Archive for March, 2010

Federal Judge Rules Bush Program Illegally Wiretapped Americans

In a repudiation of the Bush administration’s now-defunct terrorist surveillance effort, a federal judge ruled Wednesday that government investigators illegally wiretapped the phone conversations of an Islamic charity and two American lawyers without a search warrant.

U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker said the plaintiffs provided enough evidence to show “they were subjected to warrantless electronic surveillance” by the National Security Agency.

The judge’s 45-page ruling focused narrowly on the case involving the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, touching vaguely on the larger question of the program’s legality.

Full Story: Federal Judge Rules Bush Program Illegally Wiretapped Americans.

Palin’s Politics of Personal Responsibility in Tatters; Daughter Willow Avoids Criminal Charges

New information coming out about Willow Palin today may make it impossible for Serial Quitter and Fox News Personality Sarah Palin to preach the politics of “personal responsibility” ever again. Expect this to break wide today, maybe even in the lamestream media, as Palin herself might call it. If the National Enquirer doesn’t get the Pulitzer Prize with its outing of the John Edwards affair — in which the tabloid scooped the whole wide world — maybe their reporting back in January on Willow Palin’s trouble with the cops might do it.

The roots of this story go back to The Palins’ vacation in the sunny climes of Hawaii. Remember that one? The media had it that The Palins fled the island after she was caught blacking out John McCain’s name on a visor. Until today, we all bought that story, which appears to have played into Palin’s hands because she needed us to buy that story. It now appears to have just been a convenient coincidence. Maybe her father didn’t get the word in time, because he also tried to provide cover for the family with an even stranger cover story, which alluded to racism on Palin's part.

Now as we learn on The Immoral Minority web site, the retreat from Hawaii might have nothing to do with the visor whatsoever. The timing is suspicious because that’s also around the time when State Troopers in Alaska were giving Willow Palin and her pals the third degree in Wasilla.

Full Story: News Hounds: Palin’s Politics of Personal Responsibility in Tatters; Daughter Willow Avoids Criminal Charges.

Sean Hannity and Freedom Alliance ‘Scam’ Facing FTC Complaint and Possible IRS Investigation

Just over a week ago, accusations against Sean Hannity, Oliver North, and the Freedom Alliance charity “scam” began to raise the ire of people from the full breadth of the political spectrum. Now the outrage from concerned citizens — like Turn Off FOX readers — over Hannity’s use of the organization to burnish his patriot credibility with questionable allotment of funds for actual veterans and their families has apparently led to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) formally filing a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the IRS.

CREW took the investigation further than most and decided to file a complaint with the FTC for what it described as Hannity’s and Freedom Concert’s “illegal and deceptive marketing practices by suggesting that all money generated by ticket sales for the Freedom Concerts he sponsors each summer goes to scholarships for children of killed and wounded service members.”

CREW points out that Premiere Marketing actually puts on the concerts, a company led by Duane Ward, also head of the organization that represents Hannity and North on the speech circuit, Premiere Speakers Bureau. As Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW, explained on an appearance on MSNBC, “At the concerts, they [even] sell tour collectibles under Premiere Collectibles. So basically, the whole thing is a money-making enterprise for Premiere Marketing.” Crew says that after the concerts, Premiere Marketing then offers an as-yet unidentified cut of the money it takes in to the charity.

Full Story: Sean Hannity and Freedom Alliance ‘Scam’ Facing FTC Complaint and Possible IRS Investigation | BuzzFlash.org.

When ‘We the People’ Lost America

Len Hart -

We have forgotten what it was like in this country during the Reagan administration. A great reminder may be found in the words of E.L. Doctorow, writing in 1989, who summed up the legacy left to Bill Clinton by the conservative administration of Ronald Reagan/Bush:

“The philosophical conservative is someone willing to pay the price of other people’s suffering for his principles. And so we now have hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of our citizens lying around the streets of our cities, sleeping in doorways, begging with styrofoam cups. We didn’t have a class of permanent beggars in this country, the United States of America, fifteen or twenty years ago. We didn’t have kids selling crack in their grade schools, or businessmen magnifying their fortunes into mega-fortunes by stock manipulation and thievery. I don’t remember such epidemics of major corporate fraud.

A decade ago you did not have college students scrawling racial epithets or anti-semitic graffiti on the room doors of their fellow students…So something poisonous has been set loose in the last several years as we have enjoyed life under the power and principles of political conservatism. …part of this poisonous thing that I’m trying to describe is its characteristic way of dealing with criticism: it used to be enough brand a critic as a radical or a leftist to make people turn away. Now we need only to call him a liberal. Soon “moderate” will be the M word, “conservative” the C word, and only fascists will be in the mainstream. And that degradation of discourse, that, too, is part of this something that is really rotten in America right now.”

–E. L. Doctorow, Jack London, Hemingway and the Constitution

Full Story: The Existentialist Cowboy: When ‘We the People’ Lost America.

The Old America is Fading

- Garrison Keillor -

In spring one has hopes for the beloved country. But an old guy like me can’t keep the doubt from creeping in

It is spring glorious spring (da do ron ron ron da do ron ron) and our gallant president has rallied his fractious forces against wacko demagoguery, the crocuses are up, and birds are returning from the South, preferring to raise their children here in Minnesota where we pull our pants on one leg at a time and not all at once. Some people in Washington haven’t managed to get their pants on in years.

Slowly, slowly, the simple fact dawns on the electorate that the Democrats have passed a moderate Republican healthcare reform. That’s what it is. The frenzy on the right is pure fear of stepping out of line with the Republican politburo and getting shipped to Siberia. This lockstep mentality is rare in American history. Here is a grand old party frozen, suspended, mesmerized, in thrall to a gaggle of showboats and radio entertainers and small mobs of fist-shakers standing staunch for unreality, and no Republican elected official dares say, “Let us not be nuts.” There will be books written about this in years to come, and they will not be kind to the likes of Rep. Boehner and Sen. McConnell.

Full Story: The old America is fading – Garrison Keillor – Salon.com.

Wall Street is driving up oil prices

Oil prices have risen steadily over the last year, and experts are worrying further increases could snuff out an already-fragile global economic recovery.

President Barack Obama announced Wednesday his plan to open oil and natural gas drilling off the Atlantic Coast and Gulf of Mexico. The proposal aims to reduce the nation’s reliance on foreign oil, which theoretically could hold down prices for U.S. consumers.

But analysts contend that the rise is prices is not a supply problem — it’s a Wall Street problem.

Full Story: Wall Street is driving up oil prices – Oil & energy- msnbc.com.

Fortune Valley Casino Says $43 Million Slot Machine Payout Was A Mistake, Refuses To Pay

A Colorado woman who won $42.9 million off a penny slot machine saw her jackpot disappear when the casino said the payout message was an error.

Now Colorado gaming authorities are trying to find out what caused the phony fortune.

The false jackpot message went to Louise Chavez Friday while she was playing penny slots in the Fortune Valley Casino in Central City. The machine announced she’d won $42.9 million – a far richer sum than the posted top prize of $251,000.

Fortune Valley doesn’t dispute that the machine told Chavez she’d won millions. But the casino says workers immediately told the gambler the message was an error and reported the mistake to the Colorado Division of Gaming, which regulates casinos.

Full Story: Fortune Valley Casino Says $43 Million Slot Machine Payout Was A Mistake, Refuses To Pay.

Corporate America Squeals About Welfare Cuts

The Republican Party and major corporations have joined forces in the first major rearguard attack on health care reform, charging that the cost of complying with “Obamacare” is resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars in added business expenses.

The crime that reform is guilty of: Slashing corporate welfare.

Under the previous system, major corporations were subsidized by the government to provide prescription drug coverage to their employees. At the same time, corporations could claim on their tax returns that it was they — not the taxpayers — who paid for the drug coverage, and could write the expense off as a tax deduction.

Health care reform cuts out that fat. The corporations still get taxpayer money to help pay for their employees’ drug coverage, but they can no longer continue the fiction that they’re using their own money to do it.

Full Story: Corporate America Squeals About Welfare Cuts.

College debate organizers unable to find any law professors to argue health reform is unconstitutional.

Yesterday, the University of Washington held a debate about the constitutionality of the recently passed health care reform bill. The Seattle Times reports that none of the panelists at the debate argued that the bill was unconstitutional because the organizers of the event couldn’t find any law professors who held that view:

The University of Washington billed it as a debate among distinguished law faculty over whether the new federal health-care law is constitutional.

But while the four panelists at a packed event Tuesday may have differed on some of the finer points, they all agreed on the big question: They said the new law passes constitutional muster and that various lawsuits arguing the opposite — including the one joined last week by state Attorney General Rob McKenna — have little merit or chance of success. Even John McKay, the former Republican U.S. attorney for Western Washington (who was forced out in 2006 under contentious circumstances) said that while he sympathized with some of the political issues in play, he thought the lawsuits lacked merit. In fact, he questioned the timing and thrust of the cases: “One way to say it is, that this has to be seen as a political exercise,” he said.

Full Story: Think Progress » College debate organizers unable to find any law professors to argue health reform is unconstitutional..

Bush Official Dan Bartlett Admits Authorizing Offshore Oil Drilling Will Be Unlikely To Win Over Any GOP Votes

The Obama administration announced today that it will be approving “significant oil and gas exploration off America’s coasts.” One possible reason for the administration’s policy shift may be that it is seeking Republican votes for comprehensive energy reform. In the summer of 2008, then-candidate Obama explained that he saw allowing offshore oil drilling as a compromise necessary to “get something done“:

The Republicans and the oil companies have been really beating the drums on drilling,” Obama said in the Post interview. “And so we don’t want gridlock. We want to get something done.” The freshman Illinois senator and presidential nominee-to-be added: “If, in order to get that passed, we have to compromise in terms of a careful, well thought-out drilling strategy that was carefully circumscribed to avoid significant environmental damage — I don’t want to be so rigid that we can’t get something done.”

During an appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, former Bush official Dan Bartlett said that the move is unlikely to get any Republican votes for an energy bill. While saying that he thinks it is a “shrewd move” that will “demonstrate…that the Democratic Party doesn’t just cater to the extreme aspects of their base,” Bartlett conceded that it will likely not win any Republican votes because “Republicans have made a calculation that cooperating with this administration at this time is not necessary for them to pick up seats“:

Full Story: Think Progress » Bush Official Dan Bartlett Admits Authorizing Offshore Oil Drilling Will Be Unlikely To Win Over Any GOP Votes.

Toads can ‘predict earthquakes’ and seismic activity

Common toads appear to be able to sense an impending earthquake and will flee their colony days before the seismic activity strikes.

The evidence comes from a population of toads which left their breeding colony three days before an earthquake that struck L’Aquila in Italy in 2009.

How toads sensed the quake is unclear, but most breeding pairs and males fled.

They reacted despite the colony being 74km from the quake’s epicentre, say biologists in the Journal of Zoology

Full Story: BBC – Earth News – Toads can ‘predict earthquakes’ and seismic activity.

Magnets ‘can modify our morality’

Scientists have shown they can change people’s moral judgements by disrupting a specific area of the brain with magnetic pulses.

They identified a region of the brain just above and behind the right ear which appears to control morality.

And by using magnetic pulses to block cell activity they impaired volunteers’ notion of right and wrong.

The small Massachusetts Institute of Technology study appears in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Full Story: BBC News – Magnets ‘can modify our morality’.

Abortion bill clears Round 1

Nebraska lawmakers moved the state back into the spotlight of the national debate over abortion on Wednesday night.

On a 38-5 vote, senators advanced a bill that would set a “bright line” when abortions could no longer be performed in the state.

Legislative Bill 1103, which was advanced to the second round of debate, would prohibit almost all abortions starting 20 weeks after fertilization — a point selected because that’s when some experts believe a fetus begins to feel pain.

The bill, introduced by Speaker of the Legislature Sen. Mike Flood and 22 co-sponsors, is sure to spark a new legal battle over abortion rights that could go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. That’s where a Nebraska case over the federal ban on so-called partial birth abortions ended up in 2007, with the high court upholding the ban.

Full Story: Abortion bill clears Round 1 – Omaha.com.

U.S. stock futures deeper in red after ADP report Indications

- MarketWatch -

U.S. stock futures declined Wednesday after a report showing private-sector employment dropped during March.

“The employment change is more than expected, and why futures are modestly off,” said Stephen Carl, head equity trader at the Williams Capital Group.

The S&P 500 futures fell 5.4 points to 1,164 and Nasdaq 100 futures fell 8.75 points to 1,956.75. Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 39 points.

Full Story: U.S. stock futures deeper in red after ADP report Indications – MarketWatch.

Is America failing because we dont have enough socialism?

Thom Hartmann -

Congressman Grayson “There Have Been All Sorts Of Efforts To Incite Violence By The Right-Wing!

Grayson Is FURIOUS About The Death Threats To His 5YR Old Son, Goes BALLISTIC On Teabag Apologist

Walmart: The Inhuman Essence of a Corporate “Person”

Jim Hightower  -

I’m curious about those five Supreme Court justices who recently decreed that a corporation is a “person” with human rights: Do you think they ever met Mr. Walmart?

If they had, they’d be forced to concede that corporate personhood is a sheer fantasy, for there is nothing even remotely human about the bloodless and brainless thing that is Walmart. For conclusive evidence of this entity’s total lack of humanity, the learned judges should climb down from their high bench and visit with Joseph Casias, a 29-year-old former employee of a Walmart store in Battle Creek, Mich.

In fact, Casias was an excellent employee throughout his five-year tenure within the corporate person, even earning “Associate of the Year” honors in 2008.

\Full Story: Walmart: The Inhuman Essence of a Corporate “Person” by Jim Hightower on Creators.com – A Syndicate Of Talent.

Vatican Offers Three Reasons Why It’s Not Liable For Abuse

Dragged deeper than ever into the clerical sex abuse scandal, the Vatican is launching a legal defense that it hopes will shield the pope from a lawsuit in Kentucky seeking to have him answer attorneys’ questions under oath.

Court documents obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press show that Vatican lawyers plan to argue that the pope has immunity as head of state, that American bishops who oversaw abusive priests weren’t employees of the Vatican, and that a 1962 document is not the “smoking gun” that provides proof of a cover-up.

The Holy See is trying to fend off the first U.S. case to reach the stage of determining whether victims actually have a claim against the Vatican itself for negligence for allegedly failing to alert police or the public about Roman Catholic priests who molested children.

The case was filed in 2004 in Kentucky by three men who claim they were abused by priests and claim negligence by the Vatican. Their attorney, William McMurry, is seeking class-action status for the case, saying there are thousands of victims across the country.

Full Story: Vatican Offers Three Reasons Why It’s Not Liable For Abuse.

‘Climategate’ Investigation Clears UK Scientists Of Most Serious Claims

The first of several British investigations into the e-mails leaked from one of the world’s leading climate research centers has largely vindicated the scientists involved.

The House of Commons’ Science and Technology Committee said Wednesday that they’d seen no evidence to support charges that the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit or its director, Phil Jones, had tampered with data or perverted the peer review process to exaggerate the threat of global warming – two of the most serious criticisms levied against the climatologist and his colleagues.

In their report, the committee said that, as far as it was able to ascertain, “the scientific reputation of Professor Jones and CRU remains intact,” adding that nothing in the more than 1,000 stolen e-mails, or the controversy kicked up by their publication, challenged scientific consensus that “global warming is happening and that it is induced by human activity.”

Full Story: ‘Climategate’ Investigation Clears UK Scientists Of Most Serious Claims.

Drug firm investigated FDA officials

For more than two months in late 2008, private investigators working for a drug company gathered information on a high-ranking official at the Food and Drug Administration – unearthing details about her husband, two daughters, and in-laws, and re-tracing her steps on a business trip she took to Thailand.

The drug company, Amphastar Pharmaceuticals Inc., paid more than $100,000 to Kroll, the New York-based private investigative firm, to uncover the information about Janet Woodcock, director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, who overees the agency’s new-drug approvals.

At stake for Amphastar, a generic drug maker, was whether the FDA would allow it to bring to market a version of a prescription drug for blood clots, and gain access to a market worth more than $3 billion.

Full Story: Drug firm investigated FDA officials – Eamon Javers – POLITICO.com.

The Nutritional Superiority of Pasture Raised Animals

You are what you eat – and the same goes for the animals whose meat, milk and eggs you put in your mouth. We should not only be concerned about what we eat, but what our food eats as well.

Generally speaking, our food animals are not eating what they were naturally meant to eat. As more animals are raised by the thousands and packed into concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), their natural diets of roots and grasses, grubs and bugs has been replaced by a standard factory farm fare of grains, soybeans, King Corn and a sundry array of advanced pharmaceutical products.

But sound science has emerged to demonstrate that eating meat, milk and eggs from grass-fed and pastured animals will provide your body with more health-enhancing, disease fighting materials than industrial-grade CAFO-raised protein.

Full Story: David Kirby: The Nutritional Superiority of Pasture Raised Animals.

Health Care Repeal Campaigns Could Backfire On Republicans In Fall Elections

Top Republicans are increasingly worried that GOP candidates this fall might be burned by a fire that’s roaring through the conservative base: demand for the repeal of President Barack Obama’s new health care law.

It’s fine to criticize the health law and the way Democrats pushed it through Congress without a single GOP vote, these party leaders say. But focusing on its outright repeal carries two big risks.

Repeal is politically and legally unlikely, and grass-roots activists may feel disillusioned by a failed crusade. More important, say strategists from both parties, a fiercely repeal-the-bill stance might prove far less popular in a general election than in a conservative-dominated GOP primary, especially in states such as Illinois and California.

Full Story: Health Care Repeal Campaigns Could Backfire On Republicans In Fall Elections.

Paul Volcker: Do the Right Economic Thing

A great deal of the popular anger directed at big banks is completely legitimate, as put nicely by John Cassidy at the end of his interview with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner,

“The hardest part of his job, Geithner often says, is getting people to comprehend the inner logic of a financial-rescue operation, and the unpopular actions it entails. In fact, his problem may be not economic illiteracy but its opposite: Americans understand all too well what has happened. Financial crises have a way of revealing aspects of our economic system that otherwise remain obscured, such as the symbiotic relationship between Wall Street and Washington, the hidden subsidies that financial firms sometimes receive from the Fed and other government agencies, and the fact that the vast profits that firms like JPMorgan Chase and Goldman generate depend in part on an implicit guarantee from the taxpayer. When ordinary Americans are confronted with these realities, they get angry.”

Paul Volcker is also angry.

Full Story: Simon Johnson: Paul Volcker: Do the Right Economic Thing.

9 Surprising Fish Farming Facts (PHOTOS)

Over 1 billion people across the world rely on fish as their main source of protein, mostly in developing countries. In America, fish consumption is rapidly increasing with the growing awareness of its health benefits. Due to overfishing, over 70% of the world’s fish are either fully exploited or depleted. As a result, fish farming, or aquaculture, has quickly stepped up to meet the demands of fish consumption. While there are methods of sustainable and environmentally friendly fish farming, many of the current methods employed are unregulated and can be extremely harmful to the environment.

We’ve put together 9 surprising facts about fish farming that you may not have known!

Full Story: 9 Surprising Fish Farming Facts (PHOTOS).

Russia Suicide Bombs: Two Explosions In Dagestan After Twin Attacks In Moscow

Two suicide bombers – including one impersonating a police officer – killed 12 people Wednesday in southern Russia. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said the blasts may have been organized by the same militants who attacked the Moscow subway.

The powerful former president had previously vowed to “drag out of the sewer” the terrorists behind the attacks in Moscow, which killed 39 people and injured scores of commuters during Monday’s rush hour.

Wednesday’s blasts struck in the province of Dagestan. Bombings and other attacks occur almost daily in Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia, provinces in Russia’s North Caucasus region where government forces are struggling against a separatist Islamist insurgency.

Full Story: Russia Suicide Bombs: Two Explosions In Dagestan After Twin Attacks In Moscow.

9/11 Mother Demands Obama Try Terrorist Plotters In Civilian Court (VIDEO)

A group of more than 200 family members of 9/11 victims has released an emotional new web video imploring the Obama administration to remain true to its plans to try terrorist suspects in civilian court.

In anticipation of a final announcement as to the trial venue for the 9/11 plotters, the group September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows is warning the president against “buckling to political pressure,” calling the use of military tribunals the “wrong thing to do.”

In a nearly four-minute long video, Donna Marsh O’Connor — a Peaceful Tomorrows member who lost her pregnant daughter when the Twin Towers collapsed — speaks both to the broad notion that America has a “historic commitment to justice” and, more narrowly, to the horse-trading politics that now surround terrorist trials. Reflecting disappointment with recent signals from the White House, O’Connor calls specifically for the president to reject a reported compromise proposal with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) in which the administration would drop plans for civilian trials in exchange for Republican support for the closure of Gitmo.

Full Story: 9/11 Mother Demands Obama Try Terrorist Plotters In Civilian Court (VIDEO).

Insurance Industry Already Finding Ways To Game New System

Dan Froomkin -

The insurance industry’s attempt to weasel out of one of the few provisions of the new health care reform law that took effect immediately is a harbinger of what’s to come.

In this case, the companies that were balking at covering sick children quickly relented under media, congressional and White House pressure.

But far from being satisfied with a windfall of new customers and massive government subsidies, the nation’s insurance companies appear to already be busy devising ways to game the new system. Their goal, as ever: Maximizing profits by paying out as little on actual health care as possible.

Full Story: Insurance Industry Already Finding Ways To Game New System.

Iceland summons top US diplomat over WikiLeaks dust-up

The U.S. charge d’affaires in Iceland was summoned to the country’s foreign ministry over the leak of documents to website WikiLeaks, a foreign ministry spokeswoman claimed Tuesday.

“He was asked to come here yesterday (Monday) and he came the same day,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Urdur Gunnarsdottir said of charge d’affaires Sam Watson, who in the absence of a US ambassador to Iceland is the highest ranking US diplomat in the country.

Watson was asked to come to the foreign ministry to receive a formal objection from the ministry’s director concerning the leak of profiles of high-ranking Icelandic officials to website WikiLeaks.org.

Full Story: Iceland summons top US diplomat over WikiLeaks dust-up | Raw Story.

Private sector unexpectedly loses 23,000 jobs in March

Private-sector employers unexpectedly shed 23,000 jobs in March, according to a measure of private-sector employment released this morning, reminding us of the very choppy nature of this recovery.

Forecasters expected private-sector employers to actually add about 40,000 jobs, which makes the job-loss number all the more disappointing. The stock markets experienced a futures sell-off in the moments immediately following the report, indicating a lower opening today.

The ADP employment report released this morning is typically seen as a preview for the federal government’s monthly unemployment rate report, which is due out on Friday. The March official unemployment rate is 9.7 percent and forecasters expect the April number to come in unchanged.

Full Story: Economy Watch – Private sector unexpectedly loses 23,000 jobs in March.

HHS Contracts With PR Firm Responsible For ‘Propaganda’ Videos During The Bush Administration

ProPublica reports today that the Department of Health and Human Services has hired the massive PR firm Ketchum to help win consumer trust about electronic medial records with funds from the stimulus. But, as ProPublica’s Sebastian Jones and Michael Grabell note, Ketchum has a controversial history of pushing propaganda during the Bush administration:

The irony? The firm chosen for the job — Ketchum Inc. — was hip-deep in controversy a few years ago for producing a series of fake TV news stories that violated a federal ban on propaganda. The company also drew fire for channeling taxpayer funds to a conservative pundit to promote the Bush administration’s education policies.

In 2004, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) concluded that video news releases developed by Ketchum to tout changes to Medicare under Bush’s prescription drug benefit were “covert propaganda” because they did not identify that the government was the source of the news reports. A 2005 GAO report found that similar video releases developed by Ketchum to promote No Child Left Behind also constituted “covert propaganda.”

Full Story: Think Progress » HHS Contracts With PR Firm Responsible For ‘Propaganda’ Videos During The Bush Administration.

Wake up America, Your Dreams Have Become a Nightmare

When we finally awake from our peaceful sleep we will realize the ownership and control of our country was taken from us. We are a defeated and conquered nation.

While we were sleeping 16,613 of our wealth generating companies have permanently slipped into foreign ownership. The further profits, which formerly supplied us with our strength and comforts, will now belong to our foreign masters who have stealthily taken control of us in an economics war. We are now for all intents and purposes as we were before 1776: an American Colony.

We haven’t realized it yet, as our foreign masters are good to us – for the time being. They are giving us all the money and merchandise we desire on credit, just as we supplied them after conquering them in a military war. Shouldn’t we be wary though? They may not always be as good to us in the future as we were to them in the past.

Full Story: Wake up America, Your Dreams Have Become a Nightmare | Economy In Crisis.

A Bow to Money; Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United Ruling’s Impact Extended

…expect to see our elected officials having to bow to  the world’s largest corporations

Thom Hartmann -

In a decision that shows the extended impact of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia struck down limits on contributions to political groups that spend money to support or oppose candidates.

The court found that the $5,000 annual limit on contributions to such groups is unconstitutional, writing that the Citizens United ruling “resolves this appeal,” in favor of SpeechNow.org, a group that seems to have been started with the specific purpose of challenging campaign-finance regulations.

SCOTUSblog concludes that this ruling “significantly broadens the impact of Citizens United, extending its constitutional reasoning from campaign spending to campaign donations.”

Full Story: OpEdNews – Article: A Bow to Money; Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United Ruling’s Impact Extended.

Greenpeace Unmasks Koch Industries’ Funding of Climate Denial Industry

Koch Industries has “become a financial kingpin of climate science denial and clean energy opposition,” spending over $48.5 million since 1997 to fund the climate denial machine, according to an extensive report today by Greenpeace.

The Greenpeace report reveals how Koch Industries and the foundations under its control spent far more than even ExxonMobil in recent years to fund industry front groups opposed to clean energy and climate policies. Koch spent over half the total amount -nearly $25 million – funding climate denier groups from 2005 to 2008, a period in which Exxon only spent $8.9 million.

Greenpeace’s attempt to lift the veil of secrecy inherent to a private company like Koch Industries is no easy task. Because it remains privately owned, Koch faces few of the disclosure requirements designed to increase transparency among publicly-traded companies.

Full Story: Brendan DeMelle: Greenpeace Unmasks Koch Industries’ Funding of Climate Denial Industry.

Free Trade Isn’t Free

America’s leaders must recognize that free trade is simply an academic theory that does not exist, nor work, in the real world.

If America is to compete in international trade against nations such as China and Japan that purposely game the system in their favor, it will have to adopt a more “defensive mercantilist” stance, according to Ian Fletcher, an adjunct fellow at the U.S. Business and Industry Council and author of .

“The answer is the United States simply has to get back into the game which we played for hundreds of years,” he said.

According to Fletcher, for most of its history, the U.S. practiced a form of protectionism that allowed it to thrive economically. With the emergence of the free trade era, however, America has taken the lead and unilaterally disarmed itself in an economic war.

Full Story: Free Trade Isn’t Free | Economy In Crisis.

Ohio’s Manufacturing Crisis

One of the biggest losers in the blind pursuit of “free trade” has been the state of Ohio, which has seen its manufacturing base depleted, its cities shrink and its residents fall behind the rest of the nation economically.

“Trade has winners and losers,” Alan Blinder, a former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve and a Democrat, told The New York Times last February. “And there have been a lot of losers in Ohio.”

The industries which were at one time the lifeblood of Ohio’s economy have been disappearing at a rapid rate since the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement and China’s ascension into the World Trade Organization.

Full Story: Ohio’s Manufacturing Crisis | Economy In Crisis.

BP Solar Outsourcing Production of Solar Panels

The myth of America’s leadership in the world’s 21st Century “green economy” suffered yet another blow Friday as BP Solar announced the closure of a Maryland manufacturing plant that built solar panels.

The company announced that it would close its Frederick, Maryland, plant and move the production to facilities in India, China and elsewhere. The plant closing will affect some 320 workers at the factory.

The announcement comes just three years after the company received a $7.5 million grant from the Department of Energy to promote alternative energy and wean the nation off its dependence on foreign oil.

Full Story: BP Solar Outsourcing Production of Solar Panels | Economy In Crisis.

The ‘Long War’ quagmire

Tom Hayden -

Our Government Is Planning to Stay at War for the Next 80 Years

The doctrine, which posits an 80-year or so war against insurgents in the Middle East to South Asia, needs more scrutiny.

Without public debate and without congressional hearings, a segment of the Pentagon and fellow travelers have embraced a doctrine known as the Long War, which projects an “arc of instability” caused by insurgent groups from Europe to South Asia that will last between 50 and 80 years. According to one of its architects, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan are just “small wars in the midst of a big one.”

Consider the audacity of such an idea. An 80-year undeclared war would entangle 20 future presidential terms stretching far into the future of voters not yet born. The American death toll in Iraq and Afghanistan now approaches 5,000, with the number of wounded a multiple many times greater. Including the American dead from 9/11, that’s 8,000 dead so far in the first decade of the Long War. And if the American armed forces are stretched thin today, try to conceive of seven more decades of combat.

The costs are unimaginable too. According to economists Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, Iraq alone will be a $3-trillion war. Those costs, and the other deficit spending of recent years, yield “virtually no room for new domestic initiatives for Mr. Obama or his successors,” according to a New York Times budget analysis in February. Continued deficit financing for the Long War will rob today’s younger generation of resources for their future.

Full Story: The ‘Long War’ quagmire – Los Angeles Times.

Dissident Female Catholic Bishop Calls for Pope to Resign over Sex Abuse Scandal

Dissident Female Catholic Bishop Calls for Pope to Resign over Sex Abuse Scandal

The Vatican has denied a series of media reports alleging that Pope Benedict, before being elected pontiff, may have looked the other way in cases of abuse in his native Germany and in the United States. Last week, the Vatican strongly defended its decision not to defrock the Wisconsin-based priest Father Lawrence Murphy, who abused some 200 deaf boys in the 1950s and ’60s. The National Catholic Reporter says the Pope must be ready to answer questions and called the scandal “the largest institutional crisis in centuries, possibly in church history.” We speak to Bridget Mary Meehan, spokesperson for Roman Catholic Womenpriests.

Free: Audio/video streaming, MP3 download and transcipt

Full Story: Dissident Female Catholic Bishop Calls for Pope to Resign over Sex Abuse Scandal.

OPS: that’ll teach ‘em to allow women in the priesthood

How Afraid Are You?

Threats of violence are stinking up the air in America — and they need to be taken seriously. We need your help.

Threats of violence are stinking up the air in America — and they need to be taken seriously. With the passage of health care reform by the Democrats, right-wing leaders and followers — whether they’re Republicans, conservatives, Fox News personalities, or the rank and file of the Tea Party movement — have become collectively unhinged, all at once.

As the rancor explodes, it becomes increasingly clear that the fight over health care has less to do with the topic at hand than with the changing face of America — and those who interpret that change as a threat to their own power and identity. We are in for tough times, as the right gets more desperate with the growing sense that the world is passing it by.

We know what will happen. With Fox News orchestrating, other corporate media sensationalize sporadic violence and rabblerousing rhetoric with little or no analysis.

So far, we’ve seen repulsive actions — racist and homophobic slurs aimed at civil right heroes and legislative leaders on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, bricks crashing through the office windows of congressional Democrats, who also find death threats in their voice mail.

Full Story: How Afraid Are You? | | AlterNet.

Exposing the Deep Swamp of Republican Hypocrisy — How a Party Alienated the Nation

“I grew up in a profoundly Republican home so I can remember when you wore a very different face than the one we see now.”

Dear Conservative Americans,

The years have not been kind to you. I grew up in a profoundly Republican home so I can remember when you wore a very different face than the one we see now.  You’ve lost me and you’ve lost most of America.  Because I believe having responsible choices is important to democracy, I’d like to give you some advice and an invitation.

First, the invitation: Come back to us.

Now the advice.  You’re going to have to come up with a platform that isn’t built on a foundation of cowardice: fear of people with colors, religions, cultures and sex lives that differ from yours; fear of reform in banking, health care, energy; fantasy fears of America being transformed into an Islamic nation, into social/commun/fasc-ism, into a disarmed populace put in internment camps; and more.  But you have work to do even before you take on that task.

Your party — the GOP — and the conservative end of the American political spectrum has become irresponsible and irrational.  Worse, it’s tolerating, promoting and celebrating prejudice and hatred.  Let me provide some examples – by no means an exhaustive list — of where the Right as gotten itself stuck in a swamp of hypocrisy, hyperbole, historical inaccuracy and hatred.

Full Story: Exposing the Deep Swamp of Republican Hypocrisy — How a Party Alienated the Nation | News & Politics | AlterNet.

The Trillion-Dollar Shadow – Audit the FED

What secrets are hidden in the Federal Reserve’s trillion-dollar shadow? Economic recovery depends on confidence, and confidence requires knowledge. But senators like Chris Dodd and Judd Gregg don’t want us to have that knowledge. They don’t even want it themselves.

In Sen. Dodd’s case, he’s trying to give the Fed more authority (over consumer protection) even as he fights to keep its activities hidden. Fortunately, the final decision may not be up to him.

A judge’s recent ruling in favor of two news organizations (Bloomberg and Fox) promised to shed light on $2 trillion in concealed Fed emergency loans to major financial firms. That’s a start. But Sen. Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, is still fighting efforts to have a full-scale audit of the Fed’s other major bailout activities, including the $1.25 trillion program to buy mortgage-backed securities. That’s been going at the rate of $10 billion per week—a massive program which ends this Wednesday.

Full Story: The Trillion-Dollar Shadow | OurFuture.org.

“Our President Is Deceiving the American Public”: Pentagon Papers Whistleblower on President Obama and the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq

Democracy NOW! -

“Our President Is Deceiving the American Public”: Pentagon Papers Whistleblower on President Obama and the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq

We are joined by a man who played a major role in efforts to end the Vietnam War in the 1970s. In 1971, the then-RAND Corporation analyst Daniel Ellsberg leaked to the media what became known as the Pentagon Papers, a 7,000-page classified history outlining the true extent of US involvement in Vietnam. After avoiding a life sentence on espionage charges, Daniel Ellsberg has continued to speak out against US militarism until the present day.

Free: Audio, Video, MP3 download, Stream, transcript available at link

Full Story: “Our President Is Deceiving the American Public”: Pentagon Papers Whistleblower on President Obama and the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

We’ve Been Geithnered Again!

Public relations plays a critical role in building support for unpopular government policies. That’s why the media never mentions Obama’s Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) without the phrase “struggling homeowners” somewhere close bye. The idea that government policy is guided by genuine concern for families facing foreclosure, is pure fantasy. The truth is, the objectives of Obama’s “new/improved” HAMP are the same as they have always been; to minimize the losses of the banks by keeping people in homes they really can’t afford. Compassion has nothing to do with it.

The Fed and Treasury have already spent nearly $2 trillion to prop up housing prices and stem the flow of foreclosures. The proposed changes to the program, will add many billions more to that sum. Financial institutions are again being rewarded for their bad bets and given another opportunity to capitalize off government largesse at the expense of the public.

Full Story: We’ve Been Geithnered Again! | The Smirking Chimp.

Fraud on the Street

Robert Reich -

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced Monday it had begun an inquiry into two dozen financial companies to determine whether they followed accounting practices similar to those recently disclosed in an investigation of Lehman Brothers.

Where on earth has the SEC been?

It’s now clear Lehman Brothers’ balance sheet was bogus before the bank collapsed in 2008, catapulting the Street and the world into the worse financial crisis since 1929. The Lehman bankruptcy examiner’s recent report details what just about everyone on the Street has known since the firm imploded – that Lehman defrauded its investors. Even Hank Paulson, in his recent memoir, referred to Lehman’s balance sheet as bogus.

Full Story: Robert Reich (Fraud on the Street).

GERMANY LATEST VICTIM OF PHONY GOLD BAR SCAM

Amid international accusations that U.S. officials in the Clinton administration replaced gold in Fort Knox with phony, mostly tungsten bars that were later shipped to China and other places yet unknown, a German refinery has now discovered that it has received a bogus “gold” bar as well.

The video proof was shown on the German television station ProSieben that ran the news story covering W.C. Heraeus in Hanau, Germany, the world’s largest privately owned refinery.

In the story, Wilfried Horner, head of the gold foundry, shows a 500-gram bar (16.0755 troy ounces) received from an unidentified bank. The bar had the right physical dimensions to be an authentic gold bar, but one of the Heraeus employees suspected something.

Full Story: GOLD BAR SCAM 215.

US healthcare reform is boon for India outsourcing companies

With 22 pen strokes, President Obama signed into existence not just a historic healthcare reform law but also monumental piles of paperwork: New member registration forms. More claims. Ever-expanding databases. And on top of that, pressure to cut costs.

The bulge in administrative work may look like a nightmare to American insurance firms and government employees. But to outsourcing executives here in India, it’s heaven-sent. A number of Indian companies are already anticipating an increase in workload thanks to Obama’s healthcare law.

The addition of 32 million insured Americans is “very significant” for Indian outsourcers, says Ananda Mukerji, chief executive officer of Firstsource Solutions in Mumbai. Companies like his will see “increased opportunities” as US health insurers and hospitals scramble to reorganize to comply with the new law, he wrote in an email to the Monitor.

Full Story: US healthcare reform is boon for India outsourcing companies – Yahoo! News.

Stop Feeding the Vultures

Greg Palast »

I get the idea that Eric Hermann doesn’t want to talk to me. When I came to his office suite, his hedge fund’s name plaque had been unbolted from the building’s wall, the suite number removed and all the employees locked in.

I’m not surprised. Hermann is a vulture, not the carrion-eating type, but the kind that prey on the financially wounded. “Vulture” is a hedge fund industry term for the financiers who buy up the right to collect old loans of the world’s poorest nations, and then use every trick in the book — from lawsuits to bribery to hiring Henry Kissinger’s lobby firm — to muscle destitute countries into turning over their meager foreign aid funds.

Vultures, whether of the feathered or speculator species, don’t like to talk to reporters.

Full Story: Greg Palast » Stop Feeding the Vultures.

Obama to Open Offshore Areas to Oil Drilling for First Time

The Obama administration is proposing to open vast expanses of water along the Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the north coast of Alaska to oil and natural gas drilling, much of it for the first time, officials said Tuesday.

The proposal — a compromise that will please oil companies and domestic drilling advocates but anger some residents of affected states and many environmental organizations — would end a longstanding moratorium on oil exploration along the East Coast from the northern tip of Delaware to the central coast of Florida, covering 167 million acres of ocean.

Under the plan, the coastline from New Jersey northward would remain closed to all oil and gas activity. So would the Pacific Coast, from Mexico to the Canadian border.

The environmentally sensitive Bristol Bay in southwestern Alaska would be protected and no drilling would be allowed under the plan, officials said. But large tracts in the Chukchi Sea and Beaufort Sea in the Arctic Ocean north of Alaska — nearly 130 million acres — would be eligible for exploration and drilling after extensive studies.

Full Story: Obama to Open Offshore Areas to Oil Drilling for First Time – NYTimes.com.

OPENING UP THE FED’S SECRET WALL STREET BAILOUT

Jim Hightower -

In the bipartisan bailout of Wall Street banksters, our own government not only failed to stand up for us taxpayers, it aggressively stonewalled us so we couldn’t even know which giant banks were getting how much of our money.

Thank goodness, then, for the news services and federal judges who’re finally compelling this cabal of bankers and regulators to tell us what they did with our public funds. In a unanimous decision, three Court of appeals judges say that the Federal Reserve (which, by the way, was the regulator that was supposed to be in charge of preventing such Wall Street collapses) must now disclose who got $2 trillion in sweetheart loans that the Fed doled out to its teetering bank buddies in 2008.

Astonishingly, top Fed officials had claimed in court that this information constitutes “trade secrets,” and that disclosure of names would cause “severe and irreparable” harm to these giants. Who is the Fed fronting for? A bank consortium that includes Bank of America, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase, US Bancorp, and Wells Fargo.

Audio and full transcript at link

Full Story: Jim Hightower | OPENING UP THE FED’S SECRET WALL STREET BAILOUT.

COMCAST takes first step towards tiered, metered, broadband service

Dear Comcast High-Speed Internet Customer,

We are pleased to announce the pilot launch of the Comcast Usage Meter in your area. This new feature is available to Comcast High-Speed Internet customers and provides an easy way to check total monthly household high-speed Internet data usage at any time. Monthly data usage is the amount of data, such as images, movies, photos, videos, and other files that customers send, receive, download or upload each month. Comcast measures total data usage and does not monitor specific customer activities to determine data usage. The current data usage allowance for the Comcast High-Speed Internet service is 250GB per month. This means that the vast majority of our customers – around 99% currently – will not come close to using 250GB of data in a month, and do not need to check the usage meter.

For more information on the data usage policy, please visit http://help.comcast.net/aup. To view your current data usage, please visit http://customer.comcast.com and sign in to customerCentral (shown below)

.

Gibbs: Regulatory Reform Bill By Late May Not ‘Unrealistic’

The Obama administration said on Tuesday that it expects financial regulatory reform to pass through the Senate — maybe even through Congress — by late May, establishing the type of timeline that frequently vexed the president during the health care debate.

“I don’t think that is an unrealistic timetable at all,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters, when asked about “a push to get the bill to the president’s desk by the end of May.”

“Obviously we have had a bill through the House, a bill through the [Senate Banking] Committee, un-amended, nobody on the Republican side even offered an amendment. So I think the next piece of business that the Senate will take up will be financial reform,” Gibbs added. “I don’t think that [late May] is unrealistic. I think without a doubt the president would like to see, with his signature, sprawling rules in place, certainly prior to the two year anniversary of the collapse of our economy. So I think we are on a pace to make those changes quite quickly.”

Full Story: Gibbs: Regulatory Reform Bill By Late May Not ‘Unrealistic’.

KBR on Trial — At Last

Five years after alerting authorities that she was gang-raped in Iraq, KBR/Halliburton employee Jamie Leigh Jones will finally get her day in court.

On Wednesday, after fighting tooth-and-nail in the lower courts to keep the case from going to trial, KBR announced that it was dropping its Supreme Court appeal in the case. (The company actually withdrew its petition to the court on March 11, according to KBR spokesperson Heather Browne. This was less than two weeks after it was awarded a new $2.3 billion logistics contract by the Army.) Jones, who says she was raped by coworkers and then imprisoned in a shipping container for three days by KBR staffers who wanted to keep her complaint quiet, had been barred from pursuing her sexual harassment case in the courts by a provision in her employee contract: The fine print said all such issues must be resolved via the company’s own binding arbitration process.

I first reported on the case for The Investigative Fund, in partnership with The Nation, as part of an exposé on the rash of rape and sexual harassment allegations lodged against Halliburton, KBR, and its subsidiaries. One Houston firm alone was representing more than 14 women with similar rape or harassment complaints. But Jones, like the other women, was hit with a double-whammy of obstruction.

First, there was the contractual requirement that Jones pursue her complaint in an extralegal Halliburton dispute-resolution program implemented in 1997 under then-CEO Dick Cheney. Instead of taking their case to the US courts, employees agreed, before they were hired and shipped to Iraq, that all disputes would be resolved via the clandestine arbitration process.

Full Story: KBR on Trial — At Last | The Investigative Fund.

EPA Launching Major Investigation Into BPA

The Environmental Protection Agency said Monday it will investigate the impact of the chemical Bisphenol-A on the U.S. water supply and other parts of the environment.

Federal regulators have been ramping up their scrutiny of the controversial plastic-hardener at the behest of scientists and activists who say it can interfere with infant growth and development.

The EPA said in a statement it will begin measuring levels of BPA in drinking and ground water. More than 1 million pounds of BPA are released into the environment each year, according to the agency.

The EPA will also “look for ways to reduce unnecessary exposures, including assessing substitutes.”

BPA is found in canned food linings, water bottles, CDs and hundreds of other household items.

Full Story: EPA Launching Major Investigation Into BPA.

When the Banks Own the Congress

Passing on the Risk to the Taxpayer

A society not alert to signs of its own decay, because its ideology is a continuing myth of progress, separates itself from reality and envelops illusion.

One yardstick by which to measure the decay in our country’s political, economic, and cultural life, is the answer to this question: Do the forces of power, which have demonstrably failed, become stronger after their widely perceived damage is common knowledge?

Economic decay is all around. Poverty, unemployment, foreclosures, job export, consumer debt, pension attrition, and crumbling infrastructure are well documented. The self-destruction of the Wall Street financial giants, with their looting and draining of trillions of other people’s money, have been headlines for two years. During and after their gigantic taxpayer bailouts from Washington, DC, the banks, et al, are still the most powerful force in determining the nature of proposed corrective legislation.

“The banks own this place,” says Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL), evoking the opinion of many members of a supine Congress ready to pass weak consumer and investor protection legislation while leaving dominant fewer and larger banks.

Full Story: Ralph Nader: When the Banks Own the Congress.

High court restricts whistleblower lawsuits

Sotomayor sided with Breyer.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday placed limits on existing whistleblower lawsuits alleging local governments misused federal money, in a decision that produced newcomer Sonia Sotomayor’s first dissenting opinion.

But the just-enacted health care overhaul law contains a provision that changed the federal False Claims Act in a way that would appear to allow new, similar lawsuits to go forward.

The court voted 7-2 to hold that a technical, though important aspect, of the federal whistleblower law applies to local governments. One section of the law prohibits whistleblower lawsuits when public disclosure of the alleged fraud occurs through a court hearing, a news report or congressional or administrative audit.

Full Story: High court restricts whistleblower lawsuits.

Christopher Hitchens Slams Vatican, Pope Over Sex Abuse Scandal (VIDEO)

Christopher Hitchens, whose antagonism towards religion is well-established, had harsh words for the Catholic Church, and the Pope in particular, during an appearance on “Morning Joe” today.

The most recent scandal that has erupted over the priest who molested over 200 deaf boys, Hitchens said, proves that “the fatal taint” goes all the way to the top:

A school for children who can only use sign language. 200 of them have their childhoods completely wrecked by this priest, and entreaties are addressed to the man who is now Pope, Cardinal Ratzinger, the man who was saying at the time that the only problem with the scandal was there was a press campaign against the church. The abuse was not the problem, the torture the rape; only the revelation of it. Nothing happens except that he forgives the priest who asked for forgiveness before he dies.

I wrote then and I believe now that the fatal taint went straight to the top at that point, and now we have as head of the church someone who’s personally as well institutionally responsible for knowing of this, covering it up and protecting, not the children, but the predators.

Full Story: Christopher Hitchens Slams Vatican, Pope Over Sex Abuse Scandal (VIDEO).

Exclusive: FEC commissioner helped RNC conceal role in 2004 vote suppression

Judge found sworn testimony ‘belied’ the facts

Caroline Hunter, a Bush-appointed Federal Election Commissioner who remains in office, provided misleading statements under oath in an effort to conceal Republican National Committee involvement in vote suppression activities during the 2004 presidential election, a Raw Story investigation has found.

Legal experts say Hunter’s submission of such statements under oath is a serious ethical and professional breach which could warrant a bar review and potential disbarment. At the time, Hunter was serving as deputy counsel to the Republican National Committee.

How a young Republican lawyer became a central witness

Full Story: Exclusive: FEC commissioner helped RNC conceal role in 2004 vote suppression | Raw Story.

Protesters try to cuff Rove, drive him off stage

Karl Rove has seen better days.

The former White House Deputy Chief of Staff and top Bush adviser was treated to a cadre of protesters Monday, who threatened him with a citizen’s arrest and ultimately succeeded in driving him offstage.

As the local CBS News affiliate described it, “Karl Rove book tour starts out with a bang.”

Maybe not quite the bang he wanted.

Full Story: Protesters try to cuff Rove, drive him off stage | Raw Story.

What if Fox News actually wants mob violence?

Conservative commentators were atwitter last week following news that Ann Coulter’s speech at the University of Ottawa was canceled in the face of protests. Of course, Coulter has the right to speak her mind on campuses. But in announcing the cancellation, her conservative Canadian sponsor, pundit Ezra Levant, put the blame on out-of-control liberals who had allegedly made it unsafe for Coulter to speak, breathlessly telling reporters that “the police and the security have advised that it would be physically dangerous for Ann Coulter to proceed with this event and for others to come in” and stressing the presence of an “unruly mob” outside.

Naturally, right-wing bloggers south of the Canadian border then went ballistic. Gateway Pundit claimed a menacing mob of 2,000, armed with “rocks and sticks,” had surrounded the Ottawa campus building where Coulter was to speak. And yes, a fire alarm was even pulled.

Oh, my!

Full Story: What if Fox News actually wants mob violence? | The Smirking Chimp.

A Race to Introduce GM Corn Before Africa’s Climate Worsens

In Kiboko, Kenya, a barbed wire fence separates a field of hybrid corn from the surrounding lands. Inside the fence, food safety regulators are learning to grow the crop with little water. In recent years, droughts have hit the region between June and September, reducing yields.

But two new varieties of corn, also known as maize, are coming to sub-Saharan Africa. One of them is conventionally bred; the other, better-yielding variety is genetically modified. Both are drought-tolerant and the seeds are royalty-free. Together with other agricultural interventions, they have the potential to feed some of the 300 million people for whom the plant is a staple.

There is now a great rush in parts of the continent to get biosafety regulations in place before the transgenic corn arrives on commercial markets in 2017.

…snip…

The initiative has big names behind it. The Gates Foundation and Warren Buffett fund it. Monsanto developed the crop for North American farmers using a gene from the lowly Bacillus subtilis bacterium, which is found in dirt.

Full Story: A Race to Introduce GM Corn Before Africa’s Climate Worsens – NYTimes.com.

Polk educators fight bill that ties student performance, teacher pay

Polk County teachers are joining the ranks of thousands of other educators around Florida who oppose state House and Senate bills that would essentially overhaul the way teachers get paid, tying compensation to student testing.

Dozens of Polk educators lined Edgewood Drive outside state Rep. Kelly Stargel’s office this morning to protest the proposed legislation. Armed with signs and wearing red shirts the group chanted, “Don’t hurt teachers.” Stargel was not at the office at the time of the protest.

Marianne Capoziello is the president of Polk’s Education Association, which represents teachers in collective bargaining. She said the law basically devalues an educator’s service and experience while putting all the emphasis on the success of a standardized test.

Full Story: Polk educators fight bill that ties student performance, teacher pay.

Losing their religion? Catholicism in turmoil

Sex abuse scandal prompts soul-searching across the globe

An Austrian priest avoids mention of Pope Benedict XVI in his Masses. A Philadelphia woman stops going to confession, saying she now sees priests as more flawed than herself. British protesters call for the pontiff to resign.

As the faithful fill churches this Holy Week, many Roman Catholics around the world are finding their relationship to the church painfully tested by new revelations of clerical abuse and suggestions Benedict himself may have helped cover up cases in Germany and the U.S.

There are fears that for those whose commitment is already wavering, the scandal could be the final blow, and a growing chorus is clamoring for the church to embrace full transparency, take a hard line against pedophiles, and reconsider the rule of priestly celibacy.

Full Story: Losing their religion? Catholicism in turmoil – World Faith- msnbc.com.

There Are Crazies on One Side

Eugene Robinson -

The arrests of members of a Michigan-based “Christian” militia group should convince doubters that there is good reason to worry about right-wing, anti-government extremism—and potential violence—in the Age of Obama.

I put the word “Christian” in quotes because anyone who plots to assassinate law enforcement officers, as a federal indictment alleges members of the Hutaree militia did, is no follower of Christ. According to federal prosecutors, the Hutaree—the word’s not in my dictionary, but their website claims it means “Christian warrior”—are convinced that their enemies include “state and local law enforcement, who are deemed ‘foot soldiers’ of the federal government, federal law enforcement agencies and employees, participants in the ‘New World Order,’ and anyone who does not share in the Hutaree’s beliefs.”

According to the indictment, the group had been plotting for two years to assassinate federal, state or local police officers. “Possible such acts which were discussed,” the indictment says, “included killing a member of law enforcement after a traffic stop, killing a member of law enforcement and his or her family at home, ambushing a member of law enforcement in rural communities, luring a member of law enforcement with a false 911 emergency call and then killing him or her, and killing a member of law enforcement and then attacking the funeral procession motorcade” with homemade bombs.

Full Story: Eugene Robinson: There Are Crazies on One Side – Truthdig.

Oath Keepers and the Age of Treason

Glenn Beck loves them. Tea Partiers court them. Congressmen listen to them. Meet the fast-growing “patriot” group that’s recruiting soldiers to resist the Obama administration.

THE .50 CALIBER Bushmaster bolt action rifle is a serious weapon. The model that Pvt. 1st Class Lee Pray is saving up for has a 2,500-yard range and comes with a Mark IV scope and an easy-load magazine. When the 25-year-old drove me to a mall in Watertown, New York, near the Fort Drum Army base, he brought me to see it in its glass case—he visits it periodically, like a kid coveting something at the toy store. It’ll take plenty of military paychecks to cover the $5,600 price tag, but he considers the Bushmaster essential in his preparations to take on the US government when it declares martial law.

His belief that that day is imminent has led Pray to a group called Oath Keepers, one of the fastest-growing “patriot” organizations on the right. Founded last April by Yale-educated lawyer and ex-Ron Paul aide Stewart Rhodes, the group has established itself as a hub in the sprawling anti-Obama movement that includes Tea Partiers, Birthers, and 912ers. Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, and Pat Buchanan have all sung its praises, and in December, a grassroots summit it helped organize drew such prominent guests as representatives Phil Gingrey and Paul Broun, both Georgia Republicans.

There are scores of patriot groups, but what makes Oath Keepers unique is that its core membership consists of men and women in uniform, including soldiers, police, and veterans. At regular ceremonies in every state, members reaffirm their official oaths of service, pledging to protect the Constitution—but then they go a step further, vowing to disobey “unconstitutional” orders from what they view as an increasingly tyrannical government.

Full Story: Oath Keepers and the Age of Treason | Mother Jones.

S. Korea military on alert in aftermath of ship sinking

The presidential order comes after an official says a North Korean mine may be to blame.

Seoul – South Korea’s president ordered the military on alert Tuesday for any moves by rival North Korea after the defense minister said last week’s explosion and sinking of a South Korean ship may have been caused by a North Korean mine.

The blast ripped the 1,200-ton ship apart Friday night during a routine patrol mission near Baengnyeong Island, along the tense maritime border west of the Korean peninsula. Fifty-eight crew members, including the captain, were plucked to safety; 46 remain missing with dim prospects of finding any further survivors.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff said the exact cause was unclear, and U.S. and South Korean officials said there was no outward indication of North Korean involvement.

Full Story: S. Korea military on alert in aftermath of ship sinking – latimes.com.

Judge deals U.S. major setback in H-1B fraud case

In what may be the largest H-1B fraud case ever brought forward, the government has run into trouble with a judge having dismissed a number of counts and suppressed some of the evidence taken from an IT services firm’s computers.

The ruling, made late last week, may help IT services firm Vision Systems Group Inc. in its defense against government allegations that it had set up shell companies in Iowa so it could pay some of its visa workers the state’s lower prevailing wage rates.

The U.S. is seeking $4.9 million from the company in an indictment issued nearly one year ago.

Full Story: Judge deals U.S. major setback in H-1B fraud case.

Feds thinking outside the box to plug intelligence gaps

Three recent events — the foiled Christmas Day bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner, the Dec. 30 assassination of seven CIA officers and contractors by a Jordanian double agent in Afghanistan and the difficulties that U.S. Marines in Marjah, Afghanistan, have encountered — all have something in common: inadequate intelligence.

To lower the odds of similar troubles in the future, the government has launched a swarm of spooky, out-of-the-box research projects known collectively as the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity.

“The intelligence community needs to place bets on high-risk, high-payoff research that might not work, (but if it did) would give us an overwhelming intelligence advantage over future adversaries,” IARPA director Lisa Porter said in an interview at her sparkling new headquarters just outside Washington in College Park, Md. “We need to fundamentally change the way we do business.”

Full Story: Feds thinking outside the box to plug intelligence gaps | McClatchy.

JPMorgan Tax Refund Of $1.4 Billion Opposed By FDIC

Federal regulators are opposing a proposed $1.4 billion tax refund for JPMorgan Chase & Co.

The tax benefit has become an issue a year and a half after the Wall Street titan galloped in to buy the assets of Washington Mutual Inc. when it collapsed under bad mortgage loans and became the biggest bank ever to fail in the U.S.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. seized Seattle-based Washington Mutual and sold its bank assets to JPMorgan for $1.9 billion.

JPMorgan has been involved in the bankruptcy reorganization proceeding for Washington Mutual’s holding company, and had reached a compromise earlier this month with the FDIC.

Full Story: JPMorgan Tax Refund Of $1.4 Billion Opposed By FDIC.

Jon Stewart Rips Conservatives For Violent Health Care Fallout

Large Hadron Collider Sets Collision RECORD, CERN Reports

The Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest atom smasher on the quest to discover the ‘God particle,’ has smashed its previous record for particle collisions, CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) reports.

The Associated Press reports:

The world’s largest atom smasher has set a record for high-energy collisions by crashing two proton beams at three times more force than ever before.

The $10 billion Large Hadron Collider directed the beams into each other Tuesday as part of its ambitious bid to reveal details about theoretical particles and microforces.

The collisions start a new era of science for researchers working on the machine below the Swiss-French border at Geneva.

Full Story: LHC NEWS: Large Hadron Collider Sets Collision RECORD, CERN Reports.

Sarkozy urges world finance rules in US speech

French President Nicolas Sarkozy is urging the United States to champion global financial regulations to avoid future crises — and says Americans should pay more attention to the rest of the world.

Sarkozy, in a frank speech at Columbia University in New York, says the United States “should reflect about what it means to be the world’s No. 1 power.”

He says, “The world needs an open America, a generous America, an America that shows the way, an America that listens.”

He urged Europe and the United States to create a new global financial system.

Sarkozy also said France would “remain at your side in Afghanistan.” Sarkozy will carry a similar message to a White House meeting Tuesday with President Barack Obama.

Full Story: Sarkozy urges world finance rules in US speech – Yahoo! News.

ACTA would make service providers copyright police

After nearly two years of excuses for the secrecy of negotiations over ACTA, the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a full draft of the proposed treaty has been leaked online and it looks just as bad as critics have suggested.

Among the worst provisions of the proposal is the requirement that third party service providers must implement measures to proactively identify and elminate access to content that’s in violation of copyright law.

Failure to do so would make them liable for such infringement. Even worse, according to a note from New Zealand’s negotiators this would even include search engines.

Full Story: ACTA would make service providers copyright police – AfterDawn.

How the insurance industry helped pass health care

Insurance companies have gotten into a kerfuffle lately after nailing down a loophole in the health care bill through which they can avoid covering children with pre-existing conditions until 2014.

Naturally the White House and Democrats are furious and not hiding it, but the fault is their own for permitting such a loophole in a bill whose primary goal was to provide health security for sick people. There’s no point being angry at insurance companies — this is like putting blood in front of a leech and being annoyed when it chooses not to refrain.

But there’s another interesting angle here, which is that the usually formidable industry played this whole debate foolishly. Yes it got a big part of what it wanted — 32 million new customers — but it hated the regulations and didn’t ultimately want the legislation to pass. So, the stupidest thing they could have done was to come out against it.

Full Story: How the insurance industry helped pass health care – Sahil Kapur – AntiPartisan – True/Slant.

Gonorrhea becoming a superbug

The sexually transmitted disease gonorrhea risks becoming a drug-resistant “superbug” if doctors do not devise new ways of treating it, a leading sexual health expert said.

Catherine Ison, a specialist on gonorrhea from Britain’s Health Protection Agency said a World Health Organization (WHO) meeting in Manila next week would be vital to efforts to try to stop the bug repeatedly adapting to and overcoming drugs.

“This is a very clever bacteria. If this problem isn’t addressed, there is a real possibility that gonorrhea will become a very difficult infection to treat,” she said in a telephone interview.

Gonorrhea is a common bacterial sexually-transmitted infection and if left untreated can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancy and infertility in women.

Full Story: Sex infection gonorrhea risks becoming superbug | Reuters.

A U.S. Biometrics Agency

As of last week, there is now a U.S. Government national security agency called the Biometrics Identity Management Agency (BIMA). It supersedes a Biometrics Task Force that was established in 2000.

Though nominally a component of the Army, the biometrics agency has Defense Department-wide responsibilities.

“The Biometrics Identity Management Agency leads Department of Defense activities to prioritize, integrate, and synchronize biometrics technologies and capabilities and to manage the Department of Defense’s authoritative biometrics database to support the National Security Strategy,” according to a March 23 Order (pdf) issued by Army Secretary John M. McHugh that redesignated the previous Biometrics Task Force as the BIMA.

Full Story: A U.S. Biometrics Agency | Secrecy News.

Ice included in seafood price

In some cases in California as much as 40% of the listed weight of seafood was from an ice glaze used to preserve the product, the National Conference on Weights and Measures finds.

Some California consumers may have been paying for a whole lot of ice, instead of seafood, according to an investigation that included inspections in 17 states.

In some cases, a coating of ice glaze applied to frozen seafood to preserve quality during storage and distribution has been included as part of the labeled weight of seafood, according to the National Conference on Weights and Measures. The multi-agency investigation found ice in some cases accounted for up to 40% of the product’s weight.

The investigation was prompted by the National Fisheries Institute, a seafood industry group, over concerns of unfair competition by companies using the illegal labeling method.

Full Story: Ice included in seafood price – latimes.com.

Homelessness set to surge among US elderly: report

The number of homeless senior citizens will likely soar by one third over the next decade as the US population ages, a report by the National Alliance to End Homelessness warned Monday.

The projection is based on the record number of so-called Baby Boomers turning 65 in the United States and current levels of poverty among the elderly.

According to data from the Census Bureau used in the report, one in 10 people over the age over 65 (9.9 percent) was living under the poverty level in 2008 and had annual resources of under 10,326 dollars a year.

Full Story: Homelessness set to surge among US elderly: report | Raw Story.

Scientists discover how to ‘turn off’ brain’s morality center

People’s moral judgment can be altered by disrupting part of the brain, a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) disrupted activity in the right temporo-parietal junction, or TPJ, which is above and behind the right ear and is usually highly active when we think about what we believe the outcome of a particular act will be.

The researchers disrupted the TPJ by inducing a current in the brain using a magnetic field applied to the scalp and got study participants to read a series of scenarios posing moral conundrums.

Full Story: Scientists discover how to ‘turn off’ brain’s morality center | Raw Story.

High Tech Research from U.S. Going to China with Devastating Effects on Our Ability to Compete and Our Future

American companies have been failing, to compete

American companies have been trying, and failing, to compete against state-subsidized companies all around the world. No company or industry can stand against the national champions of Europe and Asia. They often face only two possible choices; American companies can either be put out of business, or they can relocate to compete.

Increasingly, according to The New York Times, those relocations are ending up in China.

China has 1.4 billion consumers who have more collective purchasing power with each passing day. It has a government willing, and able, to pay a premium in exchange for new facilities. More importantly, China has almost no worker protections, wage standards, or environmental regulations.

Full Story: High Tech Research from U.S. Going to China with Devastating Effects on Our Ability to Compete and Our Future | Economy In Crisis.

21 Things ‘They’ Don’t Want You to Know

Eavesdropping Webcams, spying ISPs, toxic PCs, and more. Here are 21 dangers that the industry is hiding from you–and what you can do about them.

Yes, the truth is out there. But they don’t want you to know about it.

Who’s “they”? It could be Google or product manufacturers, your boss or your wireless carrier, Hollywood or Uncle Sam.

What don’t they want you to know? That your cell phone, your Webcam, and your employer may be spying on you. That you’re probably paying too much for printer ink, and that your wicked-cool subsidized handset will cost you way more over time than an unsubsidized one. That your PC may be coated with toxic flame retardants. And that’s just for starters.

Don’t despair. For every dirty little secret revealed herein, we describe a fix or a way to work around it (if any exists). You don’t have to be a victim, if you know what to do.

Just remember: You’ve been warned.

Full Story: Tech Secrets: 21 Things ‘They’ Don’t Want You to Know – PCWorld.

Dangerous Dental Implants Imported From China

Dental implants coming from China are filled with toxic material including carcinogens

Dr. Craig Spodak is concerned about an increasing number of dental implants, bridges, and crowns that are being manufactured overseas in countries like China and India for about one-sixth the cost.

“This is very dangerous in my opinion and we don't have any idea of the ramifications and we won't for many years from now,” he says teeth dentist dental cancer causing nickel berkelium

Ford Sells Volvo to Chinese Automaker for $1.8 Billion

China, which last year surpassed the U.S. as the world’s largest auto market in terms of sales, continues to expand its global footprint. This time, with the purchase of Volvo by one of the China’s largest private automakers.

On Sunday, it was announced that Zhejiang Greely Holding Group finalized the purchase of Volvo from U.S. automaker Ford Motor Company.

The sale was reportedly for $1.8 billion, much less than the $6.4 billion Ford purchased Volvo for in 1999.

Full Story: Ford Sells Volvo to Chinese Automaker for $1.8 Billion | Economy In Crisis.

Health Care Reform May Make Way for National VAT

With the successful passage of a massive new entitlement program in health care reform, many are deeply concerned about the nation’s national debt, and some believe that in order to rein in the debt, a national sales tax may be inevitable.

On Friday, one of the leading voices on the right, Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, wrote that an American version of the value-added tax is all but a certainty given the passage of health care reform.

“With the passage of Obamacare, creating a vast new middle-class entitlement, a national sales tax of the kind near-universal in Europe is inevitable,” he wrote.

Full Story: Health Care Reform May Make Way for National VAT | Economy In Crisis.

Attempting To Strip Gays Of Hate Crimes Protections, Oklahoma Removes Protections For Race/Religion Instead

In October, President Obama signed The Matthew Shepard Act, expanding the reach of the 1969 hate crimes law to “authorize the Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute certain bias-motivated crimes based on the victim’s actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or disability.” Previously, the law only allowed for the federal prosecution of anyone who “willingly injures, intimidates or interferes with another person, or attempts to do so, by force because of the other person’s race, color, religion or national origin.”

State lawmakers in Oklahoma argued that the Shepard Act would trample on the free speech rights of religious leaders “who preached out against the lifestyle of the victim who was attacked.” On March 10, the Oklahoma state Senate thought it was passing a bill prohibiting “local and state law enforcement agencies from sharing information about hate crimes with federal authorities if the state of Oklahoma did not recognize the crime as a hate crime by its own statutes.” Oklahoma state law does not recognize “sexual orientation or gender identity” as a special class and fails to provide gay and lesbians with hate crimes protections.

But in trying to strip gays and lesbians of protection, the Oklahoma State Senate inadvertently cited the wrong section of the U.S. code. The bill stripped rights under Title 18 U.S. Code Section 245, but protections for sexual orientation and gender identity is actually under Section 249. From the bill:

Full Story: Think Progress » Attempting To Strip Gays Of Hate Crimes Protections, Oklahoma Removes Protections For Race/Religion Instead.

Pentagon Pushes For A Strong Consumer Agency To Protect Troops From Abusive Financial Practices

The Obama administration and many congressional Democrats are pushing to create a strong Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) that will be able to “effectively enforce rules designed to protect consumers of mortgages, credit cards and other financial products.” Such legislation has already passed the House. However, now, Senate Republicans and their allies in the financial industry are trying to block these efforts by weakening the legislation in every way they can. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) has even urged bankers to stand up for themselves against “little punk staffers” on Capitol Hill and lobby against financial reform.

Advocates for reform now have a powerful ally on their side: the Pentagon. On Feb. 26, Undersecretary of Defense Clifford Stanley wrote to the Treasury Department and advocated a strong CFPA, noting that military families are often the targets of unscrupulous financial practices:

Full Story: Think Progress » Pentagon Pushes For A Strong Consumer Agency To Protect Troops From Abusive Financial Practices.

Rep. McCotter complains that Obama ‘demonizes’ Wall Street and insurance companies.

Last week on the House floor, Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI) attacked President Obama the day he signed the Affordable Care Act into law. “So this is what change looks like?” McCotter asked. “President Obama’s campaign mantra of hope and change has degenerated into tax and hate.” In a new interview with Real Clear Politics, McCotter explains that he made the claim because he’s upset that the President is taking on Wall Street and the insurance companies:

RCP: On Tuesday you said some things on the House floor that I want to ask you to defend. The first is your statement that “Obama’s campaign mantra of hope and change has degenerated into tax and hate.”

McCOTTER: Yeah. Look at how he demonizes oppositions, look what he’s done to insurance companies, look what he does to Wall Street, look at the end result. It’s to impose a tax, it’s to get his agenda passed. That’s things that Bush was accused of and I think it’s quite manifest in what he’s been doing to try to get his agenda through.

Full Story: Think Progress » Rep. McCotter complains that Obama ‘demonizes’ Wall Street and insurance companies..

Sanders: ‘I Do Not Want To See A Global Warming Bill Become A Bonanza For The Coal Industry’

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has expressed “deep disappointment” with the direction Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) is heading with climate legislation being crafted with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT). In a letter to Kerry, the Vermont independent praised Kerry’s “continued leadership” as a “tireless advocate for taking action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” However, Sanders has “serious concerns about provisions that could harm our environment and provide new federal government support for polluters”:

– State Preemption: “In my view, preempting leading states would be a huge mistake: we should definitely set a floor, but not a ceiling.”

– Support for New Nuclear Power: “If the private sector will not finance new nuclear plants, the government should not risk taxpayer dollars by stepping in.”

– Offshore Drilling: “We should not, in a global warming bill, support increased offshore drilling.”

– Coal Plant Emissions: “Global warming legislation should move us forward by requiring coal plants to meet increasingly stringent pollution standards. It should not take us backwards by exempting coal plants from this kind of regulation by grandfathering in the dirtiest plants so they can continue to operate for years to come.”

Full Story: Think Progress » Sanders: ‘I Do Not Want To See A Global Warming Bill Become A Bonanza For The Coal Industry’.

7 Surprising Sources of High Fructose Corn Syrup

Remember those commercials aired by the Corn Refiners Association that tried to convince us that high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) isn’t bad for you? It turns out, they may be wrong. It’s all over the blogosphere this week: in the national fight against obesity, high fructose corn syrup is one food ingredient we should possibly be avoiding altogether. The nutrition controversy has raged for years, with one side claiming HFCS contributes to obesity in a way that plain old sugar does not, and the HFCS camp countering that a calorie is a calorie is a calorie. But several recent studies have indicated that this may not be true.

And while you know to pass on the candy bars, even meals like sandwiches and salads may be hiding a serving of high fructose corn syrup behind their healthy image. Check the labels of these typically nutritious foods to play it safe.

Bread

Nothing goes together better than whole grain and high fructose corn syrup. Wait a minute. That’s not right! You mean well, but when you buy a loaf of whole grain bread, you may be getting duped by the manufacturers. While whole grain is stamped on the front in big, bold letters, high fructose corn syrup may be hiding in fine print on the ingredients list. This is a common marketing move, but at least you’ll never fall for it again.

Full Story: Foods With High Fructose Corn Syrup | EcoSalon.

Is high fructose corn syrup more fattening than sugar?

Is a Princeton University study about high fructose corn syrup causing obesity in lab rats really the answer to America’s obesity problem?

Full Story: Is high fructose corn syrup more fattening than sugar? | MNN – Mother Nature Network.

Obama’s Surprise Trip to Afghanistan: A Pro-War Pep Rally

On Sunday, Obama stood before thousands of U.S. troops to proclaim the sanctity of the war effort, a commander in chief rallying the troops, while wearing a bomber jacket.

President Obama has taken a further plunge into the kind of war abyss that consumed predecessors named Johnson, Nixon and Bush.

On Sunday, during his first presidential trip to Afghanistan, Obama stood before thousands of American troops to proclaim the sanctity of the war effort. He played the role deftly — a commander in chief, rallying the troops — while wearing a bomber jacket.

There was something candidly macabre about the decision to wear that leather jacket, adorned with an American Eagle and the words “Air Force One.” The man in the bomber jacket doesn’t press the buttons that fire the missiles and drop the warheads, but he gives the orders that make it all possible.

One way or another, we’re used to seeing presidents display such tacit accouterments of carnage.

Full Story: Obama’s Surprise Trip to Afghanistan: A Pro-War Pep Rally | World | AlterNet.

Why Are We Afraid of Saying “Socialism”?

Knee-jerk reactions to words like “socialism” and “capitalism” get us nowhere. We need to first define the terms.

“Socialist” has become the new favorite term of derision–working its fear-making magic because, for many Americans, socialism equals the great “government takeover.” It’s assumed to be not just un-American but downright anti-American. Tea Partiers at their round up in Searchlight, Nevada, told us that “socialist” Harry Reid “hates America.”

Our national aversion to the S-word isn’t necessarily a problem. But the term’s rapid rise as a political pot-shot, points to a huge problem: our culture’s lack of a common civic language, words on whose meaning we at least vaguely agree. Without it, we can’t hope to talk to one another about what matters most.

“We have a language of capitalism. We have a language of Marxism. But we have no language of democracy,” historian Lawrence Goodwyn once remarked.

And we need one.

Capitalism and socialism. Imagine if we just got some clarity on these basic terms alone.

Full Story: Why Are We Afraid of Saying “Socialism”? | Vision | AlterNet.

Are Americans as Stupid as the Media Think They Are? (Maybe)

“Poll numbers that pretty convincingly correlate believing idiotic things with having less education, and not believing idiotic things with having more education.”

I know some scary smart people who never graduated from high school, and I know some real doofuses with graduate degrees, so I understand that the number of years of formal education that someone has racked up is no guarantee of intelligence. But every once in a while, I see some poll numbers that pretty convincingly correlate believing idiotic things with having less education, and not believing idiotic things with having more education.

A recent example is a Harris poll that asked whether each of 15 statements about Barack Obama is true or false. In every single case, the less schooling people had, the more likely they were to believe that false things are true.

For example, 18 percent of Americans with high school or less education think that the president may be the Anti-Christ. That’s right, nearly one out of five people who are eligible to vote, same as you, believe Obama is the bad guy in The Omen. But only 13 percent of people with some college believe that; and 9 percent of college graduates; and down to 4 percent of people who’ve had some post-graduate education.

Full Story: Are Americans as Stupid as the Media Think They Are? (Maybe) | | AlterNet.

Send Them to Guantanamo: Double Standard on White Christian Domestic Terrorists is a Direct Threat to the U.S.

Mark Karlin -

It’s a relief of sorts that the Michigan militia members, White Christian Domestic Terrorists, were apprehended before they launched a killing spree of police officers and other Americans. But why should they receive a civil trial, according to right wing arguments; why shouldn’t they be flown directly down to Guantanamo?

Of course BuzzFlash does support criminal trials for all charged terrorists and those plotting terorrism, but why the double standard on the part of the right wing when it comes to White Christian Domestic Terrorists?

In the Michigan Militia, which was quite active in the ’90s when the NRA was all but encouraging domestic insurrection, you find the convergence of GOP incendiary talk, hate radio, the End Times movement, white nationalism, whites feeling themselves “victims” of a secular society, and the sedition encouraged by the likes of the Tea Party, the Alaska Independence Party, Governor Perry of Texas, and basically the whole right wing “white is right” power movement.

Full Story: Send Them to Guantanamo: Double Standard on White Christian Domestic Terrorists is a Direct Threat to the U.S. | BuzzFlash.org.

The Magic Potion for the Economy

Bob Herbert  -

With the marathon effort to overhaul the health care system behind us, it is time for the Obama administration to move quickly and powerfully to the monumental task of putting Americans back to work.

The just-say-no crowd will insist that we can’t afford a real effort to revitalize employment, that budget deficits are too high, that the economy will recover without additional government stimulus, that the president has used up most of his political capital, and that there isn’t much that government can do under any circumstances to create jobs.

Meanwhile, the United States is in real danger of sinking into a long-term economic funk. The recession is not over for the nearly 15 million people who are unemployed. Many of them have been out of work for longer than six months, a seeming eternity. Widespread joblessness and underemployment are threatening to become permanent features of the American landscape, corroding not just our standards of living but the very vibrancy of the American way of life.

Full Story: Op-Ed Columnist – The Magic Potion for the Economy – NYTimes.com.

Leasing a Solar System: Some Questions You Might Want to Ask First

Richard Carter -

There are a number of new solar leasing companies arriving on the scene lately. Many claim to offer solar energy options that may appear much less complicated and cost less than installing one’s own system, and therefore be more affordable while still being able to contribute to the improvement of our environment.

Are such opportunities a good option for you?

As you would expect, “it depends”; and to better understand your options, we suggest you do your homework, get the opinion of more than one consultant (preferably an independent consultant who is not trying to sell you something), and have your accountant or other qualified advisor run the numbers for you.

Full Story: Leasing a Solar System: Some Questions You Might Want to Ask First : Greenenergycafe.com.

Is Solar A Do-It-Yourself Project?

It’s part of the American Dream. Own your home and be able to ‘putz’. Go to any home center on any Saturday and watch how many people purchase plumbing, water heaters, lumber, drywall, and wire. The numbers are staggering. At the same time, ever wonder how many people hire a certified professional to install all that new-found living space wealth and adornment?

I would speculate that very few do; at least on the first try.

Do-It-Yourself, aka DIY, has been an American standard of the remaining frontier to be conquered by most homeowners. They get an idea; they formulate the plan in their head somewhere and head off to the store. But is it the best way to improve our homes? More specifically, can solar be installed by the DIY’er?

Full Story: Is Solar A Do-It-Yourself Project? : Greenenergycafe.com.

Solar Thermal: The Next Generation : Greentech Media

The industry is getting standardized but new concepts continue to bubble up.

Last year we wrote an article comparing the four main solar thermal technologies: towers, troughs, Stirling dishes and flat plate reflectors.

Those four concepts still lead the industry and it has evolved pretty much as most have predicted. Companies with towers and heliostats such as BrightSource Energy and eSolar lined up a number of deals in the past year although they’ve had to face questions about environmental impact and financing.

Stirling system advocates have signed fewer deals in the past year, but have continued to make progress. Stirling Solar recently planted 60 of its systems on a 1.5 megawatt power plant. Meanwhile, Ausra, one of the flat plate leaders, experienced a somewhat moribund 2009. Then early this year it got bought recently by Areva.

Full Story: Solar Thermal: The Next Generation : Greentech Media.

Greenpeace Releases 20-Year History of Climate Denial Industry

Greenpeace released a terrific report today on the 20-year campaign by polluters to mislead the public by creating the climate denial industry.

The new report succinctly explains how fossil fuel interests used the tobacco industry’s playbook and an extensive arsenal of lobbyists and “experts” for hire in order to manufacture disinformation designed to confuse the public and stifle action to address climate change.

In the report, titled “Dealing in Doubt: The Climate Denial Industry and Climate Science,” Greenpeace provides a brief history of the attacks waged by polluting industries against climate science, the IPCC and individual scientists.

ExxonMobil deservedly gets special attention for its role as the ringleader of the “campaign of denial.” As Greenpeace has documented meticulously over the years with its ExxonSecrets website, ExxonMobil is known to have invested over $23 million since 1998 to bankroll an entire movement of climate confusionists, including over 35 anti-science and right wing nonprofits, to divert attention away from the critical threat of climate disruption caused largely by the burning of fossil fuels.

Full Story: Jim Hoggan | Greenpeace Releases 20-Year History of Climate Denial Industry.

Berlin Jews Alarmed By Spate Of Anti – Semitic Attacks

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany’s Jewish community on Monday warned of an “alarming” rise in anti-Semitic violence by Arab and Turkish immigrants after Berlin police reported two unrelated attacks against Jews at the weekend.

“There’s an urgent need to fight the roots of anti-Semitism, especially coming from young Turks and Arabs, and to effectively counter it,” the Jewish Community in Berlin said in a statement.

“That the violence from the immigrant community is being increasingly aimed at Jews or people they assume are Jews is alarming,” it added. A sensitive issue in Germany because of its Nazi past, even relatively minor reports of anti-Semitic violence make the news.

Full Story: Berlin Jews Alarmed By Spate Of Anti – Semitic Attacks – NYTimes.com.

Half of Commercial Mortgages to Be Underwater: Warren

By the end of 2010, about half of all commercial real estate mortgages will be underwater, said Elizabeth Warren, chairperson of the TARP Congressional Oversight Panel, in a wide-ranging interview on Monday.

“They are [mostly] concentrated in the mid-sized banks,” Warren told CNBC. “We now have 2,988 banks—mostly midsized, that have these dangerous concentrations in commercial real estate lending.”

As a result, the economy will face another “very serious problem” that will have to be resolved over the next three years, she said, adding that things are unlikely to return to normalcy in 2010. (See the video below for the full interview.)

Full Story: Commercial Real Estate: Half of Commercial Mortgages to Be Underwater: Warren – CNBC.