Archive for April, 2010

Nelson (Fla.) calls for halt to offshore drilling

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) is calling on the Obama administration to halt plans for offshore drilling in the wake of a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Nelson is introducing legislation to prevent the expansion of drilling that Obama announced last month.

The Florida Democrat announced his plans in a letter to President Obama today.

“I am filing legislation that would for the time being prohibit the Interior Department from acting on your administration’s plans to expand offshore drilling, including seismic testing and other exploratory operations,” Nelson wrote.

Full Story: Nelson (Fla.) calls for halt to offshore drilling – The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room.

The second world economic crisis

The hedge funds are attacking the world.

Derivatives are the Cause of the World Depression of Our Time
Far from being some arcane or marginal activity, financial derivatives have come to represent the principal business of the financier oligarchy in Wall Street, the City of London, Frankfurt, and other money centers. A concerted effort has been made by politicians and the news media to hide and camouflage the central role played by derivative speculation in the economic disasters of recent years. Journalists and public relations types have done everything possible to avoid even mentioning derivatives, coining phrases like “toxic assets,” “exotic instruments,” and – most notably – “troubled assets,” as in Troubled Assets Relief Program or TARP, aka the monstrous $800 billion bailout of Wall Street speculators which was enacted in October 2008 with the support of Bush, Henry Paulson, John McCain, Sarah Palin, and the Obama Democrats.

Asset-Backed Securities
Derivatives can be defined as any financial paper which is based on other financial paper. In other words, they are financial instruments whose value depends upon or is derived from the value of other financial instruments. Any kind of securitization results in the creation of derivatives. If individual mortgages are wrapped up and packaged together as a mortgage-backed security (MBS), that is a derivative. Any asset-backed security (ABS), be it based on car loans, credit card debt, or anything else, also qualifies as a derivative.

More of this article: Here

Sanctimonious Deficit Hawks Target Social Safety Net

They come off as so reasonable, so high-minded, so balanced in their thinking.

They are the pillars of the Washington establishment, and they were everywhere you looked at Wednesday’s gala “Fiscal Summit” organized by corporate-takeover mogul Peter G. Peterson’s eponymous foundation. (C-SPAN has it all on video.)

Listen to them and they will tell you how troubled — how very, profoundly troubled — they are by the nation’s rising debt and dangerous fiscal path. They will tell you very self-righteously how you should be troubled, too. And they will tell you that, fortunately, they know — in fact, “everybody knows” — what is best for all of us.

Full Story: Sanctimonious Deficit Hawks Target Social Safety Net.

Supreme Court Cameras: Senate Judiciary Committee OKs Bills To Allow Broadcast From Courts

The Supreme Court would televise many of its public sessions and cameras would be permitted in lower federal courts, at a judge’s discretion, if the Senate Judiciary Committee has its way.

The committee sent three separate bills on court television coverage to the full Senate on Thursday by votes of 13-6, but there was no indication when – or whether – the Senate would debate them this year.

It’s not clear whether Congress can order the judicial branch of government to televise proceedings, but there are a number of U.S. laws that pertain to courts and judges.

Full Story: Supreme Court Cameras: Senate Judiciary Committee OKs Bills To Allow Broadcast From Courts.

Square Watermelon! Ending The Tyranny Of Round (PHOTOS)

- A company in Panama is hoping to join in a small niche market of the fruit export business: square watermelons.

The Panama Fruit Producer company has started “rounding up” the square fruit, sending its first shipment of 120 boxy melons to New York.

The company expects to produce about 3,000 of the molded melons this year, and will send them to the Netherlands and Germany as well.

Operations manager Gerardo Diaz said Wednesday that people are surprised at first because “it is not what they were expecting.”

“Later they ask if it is a genetic experiment,” he said.

Full Story: Square Watermelon! Ending The Tyranny Of Round (PHOTOS).

Steve Jobs Slams Adobe Flash As Unfit For iPhone

For iPhone users who’ve been wondering whether their devices will support Flash technology for Web video and games anytime soon, the answer is finally here, straight from Steve Jobs: No.

In a detailed offensive against the technology owned by Adobe Systems Inc., Apple’s CEO wrote Thursday that Flash has too many bugs, drains batteries too quickly and is too oriented to personal computers to work on the iPhone and iPad.

This is not the first time Jobs has publicly criticized Flash, but the statement was his clearest, most definitive – and longest – on the subject.

Full Story: Steve Jobs Slams Adobe Flash As Unfit For iPhone.

National ID Card Included In Democratic Immigration Bill

Democrats pushed forward on an immigration overhaul on Thursday evening with no Republican support, as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) continues to hold out, arguing that the divisive issue will make progress on climate change legislation impossible.

The Senate is also in the middle of debating Wall Street reform, which is expected to take up the next few weeks of floor time. Reid, however, said that the chamber would be able to handle the task. “We can do more than one thing at once,” he said.

The Democratic proposal includes increased money for border patrol and drug war agents, equipment, helicopters and unmanned drones. It would create a national ID — which is dubbed a “biometric social security card.” Though Democrats insist that it is not an ID card and can only be used for employment purposes.

Full Story: National ID Card Included In Democratic Immigration Bill.

Louisiana Oil Spill Gets Worse: New Leak Increases Estimated Spill By Five Times

MOUTH OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER — Faint fingers of oily sheen have reached the mouth of Mississippi River, the vanguard of a massive spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The slick is making its way toward a delicate environment of birds, marine life and some of the nation's richest seafood grounds.

By sunset Thursday, the oil had creeped into South Pass of the river and was lapping at the shoreline in long, thin lines.

Booms in place to protect grasslands and sandy beaches are being over topped by 5-foot waves of oily water in choppy seas.

Full Story: Louisiana Oil Spill Gets Worse: New Leak Increases Estimated Spill By Five Times.

SEC sends Goldman case to prosecutors

GOLDMAN PERP WALK?

The Securities and Exchange Commission has referred its investigation of Goldman Sachs to the Justice Department for possible criminal prosecution, less than two weeks after filing a civil securities fraud case against the firm, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Any probe by the Justice Department would be in a preliminary stage. No Goldman Sachs employees involved in the mortgage-related transactions that are the focus of the SEC case have been interviewed by Justice Department prosecutors or the FBI agents who often conduct probes on behalf of prosecutors, according to a source familiar with the matter. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

The Justice Department usually investigates high-profile cases of securities fraud, but the threshold from criminal prosecution is significantly higher than that of civil cases. The SEC only files civil cases.

Full Story: SEC sends Goldman case to prosecutors.

NASA mulls 28 potential ’search for life’ missions

US space agency NASA is pondering 28 potential missions focusing on finding life beyond Earth inside our solar system, a US researcher said Wednesday.

“Astrobiology and the search for life is really central to what we should be doing next in the exploration of the solar system,” Steve Squyres, a researcher at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, said in a telephone press briefing.

“We are looking for a total of 28 different missions…. They cover everything from Mercury landers to fly-by of objects in deep outer space of the solar system — and they are particularly relevant to looking for life,” he explained.

Full Story: NASA mulls 28 potential ’search for life’ missions | Raw Story.

Reagan admin ‘hyped Soviet failures into threats,’ documents show | Raw Story

In its efforts to keep Congress funding huge military budgets in the 1980s, the Reagan administration exaggerated the threat from the Soviet Union’s military projects, newly published documents show.

Documents posted online Thursday at the National Security Archives chronicle a Soviet physicist’s efforts to dispel claims about the USSR’s secretive weapons programs by bringing US officials to Russia to examine top-secret weapons sites.

Those tours, which took place around 1987, “showed that the Reagan administration had exaggerated Soviet capabilities and also that the Soviet military machine was not as technologically advanced as had been thought,” the National Security Archives stated in a press release.

Full Story: Reagan admin ‘hyped Soviet failures into threats,’ documents show | Raw Story.

Potential Noah hoax could make Christians look gullible

A group of Chinese and Turkish evangelical explorers said Monday they believe they may have found Noah’s Ark — four thousand metres up a mountain in Turkey.

However, the Christian Science Monitor reports that “a longtime ark-hunter” who is “a member of Noah’s Ark Search LLC” and has “gone on a number of expeditions to Mount Ararat” has “serious doubts.”

The team say they recovered wooden specimens from a structure on Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey that carbon dating proved was 4,800 years old, around the same time the ark is said to have been afloat.

Full Story: Ark hunter: Potential Noah hoax could make Christians look gullible | Raw Story.

Cantor Afraid To Say Whether He’s For Or Against AZ Immigration Law, Calls It ‘A False Choice’

Since Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) signed an over-reaching and radical anti-immigration bill into law last week, various conservative media figures, pundits, and former officials have spoken out against it. MSNBC host Joe Scarborough called it “un-American,” while Florida GOP Senate candidate Marco Rubio said he has “concerns.” However, Republican members of Congress have largely remained silent — with only a handful offering support, coming out against the law, or declining to pick one side or the other.

Yesterady on ABC News’ Top Line, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) chose the non-committal route. Top Line hosts Rick Klein and David Chalian asked Cantor where he stood on the law four times, but the Virginia Republican refused to go on record either way. At one point, Cantor tried to dismiss the questioning, calling it “a false choice,” without any real explanation as to why:

CHALIAN: How is that a false choice?!

Full Story: Think Progress » Cantor Afraid To Say Whether He’s For Or Against AZ Immigration Law, Calls It ‘A False Choice’.

Florida tries to ban sex with animals after failing to do so last year.

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports that Florida is trying to rectify the fact it “is one of only a dozen or so states that don’t have a law against having sex with animals.” Given the disturbing accounts of bestiality in Florida, the state senate is taking action. But, as Barbara Hijek notes, Florida has had difficulty getting the law passed:

The law was passed unanimously by the Senate this week. It would make it a first-degree misdemeanor to have sex with an animal, with a penalty of up to a year in jail.

The Senate had passed a similar bill last year, but it fizzled out before it came before the House. The House bill has a similar measure, but it awaits debate.

What is there to debate?

Full Story: Think Progress » Florida tries to ban sex with animals after failing to do so last year..

Are Prozac and Other Psychiatric Drugs Causing the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America?

An interview with investigative reporter Robert Whitaker, about the dramatic increase in mental illness disability and its surprising cause.

In 1987, prior to Prozac hitting the market and the current ubiquitous use of antidepressants and other psychiatric drugs, the U.S. mental illness disability rate was 1 in every 184 Americans, but by 2007 the mental illness disability rate had more than doubled to 1 in every 76 Americans. Robert Whitaker was curious as to what was causing this dramatic increase in mental illness disability. The answers are in his new book, Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America (Crown Publishers, April 2010).

Whitaker’s findings will create a problem for both Big Pharma and establishment psychiatry, but his credentials and his craftsmanship will make it difficult to marginalize him. Whitaker is the author of four books including Mad in America, about the mistreatment of the mentally ill. As a reporter for the Boston Globe, he won a George Polk Award for medical writing, a National Association of Science Writers Award for best magazine article, and was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize.

Bruce Levine: So mental illness disab

Full Story: Are Prozac and Other Psychiatric Drugs Causing the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America? | | AlterNet.

OPS: Getting closer to SOMA every day

The Prospects for Real Financial Reform Remain Remote

Teapot Tempest Over Goldman Sachs

Anyone who believes that Goldman Sachs is made up of coldhearted calculating machines, with scant room for any human emotion apart from avarice, should have been monitoring the firm’s most recent global videoconference. This is a quarterly event in which senior executives address the firm’s managing directors assembled at their various far-flung outposts around the planet. These are normally sober events, but this time, so I am reliably informed, Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein was given a standing ovation by the hundred or so executives – “reportedly a first time for such emotional release in the reptile cage” reports one close observer of Goldman culture.

The fact that Goldman stock was rising — the firm was worth an extra $549 million by day’s end — even as Blankfein and various underlings were being grilled by Carl Levin and others on their misdeeds indicates how little the bank has to fear from the people’s wrath, muffled as it is by the administration and congress. After all, the real threat of Blanche Lincoln’s killer provision on derivatives trading, lurking like a nuclear suitcase in the financial “reform” bill, is already rapidly going away.

Full Story: Andrew Cockburn: The Prospects for Real Financial Reform Remain Remote.

Legalize Pot? : Going for the Ballot in Washington

Sensible Washington heads petition drive:

Washington state initative to legalize pot

[California may not be the only place where legalization of marijuana is on the ballot this November. Our Vernell Pratt reports on a similar initiative in the state of Washington.]

SEATTLE — Washington state residents could be growing and smoking marijuana legally by this time next year if a statewide initiative wins approval in November.

On the heels of a legislative session that saw two legalization bills die in committee, an organization called Sensible Washington filed Initiative I-1068 in January. It removes state civil and criminal penalties for the cultivation, possession, sale, transportation, or use of marijuana by persons 18 years or older.

Full Story: The Rag Blog: Legalize Pot? : Going for the Ballot in Washington.

Real Wall Street Reform

Sen. Bernie Sanders Op-Ed:

Today, as a result of that uncontrollable greed, millions of Americans have lost their jobs, health care and homes and our country continues to struggle through a disastrous recession. Disgust at Wall Street is profound.

Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman and one of the architects of financial deregulation, recently testified to the effect that no one could have predicted the Wall Street collapse of 2008. Really?

As a member of the House Financial Services Committee, this is what I said on the floor of the House in 1999 as I voted against the Gramm-Leach-Bliley bank deregulation bill: “I believe this legislation, in its current form, will do more harm than good. It will lead to fewer banks and financial service providers; increased charges and fees for individual consumers and small businesses; diminished credit for rural America; and taxpayer exposure to potential loses should a financial conglomerate fail. It will lead to more mega-mergers; a small number of corporations dominating the financial service industry; and further concentration of economic power in our country.”

Frankly, it didn’t take a PhD in finance to come to this conclusion. If you lock a heroin addict in a room with heroin, you shouldn’t be shocked if he overdoses. If you give unlimited license to Wall Street speculators, whose only function is to make as much money as possible, you shouldn’t be surprised when the result is greed on steroids, reckless behavior and a disaster for ordinary people.

Full Story: Sanders Op-Ed: Real Wall Street Reform – Newsroom: U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (Vermont).

BBC News – Gulf of Mexico oil slick said to be five times bigger

The US Coast Guard says five times as much oil as previously thought could be leaking from a well beneath where a rig sank in the Gulf of Mexico last week.

Rear Admiral Mary Landry said 5,000 barrels (210,000 gallons) a day were now thought to be gushing into the sea 50 miles (80km) off Louisiana’s coast.

A third leak had also been discovered at the site, Adm Landry said.

One fire-fighting expert told the BBC the disaster might become the “biggest oil spill in the world”.

“Probably the only thing comparable to this is the Kuwait fires [following the Gulf War in 1991],” Mike Miller, head of Canadian oil well fire-fighting company Safety Boss, told BBC World Service.

“The Exxon Valdez [tanker disaster off Alaska in 1989] is going to pale [into insignificance] in comparison to this as it goes on.”

Full Story: BBC News – Gulf of Mexico oil slick said to be five times bigger.

Why Facts No Longer Matter

A recent PRWatch blog discussed how corporations are increasingly turning to cause marketing to get around people’s ability to tune out their daily deluge of advertising. Cause marketing, or “affinity marketing,” is a sophisticated PR strategy in which a corporation allies itself with a cause that evokes strong emotions in targeted consumers, like curing cancer, alleviating poverty, feeding the hungry, helping the environment or saving helpless animals. The relationship avails the company of a more effective way to grab the attention of their audience, by telling them compelling stories linked to the cause, for example tales of survival, loss, strength, good works, etc. Once the company gets your attention, it links its name and brands to the positive emotions generates by the cause. The company then leverages that emotion to get you to buy the stuff they’ve linked to the cause — and improve its corporate image.

Cause marketing works, which is why its use is spreading like wildfire. The operative word that the whole idea turns on is “emotion,” because the ability to manipulate people depends completely on generating an emotional connection that the company can exploit.

Full Story: Why Facts No Longer Matter « Wake-up Call.

Wall Street’s Meltdown Increased Wealth Concentration

The Great Recession, new research shows, has left wealth in the United States even more concentrated at America’s economic summit.

Average American households have been riding an economic roller coaster over the last quarter century. The stock market has boomed and collapsed. Housing has boomed and collapsed. The entire economy has boomed and collapsed.

Where has this wild ride left the typical American family? Back to square one. And then back some more. The typical American household, as of mid 2009, held less in real net worth — that’s assets minus debts, adjusted for inflation — than the typical U.S. household held back in 1983.

But the even bigger story may be the reason why. New York University economist Edward Wolff tells that story in a new analysis of the Federal Reserve’s latest household wealth data research just published by the Bard College Levy Economics Institute.

Full Story: Wall Street’s Meltdown Increased Wealth Concentration « COTO Report.

Experts call for hike in global water price

World Bank and OECD say water is a finite resource that must be valued at a higher price in order to repair old supply systems and build new ones

Major economies are pushing for substantial increases in the price of water around the world as concern mounts about dwindling supplies and rising population.

With official UN figures showing that 1 billion people lack access to clean drinking water and more than double that number do not have proper sanitation, increases in prices will be – and in some countries are already proving to be – hugely controversial.

However experts argue that as long as most countries provide huge subsidies for water it will not be possible to change the wasteful habits of consumers, farmers and industry, nor to raise the investment needed to repair old supply systems and build new ones. And price rises can be managed so that they do not penalise the poorest.

Full Story: Experts call for hike in global water price | Environment | guardian.co.uk.

Organic, small farmers fret over FDA regulation

Small farmers in California who have led a national movement away from industrial agriculture face a looming crackdown on food safety that they say is geared to big corporate farms and will make it harder for them to survive.

The small growers, many of whom grow dozens of different kinds of vegetables and fruits, say the inherent benefits of their size, and their sensitivity to extra costs, are being ignored.

They are fighting to carve out a sanctuary in legislation that would bring farmers under the strict purview of the Food and Drug Administration, an agency more familiar with pharmaceuticals than food and local farms.

Full Story: Organic, small farmers fret over FDA regulation.

A New Way to Power the Planet?

In February 2010 Silicon Valley start-up Bloom Energy debuted what it believed was a true revolution in the electricity industry. Its creators heralded the small, elegant energy “server” as a modern marvel the likes of which had never been seen before. The device is made of cheap materials, can both store and generate energy, and is allegedly more efficient and flexible than other output technologies.

The Bloom Energy Server, often called the “Bloom Box,” currently generates electricity from a natural gas source. The methane goes in, goes through a series of catalyzed chemical reactions, and electricity comes out. Because of its usage of natural gas, the energy server is not a stand-alone solution to human-induced climate change or pollution.

However, the portability of the energy source itself does increase efficiencies. Instead of producing gigawatts of power at a central location and transmitting that energy across a vast power grid, individual consumers could purchase a “bloom box” and make energy at home. Natural gas burns much cleaner than coal, it is also easier to extract, and it is less hazardous to employee safety. More importantly, the U.S. has vast domestic supplies of natural gas that could be tapped to feed any Bloom-induced spike in demand.

Full Story: A New Way to Power the Planet? | Economy In Crisis.

The WTO Now Controls Our Economy, Fate and Future

All our decisions regarding trade must be supervised and approved by this foreign undemocratic body – often to our detriment

All our decisions regarding trade must be supervised and approved by this foreign undemocratic body – often to our detriment. This is why we can no longer do what is in our best interest and are forced to concede to their demands. Most decisions made by the WTO are unjustifiably made to our detriment.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an undemocratic non-American organization run by the rich, for the rich. The bylaws of the organization supersede our own Constitution. They override, supervise and control all our international trade laws.

The U.S. Constitution states that all treaties made under the authority of the United States become supreme law of the land. However, our government backtracked and irresponsibly allowed the World Trade Organization to rule over us when they signed this treaty. Now we have no choice but to conform many of our laws, regulations and administrative procedures to the agreement.

Full Story: The WTO Now Controls Our Economy, Fate and Future | Economy In Crisis.

Indiana Jobs Shipped Overseas

Much like its Rust Belt brethren of Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit and many Midwestern cities, the city of Indianapolis, and the state of Indiana in general, is struggling with trade related job losses, which has only been exacerbated by the declining economy, according to the Indianapolis Star.

According to the paper, trade related job losses have occurred at 163 plants, warehouses and factories across the state. During the last deep recession, in the early 1980s, just 75 businesses closed their doors due to trade.

Those closing or downsizings resulted in the loss of some 50,000 jobs. Almost one in six unemployed Indianans are without a job due to trade related layoffs.

Full Story: Indiana Jobs Shipped Overseas | Economy In Crisis.

Financial ‘Reform’ Dodges Big Lessons

As congressional partisans wrangle over financial reform, neither side is grappling with a fundamental lesson learned from an investigation into the causes of the financial crisis.

A recent Senate inquiry offered a rare peek into the secret world of bank examiners. What it revealed was that regulators had stopped regulating.

In the case of Washington Mutual, regulators found all sorts of trouble, from lax lending standards to high delinquency rates on loans, and yet failed to prevent the biggest bank failure in history.

Starting in 2003, examiners for the Office of Thrift Supervision found 545 problems at the bank. But the agency left it up to WaMu to track its own compliance with examiners’ recommendations, and took no formal action against the bank until it was too late.

Full Story: Financial ‘Reform’ Dodges Big Lessons.

Congress Demands Pentagon Cut Waste

The House went after Pentagon waste Wednesday, saying improvements in how the Defense Department buys equipment and services can save taxpayers billions of dollars every year.

In legislation passed 417-3, lawmakers demanded that the federal government’s biggest buyer do a better job in ensuring that it pays proper prices and gets what it pays for.

“For many years, we’ve witnessed waste in the Department of Defense’s acquisition system spiral out of control, placing a heavy burden on both American taxpayers and on our men and women in uniform,” said House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton, D-Mo.

Full Story: Congress Demands Pentagon Cut Waste.

Ice On Asteroid Suggests Earth’s Water Came From Space

Scientists have found lots of life-essential water – frozen as ice – in an unexpected place in our solar system: an asteroid between Mars and Jupiter.

The discovery of significant asteroid ice has several consequences. It could help explain where early Earth first got its water. It makes asteroids more attractive to explore, dovetailing with President Barack Obama’s announcement earlier this month that astronauts should visit an asteroid. And it even muddies the definition between comets and asteroids, potentially triggering a Pluto-like scientific spat over what to call these solar system bodies.

This asteroid has an extensive but thin frosty coating. It is likely replenished by an extensive reservoir of frozen water deep inside rock once thought to be dry and desolate, scientists report in two studies in Thursday’s issue of the journal Nature.

Full Story: Ice On Asteroid Suggests Earth’s Water Came From Space.

Drone Pilots Could Be Tried for ‘War Crimes,’ Law Prof Says

The pilots waging America’s undeclared drone war in Pakistan could be liable to criminal prosecution for “war crimes,” a prominent law professor told a Congressional panel Wednesday.

Harold Koh, the State Department’s top legal adviser, outlined the administration’s legal case for the robotic attacks last month. Now, some legal experts are taking turns to punch holes in Koh’s argument.

It’s part of an ongoing legal debate about the CIA and U.S. military’s lethal drone operations, which have escalated in recent months — and which have received some technological upgrades. Critics of the program, including the American Civil Liberties Union, have argued that the campaign amounts to a program of targeted killing that may violate the laws of war.

In a hearing Wednesday before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform’s national security and foreign affairs panel, several professors of national security law seemed open to that argument. But there are still plenty of caveats, and the risks to U.S. drone operators are at this point theoretical: Unless a judge in, say, Pakistan, wanted to issue a warrant, it doesn’t seem likely. But that’s just one of the possible legal hazards of robotic warfare.

Full Story: Drone Pilots Could Be Tried for ‘War Crimes,’ Law Prof Says | Danger Room | Wired.com.

Brazilian priest on pedophilia charge

BRAZILIAN authorities overnight charged a 74-year-old Catholic priest with pedophilia after eight children in his church choir accused him of sexual abuse.

Father Jose Afonso De is being prosecuted for allegedly assaulting children aged 12 to 16, Sao Paulo state’s public prosecutor’s office said.

He has denied the allegations but has been suspended by his diocese.

The indictment adds another smear to the Catholic Church’s reputation worldwide as it struggles with a series of pedophile accusations against its priests in the Americas and Europe.

Full Story: Brazilian priest on pedophilia charge | News.com.au.

Critics Say Deficit Commission Is Too Secretive

President Obama’s deficit commission is supposed to be helping establish some sort of national consensus on how to keep the nation’s debt manageable in the future. It’s not supposed to be cutting secret backroom deals.

But there are concerns from both the left and right that it’s not operating in a sufficiently transparent manner.

Sixteen progressive members of Congress, concerned that the commission could mount a stealth attack on critically important social programs, are demanding that the panel operate in the open and not keep its findings secret until after the November elections.

The commission held its first full meeting in public view on Tuesday.

Full Story: Critics Say Deficit Commission Is Too Secretive.

Bishop Thomas Tobin Yanks Rhode Island Hospitals From Health Reform Group

A Roman Catholic bishop in Rhode Island has withdrawn two hospitals sponsored by his diocese from membership in a Catholic hospital group that supports health care reform.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops opposed reform because of fears it would allow public funding of abortion. The Catholic Health Association supported the bill.

The Diocese of Providence on Wednesday released a letter written March 29 by Bishop Thomas Tobin to Sister Carol Keehan, who leads the association.

Tobin says the group’s support provided an excuse for members of Congress to pass health care reform and caused a scandal.

Full Story: Bishop Thomas Tobin Yanks Rhode Island Hospitals From Health Reform Group.

Financial Reform Moves Forward

Democrats Threatened To Force Votes ‘All Night Long’..    Who Blinked?

Republicans abandoned their blockade against legislation to clamp tough new controls on Wall Street Wednesday, clearing a road to likely passage for the most sweeping rewrite of financial rules since the Great Depression.

Democrats and Republicans agree the Senate will ultimately pass landmark changes aimed at preventing a recurrence of the crisis that knocked the nation's financial system to its knees in 2008, but the battle now begins over crucial details. The House has already passed its version.

Democrats said the Republicans had given in after three days of votes to block debate, realizing they were on the losing end of a battle for public opinion. GOP lawmakers said they would now switch to trying to change the bill on the Senate floor.

Full Story: Financial Reform Moves Forward.

Laura Bush blames car and ’small’ stop sign for alleged ex-boyfriend’s death

According to New York Times writer Anahad O’Connor, former First Lady Laura Bush “has finally opened up publicly about the mysterious car accident she had when she was 17, a crash that claimed the life of a high school friend on a dark country road in Midland, Tex.”

In her new book, “Spoken From the Heart,” Mrs. Bush describes in vivid detail the circumstances surrounding the crash, which has haunted her for most of her adult life and which became the subject of questions and speculation when it was revealed during her husband’s first presidential run. A copy of the book, scheduled for release in early May, was obtained by The New York Times at a bookstore.

RAW STORY was unable to find an advance copy, so it’s premature to conclude that the account isn’t so “vivid”, however, there are curious details left out of the New York Times write-up regarding the crash.

“On a November night in 1963, Mrs. Bush and a girlfriend were hurrying to a drive-in theater when Mrs. Bush, at the wheel of her father’s Chevy Impala, ran a stop sign on a small road and smashed into a car being driven by Mike Douglas, a star athlete and popular student at her school,” O’Connor writes.

Full Story: Laura Bush blames car and ’small’ stop sign for alleged ex-boyfriend’s death | Raw Story.

ACLU to Obama: ‘Entire world is not a war zone’

Targeted killings program could lead to ‘foreign governments hunting and killing their enemies within our borders’

The American Civil Liberties Union has sent a strongly-worded letter to President Barack Obama, asking him to end an alleged program that allows ‘targeted killings’ of terror suspects outside of war zones.

In the letter (PDF), the civil liberties group argues that the alleged program — which, according to news reports, is now targeting at least one US citizen — is unlawful and unconstitutional, and could set a dangerous precedent leading to foreign governments killing people on US soil.

Full Story: ACLU to Obama: ‘Entire world is not a war zone’ | Raw Story.

Tancredo’s Conspiracy Theory: Obama Hides His Birth Certificate To Stir Up The Right And Make Us Look Crazy

During a speech in 2008, Michelle Obama mentioned her husband’s famous trip to Kenya in 2006 and referred to it as his “home country,” most likely referring to the fact that he has immediate ancestral ties there. Video of the comment recently surfaced on YouTube, sending the far-right birther movement into a frenzy.

Referring to the comments, former GOP congressman and anti-immigrant crusader Tom Tancredo told a Tea Party audience, “If his wife says Kenya is his homeland, why don’t we just send him back?” Fox News’ Alan Colmes asked Tancredo about his statement on Colmes’ radio show yesterday. “Do you think he was born there?” Colmes asked. “I have no idea, believe me I have no idea,” Tancredo said, adding that whether or not he was born there, “I do not believe Barack Obama loves the same America that I do” because he wants to turn the U.S. into “a socialist system.” Tancredo then placed himself firmly in the birther camp:

COLMES: Do you really believe – you know he was born in Hawaii right?

TANCREDO: I have absolutely no idea where he was born.

COLMES: You’ve seen he was born in Hawaii; he was in two Hawaiian newspapers within two days of his birth.

TANCREDO: Anybody can put an article in a newspaper. Just show me your birth certificate!

Full Story: Think Progress » Tancredo’s Conspiracy Theory: Obama Hides His Birth Certificate To Stir Up The Right And Make Us Look Crazy.

Robert Scheer: ‘God, What a Piece of Crap’

Robert Scheer

Q & A – Live Chat with Robert Scheer

Send your questions now or during the event, and join us live April 29, 2010 at 11:30 am PT for the discussion.

It was the Perry Mason moment in the unraveling of what was left of Goldman Sachs’ reputation. Only in this case, it involved a grizzled former prosecutor, Sen. Carl Levin, rather than a genial defense attorney. The case was broken and the truth about the depth of Goldman’s corruption revealed in his startling cross-examination of Goldman Chief Financial Officer David Viniar.

The Michigan Democrat, citing the language of the internal e-mails of Goldman traders concerning the deceptive products they were selling, asked: “And when you heard that your own employees in these e-mails are looking at these deals said `God what a shitty deal. God, what a piece of crap,’ when you hear your own employees and read about those e-mails, do you feel anything?”

Viniar’s answer told us all we need to know about the banal but profound immorality of Goldman’s business culture: “I think that’s very unfortunate to have on e-mail.”

Full Story: Robert Scheer: ‘God, What a Piece of Crap’ – Robert Scheer’s Columns – Truthdig.

Salazar approves Cape Wind

America’s “energy future” has trumped the most cherished sacred site of the People of the Dawn – the indigenous Wampanoags who welcomed the first European settler colonists to Turtle Island.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has approved the Cape Wind project, a controversial wind power factory in Nantucket Sound, despite objections from the Wampanoag nations, who consider the area sacred and from environmentalists and federal historic preservation agencies who fear the project will devastate the Sound’s rich biodiversity, and impact dozens of significant traditional, cultural, historic and archaeological properties.

“After careful consideration of all the concerns expressed during the lengthy review and consultation process and thorough analyses of the many factors involved, I find that the public benefits weigh in favor of approving the Cape Wind project at the Horseshoe Shoal location,” Salazar said in an announcement at the State House in Boston accompanied by Massachusetts Gov. Duval Patrick, a strong supporter of the project.

Full Story: Salazar approves Cape Wind | Indian Country Today | Content.

Glenn Beck has lost 1/3 of its TV audience since January

Should we blame it on the Massa Moment?

Will that Hindenburg performance soon be seen as the turning point for Glenn Beck: the pivotal moment when the Fox News show began to permanently leak viewers?

Who can forget the March day that will live in cable news infamy, when Beck invited embattled Democratic Congressman Eric Massa onto his show, for an entire hour, to blow the whistle on Democratic Party corruption? Or so Beck thought. Instead, Massa went on and on about tickle fights, and Beck became a laughing stock — the butt of endless Geraldo-opens-Al-Capone’s-vault jokes.

Prior to the Massa Moment, Glenn Beck was averaging 2.6 million viewers each week, and the show was still flying high. And in the short term, the wildly hyped Massa episode produced ratings gold, generating 3.4 million viewers that night, thank you very much. Long-term though, the effects have proven to be disastrous.

Full Story: Glenn Beck has lost 1/3 of its TV audience since January | Media Matters for America.

Palin on Goldman

Matt Taibbi -

One, called Hudson Mezzanine, was put together in the fall of 2006 expressly as a way to create more short positions for Goldman, the subcommittee claims. The $2 billion deal was one of the first for which Goldman sales staff began to face dubious clients, according to former Goldman employees.

“Here we are selling this, but we think the market is going the other way,” a former Goldman salesman told The New York Times in December.

via Goldman Said to Have Been in Other Mortgage Deals – NYTimes.com.

So today is the big day. Lloyd “God’s Work” Blankfein and Fabrice “Fabulous Fab” Tourre are going to be dragged before the Senate and formally introduced to America via the medium of a hearing of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

It’s hard to get a read on just exactly what this is all about. I hear conflicting things. On the one hand, one always has to keep in mind that Congress has a history of dragging current news-cycle villains into their arena to get video-whipped for purely political reasons — think the Mark-McGwire-weeping steroid hearings. And certainly the impending vote on the Financial Regulatory Reform bill is an important and very obviously related subplot to the Goldman investigation. So politically there are all sorts of reasons for the Senate to do this now.

Full Story: Palin on Goldman – Matt Taibbi – Taibblog – True/Slant.

A GOOD BANKING REFORM HAS GONE BAD

Jim Hightower -

They roll into Washington from the West, the North, the South – good ideas to make our national policies better, to make our economy fairer, to improve our nation. And these good ideas – still sparkling with freshness and common sense – are delivered into the welcoming arms of our members of Congress, who with great fanfare and promise, carry them into the majestic Capitol building, the sanctuary of our democracy.

But then, lobbyists appear from out of the shadows to whisper to lawmakers and slip checks into their pockets. Time passes, and the fresh ideas show signs of wilting. Next, they moved into closed committee rooms where they get dissected by members representing special interests. Then – with Republicans sourly opposing anything fresh and good, and with Democrats timorously trying to appease sour Republicans – the ideas are taken down into a dark, secret chamber for “negotiations.”

From there, the good idea emerges as a bill. Only – Ohmygod, don’t look! – it’s been turned inside out, stuffed, and twisted into a bad idea. Republicans, who forced this grotesque gut job, spit on their own creation and walk away, but Democrats say they need to pass something, so they pass the bad idea, and call it progress.

Full Story: Jim Hightower | A GOOD BANKING REFORM HAS GONE BAD.

Swiftboating Finance Reform

Robert Reich -

Republicans are blocking a Senate vote on the Dodd bill, seeking to build public support by misleading the public. They’re claiming to want a stronger bill when in fact they’re doing the Street’s bidding by seeking a weaker one.

Evidence of their tactics comes in the form of a shady anti-financial reform group called “Stop Too Big To Fail” which today announced a new TV advertising push in three key states. The ad features an out-of-context quote from me to bolster its case to kill financial reform.

As TPMmuckraker has reported, Stop Too Big To Fail is the project of a veteran astroturf operation called Consumers for Competitive Choice, and it’s using the services of an ad agency that worked with the Swift Boat Vets For Truth in 2004. TPMmuckraker says the group has already spent $1.6 million on anti-reform ads and won’t say who’s funding the group’s efforts.

Full Story: Robert Reich (Swiftboating Finance Reform).

House and Senate Ramming Through Secret Bill Add-Ons to Block Supplements

ACT NOW TO CONTACT YOUR REPRESENTATIVES TO STOP THIS

Natural Health News has been covering CODEX now for more than a decade. For KEY information on this issue check our posts here from 2005 and the main resources on this concern, Alliance for Natural Health (ANH) and IAHF

Congressman Waxman Slips Obscure Anti-Supplement Measure into Wall St. “Reform” Bill Passed by the House; Please Take Action to Prevent Same Thing Happening in the Senate!

Posted By ANH-USA On April 27, 2010 @ 6:34 pm In Attacks on Integrative Medicine, Food Safety, The Dietary Supplement Health & Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA)

[1]The American public is becoming fed up with “sneak” provisions tacked onto largely unrelated bills that are likely to pass. A glaring recent example was tacking onto the Healthcare bill a complete change to student loans. Often the “sneak” provision is so buried that hardly anyone is aware of it.

Full Story: Natural Health News: House and Senate Ramming Through Secret Bill Add-Ons to Block Supplements.

Exposing the Christian Right’s New Racial Playbook

A diversity summit at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University reveals that the religious right’s survival depends on the black and the brown.

NOTE: A reel of video highlights of the Freedom Federation Summit, filmed and compiled by Sarah Posner, appears at the end of this article.

“When God has drawn a line of distinction, we should not attempt to cross that line. The true Negro does not want integration.”

That was the assertion made by a young Rev. Jerry Falwell in a sermon he preached at his Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia, 1958, four years after the Supreme Court struck down school segregation in Brown v. Board of Education. But at a gathering of the religious right earlier this month at the late preacher’s Lynchburg compound, integration was not only the topic of the day, but touted as the future of the conservative Christian movement.

Full Story: Exposing the Christian Right’s New Racial Playbook | News & Politics | AlterNet.

Obama Sticks to a Deadline in Iraq – NYTimes.com

When President Obama approved a plan to withdraw combat forces from Iraq this summer, it was based on the assumption that a newly elected government would be in place by the time Americans headed home. Fourteen months later, that assumption is exploding but the plan remains the same.

The delay and messy aftermath of the Iraqi election mean it may be months before the next government is formed, even as tens of thousands of American troops pack to leave. Yet Mr. Obama has not had a meeting on Iraq with his full national security team in months, and the White House insists that it has no plans to revisit the withdrawal timetable.

The situation presents a test for Mr. Obama’s vow to end the war, perhaps the most defining promise he made when he ran for president. While Mr. Obama has proved flexible about other campaign promises and deadlines, his plan to pull out combat forces by August and the remaining 50,000 trainers and advisers by December 2011 has been the most inviolate of policies.

Full Story: News Analysis – Obama Sticks to a Deadline in Iraq – NYTimes.com.

Goldman executives: ‘No regrets’ for deals that accelerated crisis | McClatchy

Goldman Sachs traders who helped the firm rack up billions of dollars in profits from secret bets against the housing market told a Senate investigating panel Tuesday that they’d done nothing wrong.

Among the four present and former traders was Fabrice Tourre, the 31-year-old Goldman vice president accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission on April 16 of fraudulently helping a Goldman client rig an offshore deal that cost two European banks $1 billion.

“I am saddened and humbled by what happened in the market,” said Tourre, a Frenchman who took time off last week from his London-based job. “But I believe my actions were proper.”

Full Story: Goldman executives: ‘No regrets’ for deals that accelerated crisis | McClatchy.

Chile Catholic church hit by abuse claims, bomb

Chile’s Roman Catholic Church was shaken by a series of dramatic televised interviews of men alleging they were abused by a respected former priest, followed hours later by a bombing that damaged a church’s facade.

Four men detailed their claims – which also are the subject of police and church investigations – on a state channel Monday night. Now adults, they said the alleged abuse by Father Fernando Karadima began about 20 years ago when they were between 14 and 17 years old, in his residence at the Sacred Heart of Jesus church in an elegant neighborhood of Santiago.

Dr. James Hamilton, now a surgeon, said between sobs that the abuse began with an act of masturbation when he joined the priest’s Catholic youth group and continued for years.

Full Story: News from The Associated Press.

Official: Salazar to Make Wind Farm Ruling in Mass

U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has made his choice about whether to approve the nation’s first offshore wind farm, off Cape Cod, and will make the announcement Wednesday in Boston with Gov. Deval Patrick, a supporter of the project, a Massachusetts Statehouse official confirmed Tuesday.

Salazar plans to brief the governor and other officials Wednesday before making his decision public at a Statehouse news conference, the official said. The official spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak ahead of the announcement.

If Salazar approves, the decision on the controversial Cape Wind project would clear the way for a 130-turbine wind farm in Nantucket Sound.

The plan to announce the decision with Patrick bodes well for advocates of Cape Wind, as the governor has been a supporter of the project. It also comes as Salazar’s boss and Patrick’s good friend, President Barack Obama, makes a two-day, three-state Midwestern trip, focusing on his economic and clean energy programs as job creators. On Tuesday, the president toured an Iowa company that makes blades for wind turbines.

Full Story: Official: Salazar to Make Wind Farm Ruling in Mass – ABC News.

Brazil plans an armed force of 500,000

Brazil is on course to have a standing army of half a million men and women as part of its military regeneration program that includes commissioning a nuclear-powered submarine.

Plans for increasing the country’s voluntary force from about 300,000 at present to 500,000 are being pursued as part of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s vision of Brazil asserting its presence as an influential regional power.

Lula has set sights on implementing the program before he hands over power to a new head of state, possibly his hand-picked candidate Dilma Rousseff, after the Oct. 3 general election.

Full Story: Brazil plans an armed force of 500,000.

Deficit reduction: argument by authority

| Dean Baker -

History gives the public serious grounds for being suspicious about the latest efforts to cut social security and Medicare

The deficit hawks are going into high gear with their drive to cut social security and Medicare. President Obama’s deficit commission is having a big public event on Tuesday in which many of the country’s most prominent deficit hawks will tout the need to reduce the budget deficit. The next day, Wall Street investment banker Peter Peterson will be hosting a “summit on fiscal responsibility”, which will feature more luminaries touting the need to get deficits under control.

What will be missing from both of these events is any serious debate on the extent of the deficit problem and its causes. These affairs are not about promoting a real exchange of views on issues like the future of social security, Medicare, and public support for education, research and infrastructure, the purpose of these events is to tell the public that everyone agrees, we have to cut the deficit. And, this means cutting social security and Medicare. This is argument by authority.

Many public debates in the United States take this form. The issue is not what is said, but rather who says it. A few years ago all the authorities said that there was no housing bubble. The large body of evidence showing that house prices had hugely diverged from the fundamentals did not matter when the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, the president’s Council of Economic Advisers and other leading lights of the economic profession insisted that everything in the housing market was just fine.

Full Story: Deficit reduction: argument by authority | Dean Baker | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

War propaganda from Afghanistan

- Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com -

The New York Times yesterday excitedly declared that the imminent Battle of Kandahar “has become the make-or-break offensive of the eight-and-half-year [Afghanistan] war” and is “the pivotal test of President Obama’s Afghanistan strategy.” As Atrios suggests, there never is any such thing as “make-or-break” because we never leave no matter how completely our war and occupation efforts fail. That’s what led to the countless Friedman Units of the Iraq War: the endless proclamations that The Next Six Months will be Decisive, only to be repeated at the end of the six-month period of failure as though the prior one never happened.

Just consider what’s being said now about how the Kandahar offensive is the “make-or-break” battle of the war and the “pivotal test” for Obama’s war strategy by comparing it to what was said a mere two months ago about the now clearly failing assault on Marjah:

Full Story: War propaganda from Afghanistan – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.

Greece’s Credit Rating Cut To Junk Status As Europe’s Debt Crises Worsens

Greece was pushed to the brink of a financial abyss and started dragging another eurozone country – Portugal – down with it Tuesday, fueling fears of a continent-wide debt meltdown.

Stocks around the world tanked when ratings agency Standard & Poor’s downgraded Greek bonds to junk status and downgraded Portugese bonds two notches, showing investors that Greece’s financial contagion is spreading.

Major European exchanges fell more than 2.5 percent, and on Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average finished down more than 200 points. The euro slid more than 1 percent to nearly an eight-month low.

Full Story: Greece’s Credit Rating Cut To Junk Status As Europe’s Debt Crises Worsens.

Is The Foolproof Law Degree Becoming An Endangered Species?

What if law school is no longer as lucrative as it used to be? And what if procuring funding to obtain a juris doctorate is akin to taking out a subprime loan?

Law firms are cutting salaries and hiring fewer graduates, reports Ameet Sachdev in the Chicago Tribune, which means that a law degree may not be a foolproof way to get a high-paying job after graduation. In addition, ongoing tuition hikes on already-overpriced law school degrees make the prospect of unemployment (and loan repayment) after graduation even more dire. Sachdev writes:

With large numbers of unemployed or underemployed lawyers who borrowed heavily to pay for their educations, legal educators face growing skepticism about the value of a law degree.

Full Story: Is The Foolproof Law Degree Becoming An Endangered Species?.

RNC Census Mailer Spurs Mail Fraud Report

The Nebraska Democratic Party filed a mail fraud report against the Republican National Committee on Monday for sending out deceiving mailers that appear to be a “Census Document.” A member of Congress has also confirmed that the U.S. Postal Service was investigating the matter.

In a letter (pdf) sent to the Postal Inspection Service on Monday, Victor Covalt III, a bankruptcy lawyer and Nebraska Democratic Party official accused the RNC of “attempting to wrongfully trade off and profit from the 2010 Census.”

He also charged the Committee with violating a recently-passed law, by not including “an accurate return address including the name of the entity that sent such matter,” in its deceptive mailers.

Full Story: RNC Census Mailer Spurs Mail Fraud Report.

Loch Ness Monster Files Show Scottish Cops Were Worried

What lurks beneath the dark waters of Scotland’s Loch Ness? Newly released documents on display Tuesday in Scotland show that during the 1930s, police in Scotland were convinced some sort of creature inhabited the Highlands lake – so sure, in fact, that they worried about how to protect it from big-game hunters.

The files from the National Archive of Scotland show that local officials asked Britain’s Parliament to investigate the issue and confirm the monster’s existence – in the interests of science.

“That there is some strange creature in Loch Ness now seems beyond doubt,” wrote William Fraser, a senior police officer, “but that the police have any power to protect it is very doubtful.”

Full Story: Loch Ness Monster Files Show Scottish Cops Were Worried.

Older Jobseekers Face An Uphill Climb

“I had one head-hunter tell me that I will never again find a full-time job,”

Since Eamonn Coughlan, 57, was laid off from his job managing a Jaguar dealership over two years ago, he has sent out over 2,000 resumés but still hasn’t landed a job. He is convinced that his age is to blame for his inability to get back into the workforce.

“I had one head-hunter tell me that I will never again find a full-time job,” Coughlan said. “She was very pleasant about it. She said they’re looking for someone 30 or 35 that they think will work for another 20 years. They look at you and think you’ll work for another 7 or 8 years, and that’s it. Depressing is hardly the word.”

Coughlan, who has over 25 years of management experience, said he rarely gets called for an interview but when he does, he is immediately written off because of his age.

Full Story: Older Jobseekers Face An Uphill Climb.

Felix Salmon: Despite Reform Efforts, ‘Big Banks Have Enough Lobbying Power To Continue Taking Big Risks’ (VIDEO)

Felix Salmon, Reuters’ widely influential blogger, sat down with Huffington Post’s Ryan McCarthy at the Milken Institute’s Global Conference, to talk about the SEC’s case against Goldman Sachs and the future of the U.S. financial system.

(Check out Salmon’s blog here.)

The SEC’s civil fraud charges against Goldman Sachs wouldn’t have surprised anyone they had been filed against Bear Stearns or Merrill Lynch, Salmon observed. But the “noble bank of Robert Rubin,” he said, has shocked the public, and revealed Goldman to be no different than the “other traders on Wall Street who are just out to make a quick buck.”

Full Story: Felix Salmon: Despite Reform Efforts, ‘Big Banks Have Enough Lobbying Power To Continue Taking Big Risks’ (VIDEO).

Magnetic refuge found on moon

A mini magnetic field has been detected on the surface of the moon

A miniature magnetic field has been imaged on the surface of the moon, making it a rare, minimally protective lunar refuge from some aspects of the harsh solar wind.

The magnetic region could be a great place to site a lunar base, since tomorrow’s lunar colonists will not only need water (check!), but some protection from the heavy radiation in the solar wind.

“You can think of it as kind of a mini umbrella,” said Martin Wieser of the Swedish Institute of Space Physics in Kiruna, Sweden. “It will be effective for certain kinds of (space) weather.

Full Story: Magnetic refuge found on moon – Discovery.com- msnbc.com.

Gulf of Mexico spill may hit coast this weekend

A giant oil slick from a deadly offshore drilling rig explosion could hit the fragile U.S. Gulf Coast shoreline this weekend as the White House and Congress launched separate probes into the worst offshore incident in nearly a decade.

The leaking well, 5,000 feet under the ocean surface off Louisiana’s coast, has created an oil sheen and emulsified crude slick with a circumference of about 600 miles, covering about 28,600 square miles (74,070 sq. km), the Coast Guard said on Tuesday. That’s slightly bigger than the U.S. state of West Virginia.

Swiss-based Transocean Ltd’s Deepwater Horizon sank on April 22, two days after it exploded and caught fire while finishing a well for BP Plc about 40 miles southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River.

The Coast Guard is using eight underwater robots to try to activate a cutoff valve on the ocean floor to stop the oil flow. The Coast Guard is also weighing a plan to set the oil ablaze where it is bubbling to the surface above the well in an attempt to arrest the spread, starting as soon as Wednesday.

Full Story: Gulf of Mexico spill may hit coast this weekend | Reuters.

‘Consumers Aren’t Ready for GM Crops’: Food Companies Say No to Genetically Modified Potatoes

Some of Germany’s leading food companies have indicated that they won’t be using genetically modified potatoes any time soon, according to a recent survey. Several fear use of the GM crops in their products could damage their public images.

Public pressure has led several of the largest potato chip and french fry manufacturers within Germany to say they would shy away from using genetically modified (GM) potatoes — even if they get approved for human consumption.

According to the results of a survey released this month by the German branch of the environmental organization Greenpeace, a number of snacks and fast food giants including Burger King, McDonald’s, German seafood chain Nordsee and chipmaker Lorenz Snack-World have all said they would not use GM potatoes — at least for the time being. A number said they feared their companies’ public images would be damaged, and some said use of GM potatoes would drive up quality control costs.

Full Story: ‘Consumers Aren’t Ready for GM Crops’: Food Companies Say No to Genetically Modified Potatoes – SPIEGEL ONLINE – News – International.

Why Aren’t Tea Partiers Protesting Arizona’s Big Government Overreach On Immigration?

Tea Party activists go out of their way to insist that they’re not partisan, racist, or filled with hate; they’re just patriots who want to stop a “socialist” government machine from controlling their daily lives.

The new immigration law in Arizona should be ripe for the Tea Parties to take up. SB-1070 is the “broadest and strictest immigration measure in generations,” giving police unprecedented power to detain anyone they suspect of being an undocumented immigrant and making “the failure to carry immigration documents a crime.” Even traditionally far-right figures like former Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee have worried that the law might lead to racial profiling abuses by the government.

But as the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson notes, this Tea Party support hasn’t materialized:

Full Story: Think Progress » Why Aren’t Tea Partiers Protesting Arizona’s Big Government Overreach On Immigration?.

Former Goldman executive can’t say whether bank should have sold what it knew was a ‘shi**y deal.’

Today, a group of current and former Goldman Sachs employees are testifying before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations regarding whether or not the investment bank misled investors by selling assets that it knew were junk and was actively betting against. One of these assets, known as Timberwolf, was a collateralized debt obligation that allowed investors to bet on subprime mortgages. According to emails obtained by the committee, Goldman executives acknowledged that Timberwolf “was one shi**y deal,” but the firm continued to sell the asset to investors. The subcommittee’s chairman, Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), grilled former Goldman executive Dan Sparks for selling Timberwolf as a “top priority,” even after the “shi**y deal” email was written. Sparks repeatedly refused to answer the question, leading Levin to say that “if you can’t give a clear answer to that one, Mr. Sparks, I don’t think we’re going to get too many clear answers from you.” Watch it:

Full Story: Think Progress » Former Goldman executive can’t say whether bank should have sold what it knew was a ‘shi**y deal.’.

Virginia gun lobby pushes for right to drink alcohol while carrying a gun in public.

Earlier this month, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) signed legislation allowing “concealed carry permit holders to bring loaded handguns” into establishments that serve alcohol. The law allows permit holders to carry guns in restaurants, “as long as the holders do not consume alcohol.” A leading Virginia gun lobby is now arguing that the law unfairly stigmatizes gun carriers as second-class citizens because there is an exception that “allows law-enforcement officers and commonwealth’s attorneys to carry concealed weapons and consume alcohol.” Philip Van Cleave, leader of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, complained, “We’re not allowed to drink, but they (law enforcement officials) can. … That’s two classes of citizens.” But Van Cleave has a solution:

Van Cleave said one proposed bill would allow no one but an on-duty officer doing undercover work to drink alcohol while carrying a concealed weapon. The other bill will say that anyone can carry a concealed gun and drink if they wish, “as long as they are not drunk.

Full Story: Think Progress » Virginia gun lobby pushes for right to drink alcohol while carrying a gun in public..

Republican Party Coordinated With Wisconsin Attorney General’s Office On Health Care Repeal Lawsuit

As ThinkProgress has documented, numerous Republican state attorneys general have engaged in frivolous lawsuits based on the theory that the recently-passed health care law is unconstitutional and thus should be repealed. While many of these officials are either up for re-election or running for higher office, they maintain that their lawsuit is not politically motivated but is instead based on a “purely legal constitutional argument.”

Yet today, the progressive organization One Wisconsin Now revealed that it has obtained an e-mail showing a “direct line” of communication between the office of Wisconsin Attorney General JB Van Hollen (R) and the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC), indicating that the two jointly coordinated the state’s health care lawsuit.

One Wisconsin Now’s press release explains that the e-mail exchange, which occurred just days before Van Hollen filed his health care lawsuit, shows that Wisconsin Deputy Attorney General Raymond Taffora solicited information from the RSLC’s Political Director relating to filing a health care lawsuit. The RSLC responded by suggesting that the Wisconsin’s Attorney General office talk to South Carolina Deputy Attorney General Bryan Stirling (R), who is also CC’d in the e-mail:

Full Story: Think Progress » Republican Party Coordinated With Wisconsin Attorney General’s Office On Health Care Repeal Lawsuit.

Lawmakers blast RNC for continuing to send deceptive ‘Census’ mailers, despite new law.

Earlier this month, President Obama signed legislation that passed both the House and Senate unanimously to outlaw “deceptive” mailings disguised to look like official Census documents. Congress took up the measure after Republican National Committee (RNC) Chair Michael Steele sent fundraising mailers marked with the words “census document,” and “DO NOT DESTROY OFFICIAL DOCUMENT.” But despite the new law, a number of news outlets report the RNC is continuing the send “virtually identical” phony Census forms:

An RNC mailer obtained by TPMmuckraker bears the words “Census Document” and, in all caps, “DO NOT DESTROY/OFFICIAL DOCUMENT,” on the outside of the envelope. In smaller letters, it says: “This is not a U.S. government document.” The new law requires, among other things, that such mailers state the name and address of the sender on the outside of the envelope — something the RNC’s missive doesn’t appear to do. Inside, a letter from RNC chair Michael Steele, dated April 12, asks recipients to fill out a questionnaire about their political views, and solicits donations of as much as $500 or more.

Full Story: Think Progress » Lawmakers blast RNC for continuing to send deceptive ‘Census’ mailers, despite new law..

Book’s Astounding Allegation: Chernobyl Radiation Killed Nearly One Million People | Environment | AlterNet

Emissions from this one reactor exceeded a hundred-fold the radioactive contamination of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki according to a new book.

Nearly one million people around the world died from exposure to radiation released by the 1986 nuclear disaster at the Chernobyl reactor, finds a new book from the New York Academy of Sciences published today on the 24th anniversary of the meltdown at the Soviet facility.

The book, “Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment,” was compiled by authors Alexey Yablokov of the Center for Russian Environmental Policy in Moscow, and Vassily Nesterenko and Alexey Nesterenko of the Institute of Radiation Safety, in Minsk, Belarus.

The authors examined more than 5,000 published articles and studies, most written in Slavic languages and never before available in English.

Full Story: Book’s Astounding Allegation: Chernobyl Radiation Killed Nearly One Million People | Environment | AlterNet.

Sanders, Feingold, DeMint & Brownback Oppose Dodd, Support “Audit the Fed”

Ryan Grim reports that a bipartisan group of Senators is backing an amendment that will restore the Grayson-Paul “audit the fed” language to the Senate Financial Reform bill after Chris Dodd gutted it.

An amendment by Bernie Sanders would restore the teeth of the Paul-Grayson language, and he’s joined by Republicans John McCain (Ariz.), Jim DeMint (S.C.), David Vitter (La.) and Sam Brownback (Kan.), as well as Russ Feingold and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.).

“The group is actively gathering cosponsors as the Senate continues to vote to break a GOP filibuster which is preventing debate from beginning,” writes Grim.

Full Story: Sanders, Feingold, DeMint & Brownback Oppose Dodd, Support “Audit the Fed” | FDL Action.

Tony Blair very close to being indicted for War Crimes

While on a speaking engagement in Malaysia organized by “Success Resources Company”, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was the object of an articulate protest movement demanding his indictment for war crimes.

This was no ordinary protest. Tony Blair has been accused of war crimes in a legal initiative led by the country’s former Prime Minister, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad.

A War Crimes Tribunal as well as a War Crimes Commission were set up integrated by renowned jurists. Documentary evidence of war crimes committed by Blair and Bush has been carefully compiled and collected since 2006. The prosecution is led by several of Malaysia’s most prominent lawyers.

Dr Mahathir in a public statement “expressed disgust at the companies that had sponsored Blair’s visit here. ‘How can you sponsor and get advice from a liar? Do you also intend to lie in carrying out your business?’ he asked.” (‘Thousands Of Slippers To ‘Greet’ Tony Blair In Malaysia’, April 24, 2010)

Full Story: Tony Blair very close to being indicted for War Crimes — Signs of the Times News.

Goldman’s White House connections raise eyebrows

While Goldman Sachs’ lawyers negotiated with the Securities and Exchange Commission over potentially explosive civil fraud charges, Goldman’s chief executive visited the White House at least four times.

White House logs show that Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein traveled to Washington for at least two events with President Barack Obama, whose 2008 presidential campaign received $994,795 in donations from Goldman’s employees and their relatives. He also met twice with Obama’s top economic adviser, Larry Summers.

No evidence has surfaced to suggest that Blankfein or any other Goldman executive raised the SEC case with the president or his aides. SEC Chairwoman Mary Schapiro said in a statement Wednesday that the SEC doesn’t coordinate enforcement actions with the White House or other political bodies.

Full Story: Goldman’s White House connections raise eyebrows | McClatchy.

FOREIGN CORPORATIONS IN OUR ELECTIONS?

Jim Hightower -

Having decreed that Corporations have a free speech “right ” to spend unlimited sums from their massive corporate treasuries to elect or defeat candidates in our elections, the Supreme Court’s five-man corporatist majority has opened a colossal can of worms. One of those worrisome squigglies is this question: Does the Court’s newly-fabricated political right extend to foreign corporations?

In their ruling, the answer from the five judicial monkeywrenchers was… silence. How sly. With no explicit ban to rule out foreign corporate money, the justices have implicitly ruled it in. After all, argue apologists for this constitutional l perversion, a corporation is a corporation, and its official domicile is irrelevant in determining its political rights.

So, not only have the Supremes magically endowed all inanimate corporate things with the human ability to speak, but they’ve also granted corporate “persons” more speech than actual people-people have. Start with the fact that the Court’s ruling equates our freedom of speech with the freedom to spend money – a plutocratic contortion of democracy that gives the most speech to those with the most money. American corporations alone have trillions of dollars they can draw from to shout down the voices of us mere humans.

Full Story: Jim Hightower | FOREIGN CORPORATIONS IN OUR ELECTIONS?.

The New Secessionists

Chris Hedges

Acts of rebellion which promote moral and political change must be nonviolent. And one of the most potent nonviolent alternatives in the country, which defies the corporate state and calls for an end to imperial wars, is the secessionist movement bubbling up in some two dozen states including Vermont, Texas, Alaska and Hawaii.

These movements do not always embrace liberal values. Most of the groups in the South champion a “neo-Confederacy” and are often exclusively male and white. Secessionists, who call for statewide referendums to secede, do not advocate the use of force. It is unclear, however, if some will turn to force if the federal structure ever denies them independence.

These groups at least grasp that the old divisions between liberals and conservatives are obsolete and meaningless. They understand that corporations have carried out a coup d’état. They recognize that our permanent war economy and costly and futile imperial wars are unsustainable and they demand that we take popular action to prevent citizens from being further impoverished and robbed by Wall Street speculators and corporations.

Full Story: Chris Hedges: The New Secessionists – Chris Hedges’ Columns – Truthdig.

Washington Times Publisher Jonathan Slevin OUSTED

The president and publisher of conservative newspaper The Washington Times has been ousted after a clash with the editor.

Politico’s Patrick Gavin reported that Slevin would step down on Friday, a claim the newspaper initially denied; it has since confirmed that Slevin’s contract will expire at the end of the month and will not be renewed.

“I can now confirm that Jonathan Slevin’s contract with the Washington Times will be allowed to expire effective April 30, and that the Times is actively seeking a replacement,” TWT spokesman Don Meyer told Gavin Sunday.

In Slevin’s memo announcing his departure, he took several shots at the newspaper’s board and its new editor, Sam Dealey, who he blames for leaking the news of his exit.

Full Story: Washington Times Publisher Jonathan Slevin OUSTED.

Your Jeans Pollute: Denim Industry Clouds The Pearl River Delta (VIDEO)

Everyone wears jeans, but it’s not every day we think about what it takes to make that pretty blue color. Walking along the shore of the Pearl River Delta in China, CNN’s Emily Chang comes across piles of trash, many of which contain scraps of blue denim.

The Pearl River Delta is at the center of much of China’s manufacturing industry. Its banks are lined with thousands of factories that produce huge amounts of waste, much of which gets funneled into the delta, Chang reported from Guangzhou. And as the blue jean capital of the world, a large number of the wastewater pollution comes from the production of the beloved blue textile. Shockingly, the manager of the plant claims he doesn’t know where the wastewater goes. The satellite images of the water stained blue are particularly disturbing.

Full Story: Your Jeans Pollute: Denim Industry Clouds The Pearl River Delta (VIDEO).

Goldman Sachs Emails: Firm Traded Against Clients, Profited Off Their Losses, And Spread ‘Poison Throughout System’

Goldman Sachs put its own interests ahead of its clients in trying to profit off the souring housing market of 2007, documents released Monday show.

The firm, which had profited handsomely off packaging and selling securitized subprime home mortgages to investors during the housing boom, switched directions in early 2007, furiously shedding its home mortgage-linked risk and buying as much insurance as it could, effectively shorting the market throughout the year — a move that netted the firm “billions and billions” at the expense of its clients, according to the documents released by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

“Goldman Sachs made billions of dollars from betting against the housing market, and it placed those bets in some cases at the same time it was selling mortgage-related securities to its clients,” said the committee’s chairman, Carl Levin (D-Mich.). “They have a lot to answer for.”

Goldman says it always puts its clients’ interest first. It’s a position the firm has stuck by as Levin’s investigation has produced emails and internal documents apparently showing otherwise.

“Our clients’ interests always come first,” Goldman says on its website.

Full Story: Goldman Sachs Emails: Firm Traded Against Clients, Profited Off Their Losses, And Spread ‘Poison Throughout System’.

Deep Horizon Oil Well Gushing 42,000 Gallons Into Gulf Of Mexico Per Day

Coast Guard crews raced to protect the Gulf of Mexico coastline Monday as a remote sub tried to shut off an underwater oil well that’s gushing 42,000 gallons a day from the site of a wrecked drilling platform.

If crews cannot stop the leak quickly, they might need to drill another well to redirect the oil, a laborious process that could take weeks while oil washes up along a broad stretch of shore, from the white-sand beaches of Florida’s Panhandle to the swamps of Louisiana. The oil spill already stretches across more than 1,800 square miles of water in the Gulf Of Mexico, according to the Coast Guard.

The oil is escaping from two leaks in a drilling pipe about 5,000 feet below the surface. The leaks threaten hundreds of miles of coastline in four states, with waters that are home to dolphins, sea birds, and prime fishing and tourism areas.

Full Story: Deep Horizon Oil Well Gushing 42,000 Gallons Into Gulf Of Mexico Per Day.

God-Based AA Program Harms Alcoholics

Did you know that the Alcoholics Anonymous twelve-step program, which has God as the foundation of its program, doesn’t work? Not only doesn’t it work, but many scientific studies have shown pretty clearly that it does more harm than good! What’s more, it appears that the religious component of the AA program is the culprit.

I was quite frankly shocked when I heard this. While I’m not religious, I have always admired AA members for their dedication and selfless efforts to help one another. I’ve had close friends and family members who were alcoholics, and wished they could find the strength to acknowledge their disease and go to AA for help.

But no more. After reading this damning article, which refers to dozens of scientific studies including several sponsored by AA board members and advocates, I now see AA for what it is: another faith-based folly that continues because of faith, not reason. In study after study, scientists, sociologists and doctors find that AA is worse that getting no help at all.

Full Story: The Religion Virus: Christian Shocker: God-Based AA Program Harms Alcoholics.

90,000 Protest U.S. Base on Okinawa

More than 90,000 Okinawans rallied Sunday to oppose the relocation of an American air base on their island, adding to the pressure on Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama to resolve an issue that has divided Tokyo and Washington.

The demonstrators, in one of the largest protests on Okinawa in years, demanded that Mr. Hatoyama scrap a 2006 agreement with the United States to move the Futenma Marine Corps Air Station to a different site on the island. Many of the protesters wore yellow to signal they were giving Mr. Hatoyama a warning for appearing to waver on election promises to move the busy base off Okinawa altogether.

Since his party’s landmark election victory last summer, Mr. Hatoyama has promised to come up with an alternative plan that would reduce the heavy American presence on the southern Japanese island, home to nearly half of the 50,000 United States military personnel in Japan. He has given himself until the end of May to put together such a plan that would also be acceptable to Washington.

Full Story: 90,000 Protest U.S. Base on Okinawa – NYTimes.com.

Wal-Mart Must Face Suit Over Women’s Pay : NPR

A sharply divided federal appeals court on Monday exposed Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to billions of dollars in legal damages when it ruled a massive class action lawsuit alleging gender discrimination over pay for female workers can go to trial.

In its 6-5 ruling, the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco said the world's largest private employer will have to face charges that it pays women less than men for the same jobs and that female employees receive fewer promotions and have to wait longer for those promotions than male counterparts.

The retailer, based in Bentonville, Ark., has fiercely fought the lawsuit since it was first filed by six women in federal court in San Francisco in 2001, losing two previous rulings in the trial court and again in the appeals court in 2007.

Full Story: Court: Wal-Mart Must Face Suit Over Women’s Pay : NPR.

Brazil health minister prescribes more sex

Sex and dancing could help remedy high blood pressure, official urges

Brazil’s health minister has a remedy for the nation’s high-blood-pressure problem: More sex.

Minister Jose Temporao says adults should be exercising more to help keep their blood pressure down — and he says a good cardiovascular workout includes sex, “always with protection, obviously.”

Temporao also recommends dancing, a healthy diet and regular blood-pressure checks.

Full Story: Brazil health minister prescribes more sex – Sexual health- msnbc.com.

Congratulations Comcast; You’re The Worst Company In America! – The Consumerist

After four rounds of bloody battle against some of the most publicly reviled businesses in America, Comcast can now run up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and hold its hands high in victory — it has bested everyone else to earn the title of Worst Company In America for 2010.

In a three-day, knock-down, drag-out bout with Ticket “Apollo Creed” Master, the little cable company that could showed just how badly their horrendous service, exorbitant costs, throttled internet and plans to acquire NBC Universal have ticked the Consumerist readers.

All that remains is for the Golden Poo to be delivered to Comcast HQ in the City of Brotherly Love. We fully expect them to set it in a place of honor in the lobby, where all guests can see it.

Full Story: Congratulations Comcast; You’re The Worst Company In America! – The Consumerist.

Wow, that’s saying Something!

Grassley Takes Credit For Medicare Provisions In Health Care Law That He Opposed

Last month, Sen. Chuck Grassy (R-IA) — a vocal opponent of the new health care law — issued a press release taking credit for some provisions in the new health care law. “The health care legislation signed into law yesterday includes provisions Grassley co-authored to impose standards for the tax exemption of charitable hospitals for the first time,” the release boasted. “The provisions enacted in the new health care law are the result of Grassley’s leadership on tax-exempt organizations’ accountability and transparency, including hospitals.”

Now, Grassley’s office has issued another release, highlighting how the new law would help Medicare beneficiaries in rural Iowa:

Full Story: Think Progress » Grassley Takes Credit For Medicare Provisions In Health Care Law That He Opposed.

McConnell’s Faulty Logic: A Cloture Vote To Begin Senate Debate Actually Means A Vote To End It

Time and again, Republicans have urged Democrats to “slow down” and “start over” in the course of pursuing their agenda. In his role as chief obstructionist, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has used “his extensive knowledge of Senate procedure to slow things down” and has forged unity among his caucus to filibuster the Democrats’ agenda. Today, McConnell will once again try to stop reform.

At 5 pm today, the Senate will hold a cloture vote on a Democratic plan to overhaul regulation of Wall Street. If the Democrats can muster the 60 votes needed to end a Republican filibuster, it would begin a process of commencing a 30 hour debate, filing amendments, and ultimately holding a vote.

This past Sunday, McConnell pledged that his caucus would hang together to filibuster the vote. On the Senate floor earlier today, McConnell offered a backwards-logic explanation for the GOP’s obstruction:

Full Story: Think Progress » McConnell’s Faulty Logic: A Cloture Vote To Begin Senate Debate Actually Means A Vote To End It.

Mining lobbyist: ‘The president has parked his tanks on our front lawn.’

This weekend, as President Barack Obama traveled to West Virginia to mourn the deaths of 29 miners in the Massey coal explosion, the mining industry attacked the president with militant right-wing rhetoric. Obama has supported the U.S. coal industry with an agenda of investing “huge subsidies” in the advanced coal technology that he misleadingly calls “clean coal.” His administration has begun to crack down on the industry’s worst safety violators and most egregious practices like mountaintop removal, but has also announced that any limits on carbon pollution would not begin until 2011. The day before Obama praised coal as “the energy that powers our country and powers the world,” National Mining Association spokesman Luke Popovich attacked the president as a military invader of coal country:

You’d be hard pressed to find a president whose actions have been more warlike on coal. There are those who say the president has parked his tanks on our front lawn, and it’s hard to dispute that.

Full Story: Think Progress » Mining lobbyist: ‘The president has parked his tanks on our front lawn.’.

City Of San Francisco Moves To Join Growing Boycott Of Arizona Over New Anti-Immigration Law

On Friday, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) signed a draconian immigration bill that has been slammed by both Democrats and Republicans, and is likely illegal. Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) has been calling for a boycott of his own state, urging, “Do not do business with a state that is propagating the idea separate but equal treatment under the law can be codified.”

Now, the “nation’s biggest Spanish-language newspaper” La Opinion has joined the effort, calling for “a boycott of all goods and services from Arizona and [a] pledge to avoid tourism in the state as well.” “Let’s send a signal of our disgust with an arrogant state government that asserts powers it does not have in order to persecute a minority population,” the paper editorialized.

Indeed, a growing number of travelers have said they will avoid the state because of the new law, prompting New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to say, “We’re happy to have those businesses and tourists come here.” The state has already lost the business of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, which decided “moments after” Brewer signed the law to move their upcoming conference from Arizona to another state.

Full Story: Think Progress » City Of San Francisco Moves To Join Growing Boycott Of Arizona Over New Anti-Immigration Law.

A Growing Consensus: Tea Partiers Are Just Militant, Sore Loser Republicans

At a speaking gig last week for the Manufacturers’ Association of South Central Pennsylvania, Newt Gingrich predicted that the tea party movement would eventually morph into the “militant wing of the Republican Party,” rather than spinning itself off into a third party.

A few tea party types have taken umbrage at Gingrich’s use of the word “militant,” but there has been scant complaint so far about his describing them as Republicans. This is potentially significant, because not so long ago tea partiers would have loudly denied they were aligned with the GOP or any party.

Gingrich’s statement reflects a growing consensus that tea partiers’ assertions of independence may no longer be true, if in fact they ever were. The consensus is based in part on a series of polls of self-described tea partiers — here, here, here and here — that has confirmed the obvious: Tea baggers are conservatives with strong Republican leanings, including an abiding adoration of George W. Bush.

Full Story: Pensito Review » A Growing Consensus: Tea Partiers Are Just Militant, Sore Loser Republicans.

Behind the Arizona Immigration Law: GOP Game to Swipe the November Election

Our investigation in Arizona discovered the real intent of the show-me-your-papers law.

by Greg Palast

[Phoenix, AZ.] Don’t be fooled. The way the media plays the story, it was a wave of racist, anti-immigrant hysteria that moved Arizona Republicans to pass a sick little law, signed last week, requiring every person in the state to carry papers proving they are US citizens.

I don’t buy it. Anti-Hispanic hysteria has always been as much a part of Arizona as the Saguaro cactus and excessive air-conditioning.

What’s new here is not the politicians’ fear of a xenophobic “Teabag” uprising.

What moved GOP Governor Jan Brewer to sign the Soviet-style show-me-your-papers law is the exploding number of legal Hispanics, US citizens all, who are daring to vote — and daring to vote Democratic by more than two-to-one. Unless this demographic locomotive is halted, Arizona Republicans know their party will soon be electoral toast. Or, if you like, tortillas.

Full Story: Greg Palast » Behind the Arizona Immigration Law:GOP Game to Swipe the November Election.

Sanders: Big Banks Breakup Critical to Financial Reform

The following is a press release from Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

As the Senate considers new rules for the nation’s financial institutions, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said today that breaking up big banks is critical to meaningful reform.

“One of the major components of any serious Wall Street reform has got to be breaking up the largest financial institutions in the country. The time has come to do exactly what Teddy Roosevelt did back in the trust-busting days and break up these huge financial institutions,” Sanders said.

Sanders said the giant financial institutions must be dismantled not only to protect taxpayers from future bailouts, but because the concentration of ownership in the financial sector is leading to fewer choices, higher bank fees, and higher credit card interest rates.

Full Story: Sanders: Big Banks Breakup Critical to Financial Reform | BuzzFlash.org.

: GM Crops Go to US High Court, Environmental Laws on the Line

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments Tuesday in its first-ever case involving genetically modified crops. The decision in this case may have a significant impact on both the future of genetically modified foods and government oversight of that and other environmental issues.

The case, Monsanto Co. v. Geertson Seed Farms, revolves around an herbicide-resistant alfalfa, the planting of which has been banned in the U.S. since a federal court prohibited the multinational Monsanto from selling the seeds in 2007.

That decision found that the U.S. Department of Agriculture did not do a thorough enough study of the impacts the GM alfalfa would have on human health and the environment and ordered the agency to do another environmental impact statement (EIS) review.

Full Story: : GM Crops Go to US High Court, Environmental Laws on the Line.

Scientist says Arctic getting colder

A Russian scientist says the Arctic may be getting colder, not warmer, which would hamper the international race to discover new mineral fields.

An Arctic cold snap that began in 1998 could last for years, freezing the northern marine passage and making it impassable without icebreaking ships, said Oleg Pokrovsky of the Voeikov Main Geophysical Observatory.

“I think the development of the shelf will face large problems,” Pokrovsky said Thursday at a seminar on research in the Polar regions.

Full Story: Scientist says Arctic getting colder – UPI.com.

Supreme Court to Decide if Big Business Can Judge Itself

The ever-more business friendly Supreme Court will hear oral arguments today in a case that has the potential to shut a whole lot of regular Americans out of the justice system. The nation’s largest rent-to-own furniture company, Rent-a-Center, has asked the court to decide essentially whether huge corporate players should be able to use one-sided contracts to opt out of the civil justice system and judge themselves when customers and employees want to sue for discrimination or other abuses.

The case has enormous implications for big business, which has for years now been able to avoid legal accountability and big jury awards for employment discrimination, fraud, and even sexual assault by forcing people to sign what’s known as a mandatory arbitration clause as a condition of getting a cell phone, using a credit card, buying a car, or getting a job. The clauses force people to bring any complaint against the company before a private arbitrator, hired by the company, whose decisions can’t be reviewed by a judge in most cases. Not surprisingly, those arbitrators rarely find in favor of the little guy. But over the past couple of years, the little guy has been fighting back and occasionally winning important victories.

People like Jaime Leigh Jones have, against great odds, prevailed over much more powerful entities once they’ve gotten inside a regular courtroom. Leigh is the KBR/Halliburton employee who alleged that she was gang raped by her co-workers in Iraq and then confined to a storage container by her employer. She recently prevailed in a challenge to the arbitration clause in her contract that would have forced her to have her rape case heard by a Halliburton-hired arbitrator rather than a jury. Deborah Williams and Richard Welshans, after years of litigation, last year also won a ruling in federal court allowing them to finally bring a fraud lawsuit against the Coffee Beanery, a company they allege duped them into sinking hundreds of thousands of dollars into a doomed franchise. (The victory, unfortunately, came too late to save their house.) But if the Supreme Court rules for Rent-a-Center in the case argued today, even those rare victories will become nonexistent. That’s because, as Public Citizen’s Robert Weissman has written, “The question presented to the Supreme Court in Rent-A-Center is, essentially: Can a corporation’s hand-picked arbitrator decide whether it is fair for the company to hand-pick its arbitrator?”

Full Story: Supreme Court to Decide if Big Business Can Judge Itself | Mother Jones.

Regulation Is Just Another Distraction; The Answer Is Public Ownership

Back in 1999 on a radio program I had in NYC at the time, I was stridently critical of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which was euphemistically called “The Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999″ by the very appropriately named Teabagging maestro, Dick Armey.

On the radio program, for months I protested every day that this law was nothing but yet another attempt to inflict Ayn Rand feudalism on hapless Americans.

It should be noted that this execrable and deliberately destructive law was signed by Bill Clinton.

In addition, this evil gutting of the Glass-Steagall Act (not even one of my listeners had ever heard of it) was rapturously endorsed by Lawrence Summers, the Treasury Secretary for Bill Clinton, and currently the Chief economic adviser to President Obama, and Timothy Geithner, who was then the Chairman of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, and the current Treasury Secretary to President Obama.

Full Story: Regulation Is Just Another Distraction; The Answer Is Public Ownership | BuzzFlash.org.

China sets heavy anti-dumping duty on U.S. nylon imports

The trade war between the U.S. and China continued to escalate on Thursday as Beijing slapped heavy anti-dumping duties on U.S. exports of nylon products. The decision was announced just one day after the U.S. Commerce Department announced that it would investigate allegations that Chinese-made aluminum forms

The trade war between the U.S. and China continued to escalate on Thursday as Beijing slapped heavy anti-dumping duties on U.S. exports of nylon products.

China’s Commerce Ministry announced that U.S. nylon products would be charged with a 29.3 to 96.5 percent tariff for a period of five years when entering the Asian nation. The tariffs stem from an April 2009 investigation alleging that U.S. manufacturers were dumping their nylon products in China and harming domestic producers.

The decision was announced just one day after the U.S. Commerce Department announced that it would investigate allegations that Chinese-made aluminum forms, commonly used in windows and door frames, were unfairly subsidized and dumped in the U.S.

Full Story: China sets heavy anti-dumping duty on U.S. nylon imports | Economy In Crisis.

U.S. Needs Industrial Policy

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

One of the key issues that the Congress and the White House absolutely must address before a possible 2012 ouster is America’s manufacturing and industrial downfall.

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

Unfortunately there are some trade offs. Americans have no personal savings and monstrous amounts of personal debt, the economy imports 70 percent of its consumables from overseas, and the nation hasn’t created a single net new job in more than 10 years.

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

Democrats Move to Stem Corporate Political Cash

Too Little, Too Late –

Democrats in Congress plan to unveil tough proposals this week to counter a Supreme Court ruling that allows corporations to spend unlimited amounts on elections.

President Barack Obama, who took the unusual step of publicly criticizing the ruling in his State of the Union address in January, has warned it will give corporations and special interest groups undue influence in elections.

The bill would require the leaders of corporations, unions and other groups to put their names on television ads and would ban election spending by government contractors, companies with more than 20 percent foreign ownership and recipients of taxpayer-funded bailout money.

“It is about restoring the proper balance. Certainly special interests have a right to be heard. The problem is when special interest voices drown out the voices of average Americans,” a senior White House official told Reuters.

Full Story: Democrats Move to Stem Corporate Political Cash | CommonDreams.org.

Afghan Schoolgirls Fall Ill, Poison Feared

Dozens of Afghan schoolgirls have fallen ill in recent days after reporting a strange odor in their classrooms in northern Afghanistan, prompting an investigation into whether they were targeted by militants who oppose education for girls or victims of mass hysteria.

Either way, the reports from three schools within 2 miles (3 kilometers) of one another in Kunduz province have raised alarm in a city threatened by the Taliban and their militant allies.

The latest cases occurred Sunday, when 13 girls became sick, Kunduz provincial spokesman Mahbobullah Sayedi said. Another 47 complained of dizziness and nausea the day before, and 23 fell ill last Wednesday.

All complained of a strange smell in class before they fell ill.

Full Story: Afghan Schoolgirls Fall Ill, Poison Feared.

STAGE BEING SET FOR “DIRTY BOMB” FALSE FLAG

“CHATTER” FLOWING IN FROM EVERYWHERE

“SUITCASE” NUKE SAID TO BE IN PLACE

Rumors of an upcoming terror attack to be blamed on Iran are moving around the world, “backchannel chatter.” The primary suspect is Israel who is said to have a number of small “suitcase” type nuclear weapons, some primarily “dirty bombs,” possibly supplied secretly by a previous US administration. These devices are in the “40 ton” range, highly radioactive, extremely small and can be engineered to leave the signature of a primitive device. They were originally designed for use against Soviet armor and troop concentrations in Europe if a massed attack on NATO were to occur. Current conventional systems have made this type of weapon obsolete.

We have been told that federal authorities have interviewed, on video, a prominent individual with specific knowledge of the possession of this type of weapon.

This won’t be in the news. All that “every day folks” will see is a story here or one there that don’t make sense. Why would “ultra-Liberal” Senator Chuck Schumer, nightmare “anti-gun” nut, extreme lefty and staunch New York democrat turn on the president? In fact, why are extreme liberals and conservatives all attacking President Obama and, less visibly, our military leaders, all at the same time? Who is orchestrating this oddest turn of political events in recent history? Why would the Pentagon ban Reverend Billy Graham’s son from a prayer breakfast as an “Islamophobe?”

Full Story: GORDON DUFF: STAGE BEING SET FOR “DIRTY BOMB” FALSE FLAG : Veterans Today.

The Importance of Getting Wall Street Out of Washington, and Washington Out of Wall Street

Robert Reich -

Washington’s relationship with Wall Street is growing more schizophrenic by the day. On the one hand, Congress is trying to show how tough it can be on the financial sector by enacting a law ostensibly designed to prevent another near-meltdown and taxpayer-supported bail-out. As the mid-term election looms, a staggering number of Americans remain unemployed or underemployed, and most Americans blame Wall Street (whose top bankers are raking in almost as much money as they did before the crisis). The lawsuit launched by the Securities and Exchange Commission against Goldman Sachs for alleged fraud only confirms the view held by many that the economic game is rigged.

On the other hand, both parties are going to Wall Street seeking campaign donations to fund critically important television advertising in the months ahead. After all, the Street is where the money is, and TV ads demand huge amounts of it. In recent years, the financial industry has become the second-biggest source of campaign contributions in America – just behind the healthcare industry.

Even as Congress debates legislation to tame it, Wall Street is conducting a bidding war between the parties for its continued beneficence. More than 60 per cent of the $34m given by the financial industry to fund the 2010 elections has so far gone to Democrats, but since January the Street has switched its allegiance to the Republican camp. In the first quarter of this year, Citigroup, Goldman, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley donated twice as much to Republicans as to Democrats.

Full Story: Robert Reich (The Importance of Getting Wall Street Out of Washington, and Washington Out of Wall Street).

14 Ways a 90 Percent Top Tax Rate Fixes Our Economy and Our Country

A return to Eisenhower-era 90% top tax rates helps fix our economy in several ways:

1) It makes it take longer to end up with a fortune. In fact it makes people build and earn a fortune, instead of shooting for quick windfalls. This forces long-term thinking and planning instead of short-term scheming and scamming. If grabbing everything in sight and running doesn’t pay off anymore, you have to change your strategy.

2) It gets rid of the quick-buck-scheme business model. Making people take a longer-term approach to building rather than grabbing a fortune will help reattach businesses to communities by reinforcing interdependence between businesses and their surrounding communities. When it takes owners and executives years to build up a fortune they need solid companies that are around for a long time. This requires the surrounding public infrastructure of roads, schools, police, fire, courts, etc., to be in good shape to provide long-term support for the enterprise. You also want your company to build a solid reputation for serving its customers rather than cheapening the product, pursuing quick-buck scams, cutting customer service, etc. The current Wall Street/private equity business model of looting companies, leaving behind an empty shell, unemployed workers and a surrounding community in devastation will no longer be a viable business strategy.

Full Story: 14 Ways a 90 Percent Top Tax Rate Fixes Our Economy and Our Country | OurFuture.org.

Berating the Rating Agencies

Paul Krugman -

Let’s hear it for the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Its work on the financial crisis is increasingly looking like the 21st-century version of the Pecora hearings, which helped usher in New Deal-era financial regulation. In the past few days scandalous Wall Street e-mail messages released by the subcommittee have made headlines.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that most of the headlines were about the wrong e-mails. When Goldman Sachs employees bragged about the money they had made by shorting the housing market, it was ugly, but that didn’t amount to wrongdoing.

No, the e-mail messages you should be focusing on are the ones from employees at the credit rating agencies, which bestowed AAA ratings on hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of dubious assets, nearly all of which have since turned out to be toxic waste. And no, that’s not hyperbole: of AAA-rated subprime-mortgage-backed securities issued in 2006, 93 percent — 93 percent! — have now been downgraded to junk status.

Full Story: Op-Ed Columnist – Berating the Rating Agencies – NYTimes.com.