detail the strategy of “doing God’s work,” as his Goldman Sachs colleague Larry Blankfein sanctimoniously explained Adam Smith’s invisible hand. Now that pro-financial free-market doctrine is achieving the status of religion, I wonder whether this proposal violates the separation of church and state. Neoliberal economics may be a travesty of religion, but it is the closest thing to a Church that Americans have these days, replete with its Inquisition operating out of the universities of Chicago, Harvard and Columbia.
Full Story Michael Hudson: Wall Street Moves in for the Kill.
Oceans’ acidity rate is soaring, claims study
The rate at which the oceans are becoming more acidic is greater today than at any time in tens of millions of years, according to a new study.
Rapidly rising concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere mean that the rate of ocean acidification is the fastest since the age of the dinosaurs, which became extinct 65m years ago, scientists believe.
The oceans are likely to become so acidic in coming centuries that they will become uninhabitable for vast swathes of life, especially the little-studied organisms on the deep-sea floor which are a vital link in the marine food chain.
Scientists have concluded, in a study published today in the journal Nature Geoscience, that the current rate of ocean acidification is up to 10 times faster than 55m years ago – the last time the deep oceans became so acidic.
Full Story Oceans’ acidity rate is soaring, claims study – Nature, Environment – The Independent.
I80 Percent Of Americans Oppose Supreme Court’s Campaign Finance Decision
Memo to the Supreme Court: President Obama isn’t the only one who’s annoyed.
Obama raised eyebrows at his State of the Union address last month by criticizing the high court’s ruling throwing out limits on corporate spending in political campaigns. Turns out he’s got company: Our latest ABC News/Washington Post poll finds that 80 percent of Americans likewise oppose the ruling, including 65 percent who “strongly” oppose it, an unusually high intensity of sentiment.
Seventy-two percent, moreover, support the idea of a legislative workaround to try to reinstate the limits the court lifted.
The bipartisan nature of these views is striking in these largely partisan times. The court’s ruling is opposed, respectively, by 76, 81 and 85 percent of Republicans, independents and Democrats; and by 73, 85 and 86 percent of conservatives, moderates and liberals. Majorities in all these groups, ranging from 58 to 73 percent, not only oppose the ruling but feel strongly about it.
Full Story In Supreme Court Ruling on Campaign Finance, the Public Dissents – The Numbers.
Isaac Asimov Time Essay: The Nightmare Life Without Fuel
1977 -
Americans are so used to limitless energy supplies that they can hardly imagine what life might be like when the fuel really starts to run out. So TIME asked Science Writer Isaac Asimov for his vision of an energy-poor society that might exist at the end of the 20th century. The following portrait, Asimov noted, “need not prove to be accurate. It is a picture of the worst, of waste continuing, of oil running out, of nothing in its place, of world population continuing to rise. But then, that could happen, couldn’t it?”
So it’s 1997, and it’s raining, and you’ll have to walk to work again. The subways are crowded, and any given train breaks down one morning out of five. The buses are gone, and on a day like today the bicycles slosh and slide. Besides, you have only a mile and a half to go, and you have boots, raincoat and rain hat. And it’s not a very cold rain, so why not?
Lucky you have a job in demolition too. It’s steady work.
Slow and dirty, but steady. The fading structures of a decaying city are the great mineral mines and hardware shops of the nation. Break them down and re-use the parts. Coal is too difficult to dig up and transport to give us energy in the amounts we need, nuclear fission is judged to be too dangerous, the technical breakthrough toward nuclear fusion that we hoped for never took place, and solar batteries are too expensive to maintain on the earth’s surface in sufficient quantity.
Full Story Time Essay: The Nightmare Life Without Fuel – TIME.
Italy Now Suspected Of Using Derivatives To Hide Their Debt Problem, Just Like Greece
Eurostat now suspects that other European nations, potentially even crisis-stricken Italy, could be hiding the extent of their debt problem using swaps just like Greece has.
If multiple nations have been fooling the Eurozone’s own statistical office, then we really can’t be sure what the Eurozone’s aggregate financial situation really is, now can we.
This could be bad news for the euro if the practice was widespread:
EU Observer:
“In case there is reason to expect that these kind of techniques have been used by other member states, not only Greece, then we will request information from other member states,” said Mr Rehn.
The Finnish politician said Eurostat had no evidence of other capitals using the swaps, but the statistics agency was also unaware of Athens’ activities until very recently.
Full Story Italy Now Suspected Of Using Derivatives To Hide Their Debt Problem, Just Like Greece.
‘A Military Strike at Iran Would Be a Colossal Mistake’: An Interview with Russian Security Council Deputy Secretary Vladimir Nazarov”
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said last week that Iran's latest statements and actions were compelling the United States “. . . and other countries” to resort to stiff sanctions. Russian Security Council Deputy Secretary Vladimir Nazarov said in his turn that Moscow might support sanctions but that they must be “adequate to the threat presented by the Iranian nuclear program” and must “not punish the Iranian people.” Nazarov added that Russia is trying to persuade its Western partners to find a diplomatic solution to the problem instead of “driving Iran into a corner.” This interview was conducted by Interfax correspondent Pavel Koryashkin for Kommersant.
Q: Previously, Russia supported Iran and opposed sanctions. These days, however, the impression is that Russia supports the West in its stand on the matter. What happened?
Vladimir Nazarov: We are concerned about conflicting signals from Iran, including the ones sent in response to the proposals of the Six-Party Group and the IAEA. We certainly believe that Iran should be more cooperative with the IAEA.
The 11 Democrats who will decide the fate of healthcare reform
To pass healthcare reform through reconciliation, Senate Democrats need at least two of these wavering votes
The White House is convening a healthcare reform “summit” next week, with Republican and Democratic leaders from the House and Senate. But now that Democrats have lost their 60-vote Senate supermajority, it’s already clear that the options for passing reform legislation have dwindled down to a very short list. Armed with a newfound zeal for filibusters, the GOP won’t let the Senate pass any new healthcare bills. So the House will have to pass the bill the Senate has already finished, and then a separate measure, which would “fix” parts of the Senate bill that the House doesn’t like, would pass through the budget reconciliation process.
Thanks to the Senate’s complicated rules, that would leave Democrats needing to find 51 votes for healthcare reform, not the 60 that now look completely out of reach. But even with the 59 seats the Democrats (or like-minded independents) control, getting just those 51 votes could be tricky. The reconciliation bill will need to be carefully tailored, to make sure it doesn’t leave itself open to challenges from the GOP. And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada may still need to put some pressure on anxious members of his caucus to make sure they stay in line. “You get right down to 51 votes” in whip counts, one Senate Democratic aide says. Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet’s decision to send a letter asking Reid to include a public insurance option in a reconciliation bill gave some hope to Democrats who had wondered if he would even support using reconciliation.
Full Story Healthcare Reform – Salon.com.
Hoyer: GOP ‘abusing’ Senate rules to block Democrats’ bills
Republicans are guilty of “abusing” Senate rules to block pieces of legislation, the second-ranking House Democrat charged Wednesday.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said the Senate is “broken,” while absolving Democratic leaders in the Senate of culpability for slow-moving legislation
“I believe the Senate is broken. I don’t think it’s Harry Reid’s fault, the Democratic leader,” Hoyer said during an appearance on MSNBC. “What I think it is is the Republican leadership has determined that failure and gridlock are to its political benefit, and as a result, we’ve had more requests for cloture or filibuster votes than at any time in history.”
House Democrats have bemoaned the lack of progress on bills they have passed but have been met with resistance in the Senate. That frustration is likely to grow now that Republicans have 41 votes in the upper chamber, allowing them to sustain a filibuster.
Full Story Hoyer: GOP ‘abusing’ Senate rules to block Democrats’ bills – The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room.
OPS: Hoyer afraid that the Demos will change the rules?
GAO Report: Mountaintop-removal damage outlives ‘reclamation’
- Mountaintop-removal mining continues to damage the environment long after regulators sign off that mine sites have been properly reclaimed, according to a new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
GAO investigators found that mountaintop removal damages water quality, reforestation efforts need improvement, and mine operators often do not comply with the approximate original contour reclamation requirement.
And in a 68-page report to Congress, the GAO said federal and state regulators could do more to limit the damage and to ensure mine operators are held financially responsible for cleaning up industry messes.
“Mountaintop-removal mining has lasting and far-reaching effects on surrounding lands and streams,” said Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., who requested the GAO study.
Lobby Firm Tells Clients How To Sway Elections While Avoiding ‘Public Scrutiny’
In the wake of last month’s Citizens United ruling, a powerhouse Washington lobbying firm is informing its corporate clients on how they can use middlemen like the Chamber of Commerce to pour unlimited amounts of money into political campaigns, while maintaining “sufficient cover” to avoid “public scrutiny” and negative media coverage.
A “Public Policy and Law Alert” on the impact of the Supreme Court’s ruling, prepared by two lawyers for K&LGates and posted on the firm’s site last Friday, notes that, thanks to disclosure rules, corporations could alienate their customers by spending on political campaigns — especially because they could become the target of negative media coverage.
So, what’s a corporation looking to advance its political goals to do? According to the alert, written by K&L lawyers Tim Peckinpaugh and Stephen Roberts:
Full Story Lobby Firm Tells Clients How To Sway Elections While Avoiding ‘Public Scrutiny’ | TPMMuckraker.
REPORT: After Voting To Kill Recovery, 110 GOP Lawmakers Tout Its Success, Ask For More Money
Today marks the one year anniversary of President Obama signing into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better known as the stimulus. As the economy continued to crater after President Bush left office, Obama’s stimulus sought to provide tax cuts for 95% of working Americans, funds to buoy cash-strapped state governments, new construction and infrastructure projects, and other programs to create jobs, retrain workers, and promote economic activity throughout the country. In December, the Congressional Budget Office reported that the stimulus had successfully created up to 1.6 million jobs, and today, a report shows the Recovery Act will ultimately create 2.5 million jobs. Even the conservative American Enterprise Institute found that the stimulus had boosted the U.S. economy by 4 percent.
House Republican leaders have fought to maintain partisan unity in their effort to kill the stimulus. And they were largely successful. Every single Republican in the House and every single Republican in the Senate — with the exception of Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Susan Collins (R-ME), and then-Republican Sen. Arlen Specter — voted against the Recovery Act. By drawing a sharp distinction between Obama and the GOP, Republican leaders gambled on casting the stimulus as a failure in order to win elections in 2010. In a coordinated effort, Republicans have used every opportunity to attack the stimulus for allegedly failing to create “a single job.”
217 possibly exposed to radiation at Ont. plant
Up to 217 workers may have been exposed to nuclear radiation at a Bruce nuclear power plant near Owen Sound, Ont., says the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission in a document released Tuesday.
The nuclear safety watchdog first confirmed last month that workers who were upgrading the Bruce A Unit 1 reactor may have been exposed to radiation.
A routine airborne sample taken on the morning of Nov. 26 at the plant threw up some red flags, according to a preliminary report by Bruce Power. Further testing of samples uncovered the presence of alpha particles, which can damage human tissue and cause cancer.
Full Story CBC News – Toronto – 217 possibly exposed to radiation at Ont. plant.
3G demand expanding too fast for networks
AT&T’s mobile service has taken its lumps for its network performance problems, something one of its executives acknowledged is an issue in San Francisco and New York.
But the cause of the problems – new bandwidth-hungry smart phones, mobile applications and Internet browsing, which are all embodied in the iPhone – is increasingly an industry-wide challenge that will probably test the capacity of all networks.
AT&T, the leader in smart phone use, said that wireless data over its networks in the last three years has exploded 5,000 percent.
That growing demand could eventually translate into new pricing tiers designed to curb heavy use by customers. The days of the unlimited data plan, predict several analysts, could be numbered.
Full Story 3G demand expanding too fast for networks.
Papantonio Explodes on Fox Panel
What happens when 4 right wing hacks deny reality and facts? When they’re put up against Ring of Fire’s own Mike Papantonio, he let’s them know what really is happening in the world, and how they are the ones who kept pushing the toxic trash that helped crash our economy. As you can see in this clip, they don’t always enjoy being forced to live in reality.
Four More Dem Senators Join Push For Vote On Public Option | The Plum Line
Yesterday four Dem Senators made a big splash by signing a letter pushing Dem leaders to pass the public option via reconciliation, suggesting the provision may have a faint pulse.
Now four more Dem Senators have added their names to the list, their spokespeople tell me, doubling the number of signatories to eight and perhaps upping the volume of the public option’s pulse ever so slightly.
The new signatories: Al Franken, Pat Leahy, John Kerry, and Sheldon Whitehouse.
They join yesterday’s signers: Michael Bennet, Kirsten Gillibrand, Jeff Merkley, and Sherrod Brown.
The letter asks Harry Reid to stage a full Senate vote on the public option under budget reconciliation rules. It argues that there’s a history of using the technique for passing significant health care legislation and that a majority of Americans has consistently supported a public option.
Full Story Four More Dem Senators Join Push For Vote On Public Option | The Plum Line.
Yemen’s Water Crisis Eclipses al Qaeda Threat
Yemeni water trader Mohammed al-Tawwa runs his diesel pumps day and night, but gets less and less from his well in Sanaa, which experts say could become the world’s first capital city to run dry.
“My well is now 400 meters (1,300 feet) deep and I don’t think I can drill any deeper here,” said Tawwa, pointing to the meager flow into tanks that supply water trucks and companies.
From dawn, dozens of people with yellow jerricans collect water from a special canister Tawwa has set aside for the poor.
“Sometimes we don’t have any water for a whole week, sometimes for two days and then it stops again,” said Talal al-Bahr, who comes almost daily to supply his family of six.
Full Story Yemen’s Water Crisis Eclipses al Qaeda Threat | CommonDreams.org.
America’s Global Weapons Monopoly
America’s Global Weapons Monopoly Don’t Call It “the Global Arms Trade”
On the relatively rare occasions when the media turns its attention to U.S. weapons sales abroad and shines its not-so-bright spotlight on the latest set of facts and figures, it invariably speaks of “the global arms trade.”
Let’s consider that label for a moment, word by word:
*It is global, since there are few places on the planet that lie beyond the reach of the weapons industry.
*Arms sounds so old-fashioned and anodyne when what we’re talking about is advanced technology designed to kill and maim.
*And trade suggests a give and take among many parties when, if we’re looking at the figures for that “trade” in a clear-eyed way, there is really just one seller and so many buyers.
Full Story America’s Global Weapons Monopoly | CommonDreams.org.
Liberals continue to push for financial trades tax Capitol Report
Backers say it will dampen speculation, opponents say it will hike investor costs
As policymakers in the U.S. and Europe contemplate mechanisms to ward off another economic near-collapse, one idea is gaining traction among liberals at the same time as it is infuriating conservatives: a financial transactions tax.
Democratic lawmakers and other advocates are pressing for the creation of a sales tax applied to stocks, derivatives and other financial instruments. The idea has been around for decades. In fact, there was just such a tax in the United States from 1914 to 1966. The U.K. raises more than $30 billion a year on a tax that applies only to stocks.
Backers of financial transaction tax — including labor unions and liberal groups — argue that even with the major decline in stock and derivatives transactions stemming from the tax — some estimate as much as a 50% decline in volume of trades — such a fee could raise more than $100 billion a year to fight the deficit, create jobs or other purposes.
Full Story Liberals continue to push for financial trades tax Capitol Report – MarketWatch.
Journalists Killed 2009: Record Number Killed, International Watchdog Group Says
An international press freedom watchdog said that 2009 saw a record number of journalists killed, including the single worst massacre in the Philippines, as well as an increase in journalists jailed, fueled by the crackdown in Iran.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said the massacre of 29 journalists and two media support workers in a politically motivated ambush in the southern Philippines on Nov. 23 claimed more lives than any single event since it started documenting attacks on the press 18 years ago.
In its annual report on freedom of the press released Tuesday, the committee also accused Iran of being one of the leading jailers of journalists last year, with more than 90 reporters arrested and at least 23 writers and editors still being held.
Full Story Journalists Killed 2009: Record Number Killed, International Watchdog Group Says.
Obama Names First Ambassador To Syria In 5 Years
Robert Ford Named U.S. Ambassador To Syria
President Barack Obama said Tuesday he would nominate career diplomat Robert Ford to become the United States' first ambassador to Damascus since 2005, a sign that U.S.-Syrian relations are thawing as Obama enters his second year in power.
If confirmed by the Senate, Ford would represent the United States' interests as it moves toward restored diplomatic relations with a nation that borders both Iraq and Israel.
“Ambassador Ford is a highly accomplished diplomat with many years of experience in the Middle East,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said. “His appointment represents President Obama's commitment to use engagement to advance U.S. interests by improving communication with the Syrian government and people.”
Full Story Robert Ford Named U.S. Ambassador To Syria.
Eye-Controlled Phone Unveiled By DoCoMo At MWC 2010 (VIDEO)
Forget touchscreens: new technology could let you control your gadgets with your eyes.
A prototype gadget unveiled by NTT DoCoMo at the Mobile World congress 2010 in Barcelona enables users to make calls, play music, and control the phone’s settings just by moving their eyes.
The Telegraph explains how the eye-controlled phone and MP3 player works:
Special electrodes, attached to a set of earphones, are able to pick up the movement of the eye. Eyes have “electrical potential” – positive at the cornea and negative at the retina – and this electrical potential changes depending on the movement of the eyeball. The system works even when a person’s eyes are closed.
The earphone electrodes are able to read these changing currents – known as an electrooculogram – and the mobile phone is pre-programmed to translate that information in to a command. So a user can make or receive a call, simply by moving their eyes to the right, then to the left, then back to the right again.
Full Story Eye-Controlled Phone Unveiled By DoCoMo At MWC 2010 (VIDEO).
Obama Debt Commission: Erskine Bowles, Alan Simpson To Chair Panel, Says Obama Official
Determined to have a deficit commission with or without Congress’ backing, President Barack Obama plans to announce on Thursday that he is establishing a panel similar to – although weaker than – the one lawmakers rejected.
Former White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles and former Republican Senate Whip Alan Simpson would lead the panel, a senior administration official said Tuesday. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the president’s executive order creating the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform had not been announced.
The deficit spiked to an extraordinary $1.4 trillion last year and could top that figure this year as the struggling economy puts a big dent in tax revenues. Even worse from the perspective of economists and deficit hawks, the medium-term deficit picture is for deficits to hit around $1 trillion a year for the foreseeable future.
Full Story Obama Debt Commission: Erskine Bowles, Alan Simpson To Chair Panel, Says Obama Official.
Obama’s Atomic Blunder
by Harvey Wasserman -
As Vermont seethes with radioactive contamination and the Democratic Party crumbles, Barack Obama has plunged into the atomic abyss.
In the face of fierce green opposition and withering scorn from both liberal and conservative budget hawks, Obama has done what George W. Bush could not—pledge billions of taxpayer dollars for a relapse of the 20th Century’s most expensive technological failure.
Obama has announced some $8.3 billion in loan guarantees for two new reactors planned for Georgia. Their Westinghouse AP-1000 designs have been rejected by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as being unable to withstand natural cataclysms like hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes.
The Vogtle site was to originally host four reactors at a total cost of $600 million; it wound up with two at $9 billion.
Full Story Obama’s Atomic Blunder | BuzzFlash.org.
Sugar May Be Bad But This Sweetener Is Far More Deadly
Study after study are taking their place in a growing lineup of scientific research demonstrating that consuming high-fructose corn syrup is the fastest way to trash your health. It is now known without a doubt that sugar in your food, in all it’s myriad of forms, is taking a devastating toll.
And fructose in any form — including high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and crystalline fructose — is the worst of the worst!
Fructose is a major contributor to:
• Insulin resistance and obesity
• Elevated blood pressure
• Elevated triglycerides and elevated LDL
• Depletion of vitamins and minerals
• Cardiovascular disease, liver disease, cancer, arthritis and even gout
A Calorie is Not a Calorie
Glucose is the form of energy you were designed to run on. Every cell in your body, every bacterium — and in fact, every living thing on the Earth–uses glucose for energy.
Full Story Dr. Joseph Mercola: Sugar May Be Bad But This Sweetener Is Far More Deadly.
Wall Street’s Elder Statesmen Favor a Return to Tighter Regulation
Put aside for a moment the populist pressure to regulate banking and trading. Ask the elder statesmen of these industries — giants like George Soros, Nicholas F. Brady, John S. Reed, William H. Donaldson and John C. Bogle — where they stand on regulation, and they will bowl you over with their populism.
They certainly don’t think of themselves as angry Main Streeters. They grew quite wealthy in finance, typically making their fortunes in the ’70s and ’80s when banks and securities firms were considerably more regulated. And now, parting company with the current chieftains, they want more rules.
While the younger generation, very visibly led by Lloyd C. Blankfein, chief executive of Goldman Sachs, lobbies Congress against such regulation, their spiritual elders support the reform proposed by Paul A. Volcker and, surprisingly, even more restrictions. “I am a believer that the system has gone badly awry and needs massive reform,” said Mr. Bogle, the 80-year-old founder and for many years chief executive of the Vanguard Group, the huge mutual fund company.
Full Story Wall Street’s Elder Statesmen Favor a Return to Tighter Regulation – NYTimes.com.
OPS: If Wall Street supports it – it cannot be good for the rest of us
Bill Maher: ‘Corporatist’ Evan Bayh Is What’s Wrong With Senate (VIDEO)
Evan Bayh is not a centrist, he’s a corporatist, according to Bill Maher.
Maher appeared on “Anderson Cooper 360″ Tuesday night to comment on the state of affairs in Washington, D.C. He argued that Evan Bayh, the retiring Senator from Indiana, is what’s wrong with Congress. The Senate is “where legislation goes to die,” Maher says, because “corporatist Democrats” like Bayh act like Republicans.
Maher told Cooper that politics are not polarized enough and that the U.S. lacks a real progressive party.
WATCH
Full Story Bill Maher: ‘Corporatist’ Evan Bayh Is What’s Wrong With Senate (VIDEO).
The Most Outrageous Examples Of Health Insurers Denying Coverage (PHOTOS)
For millions of Americans, adequate health care is still out of reach — and not just because of spiraling premium costs.
As President Obama pointed out in a NYT op-ed last summer, a recent survey found that over the last three years, more than 12 million Americans were either refused overall coverage, refused coverage for a specific condition or subject to higher premium costs.
And even those who believe they’re fully insured may not be as protected as they hope. Recurring examples of insurers digging up and scrutinizing customers’ old records after they get sick suggest perverse incentives for companies to dump their customers once they fall ill. Some insurance companies have even been found to award bonuses and better performance reviews to employees who revoke the most policies.
Full Story The Most Outrageous Examples Of Health Insurers Denying Coverage (PHOTOS).
More Americans Considering Community Banks : NPR
Bailouts and bonuses have many Americans frustrated with big banks. Some consumers think these giant institutions have lost touch with customers and basic good business practices. They’re so fed up that they’re holding these behemoths accountable by moving their money to community banks.
Terry Brauer is moving his personal and business bank accounts from Wells Fargo to the much, much tinier Bank of Highwood-Fort Sheridan in the suburbs of Chicago.
“It’s a community bank,” says Brauer. “As you can see, the architecture doesn’t look like a spaceship.”
The bank tellers are quick to greet customers.
There’s a coffee machine in the lobby, along with chocolate chip cookies.
Full Story More Americans Considering Community Banks : NPR.
Dodd: Filibuster Reform Is “Foolish”, “I’m Totally Opposed” (VIDEO)
There are a whole host of obstacles preventing Democrats from passing filibuster reform in the Senate. One of them is fellow Democrats.
On Wednesday morning, retiring Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) threw a big wrench in the plans put forth by his Senate colleagues to restrict the minority party’s ability to stop or slow legislative activity.
“I’m totally opposed to the idea of changing the filibuster rules,” the Connecticut Democrat said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”. “I think that’s foolish in my view. You can write all the rules you want. At the end of the day if the chemistry isn’t there [it won't work].”
Full Story Dodd: Filibuster Reform Is “Foolish”, “I’m Totally Opposed” (VIDEO).
OPS: Dodd protecting his once and future employers from Democrats actually doing something?
Success of Stimulus Bill Is Noteworthy as Another Is Weighed
Every Major Economic Research Firm Says Stimulus Added At Least 1.6 Million Jobs
Imagine if, one year ago, Congress had passed a stimulus bill that really worked.
Let’s say this bill had started spending money within a matter of weeks and had rapidly helped the economy. Let’s also imagine it was large enough to have had a huge impact on jobs — employing something like two million people who would otherwise be unemployed right now.
If that had happened, what would the economy look like today?
Well, it would look almost exactly as it does now. Because those nice descriptions of the stimulus that I just gave aren’t hypothetical. They are descriptions of the actual bill.
Full Story Economic Scene – Success of Stimulus Bill Is Noteworthy as Another Is Weighed – NYTimes.com.
Ford to cut 900 jobs at Flat Rock assembly plant
Ford Motor Co. will cut 900 workers at its plant in Flat Rock in July but increase production of the Ford Mustang and Mazda6 assembled there on a single shift.
The plant, which employs 2,280, will be reduced to a single shift July 12. The expectation is most workers will be transferred to other Ford plants, said spokeswoman Marcey Evans.
The AutoAlliance International Inc. plant, which is jointly owned by Mazda Motor Corp., assembled about 102,000 cars in 2009, and the forecast is to increase output this year, Evans said, helped by the new 2011 Mustang.
To do so, line speed will be increased about 35 percent, making the operation more efficient.
The plant had a lot of downtime last year as Mustang sales fell 27 percent and Mazda6 sales were off 34 percent.
Full Story Ford to cut 900 jobs at Flat Rock assembly plant | detnews.com | The Detroit News.
BP, ConocoPhillips and Caterpillar Pull Out of Climate Partnership
Three big companies quit an influential lobbying group that had focused on shaping climate-change legislation, in the latest sign that support for an ambitious bill is melting away.
Oil giants BP PLC and ConocoPhillips and heavy-equipment maker Caterpillar Inc. said Tuesday they won’t renew their membership in the three-year-old U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a broad business-environmental coalition that had been instrumental in building support in Washington for capping emissions of greenhouse gases.
The move comes as debate over climate change intensifies and concerns mount about the cost of capping greenhouse-gas emissions.
Full Story BP, ConocoPhillips and Caterpillar Pull Out of Climate Partnership – WSJ.com.
Toyota probes Corolla steering, considers recall
Toyota is considering a recall of its hot-selling Corolla subcompact after complaints about power steering problems — another blow to the world’s largest automaker already reeling from a string of recalls for safety troubles.
Despite pressure from some lawmakers, President Akio Toyoda said he won’t be attending the U.S. congressional hearing on the automaker’s quality lapses, entrusting the job to U.S.-based executives — though would consider an appearance if the committee requests it. He said he wanted to focus on improving quality worldwide.
“I trust that our officials in the U.S. will amply answer the questions,” Toyoda said Wednesday in his third news conference in two weeks. “We are sending the best people to the hearing, and I hope to back up the efforts from headquarters.”
Full Story Toyota probes Corolla steering, considers recall – Yahoo! News.
New wave of foreclosures by end of 2010 is feared
About 4 million U.S. homeowners are 90 days or more delinquent on their loans or in foreclosure proceedings, Moody’s Economy.com says. A federal loan modification program is helping a relative few.
Reporting from Washington – Experts fear that a new wave of foreclosures will hit this year as prolonged unemployment makes it difficult for millions of homeowners to pay their mortgages — and many of them aren’t likely to get much help from a federal program aimed at keeping them in their houses.
Banks participating in the Home Affordable Modification Program, announced a year ago this week by President Obama, have been slow to turn temporarily reduced mortgage payments into permanent ones.
“The overarching sense is that the mortgage modification process has not worked that well,” said Bert Ely, an independent banking consultant.
Full Story New wave of foreclosures by end of 2010 is feared – latimes.com.
92-Year-Old Holocaust Survivor Evicted from Brooklyn Apartment
Eviction happened while she was in a rehab facility
She survived the Holocaust. But a tenacious life story wasn’t enough for 92-year old Eta Eckstein to keep her Brooklyn landlord at bay.
While out of her apartment in a rehab facility, the grandmother got evicted.
“It’s unspeakable,” says Eta’s grandson, Idan. “They just threw her belongings onto the street.” Eta’s family got no explanation from the landlord, Morris photographs>
They believe he wants her out of the $600-a-month rent-controlled apartment on Bay Parkway in Bay Ridge, where she’s lived for 40 years.
Full Story 92-Year-Old Holocaust Survivor Evicted from Brooklyn Apartment | NBC New York.
Former Mexican foreign minister calls for ‘North American union’, unified currency
Prolific Mexican politician and intellectual Jorge Castañeda believes that a greater North American community — a “North American Union” — with economies tied together under a European Union-style system, complete with open borders and a unified currency, is the wave of the future.
In a new interview with Web site BigThink.com, Castañeda, Mexico’s foreign minister from 2000-2003 and a global distinguished professor of politics at New York University, said that with nearly 11 percent of Mexicans living in the United States, he has stopped seeing his nation as a Latin American country.
“Well, my sense is that we’re moving closer and closer to forms of economic integration with the United States and Canada and conceivably Central America and Caribbean could become part of that in the coming years,” he said. “I don’t see Mexico as a Latin American country. Too much of trade, investment, tourism, immigration, remittances, absolutely everything is concentrated exclusively with the United States. So, Mexico has to be part of a North American community, a North American union, which at some point probably should include some type of monetary union along European lines with a free flow of labor, with energy being on the table, etc.”
Full Story Former Mexican foreign minister calls for ‘North American union’, unified currency | Raw Story.
OPS: Like Clinton with NAFTA, GAT, WTO, Glass-Stegal, Telecom Act – Obama’s second term?
A Dozen Nonpartisan Good Government Fixes Congress Should Implement in 2010
The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) is submitting to Congress a number of actions it should take that would fix many of the systemic problems that have long plagued the federal government and that spurred POGO’s creation 29 years ago. POGO submitted a similar list to Congress in 2007, and is pleased to report that Congress made progress addressing several of the issues we raised. For example, Congress has passed legislation to create a database that addresses federal contractor misconduct and established the Senate Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight and the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan that are trying to fix the broken federal contracting system.
But Congress has not adequately addressed many of the important issues we outlined three years ago. Despite the tireless efforts of a bipartisan group of Members, Congress has not passed the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act. Nor has Congress reoriented its defense spending priorities to the troops and national security mission rather than defense contractors, as evidenced by the numerous earmarks in the most recent defense appropriations bill, including $2.25 billion for the C-17 Globemaster airlifters the Department of Defense doesn’t want. And because of such emergent problems as the financial crisis and the H1NI scare, additional issues have arisen that demand Congress’s immediate attention.
The following are issues we believe Congress should address promptly:
Full Story A Dozen Nonpartisan Good Government Fixes Congress Should Implement in 2010.
Hiring Death Squads Is Coming Back to Haunt U.S. Companies
Dole Foods and Chiquita may be on the verge of facing justice for “pacifying” their work force, suppressing labor unions and terrorizing peasant squatters in Colombia.
A federal judge recently refused to dismiss a civil suit filed against Chiquita which charges that the company paid leftist (FARC) guerrillas operating near its plantations in Columbia — during a period when the FARC killed four American missionaries, according to CNN.
The company’s position — which it has held consistently since it voluntarily disclosed the payments to the Department of Justice — has been that both left-wing guerrillas and right-wing paramilitaries forced the company in an extortionate manner to make the payments “to protect the lives of its employees.”
But that’s become an increasingly untenable position — especially since some of the same paramilitaries who took the payments have come in from the cold, disarming and submitting to Columbia’s “Justice and Peace” process — which allows them to receive reduced jail time for confessing to all of their terrorist crimes. The problem for Chiquita — and now for Dole (and potentially for Del Monte) — is that the confessions reveal a much different story.
Full Story Hiring Death Squads Is Coming Back to Haunt U.S. Companies | Civil Liberties | AlterNet.
Health Insurers More Grotesquely Greedy Than Wall Street Bankers
Jim Hightower
The great thing about Corporate America is that competition is always fierce for the national title of greediest.
By gollies, the top executives of health insurance corporations are not giving up without a fight! To paraphrase every high school football coach who ever lived, “When the going gets ugly, the ugly get going.”
During the past several months, the Barons of Wall Street had established themselves as the vilest and most reviled corporate team in the land. They’ve been lavishing bonuses on themselves even as their firms continue to benefit from government bailout measures and even as ordinary Americans continue to struggle with the economic collapse caused by the bankers’ arrogance and avarice. Wall Streeters were widely considered a shoo-in to take the coveted Corporate Greedhead Trophy this year — but, holy cow, what a comeback bid we’re now seeing from the Giants of Insurance!
Let’s recap their amazing charge: Last week, the news broke that America’s five largest health insurance companies (United Health, Wellpoint, Aetna, Humana and Cigna) had scored record profits in 2009, totaling $12.2 billion. This was a stunning 56 percent hike over the previous year, a drive made all the more impressive by the fact that these gains came during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
Full Story Health Insurers More Grotesquely Greedy Than Wall Street Bankers | | AlterNet.
Bill Gates: the Most Important Climate Speech of the Year
When We Talk Zero, We Sound Crazy. When Bill Gates Does It, Bankers Pick Up the Phone.
On Friday, the world’s most successful businessperson and most powerful philanthropist did something outstandingly bold, that went almost unremarked: Bill Gates announced that his top priority is getting the world to zero climate emissions.
Now, I’m not a member of the Cult of Bill myself (I’m typing this on a MacBook), but you don’t have to believe that Gates has superhuman powers of prediction to know that his predictions have enormous power. People who will never listen to Al Gore, much to less someone like me, hang on Gates’ every utterance.
And Friday, Gates predicted extraordinary climate action: zero. Not small steps, not incremental progress, not doing less bad: zero. In fact, he stood in front of a slide with nothing but the planet Earth and the number zero. That moment was the most important thing that has happened at TED.
Full Story Worldchanging: Bright Green: Bill Gates: the Most Important Climate Speech of the Year.
The Rise of the Economic Elite — Economic Elite Vs. The People : Part II
This is the second-part of a six-part report. Part one can be viewed here, part three will be posted on Friday. To be notified via email, subscribe to our newsletter here.
——-I: Causalities of Economic Terrorism, Surveying the Damage
——-II: The Rise of the Economic Elite
——-III: Exposing Our Enemy: Meet the Economic Elite
——-IV: The Financial Coup d’Etat
——-V: Overcoming the Divide and Conquer Strategy
——-VI: How to Fight Back and Win: Common Ground Issues That Must Be Won
II: The Rise of the Economic Elite
Part II: The Rise of the Economic Elite — Economic Elite Vs. The People“The war against working people should be understood to be a real war…. Specifically in the U.S., which happens to have a highly class-conscious business class…. And they have long seen themselves as fighting a bitter class war, except they don’t want anybody else to know about it.” — Noam Chomsky
As a record number of US citizens are struggling to get by, many of the largest corporations are experiencing record-breaking profits, and CEOs are receiving record-breaking bonuses. How could this be happening; how did we get to this point?
The Economic Elite have escalated their attack on US workers over the past few years; however, this attack began to build intensity in the 1970s. In 1970, CEOs made $25 for every $1 the average worker made. Due to technological advancements, production and profit levels exploded from 1970 – 2000. With the lion’s share of increased profits going to the CEOs, this pay ratio dramatically rose to $90 for CEOs to $1 for the average worker.
As ridiculous as that seems, an in-depth study in 2004 on the explosion of CEO pay revealed that, including stock options and other benefits, CEO pay is more accurately $500 to $1.
Full Story Part II: The Rise of the Economic Elite — Economic Elite Vs. The People | Amped Status.
nanotech safety: Dangers come in small particles
Hundreds of nanotechnology applications are already in commercial production despite a huge health and safety question mark. Hazards looks at how an industry the safety authorities admit they know precious little about has been allowed to grow, unregulated, into the biggest thing since the microchip.
In the two decades since the birth of the nanotechnology revolution, it has been a strict case of small is beautiful. Dollar signs have blotted out the warning signs, and the technology has developed, as one observer put it, “at warp speed.” This is a modern day gold rush – forget precaution, get to production.
When President Clinton launched the National Nanotechnology Initiative, now third in the research funding pecking order in the US behind the war on cancer and the Star Wars programme, he gushed about the potential. Tiny sensors would in the future speed through arteries detecting cancers at an early stage, exotic new lightweight materials would have be 10 times the strength of steel [1].
Media reports marvel at promised nano-based cancer cures and desktop nanomachine factories. The European Commission talked this year of “atom-scale ‘nano-robots’ that can be injected in the human body to cure diseases, electronic ‘nano-chips’ that can store and process much more information than today’s microchips, ‘nano-fibres’ for better and always-clean clothes, and ‘nano-materials’ for high-performance coatings, for instance in aircraft and space ships.”
Full Story nanotech safety – Hazards Magazine issue 87.
Anger fuels water-fluoridation debate in Watsonville, Calif.
The Santa Cruz County town, which officials say is experiencing a dental-decay epidemic, voted in 2002 to block fluoridation of the city’s water. The City Council is moving closer to approval.
The editorial in the Watsonville Register-Pajaronian offered local voters some blunt advice: “Shield your eyes,” it said, “because the City Council is preparing to spit in your face.”
That was this month, as the council inched toward finally fluoridating the city’s water — a state-mandated action that has been bitterly debated since city residents narrowly voted to block it in 2002. At a council meeting in January, an anti-fluoridation activist held up a sign alluding to Nazis. When speakers threatened to boycott local businesses if fluoridation goes through, a council member told them to jump off the parking-garage roof.
Although the argument in the Santa Cruz County agricultural town of 50,000 has raged for years, people on both sides see a resolution as urgent.
Full Story Anger fuels water-fluoridation debate in Watsonville, Calif. – latimes.com.
The Media Response to the Growing Influence of the 9 /11 Truth Movement: Part I
Reflections on a Recent Evaluation of Dr. David Ray Griffin
The cover story of the September 24, 2009, issue of The New Statesman, the venerable left-leaning British magazine, was entitled “The 50 People who Matter Today.”(1) Any such list, necessarily reflecting the bias and limited awareness of the editors, would surely contain choices that readers would find surprising.
That is true of this list – which includes families as well as individuals. A good number of names are, to be sure, ones that would be contained in most such lists created by British, Canadian, or American political commentators, such as the Obamas, the Murdochs, Vladimir Putin, Osama bin Laden, Angela Merkel, Bill and Melinda Gates, Warren Buffett, Pope Benedict XVI, and Gordon Brown. But about half of the names reflected choices that I, and probably most other readers, found surprising. One of these choices, however, is beyond surprising – it is astounding.
I refer to the person in the 41st position: David Ray Griffin, a retired professor of philosophy of religion and theology who, in 2003, started writing and lecturing about 9/11, pointing out problems in the official account of the events of that day. By the time the New Statesman article appeared, he had published 8 books, 50 articles, and several DVDs. Because of both the quantity and quality of his work, he became widely regarded as the chief spokesperson of what came to be called “the 9/11 Truth Movement.” It was because of this role that the New Statesman included him in its list, calling him the “top truther” (the “conspiracy theorist” title went to Dan Brown, who was placed in the 50th slot).
Full Story The Media Response to the Growing Influence of the 9 /11 Truth Movement.
Media Response to the Growing Influence of the 9/11 Truth Movement, Part II
In the past year, in response to emerging independent science on the 9/11 attacks, nine corporate, seven public, and two independent media outlets aired analytic programs investigating the official account. Increasingly, the issue is treated as a scientific controversy worthy of debate, rather than as a “conspiracy theory” ignoring science and common sense.
This essay presents these media analyses in the form of 18 case studies.
Eight countries – Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and Russia – have allowed their publicly-owned broadcasting stations to air the full spectrum of evidence challenging the truth of the official account of 9/11.
This more open approach taken in the international media – I could also have included the Japanese media – might be a sign that worldwide public and corporate media organizations are positioning themselves, and preparing their audiences, for a possible revelation of the truth of the claim that forces within the US government were complicit in the attacks – a revelation that would call into question the publicly given rationale for the military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
The evidence now being explored in the international media may pave the way for the US media to take an in-depth look at the implications of what is now known about 9/11, and to re-examine the country’s foreign and domestic policies in the light of this knowledge.
Full Story Media Response to the Growing Influence of the 9/11 Truth Movement, Part II « COTO Report.
When an Intelligence Story Isn’t
Who signs off on a kill order of an American?
On Jan. 27, The Washington Post published a front-page article with a startling disclosure: American intelligence and military officials were targeting U.S. citizens for “killing or capture.” The story quoted an unnamed official as saying that the Central Intelligence Agency and Joint Special Operations Command had drawn up lists of suspected terrorists and that both agencies had identified three Americans targeted for what the CIA used to call “termination with extreme prejudice.’’
Several days later, The Tribune Washington bureau published an equally compelling story on the front page of The Los Angeles Times and in other Tribune Co. newspapers. It reported that the CIA was about to add its first American to its list of people targeted for attack, Anwar al Awlaki, the New Mexico-born cleric linked to the Fort Hood attacks and the attempted Christmas Day airplane bombing. The third paragraph declared that “No U.S. citizen has ever been on the CIA’s target list.’’
The Post’s piece was written by Dana Priest, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter known for her deep and authoritative sourcing. The author of the L.A. Times story, Greg Miller, is a similarly veteran Washington reporter. Yet the stories conflicted on a key point, whether Americans were already being targeted. Such confusion isn’t unusual when it comes to covering what are known as “black” programs.
Full Story On The Hill: When an Intelligence Story Isn’t.
Obama Would Have Been Jailed Under Patriot Act
“In some ways, the post-9/11 political and legal climate is worse than in the bad old days of the McCarthy era.”
If the Patriot Act had been in effect when the Free South Africa Movement was in full swing in the 1980s, hundreds of thousands of Americans would have been liable for imprisonment on charges of rendering “assistance” to “terrorists.” When it comes to civil and political liberties, the U.S. is a far less free place than it was, a generation ago.
On February 23, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments on the scope of the Patriot Act’s ban on rendering “support” to organizations designated as “terrorist” by the U.S. State Department. The Obama administration’s interpretation of the law, like it’s predecessors’, is so broad, it could put American citizens in prison for engaging in almost any contact with any person the government linked to a designated group. This includes organizations that have never attacked the United States, and have no direct grievance with United States.
It’s all in the language, the interpretation of the statute. Justice Department lawyers claim it is a violation of the Patriot Act even to file a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of an organization on the list. In the case before the High Court, the U.S.-based Humanitarian Law Project insists on its right to help mediate conflicts among peoples abroad, such as the Kurdish people’s struggle for national expression and self-determination in Turkey. The Law Project wants to assist in finding a peaceful solution to the conflict between the Turkish government and the Kurdistan Workers Party. But the Kurdish party is on the American terror list, and the administration contends that even doing peace work with the Kurdish group amounts to assisting in terror. Once on the list, Americans are banned from virtually any contact whatever with the designated organizations.
“Americans are being prevented from exercising their free speech rights to promote peace in the world.”
Full Story Black Agenda Radio Commentaries.
Cheney Admits to War Crimes, Media Yawns, Obama Turns the Other Cheek
Dick Cheney is a sadist.
On Sunday, in an exclusive interview with Jonathan Karl of ABC News' “This Week,” Cheney proclaimed his love of torture, derided the Obama administration for outlawing the practice, and admitted that the Bush White House ordered Justice Department attorneys to fix the law around the administration's policy interests.
“I was a big supporter of waterboarding,” Cheney told Karl, as if he were issuing a challenge to officials in the current administration, including President Barack Obama, who said flatly last year that waterboarding is torture, to take action against him. “I was a big supporter of the enhanced interrogation techniques…”
The former vice president's declaration closely follows admissions he made in December 2008, about a month before the Bush administration exited the White House, when he said he personally authorized the torture of 33 suspected terrorist detainees and approved the waterboarding of three so-called “high-value” prisoners.
Full Story t r u t h o u t | Cheney Admits to War Crimes, Media Yawns, Obama Turns the Other Cheek.
Energy Sec Unaware That Nuclear Loans Have 50 Percent Risk of Default
The Obama administration on Tuesday announced a loan guarantee for the first new nuclear reactor to be built in the US in decades—part of a planned $54.5 billion program to kickstart a nuclear revival using government-backed loans. Yet Chu said he was not aware of a Congressional Budget Office study showing that the chances of default on these loans are “very high—well above 50 percent.”
“I don’t know of the CBO report,” Chu told reporters during a conference call on Tuesday. “We don’t believe the chance of default is 50 percent. We believe it’s far less than that.” The first loan guarantee, worth $8.33 billion, was awarded to two proposed reactors to be built by Southern Company at Plant Vogtle in Burke, Georgia.
As Mother Jones has reported, the proposal to encourage nuclear construction via massive federally backed loans represents a major risk for the US taxpayer. While the nuclear industry as recently as 2005 claimed the price tag for a reactor was $2 billion, independent estimates now put the cost as high as $12 billion.
Full Story Energy Sec Unaware That Nuclear Loans Have 50 Percent Risk of Default | Mother Jones.
Beck loses 103 sponsors as his UK television broadcast runs for five days straight without any ads.
Today, Color of Change and StopBeck.com announced that the United Kingdom has forcefully rejected Fox News host Glenn Beck. In fact, the UK broadcast of his show “was forced to run without any advertisements” for five days in a row as of yesterday. Additionally, 103 companies have agreed to stop their ads from appearing on his program. Some of the latest defections include Allstate Insurance, Anheuser-Busch, Idaho Potato Commission, Marriott International, Volkswagen, and Western Union. Some of their comments:
– “We in no way want to promote the hateful rhetoric of Mr. Glenn Beck, and therefore take this matter very seriously,” said Dino Balzano, director of advertising at Concord Music Group, parent company of Hear Music, in an email to ColorOfChange.org.
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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. 
