Archive for March, 2010

Kucinich Becomes Target Of Health Care Whip Campaign

Dennis Kucinich Targeted In Effort To Pass Health Care

With the real possibility that a handful of lawmakers — or even a single vote — in the House of Representatives could end up deciding the fate of health care reform, advocates are suddenly targeting the chamber’s most progressive holdout.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio.) has firmly staked out his opposition to health care reform’s passage, citing the timidity of the legislative language and, specifically, the unwillingness of lawmakers to seriously consider a single payer system.

For months, leadership had assumed his position was unalterable. But with an “all hands on deck” whip operation now in progress, Kucinich is getting a burst of attention.

Full Story: Kucinich Becomes Target Of Health Care Whip Campaign.

Humans driving extinction faster than species can evolve, say experts

Conservationists say rate of new species slower than diversity loss caused by the destruction of habitats and climate change

For the first time since the dinosaurs disappeared, humans are driving animals and plants to extinction faster than new species can evolve, one of the world’s experts on biodiversity has warned.

Conservation experts have already signalled that the world is in the grip of the “sixth great extinction” of species, driven by the destruction of natural habitats, hunting, the spread of alien predators and disease, and climate change.

However until recently it has been hoped that the rate at which new species were evolving could keep pace with the loss of diversity of life.

Speaking in advance of two reports next week on the state of wildlife in Britain and Europe, Simon Stuart, chair of the Species Survival Commission for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature – the body which officially declares species threatened and extinct – said that point had now “almost certainly” been crossed.

Full Story: Humans driving extinction faster than species can evolve, say experts | Environment | The Guardian.

Tyler Texas man gets 35 years for 4.6 ounces of Marijuana

It is well known in Texas that our Law Enforcement Officers are the best in the nation when it comes to that moment in time when the feet need to hit the ground. When you call 911, you can bet that Texas Law Enforcement Officers will respond quickly and deal with the situation at hand decisively.

Once the Law Enforcement Officers deal with the criminal element, they pass them off to the Texas Criminal Justice System. They are well known for their “tough on crime” campaign toting all of the old paradigms left over from the Reagan administration.

This bring us to the story about a Tyler Texas man named Henry Walter Wooten, 54 years old. Henry isn't the brightest toker in the world. He was caught by law enforcement within 1000 feet of Ebenezer Day Care Center in Tyler with baggies of weed in his pockets toking on a joint. On Thursday, March 4th, Henry received 35 years in a state correctional facility.

Trey Cloud, DPS forensic chemist, testified that the weight of the marijuana seized from Wooten when he was arrested was 4.6 ounces, and the packaging alone weighed 1.06 ounces. He also testified that the drug seized from Wooten was indeed marijuana.

Full Story: Tyler Texas man gets 35 years for 4.6 ounces of Marijuana | Dallas / Ft. Worth NORML.

Graham Falsely Claims GOP Has Only Used Reconciliation With ‘Bipartisan Support’

With President Obama endorsing the use of the budget reconciliation process in the Senate to finish health care reform, Republicans have flown into overdrive to discredit the simple majority procedural tool. Use of reconciliation would be “ripping a piece of the fabric of America off,” said Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) on Saturday.

On CBS News’ Face The Nation today, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) declared that use of reconciliation “would be catastrophic.” Sensitive to charges of hypocrisy over the fact that Republicans have pushed legislation through the reconciliation process more often than Democrats have, Graham claimed that every time the GOP used reconciliation the bills “received bipartisan support”:

GRAHAM: Well, reconciliation will be used to clean up the Senate bill to make House members happy. House members are going to vote for the Senate bill and they hate it. And the Senate and the president saying, OK, we’re going to change what you don’t like.

And when it comes to the Republicans, you all don’t matter anymore. You just need a simple majority. So reconciliation will empower a bill that was very partisan. We’ve had reconciliation votes, but all of them had received bipartisan support. The least was 12 when we did reconciliation with tax cuts.

Watch it:

Full Story: Think Progress » Graham Falsely Claims GOP Has Only Used Reconciliation With ‘Bipartisan Support’.

Corker And Alexander Place Hold On Aviation Funding Bill To Prevent FedEx Drivers From Unionizing

Last year, the House of Representatives passed a bill reauthorizing the Federal Aviation Administration and devoting $70 billion to airport infrastructure through 2012. The bill also changed an inequity in labor law which has allowed FedEx to operate under the Railway Labor Act (RLA), while other shipping companies like UPS are governed by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).

The RLA poses larger barriers to organizing than the NLRA, which has enabled FedEx to prevent its drivers from collectively bargaining. So the company has invested a lot of time and effort into blocking the change, including characterizing it as a “bailout” for UPS.

And FedEx has an ally in Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), who is preventing the FAA reauthorization from moving in the Senate, until he receives assurance that the change in labor law won’t occur:

Full Story: Think Progress » Corker And Alexander Place Hold On Aviation Funding Bill To Prevent FedEx Drivers From Unionizing.

Palin Admits To Travelling To Canada For Health Care

In November of 2009, Sarah Palin — who is always suggesting that health care reform will lead to socialism — insisted that Canada needs to reform its health care system to “let the private sector take over.” But this past Saturday in Calgary, Canada — at “her first Canadian appearance since stepping down as governor of Alaska last summer” — Palin seemed to deviate from her fear of socialized Canadian medicine when she revealed that her family may have benefited from the Canadian system:

PALIN: We used to hustle over the border for health care we received in Canada. And I think now, isn’t that ironic?

This isn’t the first time Palin highlighted the difficulty of obtaining affordable health care in America. During the presidential campaign, Palin discussed how her and husband Todd had “gone though periods of our life here with paying out-of-pocket for health coverage until Todd and I both landed a couple of good union jobs.” At the Vice Presidential debate, Palin recalled times in her marriage “in our past where we didn’t have health insurance and we know what other Americans are going through as they sit around the kitchen table and try to figure out how are they going to pay out-of-pocket for health care?”

Full Story: Think Progress » Palin Admits To Travelling To Canada For Health Care.

Study: Happiness Is Experiences, Not Stuff

If you’re trying to buy happiness, you’d be better off putting your money toward a tropical island get-away than a new computer, a new study suggests. The results show that people’s satisfaction with their life-experience purchases — anything from seeing a movie to going on a vacation — tends to start out high and go up over time. On the other hand, although they might be initially happy with that shiny new iPhone or the latest in fashion, their satisfaction with these items wanes with time. The findings, based on eight separate studies, agree with previous research showing that experience-related buys lead to more happiness for the consumer. But the current work provides some insight into why.

Among the reasons:

• * * People are more likely to mull over their material purchases than they are experiential ones, second-guessing themselves about whether they really made the best choice.
• * * We tend to think of experiences more on their own terms, rather than in comparison with other things.
• * * It’s easier for us to decide on an experiential purchase than a material one.
• * * We’re more upset if we learn that someone else got a better deal, or that a better option exists, for a material purchase than for an experience-related one.

Satisfaction with a purchase could also come down to mindset. When participants in one study thought of material purchases, such as a music CD, as an experience (many hours of enjoyable listening), they were more satisfied than those who viewed the purchase as just a material item.

Full Story: Make A History.

Kansas City Public Schools: Bankruptcy May Force 50% Of Missouri City’s Schools To Shut Doors

Kansas City was held up as a national example of bold thinking when it tried to integrate its schools by making them better than the suburban districts where many kids were moving. The result was one school with an Olympic-sized swimming pool and another with recording studios.

Now it’s on the brink of bankruptcy and considering another bold move: closing nearly half its schools to stay afloat.

Schools officials say the cuts are necessary to keep the district from plowing through what little is left of the $2 billion it received as part of a groundbreaking desegregation case.

Full Story: Kansas City Public Schools: Bankruptcy May Force 50% Of Missouri City’s Schools To Shut Doors.

‘Pulitzer’s Gold’: The Irreplaceable Role Of Investigative Journalism

Behind The Prize for Public Service Journalism

University of Missouri Press

One of the best pieces of journalistic advice I know comes from a fellow investigative reporter who, when asked how he finds so many good stories, gives this simple answer: Just look around you, he says. Look at what seems to be too good to be true or what doesn't seem to add up. Chances are, he says, it is too good to be true and doesn't add up.

I thought of this while reading “Pulitzer's Gold” by Roy J. Harris Jr., now updated and just released in paperback. Harris tells a story about the Pulitzer Prizes that's never really been told before. He zeroes in on the history of the most prized Pulitzer, the Gold Medal for public service. Most Pulitzer prizes go to individual journalists, but the public service medal is awarded to newspapers that publish exceptional work.

Full Story: James B. Steele: ‘Pulitzer’s Gold’: The Irreplaceable Role Of Investigative Journalism.

White House Seizes On Goldman Sachs Report Of Health Premiums Rising

The Obama administration is making a late push for health reform by seizing on a report showing that market concentration for health insurance is so monopolized that insurance companies are willing to raise prices and lose customers in an effort to help their bottom line.

In a blog post on Sunday, Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer said that the findings, which were put together by Goldman Sachs and first reported by the Huffington Post, presented clear evidence that health insurer “profits will continue to soar under the status quo.”

The last few days have brought even more evidence that the health care status quo is working out great for the insurance companies – at the same time as it continues to fail American families and businesses. No wonder the insurance companies are spending millions and millions of dollars to block reform.” “On Wednesday, a leading insurance broker laid out in clear terms what many Americans could already guess: the insurers’ monopoly is so strong that they can continue to jack up rates as much as they like – even if it means losing customers – and their profits will continue to soar under the status quo.

Full Story: White House Seizes On Goldman Sachs Report Of Health Premiums Rising.

The Selma Marchers Weren’t Just Activists — They Were Believers

Forty-four years ago, on March 7th, Alabama state troopers and a sheriff’s posse broke up a march by civil rights demonstrators from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. Also known as Bloody Sunday because the troopers and posse attacked the 600 marchers with billy clubs and tear gas, it was the first of three March marches that are hallmarks in the U.S. civil rights movement. The second March was attempted two days later. The third march, begun on March 21st and lasting for five days completed the 54-mile journey. For the majority of the seminarians I teach now, these marches and the civil rights movement in general are the stuff of history. For me, they are memories. This presents a challenge for my teaching because I am now in the position of not being able to draw on my students’ recollections about events of the 1960s (as well as the 70s as most are born post 1980) so that we can blend their experience with the ethical theories we are exploring in the books and films we use to develop more faithful moral decision-making abilities. Instead, I find that my students bring little historical awareness of our history as a nation and the role that the churches have played in that history. In short, we are bad historians and this is a problematic place to be as people of faith. It means that we are cut off from what it means to be a people of history that spans for centuries and has much to teach us for the present day and the ways in which we must be working for a better future. Our histories, religious and secular, should be part of the faith tool kit we have at our disposal as we sort through our options for how we live our lives and the values we pass on to the generations coming behind us.

Full Story: Emilie Townes: The Selma Marchers Weren’t Just Activists — They Were Believers.

Chris Dodd: Public Option Supporter

Chris Dodd became the 37th senator to commit to supporting the public insurance option as part of health care reform if the overhaul is moved through the chamber using the majority-vote procedure known as reconciliation.

Dodd was asked at a recent event by a public option advocate if he’d vote for the option under reconciliation.

“Oh, sure. I’ve been for it. Yeah,” Dodd told Aaron Swartz in a brief video interview. Swartz is a cofounder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), which has been waging an insurgent campaign to force the public option back into the debate.

Full Story: Chris Dodd: Public Option Supporter.

OPS: For Dodd this is just a distraction so we don’t notice how he screwed us here: Fed To Keep Bank Oversight

Is the Medium the Message? The New Media Watchdogs

In 1964, media analyst Marshall McLuhan suggested that a given medium was more important than its message. In 2009, I sat down with Dan Rather, Geraldo Rivera, Tim Zagat, Amy Goodman, Rachel Sklar, Carol Jenkins, Bill Pullman, Bob Simon, John Ziegler, Juan Williams, Kevin Macdonald , Mary Alice Williams, and Stephen Cannell to see what they had to say about the changing face of our news media.

Watch ‘The New Media Watchdogs’

Full Story: Kimberly Butler: Is the Medium the Message? The New Media Watchdogs.

Turkey Earthquake: 6.0 Quake Kills Dozens

A strong, pre-dawn earthquake knocked down stone and mud-brick houses, barns and minarets in eastern Turkey on Monday, killing 51 people in five villages, the government said.

The earthquake surprised many residents as they slept, crumpling buildings into piles of rubble. Panicked survivors fled into narrow village streets, some climbing out of windows, as nearly 80 aftershocks measuring up to 5.5 and 5.3 magnitude rattled the region.

The Kandilli seismology center said the 6.0-magnitude quake hit at 4:32 a.m. (0232 GMT, 9 p.m. EST Sunday) near the village of Basyurt in a remote, sparsely populated area of Elazig province. The region is 340 miles (550 kilometers) east of Ankara, the capital.

The U.S. Geological Survey listed the quake at 5.9 magnitude.

Full Story: Turkey Earthquake: 6.0 Quake Kills Dozens.

Fed To Keep Bank Oversight

The Federal Reserve has won its battle to maintain singular regulatory oversight of America’s major financial institutions, the Financial Times reported Sunday night.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) gave up the fight for a new super-regulator over the weekend, and will propose financial reforms this week that leave the Fed in control of big banks and the rest of the major Wall Street players, sources told the FT.

The parties allegedly responsible for the Fed’s victory are easy to guess. The FT’s sources point the finger at Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, who is unsurprisingly speaking up more loudly now that he’s won reconfirmation:

Full Story: Fed To Keep Bank Oversight.

OPS: Dodd just phucked Democracy. ALL of the conditions that led to the current Economic Collapse are ‘comfortably’ intact and Dodd has assured his place in Corporate America.

Obama to unveil ‘ambitious plan’ for NASA

Details of April 15 space conference will be announced later

President Barack Obama plans to host a conference in Florida next month on his administration’s approach to the next step in space exploration.

The White House says Obama and top officials as well as leaders in space will discuss the future of U.S. efforts in human space flight. Details of the conference, scheduled for April 15, are to be announced later.

America’s space program is in a holding pattern of sorts. Its space shuttle fleet is being retired this year, and the administration is dropping plans for a return to the moon.

Full Story: Obama to unveil ‘ambitious plan’ for NASA – Space- msnbc.com.

Short-Sale Program Will Pay Homeowners to Sell at a Loss

In an effort to end the foreclosure crisis, the Obama administration has been trying to keep defaulting owners in their homes. Now it will take a new approach: paying some of them to leave.

This latest program, which will allow owners to sell for less than they owe and will give them a little cash to speed them on their way, is one of the administration’s most aggressive attempts to grapple with a problem that has defied solutions.

More than five million households are behind on their mortgages and risk foreclosure. The government’s $75 billion mortgage modification plan has helped only a small slice of them. Consumer advocates, economists and even some banking industry representatives say much more needs to be done.

Full Story: Short-Sale Program Will Pay Homeowners to Sell at a Loss – NYTimes.com.

Washington awards firms that broke Iran sanctions over $100 billion

Washington has awarded more than 107 billion dollars in payments to foreign and US companies doing business in Iran despite US sanctions, The New York Times has reported.

That sum included nearly 15 billion dollars paid to companies that defied US sanctions law by making large investments that helped Iran develop its vast oil and gas reserves, said the paper.

The Times compiled the figures from an analysis of government and business records.

Both President Barack Obama and former president George W. Bush had sent mixed messages to the corporate world when it comes to doing business in Iran, said the report.

Their administrations had rewarded companies whose commercial interests conflicted with US security goals, it added.

Full Story: Washington awards firms that broke Iran sanctions over $100 billion | Raw Story.

Sen. Graham claims use of reconciliation for health reform ‘would be catastrophic’

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has either a tack for exaggeration or a faltering memory, if his conclusion about the use of reconciliation during a Sunday television appearance is any indicator of such things.

His comments on CBS’ Face the Nation seemed to echo other Republicans who’ve been attempting to frame the 51-vote parliamentary device as some kind of radical usurpation of democracy, almost akin to “ripping a piece of the fabric of America off,” according to Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC).

“It would be catastrophic,” Graham claimed, comparing the pending reconciliation vote on health reform to Republicans triggering the so-called “nuclear option” to ban filibusters over President Bush’s judicial nominees.

Full Story: Sen. Graham claims use of reconciliation for health reform ‘would be catastrophic’ | Raw Story.

OPS;  Catastrophic for the future of the Republican party – for sure.

Odierno: Only ‘catastrophic’ event could stop Iraq withdrawal

Only a “catastrophic event” could prevent combat troops from coming home from Iraq, according to the top US general in Iraq.

“But we don’t see a catastrophic event on the horizon right now,” General Ray Odierno told MSNBC’s Norah O’Donnell Monday.

“The plan is we will continue to turn control over to the Iraqi security forces and by August we believe we’ll be able to end our combat mission and get down to about 50,000,” he said.

Odierno said it could be years before the United States can gauge whether its long military campaign there had achieved any measure of success.

Full Story: Odierno: Only ‘catastrophic’ event could stop Iraq withdrawal | Raw Story.

OPS: Then Obviously there will be a catastrophic event. Even If Blackwater has to stage it.

Scouts founder held talks with Nazis: UK secret files

Scouting founder Lord Robert Baden-Powell was invited to meet Adolf Hitler after friendly talks with the Hitler Youth about forming closer ties, secret British files released Monday showed.

Britain’s Baden-Powell, who started the Scouts in 1907, held talks with German ambassador Joachim von Ribbentrop and Hitler Youth chief of staff Hartmann Lauterbacher on November 19, 1937.

Lauterbacher, then 28, was in Britain to foster closer relations with the Boy Scout movement and Ribbentrop invited Baden-Powell to tea with the Hitler Youth leader, newly declassified MI5 Security Service files revealed.

Full Story: Scouts founder held talks with Nazis: UK secret files | Raw Story.

Green Jobs here?…or China?

Thom Hartmann -

Our “green” stimulus here in the US is creating jobs in Denmark and China.

A group of Democratic senators is concerned that the Obama administration’s efforts to promote economic stimulus, aimed at financing renewable energy, is creating jobs in foreign countries.

The four senators, led by Chuck Schumer of New York, wrote to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Tuesday to request a moratorium on the Recovery Act program. They asked that the moratorium remain in place until they can pass legislation mandating stimulus aid flow only to projects which preserve and create U.S. jobs.

Here’s what’s happening that nobody wants to talk about: Huge solar and wind projects are being funded with stimulus dollars in Texas, Oregon, and other states. That would seem like a good thing – and is creating jobs installing the solar panels and wind turbines.

Full Story: Green Jobs here?…or China? | Economy In Crisis.

Game Changers to Alter the Economy

In Saving Capitalism Dr. Choate outlines six “game changing” proposals to meet the challenge presented by global competition and get America back on its feet.

Economist and best-selling author Pat Choate has crusaded for fiscal responsibility and long-term management in government for many years. He campaigned as the 1996 Reform Party vice-presidential candidate on a platform of responsible spending, balanced international commerce, and government encouragement for domestic employment. He has written several books and news articles on the topic, and his most recent work Saving Capitalism: Keeping America Strong may be his best to date.

In Saving Capitalism Dr. Choate outlines six “game changing” proposals to meet the challenge presented by global competition and get America back on its feet. The first is to impose strict federal supervision of financial markets, refurbishing the regulatory framework destroyed during each presidency from Reagan to George W. Bush.

The second is to replace most income and corporate taxes with a consumption based value-added tax. This would be in line with the practices of every other country on earth and allow the U.S. to raise enough revenue to fund itself and pay down its debt.

Full Story: Game Changers to Alter the Economy | Economy In Crisis.

China – Our Banker, Now With Leverage To Change U.S. Govt. Policies

Left unchecked America’s banker nations could have a veto power on U.S. foreign policy or totally destabilize our economy.

After having sold thousands of our best companies to foreign interests in recent years, and having dismantled much of our industrial infrastructure in favor of outsourcing our manufacturing, America has increasingly become dependent on imports to maintain the standard of living it has become accustomed to, but at what cost?

Look at the computer you type on, the pen you write with, the cell phone you carry. These little things add up.

These deficits are expanding. The U.S. government predicts a $1.56 trillion deficit in 2010, or 10.6 per cent of the economy measured by gross domestic product (GDP). The budget deficit will, among other things, fund the wars it fights all over the world. Japan, China and others buy large chunks of this debt in the form of T-bills to collect interest and allow the U.S. to continue its spending spree.

Full Story: China – Our Banker, Now With Leverage To Change U.S. Govt. Policies | Economy In Crisis.

The Foreign Value Added Tax: Making Our Exports Uncompetitive

Unknown to most Americans, the United States is losing the ability to compete in global trade because of the little known foreign Value-Added Tax (VAT).

Foreign governments use this tax against United States producers as a means to prevent the importation and consumption of U.S. goods, while providing incentives for their countries to export their goods to the U.S. The foreign VAT was a subsidy created after World War II to speed up beneficial other countries' recovery. However, it is still used today by 149 countries to exploit this advantageous position against American trade. We have not used it domestically to off set theirs as a benefit to ourselves.

The foreign VAT gives the companies of other nations and their exports the upper-hand by providing incentives in the form of rebates equal to the indirect tax on the exported product. For example, the VAT rate is 19 percent in Germany; therefore the Germans receive a 19 percent rebate from their government on each product exported to the U.S. This acts as a subsidy for a product while encouraging the exportation of products to the U.S. However, the VAT imposes a punishment on U.S. exports by placing a VAT equivalent to the Value Added Tax rate of the importing country. This means all U.S. exports that enter into Germany are taxed 19 percent on top of another 19 percent for the transportation fees of the goods into the country. The VAT destroys American industries’ ability to promote exports, while encouragi

Full Story: The Foreign Value Added Tax: Making Our Exports Uncompetitive | Economy In Crisis.

All the Things You Didn’t Know About Pakistan

Here’s a quick primer on the world’s most misunderstood and demonized country — and one to which the United States is inextricably tied.

Since 2005, the people of Pakistan, no strangers to upheaval, have been suffering near-constant food and water shortages, rampant power-outages and bodily harm as formerly peaceful cities are besieged by extremist violence. All the while, American leadership continues to direct criticism and threats at the troubled nation, allocating most of its monetary aid for Pakistan to its army, and openly endorsing India as blameless in the endless brinkmanship between the two equally culpable South Asian nations.

A decade ago, few Americans could say with certainty where Pakistan was geographically, let alone where it fit within geopolitics and global commerce. Despite the country’s well-worn place in the headlines recently, Americans still seem unclear as to how Pakistan came to be among the world’s most prolific exporters of nihilistic political Islam, let alone able to think of it as anything but a terrorist training camp. For Bush et al., this was a good thing.

Following 9/11, neoconservatives in the Bush White House worked overtime to at once demonize and obscure the enemy, which, many felt, was Islam itself. Popular perception began to conflate Afghans and Pakistanis as a monolith of geographies and populations. Seven years and two disastrous wars later, candidate Barack Obama made Pakistan a pillar of his platform, vowing to take that nation in hand if it could not heal itself and stamp out terrorism within its borders.

Full Story: All the Things You Didn’t Know About Pakistan | World | AlterNet.

Finance Superstars Talk About the Massive Fraud in Our Economic System

“Make Markets Be Markets” conference of financial reform all-stars offers an alternative to Washington’s disastrous oversight of the economy.

Last Wednesday, I attended a conference initiated by the Roosevelt Institute on the financial mess, called Make Markets Be Markets. The conference’s speakers included people with experience on Wall Street, the banking industry, government and academia; Nobel Prize-winning economist Joe Stiglitz, Elizabeth Warren, and other luminaries who have offered an alternative and reformist narrative to our recent financial crisis.  At two and half hours, it was relatively short, giving each speaker the opportunity to make their points and providing a sharp focus. One underlying theme of the event was fraud, the great elephant in the room, that neither the press or our government officials acknowledge, though it is a fundamental element to the financial crisis and its solutions.

Joe Stiglitz started the conference and stated how reducing transparency and hiding information was an essential element to the crisis. Stiglitz concluded, “Innovation was regulator and tax arbitrage.” Wall Street and the banks deliberately added opacity and complexity to confuse clients and consumers. Elizabeth Warren pointed out, “complexity made a lot of profits,” for example, she showed how the average credit card contract in 1980 was one page, today it is thirty.

Full Story: Finance Superstars Talk About the Massive Fraud in Our Economic System | Economy | AlterNet.

15 Reasons Why We Need a Revolt in This Country

Government works quite well for big corporations, banks, insurance companies, military contractors, lobbyists, and for the rich and powerful. But it does not work for people.

It is time for a revolution. Government does not work for regular people. It appears to work quite well for big corporations, banks, insurance companies, military contractors, lobbyists, and for the rich and po

werful. But it does not work for people.

The 1776 Declaration of Independence stated that when a long train of abuses by those in power evidence a design to reduce the rights of people to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, it is the peoples right, in fact their duty to engage in a revolution.

Martin Luther King, Jr., said forty three years ago next month that it was time for a radical revolution of values in the United States. He preached “a true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies.” It is clearer than ever that now is the time for radical change.

Look at what our current system has brought us and ask if it is time for a revolution?

Full Story: 15 Reasons Why We Need a Revolt in This Country | | AlterNet.

Are Veterans Being Given Deadly Cocktails to Treat PTSD?

A potentially deadly drug manufactured by pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca has been linked to the deaths of soldiers returning from war. Yet the FDA continues to approve it.

A few months after starting a drug regimen combining the antidepressant Paxil, the mood stabilizer Klonopin and a controversial anti-psychotic drug manufactured by pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, Seroquel, the Iraq war veteran was “suffering from incontinence, severe depression [and] continuous headaches,” according to his widow, Janette Layne.

Soon he had tremors. ” … [H]is breathing was labored [and] he had developed sleep apnea,” Layne said.

Janette Layne, who served in the National Guard during Operation Iraqi Freedom along with her husband, told the story of his decline last year, at official FDA hearings on new approvals for Seroquel. On the last day of his life, she testified, Eric stayed in the bathroom nearly all night battling acute urinary retention (an inability to urinate). He died while his family slept.

Full Story: Are Veterans Being Given Deadly Cocktails to Treat PTSD? | World | AlterNet.

Men May Have It Bad, But Unemployment Statistics Obscure the Hit Taken By Single Moms

Break down today’s unemployment stats, and it looks like women are faring much better than men in the great recession. That is, unless they’re single and raising kids.

Much has been made of the fact that, when examined through the prism of gender, the Great Recession appears to have affected the employment of men far more than that of women. And, taken as a whole, that’s true. According to figures released on Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate for men (age 20 and over) stands at 10 percent, while 7.9 percent of women rank among the unemployed. (When the recession began in December 2007, the unemployment rate among men and women was the same: 4.4 percent.)

But spend some time rummaging among the unemployment statistics, and you’ll find a significant group of women struggling mightily against a brutal economic tide: single women with children. They, the breadwinners of their families, are more than twice as likely to be unemployed than married women who have a spouse present. While this has been true for the last ten years (PDF), its effects are amplified in the current economic crisis.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics, in a report released on Friday, showed the unemployment rate for married women at 6.1 percent, while that of single women “who maintain families,” in the parlance of the BLS, reached a whopping 11.6 percent — 68 percent higher than when the recession began. Add to that the fact that women, as a whole, earn only 77 cents for every dollar a man brings home, and you find many single women whose situation has gone from difficult to dire.

Full Story: Men May Have It Bad, But Unemployment Statistics Obscure the Hit Taken By Single Moms | Economy | AlterNet.

A government that does not promote a strong, just and fair economy for the American people is not doing its job

Programs such as Social Security and Medicare built the American middle class – and solutions such as health care reform, banking reform, consumer protection, and freeing our politics from the stranglehold of big money that will save us now.

Instead of tearing down our country, we ought to be building it up.

We should rebuild our manufacturing base, based on clean energy, high-speed trains, bio-medical research, and other 21st century endeavors. We should promote research and development. We should promote small business and American innovation.

We must rebuild our infrastructure – not just our roads and bridges, but our schools and homes which need to become energy-efficient. We should end our addiction to oil and gas as soon as we can, with clean solar and wind energy.

Full Story: A government that does not promote a strong, just and fair economy for the American people is not doing its job | BuzzFlash.org.

When the Truth Is Shown to Be Lies

It’s been a year since President Obama lifted the Bush administration’s restrictions on the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. Nevertheless, religious opponents of the research still claim that embryonic stem cells have yet to yield any treatments. They insist that adult stem cell research will render embryonic stem cell research unnecessary.

Well, guess what?

The Religious Right’s position on this recently took a big hit with this news:

Massachusetts based biotech company Advanced Cell Technology recently announced that the FDA has granted orphan drug status to MA09-hRPE – an embryonic stem cell derived treatment for a specific form of blindness (Stargardt’s Macular Dystrophy). Orphan drug status is targeted to those therapies which are designed to treat fewer than 200,000 Americans and gives ACT access to tax credits, grants for clinical trials, and a seven year exclusivity to market MA09-hRPE. This is the first such FDA approval for an embryonic stem cell derived therapy and ACT plans on using the orphan drug status to accelerate clinical testing. While Advanced Cell Technology has something of a checkered past, this recent FDA status could signal not only an approaching success for the MA09-hRPE treatment, but also a promising advancement in the company’s goal to pioneer new forms of regenerative medicine.

Full Story: Talk To Action | When the Truth Is Shown to Be Lies.

Smear campaign against 9/11 truthers?

Luke Rudkowski ia spokesman for the a 9/11 truthers group is interviewed

Last night a California man read more…opened fire outside the Pentagon in Washington DC. Today he has been linked to the 9/11 truth group that rejects the official explanation of 9/11.

Full Story: EclippTV :: Video :: Smear campaign against 9/11 truthers?.

Global climate battle plays out in World Bank

The United States and Britain are threatening to withhold support for a $3.75 billion World Bank loan for a coal-fired plant in South Africa, expanding the battleground in the global debate over who should pay for clean energy.

The opposition by the bank’s two largest members has raised eyebrows among those who note that the two advanced economies are allowing development of coal-powered plants in their own countries even as they raise concerns about those in poorer countries.

While the loan is still likely to be approved on April 6 by the World Bank board, it has revealed the deep fissures between the world’s industrial powers and developing countries over tackling climate change.

Both camps failed to reach a new deal in Copenhagen in December on a global climate agreement because of differences over emissions targets and who should pay for poorer nations to green their economies.

Full Story: Global climate battle plays out in World Bank | Reuters.

First Iceland, then the World

The public is angry. Why should the public pay for the bankers mistakes. Iceland blogger Halldor Sigurdsson

Who cleans up the mess when ignorant, greedy bankers rack up massive debt then go broke? The people of Iceland made a strong statement Saturday. The sins of big bankers and government regulators shouldn’t fall on the citizens. By a 93% to 2% margin, they voted down a proposal requiring them to cover bad debt incurred by one of the nation’s oldest and largest banks. Covering the debt would have cost Iceland’s 317,000 citizens around $17,000 each.

Iceland’s national referendum was the first opportunity for the people of any nation to vote directly on who pays when the financial elite fail.

As citizens voted, Iceland’s Prime Minister was dismissing the importance of the vote and promising to negotiate a payment scheme obligating citizen subsidies for bad debt created by Iceland’s beyond-bad bankers.

Full Story: First Iceland, then the World « COTO Report.

An Irish Mirror for the Financial Crisis

Paul Krugman -

Everyone has a theory about the financial crisis. These theories range from the absurd to the plausible — from claims that liberal Democrats somehow forced banks to lend to the undeserving poor (even though Republicans controlled Congress) to the belief that exotic financial instruments fostered confusion and fraud. But what do we really know?

Well, in a way the sheer scale of the crisis — the way it affected much, though not all, of the world — is helpful, for research if nothing else. We can look at countries that avoided the worst, like Canada, and ask what they did right — such as limiting leverage, protecting consumers and, above all, avoiding getting caught up in an ideology that denies any need for regulation. We can also look at countries whose financial institutions and policies seemed very different from those in the United States, yet which cracked up just as badly, and try to discern common causes.

So let’s talk about Ireland.

Full Story: Op-Ed Columnist – An Irish Mirror for the Financial Crisis – NYTimes.com.

OPS: “But what do we really know?”  What we know for sure is that nothing has changed.  What we know for sure is that Obama, and his gang of the Clinton and Bush retreads that created the collapse, have simply re-inflated the same bubble.  What we know for sure is that they have set us up for a second, and deeper, collapse.  And we know for sure that THEY will get rich from it.

Kucinich Forces Congress to Debate Afghanistan

On Thursday, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) introduced H. Com Res. 248, a privileged resolution with 16 original cosponsors that will require the House of Representatives to debate whether to continue the war in Afghanistan. Debate on the resolution is expected early next week.

Original cosponsors of the Kucinich resolution include John Conyers, Jr. (D-Michigan); Ron Paul (R-Texas); José Serrano (D-New York); Bob Filner (D-California); Lynn Woolsey (D-California); Walter Jones, Jr. (R-North Carolina); Danny Davis (D-Illinois); Barbara Lee (D-California); Michael Capuano (D-Massachusetts); Raúl Grijalva (D-Arizona); Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin); Timothy Johnson (R-Illinois); Yvette Clarke (D-New York); Eric Massa (D-New York), Alan Grayson (D-Florida) and Chellie Pingree (D-Maine).

The Pentagon doesn’t want Congress to debate Afghanistan. The Pentagon wants Congress to fork over $33 billion more to pay for the current military escalation, no questions asked, no restrictions imposed for a withdrawal timetable or an exit strategy.

Full Story: t r u t h o u t | Kucinich Forces Congress to Debate Afghanistan.

US troops withdrawing en masse from Haiti

U.S. troops are withdrawing from the shattered capital, leaving many Haitians anxious that the most visible portion of international is ending even as the city is still mired in misery and vulnerable to unrest.

As troops packed their duffels and began to fly home this weekend, Haitians and some aid workers wondered whether U.N. peacekeepers and local police are up to the task of maintaining order. More than a half-million people still live in vast encampments that have grown more unpleasant in recent days with the early onset of rainy season.

Some also fear the departure of the American troops is a sign of dwindling international interest in the plight of the Haitian people following the catastrophic Jan. 12 earthquake.

Full Story: The Associated Press: US troops withdrawing en masse from Haiti.

DeLay: People are unemployed because they want to be

Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay says that Sen. Jim Bunning was “brave” for blocking an extension in unemployment benefits.

DeLay subscribes to the notion that people only try to find jobs when their benefits run out.

“There is an argument to be made that these extensions, the unemployment benefits, keep people from going and finding jobs,” he told CNN’s Candy Crowley Sunday.

“In fact there are some studies that have been done that show people stay on unemployment compensation and they don’t look for a job until two or three weeks before they know the benefits are going to run out,” he argued.

“People are unemployed because they want to be? ” asked Crowley.

Full Story: DeLay: People are unemployed because they want to be | Raw Story.

Conservatives Caused Huge Deficits, Blame Obama

Headline at Drudge Report: Obama policies projected to add $9.7 trillion to debt by 2020… points to this story, National debt to be higher than White House forecast, CBO says,

President Obama’s proposed budget would add more than $9.7 trillion to the national debt over the next decade, congressional budget analysts said Friday. Proposed tax cuts for the middle class account for nearly a third of that shortfall.

So here is the deal. This Drudge headline, saying Obama’s spending “adds to the deficit” is a trick. Here is how it works. Suppose you take over a company that is losing $100 million a year, and your jobs is to turn it around. So perhaps the second year the company only loses $70 million, $30 million the third year, and breaks even in year four. You saved the company. But in those years the company “lost” another $100 million. Should you be fired?

President Obama took office as President of a country with a $1.4 trillion deficit – thanks to the failure of conservative policies. Their tax cuts, wars, military buildups, corruption and incompetence drove the borrowing WAY up, and then their deregulation, corruption and incompetence destroyed the economy, driving the borrowing up into the stratosphere.

Full Story: Conservatives Caused Huge Deficits, Blame Obama | OurFuture.org.

Defense Department, Inc.

The Untouchable Budget

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life…. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.

–Dwight Eisenhower, American Society of Newspaper Editors, 16 April 1953

President Obama called his $3.8-trillion budget a big step in restoring America’s economic health. Last year he promoted TARP, the Troubled Assets Relief Program to bail out the financial sector at a mere $700 billion. Anyone – even billionaire bankers — can make mistakes that wreak ruin on the rest of us!

Obama also declared as “untouchable” the Pentagon budget of $1.5 trillion (including hidden costs in other government branches), which dwarfs the rescue package for the financial oligarchs. Both payouts, however, used the same logic: Congress taking from the have-nots and giving it to the have-mores. Indeed, the economic, political and military potentates depend on the federal budget to transfer taxpayer resources to them.

This evolving military-industrial complex, a partnership of interlocking government and corporate networks, has used public wealth to enrich itself. The manufacturing part of this complex rarely produces anything people live in, wear, or eat. Despite National Rifle Association claims, armaments do not meet civilian needs. In fact, there exists a dramatic gulf between a healthy economy and a social order based on military spending. During the very period (1998-2008) when the US economy’s share of global output dropped from 32 to 23%, the Defense budget doubled. (Loren Thompson, “QDR Can’t Solve Three Biggest Defense Challenges, Lexington Institute, January 28, 2010)

Full Story: Saul Landau and Nelson P. Valdes: Defense Department, Inc..

Dwight Eisenhower

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life…. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.

–Dwight Eisenhower, American Society of Newspaper Editors, 16 April 1953

Economist Lewis Black Tells It Like It Is

ADULT CONTENT WARNING: If you’re not familiar with Lewis Black, I’d turn back if I were you.

Lewis Black is funny. Dangerously funny. That he has such a large audience and still packs plenty of politics in his shtick gives one hope for the fate of our sorry species. So I figured it’s time I learned something from him.

What I’ve learned is that since a million more of you pricks out there watch him than will ever read my stuff, I’m done with all the painstaking research and putting in links to original sources so you can see that I’m not making it all up. I don’t have time any more. We’re killing people in more countries than I can count and YOU want me to be fair and balanced and plus show you where all this shit comes from. Well, I’m sorry…if you don’t believe me, LOOK THIS SHIT UP FOR YOURSELF!!

Here’s a perfectly good example.

Full Story: Economist Lewis Black Tells It Like It Is | The Smirking Chimp.

RNC Fallout: ‘Ashamed’ donor closes checkbook

A prominent Evangelical figure and Republican donor says he will end his contributions to the organized Republican Party in reaction to the leaked fundraising presentation that advised using “fear” to solicit contributions and displayed an image of President Obama as the Joker from Batman.

Mark DeMoss, who heads a major Christian public relations firm in Atlanta and served as a liaison to the Evangelical community for Mitt Romney in 2008, wrote Chairman Michael Steele yesterday that he was “ashamed” of the presentation, calling depictions of Obama, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Majority Leader Harry Reid “shameful, immature and uncivil, at best.”

“I’m afraid the presentation is representative of a culture and mindset within the Republican National Committee,” DeMoss, a past member of the RNC's “Eagle” program for top donors who gave the party $15,000 in 2008, wrote in the letter to Steele, which he shared with POLITICO. (DeMoss hasn't given this cycle.) “Consequently, I will no longer contribute to any fundraising entity of our Party—but will contribute only to individual candidates I choose to support.”

Full Story: RNC Fallout: ‘Ashamed’ donor closes checkbook – Ben Smith – POLITICO.com.

Switzerland referendum on providing lawyers for animals

A nationwide referendum is taking place in Switzerland on a proposal to give animals the constitutional right to be represented in court.

Animal rights groups say appointing state-funded animal lawyers would ensure animal welfare laws are upheld, and help prevent cases of cruelty.

Opponents say Switzerland does not need more legislation regarding animal protection.

The Swiss government has recommended that voters reject the idea.

There is already one animal lawyer in Switzerland.

Full Story: BBC News – Switzerland referendum on providing lawyers for animals.

How food and water are driving a 21st-century African land grab

An Observer investigation reveals how rich countries faced by a global food shortage now farm an area double the size of the UK to guarantee supplies for their citizens

We turned off the main road to Awassa, talked our way past security guards and drove a mile across empty land before we found what will soon be Ethiopia‘s largest greenhouse. Nestling below an escarpment of the Rift Valley, the development is far from finished, but the plastic and steel structure already stretches over 20 hectares – the size of 20 football pitches.

The farm manager shows us millions of tomatoes, peppers and other vegetables being grown in 500m rows in computer controlled conditions. Spanish engineers are building the steel structure, Dutch technology minimises water use from two bore-holes and 1,000 women pick and pack 50 tonnes of food a day. Within 24 hours, it has been driven 200 miles to Addis Ababa and flown 1,000 miles to the shops and restaurants of Dubai, Jeddah and elsewhere in the Middle East.

Ethiopia is one of the hungriest countries in the world with more than 13 million people needing food aid, but paradoxically the government is offering at least 3m hectares of its most fertile land to rich countries and some of the world’s most wealthy individuals to export food for their own populations.

Full Story: How food and water are driving a 21st-century African land grab | Environment | The Observer.

Reconciliation: Republican v Democratic

The Republican use reconciliation cost the American Taxpayer 2 TRILLION dollars during the Bush years alone.

Consider three bills — two of them passed under budget reconciliation, the third heading for budget reconciliation. Each had an effect on the fiscal health of the nation, calculated by the Congressional Budget Office. The first two, the tax cuts pushed by President George W. Bush, blew a hole in the budget. The third, the Senate’s health reform bill? As you can see from the CBO projection, that’s a different story.

These numbers are expressed in billions of FY2010 dollars.

Figure 1, in billions of FY2010 dollars.

The first bar is the impact on the unified budget balance of the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act (EGTRRA) of 2001. The second is the impact on the budget balance of the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act (JGTRRA) of 2003. The third bar is the CBO estimated impact on the deficit of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act proposed in the Senate on November 19, for 2010-2019.

Full Story: Econbrowser: What Are These Three Numbers?.

Former GOP insider: Billionaire Boys’ Club dismantling public education

Nationally known education commentator and former privatizer ally Diane Ravitch, a New York-based fellow at the Hoover Institution who was Assistant Secretary of Education in the Bush I administration, has been shifting steadily into the role of resistance leader. Lately Ravitch, an NYU professor, has been calling out New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg over his heavy-handed steamrolling of the city’s school system.

Ravitch now sounds as fiery as the urban parent activists who are popping up around the country to protest the Billionaire Eduphilanthropreneurs’ Club effort to take over our schools. The notion that a former Republican White House insider would all but out-rabble-rouse activists like my colleagues Gina Arlotto in D.C., Sharon Higgins in Oakland or Leonie Haimson in New York has me knocked speechless:

It appears that the Big Money has placed its bets on dismantling public education.

Full Story: Former GOP insider: Billionaire Boys’ Club dismantling public education.

Not till they’ve nothing left to lose?

Those calling for financial reform aren’t being upfront about its costs, making it impossible to achieve.

This was again evident at the Roosevelt Institute’s otherwise very good conference at Time Warner Center yesterday.

First the good. The purpose of the gathering was to galvanize support for deeper reforms than lawmakers have proposed. Roosevelt’s Chief Economist Rob Johnson and his murderer’s row of thinkers — including Simon Johnson, Elizabeth Warren, Frank Partnoy, Rick Carnell, Josh Rosner and others — presented a very good white paper outlining how best to clean up the financial system. Other attendees were George Soros, Brooksley Born, Jim Chanos, Joe Stiglitz. Even Eliot Spitzer showed up.

When it comes to reform, they all argued, nibbling around the edges ain’t gonna cut it.

Banks need more capital, Fannie and Freddie need to be wound down, banks’ risky activities must be corralled, tax incentives that encourage borrowing must be done away with. Most importantly, perhaps, we need to end the cycle by which the financial system lends too much and too easily only to be bailed out by a compliant Fed when things go wrong.

Full Story: Not till they’ve nothing left to lose? | Analysis & Opinion | Reuters.

Milky Way Time-Lapse Video Is Gorgeous (VIDEO)

This time-lapse video of the Milky Way, shot over Hawaii, is just gorgeous. As Buzzfeed says, “Time to feel insignificant… in a good way.”

WATCH:

Full Story: Milky Way Time-Lapse Video Is Gorgeous (VIDEO).

‘Spy Chips’ Hidden In 2.6 Million Trashbins Aim To Tax Those Who Toss Too Much

It’s the new front in the nanny state: Microchips placed in garbage bins to monitor how much people throw away.

A pro-privacy group warns in a new report that more than 2.6 million of the chips have been surreptitiously installed in what is seen as a first step toward charging those who toss too much.

Proponents say it’s a bid to push recycling. Opponents say it stinks.

“They should mind their own business,” said Terry Williams, an unemployed Londoner who thinks the government is meddling. “I believe they have gone too far. It’s not like we are throwing away anything that is illegal.”

Full Story: ‘Spy Chips’ Hidden In 2.6 Million Trashbins Aim To Tax Those Who Toss Too Much.

Thin wall separates lobbyist contributions and earmarks

Lawmakers Deny That Lobbying Affects Earmarks. Numbers Suggest Otherwise

House Appropriations defense subcommittee member James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.) works hard at fundraising: Two to three times a week, he telephones contributors to ask for more. Yet, according to the account he supplied to the Office of Congressional Ethics last year, he is unaware of “who made donations” or how much they gave, and so that information plays no role in his earmarking — the systematic granting of public funds for mostly private purposes.

Fellow subcommittee member Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) similarly presides over fundraisers arranged by his staff for defense firms and lobbyists every three months or so, according to his office’s account. An aide in charge of Dicks’s earmarks attends the fundraising events. But Dicks and the aide told investigators they were unaware of the substantial overlap between defense industry contributions to Dicks and his earmarks to contributors.

The House ethics committee on Feb. 26 exonerated Dicks, Moran and five other defense subcommittee members of allegations that they had abused their offices by, in essence, selling earmarks to donors. In so doing, it drew heavily on promises such as these by lawmakers and staff members that their campaign fundraising operations had been carefully walled off from their earmarking decisions. Otherwise, their actions would violate laws and rules that bar any link between such donations and legislative acts.

Full Story: Thin wall separates lobbyist contributions and earmarks – washingtonpost.com.

The Up-or-Down Vote on Obama’s Presidency

Frank Rich -

WEDNESDAY’S health care rally was one of President Obama’s finest hours. It was so fine it couldn’t be blighted even by his preposterous backdrop, a cohort of white-jacketed medical workers large enough to staff a hospital in one of the daytime soaps that refused to be pre-empted by the White House show.

Obama’s urgent script didn’t need such cheesy theatrics. At last he took ownership of what he called “my proposal,” stating concisely three concrete ways the bill would improve America’s broken health care system. At last he pushed for a majority-rule, up-or-down vote in Congress. At last he conceded that bipartisan agreement between two parties with “honest and substantial differences” on fundamental principles wasn’t happening. At last he mobilized his rhetoric against a villain everyone could hiss — insurance companies. In a brief address, he mentioned these malefactors of great greed 13 times.

There was only one problem. This finest hour arrived hastily and tardily. At 1:45 p.m. Eastern time, who was watching? Of those who did watch or caught up later, how many bought the president’s vow to finish the job “in the next few weeks”? We’ve heard this too many times before. Last May Obama said he would have a bill by late July. In July he said he wanted it “done by the fall.” The White House’s new date for final House action — specified as March 18 by Robert Gibbs, the press secretary — is already in jeopardy.

Full Story: Op-Ed Columnist – The Up-or-Down Vote on Obama’s Presidency – NYTimes.com.

Open war over Rahm Emanuel, Barack Obama’s master of the dark arts

Rahm Emanuel, the president’s tough backroom operator, has found himself at the centre of a career-threatening row

Rahm Emanuel, President Obama’s outspoken chief of staff, has become embroiled in a public row with his critics amid accusations that he has damaged the standing of the presidency and undermined his boss.

Emanuel has become the subject of an intense war of words between those who blame him for the failings of Obama’s tough first year in office and those who insist that Obama should have listened to him more. If the controversy deepens any further, some feel that he may be forced to resign.

The development has been remarkable for a man in Emanuel’s job, which calls for him to adopt a behind-the-scenes role similar to that of a Mafia boss’s consigliere, whispering advice in the ear of the president and then strong-arming political targets into obeying his master’s will.

Full Story: Open war over Rahm Emanuel, Barack Obama’s master of the dark arts | World news | The Observer.

WATCH: Colleges Protest Tuition Hikes, Budget Cuts and Racial Discrimination (VIDEOS)

Growing tuition hikes. Increasing budget cuts. Rising racial tension in campuses during the so-called “post-racial” Age of Obama. It's been a very busy month for student activism in America's colleges — and not just on March 4, when thousands of students took the streets, especially in California.

Here are some of the MUST-SEE videos of student protests.

Full Story: WATCH: Colleges Protest Tuition Hikes, Budget Cuts and Racial Discrimination (VIDEOS).

Unlike Health Care, When It Comes To Nukes Cost Is No Object

The lead story in Saturday’s Washington Post, about the nuclear weapons decisions facing President Obama, runs longer than 1,300 words, but five a reader won’t find are “cost,” “dollars,” “money,” “debt,” or “deficit.” A reader would also search in vain for any talk of a “fiscal crisis” or a need to balance nuclear weapons priorities with available revenues.

That same reader, of course, rarely has to venture past the first sentence of a health care reform story to find that the subject is a “trillion dollar overhaul.” Occasionally, it’s noted that the trillion dollars is spread over ten years.

One particular decision that Obama faces is whether to continue what’s known as the “triad” – three independent ways the United States developed to annihilate the Soviet Union. Warheads can be delivered with bombers, from submarines or with intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Full Story: Unlike Health Care, When It Comes To Nukes Cost Is No Object.

Top US home-school texts dismiss evolution

Home-school mom Susan Mule wishes she hadn’t taken a friend’s advice and tried a textbook from a popular Christian publisher for her 10-year-old’s biology lessons.

Mule’s precocious daughter Elizabeth excels at science and has been studying tarantulas since she was 5. But she watched Elizabeth’s excitement turn to confusion when they reached the evolution section of the book from Apologia Educational Ministries, which disputed Charles Darwin’s theory.

“I thought she was going to have a coronary,” Mule said of her daughter, who is now 16 and taking college courses in Houston. “She’s like, ‘This is not true!’”

Full Story: Top US home-school texts dismiss evolution | Raw Story.

If Netanyahu wants peace, he knows what to do

- Haaretz -

British statesman Leopold Amery’s plea to prime minister Neville Chamberlain – “For God’s sake, go” – has undergone many incarnations, and I’m surprised at my colleague Nahum Barnea, who made do with a simple “Go” in reference to Avigdor Lieberman. The suspicion that Lieberman received documents relating to the investigation against him from our ambassador in Belarus is now being checked by the police. It doesn’t smell good – not to mention that the stench of the foreign minister’s behavior justifies speeding up the distribution of gas masks.

But the problem is not Avigdor, it’s the person who appointed him, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is gradually going back to being the Bibi of his first term. Never since the founding of the state has its image, prestige, reputation and moral and ethical weight been at such a nadir. The commander of the Dubai police is sitting comfortably in his armchair and enumerating one by one the mistakes he claims were made by the Mossad – for example, dressing one of its fattest agents in a tennis outfit. He is also issuing international arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Mossad chief Meir Dagan.

And in a public courtroom in Barcelona, Israel is being portrayed as a country that tramples basic human rights, while Hamas is being “acquitted” of being a terror organization.

Full Story: If Netanyahu wants peace, he knows what to do – Haaretz – Israel News.

The Senate’s Lesson About Democracy

David Sirota -

When you look past the craziness, chaos and confusion of politics these days, you still find roughly two major schools of thought that aim to explain What’s Fundamentally Wrong.

The first says America is paralyzed by a political system that is too democratic — too responsive to citizens’ whims. This is the religion of almost everyone in the permanent Washington elite, regardless of party. Its canon mixing paeans to noblesse oblige with shrill authoritarianism is most clearly articulated by high priests like The Washington Post’s David Broder and The New York Times’ Tom Friedman. The former has said democracy threatens to make “official Washington altogether too responsive to public opinion”; the latter dreams of Chinese-style dictatorship.

“One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages,” Friedman recently gushed, adding that the chief “advantage” is the ability of despots to “just impose” policies at the barrel of a gun.

Full Story: t r u t h o u t | David Sirota | The Senate’s Lesson About Democracy.

What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know About Capitalism

For those concerned with the fate of the earth, the time has come to face facts: not simply the dire reality of climate change but also the pressing need for social-system change. The failure to arrive at a world climate agreement in Copenhagen in December 2009 was not simply an abdication of world leadership, as is often suggested, but had deeper roots in the inability of the capitalist system to address the accelerating threat to life on the planet. Knowledge of the nature and limits of capitalism, and the means of transcending it, has therefore become a matter of survival. In the words of Fidel Castro in December 2009: “Until very recently, the discussion [on the future of world society] revolved around the kind of society we would have. Today, the discussion centers on whether human society will survive.”1

I. The Planetary Ecological Crisis

There is abundant evidence that humans have caused environmental damage for millennia. Problems with deforestation, soil erosion, and salinization of irrigated soils go back to antiquity. Plato wrote in Critias:

What proof then can we offer that it [the land in the vicinity of Athens] is…now a mere remnant of what it once was?…You are left (as with little islands) with something rather like the skeleton of a body wasted by disease; the rich, soft soil has all run away leaving the land nothing but skin and bone. But in those days the damage had not taken place, the hills had high crests, the rocky plane of Phelleus was covered with rich soil, and the mountains were covered by thick woods, of which there are some traces today. For some mountains which today will only support bees produced not so long ago trees which when cut provided roof beams for huge buildings whose roofs are still standing. And there were a lot of tall cultivated trees which bore unlimited quantities of fodder for beasts. The soil benefitted from an annual rainfall which did not run to waste off the bare earth as it does today, but was absorbed in large quantities and stored in retentive layers of clay, so that what was drunk down by the higher regions flowed downwards into the valleys and appeared everywhere in a multitude of rivers and springs. And the shrines which still survive at these former springs are proof of the truth of our present account of the country.2

Full Story: What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know About Capitalism – Monthly Review.

One child dies every two minutes in Afghanistan formation from middle east

Children in Afghanistan are more likely to die before the age of five than children anywhere else in the world, according to Save the Children.

At the current appalling rate, one child dies every two minutes in the violence-wracked nation.

The study shows that last year was also the deadliest for Afghan children since the fall of the Taliban.

More than 1,050 were killed in suicide attacks, air strikes, explosions and crossfire, according to latest figures.

Save the Children insists the true scale of the humanitarian crisis facing the country remains hidden because of the focus on the conflict.

Full Story: One child dies every two minutes in Afghanistan :: www.uruknet.info :: informazione dal medio oriente :: information from middle east :: [vs-1].

OPS:  and Republicans are ‘Pro-Life’ ?

Bill Moyers Journal . Marcia Angell: An Argument for Killing the HCR Bill

Dr. Marcia Angell, a single-payer advocate, doesn’t think there’s much in the President’s plan to feel good about. But it’s not just the particular version that she objects to — rather that the bill doesn’t address what’s fundamentally wrong with the American health care system.

“We have chosen, alone among all advanced countries, to leave health care to for-profit industries, to leave health care to businesses, that then distribute health care as a market commodity according to the ability to pay. And not according to medical need. So we have left the financing of health care to private insurance companies that have learned that they can thrive not by providing health care, but by not providing health care to sick people, by avoiding sick people.”

The U.S. ranks highest in total cost of care, but according to a recent report by the Commonwealth Fund, it also ranks last among industrialized countries “in preventing deaths through use of timely and effective medical care.” In a recent FRONTLINE report comparing the health care systems of five other capitalist democracies, “Sick Around the World,” WASHINGTON POST reporter T.R. Reid notes that, “The World Health Organization says the U.S. health care system rates 37th in the world in terms of quality and fairness. All the other rich countries do better than we do, and yet they spend a heck of a lot less.”

Full Story: Bill Moyers Journal . Marcia Angell | PBS.

100 Percent of Fish in U.S. Streams Found Contaminated with Mercury

In a new study conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), every single fish tested from 291 freshwater streams across the United States was found to be contaminated with mercury.

“This study shows just how widespread mercury pollution has become in our air, watersheds and many of our fish in freshwater streams,” said Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.

Mercury is a potent neurotoxin that builds up in the food chain at ever higher concentrations in predators such as large fish and humans. It is especially damaging to the developing nervous systems of fetuses and children, but can have severe effects on adults, as well. The pollutant enters the environment almost wholly as atmospheric emissions from industrial processes, primarily the burning of coal for electricity. It then spreads across the plant and settles back to the surface, eventually concentrating in rivers, lakes and oceans, where it enters the aquatic food chain.

Full Story: 100 Percent of Fish in U.S. Streams Found Contaminated with Mercury.

Are 2010 Dems as corrupt as the 2006 GOP?

Of course not. But the media seems to be buying the GOP’s false equivalence

I predicted Wednesday that Republicans and the mainstream media would soon have a new but typically simplistic partisan line: that recent scandals involving Democratic Reps. Eric Massa and Charlie Rangel and New York Gov. David Paterson would make 2010 what 2006 was for Republicans — the year voters punished the party for its corruption. Throw in oldies but goodies like former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, both Democrats, and I foresaw an avalanche of 2006-2010 comparisons. And I was right.

Before I attack that false equivalence, let me make clear: I’m not defending these Democrats. I said on “Morning Joe” Tuesday that Paterson should resign, given the mounting evidence that he abused his power to help an aide duck a serious domestic violence charge. I was a Blagojevich critic like every other Democrat, and I wrote at the time that it was wrong to seat Roland Burris in Barack Obama’s Senate seat after Blagojevich’s cynical appointment.

But this is another dramatic case of the double standard the media can’t seem to avoid when it comes to Republicans and Democrats. The big difference between the two sets of scandals is that GOP corruption in 2006 was big-time, it was systemic — and much of it was covered up, ignored and, in some cases (House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, anyone?), perpetrated by congressional leadership. Nancy Pelosi’s team came in and developed ethics standards and investigation protocols that are working in the Rangel case, standards that many Republicans, including House Minority Leader John Boehner, opposed.

Full Story: Are 2010 Dems as corrupt as the 2006 GOP? – Joan Walsh – Salon.com.

Mark Begich open to reconciliation for health reform–that makes 50 without any maybes

OPS: And Biden makes 51

Senator Mark Begich is open to using reconciliation for health reform. From a letter to a constituent:

Thank you for contacting me regarding health care reform.

The reconciliation process is a budgetary tool used to address spending and deficit issues with a simple majority vote. The budget reconciliation process has been used 22 times by both parties since 1980. Action to clean up the health reform bill will further reduce the deficit.

Comprehensive health care reform has already passed the Senate with 60 votes. If the House passes the Senate bill, the President could sign that version of comprehensive reform into law. I believe reconciliation would only be used as a tool to take out special backroom deals and to eliminate concerns raised by many Alaskans I’ve talked with. The President has proposed narrow changes which I support, including completely closing the coverage gap for seniors’ prescription drugs, eliminating the special Nebraska funding provision, providing additional federal financing to all states to help pay for the expansion of Medicaid, and strengthening the Medicare waste, fraud, and abuse provisions.

Again, thank you for contacting me. As the 111th Congress moves forward, please continue to be in touch with your thoughts and concerns.

Sincerely,

Mark Begich

U.S. Senator

Full Story: Open Left:: Mark Begich open to reconciliation for health reform–that makes 50 without any maybes.

“Is Fear All They Have Left?”

DNC TV Ad:

Senators, Terrorists and Trials

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed.

Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

The first thought, of course, is that Senator Graham and his colleagues who have signed on to his bill are secretly terrorist sympathizers. That would explain the inexplicable. They have let it be known that they want terrorists tried in military commissions where the procedures are less clear than in civilian courts and where the history of convictions is far more favorable for the terrorists. To date there have been 3 terrorists tried in the military tribunals and of the three, two are now free men and one is a permanent resident in a federal prison. By contrast, as we learn from New York University’s Terrorism Trial Report Card: “In 2001/2002, 8% of defendants labeled as terrorists in the media were charged [in civilian courts] under terrorism statutes, and of those 38% were convicted of terrorism. In 2006/2007, those numbers increased to 47% charged and 84% convicted. The overall conviction rate for prosecutions involving terrorism charges now stands at 89%.” In her introduction to the Report Card, Karen Greenberg, executive director of the Center on Law and Security and editor in chief of the Report Card, observes about civilian courts that: “An increasing percentage of convictions involve the more serious charges, and a growing percentage of those accused of terrorism are convicted.”

The report card observes that “Federal prosecution has demonstrably become a powerful tool in many hundreds of cases, not only for incapacitating terrorists but also for intelligence gathering. Much of the government’s knowledge of terrorist groups has come from testimony and evidence produced in grand jury investigations. . . and in the resulting trials.”

Full Story: Senators, Terrorists and Trials | CommonDreams.org.

President Obama: Replace Rahm With Me

…an open letter from Michael Moore

Dear President Obama,

I understand you may be looking to replace Rahm Emanuel as your chief of staff.

I would like to humbly offer myself, yours truly, as his replacement.

I will come to D.C. and clean up the mess that's been created around you. I will work for $1 a year. I will help the Dems on Capitol Hill find their spines and I will teach them how to nonviolently beat the Republicans to a pulp.

And I will help you get done what the American people sent you there to do. I don't need much, just a cot in the White House basement will do.

Now, don't get too giddy with excitement over my offer, because you and I are going to be up at 5 in the morning, 7 days a week and I am going to get you pumped up for battle every single day (see photo). Each morning you and I will do 100 jumping jacks and you will repeat after me:

Full Story: President Obama: Replace Rahm With Me | CommonDreams.org.

US public ‘will pay Obama’s $90bn bank levy’

President Barack Obama’s $90bn (£59.5bn) bank levy will largely be paid for by customers and investors and not the institutions themselves, the US’s leading spending watchdog has found.

In a report on the White House’s plan to impose a 0.15pc fee on liabilities of banks with more than $50bn in assets in order to recoup money lost through the $700bn Troubled Assets Relief Programme, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said the impact on banks would be “small”.

“The cost of the proposed fee would ultimately be borne to varying degrees by an institution’s customers, employees and investors, but the precise incidence among those groups is uncertain,” said the CBO in a letter to Senator Charles Grassley, a leading member of the Senate finance committee.

Full Story: US public ‘will pay Obama’s $90bn bank levy’ – Telegraph.

FDIC Closes Four Banks: Bank Of Illionois, Sun American, Waterfield, Centennial Bank

Regulators on Friday shuttered banks in Florida, Illinois, Maryland and Utah, boosting to 26 the number of bank failures in the U.S. so far this year following the 140 brought down in 2009 by mounting loan defaults and the recession.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over Sun American Bank, based in Boca Raton, Fla., with $535.7 million in assets and $443.5 million in deposits. Also seized were Bank of Illinois of Normal, Ill., with $211.7 million in assets and $198.5 million in deposits; Waterfield Bank in Germantown, Md., with $155.6 million in assets and $156.4 million in deposits; and Centennial Bank in Ogden, Utah, with $215.2 million in assets and $205.1 million in deposits.

First-Citizens Bank & Trust Co., based in Raleigh, N.C., agreed to assume the assets and deposits of Sun American Bank and to share losses with the FDIC on $433 million of the failed bank's loans and other assets. It was First-Citizens' fourth acquisition of assets of a failed bank since last July; the others were First Regional Bank of Los Angeles, Venture Bank of Lacey, Wash., and Temecula Valley Bank of Temecula, Calif.

Full Story: FDIC Closes Four Banks: Bank Of Illionois, Sun American, Waterfield, Centennial Bank.

Bart Stupak Abortion Claims Debunked: Health Bill Would NOT Force Federal Spending On Abortion

ABC News found that one of Rep. Bart Stupak’s (D-Mich.) biggest contentions in his fight against health care reform legislation — that federal money will go to “directly subsidize abortions” — is not true in all cases.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has repeatedly asserted that there is “no federally funded abortion” in the bill.

According to ABC’s Jonathan Karl: “Pelosi is right in that the bill makes it clear, there can be no federal money for abortion, except in cases of rape, incest, or to protect the life of the mother.”

Stupak argued that “when you read the legislation, $1 per month for all enrollees must go into a fund for reproductive care which includes abortion coverage.”

Full Story: Bart Stupak Abortion Claims Debunked: Health Bill Would NOT Force Federal Spending On Abortion.

OPS: How absurd does your position have to be to have ABC call you out?

5 Easy Ways to Stay Inspired (Video)

Inspiration comes and goes when it pleases. It’s independent of our desires, doesn't respond well to force, and refuses to be controlled. Inspiration is a force not to be wrestled with. You can try but it will slip under the cracks every time. So how do we maintain access to inspiration so we can continue to direct our efforts in a useful productive manner with as much ease and efficiency as possible? Seems only reasonable to make a deal with inspiration and give in.

5 Ways to Stay Inspired.

Full Story: Tara Stiles: 5 Easy Ways to Stay Inspired (Video).

Consumer Groups Urge Regulation of Nonbank Financial Institutions – NYTimes.com

While much of the Congressional debate over consumer financial protection has focused on banks, lawmakers have been grappling behind the scenes over whether and how to regulate payday lenders, debt collectors, check-cashing outlets, title and installment lenders and even pawnbrokers.

Many of these companies primarily take aim at lower-income customers, and consumer advocates say the companies are far less regulated than banks.

Oversight of such companies has been left largely to the states. The Federal Trade Commission has brought fewer than 25 lawsuits in the last five years against mortgage originators, payday lenders and debt collectors, officials said. It has only 70 staff members to cover about 10,000 such companies nationwide, and does not have the authority to conduct compliance exams, as bank regulators do.

Full Story: Consumer Groups Urge Regulation of Nonbank Financial Institutions – NYTimes.com.

Arianna On ‘Real Time’: The Middle Class Is Crumbling

Arianna weighed in on the state of the American middle class Friday during an appearance on “Real Time With Bill Maher.” Andrew Ross Sorkin was also a guest.

While Maher railed against the show “Undercover Boss” for its condescending prince-and-the-pauper approach, Arianna argued that there’s a reason that people connect with the show: it shows people working hard and not being rewarded.

“Thirty years ago, the CEOs that are in ‘Undercover Boss’ were making 30 times as much as their working people. Now, they’re making 300 times as much! We’re about to become Venezuela, or Brazil, you know where the people at the top are basically behind they’re gates with guards to protect their kids from kidnapping. The middle class is crumbling and that’s the country we’re going to become… if we don’t fundamentally change where we’re going.”

Arianna explained that the anger driving Michael Moore is the same as the anger felt by those in the Tea Party movement. “It’s the anger about that fact that what is happening is not fair, that the fix is in, that the system is rigged, and that people who are working hard are not really getting rewarded. And the people at the top who brought us to the financial brink were actually bailed out by the taxpayers.”

WATCH:

Full Story: Huff TV: Arianna On ‘Real Time’: The Middle Class Is Crumbling.

Jobs Report Exposes Plight Of Long-Term Unemployed

Friday’s jobs report showed some glimmers of a recovery but if you’re among the 8.8 million Americans still unemployed after nearly four months, you may have been left scratching your head.

“Whether you say the jobs market is improving or getting worse, there are people who will say you’re crazy,” said Lakshman Achuthan, managing director of Economic Cycle Research Institute. “That’s because there are two Americas, and they’re both right.”

Of the 8.8 million who have been unemployed for more than 3-1/2 months, there are 3.5 million more now than there were at this point last year. And for this group, the job market is looking grimmer by the day. According to the Labor Department, a stunning 58.9% of jobless Americans have now been unemployed for more than 15 weeks — an all-time high.

Full Story: Jobs: Short-term hope, long-term despair – Mar. 6, 2010.

Indiana faces wave of ’sovereign citizens’ who declare independence

An increasing number of Indiana residents are declaring themselves “sovereign citizens” and personally seceding from the United States, says a report from ABC channel 6 in Indianapolis.

By doing so, residents contend that they no longer have to pay taxes, claiming their homes as embassies and using identification cards that show them as diplomats, 6News’ Rafael Sanchez reported.

Indiana authorities call such proclamations both illegitimate and illegal. About 10 people every month ask the state to put a seal on a document so that they can claim freedom from taxes.

Channel 6 profiled Donald Moore, a father of seven who has made himself “official- looking” identification that he says exempts him from U.S. laws and U.S. taxes by making him an “ambassador” to the United States.

The ID card “gives me diplomatic immunity,” Moore said. “The way I understand it, the federal government is incorporated, and all the states are incorporated. This takes me out of the corporation.”

Full Story: Indiana faces wave of ’sovereign citizens’ who declare independence | Raw Story.

Money worries curb GOP optimism

Republicans are feeling pretty good about the midterms. Prognosticators don’t laugh anymore when they talk about taking back Congress.

But while wind at one’s back is a good thing, cash in the bank would be better, and on that score Republicans are lagging behind. Their candidates have raised less than half the $84 million that experts estimate it will take to seriously threaten the Democratic majority in the House. The situation at the National Republican Congressional Committee is even bleaker.

In 2008, the committee spent more than $34 million on advertising and other assistance to candidates, according to Federal Election Commission reports. Today, the NRCC has a grand total of $4 million in the bank — and that is after one of its best fundraising months. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, by contrast, has about $18 million.

Full Story: Money worries curb GOP optimism – Jeanne Cummings – POLITICO.com.

OPS: BS. This is a sympathy tactic. The Corporations will give them all they need

Cash-strapped Athens goes looking for expatriate Greeks willing to bear gifts

• Greece appeals to wealthy diaspora to bail out €300bn debt
• Rich list identifies hundreds of multimillionaires of Greek origin

Like many Greeks, Philippos Petsalnikos did well when he lived abroad. Now the president of the Athens parliament hopes expatriate Greeks can help him in a mission far greater than he ever envisaged when he returned home: rescuing his homeland from bankruptcy.

“There are many Greeks worldwide, who want to assist us,” he says. “Every day, I receive emails from people in America, Australia, Austria, asking how they can help. And that’s how I had the idea to set up an account for the sole purpose of helping to pay off this country’s debt.”

Today that idea turned into something much bigger, with the opening of a special fund at the Central Bank of Greece – the start of an unprecedented global campaign to inject the nation’s near-empty coffers with much-needed monies. At first glance the fund’s target might seem a little ambitious. Athens’ debt is €300bn (£270bn) – more than 120% of the country’s gross domestic product and by far the largest in the EU.

Full Story: Cash-strapped Athens goes looking for expatriate Greeks willing to bear gifts | Business | guardian.co.uk.

OPS: Geez, where’s Onasis when you need him eh?

Bank payback plan faces failure as Iceland votes

Icelanders headed to the polls in drizzling rain on Saturday in a referendum expected to reject a bank repayment deal worth billions that many here consider a foreign diktat.

“I will vote ‘no’ simply because I disagree very strongly with us… having to shoulder this burden” from the 2008 collapse of the online Icesave bank, Ingimar Gudmundsson, a 57-year-old truck driver, told AFP.

The issue is whether Iceland should honour an agreement to repay Britain and the Netherlands 3.9 billion euros (5.3 billion dollars).

Full Story: Bank payback plan faces failure as Iceland votes – Yahoo! News.

Expanded use of body scanners slammed by ACLU

It was announced on Friday that the Transportation Security Administration plans to extend the use of full body scanners to eleven additional airports in the United States over the next two years.

The American Civil Liberties Union immediately condemned the plan as a grave infringement on civil liberties.

The ACLU’s Laura W. Murphy issued a statement warning of the risks in “these invasive search techniques” and suggesting that “It is far from clear whether this technology would have been able to foil the attempted Christmas Day attack and every resource we put into using these machines is a resource not spent on intelligence analysis or other law enforcement activity.”

Full Story: Expanded use of body scanners slammed by ACLU | Raw Story.

Exclusive: Famed NYT reporter tells Michael Moore capitalism driving Earth’s downfall

In his film Capitalism: A Love Story, Michael Moore squares off with the free-market system for its role in leveraging the United States’s wealth into the hands of a few.

But in one clip cut from the documentary — which Moore provided exclusively to RAW STORY — he interviews Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Chris Hedges, who explains how capitalism is actually contributing to the very downfall of the human race and the “degradation of the planet.”

“All sorts of people who have spent their lives studying climate change, from Bill McKibben on down, have warned us that we don’t have a lot of time left,” Hedges said. “So it’s not just that capitalism has destroyed our economic system and hijacked our political system, but it literally is extinguishing the system that sustains life. If that’s not thwarted soon…then we will begin to see massive dislocations, environmental refugees, further depleting of natural resources. Overpopulation is also an issue. The UN estimates that by 2050 the size of the planet will double.”

Full Story: Exclusive: Famed NYT reporter tells Michael Moore capitalism driving Earth’s downfall | Raw Story.

Free Trade Fails in Both Theory and Practice

Free trade is gradually bleeding America’s economy to death, and the much-promoted myth that economics vindicates it does not survive serious scrutiny.

To debate this issue without bogging down in semantics, we need to make a few things clear at the outset. For a start, the phrase “free trade” has two meanings, which are often confused:

1) The purely theoretical concept of perfectly free trade as analyzed in economics text-books.

2) The current free trade policy of the U.S. This is about 99%, not 100%, free on America’s part, and much less so on the part of our major trading partners.

Full Story: International Economic Law and Policy Blog: The Great Trade Debate: Ian Fletcher – Free Trade Fails in Both Theory and Practice.

Double-Dip Recession Directly Ahead

If history teaches us anything, it’s that when even ONE major government defaults on its debts, economic chaos follows. The crisis unfolds in four quick steps:

FIRST, since a sovereign debt default would inevitably cause ALL bonds to crash, investors stampede for the bond market exits, dumping as much as they can as fast as they can.

SECOND, as the bond market reels, interest rates skyrocket and credit tightens. The rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, auto loans and other long-term debts soar. Rates tied to short-term money markets — on credit cards and variable mortgages — follow.

THIRD, consumers — whose spending represents fully 70% of the economy — snap their pocketbooks shut.

FOURTH, corporate earnings and stock prices crater. As the economy hits the skids, unemployment soars.

Full Story: OpEdNews – Article: Double-Dip Recession Directly Ahead.

U.S. Needs Industrial Policy

The U.S. has not had a coordinated national industrial policy in decades, and each new Congress simply puts the issue on the back burner.

The United States is currently absorbed in the highly partisan debate over health care reform. The president seems unwilling to pick a firm side in the discussion, but Republicans and Democrats have drawn lines in the sand. As we spend more and more effort on a health care issue, which is almost completely cut and dry at this point in terms of both fiscal and moral responsibility, we lose time and energy that should be spent on other issues.

[Woman working on an airplane motor at North American Aviation] One of the key issues that the Congress and the White House absolutely must address before a possible 2012 ouster is America’s manufacturing and industrial downfall.

The U.S. has not had a coordinated national industrial policy in decades, and each new Congress simply puts the issue on the back burner. They look only at the good and ignore the bad. For example, America is the world’s largest economy, it is one of the largest exporters, and its citizens are able to consume one-quarter of all the resources used on this planet in any given day.

Full Story: U.S. Needs Industrial Policy | Economy In Crisis.

U.S. Lawmakers Begin Effort to Repeal NAFTA

A bipartisan group of legislators representing a wide array of states, has introduced legislation in the House that would repeal the failed North American Free Trade Agreement.

The effort, led by Democratic Rep. Gene Taylor of Mississippi, would require providing Canada and Mexico with a six-month notification of America’s intent to drop out of the trade pact. After that, the U.S. would be free to leave the tri-lateral agreement.

“Timing is everything in life and it’s the right time to pass this legislation. Proponents have had more than enough time to make this work – It didn’t,” Taylor said in a statement.

Full Story: U.S. Lawmakers Begin Effort to Repeal NAFTA | Economy In Crisis.

Mitt Romney Refuses To Say If The Foundation Of The Massachusetts Health System Is Constitutional

Mitt Romney Refuses To Say If The Foundation Of The Massachusetts Health System Is Constitutional

In recent days, former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) has tried to simultaneously tear down President Obama’s proposals to reform healthcare, while defending his own legacy of reforming healthcare in Massachusetts. Romney’s health plan includes an expansion of Medicaid using $385 million in annual Federal money, as well as an individual mandate and a sliding scale of subsidies. Today, 98% of Bay State residents have quality, highly regulated coverage. Defending his plan last night, Romney told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren that the only way the Massachusetts “system can work” is by having an individual mandate.

Fighting to kill health reform, the right-wing has attacked the individual mandate as unconstitutional. Along with a cadre of Republican Congressmen, Sens. Jim DeMint (R-SC), John Ensign (R-NV), and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) have said that the individual mandate violates the constitution. Similarly, as a ThinkProgress investigation has found, insurance company lobbyists have orchestrated an effort to use state legislatures to pass resolutions condemning the individual mandate as unconstitutional. An individual mandate is absolutely necessary for health reform to work. Simply put, the right has hoped to kill health reform by undermining the individual mandate.

Today at the Press Club, Romney again tore into Obama’s efforts on health reform. After the speech, ThinkProgress caught up with Romney to ask him about the constitutionality of the individual mandate. Romney refused to answer if the individual mandate, which underpins his own Massachusetts system, is even constitutional:

Full Story: Think Progress » Mitt Romney Refuses To Say If The Foundation Of The Massachusetts Health System Is Constitutional.

Gregg: Not ‘A Lot Of People’ Would ‘Really Care’ If Democrats Use Reconciliation To Finish Health Care

For weeks now, Republicans have been grousing that, if Democrats use the budget reconciliation process to finish health care reform with a simple majority, it “would be unprecedented in scope.” “It would really be the end of the Senate as a protector of minority rights,” declared Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN). It would “harm the future of our country,” said Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). “They will lose their majority in Congress in November” if they use reconciliation, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) predicted.

On Fox News last week, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-AZ) declared that using reconciliation “to pass the most significant piece of public policy” of his lifetime would be “a railroading of the system”:

GREGG: We’re talking now about changing the entire way that health care is delivered in this country. We’re talking about taking the federal government and growing it from 20 percent of the economy to 25, 26 percent of the economy. We’re talking about changing the way that you and your doctor interact and you and your hospital — and your hospital treats you. These are huge public policy issues which really are way outside the reconciliation concept because they need debate. They need discussion. And they need to be subject to amendments on the floor of the Senate in order to do them correctly, or at least to have a proper airing of them and a fair treatment of them.

Watch it:

Full Story: Think Progress » Gregg: Not ‘A Lot Of People’ Would ‘Really Care’ If Democrats Use Reconciliation To Finish Health Care.

Let’s Be Smart and Regulate Synthetic Marijiuana ‘K2,’ and Drop the Prohibitionist Attitude

Lawmakers have a chance to learn from the failures of marijuana prohibition and respond to K2 with enlightened policy.

The recent emergence in the United States of “K2,” sometimes called synthetic marijuana, is testing lawmakers to see if they’ve been paying attention to the failures of marijuana prohibition and will respond to K2 with enlightened policy.

The first stories on K2, or “Spice,” broke out with headlines labeling the mixture of herbs and spices, which are treated with a synthetic compound, as “fake pot.” K2 was virtually unknown until the media hyped up its presence at tobacco and novelty shops.

Under U.S. law, and in all 50 states, the herbal product is legal, and also unregulated. People who have tried K2 often report psychoactive effects that are comparable to marijuana, but notably less pleasurable.

Full Story: Let’s Be Smart and Regulate Synthetic Marijiuana ‘K2,’ and Drop the Prohibitionist Attitude | Drugs | AlterNet.

The Brave New World of Sexual Addiction

The idea of sexual pleasure as a harmful addiction parallels the most perverse aspects of Western religious history.

America’s Sexual Burlesque

American befuddlement over matters of sex is on the increase, in spite of the fact that one can hardly imagine the subject becoming more befuddling to the people of this country than it already is.

Sex addiction is the latest star in America’s sexual burlesque. Sex addiction has of course been a malaprop from its first usage. Addiction was originally and properly defined as a physiological dependence on a substance to which the body had grown accustomed, such as alcohol, nicotine, heroin and various other drugs. The cure was to end the dependency and abstain from further use of the substance in order to avoid a recurrence of the physiological dependency. These treatments do work and many people have been cured of their addictions and never returned to the addictive substance.

Applying such a metaphor to sexual pleasure creates a misleading and ominous innuendo. Sex is not an addictive substance. It’s a human interaction on which the survival of the species is dependent. It is also possibly the most pleasurable and sought after activity known to humankind, and arguably an experience no one should be deprived of. Most normal people consider more rather than less sexual pleasure to be a major objective in life.

Full Story: Raymond J. Lawrence: The Brave New World of Sexual Addiction.

Illinois Joins in the Fray, Marches for Public Education

At a series of protests to celebrate National Day of Action to Defend Public Education, staff, students and faculty marched at public universities in California, Louisiana, Boston, Wisconsin, New York and Detroit to protest the strain on public education caused by the financial crisis.

The event, organized by students in California in response to a proposed 32 percent increase in student fees at its public universities, struck a chord with campuses nationwide facing cutbacks that many say could place affordable public education in jeopardy.

In Illinois, which is suffering from the second-worst budget crisis after California, nearly 200 people picketed at the University of Illinois' Chicago (UIC) campus on Thursday, calling out slogans such as “no contract, no peace” and “they say furlough, we say hell no.”

Full Story: t r u t h o u t | Illinois Joins in the Fray, Marches for Public Education.

U.S. gets say on which Canadians can fly

Starting in December, passengers on Canadian airlines flying to, from or even over the United States without landing there will be allowed to board the aircraft only after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has determined they are not terrorists.

Secure Flight, the newest weapon in the U.S.’s war on terrorism, gives the United States unprecedented power over who can board planes that fly over U.S. airspace -even if the flights originate and land in Canada.

The program, set to take effect globally in December, was created as part of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, adopted by the U.S. Congress in 2004.

Full Story: U.S. gets say on which Canadians can fly.

Deal With the Devil

Some time ago I was talking with a nurses aid as we took a break on our shift. The TV was playing Pat Robertson’s 700 Club.

“He visited Liberia.” she said.

“I hope you counted the silver after he left.” I replied.

Pat Robertson got his fifteen minutes at the top of the news recently by saying that the people of Haiti got whacked by the Almighty for a deal their ancestors made with the Devil. God seems to be Robertson’s own Divine Luca Brasi. But a little slower.

If God takes centuries to react then Pat Robertson’s descendants had better watch out for stray lightning bolts. Pat Robertson made a deal with the former President of Liberia, Charles Taylor, who is now on trial for crimes against humanity.

Full Story: Deal With the Devil « Kmareka.com.

Why the Continuing Bad Job Numbers Make it Harder (But Even More Important) To Pass Health Care Reform

Robert Reich -

The loss of 36,000 jobs in February is better than expected but it’s still miserable. 26,000 were lost in January, according to the government’s revised figures. And the “underemployment” rate — including jobless workers who have given up looking for work and part-time workers who want full time jobs — rose from 16.5% in January to 16.8% in February, offsetting some of January’s gains.

(And don’t blame it mostly on the weather. Although the surveys on which the report is based were done in mid-February during winter snowstorms in the east, the major impact of bad weather was on hours worked, not the numbers of jobs. If you had a job in February but were snowed in, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported you as having a job.)

This complicates the President’s final push for health care reform. With employers still shedding jobs and consumer confidence down, Americans are worried first and foremost about paying their bills. Because most people aren’t aware how much of their paychecks are being eaten up by rising health care costs but can easily be persuaded they’ll be paying more to cover those who don’t have health insurance under any new health plan, the continuing bad news on the jobs front makes it harder for the President to make his health-care sale.

Full Story: Robert Reich (Why the Continuing Bad Job Numbers Make it Harder (But Even More Important) To Pass Health Care Reform).

The Sandia Report On Education: A Perfect Lesson In Censorship

The report that showed that schools were improving across the board never saw the light of day. We are paying for that censorship today with the loss of our public education which is being turned over to private companies.

Project Censored 1994 – Story #3:

SYNOPSIS: One of the most thorough investigations into public education did not produce the expected results and instead, ended up being censored.

When state governors and President George Bush set national education goals after the 1989 education summit, the administration charged Sandia National Laboratories, a scientific research organization, with investigating the state of public education.

In 1991, Sandia presented its first findings to the U.S. Department of Education and the National Science Foundation. While the response from these government agencies should have been one of some celebration, instead it was one of silence — a silence compounded by the national media. The results did not reveal a seriously deficient educational system in dire need of profound changes such as a nationwide voucher program. And the report was suppressed.

Briefly, the Sandia Report did find the following: on nearly every measure employed in the survey, a steady or slightly improving trend was identified in public education. Overall, the high school completion rate in the U.S. at 85 percent ranks as one of the highest in the world. The dropout rate is inflated by a growing immigrant school population. SAT results often reported as falling do so not because of decreasing student performance but because of increased participation from students in the lower percentiles, a factor not always found when comparing results to other countries. One quarter of young people will achieve a bachelor's degree. Spending on education, often characterized as out of control, has risen by 30 percent but this has gone into special education programs, not the “regular” classroom.

Full Story: Project Censored 1994 – Story #3: The Sandia Report On Education: A Perfect Lesson In Censorship.

OPS:  Treason again. More proof of a focused, all encompassing effort (yes, a conspiracy) to bring this Nation under the control of an oligarchy. This chapter: the destruction and privatization of public education and the dumbing down of the Nation.

Fury as EU approves GM potato

Critics claim plant could spread antibiotic-resistant diseases to humans

The introduction of a genetically modified potato in Europe risks the development of human diseases that fail to respond to antibiotics, it was claimed last night.

German chemical giant BASF this week won approval from the European Commission for commercial growing of a starchy potato with a gene that could resist antibiotics – useful in the fight against illnesses such as tuberculosis.

Farms in Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic may plant the potato for industrial use, with part of the tuber fed to cattle, according to BASF, which fought a 13-year battle to win approval for Amflora. But other EU member states, including Italy and Austria and anti-GM campaigners angrily attacked the move, claiming it could result in a health disaster.

Full Story: Fury as EU approves GM potato – Green Living, Environment – The Independent.

American Behavioral Scientist: The Case of September 11, 2001

The entire February 2010 issue of the American Behavioral Scientist is devoted to State Crimes Against Democracy: The Case Of September 11, 2001

For 50 years the American Behavioral Scientist has been a leading source of behavioral research for the academic world. Its influence is shown by the fact that it is indexed by an extraordinary 67 major database services, causing its papers to be widely exposed on the international scene.

The publisher, Sage, is headquartered in Los Angeles, with offices in London, New Delhi, Singapore, and Washington DC.

Each issue offers comprehensive analysis of a single topic.

The six papers in the February 2010 issue are devoted to the recent concept of “State Crimes Against Democracy (SCAD’s),” with emphasis on 9/11 and on how human behavior has failed to recognize its reality. [Ref. abs.sagepub.com/content/vol53/issue6]

What are SCAD’s?

SCADs differ from earlier forms of political corruption in that they frequently involve political, military, and/or economic elites at the very highest levels of the social and political order,” explains one essay.

Full Story: Info Item.

Dramatic rescue of 1,000 people trapped on ferries as 50 ships get stuck in Baltic Sea ice after worst winter in 50 years — Signs of the Times News

Nearly 1,000 people trapped on a ferry were dramatically rescued today after 50 ships got stuck in heavy pack ice in the Baltic Sea, officials said.

The passenger ferry Amorella was returned safely to Stockholm harbour after ice breakers helped release it from large masses of ice off Sweden’s east coast.

A total of 50 ships and boats had been stuck for hours as gale-force winds built up the ice along the coastline north of Stockholm.

Full Story: Dramatic rescue of 1,000 people trapped on ferries as 50 ships get stuck in Baltic Sea ice after worst winter in 50 years — Signs of the Times News.

Uncontrolled Lending to Consumers Spawned the Financial Crisis

“the broad claim that the financial crisis has nothing to do with fraud or consumer protection dissolves in the face of the facts: the crisis can be attributed to failures of consumer protection, including those that enabled lenders to make the loans Zywicki decries.”

Posted: 05 Mar 2010 The Baseline Scenario

This guest post was contributed by Norman I. Silber, a Professor of Law at Hofstra Law School, and Jeff Sovern , a Professor of Law at St. John’s University. They were principal drafters of a statement signed by more than eighty-five professors who teach in fields related to banking and consumer law, supporting H. 3126, which would create an independent Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Some of the research on which this essay is based is drawn from an article by Professor Sovern.

Did under-regulated lending to consumers play a big part in destabilizing the financial system? Many knowledgeable people say yes, but Professor Todd Zywicki disagrees. (“Complex Loans Didn’t Cause the Financial Crisis,” Wall Street Journal, February 19, 2010). He claims that the present troubles resulted from the “rational behavior of borrowers and lenders responding to misaligned incentives, not fraud or borrower stupidity.”

Professor Zywicki’s argument enjoys, at least, the modest virtue of technical accuracy, because many objectionable misleading sales practices and agreements that lenders used were, and continue to be, unfortunately, quite legal. Lending practices may have been regularly misleading and confusing and reckless-but fraudulent? Well, no, usually not unlawful by the remarkably low standards of the day. But that in itself is an argument for saying consumer protection laws failed.

Full Story: Uncontrolled Lending to Consumers Spawned the Financial Crisis « Wake-up Call.

Denver Archdiocese Denies Education to Pre Schooler because parents are Lesbians

This is a 4 year old thrown out of pre school for God Sake! Gosh… Not only for the intolerant sexual bigotry endemic to the Catholic Church, but the unconscionable belief that children must suffer the sins of their parents! Anathema to the very core of what this nation stands for. It is more than disgusting on all levels. Though on the good side this is one less child for these dirty old men to get their filthy hands on.

Be clear that the responsibility for this is NOT on the back of Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic School where the staff spoke up against the ruling, but upon the Denver Archdiocese and its trail of shit leading to the Vatican in Rome.

The Denver Archdiocese has it written down:

“No person shall be admitted as a student in any Catholic school unless that person and his/her parent(s) subscribe to the school’s philosophy and agree to abide by the educational policies and regulations of the school and Archdiocese.”

Full Story: Denver Archdiocese Denies Education to Pre Schooler because parents are Lesbians – Kick! Making Politics Funny – A liberal dose of political comedy.

Ill. judge won’t toss torture suit naming Rumsfeld

A federal judge refused Friday to dismiss a civil lawsuit accusing former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld of responsibility for the alleged torture by U.S. forces of two Americans who worked for an Iraqi contracting firm.

U.S. District Judge Wayne R. Andersen’s ruling did not say the two contractors had proven any of their claims. But it did say they had alleged enough specific mistreatment to warrant hearing evidence of exactly what happened.

Andersen said his decision “represents a recognition that federal officials may not strip citizens of well settled constitutional protections against mistreatment simply because they are located in a tumultuous foreign setting.”

Full Story: The Daily Journal.