Archive for March, 2010

Black Ops Jungle: The Academy of Military-Industrial-Complex Studies

Dedicated to everything from architecture to sports medicine, “career academies” claim to offer high school kids focus, relevancy, and solid job prospects. Now add a new kind of program to the list: homeland security high. In late August, Maryland’s Joppatowne High School became the first school in the country dedicated to churning out would-be Jack Bauers. The 75 students in the Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness magnet program will study cybersecurity and geospatial intelligence, respond to mock terror attacks, and receive limited security clearances at the nearby Army chemical warfare lab.

The new school is funded and guided by a slew of federal, state, and local agencies, not to mention several defense firms. Officials say it will teach kids to understand the “new reality,” though they hasten to add that the school isn’t focused just on terrorism. School administrators, channeling Cheneyesque secrecy, refused to be interviewed for this story. But it’s no secret that the program is seen as a model for the rest of the country, with the Pentagon and other agencies watching closely.

Students will choose one of three specialized tracks: information and communication technology, criminal justice and law enforcement, or “homeland security science.” David Volrath, executive director of secondary education for Harford County Public Schools, says the school also hopes to offer “Arabic or some other nontraditional, Third World-type language.”

Full Story: Black Ops Jungle: The Academy of Military-Industrial-Complex Studies | Mother Jones.

Obama’s Reprehensible Rhetoric Against Single-Payer

Matthew Rothschild, -

When Barack Obama gave his “this is it” speech on health care reform on March 3, he once again swerved out of his way to hit advocates of a single-payer system.

He said: “On one end of the spectrum, there are some who have suggested scrapping our system of private insurance and replacing it with government-run health care. Though many other countries have such a system, in America it would be neither practical nor realistic.”

You can argue about whether it is realistic politically but there should be no question whatsoever that it’s practical in the sense of being functional. It works well in other countries, including Canada, and there is no reason it can’t work well here. Canada’s health outcomes, and the health outcomes of every other advanced industrial country with government-run systems, are superior to ours.

Full Story: Obama’s Reprehensible Rhetoric Against Single-Payer | The Progressive.

The True Cost of Cheap Food

Cheap food causes hunger.

On its face, the statement makes no sense. If food is cheaper it’s more affordable and more people should be able to get an adequate diet. That is true for people who buy food, such as those living in cities. But it is quite obviously not true if you’re the one growing the food. You’re getting less for your crops, less for your work, less for your family to live on. That is as true for Vermont dairy farmers as it is for rice farmers in the Philippines. Dairy farmers today are getting prices for their milk that are well below their costs of production. They are putting less food on their own tables. And they are going out of business at an alarming rate. When the economic dust settles, this will leave us with fewer family farmers producing the dairy products most of us depend on.

This is the central contradiction of cheap food. Low agricultural prices cause hunger in the short term among farmers. And they cause food insecurity in the long term because they reduce both the number of farmers and the money they have to invest in producing more food.

An estimated 70% of the world’s poor live in rural areas and depend either directly or indirectly on agriculture. Cheap food has made them hungry and kept them in poverty. It has also starved the countryside in the developing world of much-needed agricultural investment. Farmers have nothing to invest if they are losing money on their crops.

Full Story: Resurgence • Article – The True Cost of Cheap Food.

The Moyers Legacy

Moyers has always chosen his guests with a purpose: to put new ideas, new analyses, new approaches on the table

Even in an age of old-media uncertainty, much is still made of the transfer of network anchor and host positions. Too often the discussion is purely about personality, but there's more to it than a celebrity shuffle: the character and content of programs with rich histories and the potential for crucial contributions to civic discourse are at stake. So oceans of ink are spilled when CBS shifts the news anchor chair from Dan Rather to Bob Schieffer to Katie Couric; or when Tim Russert's Meet the Press post goes to David Gregory. Unfortunately, scant attention has been paid to the coming shift of what over the past decade has become the most significant seat in broadcast journalism–the Friday night position occsupied by Bill Moyers.

Moyers has been the most radical presence on broadcast and cable television since 2002, when the former White House press secretary, newspaper publisher, CBS and NBC commentator, bestselling author and award-winning documentarian settled into the work of producing weekly reviews not of the transitory arguments of the moment but of the great debates on the fate of the Republic. What has made Moyers, who will retire in April, such a radical presence is not his politics but his journalism.

As the host of NOW With Bill Moyers, Moyers on America and, since 2007, Bill Moyers Journal, he has provided an antidote to the blather served up by most news and public affairs programs. Never satisfied to practice stenography to power, as so many news programs do, or to moderate recitations of talking points by political hacks, Moyers refuses to treat Americans as imbeciles who need to be ideologically coddled.

Full Story: The Moyers Legacy.

Obama promises to pursue a public option later

Raul Grivalja, co-chair of the Progressive Caucus, made some waves the other day by suggesting he was leaning against voting for the health-care reform bill. I’ve stopped covering daily statements like that one, as it’s too difficult to figure out whether they mean “I don’t want to vote for this bill” or “I want something in exchange for voting for this bill.” A statement just released by the Grivalja press office makes this look like a case of the latter:

“The meeting with President Obama today was productive and necessary, and I was glad to hear him speak frankly about where we stand on health care legislation. He said the public option – a well-known and long-standing progressive priority – lacks enough Senate support to be included in the final package. However, he personally committed to pursue a public option after passage of the current bill.

I remain concerned about elements of the bill, but was encouraged by the president’s outreach and interest in a substantive discussion. We agree that expanding health care access and quality, while bringing down costs, is a top priority this year, and I intend to continue playing a constructive role until Congress holds its final vote.”

Full Story: Ezra Klein – Obama promises to pursue a public option later.

OPS:  LOL  WHO’s going to buy this anymore?   Ok, he’s going to try REEEEAL hard just before 2012 …..?

A.I.G., Greece, and Who’s Next?

NY Times: Stop Secret Derivatives Trading Before It Kills Again

As Greece has tottered on the brink of fiscal chaos, threatening to drag much of Europe down with it, Wall Street’s role in the fiasco has drawn well-deserved scorn.

First came the news that Greece had entered into derivatives transactions with Goldman Sachs and other banks to hide its public debt. Then came reports that some of those same banks and various hedge funds were using credit default swaps — the type of derivative that kneecapped the American International Group — to bet on the likelihood of a Greek default and using derivatives to wager on a drop in the euro.

European leaders have called for an inquiry into the Greek crisis. Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, has told Congress that the Fed is “looking into” Wall Street’s deals with Greece, and the Justice Department is investigating the euro bets. That is better than turning a blind eye, but it is not nearly enough.

Full Story: Editorial – A.I.G., Greece, and Who’s Next? – NYTimes.com.

AARP: Unemployment For Older Americans Surged 331 Percent Over Past Decade

Unemployment for Americans 55 and older surged 331 percent over the past decade, according to a new analysis by the AARP Public Policy Institute.

“The data clearly shows that older workers have faced a devastating rise in unemployment, with far-reaching implications not only for their employment status but also for their health and retirement security,” said AARP spokeswoman Mary Liz Burns. Burns added that unemployment puts a particularly tough squeeze on middle-aged folks — who often have to provide for kids moving back home after college and elderly parents.

According to AARP, from January 2000 through December 2009, the total number of unemployed individuals 55 and older rose from 490,000 to 2,114,000. The number of unemployed 65 and up rose from 143,000 to 479,000. And the average duration of unemployment for people 55 and up increased 85.6 percent from 18.7 weeks to 34.7 weeks. For people older than 64, the duration went up almost a third, from 24.8 weeks to 32.9 weeks.

Full Story: AARP: Unemployment For Older Americans Surged 331 Percent Over Past Decade.

Greeks Riot Over Nation’s Financial Crisis

BERLIN (AP) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel avoided giving debt-plagued Greece a commitment of financial assistance Friday, as Athens was rattled by more strikes and violent protests by unions outraged by harsh economic austerity measures.

Merkel met Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou and said the country had not made any request for financial support and she called for an end to market speculation that the indebted country will default.

Papandreou’s visit to Berlin was part of a tour by the Greek leader that started in Luxembourg and will take him to Paris on Sunday.

Full Story: Greeks Riot Over Nation’s Financial Crisis.

McCain’s DADT Support Letter Signed By A Bunch Of Dead Guys

On the matter of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) once promised that he would listen to “leaders in the military,” telling people that the “day that the leadership of the military comes to me and says, Senator, we ought to change the policy, then I think we ought to consider seriously changing it.” But when those military leaders came to him and told him it was time to change the policy, McCain retreated from his previous pledge, because it turns out he gets to pick and choose which military leaders he gets to heed.

And in this case, McCain has chosen the signatories of a letter signed by “over a thousand retired and flag general officers,” among other folks. But, as noted by Amanada Terkel, that letter turns out to be something of an exercise in ghost whispering:

…a new Servicemembers United report obtained in advance by DC Agenda severely undermines the legitimacy of this letter. Some of the problems:

Full Story: McCain’s DADT Support Letter Signed By A Bunch Of Dead Guys.

Insurers Set To Raise Prices, Walk Away From Consumers: Goldman Report

The market concentration for health insurance is so monopolized in some areas that insurance companies are willing to raise prices and lose customers in an effort to improve their bottom line, a leading insurance broker told Wall Street analysts on Wednesday.

In a conference call organized by Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research, Steve Lewis, a highly regarded broker at the world’s third largest insurance broker, Willis, painted a picture of the health insurance market in which employers seem likely to be priced out of coverage.

Noting that “price competition” between insurers was “down from a year ago,” Lewis relayed that “incumbent carriers seem more willing th

Full Story: Insurers Set To Raise Prices, Walk Away From Consumers: Goldman Report.

Sarah Palin Had Help From Jay Leno Laugh Track, Says Audience Member

Michael Stinson is not a Sarah Palin fan. The lefty activist and founder of takebackthemedia.com expressed his distaste for the Thrilla from Wasilla with a parody of Palin’s ghostwritten autobiography called “Going Rouge: The Sarah Palin Rogue Coloring & Activity Book.”

So when Stinson claims that Palin was the beneficiary of canned laughter during her Tuesday appearance on Jay Leno’s “Tonight Show,” there’s reason to be skeptical.

But Stinson has two aces up his sleeve. He’s been working with sound engineering for three decades, including a stint operating master reel-to-reel tapes at EMS Music in Seattle in the 80′s. And he was actually at the Palin taping.

Full Story: Sarah Palin Had Help From Jay Leno Laugh Track, Says Audience Member – Seattle News – The Daily Weekly.

FDA recalls some foods with flavor enhancer HVP

Federal health authorities announced Thursday the recall of a commonly used flavor enhancer after samples of the product were found to contain salmonella.

“I would say it’s likely to be in thousands of food products,” said Dr. Jenny Scott, senior adviser to the director at the Office of Food Safety at the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, about the product, called hydrolyzed vegetable protein, also called HVP.

The bacterium, identified as Salmonella Tennessee, was found in HVP manufactured by Basic Food Flavors Inc. of Las Vegas, Nevada, the officials said.
Full Story: FDA recalls some foods with flavor enhancer HVP – CNN.com.

Humans must be to blame for climate change, say scientists

No possible natural phenomenon could have caused the huge rise in temperatures experienced in last half-century

Full Story: Humans must be to blame for climate change, say scientists – Climate Change, Environment – The Independent.

GOP’s Steele in damage control mode after ‘Evil Empire’ presentation

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele went on Fox News to carry out damage control Thursday after revelations that an RNC campaign strategy presentation portrayed President Obama as the Joker from Batman and appeared to hold Republican donors in contempt.

A presentation on strategy delivered to Republican donors and fundraisers on Feb. 18 featured a graphic entitled “Evil Empire” that included cartoons of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, with the title “Cruella DeVille and Scooby-Doo.”

The presentation also suggested that Republican donors are “ego-driven” and can be made to give money by appealing to their animosity against the Obama administration.

Full Story: GOP’s Steele in damage control mode after ‘Evil Empire’ presentation | Raw Story.

Did secretive religious group subsidize Congressman’s rent?

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) has been making headlines recently by threatening to torpedo health care reform unless the bill excludes coverage for abortion.

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow believes that Stupak is just looking for publicity with “this antiabortion stunt” and that “it is not rational to think that the Democratic-led House and the Democratic-led Senate are going to let him use health reform as a way to effectively ban abortion.”

She points out, however, that Stupak’s new notoriety means that he may “end up having to answer for some of the unexplained things that no one cared to have [him] explain before.”

Full Story: Did secretive religious group subsidize Congressman’s rent? | Raw Story.

Conservative author: Liz Cheney ‘worse than Joe McCarthy’

Liz Cheney is used to drawing the ire of liberals, but her latest attack campaign against the Obama administration has conservatives likening her to one of the most notorious political villains in the last century.

Cheney’s political advocacy group “Keep America Safe” this week launched an ad suggesting that a number of Justice Department officials are terrorist sympathizers for having represented detainees against illegal treatment by the Bush’s administration. The spot labels them the “Al-Qaeda 7.”

The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein spoke to attorney and author Paul Mirengoff, a fellow at the conservative Claremont Institute, who today blogged that the attack was “vicious” and “unfounded.”

Full Story: Conservative author: Liz Cheney ‘worse than Joe McCarthy’ | Raw Story.

Caving To Right-Wing Pressure, White House Reportedly Moving KSM Trial To Military Commission

Soon after Attorney General Eric Holder announced that alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and other conspirators would be put on civilian trial in New York, the right-wing partisans launched a fearmongering campaign attacking the decision and the Obama administration for appearing weak. Dick Cheney called the move “a huge mistake” that would result in “a show trial,” while one GOP congressman said decision “may” mean that Holder and Obama have a “disdain” for America.

After the right-wing flare-up, New York congressional Democrats and New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg started to balk at the idea as well. Now, the Washington Post reports today that Obama’s advisers are caving to the pressure and “are nearing a recommendation” that KSM “be prosecuted in a military tribunal” instead of civilian court. However, the move does not appear to be based on any legal reasoning, but merely a political quid pro quo:

If Obama accepts the likely recommendation of his advisers, the White House may be able to secure from Congress the funding and legal authority it needs to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and replace it with a facility within the United States. The administration has failed to meet a self-imposed one-year deadline to close Guantanamo.

Full Story: Think Progress » Caving To Right-Wing Pressure, White House Reportedly Moving KSM Trial To Military Commission.

OPS: Is there anything that the Democrats and this President won’t cave on?

Pentagon Shooter Was Right-Wing, Anti-Government Terrorist

Last night, a California man armed with two semiautomatic weapons and “many magazines” of ammunition opened fire on police officers at the entrance to the Pentagon, wounding two before being killed by police. The shooter, 36-year-old John Patrick Bedell, was “well dressed in a suit” and “very calm,” walking “very directly to the officers” before engaging them, a police spokesman said.

Bedell “appears to have been a right-wing extremist with virulent antigovernment feelings,” the Christian Science Monitor reports, who traveled from California specifically to attack the Pentagon. While police were hesitant to assign a motive, “writings by someone with his same name and birth date, posted on the Internet, express ill will toward the government and the armed forces and question whether Washington itself might have been behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.”

In one posting, Bedell ranted against “big government.” In another, he wrote, “I am determined to see that justice is served in the death of Colonel James Sabow” — a Marine whose suicide has been the subject of conspiracy theories — because it would be a “step toward establishing the truth of events such as the September 11 demolitions.”

Full Story: Think Progress » Pentagon Shooter Was Right-Wing, Anti-Government Terrorist.

After Supporting Medicare Cuts Through Reconciliation, Maverick McCain Now Opposes Them

Last night, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) introduced legislation preventing Democrats from using reconciliation to change Medicare spending. If adopted, the amendment would prohibit lawmakers from making changes to a program that makes up some 20% of the federal budget through the reconciliation process:

SA 3427. Mr. MCCAIN (for himself and Mr. GRAHAM) proposed an amendment to amendment SA 3336 proposed by Mr. BAUCUS to the bill H.R. 4213, to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to extend certain expiring provisions, and for other purposes; as follows:

At the appropriate place, insert the following: SEC. lll. PROTECTING MEDICARE. Section 310(g) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 (2 U.S.C. 641(g)) is amended by inserting before the period the following: ‘‘or to the medicare program established by title XVIII of such Act’’.

Full Story: Think Progress » After Supporting Medicare Cuts Through Reconciliation, Maverick McCain Now Opposes Them.

Virginia attorney general instructs state colleges to stop protecting gay students from discrimination.

Just weeks after Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA) refused to renew an executive order that would have protected gay and lesbian state workers from discrimination, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is asking the state’s colleges and universities “to rescind policies that ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.” Cuccinelli — who has previously argued “homosexual acts are…intrinsically wrong” — wrote a letter to all of the state’s public colleges and universities:

“It is my advice that the law and public policy of the Commonwealth of Virginia prohibit a college or university from including ’sexual orientation,’ ‘gender identity,’ ‘gender expression,’ or like classification as a protected class within its non-discrimination policy absent specific authorization from the General Assembly,” he wrote. Colleges that have included such language in their policies — which include all of Virginia’s leading schools — have done so “without proper authority” and should “take appropriate actions to bring their policies in conformance with the law and public policy of Virginia,” Cuccinelli wrote.

Full Story: Think Progress » Virginia attorney general instructs state colleges to stop protecting gay students from discrimination..

Union Cheers Broad Push To Repeal NAFTA

One of the nation's oldest and largest labor unions is praising new, bipartisan legislation that would withdraw the United States from NAFTA, and vanquish one of the biggest enemies of American organized labor for more than 15 years.

A remarkably broad coalition of lawmakers from across the political spectrum came together Thursday to sponsor a bill to repeal U.S. participation in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

“The lives of average workers in Mexico and in the U.S. have gotten so much worse since NAFTA,” says Jim Hoffa, head of the Teamsters, which represents 1.4 million American workers. “When you realize you've made a bad deal, you try to get out of it.”

Full Story: On The Hill: Union Cheers Broad Push To Repeal NAFTA.

Wall Street Vet Involved In 1998 Long-Term Capital Management Bailout Says Nothing Has Changed

Ten years before this latest crisis, the U.S. government engineered the bailout of a financial firm that had borrowed billions of dollars to make big bets on exotic securities. The firm was a hedge fund called Long-Term Capital Management.

James G. Rickards, as the firm’s top lawyer, negotiated the terms of the $3.6 billion deal, organized by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, that forced other Wall Street firms to bail out LTCM. And now, in an interview with a brokerage newsletter, he says the federal government has failed to apply any of the lessons learned from that epic 1998 bailout — a failure that led to the current crisis and could lead to more.

Rickards also says that megabanks should be broken up, all derivatives should be traded via a clearinghouse, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be liquidated, and more financial regulation is needed.

Full Story: Wall Street Vet Involved In 1998 Long-Term Capital Management Bailout Says Nothing Has Changed.

OPS: Obama simply re-inflated the Bubble . THIS is why we are headed for another crash.

ANti Gay Republican Senator – Caught Being Gay

Entering the Larry Craig Pantheon

It’s no good for a family values Republican to get picked up on a DUI. But substantially worse to get picked up for a DUI after leaving a gay nightclub with an unidentified man in a state vehicle.

That’s the sorry state that befell California state Senator Roy Ashburn (R-Bakersfield) early Wednesday.

[[SLIDESHOW: Greatest GOP Sex Scandals]]

In better days Ashburn, a fierce opponent of gay rights, was fighting marriage equality and organizing anti-gay marriage rallies as part of his “Traditional Family Values” campaign.

Full Story: Entering the Larry Craig Pantheon | Talking Points Memo.

Study Says Undersea Release of Methane Is Under Way

Climate scientists have long warned that global warming could unlock vast stores of the greenhouse gas methane that are frozen into the Arctic permafrost, setting off potentially significant increases in global warming.

Now researchers at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and elsewhere say this change is under way in a little-studied area under the sea, the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, west of the Bering Strait.

Natalia Shakhova, a scientist at the university and a leader of the study, said it was too soon to say whether the findings suggest that a dangerous release of methane looms. In a telephone news conference, she said researchers were only beginning to track the movement of this methane into the atmosphere as the undersea permafrost that traps it degrades.

Full Story: Study Says Undersea Release of Methane Is Under Way – NYTimes.com.

Vatican hit by gay sex scandal

Vatican chorister sacked for allegedly procuring male prostitutes for papal gentleman-in-waiting

The Vatican was today rocked by a sex scandal reaching into Pope Benedict’s household after a chorister was sacked for allegedly procuring male prostitutes for a papal gentleman-in-waiting.

Angelo Balducci, a Gentleman of His Holiness, was caught by police on a wiretap allegedly negotiating with Thomas Chinedu Ehiem, a 29-year-old Vatican chorister, over the specific physical details of men he wanted brought to him. Transcripts in the possession of the Guardian suggest that numerous men may have been procured for Balducci, at least one of whom was studying for the priesthood.

The explosive claims about Balducci’s private life have caused grave embarrassment to the Vatican, which has yet to publicly comment on the affair.

Full Story: Vatican hit by gay sex scandal | World news | guardian.co.uk.

Sen. Levin moves to block Blackwater’s $1 billion Afghanistan contract

A senior Senate Democrat said Thursday the Pentagon should consider barring Blackwater, now called Xe Services, from a new $1 billion deal to train Afghan police because of “serious questions” about the contractor's conduct.

The comments by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin suggests thinning patience in Congress for the Pentagon's heavy reliance on contractors on the battlefield.

U.S. efforts to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan using independent contractors has been a boon for companies like Blackwater and saved money and time for the Defense Department, whose forces are busy in combat.

Full Story: Sen. Levin moves to block Blackwater’s $1 billion Afghanistan contract | Raw Story.

FBI paid racist shock jock Hal Turner ‘in excess of $100,000′

Turning informant on your fans can be lucrative, if you’re a shock jock by the name of Hal Turner.

Amid a trial where Turner faces criminal charges for making threats of violence against public servants, he disclosed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation paid him “in excess of $100,000″ over a five-year period.

Turner, a long-time racist radio host who attracted an audience of white supremacists and neonazis, was first revealed as an FBI informant in 2008. After becoming the subject of ridicule on infamous Internet forum 4chan, Turner was confronted by hackers on his site’s discussion boards with copies of e-mails he’d allegedly sent to the FBI, bragging about how he’d helped in “flush[ing] out another crazy.”

The arrest came after Turner called for the murder of three judges.

Full Story: FBI paid racist shock jock Hal Turner ‘in excess of $100,000′ | Raw Story.

Hal Turner says he feels betrayed by the FBI after spying on white supremacists. He now is facing charges of making threats against judges.

Media Leaves Stupak’s False Claims About Senate Bill’s Abortion Provision Unchallenged

Yesterday, President Obama signaled his support for passing the Senate health care bill in the House alongside a reconciliation package of fixes, but pro-life Democrats led by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) have pledged to oppose the Senate bill unless Congress strengthens the prohibitions against federal funding of abortion.

Stupak has relied on a fundamentally dishonest interpretation of the Senate bill to argue that it would allow for public funding of abortion, and the media has failed to fact check his assertions. Instead, most reports have covered the dispute between Stupak and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) as a he-said/she-said story, adding legitimacy to Stupak’s gross misrepresentations:

– Yesterday, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews Matthews played a clip of Speaker Pelosi adamantly denying that the Senate Bill allows federal funding for abortion and allowed Stupak to contradict Pelosi without settling the dispute.

Full Story: Think Progress » Media Leaves Stupak’s False Claims About Senate Bill’s Abortion Provision Unchallenged.

Christian Hate Group ‘Repent Amarillo’ Terrorizes Texas Town, Harassing Gays, Liberals, And Other ‘Sinners’

An evangelical Christian hate group called “Repent Amarillo” is reportedly terrorizing the town of Amarillo, Texas. Repent fashions itself as a sort of militia and targets a wide range of community members they deem offensive to their theology: gays, liberal Christians, Muslims, environmentalists, breast cancer events that do not highlight abortion, Halloween, “spring break events,” and pornography shops. On its website, Repent has posted a “Warfare Map” of its enemies in town.

Calling Repent an “American Taliban,” blogger Charles Johnson notes that the group’s moniker “Army of God” is a rough translation of “Hezbollah.” Led by a man named David Grisham, a security guard at a nuclear-bomb facility called Pantex, Repent first gained media attention in Texas following a campaign to boycott Houston for electing a gay mayor. The group, which is associated with Raven Ministries, collaborates with other Christian groups as well as forced pregnancy advocacy associations like “Bound 4 Life.”

According to a new exposé by the Texas Observer, Repent set out earlier this year to destroy a discreet club of swingers they discovered in town. On New Years eve, the harassment began, with Repent members, almost exclusively young men, showing up in military fatigues and bullhorns, blaring Christian music at the swingers’ club building. The swingers, made up of “regulars” of middle aged, working class couples, were then stalked at every following visit to the club. Repent not only took video of each member, but obtained the swingers’ license plates and dug through their trash, informing neighbors and coworkers of what was once private. Watch a Texas Observer report:

Full Story: Think Progress » Christian Hate Group ‘Repent Amarillo’ Terrorizes Texas Town, Harassing Gays, Liberals, And Other ‘Sinners’.

Congressional Dems Displeased With Trade Policy

A long-time opponent of free trade policies that have cost his state thousands upon thousands of manufacturing jobs, Sen. Sherrod Brown said the administration should support the TRADE Act, which would completely overhaul the way America conducts trade.

One day after releasing the administration’s outline for its 2010 trade policy, which was roundly criticized by free trade opponents, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk told the Christian Science Monitor that the issue should unite rather than divide.

“We can’t allow trade to become the next wedge issue,” Kirk said, according to the Christian Science Monitor.

That, however, is more fantasy than reality and short-lived.

Soon after the USTR’s office released the report, numerous Congressional Democrats, who have never been able to achieve unanimity on trade issues, expressed their displeasure with the administration’s handling of international trade, perhaps exposing a deep divide in the party and a serious impediment to meaningful action on trade issues.

“While I appreciate that the President's Trade Agenda is strong on trade enforcement and reciprocity, there is no emphasis on ensuring that the trade policies we are pursuing actually benefit the United States. We still need Ambassador Kirk to develop an action plan to address any negative effects from existing trade agreements,” Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) said in a statement.

Full Story: Congressional Dems Displeased With Trade Policy | Economy In Crisis.

Benefits of the Value Added Tax

The VAT rewards exports while largely blocking imports. This guarantees domestic demand for domestically produced goods, thereby ensuring that the taxpaying citizens are gainfully employed

The United States still faces a major obstacle in international trade which most people simply know nothing about. This obstacle is the Value Added Tax (VAT) and it costs this economy hundreds of millions of dollars in extra fees every year. Making matters worse is the fact that over nearly 150 nations around the world use a VAT system to protect their economy while the United States remains idle.

The simple fact is that governments need money to operate, and they generate this revenue in many ways. In the United States our government operates only on funds generated through income and property taxation. The sales tax – a form of consumption tax – is marginal in the grand scheme. Most other countries put much more emphasis on consumption taxes like the VAT.

The VAT rewards exports while largely blocking imports. This guarantees domestic demand for domestically produced goods, thereby ensuring that the taxpaying citizens are gainfully employed.

Full Story: Benefits of the Value Added Tax | Economy In Crisis.

Deficit Fear Mongering

Wall Street Took Your House and Your Retirement, Now They’re After Your Social Security.  Wall Street tycoon Pete Peterson wants to bring IMF-style economic insanity to the U.S. The scary part? He might get away with it.

IMF-Style Austerity Measures Come to America: What “Fiscal Responsibility” Means to You.

In addition to mandatory private health insurance premiums, we may soon be hit with a “mandatory savings” tax and other belt-tightening measures urged by the president’s new budget task force. These radical austerity measures are not only unnecessary, but will actually make matters worse. The push for “fiscal responsibility” is based on bad economics.

When billionaires pledge a billion dollars to educate people to the evils of something, it is always good to peer closely at what they are up to. Hedge fund magnate Peter G. Peterson was formerly chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations and head of the New York Federal Reserve. He is now senior chairman of Blackstone Group, which is in charge of dispersing government funds in the controversial AIG bailout, widely criticized as a government giveaway to banks. Peterson is also founder of the Peter Peterson Foundation, which has adopted the cause of imposing “fiscal responsibility” on Congress. He hired David M. Walker, former head of the Government Accounting Office, to spearhead a massive campaign to reduce the runaway federal debt, which the Peterson/Walker team blames on reckless government and consumer spending. The Foundation funded the movie “I.O.USA.” to amass popular support for their cause, which largely revolves around dismantling Social Security and Medicare benefits as a way to cut costs and return to “fiscal responsibility.”

Full Story: t r u t h o u t | Deficit Fear Mongering.

Fish Oil Supplements–Want PCBs With That?

A lawsuit filed in California claims many popular fish oil companies knowingly sell products contaminated with high levels of toxic PCBs

If you’re taking fish oil for your health, you may want to rethink your next pill. According to a lawsuit filed in California on Tuesday, many popular fish oil companies knowingly sell products with unnecessarily high levels of polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) compounds—despite claims on the label that the product has been treated and is safe from PCB contamination. PCBs are a toxic manmade chemical thought to cause birth defects, cancer, and disruption to the endocrine, reproduction, immune, and nervous systems, so their presence in a supplement taken strictly for health benefits seems a little counterproductive.

California’s Proposition 65, established in 1986, prohibits companies from knowingly exposing people to toxic substances without providing clear warnings—which is precisely what the lawsuit says some brands of fish and shark oil products have been doing. Eight companies are named in the suit—CVS Pharmacy, Inc.; General Nutrition Corp. (GNC); Now Health Group, Inc.; Omega Protein, Inc.; Pharmavite LLC (Nature Made brand); Rite Aid Corp.; Solgar, Inc.; and TwinLab Corp.—and others are likely to be added as further testing is carried out. There’s lots to learn over at FishOilSafety.com.

Full Story: Fish Oil Supplements–Want PCBs With That? : Planet Green.

Dodd to Defang Financial Reform?

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd's effort to house a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency under the Federal Reserve is fatally flawed. For the past two decades, the Fed has aligned itself with any policy that boosts short-term profits for America's largest banks, regardless of the consequences for consumers or the broader economy. But even worse is Dodd's effort to block the new agency from enforcing the rules it writes, leaving enforcement up to the same regulators who ignored rampant predation and outright fraud throughout the housing bubble.

The bank lobby and its boosters in the Republican Party have been targeting the CFPA since President Barack Obama proposed creating it in July. It’s easy to see why: for the first time, a regulatory agency would be concerned with protecting the public, rather than bank balance sheets. That’s good news for the economy, but bad news for quarterly earnings at major U.S. banks. Republicans are doing anything they can to gut the proposal, and several back-lobby-backed Democrats are reluctant to push for a strong agency. But instead of forcing lawmakers to cast vote siding with the bankers, Dodd appears ready to let the agency die without even extracting a political pound of flesh.

If the new CFPA cannot enforce its own rules, it is effectively powerless. All the good rules in the world don’t amount to anything without strong enforcement, and the existing federal bank regulators–the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Office of Thrift Supervision (OCC)–have proven time and again that they simply are not interested in enforcing consumer protection laws.

Full Story: Dodd to Defang Financial Reform?.

THE SUPREME COURT’S CORPORATE WONDERLAND

Jim Hightower -

As you’ve probably heard, corporations are now “people.”

While these inanimate paper constructs have no brain, heart, or soul, five ideological screwballs on our Supreme Court have created a new Frankenstein monster. The five Supremes decreed that corporations henceforth have a First Amendment right to “speak” in any and all of our elections by spending unlimited sums of corporate cash to elect or defeat candidates.

This will of course, have a disastrous impact on the democratic sovereignty of us actual people. But the Court’s idea of turning corporate entities into persons has also prompted a gusher of fun, irreverent ideas and questions from you human-type persons.

For example, will same-sex corporations be allowed to merge? And, if corporations are people, shouldn’t they have to face the possibility of getting drafted into the Army, just as people people are compelled to do?

Full Story: Jim Hightower | THE SUPREME COURT’S CORPORATE WONDERLAND.

Pruning back the power of the executive branch – Pruning Shears – The Shocking Solution to Senate Obstructionism

mathematical demonstration of the validity of a law concerning all the positive integers by proving that it holds for the integer 1 and that if it holds for an arbitrarily chosen positive integer k, it must hold for the integer k + 1

Senate reform is a hot topic. David Waldman has two great posts this week, one on the filibuster crazy GOP and another on the use of anonymous holds. The second explains how proposed reforms are basically meaningless PR because anonymous holds are already not permitted. So at least some delaying tactics can be stopped, but they still go on. Here is why: Senators like the filibuster. Democrats like it. Republicans like it. Senators have a downright regal sense of self regard. They may be frustrated by particular instances of obstruction, and individual Senators may seem like sensible folks with low maintenance egos, but get them inside the building and all of a sudden it’s the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body and the Cooling Saucer* where comity is worshipped.

As I have written, it is all vanity. It gives them endless opportunities to flatter each other, cater to each other’s tender feelings and delicate sense of decorum, and generally act like a bunch of insufferable snots – consequences be damned. As a bonus, there is always the chance that your number will come up on some issue and suddenly you have the leadership or (be still my heart) an entire caucus falling all over themselves to fawn over you. Who doesn’t like getting lots of special attention

Full Story: Pruning back the power of the executive branch – Pruning Shears – The Shocking Solution to Senate Obstructionism.

Wall Street Helped to Mask Debt Fueling Europe’s Crisis

Wall Street tactics akin to the ones that fostered subprime mortgages in America have worsened the financial crisis shaking Greece and undermining the euro by enabling European governments to hide their mounting debts.

As worries over Greece rattle world markets, records and interviews show that with Wall Street’s help, the nation engaged in a decade-long effort to skirt European debt limits. One deal created by Goldman Sachs helped obscure billions in debt from the budget overseers in Brussels.

Even as the crisis was nearing the flashpoint, banks were searching for ways to help Greece forestall the day of reckoning. In early November — three months before Athens became the epicenter of global financial anxiety — a team from Goldman Sachs arrived in the ancient city with a very modern proposition for a government struggling to pay its bills, according to two people who were briefed on the meeting.

The bankers, led by Goldman’s president, Gary D. Cohn, held out a financing instrument that would have pushed debt from Greece’s health care system far into the future, much as when strapped homeowners take out second mortgages to pay off their credit cards.

Full Story: Wall Street Helped to Mask Debt Fueling Europe’s Crisis.

The Monsanto Files

Monsanto, the world’s dominant biotech company and a leader of the reported $6 million effort by corporate special interests to defeat Measure 27, Oregon’s labeling initiative, is one of the most controversial companies in the world.

The company that made Agent Orange and PCBs has gone to great lengths to make sure that Americans don’t know whether their food has been genetically engineered. Just what are they afraid of?

Check the links below to find out what kind of trouble Monsanto has gotten itself into in recent years.

Index:

(OPS NOTE:  Each of the following is a link to the full story)

* The horrific saga of Anniston, Alabama: Conduct “atrocious and utterly intolerable in civilized society

* Ghost town: Times Beach, Missouri

* PCBs

* Dioxins

* DDT

* Agent Orange

* Taking control of natural resources

* Monsanto bullies farmers and others

* Monsanto’s attack campaign against environmental icon Rachel Carson

* The revolving door: Are Monsanto and the government too cozy?

* Aspartame

* Saccharin

* Roundup

* Terminator seeds

* Controversial milk: Bovine growth hormone

* General articles/links

* General web sites

Full Story: The Monsanto Files « Wake-up Call.

The Moral Dimension of Things: Why are Political Leaders Lying Most of the Time?

Why do political leaders seem to be lying most of the time?

Why is uncontrolled greed so prevalent in corporate rooms?

Why do wicked men wage wars of aggression and become indifferent to the killing of innocent people?

Why does materialism seem to trump everything else?

Why do we have the uneasy feeling that our society is going in the wrong direction?

The very fact that we have to raise such questions may be a sign of the times.

Indeed, when the stench of moral decay becomes overwhelming, bad things inevitably follow. Historically, it can be shown that when the moral environment in a society is deteriorating, problems tend to pile up.

We are presently living in one of those times, characterized by deep and entrenched political corruption, by routine abuse of power and disregard for the rule of law in high places, and by unchecked greed, fraud and deception in the economic sphere. The results are all there to see: Severe and prolonged economic and financial crises, rising social inequalities and social injustice, increasing intolerance toward individual choices, the disregard for environmental decay, the rise of religious absolutism, a return to whimsical wars of aggression (or of pre-emptive wars), to blind terrorism and to the repugnant use of torture, and even to genocide and to blatant war crimes. These are all indicators that our civilization has lost its moral compass.

Full Story: The Moral Dimension of Things: Why are Political Leaders Lying Most of the Time?.

Immanuel Kant

“The single most important quality needed to resist evil is moral autonomy. Moral autonomy is possible only through reflection, self-determination and the courage not to cooperate.”

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) German philosopher

Evo Morales, President of Bolivia

“Certain hierarchs of the Catholic Church in Latin America used prayer as an anesthesia to put the people to sleep. When they cannot dominate us with law, then comes prayer, and when they can’t humiliate or dominate us with prayer, then comes the gun.”

Evo Morales, President of Bolivia (July 13, 2009)

Frederic Bastiat

“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves, in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.”

Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850), French economist

One in three killed by US drones in Pakistan is a civilian, report claims

One in three “militants” killed in US Predator Drone attacks in Pakistan’s remote tribal areas is in fact a civilian, according to a report by an American think tank.

The report, by the Washington-based New America Foundation, will fuel growing criticism of the use of unmanned drones in the fight against al-Qaeda and Taliban militants, who use Pakistan as a base for attacks on Nato forces in Afghanistan.

Critics say their use not only takes innocent lives, but amounts to unlawful extra-judicial killing of militants.

Full Story: One in three killed by US drones in Pakistan is a civilian, report claims – Telegraph.

Fears for innocent led to judge calling executions unconstitutional

Maverick jurist grants pretrial motion in Houston murder case

A Houston judge on Thursday granted a pretrial motion declaring the death penalty unconstitutional, saying he believes innocent people have been executed.

“Based on the moratorium (on the death penalty) in Illinois, the Innocence Project and more than 200 people being exonerated nationwide, it can only be concluded that innocent people have been executed,” state District Judge Kevin Fine said. “It's safe to assume we execute innocent people.”

Fine said trial level judges are gatekeepers of society's standard for decency and fairness.

“Are you willing to have your brother, your father, your mother be the sacrificial lamb, to be the innocent person executed so that we can have a death penalty so that we can execute those who are deserving of the death penalty?” he said. “I don't think society's mindset is that way now.”

Full Story: Fears for innocent led to judge calling executions unconstitutional | Houston & Texas News | Chron.com – Houston Chronicle.

Senator Bunning’s Universe

Paul Krugman -

So the Bunning blockade is over. For days, Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky exploited Senate rules to block a one-month extension of unemployment benefits. In the end, he gave in, although not soon enough to prevent an interruption of payments to around 100,000 workers.

But while the blockade is over, its lessons remain. Some of those lessons involve the spectacular dysfunctionality of the Senate. What I want to focus on right now, however, is the incredible gap that has opened up between the parties. Today, Democrats and Republicans live in different universes, both intellectually and morally.

Take the question of helping the unemployed in the middle of a deep slump. What Democrats believe is what textbook economics says: that when the economy is deeply depressed, extending unemployment benefits not only helps those in need, it also reduces unemployment. That’s because the economy’s problem right now is lack of sufficient demand, and cash-strapped unemployed workers are likely to spend their benefits. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office says that aid to the unemployed is one of the most effective forms of economic stimulus, as measured by jobs created per dollar of outlay.

Full Story: Op-Ed Columnist – Senator Bunning’s Universe – NYTimes.com.

Republicans running scared on healthcare reform

The level of shrillness coming from Republicans as the Democrats draw closer to passing healthcare reform using reconciliation is a good indication that Republicans are realizing the jig is up and healthcare reform will pass, And they are giving every indication that they are scared to death. And they should be.

A indication of how desperate they feel is the rhetoric they are using, or rather misuing. Words like “kamikaze mission” and “nuclear option” to describe the Democrats decision to go ahead wth reconciliation has more to do with Republican belief that their gambit to stop healthcare reform for their own political gain is about to blow up in their faces.

If the Republicans actually believed passing reform with reconciliation would be the “kamikaze mission” Republican Lamar Alexander said it would be, they would be sitting back and letting the Democrats do it, rubbing their hands together waiting for the fall elections and a Democratic debacle..

Full Story: Republicans running scared on healthcare reform.

The Democrats’ Choice on Health Care

Editorial – - NYTimes -

Republicans’ lock-step opposition to comprehensive health care reform seems to be as much a matter of politics as principle. But either way, they have made clear that there is no dialogue or any possible compromise that will persuade them to change their minds.

That means it’s up to Congressional Democrats to move legislation forward — or throw away a once-in-a-generation opportunity to fix this country’s broken health care system.

On Wednesday, President Obama called on Congress to quickly take an up-or-down vote. He and Democratic leaders in Congress are going to have to work overtime to corral skittish members of their caucus. And Mr. Obama is going to have to keep making the case to the American people that reform is essential for all Americans’ security and for the nation’s future fiscal health.

Full Story: Editorial – The Democrats’ Choice on Health Care – NYTimes.com.

Republican National Committee advocates a party of hate

Brent Budowsky -

The issue is not merely the fundraising poster that was an open call to fear and hate using language and pictures that no major American political party has ever used. The issue is that the modern Republican Party does not have opponents, it has enemies. The modern Republican Party does not seek to win a debate, it seeks to destroy its opponents.

This poster is sick, demented and un-American in its use of fear and hate to slander President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif). It is un-American to call the nation to fear. It is un-American to call the nation to hate. It is un-American to use slander and lies to divide Americans against each other.

How dare these people wave the American flag while they dishonor our basic values with their despicable appeals to the darkest impulses of the most radical extremes.

Full Story: Republican National Committee advocates a party of hate | The Smirking Chimp.

EXCLUSIVE: U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts Considering Stepping Down

Update: RadarOnline.com has obtained new information that Justice Roberts will NOT resign. The justice will be staying on the bench.

John Roberts, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, is seriously considering stepping down from the nation’s highest court for personal reasons, RadarOnline.com has learned exclusively.

COURT PAPERS: Bristol’s Motion For Child Support

Roberts, known for his conservative judicial philosophy, has served on the Supreme Court since 2005, having been nominated by President George W. Bush after the death of former Chief William Rehnquist.

Full Story: EXCLUSIVE: U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts Considering Stepping Down | RadarOnline.com.

Individual health insurance: Health insurance premiums for indivisuals skyrocket in Illinois

Illinois consumers to pay up to 60% more, data show

Consumers in Illinois who lose their jobs and have no other option but to buy their own health insurance will get socked this year with premium increases of up to 60 percent, according to state records.

That group of consumers has been growing, as the recession has created more uninsured Americans looking for ways to protect themselves and their families.Now, Illinois consumers will get a glimpse into just how wide-ranging rate increases among individual health plans can be. The data, obtained by the Tribune, also provide a window into the overall trend of premium increases at large and small employers.

For the state’s more than half-million consumers in individual health plans, base rates will go up from 8.5 percent to more than 60 percent, according to state data. Base rates do not take into consideration health status, gender, age, place of residence and length of a policy — all factors that could raise premiums further.

Full Story: Individual health insurance: Health insurance premiums for indivisuals skyrocket in Illinois – chicagotribune.com.

RNC donors to gather at Blackwater compound

The Republican National Committee is planning to raise $60,000 at a fundraiser next month at the North Carolina compound owned by the company formerly known as Blackwater.

According to the RNC fundraising presentation I wrote about yesterday, the committee will hold a gathering of its “Young Eagles” — major donors under 40 — at the U.S. Training Center in Moyock, North Carolina April 16, an astute reader points out.

The center, which offers training courses to civilians, law enforcement, and the military, is owned by Xe Services, the embattled private military company formerly known as Blackwater, whose ties to the Republican Party helped made it central to the Bush Administration’s operations abroad.

Full Story: RNC donors to gather at Blackwater compound – Ben Smith – POLITICO.com.

OPS:  This really stinks for some reason

Max Keiser Report-The Economic Elite

This week Max Keiser and co-host Stacy Herbert look at the scandals behind: the owner of Great Britain bouncing a $54 million check for a pile of dirt in the Persian Gulf; a currency speculator in Monaco moving currency markets with an accidental Jim Rogers press release while Colonel Gaddafi calls for jihad against Switzerland and receives zero market impact; and Alan Greenspan wins major award for causing global financial markets to explode. Keiser also talks to David DeGraw about his new book, “The Economic Elite versus the People of the United States of America.”

The Solar Bus Goes to Washington

In October 2009, the Solar Bus led a march to the White House to call for climate change legislation. The march was part of a global effort in which protests and rallies were held all over the world at the same time, organized by 350.org.

Liberals and atheists smarter? Intelligent people have values novel in human evolutionary history, study finds

More intelligent people are statistically significantly more likely to exhibit social values and religious and political preferences that are novel to the human species in evolutionary history. Specifically, liberalism and atheism, and for men (but not women), preference for sexual exclusivity correlate with higher intelligence, a new study finds.

The study, published in the March 2010 issue of the peer-reviewed scientific journal Social Psychology Quarterly, advances a new theory to explain why people form particular preferences and values.  The theory suggests that more intelligent people are more likely than less intelligent people to adopt evolutionarily novel preferences and values, but intelligence does not correlate with preferences and values that are old enough to have been shaped by evolution over millions of years.”

“Evolutionarily novel” preferences and values are those that humans are not biologically designed to have and our ancestors probably did not possess.  In contrast, those that our ancestors had for millions of years are “evolutionarily familiar.”

Full Story: Liberals and atheists smarter? Intelligent people have values novel in human evolutionary history, study finds.

Bachmann Peddles False Right-Wing Rumor Accusing Obama Of Selling Judgeship To Win Health Care Votes

Yesterday, the Weekly Standard’s John McCormack received a press release from the White House announcing that President Obama had nominated Scott Matheson, Jr — a former Utah Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate — to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. McCormack noticed that Matherson’s brother, Rep. Jim Matheson (D-UT), was one of ten Blue Dog Democrats invited to the White House that evening and naturally assumed that Obama nominated Scott Matherson to pressure his brother to vote for health care reform. “So, Scott Matheson appears to have the credentials to be a judge, but was his nomination used to buy off his brother’s vote?,” McCormack asked in his late-evening blog post.

Less than an hour later, Politico picked up the story and by 9 pm, Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) was calling for an investigation of the White House on Larry King Live:

BACHMANN: Because today, the president offered a judgeship to the brother of a member of Congress. Tonight, the president has that same member of Congress at the White House, pressuring him to change his vote on health care. We need to have an — an independent investigation into this matter, because we’ve seen the Cornhusker Kickback, the Louisiana Purchase the union loophole. And now, the big question is, is the White House trading health care votes for judgeships? This is a pretty serious issue, Larry. …If you offer a judgeship to a brother of a member of Congress and the same night you have that member at the White House, where the president’s twisting his arm to ask that member of Congress to switch his vote on health care?

Watch it:

Full Story: Think Progress » Bachmann Peddles False Right-Wing Rumor Accusing Obama Of Selling Judgeship To Win Health Care Votes.

Obama, Congress Wink at Massive Surveillance Abuses

This week’s reauthorization of the Patriot Act comes on the heels of the revelation Obama’s Office of Legal Counsel granted fresh retroactive immunity for Bush-era telecommunication lawbreaking.

Here’s how it was supposed to be. Under his administration, candidate Barack Obama explained in 2007, America would abandon the “false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we provide.” There would be “no more National Security Letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime” because “that is not who we are, and it is not what is necessary to defeat the terrorists.” Even after his disappointing vote for the execrable FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which expanded government surveillance power while retroactively immunizing telecoms for their role in George W. Bush’s warrantless wiretapping, civil libertarians held out hope that the erstwhile professor of constitutional law would begin to restore some of the checks on government surveillance power that had been demolished in the panicked aftermath of the September 11 attacks.

The serial betrayal of that hope reached its culmination last week, when a Democratic-controlled Congress quietly voted to reauthorize three controversial provisions of the USA Patriot Act without implementing a single one of the additional safeguards that had been under consideration — among them, more stringent limits on the national security letters (NSLs) Obama had once decried. Worse yet, the vote came on the heels of the revelation, in a blistering inspector general’s report, that Obama’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) had issued a secret opinion, once again granting retroactive immunity for systematic lawbreaking — and opening the door for the FBI to ignore even the current feeble limits on its power to vacuum up sensitive telecommunications records.

Full Story: Obama, Congress Wink at Massive Surveillance Abuses | The American Prospect.

OPS: …and further alienating his base.  Obama could easily be a one termer. He has acknowledged it. But in that term he has advanced the Reich’s agenda.  Just one of those gambits one accepts in chess.

US lawmakers challenge US Army decisions on KBR

Lawmakers in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives on Wednesday questioned the Army’s continued use of KBR Inc (KBR.N) for logistics work in Iraq in the face of confirmed reports of poor past performance.

Representative Edolphus Towns, who heads the House Oversight Committee, wrote to Defense Secretary Robert Gates to question the Army’s decision to award KBR a new contract valued at up to $2.8 billion despite a wide array of problems.

Towns, citing problems with KBR’s maintenance of electrical systems at bases where U.S. troops were fatally electrocuted and “numerous allegations of waste, fraud, and abuse,” asked Gates to provide the committee with a wide array of documents about the KBR contract by March 17.

Full Story: US lawmakers challenge US Army decisions on KBR | Reuters.

OPS:  ‘Poor Performance’ ?  Interesting euphemism for (at best) negligent homicide

Is a voting machine merger too big to stand?

The largest voting machine company in the country bought its biggest competitor six months ago without advance fanfare. Now the Justice Department is investigating whether to unwind the merger that put a privately held Nebraska company in control of the voting machines in nearly 70 percent of the nation’s precincts.

The largest voting machine company in the country bought its biggest competitor six months ago without advance fanfare. Now the Justice Department is investigating whether to unwind the merger that put a privately held Nebraska company in control of the voting machines in nearly 70 percent of the nation’s precincts.

With midterm elections looming and a battle for control of Congress under way, a coalition of election officials from several states and voter advocate groups is pressing the Justice Department to unscramble the combination of two companies. Critics say the merger could cause foul-ups at the polls on Election Day, and some even characterize it as a national security risk.

The emergence of one megaplayer in the electronic voting machine industry may be an unintended consequence of reforms enacted after the presidential election debacle in Florida a decade ago. Few companies can afford to get into the business due to the expense of developing the electronic voting safeguards that reformers insisted on.

Full Story: Business & Technology | Is a voting machine merger too big to stand? | Seattle Times Newspaper.

OPS:  Haven’t the Democrats learned a damn thing?

Feds weigh expansion of Internet monitoring

Homeland Security and the National Security Agency may be taking a closer look at Internet communications in the future.

The Department of Homeland Security’s top cybersecurity official told CNET on Wednesday that the department may eventually extend its Einstein technology, which is designed to detect and prevent electronic attacks, to networks operated by the private sector. The technology was created for federal networks.

Greg Schaffer, assistant secretary for cybersecurity and communications, said in an interview that the department is evaluating whether Einstein “makes sense for expansion to critical infrastructure spaces” over time.

Not much is known about how Einstein works, and the House Intelligence Committee once charged that descriptions were overly “vague” because of “excessive classification.” The White House did confirm this week that the latest version, called Einstein 3, involves attempting to thwart in-progress cyberattacks by sharing information with the National Security Agency.

Full Story: Feds weigh expansion of Internet monitoring | Politics and Law – CNET News.

Garrison Keillor: Play ball! – Baseball

Come April, Minnesotans will be watching the Twins in the sunlight, in a beautiful little bandbox of a new ballpark

We have a good guy in the White House, a smart man of judicious temperament and profound ideals, a man with a sweet private life, a man of dignity and good humor, whose enemies, waving their hairy arms and legs, woofing, yelling absurdities, only make him look taller. Washington, being a company town, feasts on gossip, but I think the Democratic Party, skittish as it is, full of happy blather, somehow has brought forth a champion. This should please anyone who loves this country, and as for the others, let them chew on carpets and get what nourishment they can. End of sermonette.

The beauty part of my week (not that you asked) was a visit to the warehouse district north of downtown Minneapolis where, in my boyhood, I used to ride my bike past printing plants and barrelworks, small factories, a slaughterhouse, lumberyards, auto salvage yards, fascinated by the sight of men at work, and where, now, a new ballpark has arisen where, on April 12, though we are still knee-deep in snow, the Minnesota Twins will open the 2010 campaign, against the mighty Red Sox and their nation.

Full Story: Play ball! – Baseball – Salon.com.

Obama reasserts Volcker rule, Senate bill seen

The Obama administration reasserted its commitment to banning proprietary trading by banks with draft legislative language on Wednesday, despite signs that Congress is unlikely to adopt such a rule.

In a scant five pages from the Treasury Department, the administration put a two-year phase-in on its “Volcker rule” to curb “prop trading” — or buying and selling of investments on financiers’ own books unrelated to customer needs.

The rule would apply to banks, with limits slapped on large, non-bank financial firms, as well. In addition, banks would be barred from sponsoring or investing in hedge funds and private equity funds, under the administration’s language.

Full Story: Obama reasserts Volcker rule, Senate bill seen – Yahoo! News.

Goldman Sachs Authors a Greek Tragedy

Jim Hightower -

Another Greek-based cargo ship and its crew was recently hijacked by Somalian pirates, costing the Greek owners an undisclosed amount in ransom.

Such ongoing acts of brazen piracy off the coast of Somalia have riveted the establishment media’s attention. But the same news hawks have missed (or ignored) a much more brazen, longer-running and far larger robbery in Greece by Gucci-wearing thieves who are more sophisticated than common pirates — but lack a pirate’s moral depth.

I refer to — who else? — Wall Street financiers. Specifically, Goldman Sachs.

Goldman, a global financial conglomerate and America’s largest banking fiefdom, is notorious in our country for its arrogant, anything-goes corporate ethic that is astonishingly avaricious, even by Wall Street’s dissolute standards. The firm is villainous enough that it could be its own reality TV show, perhaps titled, “Bankers Behaving Badly.” A few highlights:

Full Story: Goldman Sachs Authors a Greek Tragedy by Jim Hightower on Creators.com – A Syndicate Of Talent.

California man gets eight years for stealing cheese

Robert Ferguson was sentenced under the ‘three strikes’ law, as critics again plea for reform of state’s overcrowded prisons

A California man has been sentenced to up to eight years in prison for stealing a $3.99 (£2.60) bag of shredded cheese in a case critics say shows the need for reform of the state’s criminal justice system and the overcrowded state of its prisons.

Robert Ferguson, who prosecutors say has a nearly 30-year record of convictions for burglary and other offences, avoided a life sentence under the state’s controversial “three strikes” law after a psychological evaluation deemed him bipolar and unable to control his impulses to steal, the Sacramento Bee reported.

Prosecutor Clinton Parish said Ferguson had spent 22 of the past 27 years behind bars but had failed to show he could obey the law. A judge sentenced him to seven years and eight months in prison, but he could be eligible for parole in three years.

Full Story: California man gets eight years for stealing cheese | World news | guardian.co.uk.

Angry Delaware Man Suggested Plane Attack On County Government

Police in Delaware say a man angry about his sewer bill was arrested after he suggested someone should crash a plane into a county government center.

New Castle County police say 45-year-old Darren Spayd of Newark got upset Tuesday after being assessed a late fee.

Police say he started cursing at county workers and threw the change he had received back at one. Police say several employees overheard him suggesting someone should fly a plane into the building.

Full Story: Darren Spayd Charged: Angry Delaware Man Suggested Plane Attack On County Government.

OPS: and what about the many republicans that have ‘suggested’ killing elected officials?

China’s investments in U.S. up sharply

The strategy seeks higher earnings by acquiring assets while prices are depressed.

Reporting from Washington – Made in China now has a fast-growing sibling: Bought by China.

Beijing is using its accumulation of billions of American dollars to step up its investments around the globe. In the last year, Chinese acquisitions in the U.S. have ranged from a relatively obscure theater in Branson, Mo., to stakes in such famous brands as Coca-Cola and Johnson & Johnson.

China’s huge stockpile of dollars stems in part from Americans’ enormous purchases of relatively inexpensive Chinese manufactured goods and the significantly smaller volume of U.S. exports to the Asian country.

By recycling much of its dollar trove over the years back to the United States with the purchase of U.S. government debt, China has in effect helped Washington finance its deficits.

Full Story: China’s investments in U.S. up sharply – latimes.com.

Fed Proposes Limits On Credit Card Penalty Fees

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday proposed strict limits on penalty fees and other charges that credit card companies can slap on customers for missteps such as late payments or going over credit limits.

The proposal outlines rules that would take effect on Aug. 22 as the third stage of credit card legislation signed by President Barack Obama last May. The majority of the new law took effect last week, and earlier provisions kicked in last August.

Among the biggest changes in the Fed proposal is capping penalty fees to no more than the dollar amount of the violation.

Full Story: Fed Proposes Limits On Credit Card Penalty Fees.

Buzz Aldrin Says Mars Is Within Our Reach — Here’s How

In his recent testimony before Congress, NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden told lawmakers the goal of the U.S. space program under President Barack Obama was Mars.

But he also warned that getting to Mars would require a step-by-step evolution, because NASA lacked the technology to safely send astronauts so deep into space. The Obama budget contained the down payment on a Mars mission, with billions set aside for research and testing of advanced, cutting-edge technologies that could be employed to make a mission to Mars a reality.

I believe we can be well on our way to Mars by July 20, 2019 — which just happens to be the 50th anniversary of my Apollo 11 flight to the moon. The plan I’ve designed, called a unified space vision, contains ideas for the development of a deep-space craft that I call the Exploration Module, and development of a true heavy lift space booster evolved from the existing space shuttle.

Full Story: Opinion: Buzz Aldrin Says Mars Is Within Our Reach — Here’s How – AOL News.

Jon Stewart Exposes Fox News ‘Balance,’ Goes After Sarah Palin And Megyn Kelly (VIDEO)

It looked like Jon Stewart was going for some of his bread-and-butter Sarah Palin jokes on Wednesday night, mocking her appearance on NBC’s Tonight Show and tossing in a little ribbing of Jay Leno.

But the quips about a Palin “Fair and Balanced” remark quickly turned into an amusing — if not scathing — indictment of Fox News programming, particularly host Megyn Kelly and her new mid-day program, America Live.

Stewart hounded the network about an apparent lack of balance, ranging from the show’s promos (showing a clean-cut man in a Jesus t-shirt evidently representing the right, juxtaposed with an “angry nose-ring liberal lady” pointing at his face) to the actual reporting and clips that only showed one-sided opinions from a very homogeneous group. He emphasized that this was one of the few programs held during the network’s allotted news time, as opposed to shows that are explicitly opinion.

The Daily Show segment ended with a flourish, showing clips that seemed to indicate an inconsistent approach at Fox News to polling, endorsing or dismissing polls depending on the results.

WATCH:

Full Story: Jon Stewart Exposes Fox News ‘Balance,’ Goes After Sarah Palin And Megyn Kelly (VIDEO).

Grayson, Bachmann Debate Health Care Reform On ‘Larry King Live’ (VIDEO)

Civility reigned Wednesday during a health care debate between Reps. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) and Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) on “Larry King Live.”

Both lawmakers, perhaps two of the House’s most ideologically different members, were on their best behavior during a segment that had the potential to be a knock-down-drag-out fight.

Bachmann began the discussion by arguing that the Senate would be breaking it’s own rules to pass a health care bill if it uses reconciliation.

Bachmann: An up or down vote is a good thing, Larry. It’s just how many votes will it take. Will it take 50 votes or will it take 60 votes…

King: Well what’s wrong with majority rules?

Bachmann: Well because that’s not how the Senate works. The Senate works with 60 votes, and now what the president is promoting is a nuclear option which is 50 votes.

King: But it used the majority rules on the Bush tax cuts.

Bachmann: Well, the House uses straight majority rules, the Senate doesn’t. So what this means is that the Senate has to break their own rules in order to pass the bill.

Full Story: Grayson, Bachmann Debate Health Care Reform On ‘Larry King Live’ (VIDEO).

Exclusive: RNC document mocks donors, plays on ‘fear’

The Republican National Committee plans to raise money this election cycle through an aggressive campaign capitalizing on “fear” of President Barack Obama and a promise to “save the country from trending toward socialism.”

The strategy was detailed in a confidential party fundraising presentation, obtained by POLITICO, which also outlines how “ego-driven” wealthy donors can be tapped with offers of access and “tchochkes.”

The presentation was delivered by RNC Finance Director Rob Bickhart to top donors and fundraisers at a party retreat in Boca Grande, Florida on February 18, a source at the gathering said.

Full Story: Exclusive: RNC document mocks donors, plays on ‘fear’ – Ben Smith – POLITICO.com.

Silvio Berlusconi’s party out of poll count in ‘comedy of errors’

Silvio Berlusconi vented his fury at the “amateurs and idiots” surrounding him after his ruling party was disqualified yesterday from two of this month’s crucial regional polls for failing to submit valid electoral lists in time.

Barring an appeal, the Prime Minister’s People of Liberty (PdL) party will not be able to contest elections in Lazio, the region surrounding Rome, and Lombardy, Mr Berlusconi’s home turf, because of what the media described as a “comedy of errors”.

The elections were seen as a test of Mr Berlusconi’s waning popularity amid sex scandals and mounting allegations of corruption.

Full Story: Silvio Berlusconi’s party out of poll count in ‘comedy of errors’ – Times Online.

America’s Massive Infrastructure Problem

Economist and former Vice Presidential candidate Pat Choate discusses how the U.S. can generate jobs while fixing its infrastructure

Economist and former Vice Presidential candidate Pat Choate discusses his new book Saving Capitalism: Keeping America Strong and outlines how the U.S. can generate jobs while fixing its infrastructure problems.

Video at link

Full Story: America’s Massive Infrastructure Problem | Economy In Crisis.

Outsourcing America’s Stimulus Jobs

Taxpayer dollars designed to boost the struggling American economy should not be used to create jobs overseas.

In lieu of a recent report that found that the vast majority of Recovery Act funds made available for wind energy projects are being used primarily to create jobs overseas, a group of four Democratic Senators is asking the Treasury Department to issue a moratorium on awarding grants until legislation can be written to rectify the problem.

In a letter sent to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner Tuesday, Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Bob Casey (D-PA) and John Tester (D-MT) said that taxpayer dollars designed to boost the struggling American economy should not be used to create jobs overseas.

“Companies located in New York, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere across the United States are fully capable of manufacturing the range of clean-energy components, and U.S. wind farms and other clean-energy projects financed with stimulus money should be buying American-built parts,” the letter reads.

Full Story: Outsourcing America’s Stimulus Jobs | Economy In Crisis.

USTR, Obama Administration Ignore Failed Trade Policies

Had Obama’s campaign trade commitments been implemented, China would have been deemed a currency manipulator and countervailing duties put in place to staunch the flood of unfair Chinese imports, while NAFTA would be under renegotiation now.

The U.S. in 2010 will continue to enforce its rights in the rules-based global trading system by addressing non-tariff barriers through the WTO, but will do little else to reverse America’s failed trade policies, according to the office of the U.S. Trade Representative’s 2010 Trade Policy Agenda.

In fact, the report says, in 2010 America will be “seeking new international markets aggressively.”

“Ninety-five percent of the world’s consumers live outside the United States, and the President’s trade agenda will help to get American workers and businesses access to as many of those customers as possible,” said U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said in a statement.

Full Story: USTR, Obama Administration Ignore Failed Trade Policies | Economy In Crisis.

Like Bush, Obama Moves to Bury Bad Economic Data

The U.S. is hemorrhaging jobs thanks to terrible trade policies. Instead of fixing the problem, Obama wants to hide the data.

The Bush administration had a nasty penchant for trying to bury bad economic news – a nasty penchant that I was intimately familiar with when working on the House Appropriations Committee. One of the most egregious examples of this came in 2003. Here’s the Washington Post on 1/2/03:

David Sirota :: Like Bush, Obama Moves to Bury Bad Economic Data

U.S. Drops Report On Mass Layoffs;
Data Helped States Track Patterns of Industrial Demise By Kirstin DowneyWashington Post Staff Writer
January 2, 2003

Citing a shortage of money, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will stop publishing information about factory closings across the country, a decision that some state officials and labor leaders are protesting.

The monthly Labor Department analysis, known as the Mass Layoffs Statistics report, detailed where workplaces with more than 50 employees closed and what kinds of workers were affected.

Luckily, because of progressive pressure and public outcry, this Bush move was overturned by Congress. But now, the same kind of thing is back. According to today's Washington Post, it looks like the Obama administration is reprising the same scheme:

Full Story: Open Left:: Like Bush, Obama Moves to Bury Bad Economic Data.

Anti-Pot Propaganda As Stupid As Ever — Yet Our Alarmist Media Continues to Hype It

Once again mainstream media are running wild with the absurd notion that marijuana use causes psychological problems, despite much evidence to the contrary.

Once again members of the mainstream media are running wild with the notion that marijuana use causes schizophrenia and psychosis.

To add insult to injury, this latest dose of reefer rhetoric comes only days after investigators in the United Kingdom reported in the prestigious scientific journal Addiction that the available evidence in support of this theory is “neither very new, nor by normal criteria, particularly compelling.” (Predictably, the conclusions of that study went all together unnoticed by the mainstream press.)

Yet today’s latest alarmist report, like those studies touting similar claims before it, fails to account for the following: If, as the authors of this latest study suggest, cannabis use is a cause of mental illness (and schizophrenia in particular), then why have diagnosed incidences of schizophrenia not paralleled rising trends in cannabis use over time?

Full Story: Anti-Pot Propaganda As Stupid As Ever — Yet Our Alarmist Media Continues to Hype It | | AlterNet.

Do Kinder People Have an Evolutionary Advantage?

“Positive psychology” research indicates that the kinder you are, the more likely you are to survive — and evolve.

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, are challenging long-held beliefs that human beings are wired to be selfish. In a wide range of studies, social scientists are amassing a growing body of evidence to show we are evolving to become more compassionate and collaborative in our quest to survive and thrive.

In contrast to “every man for himself” interpretations of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, Dacher Keltner, a UC Berkeley psychologist and author of “Born to be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life,” and his fellow social scientists are building the case that humans are successful as a species precisely because of our nurturing, altruistic and compassionate traits.

They call it “survival of the kindest.”

Full Story: Do Kinder People Have an Evolutionary Advantage? | Personal Health | AlterNet.

US liberals have lost their thunder

While Tea Partiers protest loudly at the mess we’re in, a lack of sane, liberal anger leaves us mired in sterile politeness

“Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me and I welcome their hatred.”

President Roosevelt, Madison Square Garden, 31 October 1936

There is an astonishing lack of anger among liberals, progressives and radicals who have abandoned emotion to the right. Our role model continues to be not FDR, still less Malcolm X, but our “bipartisan” and apparently tone-deaf President Obama. In this second or third year of a devastating depression, not just recession, that has inflicted an epidemic of suffering on the lower half of the American nation, Obama is very busy being fluent and civil while being essentially untouched by the rage felt by so many of us. Our world, as we have known it, is being annihilated, and nobody in power shows signs of giving a damn.

The real anger is all on the right, kidnapped – or authentically voiced – by the all-white Tea Partiers, Palinites, Oath Keepers and “armed and dangerous” patriot groups, some but not all of whom are native-fascistic but also include pissed-off libertarians and the disappointed and dispossessed at the bottom of the pile.

Full Story: US liberals have lost their thunder | Clancy Sigal | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

Unions Plan Protests Against Big Banks

In an action it hopes would create jobs and increase economic fairness, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. announced on Wednesday that it will sponsor two “Weeks of Action” against the nation’s major banks.

The A.F.L.-C.I.O., the nation’s main federation of labor unions, said it would hold demonstrations from March 15 through March 30 at banks in 200 cities, with the slogan, “Good Jobs Now, Make Wall Street Pay.”

Speaking at the federation’s winter meeting here, Denise Mitchell, the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s communications director, said the dozens of demonstrations would have three goals: getting banks to pay their “fair share,” getting banks to stop fighting tougher new banking regulations and getting banks to lend more to “Main Street” and small businesses.

Full Story: Unions Plan Protests Against Big Banks – The Caucus Blog – NYTimes.com.

Republicans Now Even Block Judges They Like

The Senate GOP is blocking the confirmation of even those Obama judicial nominations that Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee supported unanimously. In fact, Republicans have allowed even fewer of President Obama’s nominated judges to even reach an up-or-down vote on the floor of the Senate than they did for Bill Clinton back in the 1990s.

Although the Senate voted Tuesday unanimously to confirm Barbara Keenan to fill a vacancy on the federal Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, Keenan’s is the just sixth circuit court nomination confirmed this Congress.

The Senate has confirmed just 16 circuit and district court nominations. Another 13 judicial nominations are pending before the full Senate, including 10 that received strong bipartisan support in the Judiciary Committee. Seven of the pending judicial nominations were approved by the Judiciary Committee without dissent.

Full Story: On The Hill: Republicans Now Even Block Judges They Like.

Fallujah doctors report rise in birth defects

John Simpson talks about the children with birth defects he saw in Fallujah

Doctors in the Iraqi city of Fallujah are reporting a high level of birth defects, with some blaming weapons used by the US after the Iraq invasion.

The city witnessed fierce fighting in 2004 as US forces carried out a major offensive against insurgents.

Now, the level of heart defects among newborn babies is said to be 13 times higher than in Europe.

The US military says it is not aware of any official reports showing an increase in birth defects in the area.

BBC world affairs editor John Simpson visited a new, US-funded hospital in Fallujah where paediatrician Samira al-Ani told him that she was seeing as many as two or three cases a day, mainly cardiac defects.

Full Story: BBC News – Fallujah doctors report rise in birth defects.

San Francisco Jewish Federation officially excommunicates large swath of Jewish population

The San Francisco Bay Area’s Jewish Federation has made it official.

Here in one of the most cosmopolitan, diversity-friendly and culture-loving places on earth, there is a new litmus test for Jewish identity and it has absolutely nothing to do with religious practice, cultural expression, personal history or the values you embrace. Membership in the Jewish community has been officially reduced to one and only one question- do you UNCONDITIONALLY love Israel?

Do you love Israel so much that you are willing to stand by and do nothing as it destroys itself and everyone it controls by repeatedly violating international law, sending its youngest citizens to enforce the 43-year occupation of another people, imprisoning them, killing them with impunity, denying them the right to health and education and work and claiming it’s all in the name of security while taking more Palestinian land and water and trees each day.

In other words, are you willing to love Israel to death?

Full Story: MuzzleWatch » San Francisco Jewish Federation officially excommunicates large swath of Jewish population.

Exclusive: GOP To Unleash Huge Wave Of Robocalls Warning Of Dem Plot To “Ram” Health Reform Through

National Repubicans are planning to unleash a huge wave of robocalls tomorrow targeting dozens of House Dems and warning their constituents that Obama and Nancy Pelosi are plotting to “ram” their “dangerous” health reform plans through Congress.

The robocalls — the first paid media by the NRCC’s new “code red” program, which targets Dems on health care — comes after Obama told Congress to pass reform via reconciliation.

The calls are meant to spook House Dems right at the moment when the White House and Dem leaders are about to undertake a grueling effort to round up support for what’s expected to be a hair-raisingly close vote. It warns constituents that the targeted House Dem risks supporting this “dangerous” move.

Full Story: Exclusive: GOP To Unleash Huge Wave Of Robocalls Warning Of Dem Plot To “Ram” Health Reform Through | The Plum Line.

Obama Signs Extension of U.S. Unemployment Benefits

(Adds Medicare physician payments, flood insurance in fifth paragraph.)

March 3 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama signed a bill reinstating unemployment benefits after Republican Senator Jim Bunning ended his effort to block the measure.

The law extends access to health care benefits for workers who have lost their jobs and helps small business obtain loans, a statement by the White House said.

“During these difficult economic times, supporting American workers, their families and our small businesses must be everyone’s focus,” Obama said in a statement late yesterday, shortly after the Senate’s approval.

Full Story: Obama Signs Extension of U.S. Unemployment Benefits (Update2) – BusinessWeek.

The Taxpayer-Funded Cycle Of Moral Hazard

The obvious problem with the all-carrots-no-sticks approach to the bank bailout is that it’s done a lot to strip risk and consequence out of the financial system. Having failed to dole out real pain to those who nearly decimated the economy (and I remind you that $150-million penalties levied against banks that pay out failed CEOs to the tune of $83 million is the going rate of “real pain”), the circumstances which exist now are such that the big banks know that if they recklessly steer themselves off the rails again, the federal government will rush in to save them.

But what gets little attention, comparatively, is the fact that bank lobbying (of the sort that’s going at the Consumer Financial Protection Agency with hammer and tongs) does little more than intensify and perpetuate this cycle of “moral hazard.” Over at the Washington Independent, Megan Carpentier has a crackerjack piece, demonstrating that “the most dangerous effect all this lobbying has had is on banks’ own behavior.”

Full Story: The Taxpayer-Funded Cycle Of Moral Hazard.

Erick Erickson: ‘GOP Does Not Want A Black Man In The Senate’

Despite paeans to diversity, the Republican Party clearly does not want a black man — or any minority candidate — in the Senate, leading conservative blogger Erick Erickson wrote Wednesday.

“It is starting to get really disgusting,” Erickson, the editor-in-chief of the right-wing site RedState wrote. “First, the GOP said it needed diversity and chose the orange Charlie Crist over the Latino, Marco Rubio. Then the GOP said it needed to do better outreach in the black community, so it ignored Michael Williams in Texas and tried to find a rich white guy to run for the Senate. Now that Kay Bailey Hutchison has lost the Texas primary to Rick Perry without even making it into a runoff, the Washington, D.C. Republicans are scared to death a black man might actually get appointed to the Senate as a Republican.”

Even South Carolina GOP Sen. Jim DeMint supports Michael Williams, Erickson noted. “This is really sick,” he wrote.

Full Story: Erick Erickson: ‘GOP Does Not Want A Black Man In The Senate’.

OPS:  So you can imagine what they think about a Black Man in the White House

American Family Association: Stone To Death Killer Whale Who Killed Trainer

The American Family Association, a religious right group, is urging that Tillikum (Tilly), the killer whale that killed a trainer at SeaWorld Orlando, be put down, preferably by stoning. Citing Tilly’s history of violent altercations, the group is slamming SeaWorld for not listening to Scripture in how to deal with the animal:

Says the ancient civil code of Israel, “When an ox gores a man or woman to death, the ox shall be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner shall not be liable.” (Exodus 21:28)

However, the group is going further and laying the blame for the trainer’s death directly at the feet of Chuck Thompson, the curator in charge of animal behavior, because, according to Scripture,

Full Story: American Family Association: Stone To Death Killer Whale Who Killed Trainer.

Santelli on Predatory Lending: ‘You can’t cheat an honest man’

- Matt Taibbi  -

Look at about the 5-minute mark of this video — Janet Tavakoli debating Rick Santelli about predatory lending. You basically have a whole panel of CNBC goons pooh-poohing the idea that predatory lending took place, setting up the inevitable revisionist history that the 2008 crash was caused by individual homeowners borrowing beyond their means.

My favorite part of this comes roughly at the six-minute mark. Tavakoli has just deftly explained how a lot of the predatory practices worked — people with limited financial literacy were presented with long and complicated mortgage deals, and told they would have a fixed payment in perpetuity or a guaranteed re-finance, or were nailed by fraudulent appraisals. Then she mentioned the big one, the fact that investment banks then took all these mortgages and with eyes wide open securitized them and sold them off as worthy investments to suckers on the other end of the chain.

While she’s saying all this stuff, Santelli, who is one of the fathers of the Tea Party movement, is shaking his head furiously, video-scoffing at everything she’s saying. When he finally does get a chance to speak, this is what he says:

Here’s my problem with this. It takes two to tango. You can’t cheat an honest man.

Full Story: Santelli on Predatory Lending: ‘You can’t cheat an honest man’ – Matt Taibbi – Taibblog – True/Slant.

Bayh Endorses Public Financing For Campaigns As Retirement Nears

When Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) announced his pending retirement from Congress last month, he cited the power of moneyed interests over the legislative process, among other things, as a compelling reason to exit.

Now, on one important measure, he’;s backing up his words with action. The Indiana Democrat on Wednesday became the latest senator to sign on as a co-sponsor the Fair Elections Now Act, which would set up a public-financing system for national campaigns.

Bayh joins eight other senators — all either progressive Democrats or those up for election in 2010 — in signing on to the bill. The measure has far broader support in the House and has gained considerable momentum since the Supreme Court ruled that corporations could make unlimited expenditures in a federal campaign.

Full Story: Bayh Endorses Public Financing For Campaigns As Retirement Nears.

John Edwards INDICTED? Grand Jury Set To Indict Edwards, National Enquirer Reports

A federal grand jury is about to indict John Edwards, sources tell the National Enquirer. The grand jury has been investigating the former presidential candidate since April 2009 for possible misuse of campaign funds — Edwards had mistress Rielle Hunter on his payroll — and indictment is now imminent. The Enquirer talked to one friend who revealed that John was “terrified”:

“While he believes he’s done nothing illegal in trying to hide his extramarital affair with Rielle and their daughter, he thinks the Feds are going to make an example of him.”

It hasn’t been a great winter for the former presidential candidate. On the one hand, there has been Andrew Young, former Edwards aide and admitted accomplice in concealing the affair, stepping forward with a tell-all memoir of campaign trail debauchery and details of an Edwards-Hunter sex tape. On the other, recently-separated-from wife Elizabeth has threatened to sue Young for “alienation of affection,” while friends told the Enquirer that Edwards beat her in a marriage-ending fight.

Full Story: John Edwards INDICTED? Grand Jury Set To Indict Edwards, National Enquirer Reports.

Robert Rubin: ‘Virtually Nobody’ Saw Crisis Coming, Bush Deserves Much Of The Blame

Robert Rubin, the former Clinton-era Treasury Secretary and noted champion of deregulation, told a New York City audience last night that “virtually nobody” — himself included — foresaw the financial meltdown.

In a discussion at the 92nd Street Y cultural center, Rubin touched on the financial crisis, Obama’s economic policies and America’s potential in the new global economy — but not on financial reform or the deregulatory agenda of the 1990s. The former Citigroup director, gloomy about the country’s short-term economic prospects, cautioned against taking too seriously some recent positive economic indicators — such as the country’s 5.9 percent growth last quarter.

Rubin, who has also served as chairman of Goldman Sachs, said that while he became concerned about market “excesses” in 2005 and 2006, he failed to take account of all of the factors that would coalesce into the crisis. During his time at Citigroup, Rubin reportedly pushed the financial behemoth to take riskier bets, including investing in the subprime mortgage market, which imploded in 2007 and instigated the crisis. Next month, Rubin will be grilled by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, which is investigating the causes of the economic slump, notes Bloomberg News.

Full Story: Robert Rubin: ‘Virtually Nobody’ Saw Crisis Coming, Bush Deserves Much Of The Blame.

OPS:  Does anybody believe BS like this any more? Rubino, Dean, Krugman and many others DID see it coming. And they saw it coming for years.

Fight For The CFPA Is ‘A Dispute Between Families And Banks,’ Says Elizabeth Warren

While members of the Senate Banking Committee debate proposals to fix the nation’s broken financial system and ineffective approach to protecting consumers, Elizabeth Warren has one message: Pass a strong bill or nothing at all.

“My first choice is a strong consumer agency,” the Harvard Law professor and federal bailout watchdog said in an interview with the Huffington Post. “My second choice is no agency at all and plenty of blood and teeth left on the floor.”

There’s been a steady leak of Senate proposals to fix the dysfunctional way federal regulators protect consumers from abusive lenders. One was an independent unit housed within the Treasury Department; another was a new entity, housed in the Federal Reserve, with little independence or power.

Full Story: Fight For The CFPA Is ‘A Dispute Between Families And Banks,’ Says Elizabeth Warren.

Roger Ailes Admits That The White House Might Have ‘Legitimate Complaints’ About Fox News

Last September, President Obama appeared on five Sunday morning talk shows in one day to promote health care reform, but did not sit down with Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace — a snub that was considered “the first real shot from the White House” in its clash with Fox News. Appearing on the O’Reilly Factor after news of the snub broke, Wallace attacked the White House, claiming there was a “kind of childishness or pettiness” to the decision. “They are the biggest bunch of crybabies I have dealt with in my 30 years in Washington,” said Wallace.

In an interview with the Hoover Institution’s Peter Robinson that was posted on National Review today, Fox News Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes distanced himself from Wallace, saying that the Obama administration wasn’t “whining over nothing”:

ROBINSON: Do you subscribe to the statement of your news host Chris Wallace that the Obama administration is “the biggest bunch,” he said, “the biggest bunch of crybabies” that he’s dealt with in his 30 years in Washington?

Full Story: Think Progress » Roger Ailes Admits That The White House Might Have ‘Legitimate Complaints’ About Fox News.

Is Taxpayer Money Being Funneled Through The Chamber Of Commerce To Kill Health Reform?

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, an umbrella lobbying organization for international corporations and big business, is one of the driving forces fighting to kill health reform. In 2009, the Chamber dropped $123 million in lobbying, much of it against health reform, and organized an attack ad campaign against health reform, spending another $100 million. Now, as health reform enters its final stages, the Chamber is gearing up to blanket critical districts across the country with a new series of attack ads.

While the Chamber refuses to publicly list its membership, several confirmed Chamber members are banks which were bailed out by taxpayers and still have not repaid the TARP funds. For instance, New York Private Bank & Trust received TARP funds and still owes $254,892,509 back to the government. Diana Cantor, the bank’s managing director, is a board member of the Chamber Foundation and wife of Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA), two leading opponents of reform. How can taxpayers be reassured that Cantor’s bank, and other bailed out Chamber banks, are not using taxpayer dollars to fund the Chamber’s anti-reform activities? Here are the bailed out banks we know are funding the Chamber and have not paid back TARP:

Full Story: Think Progress » Is Taxpayer Money Being Funneled Through The Chamber Of Commerce To Kill Health Reform?.

Wind vs. Natural Gas

Today's Wall St. Journal includes a very interesting article on the real-world competition between wind power and electricity generated from fossil fuels. At least in Texas, steadily increasing wind generation has apparently come mainly at the expense of natural gas, rather than displacing coal-fired power, as might have been anticipated by many wind advocates. That has implications for the effectiveness of renewable energy policy as a means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, as well as for the utilities and independent power generators that are complaining that wind has been given overly-preferential treatment.

Texas makes an interesting laboratory for demonstrating the practical consequences of our shift towards renewable energy. ERCOT, the Texas grid, has little connectivity with neighboring grids; power generated within Texas must, for the most part, be used in Texas, while demand in Texas must be met mainly by generators within the state. That makes the relationship between wind and fossil fuel generation more transparent than it would be in another region with larger imports and exports. The resulting statistics on gas generation displaced by wind, as presented in the article, are unlikely to surprise those familiar with the technologies involved.

As I've pointed out periodically, wind power is unlikely to displace much coal, since most coal plants are run in baseload mode–essentially 24×7–because that suits both their operating requirements and the grid's need for large quantities of predictable, low-cost power to handle routine loads. By contrast, wind turbines rely on the availability of wind blowing at speeds within a specified range. On average they put out about 30% of the full power for which they're rated, in patterns that vary from day to day and season to season. Gas offers much more flexibility than either coal or wind and is thus the supply most likely to be adjusted up or down to accommodate the output from wind when it's blowing or back-stop it when it's calm. From what I can tell from the article, the complaint from gas-based generating companies isn't that this is occurring, but that when wind generators come up short vs. their day-ahead commitments to the grid, the penalty falls on everyone else, not on the responsible wind farms. This constitutes a hidden subsidy, on top of the ongoing benefit of the federal Production Tax Credit (currently available as an alternative Investment Tax Credit and payable as an up-front cash grant) and the Renewable Energy Credits generated under the state's Renewable Portfolio Standard.

Full Story: Wind vs. Natural Gas.

Perdue, poultry farm sued for polluting Chesapeake Bay

Environmental activists filed suit Tuesday against the poultry giant Perdue Farms and an Eastern Shore farm where Perdue chickens are raised, contending that the farm is polluting the Chesapeake Bay with manure-laden runoff.

The suit, filed by the Assateague Coastal Trust, says that water flowing off the farm near Berlin, Md., carries high levels of bacteria, as well as pollutants blamed for the Chesapeake’s “dead zones.” Environmentalists said they think the farm’s owners store chicken manure in large outdoor piles near ditches, where it is likely to run off with the rain.

The farm “appears to be an out-of-control situation, when it comes to animal waste,” said Kathy Phillips, an employee of the group.

Full Story: Perdue, poultry farm sued for polluting Chesapeake Bay – washingtonpost.com.

Sanders on Senate Blockade of Unemployment Insurance

Sen. Bernie Sanders attended the press conference with Sens. Sherrod Brown and Sheldon Whitehouse and Ron Pollack of Families USA in the U.S. Capitol today to discuss Senate Republicans’ blockade of an extension of jobless benefits and health insurance for out-of-work Americans.

Consumer Agency Within Fed Seen as Victory for Banking Industry

For consumer advocates, housing a new agency to protect Americans from financial-product abuse within the Federal Reserve would be a defeat after lobbying for an independent body. For banks, it would represent a victory.

Barney Frank, Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, called a Senate plan to house the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency at the Fed “a joke.” Shielding consumers from harmful financial products is “the most conspicuous failure by the Fed,” Frank said in an interview yesterday.

Banks say placing the agency with the Fed alleviates their concern that an independent entity would ignore the health of the financial system. Consumer advocates say it’s a mistake because the Fed didn’t succeed in curbing abuses during the subprime lending boom that contributed to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Full Story: Consumer Agency Within Fed Seen as Victory for Banking Industry – Bloomberg.com.

Obama’s olympic NAFTAgate lie under scrutiny in Canada

In Canada its called Obama’s NAFTAgate. When Barrack Obama was running for president during the Ohio primary he was caught in a blatant, cynical and unconscionable lie to the people of Ohio, exploiting their pain and fear over their faltering economy and massive unemployment.

Obama’s political dishonesty and the attempted cover it up by his economic advisor Austan Goolsebee who is still a member of Obama’s White House economic team, went largely ignored by a mainstream press intent on seeing Obama elected.

While running against Hillary Clinton in the Ohio primary, a state that had lost 265,000 jobs even before the economic crisis, Obama blamed NAFTA for the loss of jobs and used it to attack Hillary Clinton since it was Bill Clinton’s decision to implement NAFTA.

….Obama told the voters of Ohio that if he is elected he would abolish NAFTA ……

Full Story: Obama’s olympic NAFTAgate lie under scrutiny in Canada.

Economists Warn Another Financial on Way to U.S. Economy

Nonpartisan Group Led by Nobel Winner Calls for Stronger Financial Reforms

Even as many Americans still struggle to recover from the country’s worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, another crisis – one that will be even worse than the current one – is looming, according to a new report from a group of leading economists, financiers, and former federal regulators.

In the report, the panel, which includes Rob Johnson of the United Nations Commission of Experts on Finance and bailout watchdog Elizabeth Warren, warns that financial regulatory reform measures proposed by the Obama administration and Congress must be beefed up to prevent banks from continuing to engage in high-risk investing that precipitated the near-collapse of the U.S. economy in 2008.

The report warns that the country is now immersed in a “doomsday cycle” wherein banks use borrowed money to take massive risks in an attempt to pay big dividends to shareholders and big bonuses to management – and when the risks go wrong, the banks receive taxpayer bailouts from the government.

“Risk-taking at banks,” the report cautions, “will soon be larger than ever.”

Full Story: Economists Warn Another Financial on Way to U.S. Economy – ABC News.