Archive for March, 2010
For Years, Deaf Boys Tried to Tell of Priest’s Abuse
They were deaf, but they were not silent. For decades, a group of men who were sexually abused as children by the Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy at a school for the deaf in Wisconsin reported to every type of official they could think of that he was a danger, according to the victims and church documents.
They told other priests. They told three archbishops of Milwaukee. They told two police departments and the district attorney. They used sign language, written affidavits and graphic gestures to show what exactly Father Murphy had done to them. But their reports fell on the deaf ears of hearing people.
This week, they learned that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, received letters about Father Murphy in 1996 from Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland of Milwaukee, who said that the deaf community needed “a healing response from the Church.” The Vatican sat on the case, then equivocated, and when Father Murphy died in 1998, he died a priest.
Full Story: For Years, Deaf Boys Tried to Tell of Priest’s Abuse – NYTimes.com.
Republicans Were For Obama’s Health Insurance Rule Before They Were Against It
Republicans were for President Barack Obama’s requirement that Americans get health insurance before they were against it.
The obligation in the new health care law is a Republican idea that’s been around at least two decades. It was once trumpeted as an alternative to Bill and Hillary Clinton’s failed health care overhaul in the 1990s. These days, Republicans call it government overreach.
Mitt Romney, weighing another run for the GOP presidential nomination, signed such a requirement into law at the state level as Massachusetts governor in 2006. At the time, Romney defended it as “a personal responsibility principle” and Massachusetts’ newest GOP senator, Scott Brown, backed it. Romney now says Obama’s plan is a federal takeover that bears little resemblance to what he did as governor and should be repealed.
Full Story: Republicans Were For Obama’s Health Insurance Rule Before They Were Against It.
Tiny cube to tackle space debris
UK researchers have developed a device to drag space debris out of orbit.
They plan to launch a demonstration of their “CubeSail” next year. It is a small satellite cube that deploys a thin, 25-sq-m plastic sheet.
Residual air molecules still present in the spacecraft’s low-Earth orbit will catch the sheet and pull the object out of the sky much faster than is normal.
The Surrey Space Centre team says the concept could be fitted to larger satellites and even rocket stages.
The group also envisages that a mature system would even be sent to rendezvous and dock with redunda
Full Story: BBC News – Tiny cube to tackle space debris.
Personal Income Drops Across the Country
Personal income in 42 states fell in 2009, the Commerce Department said Thursday.
Nevada’s 4.8% plunge was the steepest, as construction and tourism industries took a beating. Also hit hard: Wyoming, where incomes fell 3.9%.
Incomes stayed flat in two states and rose in six and the District of Columbia. West Virginia had the best showing with a 2.1% increase. In Maine, Kentucky and Hawaii, increased government benefits, such as unemployment insurance and Social Security, offset drops in earnings and property values.
Full Story: Personal Income Drops Across the Country – WSJ.com.
Court strikes limits on contributions to independent political groups
But in its unanimous decision, the nine-judge U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia also said that a conservative group called SpeechNow.org must disclose its donors and other details of its finances to the Federal Election Commission, a requirement that the group had sought to overturn.
Steve Simpson, a lawyer who argued the case on behalf of SpeechNow.org, called the decision voiding contribution limits “a tremendous victory for free speech” and said it “ensures that all Americans can band together to make their voices heard during elections.” At the same time, the group decried the decision on disclosure and signaled that it would appeal the issue to the Supreme Court.
Full Story: Court strikes limits on contributions to independent political groups – washingtonpost.com.
D.A. on verge of mass drug-case dismissals
San Francisco prosecutors told judges Friday that they could not “ethically go forward” with 46 narcotics trials because of evidence problems arising out of the scandal at the Police Department’s drug-analysis lab – signaling that the district attorney is likely to dismiss nearly all 750 pending drug cases in the city.
“Based on what the district attorney’s office knows about the issues within the narcotics division of the crime lab, we cannot ethically go forward with this prosecution,” Assistant District Attorney Nancy Tung told a judge overseeing a case that was serving as a test of how much police and prosecutors had to disclose to defense attorneys about problems at the drug lab.
Prosecutors dropped that test case, a cocaine-sales trial, after having been deluged with 1,500 pages of police files about the lab that a spokesman for the district attorney called “troubling” and said pointed to possible larger problems in the Police Department.
Full Story: D.A. on verge of mass drug-case dismissals.
Pa. judge refuses to grant woman same-sex divorce
A Pennsylvania judge has refused to divorce two women married last year in Massachusetts, leaving them in apparent limbo because they do not meet the residency required to divorce in the Bay State.
Berks County Judge Scott Lash said he could not grant a divorce to Carole Ann Kern and Robin Lynn Taney because their marriage is not recognized under Pennsylvania law.
“Relief under the divorce code can only be obtained by parties who are recognized to be married,” Lash wrote in a ruling issued Thursday.
Kern, a Berks County resident, had filed a petition in October seeking to divorce Taney on grounds their marriage was irretrievably broken. The pair had married four months earlier in Brewster, Mass.
Full Story: Pa. judge refuses to grant woman same-sex divorce | AP | 03/26/2010.
Obama to Name Medicare and Medicaid Director
c
President Obama will soon name Dr. Donald M. Berwick, an iconoclastic scholar of health policy, to run Medicare and Medicaid, the programs that serve nearly one-third of all Americans, administration officials said Saturday.
Dr. Berwick, a pediatrician, is president of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in Cambridge, Mass. He has repeatedly challenged doctors and hospitals to provide better care at a lower cost. He says the government and insurers can increase the quality and efficiency of care by basing payments on the value of services, not the volume.
Mr. Obama plans to nominate Dr. Berwick to be administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a unit of the Department of Health and Human Services that has been without a permanent chief since October 2006, when Dr. Mark B. McClellan stepped down.
Full Story: Obama to Name Medicare and Medicaid Director – NYTimes.com.
Palin upstages McCain at his own rally
Senator John McCain’s former running mate joined him on Friday at an Arizona rally intended to rally the Republican base behind McCain, who is facing a tough primary battle against a challenge from the right by former Rep. J.D. Hayworth.
It was Sarah Palin’s first appearance with McCain since their 2008 electoral defeat, and in today’s Republican party the one-time Alaskan governor clearly outshines the veteran senator.
Dressed in a form-fitting black leather jacket, Palin was greeted by massive applause and chants of “Sarah, Sarah” as the two came onstage together. Several news stories noted that there seemed to be far less enthusiasm for McCain, and one poster in a thread live-blogging the event at Democratic Underground pointed out that MSNBC had cut away from the event promptly at 4 pm, while McCain was still speaking.
Full Story: Palin upstages McCain at his own rally | Raw Story.
Hitchens: Pope Benedict wants ‘wiggle room’ for ‘rape and torture of children’
The Catholic Church is in serious trouble and may have nowhere to run, depending on who you ask.
“I warned them about all of this,” declared author Christopher Hitchens, appearing on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher on Friday night. “Nothing good can come of a church that has as its’ slogan, ‘Leave no child’s behind.’ And then they went and chose as pope the man who was personally responsible, in his dioceses, and institutionally responsible for the cover-up. So now, there’s no escape.”
The child rape scandals that have savaged Catholic ranks for years starting in the United States, then flaring up in Ireland, Germany, Italy and other locations around the world, have finally come to implicate Pope Benedict XVI, according to recent reports.
Full Story: Hitchens: Pope Benedict wants ‘wiggle room’ for ‘rape and torture of children’ | Raw Story.
Hatch: I Supported The Unconstitutional Individual Mandate In 1993 To Derail HillaryCare
Yesterday, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) admitted that he supported the individual mandate before he realized it was unconstitutional and now, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) has conceded that he too endorsed a policy that would have allowed the government “to tell you what you have to buy, even if you don’t want to buy it.” In 1993, Hatch, along with 20 other GOP senators — including Grassley, Bennett, and Bond — introduced a health care plan that would have required everyone to buy coverage, capped awards for medical malpractice lawsuits, established minimum benefit packages and invested in comparative effectiveness research. It was, in other words, a plan to “erode liberty.”
Last night, and then again this afternoon, Hatch was pressed on his past support for the 1993 proposal. What’s changed, CNN’s Campbell Brown and MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell both wanted to know. Like Grassley, Hatch couldn’t come up with a very good answer. In 1993, Republicans hastily proposed the unconstitutional measure to fend off HillaryCare; nobody even understood the implications of the alternative policy, Hatch explained:
Full Story: Think Progress » Hatch: I Supported The Unconstitutional Individual Mandate In 1993 To Derail HillaryCare.
VIDEO: The Extreme, Violent Rhetoric Of GOP Lawmakers
Yesterday, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) falsely charged that his office was “directly threatened” in a gun attack. Cantor used the incident to provide partisan cover to his unruly GOP colleagues, who have been pandering to tea party activists with increasingly unhinged and extreme rhetoric.
Last weekend, as the House vote on health reform legislation neared, Republican lawmakers whipped tea party crowds into an angry mob. For instance, Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) spoke to the crowd with a megaphone, conjuring up debunked conspiracy theories about government spying into medical records and decrying what he called “tyranny.” Rep. Steve King (R-IA) held up a picture of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) for the crowd, mocking it and “slapping” it. Throughout the day, the tea party protesters accosted Democratic members of Congress with racial and homophobic slurs, and one protester even spat on Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO).
Cantor asserted that no lawmaker “would incite threats.” However, ThinkProgress has compiled a short snapshot of Republican lawmakers speeches to angry tea party crowds throughout the year, using extremely violent rhetoric. The compilation below features Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO), Rep. Wally Herger (R-CA), Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), and King:
Full Story: Think Progress » VIDEO: The Extreme, Violent Rhetoric Of GOP Lawmakers.
Citing ‘irreversible damage,’ EPA nears veto of mountaintop removal permit.
The Environmental Protection Agency yesterday proposed its first Clean Water Act veto ever for a previously permitted mountaintop removal project, “the largest mountaintop-removal permit in West Virginia history.” The veto would reverse a permit granted in 2007 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to Arch Coal to dig a 2,278-acre coal stripmine and fill six valleys and 43,000 linear feet of streams with the toxic debris. Based on the “unequivocal” evidence that the damage from mountaintop mining is irreversible, the EPA is finally enforcing the Clean Water Act to protect West Virginia’s residents:
Full Story: Think Progress » Citing ‘irreversible damage,’ EPA nears veto of mountaintop removal permit..
Teacher Sued For Bashing Christianity — Will Others Be Censored?
A teacher in California was found to have violated a student’s First Amendment rights by disparaging religion in the classroom. The ruling could silence outspo
ken teachers.
Most weekdays, some 2,700 students crowd the sidewalks and hallways of Capistrano Valley High School, which is a quick drive from Orange County, California’s finest beaches. Capo, as the school is informally known, boasts a champion surf team as well as a prestigious academic reputation, among other distinctions.
The world’s most powerful megachurch, Saddleback, is about eight miles south of Capo; nearby are the skyline-dominating Crystal Cathedral and the nation’s largest Christian broadcast network. Non-Christian faiths, too, have set up shop in the OC, home to growing numbers of Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and Zoroastrian worshipers. In fact, for all the associations of Orange County with implants and Botox and for all the TV shows that depict a shamelessly decadent lifestyle, such as “The Real Housewives of Orange County,” this is foremost a highly religious place.
All of which has come to play out in the classroom of history teacher James Corbett, the defendant in a federal lawsuit that, depending on its outcome in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, could threaten traditional notions of academic freedom.
Full Story: Teacher Sued For Bashing Christianity — Will Others Be Censored? | Civil Liberties | AlterNet.
Did a White Sheriff and District Attorney Orchestrate a Race-Based Coup in a Northern Louisiana Town?
African American mayor and police chief assert that they have been forced from office and arrested as part of an coup carried out by white politicians and their followers.
In Waterproof, a small northern Louisiana town near Natchez, Mississippi, the African American mayor and police chief assert that they have been forced from office and arrested as part of an illegal coup carried out by an alliance of white politicians and their followers. In a lawsuit filed last week, Police Chief Miles Jenkins asserts a wide-ranging conspiracy involving the area’s district attorney and parish sheriff, along with several other members of the region’s entrenched political power structure. These events come at a time of widespread and high-profile racist attacks against the US President and Black members of Congress nationwide, and in a state where white political corruption and violence have been and continue to be used as tools to suppress Black political representation.
Chief Miles Jenkins
About 800 people live in Waterproof, a rural community in Tensas Parish. Tensas has just over 6,000 residents, making it both the smallest parish in the state, and the parish with the state’s fastest declining population. The regional schools remain mostly segregated, with nearly all the Black students attending public schools, and nearly all the white students attending private schools. With a median household income of $10,250, Waterproof is also one of the poorest communities in the US. The only jobs for Black people in town involve working for white farmers, according to Chief Jenkins. “Unless you go out of town to work,” he says, “You’re going to ride the white man’s tractor. That’s it.”
Jamie Oliver’s TED Prize wish: Teach every child about food
Sharing powerful stories from his anti-obesity project in Huntington, W. Va., TED Prize winner Jamie Oliver makes the case for an all-out assault on our ignorance of food.
Full Story: Jamie Oliver’s TED Prize wish: Teach every child about food | Video on TED.com.
Poop Is the Most Important Indicator of Your Health
Like it or not, our bowels are the ID cards of our bodies, charting our recent histories with terrifying accuracy. So, how do we ensure a healthy gut?
According to a lawsuit filed this month, Ron and Sarah Bowers bought their son a Subway sandwich in Lombard, Illinois on February 27. After eating it, he had agonizing cramps and diarrhea. According to the suit, what the couple really bought was a shit sandwich.
It had been contaminated with Shigella sonnei, a bacteria transmitted via the fecal-oral route and can cause vomiting, dysentery and death. Over 100 people claim to have been sickened at Lombard’s Subway, according to attorney Drew Falkenstein, whose firm has filed suit on behalf of Ron and Sarah Bowers and two other customers.
We don’t want to think about excrement. We don’t want to see it, smell it or touch it. We definitely don’t want to eat it with chicken teriyaki, on toast. Yet intestinal goings-on are in our faces everywhere these days, whether the news is about probiotics and prebiotics appearing in new food products or yet another outbreak of norovirus — the painful gastroenteritis that is spread via fecally contaminated food, water and surfaces and has sickened thousands of cruise-ship passengers in eight unprecedentedly massive outbreaks so far this year.
Full Story: Poop Is the Most Important Indicator of Your Health | Food | AlterNet.
Are We Selfish Individuals or an Empathic Society? The Answer Could Determine Whether We Have a Future
Click image and but it now
The industrial age built on and propelled by fossil fuels is coming to an end. What replaces it is at the center of our fight for survival.
Two spectacular failures, separated by only 18 months, marked the end of the modern era. In July 2008, the price of oil on world markets peaked at $147/ barrel, inflation soared, the price of everything from food to gasoline skyrocketed, and the global economic engine shut off. Growing demand in the developed nations, as well as in China, India, and other emerging economies, for diminishing fossil fuels precipitated the crisis. Purchasing power plummeted and the global economy collapsed. That was the earthquake that tore asunder the industrial age built on and propelled by fossil fuels. The failure of the financial markets two months later was merely the aftershock. The fossil fuel energies that make up the industrial way of life are sunsetting and the industrial infrastructure is now on life support.
In December 2009, world leaders from 192 countries assembled in Copenhagen to address the question of how to handle the accumulated entropy bill of the fossil fuel based industrial revolution-the spent C0₂ that is heating up the planet and careening the earth into a catastrophic shift in climate. After years of preparation, the negotiations broke down and world leaders were unable to reach a formal accord.
Tea Bagger Poll: 90% Say Govt Is Too Socialist, But 70% Want Govt Jobs Program
Tea-Baggers are Fervently Vague In Their Beliefs
A new Bloomberg survey finds that more than 90 percent of Tea Party backers say the U.S. is verging toward socialism, but 70 percent want a federal government that fosters job creation, but 90 percent say the country is on the wrong track and Washington can’t find solutions, but more than 80 percent say expansion of the government’s role in the economy is a high threat, but almost half say the government should do something about executive bonuses on Wall Street.
Further, tea-baggers are conflicted over whether private-enterprise elements should be introduced into government programs like Social Security and Medicare.
I’m not sensing anything like a platform or even coherence here …
Full Story: Pensito Review » Tea-Baggers are Fervently Vague In Their Beliefs.
OPS: ‘vague in their beliefs’ ? Extremely confused is more like it.
Israeli tanks ‘enter Gaza’ after deadly clashes
Israeli tanks advanced briefly into the Gaza Strip following clashes with Palestinians in which two Israeli soldiers died, reports say.
Witnesses in Gaza said tanks and bulldozers moved towards the southern town of Khan Younis before withdrawing.
They also said there had been firing from the Israeli navy along the Gaza coastline.
It is the first time Israeli soldiers have died in Gaza since Israel’s 22-day offensive there more than a year ago.
Reports say at least two Palestinians have also been killed.
Israel says the fighting started when its troops crossed into Gaza after spotting militants planting explosives along the border.
Reports from inside Gaza say the militants then tried to capture an Israeli soldier.
Full Story: BBC News – Israeli tanks ‘enter Gaza’ after deadly clashes.
Why the President’s Next Big Thing Should Be Jobs
Robert Reich -
Few presidents get a second honeymoon of their own making. (George W. got one when terrorists attacked the United States.) Barack Obama’s victory on health care reform has breathed new life into his administration, recharged the Democratic base, and given the rest of America a sense of someone who fights for average working people.
The question now is: What does he do with his second honeymoon?
Some say it should be used to enact financial reform. Most Americans despise Wall Street and want to be assured there’s no repeat of the grotesque sequence of river-boat gambling with the economy followed by a taxpayer bailout followed by seven-and eight-figure bonuses. Democratic strategists would love to let Republicans hoist themselves on their own petard by defending Wall Street.
Full Story: Robert Reich (Why the President’s Next Big Thing Should Be Jobs).
Globalization Marches On
by Noam Chomsky
Growing popular outrage has not challenged corporate power.
Shifts in global power, ongoing or potential, are a lively topic among policy makers and observers. One question is whether (or when) China will displace the United States as the dominant global player, perhaps along with India.
Such a shift would return the global system to something like it was before the European conquests. Economic growth in China and India has been rapid, and because they rejected the West’s policies of financial deregulation, they survived the recession better than most. Nonetheless, questions arise.
One standard measure of social health is the U.N. Human Development Index. As of 2008, India ranks 134th, slightly above Cambodia and below Laos and Tajikistan, about where it has been for many years. China ranks 92nd-tied with Belize, a bit above Jordan, below the Dominican Republic and Iran.
Full Story: Globalization Marches On | CommonDreams.org.
Rethink the euro to save economies
If not for the euro, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain could adopt expansionary policies to help their economies recover
As the EU summit meeting convenes, Greece is dominating the agenda much more than Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel had wanted. This week she has thrown cold water on the idea that Germany and other EU countries would take responsibility for helping Greece to roll over some of its debt, handing that job off to the IMF.
Greece had already proposed a set of draconian budget cuts and fiscal tightening, but it wasn’t good enough for the Germans. For Greece, turning to the IMF is not necessarily all that different – in fact, the European commission could push for even harsher policies than the IMF, as it has done in Latvia – where the IMF/European commission have presided over Latvia’s record downturn. Latvia has lost more than 25% of GDP since their recession began, making it the second largest cyclical downturn on record – and if IMF projections prove correct, it will soon pass the 1929-33 decline of the US Great Depression.
Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain have a problem very similar to that of Latvia, and unfortunately the authorities – local and European – are proposing the same solution. It is not clear that this solution – which consists mostly of budget cuts, tax increases, and further shrinking of their economies – will work for these countries.
Full Story: Rethink the euro to save economies | Mark Weisbrot | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.
Heckuva Job, AIPAC
I know what former President Bush would say if he had to comment on the results of AIPAC’s conference this week. He would turn to Howard Kohr, its long time director, and say “heckuva job, Howie.”
AIPAC supposedly exists to promote US-Israel relations or, more precisely, to promote them to the point where Israeli policies are never challenged by the United States. Most important to AIPAC is that the $3 billion aid package sails to Israel unimpeded, no matter what budgets cuts are inflicted here at home and no matter what the current president thinks.
AIPAC wants to put on a nice Washington show of power but without egregious poking of American eyes. For instance, the 7,800 delegates were warned in advance not to boo or hiss Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when she discussed achieving peace with the Palestinians — and they didn’t. They allowed their feelings to show only when they stood and applauded her requisite criticisms of Palestinians while giving scattered applause to her calls for Israeli concessions.
Full Story: Heckuva Job, AIPAC | Media Matters Action Network.
Union Chief: GOP Fueled Healthcare Vote Violence
In the hours leading up to the Sunday’s climactic healthcare reform vote in the House, congressional Republicans helped foment an atmosphere that helped spark a subsequent rash of violence that’s struck at Democrats who supported the legislation, according to the leader of one of the nation’s oldest and largest organized labor organizations.
“When I was at the Capitol on Sunday, I saw Republican lawmakers come out onto balconies and egg on hateful crowds like giddy teenagers, waving signs and chanting to fire up the protesters,” says Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO. “They set the foundation for a dangerous climate, and they must take the lead in stopping it.”
Like other unions, the AFL-CIO played an active role in pushing to enact healthcare reform.
Full Story: On The Hill: Union Chief: GOP Fueled Healthcare Vote Violence.
Change your Print Font and save up to 30%
New news from the University of Wisconsin at Green Bay. They have a study which claims that by changing the typefact (font) on your computer, one can save as much as 30% in inkjet printer ink.
Their suggestion is to change from the most commonly used typeface of ARIAL, to the typeface of CENTURY GOTHIC. Such a simple fix!
We have done it throughout our office and will be monitoring the effect.
It is also quoted that the price tag for inkjet ink can be as much as $10,000 per gallon. Add up how much is used throughout your office; or better yet, have your accounting people pull a report of your expenditures and see what your savings could be. For us, it’s very significant. We order on price, and the best we can find PER PRINTER for all colors is well over $100 per refill (Officejet Pro K5400). Even though our founder was in the IT business for over twenty-plus years before starting greenenergycafe, and is aware of all kinds of shortcuts and points-of-saving with computer hardward and software, he states this is one of the best bits of news he has seen in years.
Full Story: INKJET INK – A Real Savings : Greenenergycafe.com.
Senate Advances School Lunch Reform: Is A 6 Cent Increase Enough?
Kids will always grab pizza and dessert in the school lunch line, but those items may be healthier in coming school years if Democrats in Congress succeed in toughening rules governing the nation’s school lunches.
Legislation approved Wednesday by the Senate Agriculture Committee would allow the Agriculture Department to create new standards for all foods in schools, including vending machine items, to give students healthier meal options. The legislation would spend $4.5 billion more over 10 years for nutrition programs.
New standards are not expected to push popular foods off the cafeteria line completely, just to make them healthier. For example, pizza may be made with whole wheat crust and low-fat mozzarella, while desserts could have fewer calories. Hamburgers could be made with leaner meat, and vending machines could be stocked with less candy and fewer high-calorie sodas.
The legislation would also expand the number of low-income children eligible for free or reduced cost meals, a step Democrats say would help President Barack Obama reach his goal of ending childhood hunger by 2015.
Full Story: Senate Advances School Lunch Reform: Is A 6 Cent Increase Enough?.
Bank of America, Wells Fargo probably won’t pay income tax for 2009
Annual reports suggest BofA and Wells Fargo won’t have to pay federal income taxes for 2009.
This tax season will be kind to Bank of America and Wells Fargo: It appears that neither bank will have to pay federal income taxes for 2009.
Bank of America probably won’t pay federal taxes because it lost money in the U.S. for the year. Wells Fargo was profitable, but can write down its tax bill because of losses at Wachovia, which it rescued from a near collapse.
The idea of the country’s No. 1 and No. 4 banks not paying federal income taxes may be anathema to millions of Americans who are grumbling as they fill out their own tax forms this month. But tax experts say the banks’ situation is hardly unique.
Full Story: Bank of America, Wells Fargo probably won’t pay income tax for 2009 – CharlotteObserver.com.
Indiana Threatened By Giant Poop Bubbles, For Realsies
Good news for people who like news about grotesque agricultural calamities-waiting-to-happen! Lauren Etter of the Wall Street Journal has a groundbreaking story of how the state of Indiana is threatened by giant bubbles of livestock feces. Will someone think of the children, many of whom dream of seeing a floating balloon, made solely of poop?
It’s all going down on the farm of Tony Goltstein of Winchester, Indiana. Goltstein runs a dairy farm, and like a lot of dairy farmers, he contains the biological leavings of his livestock in giant lagoons.
But then, in 2006, “small bubbles began poking up” in those lagoons. Those bubbles are now “the size of small houses.” Those bubbles “are big enough to be seen in satellite photos.” Those bubbles are something Etter really, really, really wants her readers to take pretty deadly seriously!
But Goltstein has got this crazy plan!
Full Story: Indiana Threatened By Giant Poop Bubbles, For Realsies.
South Korean Ship SUNK: Timeline Of South, North Korea Developments At Sea (VIDEOS)
News of a South Korea ship sinking today off the coast of North Korea has once again boosted tensions between the East Asia neighbors.
The ship, said to have 104 crew on board, began sinking close to North Korea around 10:45 p.m. Friday night, and the exact cause was not immediately clear. Officials later said the ship had sunk.
But news involving South Korean ships or North Korean ships is not uncommon, as the two nations frequently patrol the Sea Of Japan, also known as the East Sea in South Korea and Korea East Seat in North Korea.
Here’s a roundup of South Korea and North Korea water-related developments in the news the last few years. Rate each as a major or minor development.
Full Story: South Korean Ship SUNK: Timeline Of South, North Korea Developments At Sea (VIDEOS).
Larry Summers May Be Leaving Obama Administration, Fox Business Reports
Larry Summers may be the first high-profile departure from the Obama administration, Wall Street executives tell the Fox Business Network.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Summers is staying put for now, but the unnamed Wall Street executives claim Summers is planning a departure from his post at the head of the President’s National Economic Council by the end of 2010. Fox Business’ Charles Gasparino speculates that he wanted to replace Ben Bernanke as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. An aide to Summers tells HuffPost that the rumors are “falso.”
Summers, infamously ousted from the presidency of Harvard University, previously served as Treasury Secretary under President Clinton.
Full Story: Larry Summers May Be Leaving Obama Administration, Fox Business Reports.
Pope Benedict Cannot Be Fired, Despite Growing Sex Abuse Cover-Ups
Irish Singer Sinead O’Connor and Journalist Christopher Hitchens Call for Investigation
As outrage mounted over the latest Catholic Church sex scandal, writer Christopher Hitchens called for the arrest of Pope Benedict XVI, and singer Sinead O’Connor said the pope should face a criminal investigation.
Protesters rallied outside the Vatican, angry that an office under his command had stopped the prosecution in 1996 of Wisconsin priest Lawrence Murphy, who admitted molesting 200 boys at a school for the deaf where he worked for 20 years.
The secret church trial was halted after Murphy made a personal appeal to the future pope asking for mercy.
Full Story: Pope Benedict Cannot Be Fired, Despite Growing Sex Abuse Cover-Ups – ABC News.
IRS Commissioner Debunks GOP Fear-Mongering:
“
We Won’t Audit People To Check Health Insurance Status”
Now that health care reform is law, conservatives have come up with a new line of attack to scare the American public: The IRS will be tracking you down if you don’t purchase health insurance. Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) fueled the scare in a March 18 press release, announcing the findings of a study by Republican Hill staff:
A new analysis by the Joint Economic Committee and the House Ways & Means Committee minority staff estimates up to 16,500 new IRS personnel will be needed to collect, examine and audit new tax information mandated on families and small businesses in the ‘reconciliation’ bill being taken up by the U.S. House of Representatives this weekend.
“When most people think of health care reform they think of more doctors exams, not more IRS exams,” says U.S. Congressman Kevin Brady, the top House Republican on the Joint Economic Committee. “Isn’t the federal government already intruding enough into our lives? We need thousands of new doctors and nurses in America, not thousands more IRS agents.”
Full Story: Think Progress » IRS Commissioner Debunks GOP Fear-Mongering: We Won’t Audit People To Check Health Insurance Status.
Bartlett: Frum’s Dismissal Shows ‘All That Matters Now Is Absolute Subservient Adherence’ To The GOP
Former Bush speechwriter David Frum — who famously authored the phrase “axis of evil” — has been unceremoniously forced out from the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a right wing, neoconservative think tank. Frum’s dismissal resulted from criticism he directed at the Republican Party for staking a failed strategic posture of “no compromise” on health care. As a result, “it’s Waterloo all right: ours,” Frum wrote to his fellow conservatives.
Right-wing donors of AEI began raising concerns about Frum. So, AEI president Arthur Brooks took Frum out to lunch this week to tell him that, while he valued “a diversity of opinion,” he wanted to downgrade Frum to a nonsalaried position. Frum declined the offer and posted a letter of resignation on his personal website.
Bruce Bartlett, a former economic adviser to President Bush, suffered a similar fate as Frum. After leaving the Bush White House, Bartlett authored a book titled Imposter: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy. That book led to his dismissal in 2005 as a senior fellow at a conservative Texas-based think tank called the National Center for Policy Analysis
Full Story: Think Progress » Bartlett: Frum’s Dismissal Shows ‘All That Matters Now Is Absolute Subservient Adherence’ To The GOP.
Kaiser Permanente Pulled Plug On Woman’s Insurance While She Was In A Coma
With her heart set on a career as a chef, Heather Galeotti enrolled in a San Francisco culinary school. One winter night, her life took a near-fatal turn when she was hit by a car. The 22-year-old lay in a coma for nearly six months.
Galeotti’s shaken family told the hospital that she was covered by her father’s health care plan with Kaiser Permanente. The hospital confirmed her status with Kaiser and proceeded to treat her. Medical bills piled up to more than $4 million.
Then in July 2007, five months into Galeotti’s treatment, Kaiser stunned the family with a letter. The Galeottis would have to find another way to pay the bills. Based on information received from her father’s employer, Kaiser said that the young woman’s coverage had not been in effect when she was hit.
Full Story: Heather Galeotti: Kaiser Permanente Pulled Plug On Woman’s Insurance While She Was In A Coma.
Whistleblower site demands that US ’stop spying’ on its operations | Raw Story
In an extraordinary editorial, the whistleblower site WikiLeaks has demanded that the United States “stop spying” on its operations.
“Over the last few years, WikiLeaks has been the subject of hostile acts by security organizations,” founder Julian Assange writes. “We’ve become used to the level of security service interest in us and have established procedures to ignore that interest. But the increase in surveillance activities this last month, in a time when we are barely publishing due to fundraising, are excessive.”
On Tuesday evening, followers of the WikiLeaks Twitter feed were startled to read, “WikiLeaks is currently under an aggressive US and Icelandic surveillance operation.” This was followed a few minutes later by “If anything happens to us, you know why: it is our Apr 5 film. And you know who is responsible.” A succeeding message warned, “We have airline records of the State Dep/CIA tails. Don’t think you can get away with it. You cannot. This is WikiLeaks.”
Full Story: Whistleblower site demands that US ’stop spying’ on its operations | Raw Story.
Democrats need stronger response to Republican brick throwers
The last few days have seen incidents where Democratic members of congress have received physical threats,a propane line to their home cut, and had bricks thrown through windows of their offices because of their healthcare vote, ironically revealing just how sick opponents of healthcare really are.
Incidents involving 5 offices of Democratic members of the House and DNC offices where bricks were thrown through windows, threatening calls to Rep. Bart Stupak, and other violence inducing rhetoric from conservatives and Republicans, have evoked responses from Democrats which can only be described as weak.
Steny Hoyer, Democratic majority whip made such hard hitting statements at a press conference to address these attacks as, “it's wrong” and James Clyburn lectured on the need for civility.
Full Story: Democrats need stronger response to Republican brick throwers.
Tea Party makes tracking political criminals easier for law enforcement, threats and apologies
Political protesters who threaten elected officials or turn violent are easier for law enforcement officials to track due to their vocal and high profile statements on the internet and their association with the Tea Party.
Federal officials said it is easy to connect the dots between Tea Party members who espouse violence through their online postings, email and threatening behavior at rallies.
“Monitoring people who pose real threats to elected officials has become easier,” said an FBI source who could not be identified because he is not authorized to speak to the press. “We are looking at people who are traveling, purchasing weapons and conspiring to commit acts of violence.”
Full Story: Tea Party makes tracking political criminals easier for law enforcement, threats and apologies.
American politics after health reform: Now what?
The Economist -
LAST November Henry Kissinger compared Barack Obama to a chess grandmaster who had played his opening in six simultaneous matches, but hadn’t completed a single game. Now the president has won the first of those matches with an audacious checkmate snatched from a seemingly hopeless position. But the rest of the chessboards are still gridlocked.
The health-care victory this week was a huge achievement for Mr Obama (see article). After the Democrats in January suddenly lost their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate many, reputedly including his own chief of staff, urged him to play for a draw and settle for a much more modest bill than the 2,400-page behemoth that he signed into law on March 23rd. Instead, the president buckled down: he dumped the (more expensive) House version of the bill, concentrated on the Senate version and criss-crossed the country, making powerful speeches and twisting arms. In short, he took charge, and started doing all the things he ought to have been doing a lot earlier.
His reward, however, is merely the right to continue playing. Had health reform failed after Mr Obama had invested so much of his personal authority in it, his presidency would have been crippled; and a president who is weak at home tends to be perceived as weak abroad as well. Success thus gives Mr Obama a chance to get his presidency back on track, but hardly guarantees it. That depends on him learning from his mistakes and not exaggerating the extent of his success.
Full Story: American politics after health reform: Now what? | The Economist.
Eurozone Leaders: Greece Plan To Stabilize Euro
Eurozone Nations Say Bailout Program For Greece, Others Will Stabilize Markets
BRUSSELS (AP) – European leaders on Friday said their hard-won deal to rescue debt-ridden Greece after months of bitter wrangling will help calm jittery markets and stabilize the euro, but market reaction was cautious and experts warned much of the damage has already been done.
Leaders of the 16 eurozone countries agreed Thursday to a plan to rescue Greece if it finds itself unable to borrow. The deal would provide individual loans from other eurozone countries and funding from the International Monetary Fund. However, it sets out strict conditions, saying it could only be used as a last resort, and requires unanimous agreement of all eurozone members.
The day after the announcement, the euro recovered from a 10-month low against the U.S. dollar, to $1.3374 in midday trading in Europe from below $1.33 on Thursday.
Full Story: Eurozone Leaders: Greece Plan To Stabilize Euro – CBS News.
JPMorgan, Lehman, UBS Named as Conspirators in Muni Bid-Rigging
JPMorgan Chase & Co., Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and UBS AG were among more than a dozen Wall Street firms involved in a conspiracy to pay below-market interest rates to U.S. state and local governments on investments, according to documents filed in a U.S. Justice Department criminal antitrust case.
A government list of previously unidentified “co- conspirators” contains more than two dozen bankers at firms also including Bank of America Corp., Bear Stearns Cos., Societe Generale, two of General Electric Co.’s financial businesses and Salomon Smith Barney, the former unit of Citigroup Inc., according to documents filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on March 24. The papers were filed by attorneys for a former employee of CDR Financial Products Inc., an advisory firm indicted in October. The attorneys, as part of their legal filing, identified the roster as being provided by the government. The document is labeled “list of co-conspirators.”
None of the firms or individuals named on the list has been charged with wrongdoing. The court records mark the first time these companies have been identified as co-conspirators. They provide the broadest look yet at alleged collusion in the $2.8 trillion municipal securities market that the government says delivered profits to Wall Street at taxpayers’ expense.
Full Story: JPMorgan, Lehman, UBS Named as Conspirators in Muni Bid-Rigging – Bloomberg.com.
Comcast and NBC’s Real Diversity Issues
At last month’s house hearing on the proposed Comcast-NBC takeover, execs from both companies shamefully acknowledged their diversity problems. Comcast CEO Brian Roberts sheepishly divulged that his company’s board of directors includes only one woman and one person of color, and NBC’s Jeff Zucker confessed that the network has no Black programming.
Watch the video:
Full Story: Megan Tady: Comcast and NBC’s Real Diversity Issues.
Crowley newborn with heart defect is denied insurance coverage
At birth, Houston Tracy let out a single loud cry before his father cut the cord and handed him to a nurse.
Instantly, Doug Tracy knew something was wrong with his son.
“He wasn’t turning pink fast enough,” Tracy said. “When they listened to his chest, they realized he had an issue.”
That turned out to be d-transposition of the great arteries, a defect in which the two major vessels that carry blood away from the heart are reversed. The condition causes babies to turn blue.
Full Story: Crowley newborn with heart defect is denied insurance coverage | Health | Dallas-Fort Worth L….
Consumerist Launches 5th Annual ‘Worst Company In America’ Contest
Good news for people who love brackets and hate the wicked corporations of America! Consumerist, full of March Madness, has returned for a fifth year of letting its readers vote for the Worst Company In America. Last year, AIG won the honor for recklessly underwriting all of the insanely complex derivatives that caused the global economy to teeter on the brink of total collapse, and giving rise to the term “Too Big To Fail,” which still sticks in my throat like a dollop of toxic beetle carcasses. In 2008, the big winner was Countrywide Financial, for being subprime-mortgage-pimping gangster scumbags.
AIG makes a return to the Consumerist bracket, which you can view here, along with fellow top seed Bank Of America, and don’t-forget-how-awful-they-really-are outfits Comcast and Verizon. Plus, lots more crapulence! Voting has already begun. You can cast you vote right now in the following match-ups: HP vs. Dell, Time Warner vs. Charter, Walmart vs. Sears/Kmart, and Citibank vs. Bank of America.
Vote today! And bookmark Consumerist while you’re at it. Their basic mission is to “highlight the persistent, shameless gaffes of modern consumerism – and the latest scams, rip-offs, hot deals and freebies.” The site has an active readership and a motivated editorial staff — headed by Ben Popken and Meghann Marco — that fights righteously for consumers and frequently helps users overcome the inanities of our post-modern, Kafkaesque customer service culture.
Full Story: Consumerist Launches 5th Annual ‘Worst Company In America’ Contest.
Political Tide Could Wash Away Republican Utah Senator
Senator Robert F. Bennett parked his white Acura, walked through the doors of Bryant Middle School and stood alone as he began the obstacle course that will determine his political fate.
“Do you need my ID?” Mr. Bennett asked, reaching for his wallet as he approached the registration table at his neighborhood Republican caucus, the first step in his effort to secure his party’s nomination to a fourth term. No, a volunteer said with a smile. In Utah, of course, he is well known. And he recalls a time he was well liked.
The dissatisfaction with Washington sweeping through politics is not only threatening the Democratic majority in Congress, it is also roiling Republican primaries. The Tea Party movement and advocacy groups on the right are demanding that candidates hew strictly to their ideological standards, and are moving aggressively to cast out those they deem to have strayed, even if only by participating in the compromises of legislating.
Full Story: Political Tide Could Wash Away Republican Utah Senator – NYTimes.com.
Vets Group Apologizes To Dems For Saying They ‘Betrayed’ Troops
Democrats extracted a rare apology from the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) on Thursday, after the vets organization accused the party of “betraying” veterans because of language not included in the health care legislation.
“I apologized for using too harsh of a word,” said Thomas J. Tradewell Sr., a combat-wounded Vietnam veteran from Sussex, Wis., in a statement to reporters, describing the apology he had offered. “I also wanted to assure them that the VFW is well aware and most appreciative of their strong support of America’s veterans, servicemembers and their families.”
Tradewell added that he did “not apologize for our strong advocacy on the issue.” Still, the point was made. The VFW was back in line.
Full Story: Vets Group Apologizes To Dems For Saying They ‘Betrayed’ Troops.
Pope Further Implicated In Mishandling Of Sex Abuse
Revelations that the Vatican halted the investigation of a Wisconsin priest accused of molesting some 200 deaf boys have eerie echoes in Italy, where 67 deaf men and women accused two dozen priests of raping and molesting children for years.
Only now – a year after the Italian case became public – is the Vatican directing the diocese to interview the victims to hear their testimony about the accusations, The Associated Press learned Thursday.
The two cases are the latest in a burgeoning abuse scandal on both sides of the Atlantic that now threatens to tarnish the papacy itself. The office charged with disciplining clergy was long led by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, and a church prosecution in the Wisconsin case was stopped after an appeal to Ratzinger.
Full Story: Pope Further Implicated In Mishandling Of Sex Abuse.
Online Dating Statistics Reveal What Women Lie About Most
Are you considering looking for love online–or have you already taken the plunge?
OnlineSchools has compiled some startling online dating statistics that offer a revealing glimpse into the wild world of web romance.
See the online dating stats in the infographic below.
A few highlights:
* One out of ten users on online dating sites are scammers; one out of ten users leave within the first 3 months; and one out of ten sex offenders reportedly use online dating to meet people.
* One out of three women who meet men online have sex on the first encounter.
* Online, men lie most about their age, height, and income. Women, on the other hand, lie most about their weight, physical build, and age.
Still want to try out online dating? Check out our six surprising tips for taking better profile pictures for online dating sites.
Full Story: Online Dating Statistics Reveal What Women Lie About Most (INFOGRAPHIC).
Senator: Which Part Of ‘Too Big To Fail’ Do You Not Understand?
When a company wants to fend off a hostile takeover, its board may seek to put in place so-called “poison pill” defenses – i.e., measures that will make the firm less desirable if purchased, but which ideally will not encumber its operations if it stays independent.
Large complex cross-border financial institutions run with exactly such a structure in place, but it has the effect of making it very expensive for the government to takeover or shut down such firms, i.e., to push them into any form of bankruptcy.
To understand this more clearly you can,
1. Look at the situation of Citigroup today, or
2. Read this new speech by Senator Ted Kaufman.
The Citigroup situation is simple. They would like to downsize slightly, and are under some pressure to do so. It is hard to sell assets at a decent price in this environment, so why don’t they just spin off companies – e.g., quickly create five companies in which each original shareholder gets a commensurate stake?
Full Story: Simon Johnson: Senator: Which Part Of ‘Too Big To Fail’ Do You Not Understand?.
$10.5 million U.S. media project aimed at local news gap
The U.S. Corporation for Public Broadcasting launched a $10.5 million project on Thursday to increase regional reporting, filling a growing gap due to cutbacks in the news industry where profits have tumbled.
The nonprofit corporation created by Congress will provide $7.5 million from its current budget, with the rest provided by broadcast stations.
Seven “Local Journalism Centers” in different regions will band broadcast stations together to report on issues of particular interest to that area, such as health in Florida and manufacturing in the Upper Midwest.
The project is another example of an expansion in nonprofit news that has given rise to outlets such as ProPublica and the St. Louis Beacon.
Public broadcasters see an opportunity in the changing journalism environment where fewer people are relying on traditional media, there's increased use of social media, and many search for ways to make money in the online sphere.
Full Story: $10.5 million U.S. media project aimed at local news gap | Reuters.
Shadow Elite: March to War —
click here and buy it now
Janine Wendel -
The Neocon Playbook, Straight from the Soviet Bloc -
During March, to mark seven years since the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the Shadow Elite column has been focusing on what I call in my book the “Neocon core,” a tiny circle of longtime ideological allies who used their interlocking relationships across government, think tanks, business, and national borders to achieve their vision of asserting American power, and firepower, to remake the Middle East. We conclude the March to War series this week by examining how I came to understand the core's modus operandi: through my experience studying the mechanisms of power and influence in post-Cold War eastern Europe.
—————————————————————————————————————-
If you were to look at the bulk of my three decades of experience, research and expertise, you might find yourself asking, what does a social anthropologist who spent much of her career specializing in eastern Europe have to say about the neoconservatives who helped take the United States to war in Iraq?
When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, I was in Warsaw, having already spent some four years in the region throughout the 1980s. And in a twisted sort of way, examining eastern Europe up close–through its transformations away from communism over the last quarter century–has been excellent preparation for making sense of how a small group of power brokers helped engineer the invasion of Iraq, and more broadly, how a new system of power and influence has taken hold globally, one that, as I write in my book Shadow Elite, undermines democracy, government, and the free market.
Full Story: Janine R. Wedel: Shadow Elite: March to War — The Neocon Playbook, Straight from the Soviet Bloc.
Obama readies steps to fight foreclosures, particularly for unemployed
The Obama administration plans to overhaul how it is tackling the foreclosure crisis, in part by requiring lenders to temporarily slash or eliminate monthly mortgage payments for many borrowers who are unemployed, senior officials said Thursday.
Banks and other lenders would have to reduce the payments to no more than 31 percent of a borrower’s income, which would typically be the amount of unemployment insurance, for three to six months. In some cases, administration officials said, a lender could allow a borrower to skip payments altogether.
The new push, which the White House is scheduled to announce Friday, takes direct aim at the major cause of the current wave of foreclosures: the spike in unemployment. While the initial mortgage crisis that erupted three years ago resulted from millions of risky home loans that went bad, more-recent defaults reflect the country’s economic downturn and the inability of jobless borrowers to keep paying.
Full Story: Obama readies steps to fight foreclosures, particularly for unemployed – washingtonpost.com.
Bullet that hit Cantor’s office ‘fired randomly’ in the air
House Minority Whip Eric Cantor pointed to a shooting incident at his district office earlier this week as proof that Democrats aren’t the only ones being targeted with violence in the wake of the passage of health care reform. But a report from police in Richmond, Virginia, suggests the bullet that hit his office early Tuesday may have had nothing to do with the Republican congressman.
The Associated Press reports:
Richmond police say the bullet that hit a window of Republican Virginia Congressman Eric Cantor’s office had been randomly fired skyward.
In a news release, Richmond police said that the bullet had been fired into the air early Tuesday. It hit the front window of a building that houses Cantor’s campaign office as it fell to back earth at a sharp angle.
Full Story: GOP Whip Cantor reveals office was fired upon, blames Dems for ‘fanning flames’ | Raw Story.
OPS: Cantor Lied.
The Richmond Police Department released the following statement Thursday, along with this incident report:
Republicans Block Bills Ensuring Continuation Of Military Health Care
As ThinkProgress reported earlier today, some military families have been concerned about how the new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will affect their health care. Fears about the legislation have been fueled, in part, by lawmakers like Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-CA), who has claimed that “now their programs are going to be administered like welfare programs, rather than earned military benefits.”
There is another piece of misinformation floating around that’s important to clear up. The new law has an individual responsibility requirement, meaning that every person must have health coverage (or receive an affordability waiver), otherwise he/she will be subjected to a fee. The Affordable Care Act doesn’t explicitly state that TRICARE — the military’s health program — will meet the individual responsibility requirement. So on Saturday, lawmakers — out of an abundance of caution — passed separate legislation affirming that TRICARE will not be affected. As House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-MO) stated when the legislation was unanimously approved:
While beneficiaries of these programs will already meet the minimum requirements for individual health insurance and will not be required to purchase additional coverage, the TRICARE Affirmation Act would provide clarification by changing the tax code to state it in law.
Full Story: Think Progress » Republicans Block Bills Ensuring Continuation Of Military Health Care.
What Is Our Government’s Economic Plan?
Who is managing our country, and for whose benefit? Laws are being made that encourage foreign corporations to set up shop in the US.
Laws are being made that encourage foreign corporations to set up shop in the US. They receive huge tax benefits and various subsidies for bringing their jobs to our country. This sounds like good business on the surface, but further inspection reveals some long-term problems.
* American owned factories are going out of business in record numbers because they can’t compete.
* Thousands of other businesses are selling out to foreign ownership or moving entirely overseas to keep costs down.
* Americans are laid-off from their high wage skilled labor positions and retrained for a low wage service or assembly position. This creates an under-employment situation.
There are groups who benefit from this such as retailers, importers and insourcers, but what is good for some is not necessarily good for everyone. To the benefactors, the politicians look like heroes.
Full Story: What Is Our Government’s Economic Plan? | Economy In Crisis.
China Leads World in Clean Energy Investment
Even in the midst of the worst recession since the Great Depression, China invested $34.6 billion in green technologies.
President Barack Obama’s vision of America becoming the 21st Century’s leader in the clean energy economy is far from coming to fruition, a new report by the Pew Charitable Trusts found.
Not only has America failed to become the world’s leader in alternative energy, but the nation is quickly falling behind some of its largest economic competitors, a development that could cost millions of American jobs in the future.
“The United States’ competitive position is at risk in the emerging clean energy economy,” Phyllis Cuttino, director of the Pew Environment Group’s Global Warming Campaign, said in a statement.
Full Story: China Leads World in Clean Energy Investment | Economy In Crisis.
Flaws in Free Trade Economics
For some reason a debate continues to rage in this country about whether or not the U.S. should continue to embody all that is “free trade,” or whether it should adopt some of the so-called evils of “protectionism.”
The ongoing debate was given time in The Huffington Post over the weekend in a seemingly fair and balanced forum. But even on the most progressive of news sites the fair trade argument was given little credence.
The free trade argument is given the top billing. Its proponent, William J. Bernstein, is allowed to regale his audience with tales of trade wars of the past. Bernstein – a financial theorist whose only work with trade has come with pen, paper, and thought experiments – blames protectionism for everything from the Peloponnesian War to World War II. He then points out the majestic peace we have seen in Europe after the Second World War as evidence of the wonders of free trade systems
Full Story: Fletcher: Flaws in Free Trade Economics | Economy In Crisis.
Financial Reform: Will We Even Have A Debate?
The New York Times reports that financial reform is the next top priority for Democrats. Barney Frank, fresh from meeting with the president, sends a promising signal,
“There are going to be death panels enacted by the Congress this year — but they’re death panels for large financial institutions that can’t make it,” he said. “We’re going to put them to death and we’re not going to do very much for their heirs. We will do the minimum that’s needed to keep this from spiraling into a broader problem.”
But there is another, much less positive interpretation regarding what is now developing in the Senate. The indications are that some version of the Dodd bill will be presented to Democrats and Republicans alike as a fait accompli – this is what we are going to do, so are you with us or against us in the final recorded vote? And, whatever you do – they say to the Democrats – don’t rock the boat with any strengthening amendments.
Chris Dodd, master of the parliamentary maneuver, and the White House seem to have in mind curtailing debate and moving directly to decision. Republicans, such as Judd Gregg and Bob Corker, may be getting on board with exactly this.
Full Story: Financial Reform: Will We Even Have A Debate? « The Baseline Scenario.
Fox News, health care, and the right-wing nervous breakdown
Watching Fox News personalities recently come unglued as the realization set in that (surprise!) Democrats might actually have the votes to pass health care reform — and noting how extraordinarily loopy and dire both the attacks on the White House, and the proclamations for pending, apocalyptic doom were becoming — I was getting nervous that one of Fox News’ more unhinged hosts might finally just snap and pull a Rev. Jim Jones, beseeching viewers to make the ultimate sacrifice.
Honestly, unless you’ve been monitoring the ticking time bomb that is the far-right media in recent days, you probably don’t appreciate how frighteningly possible that cultish scenario has become, as the GOP Noise Machine, led by Fox News, publicly suffers a nervous breakdown. It’s a mental and emotional collapse that’s been advertised in recent days as cablers, radio talkers, and right-wing bloggers have reached for increasingly hysterical, often blood-curdling rhetoric to describe the irreversible atrocity — an incurable, metastasizing malignancy!! — that’s about to seize and destroy the United States in the form of a bill to expand health care coverage.
Listening to the calamitous warnings (i.e. “the end of America as we know it”), it’s not that unreasonable to think that at some point one of the media mob leaders is going to suggest that life itself just is no longer worth living.
Full Story: Fox News, health care, and the right-wing nervous breakdown | Media Matters for America.
An Author’s Incredible Environmental Journey After a Coal Company Destroyed His Family’s Ancestral Home and Land
Click the image to buy it now
After a strip-mining operation obliterated the author’s family homestead, he set out on a 10-year journey to examine the staggering human and environmental costs of coal.
About half of all electricity in this country comes from coal-fired power plants. And where does the coal come from? Author Jeff Biggers writes that coal is mined in 20 states in the U.S., but his newest book, Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland, focuses mainly on one area — southern Illinois.
Eagle Creek has particular historical significance, but it’s the personal significance that drives the narrative of his book. His family’s 200-year-old homestead and 150-year-old cabin were obliterated by a strip-mining operation. The experience led Biggers on a journey to fully understand the impact of coal on the environment and on communities.
Biggers’ story is deeply rooted in cultural history. Mining companies have been destroying not just homes, forests and streams, but actual communities with stories, songs, heroes and legacies. Unfortunately, our love affair with coal continues, despite dire warnings from top scientists regarding global warming, the impact on human health from burning coal and desperate pleas from the people who live in areas of coal extraction.
There Will Be Blood Spilled If the Republicans Keep Matching Their Message with Violent Talk
Words matter–and they matter even more when they are violent words. Apparently, GOP leadership agrees.
Despite the unwillingness of mainstream media to connect the dots, the base and leadership of the GOP are matching their rhetoric to the disturbing rise of violent talk at Tea Party rallies and amongst conservative anti-government groups. The conclusion: rather than recoil at violent language, GOP leadership seems to see it as a chance to turn out votes.
Most notably, Chairman of the RNC, Michael Steele, issued a recent call to Republicans to put Nancy Pelosi on the “firing line” because of the health insurance reform bill.
By using the phrase “firing line,” Steele encourages Republican activists to think of the next election as an execution of the opposition or a violent killing. The language Steele uses is not neutral. “Defeat” is defined as “kill.” “Voting” is linked to “shooting.” Winning the election is couched in an image of bloodletting.
We Are in the Middle of Transformational Change: It’s Time the Debate Matches up with the Huge Challenges Ahead of Us
Our methods of solving problems for the past 200-300 years are not adequate for the issues we face. The current reality requires much more. We must begin anew.
A better world is possible. So is a worse one. Which will we get? Finding the proper focus is itself a challenge.
For example, much of the conversation these days among well-meaning people about the state of our economy and what the president (or somebody) ought to do about it centers on jobs. Do we need more jobs? The conventional answer is of course we do, so let’s keep on having the old arguments about tax breaks versus government stimulus, big business versus small business, blah, blah, blah.
But maybe we don’t need “jobs” at all. Maybe instead of scurrying around to create “jobs” as defined for the last 100 years we should start by taking a different tack altogether.
Pew Environment Group: Global Warming
Who’s Winning the Clean Energy Race? Growth, Competition and Opportunity in the World’s Largest Economies (PDF) documents the dawning of a new worldwide industry—clean energy—which has experienced investment growth of 230 percent since 2005. In an encouraging sign for the future, many governments prioritized clean energy within economic recovery funding, the bulk of which will reach innovators, businesses and installers in 2010 and 2011. Clean energy investments are forecast to grow by 25 percent to $200 billion in 2010.
Within the G-20, our research finds that domestic policy decisions impact the competitive positions of member countries. Those nations—such as China, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Germany and Spain—with strong, national policies aimed at reducing global warming pollution and incentivizing the use of renewable energy are establishing stronger competitive positions in the clean energy economy.
Nations seeking to compete effectively for clean energy jobs and manufacturing would do well to evaluate the array of policy mechanisms that can be employed to stimulate clean energy investment.
Full Story: Pew Environment Group: Global Warming.
The New Dumb
William Rivers Pitt -
It’s pretty much official now. The GOP, in whole and in part, has gone completely over the high side in the aftermath of the House’s successful passage of President Obama’s health care reform package. Angry, bitter and frustrated has made way for deranged, deluded and dangerous within the minds and souls of that particular crowd. I went into pretty specific detail on Monday about some of the stunts the Right has been pulling since the bill passed – hateful slurs in Congressional hallways, assassination threats against Obama – but if you can believe it, matters got even more severe as the week went on.
Press play to listen to author William Rivers Pitt read his column, “The New Dumb”:
Carl Paladino, a billionaire New York Republican and candidate for governor, compared passage of the bill to the attacks of September 11. “The day that bill was passed will be remembered just as 9-11 was remembered in history,” he said to a local radio station. “It was an attempt by these people in Washington to defy the Constitution.” The comparison drew an immediate rebuke from Donna Marsh O’Connor, whose daughter was killed in the attacks. “It is despicable if in someone’s mind those events are analogous,” she said. “That is not a person who should be a leader of our country, of a state, of a city, of any community. Once again 9-11 is being exploited for political gain. Our family members are tools, not human beings who lost their lives and left behind wounds that will never heal.”
Full Story: t r u t h o u t | The New Dumb.
Senators battle again over extending jobless benefits – CNN.com
On the eve of a two-week spring recess, the Senate found itself embroiled again over the issue of a short-term extension of unemployment benefits and other programs.
At issue, as it was just a few weeks ago when Republican Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky blocked quick passage of a similar extension, is whether Congress should find budget offsets for the bill's cost of almost $10 billion a month, or agree to spend the money without designating how to pay for it.
Senators were called to the Senate floor late Thursday for a rarely used “live quorum” so they could try to work out a way forward.
Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma, is objecting to a commonly used unanimous-consent agreement to pass the bill under emergency conditions, even if it increases the federal deficit. Coburn wants to eliminate additional government spending to pay for the bill.
Full Story: Senators battle again over extending jobless benefits – CNN.com.
Social Inequality in America: Widening Income Disparities.
The government was the referee who enforced the rules, between the end of the Second World War and 1970 were America’s most prosperous, producing the largest, wealthiest middle class in history.
“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.”
– Brazilian archbishop Dom Helder Camara
“The difference between social service and social justice” is that social service “works to alleviate hardship” while social justice “aims to eradicate the root causes of that hardship.”
– Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
March 24, 2010 “Global Research” — The “aristocracy of our moneyed incorporations” has never conceded a thing, not even to suppress a revolt. This “opulent minority” does not “give” what it does not intend to begin to claw back with its cold, non-living corporate “hand” before the ink is dry on the signatures on treaties, the Fourteenth Amendment, even the New Deal, perhaps the greatest bowl of gruel ever cooked up by an oligarchy.
Reforms, regulatory agencies and elections themselves are America's Circus Maximus, mere flourishes on the veneer of democracy painted over the naked concentration of power accrued to the few who hold the reins of the corporate mechanism, the most stunningly efficient means ever invented for accumulating and concentrating wealth, which is then translated into political power.
The mid-twentieth century “deal” between the “opulent minority,” the government and the people left the “opulent minority” with the lion's share of the country's wealth, but a little bit more of that wealth was shared with the workers who created it. The government was the referee who enforced the rules, and the years between the end of the Second World War and 1970 were America's most prosperous overall, producing the largest, wealthiest middle class in history.
Full Story: Social Inequality in America: Widening Income Disparities. : Information Clearing House - ICH.
Central Banks Stashing Away Gold at Brisk Pace
Central banks around the world added 425.4 metric tons of gold to their reserves last year, the biggest increase since 1964, according to the World Gold Council.
That represents a 1.4 percent gain to put their holdings at 30,116.9 tons in total. The increase was the first since 1988.
Central banks in India, Russia and China were among those boosting their gold reserves last year, as the precious metal jumped 24 percent, hitting a record of $1,226 an ounce in December.
Central banks now possess 18 percent of all gold ever mined.
“There’s clearly been a renaissance of gold in central bankers’ minds,” Nick Moore, an analyst at Royal Bank of Scotland, told Bloomberg.
Full Story: Moneynews – Central Banks Stashing Away Gold at Brisk Pace.
Obama: Inside Man for the Greatest Heist in History
BAR executive editor Glen Ford
Black America and “progressives” lurched into self-imposed irrelevancy at precisely the time that finance capital was swallowing the American state whole. Barack Obama is the Great Facilitator of Wall Street’s desperate effort to loot itself out of oblivion. Disaster is certain if we remain without a movement that confronts both the banksters and Obama.
Glen Ford delivered the following remarks to a panel discussion of the Left Forum, at Pace University, New York City, on March 20. The discussion was titled, “Race and Recession: Will a Rising Tide Lift All Boats?
“What we have witnessed since the Fall of 2008, is the swallowing whole of the American state, by finance capital.”
The old, rich man’s slogan, “A rising tide lifts all boats” – that Obama now claims as his own – has been discredited from any number of angles. I’d like to add another layer of contempt.
The phrase takes for granted, as a truism, that you can count on the economic tides rolling in, and then rolling out again, like the ocean. The phrase takes for granted that this system, with its ups and downs, is as permanent as the tides. The implication is that we are simply in a deep downturn in the economy – a cyclical situation – that will inevitably, at some point, lead to an upturn, like the tide coming back in. So, when one says that “A rising tide lifts all boats,” in addition to promising the poor that something better will be coming to them with the next upturn in the cycle, you are also expressing confidence that this capitalist system is eternal – as permanent as the push and pull of the tides.
Full Story: Obama: Inside Man for the Greatest Heist in History | Black Agenda Report.
Students Saved by Loan Overhaul
What a landmark day in Congress. After years of the government subsidizing banks that give unfortunate interest rates and basically screw over young people we have finally won. Billions of dollars was spent to lobby members of Congress to stop this. Not surprisingly Republican members overwhelmingly refused to take the side of the people over the big banks with a unanimous vote of 56 to 43 in the Senate and 220 to 207 in the house.
According to the NYTimes
“Democrats have long denounced the program, saying it fattened the bottom line for banks at the expense of students and taxpayers.
“Why are we paying people to lend the government’s money and then the government guarantees the loan and the government takes back the loan?” said Representative George Miller, Democrat of California and chairman of the Education and Labor Committee.
Democrats celebrated the legislation, a centerpiece of President Obama’s education agenda, as a far-reaching overhaul of federal financial aid, providing a huge infusion of money to the Pell grant program and offering new help to lower-income graduates in getting out from under crushing student debt. Still, the final bill is less ambitious than the original proposal.”
The youth community rejoiced particularly those who work tirelessly to engage government about the overwhelming cost of higher education to young people who now graduate with over $22,000 in debt and into a job market with a nearly 20% youth unemployment rate.
Full Story: Students Saved by Loan Overhaul | Future Majority.
The F Word: The New York Times’ Bias Killed ACORN
Laura Flanders -
So, the New York Times finally ran a correction. But after six weeks of “considering” the errors in its own reporting, the so called paper of record’s correction of its misleading ACORN story, came way, way, WAY to late.
The Times’ correction ran the same day that the anti-poverty group ACORN called it quits, after a year under attack — and a day after the paper’s public editor wrote that yes indeed, the paper has “mistakenly reinforced falsehoods” from right wing activists against the group.
When activists released videos appearing to show ACORN workers offering advice to people posing as a pimp and a prostitute, the Times fell for an editing trick. The videos gave the impression that two activists were dressed in outlandish costumes when they visited ACORN offices. They weren’t. Video transcripts also contradicted what the video makers claimed, namely that ACORN staffers appeared to endorse talk of using underage girls as prostitutes.
Full Story: The F Word: The New York Times’ Bias Killed ACORN | The Smirking Chimp.
Netanyahu leaves U.S. disgraced, isolated and weaker
- Haaretz -
Details emerging from Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington remain incomplete, but the conclusion may nonetheless be drawn that the prime minister erred in choosing to fly to the United States this week. The visit – touted as a fence-mending effort, a bid to strengthen the tenuous ties between Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama – only highlighted the deep rift between the American and Israeli administrations.
The prime minister leaves America disgraced, isolated, and altogether weaker than when he came.
Instead of setting the diplomatic agenda, Netanyahu surrendered control over it. Instead of leaving the Palestinian issue aside and focusing on Iran, as he would like, Netanyahu now finds himself fighting for the legitimacy of Israeli control over East Jerusalem.
Full Story: Netanyahu leaves U.S. disgraced, isolated and weaker – Haaretz – Israel News.
FACT CHECK: Health Care Reform Will Not Move Military Health Care ‘To The Department That Handles Welfare’
This week, Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-CA) told KUSI in San Diego that one of the most offensive parts of the health care reform law is that it will move TRICARE, the health program covering servicemembers and their families, out of the Defense Department and “to the department that handles welfare.” He added that once members of the military find out, “all hell is going to break loose”:
BILBRAY: When the retired military finds out that their TRICARE has been moved out of the Department of Defense to the department that handles welfare — when you tell somebody that’s served this country in the military, that now their programs are going to be administered like welfare programs, rather than earned military benefits, all hell is going to break loose. I can’t wait for mom to hear that her TRICARE now is going to be administered by the welfare people.
Q: That’s just one of the things we keep finding out as we keep peeling the onion on this day after.
Watch it:
Frightening GOP Behavior
James Zogby: -
The idea that the minority party represents the “will of the people”… is the seedling of a totalitarian mindset.
Before dashing off to celebrate a hard fought victory in achieving health care reform, it is important to reflect on a deeply disturbing aspect of the debate that I believe spells danger ahead.
A Republican talking point repeated ad nauseam during yesterday’s debate pounded on the theme that they, and they alone, had the right to speak for “the will of the American people.” This took different forms: “the American people have spoken,” or “you (Democrats) are ignoring/imposing your views on the American people” or “the American people have sent a message,” etc. All making the same point — that the GOP speaks for the American people
…snip…
The idea that the minority party represents the “will of the people” (not some of the people, but “the people”) is the seedling of a totalitarian mindset. In this mindset — democracy doesn’t matter, ideas are not to be discussed, and opposing views are not to respected. What matters is that they alone have truth, they alone are metaphysically connected to the “mind of the people” can interpret their will, and because they have truth and speak for the people, others represent a threat and must be silenced and stopped.
Full Story: James Zogby: Frightening GOP Behavior.
Man who threw money at Parkinson’s patient calls behavior ‘shameful’
Health-care bill opponent says he snapped during confrontation at rally
The man protesting federal health-care legislation who berated and tossed dollar bills at a supporter with Parkinson’s disease last week says he is remorseful – and scared.
“I snapped, I absolutely snapped, and I can’t explain it any other way,” said Chris Reichert in a Dispatch interview.
In his first comments on an incident caught on video that went viral across the Internet and was played repeatedly on cable-television news shows, Reichert said he is sorry about his confrontation with Robert A. Letcher, 60, of Grandview Heights.
Full Story: Man who threw money at Parkinson’s patient calls behavior ‘shameful’ | Columbus Dispatch Politics.
OPS: Would he still think it was shameful if 10 million people were not witness to his act?
Trippi: Liberals would be threatening violence if health care had failed | Raw Story
Pelosi: GOP isn’t provoking threats
As concern about threats of violence targeting Democratic lawmakers increases, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has made it clear that she does not believe her Republican colleagues are to blame.
“I don’t subscribe that these acts sprang from any words of my colleagues,” Pelosi stated during a Thursday press conference as she called upon leaders of both parties “to clearly state this is inappropriate.”
The hosts of Fox & Friends had discussed those threats of violence earlier on Thursday, but had gone on to either minimize them or find ways to blame the Democrats.
Full Story: Trippi: Liberals would be threatening violence if health care had failed | Raw Story.
OPS: Pelosi MUST be replaced. She simply doesn’t have the ballz for this job.
Tata Nano EXPLODES In Mumbai, Automaker Confronts Safety Concerns Over $2,500 Car
Software engineer Satish Sawant, his wife and 5-year-old son escaped from the silver Tata Nano – which still bore a celebratory garland of marigolds on the front hood – before the tiny car was engulfed by fire.
A chauffeur initially was at the wheel, but Sawant said he had taken over driving before the fire broke out. Tata has offered Sawant a replacement Nano or a refund.
“My wife now doesn’t want to buy any car,” Sawant said by phone from his home in northern Mumbai on Thursday. “She doesn’t even want to go for a Mercedes.”
Full Story: Tata Nano EXPLODES In Mumbai, Automaker Confronts Safety Concerns Over $2,500 Car.
Apartment rents cheaper than stays in homeless shelters – USATODAY.com
Cities, states and the federal government pay more to provide the homeless with short-term shelter and services than what it would cost to rent permanent housing, the U.S. government reports.
A study of 9,000 families and individuals being released today by the Department of Housing and Urban Development finds that costs to house the newly homeless vary widely, depending on the type of shelter and social services provided by the six cities in the report.
Emergency shelter for families was the most costly. In Washington, D.C., the average bill for a month in an emergency shelter ranges from $2,500 to $3,700. In Houston, the average is $1,391.
Full Story: Apartment rents cheaper than stays in homeless shelters – USATODAY.com.
David Frum, AEI SPLIT: Conservative’s Position ‘Terminated’ By Major Think Tank
Former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum has resigned from the right-wing American Enterprise Institute, Frum announced on his Web site Thursday afternoon — a move which suggests the conservative movement has cut ties with Frum over the straight talk he has been providing all week.
[UPDATE: Frum tells Greg Sargent he and AEI parted ways over money, not ideology -- they offered him the chance to continue on at a salary of zero -- and that his criticisms of the Republican Party were "welcomed and celebrated" at the conservative think tank.]
Following the passage of health care reform in the House, Frum made waves with a column for CNN.com declaring that health care had proven to been “Waterloo” for the GOP, not for Obama as Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) infamously suggested. Republican lawmakers quickly dismissed Frum, a prominent reformist conservative, as a mere “former staffer.”
Full Story: David Frum, AEI SPLIT: Conservative’s Position ‘Terminated’ By Major Think Tank.
OPS: Here is the OpEd the Frum wrote for which he was terminated: Waterloo
Sen. Bob Corker ‘Abandoned’ By Gdership Over Bank Reform OutreachOP Lea
GOP Senator Bob Corker was emphatic on Wednesday that Republicans missed a big opportunity to influence what is perhaps the most ambitious financial reform bill to pass through the Senate since the Great Depression.
Republicans declined to offer any amendments during Monday’s scheduled mark-up of the bill, choosing instead to vote against sending the legislation to the Senate floor strictly along party lines. It passed out of the Senate Banking Committee with 13 Democrats in favor and 10 Republicans opposed.
Failing to reach a bipartisan deal in committee was “a very large strategic mistake,” the Tennessee senator told reporters after his speech before a U.S. Chamber of Commerce summit in Washington. Declining to offer amendments, and then passing the bill out of committee along party lines, “talks about how dysfunctional, how dysfunctional we have been as a committee and the Senate has been in addressing this issue,” Corker said in reference to financial reform.
Full Story: Sen. Bob Corker ‘Abandoned’ By GOP Leadership Over Bank Reform Outreach.
Georgia Attorney General Faces Impeachment Threat After Refusing To File Anti-Health Care Lawsuit
Georgia lawmakers reacted to Wednesday's news that their Attorney General, Democrat Thurbert Baker, would not sign on to a multi-state lawsuit to block the health care bill in his state by filing papers to have him impeached.
The blog Peach Pundit reports that the resolution to impeach Baker, also a candidate for Georgia governor, now has at least 30 signatures and is still going forward.
Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, a Republican, petitioned Baker to sign on to the joint lawsuit filed by more than a dozen attorneys general across the country earlier this week that seeks to shield states from the effects of the new health bill, including the so-called “individual mandate,” which forces most people to buy insurance.
Full Story: Georgia Attorney General Faces Impeachment Threat After Refusing To File Anti-Health Care Lawsuit.
Greenspan’s Explanation Of What Caused The Financial Crisis Is Garbage
Oh Please
James K. Galbraith: -
In 66 pages, Mr. Greenspan fails to use the word “responsibility” even once. The word “blame” does not appear. The word “mistake” occurs once; financial firms made them. The word “failure” appears 14 times. None of them are self-referential. To have expected the phrase “mea culpa” would of course be asking too much.
I agree with the Chairman on two points. The first is his defense of the Federal Reserve against the charge of having violated the Taylor Rule. One of the few things more insufferable than this paper is that formula. Mr. Greenspan effectively rebuts the idea that low interest rates per se caused the crisis.
The second good point lies against the “global savings glut” argument. As Mr. Greenspan says, “The main problem with that explanation is that there is no actual evidence of a global savings glut.”
Full Story: James K. Galbraith: Oh Please.
Fossilized Pinky May Point To New Human Relative : NPR
Anthropologists didn’t have much to work with on this paleontological puzzle — just a piece of a pinky finger discovered in a cave in the Altai Mountains of Siberia.
But what most surprised scientists at the Max Planck Institute in Germany was the DNA inside that finger — specifically, mitochondrial DNA, which is found in every human cell.
It’s rare to be able to isolate DNA that’s 40,000 years old, so when researcher Johannes Krause finally did, he called his boss, anthropologist Svante Paabo.
Full Story: Fossilized Pinky May Point To New Human Relative : NPR.
Kudlow: ‘The Chamber Of Commerce Is A Very Negative Force,’ ‘Absolutely Negative And Absolutely Wrong’
Since the passage of the Affordable Care Act, Wall Street reform has “vaulted to the top” of President Obama’s agenda. Standing in the way, however, is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has spent $3 million on an advertising campaign opposing an independent consumer protection agency and has pledged to spend $100 million to “defend the free market system.”
Yesterday, Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin ventured into the lion’s den to deliver a tough message. Speaking to the Chamber of Commerce, Wolin ripped the business lobbying group for launching a “lavish, aggressive and misleading campaign” against the consumer protection agency. Wolin proceeded to document instance after instance of the Chamber’s lies. (Read the speech here.)
Bruce Josten, executive vice president of the Chamber, later issued a statement accusing Wolin of “political grandstanding and distortion of facts.” But the Chamber is on the defensive, losing allies on the right. Last night, CNBC host Larry Kudlow, a prominent conservative proponent of trickle-down economics and a lover of all things Ronald Reagan, sided with the Obama administration in its attacks on the Chamber:
Periello Blasts GOP Leaders In Washington For Refusing To Completely Denounce Harassment Of Democrats
Democratic lawmakers are increasingly coming out and reporting incidents of harassment in response to their vote for health care reform. In addition to previously reported vandalism in Kansas, New York, Ohio, and Arizona — as well as disturbing threats surrounding Reps. Tom Periello (D-VA) and Bart Stupak (D-MI) — lawmakers have received images of nooses sent to their offices and had their personal information publicly distributed. At least 10 lawmakers have requested extra security after receiving death threats, and Rep. Phil Hare (D-IL) said that “he knows several Democrats who have told their spouses to move out of the home districts while the lawmakers are in Washington.”
The response from the GOP leadership in Washington has been disappointing. They have continued to incite their base with dangerous rhetoric — such as RNC Chairman Michael Steele this week saying that voters should “start getting Nancy ready for the firing line” — and shied away from outright condemnation of the harassment. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) said the violence and threats were “unacceptable,” but seemed to encourage the “anger” by telling people to put it into political campaigns: “I know there’s anger, but let’s take that anger and go out and register people to vote, go volunteer on a political campaign, and let’s do it the right way.”
Someone’s going to end up dead
I’ve been thinking and reading a lot about anger. Not just recently, but for a long time. One of the joys of studying history, I suppose. The current waves of anger and vitriol have me worried that we’re not going to see an end to it until someone–maybe a number of people–are dead. I’m not wishing it on anyone, but it seems to be where we are heading.
Late Tuesday, before the health care reform vote, there was a protest outside of Congresswoman Mary Jo Killroy’s office in Columbus. I’ll let the video below speak for itself (it’s a shorter version of the original posted on the Columbus Dispatch website).
Full Story: Scholars and Rogues » Someone’s going to end up dead.
The CIA and the Nazis – Declassified archives document ties between CIA and Nazis – Where Is Hitler?!
The US national archives released some 27,000 pages of secret records documenting the CIA’s Cold War relations with former German Nazi Party members and officials. The files reveal numerous cases of German Nazis, some clearly guilty of war crimes, receiving funds, weapons and employment from the CIA. They also demonstrate that US intelligence agencies deliberately refrained from disclosing information about the whereabouts of Adolf Eichmann in order to protect Washington’s allies in the post-war West German government headed by Christian Democratic leader Konrad Adenauer. Eichmann, who had sent millions to their deaths while coordinating the Nazis’ “final solution” campaign to exterminate European Jewry, went into hiding in Buenos Aires after the fall of the Third Reich.
Utilizing friendly contacts in the Catholic Church and the Peron government in Argentina, Eichmann was able to reside in the South American country for 10 years under the alias of Ricardo Klement. He was abducted in 1960 by Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, put on trial in Israel and executed in 1962.
The documents show that the CIA was in possession of Eichmann’s pseudonym two years before the Mossad raid. The CIA received this information in 1958 from the West German government, which learned of Eichmann’s alias in 1952. Both the CIA and the Bonn government chose not to disclose this information to Israel because they were concerned that Eichmann might reveal the identities of Nazi war criminals holding high office in the West German government, particularly Adenauer’s national security adviser Hans Globke.
Full Story: Make A History.
Addicted to Plastic: The Rise and Demise of a Modern Miracle
Eye-opening documentary that investigates what’s really known about plastic – the material of a thousand uses – and why there’s so much of it. This film tells of a worldwide waste and toxic legacy, and introduces the men and women dedicated to cleaning up the global mess caused by plastic. Filmed over three years in 12 countries on five continents, including two trips to the middle of the Pacific Ocean where plastic debris accumulates, this documentary looks at solutions to plastic pollution. Addicted To Plastic details plastic’s path over the last 100 years and includes expert interviews on practical and cutting edge solutions to recycling, toxicity and biodegradability. These solutions provide a hopeful perspective about our future with plastic.
The Right-Wingers Who Cried Wolf
Joe Conason -
Listening to right-wing talk radio on the day after Congress passed health care reform, Bill O’Reilly was stunned. To him, the hosts and the callers sounded “crazed” as they shrieked about “the end of the world, we’re socialist now, we have to take the country back.” Maybe the Fox News host hasn’t been listening, but there has been plenty of crazy in the air now for many months on his network and elsewhere on the airwaves.
Going too far for O’Reilly is going very far indeed, but the madness of the conservative reaction has yet to abate. His friend and colleague Glenn Beck declared that health care reform means “the end of prosperity in America forever … the end of America as you know it.”
Bill Hemmer, another Fox host who probably needs medication, has suggested that the legislation will send Americans who don’t have health insurance to prison. The Washington Times editorial page compared the bill to the Black Death, and The Drudge Report put up a headline suggesting that its passage is the equivalent of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Full Story: Joe Conason: The Right-Wingers Who Cried Wolf – Truthdig.
SEC Probing Two Hedge Funds – Report
The U.S. securities regulator is probing hedge funds Appaloosa Management LP and Carlson Capital LP for certain trades, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has scanned the trades made by Appaloosa, a $13 billion hedge fund, when Wells Fargo & Co agreed to buy Wachovia Corp in 2008, the Journal said citing people familiar with the matter.
Appaloosa is cooperating with the probe, the people told the paper.
Full Story: SEC Probing Two Hedge Funds – Report – NYTimes.com.
Forest loss slows, as China plants and Brazil preserves
The world’s net rate of forest loss has slowed markedly in the last decade, with less logging in the Amazon and China planting trees on a grand scale.
Yet forests continue to be lost at “an alarming rate” in some countries, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Its Global Forest Resources Assessment 2010 finds the loss of tree cover is most acute in Africa and South America.
But Australia also suffered huge losses because of the recent drought.
“It is good news,” said the report’s co-ordinator Mette Loyche Wilkie, a senior forestry office with FAO.
Full Story: BBC News – Forest loss slows, as China plants and Brazil preserves.
Thanks to Senator Franken, KBR caves
Remember Jamie Leigh Jones? She’s the woman that was gang raped in Iraq by a bunch of her KBR colleagues and subsequently locked in a container by her superiors after she reported the incident. When she got back to the States, she sued. KBR tried to enforce a binding arbitration clause in their employment contract, but lost in court when the judge ruled that being subjected to rape had nothing to do with her employment. KBR appealed to the Supreme Court. Until yesterday, that is… Yesterday, KBR dropped their appeal.
Why?
Three words: Senator Al Franken.
Full Story: Daily Kos: Thanks to Senator Franken, KBR caves.
U.S. investigators winding down inquiry of destroyed CIA tapes
An investigation into the destruction of CIA videotapes that depicted harsh interrogations of terrorism suspects appears to be nearing a close, ending a long inquiry in which authorities encountered a series of roadblocks in building a case.
Assistant U.S. Attorney John H. Durham, who is leading the investigation, recently bestowed immunity from prosecution on a CIA lawyer who reviewed the tapes years before they were destroyed to determine whether they diverged from written records about the interrogations, two sources familiar with the case said. That could signal that the case is reaching its final stages. Durham has been spotted at Justice Department headquarters in Washington over the past few weeks, in another signal that his work is intensifying.
The agency lawyer, John McPherson, could appear before a grand jury later this month or in April, according to the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation continues. CIA lawyers have been essential to understanding the episode because they offered advice to agency personnel about handling the tapes, and whether they should have been included when agency records were turned over in other court cases. McPherson is not thought to be under criminal jeopardy but had previously hesitated to testify, the sources said.
Full Story: U.S. investigators winding down inquiry of destroyed CIA tapes – washingtonpost.com.
Retirement Health Care: Average Couple Needs To Save $250,000
Relief to seniors facing high prescription drug costs is one of the first changes to come under the new health care overhaul. But ultimately that won’t offset the relentless increase in retirees’ medical expenses.
A couple retiring this year will need a quarter of a million dollars, on average, to cover medical expenses in retirement, according to a study to be released Thursday by Fidelity Investments.
The estimate is up 4.2 percent from Fidelity’s projection last year. The Boston-based financial services company has updated its estimate annually since 2002 as part of its business helping employers design workplace benefits programs.
Full Story: Retirement Health Care: Average Couple Needs To Save $250,000.
OPS: This figure seems very low. Will $250k get you through a couple of heart attacks – without having to sell your house also?
Experts: One-Third Of Breast Cancer Is Avoidable
Up to a third of breast cancer cases in Western countries could be avoided if women ate less and exercised more, researchers at a breast cancer conference said Thursday – comments that could ignite heated discussions among victims and advocates.
While better treatments, early diagnosis and mammogram screenings have dramatically slowed the disease, experts said the focus should now shift to changing behaviors like diet and physical activity.
“What can be achieved with screening has been achieved. We can’t do much more,” Carlo La Vecchia, head of epidemiology at the University of Milan, told The Associated Press. “It’s time to move onto other things.”
La Vecchia spoke Thursday on the influence of lifestyle factors at a European breast cancer conference in Barcelona.
Full Story: Experts: One-Third Of Breast Cancer Is Avoidable.
‘The Road From Ruin’:
Click image to buy now
Are We Naive Idiots For Thinking Business Can Be Anything But Greedy?
“Idiotic” is how one Amazon reviewer of “The Road From Ruin” describes our idea that values can be put back into capitalism. Happily that reviewer otherwise loves the book. Yet we were struck that so many Huffington Post readers who commented on our opening article were also skeptical that business could ever embrace doing good. Maybe Bishop and Green are not idiotic, you seemed to be saying, but they are certainly hopelessly naive and impractical if they seriously believe there is any prospect for redemption from within for the greedy capitalism that brought the economy to its knees.
Having spent a dozen years reporting on Wall Street (Matthew) and the same time working in government (Michael), we see ourselves more as skeptics than idealists. We don’t believe capitalism will ever be perfect, or that you can entirely drive out the dark side of human nature. But we can do a lot better than we have done so far. Here’s why we think long termism and values-based business — what we call philanthrocapitalism — can emerge as the new best way to do business, especially if the rest of us do our bit to push capitalism in the right direction.
The bottom line is, well, the bottom line. We don’t think businessmen will become saints but we do think that the crash of 2008 is proof-positive that the short-termist “greed is good” capitalism that dominated the past 30 years has failed — not just failed our society but failed its shareholders too. The obsessive pursuit of short-term profits and a higher share price tomorrow led capitalism badly astray. Business leaders and investors alike were seduced by the idea — known in academia as the “efficient market hypothesis” — that the current share price told you all you needed to know about the value of a company. As it turns out, it tells you very little, other than about the state of mind of investors. John Maynard Keynes had it right when he likened short-term investing in the stock market to betting on the result of a “beauty contest.” The skill needed to succeed in that is to be good at forecasting who other judges (investors) would find most beautiful — not to be a good judge of actual beauty.
Full Story: Matthew Bishop: ‘The Road From Ruin’: Are We Naive Idiots For Thinking Business Can Be Anything But Greedy?.
Citigroup Signs Up For Government’s Loan Modification Program
Citigroup is the latest lender to commit to the government’s program to modify second mortgages.
The program is part of the Obama administration’s $75 billion loan modification program aimed at helping customers stay in their homes. The second-mortgage modification program offers lenders who made “piggyback” loans – second mortgages that allowed consumers to make a small or no down payment – incentives to lower payments or eliminate the loans entirely.
The program could help relieve some drag in the housing market. Lenders who extend second mortgages – fearing they won’t be repaid – can veto a borrower’s efforts to modify their primary mortgage.
Full Story: Citigroup Signs Up For Government’s Loan Modification Program.
Byrd Rule To Send Health Care Back To House, Rules Parliamentarian
Senate Republicans succeeded early Thursday morning in finding two flaws in the House-passed health care reconciliation package. Neither is of any substance, but the Senate parliamentarian informed Democratic leaders that both are in violation of the Byrd Rule.
One is related to Pell Grants and the other makes small technical corrections. Why they’re in violation of the Byrd Rule doesn’t matter; the upshot is that Republicans will succeed in at least slightly altering the legislation, which means that the House is once again required to vote on it. With no substantial changes, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) should have little problem assembling the same coalition of 220 Democrats who passed the measure Sunday night. That’s already four more than the minimum 216 required for passage.
But the ruling might give Democrats another option — the public one.
Full Story: Byrd Rule To Send Health Care Back To House, Rules Parliamentarian.
Little improvement in 4th-graders’ reading skills
The national report card for reading by fourth-graders was flat for 2009 compared with 2007, leaving Education Secretary Arne Duncan unsatisfied with the trend.
“Today’s results once again show that achievement of American students isn’t growing fast enough,” Duncan said in a written statement.
Eighth-graders performed slightly better overall, scoring 1 point higher than they did on the test in 2007. The gains in this grade were predominantly with students performing at lower and middle levels. Scores for higher-performing students showed no significant change.
Full Story: Little improvement in 4th-graders’ reading skills – CNN.com.
Calif. voters to decide whether to legalize pot
California voters will decide whether to legalize recreational marijuana use for adults, after the secretary of state on Wednesday certified the initiative for the November ballot.
It would become the first state to legalize recreational marijuana use if the proposition is approved. Marijuana use is legal for medicinal purposes in California and 14 other states, but the drug is illegal under federal law.
Secretary of State Debra Bowen certified that the petitions seeking to place the question on the ballot had more than 433,971 valid voter signatures, the minimum number needed to qualify.
If approved, the initiative would allow those 21 years and older to possess up to one ounce of marijuana, enough to roll several marijuana cigarettes. Residents also could cultivate the plant in limited quantities.
Full Story: Calif. voters to decide whether to legalize pot | Top AP Stories | Chron.com – Houston Chronicle.
Facebook ‘linked to rise in syphilis’
Facebook has contributed to a resurgence in the sexually-transmitted disease syphilis, a health expert has claimed.
Case have increased fourfold in Sunderland, Durham and Teesside, the areas of Britain where Facebook is most popular.
Professor Peter Kelly, director of public health in Teesside, claimed staff had found a link between social networking sites and the spread of the bacteria, especially among young women.
Full Story: Facebook ‘linked to rise in syphilis’ – Telegraph.
-
Republicans Don't Care about Voter Fraud....owa Republicans are trying to dismiss claims that the vote count in Tuesday's Iowa Caucus was wrong. An Iowa voter told a local TV station yesterday that he noticed a 20-vote discrepancy in the count - and that Rick Santorum was the real winner of the Caucuses. Republican Party officials, though, are sticking to their first count - showing Mitt Romney as the winner by 8-votes - and there will be no recount.The Republican Party has launched a war on voters around the nation this year with strict new laws that will disenfranchise over 5 million Americans. They claim these laws are necessary to combat so-called voter fraud. Yet in Iowa - where there are no such laws - and where a very, very close and questionable election was just held - Republicans don't seem to care at all about getting it right.Clearly - the war on voters isn't about making sure the people's voices are represented accurately - it's about making sure poor people, young people, and minorities who tend to vote for Democrats - can't vote at all.-Thom(Who do you think won? Tell us here.) -
LEGALIZE Democracy
" We the corporations" On January 21, 2010, with its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons, entitled by the U.S. Constitution to buy elections and run our government. __________
MOVE to AMEND
a project of the CAMPAIGN TO LEGALIZE Democracy
Help end Corporate personhood
-
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. 
