Archive for April, 2010
House Members Urge the Renegotiation of NAFTA Trucking Provision
A bipartisan coalition of 77 House members sent a letter Wednesday to U.S. Trade Rep. Ron Kirk and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood imploring them to renegotiate a section of the North American Free Trade Agreement that provides Mexican trucks with full access to U.S. roadways.
That provision of the trade agreement has sparked a bitter trade dispute between the U.S. and Mexico. NAFTA was supposed to allow Mexican trucks full access to U.S. roadways by 1995, however, opposition led by safety advocates and organized labor managed to keep the borders closed to Mexican trucks, more-or-less. After a Mexican trucking company successfully sued the U.S. for its failure to meet its obligations under the agreement, the Bush administration instituted a pilot program that was later scuttled by Congress. In response, the Mexican government levied tariffs on some 89 U.S. products totaling $2.4 billion.
The pilot program gave access to up to 500 Mexican trucks to drive deeper into the United States than previously allowed under law, which posed a whole host of safety risks, according to the letter.
Full Story: House Members Urge the Renegotiation of NAFTA Trucking Provision | Economy In Crisis.
Closing America’s Jobs Gap
Pat Choate –
What is a “jobs gap?”
The “jobs gap” is the difference between the number of people at work and the number of people who want a job but cannot find one.
How big is America’s jobs gap?
In March 2010, the U.S. civilian labor force had 153.9 million people. Of these, 138.9 million were at work, creating an official unemployment rate of 9.7 percent. Full employment is about 4.0 percent unemployment, reflecting the constant churns in the labor force. Thus, by the official data, the gap is 9.7 minus 4.0: that is, 5.7 percent and 8.7 million jobs. Yet, the official unemployment rate does not count “discouraged workers,” or those marginally attached to the work force, or those employed part-time
for economic reasons. When the Labor Department counts all the jobless, America had an unemployment rate of 16.7 percent in March 2010 and thus a 12.7 percent gap — 19.7 million jobs.
Full Story: Closing America’s Jobs Gap | Economy In Crisis.
China’s Threat to National Security; What Will Congress Do?
Foreign governments with interests adverse to the U.S. are stockpiling vast sums of money and buying out our country for strategic purposes that threaten national security.
This alarming reality has prompted a congressional hearing today about the threats posed by China’s $200 billion government controlled sovereign wealth fund.
From Businessweek:
Several congressional Democrats and academics on Thursday will warn that investment by China’s government-run funds carries national security risks.
….
“What we’re seeing is not merely private foreign investment — it is foreign government investment in our infrastructure and banking system”- Senator James Webb, D-Va
Full Story: China’s Threat to National Security; What Will Congress Do? | Economy In Crisis.
A Greater Threat Than Terrorism Outsourcing the American Economy
Paul Craig Roberts -
Is offshore outsourcing good or harmful for America? To convince Americans of outsourcing’s benefits, corporate outsourcers sponsor misleading one-sided “studies.”
Only a small handful of people have looked objectively at the issue. These few and the large number of Americans whose careers have been destroyed by outsourcing have a different view of outsourcing’s impact. But so far there has been no debate, just a shouting down of skeptics as “protectionists.”
Now comes an important new book, Outsourcing America, published by the American Management Association. The authors, two brothers, Ron and Anil Hira, are experts on the subject. One is a professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology, and the other is professor at Simon Fraser University.
Full Story: A Greater Threat Than Terrorism Outsourcing the American Economy | Economy In Crisis.
Washington’s Job Fraud
Ernest F. Hollings
Washington engages in the grandest fraud on jobs. The people are led to believe that tax cuts stimulate growth and jobs and that borrowing and spending money stimulates jobs.
I’ll never forget as Chairman of the Budget Committee briefing Ronald Reagan with Alan Greenspan in the Blair House just before Reagan was sworn in as president. The economy was not good, and I can hear Reagan exclaiming now: “I promised to balance the budget in a year, and there’s no way to do it.” I explained it would take three years, and I would be glad to help in a bi-partisan effort to try to bring it in balance. The rest is history. President Reagan launched the policy of “growth” to stimulate the economy by cutting taxes, giving the United States its first trillion dollar debt in his first term, with another trillion dollar growth in debt in his second term. President George W. Bush, bragged that he was a Reaganite, stimulated the economy by cutting taxes, which increased the national debt $5 trillion. Instead of growth, the economy lost 673,000 private jobs in eight years under President George W. Bush.
Elected president in November 1992, then Governor Clinton was told in Little Rock by Wall Street and its economists that he not only had to cut spending, but had to increase taxes. Taking office, President Clinton submitted an energy tax increase that was killed in the United States Senate by the farmers. Then we moved desperately to repair our defeat in the Senate with a package of tax increases on everything — income, beer, tobacco, even Social Security. This tax increase passed both the House and the Senate without a single Republican vote in 1993, with Vice President Gore breaking the tie. Wall Street was given predictability, and the United States enjoyed its strongest economy in history, giving President George W. Bush surpluses “as far as the eye can see.” With spending cuts and tax increases, President Bill Clinton created 21,814,000 private jobs in eight years, more than Reagan, Papa Bush and Junior Bush created in twenty years with tax cuts for “growth.” And in the last eighteen months, Paulson, Obama, and the Federal Reserve have borrowed and spent over $2.5 trillion stimulating the economy. But the only growth experienced is in debt, and we’re still losing jobs.
Full Story: Washington’s Job Fraud | Economy In Crisis.
Obama’s Asteroid Goal: Tougher, Riskier Than Moon
Landing a man on the moon was a towering achievement. Now the president has given NASA an even harder job, one with a certain Hollywood quality: sending astronauts to an asteroid, a giant speeding rock, just 15 years from now.
Space experts say such a voyage could take several months longer than a journey to the moon and entail far greater dangers.
“It is really the hardest thing we can do,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said.
Going to an asteroid could provide vital training for an eventual mission to Mars. It might help unlock the secrets of how our solar system formed. And it could give mankind the know-how to do something that has been accomplished only in the movies by a few square-jawed, squinty-eyed heroes: saving the Earth from a collision with a killer asteroid.
Full Story: Obama’s Asteroid Goal: Tougher, Riskier Than Moon.
For Goldman Sachs, a Deal’s Stakes Keep Growing
GOLDMAN FRAUD CHARGES ONLY THE BEGINNING FOR WALL STREET
For Goldman Sachs, it was a relatively small transaction. But for the bank — and the rest of Wall Street — the stakes couldn’t be higher.
Accusations that Goldman defrauded customers who bought investments tied to risky subprime mortgages have only just begun to reverberate through the financial world.
The civil lawsuit that the Securities and Exchange Commission filed against Goldman on Friday seemed to confirm many Americans’ worst suspicions about Wall Street: that the game is rigged, the odds stacked in the banks’ favor. It is the first big case — but probably not the last, legal experts said — to delve into a Wall Street firm’s role in the mortgage fiasco.
Full Story: For Goldman Sachs, a Deal’s Stakes Keep Growing – NYTimes.com.
Benazir Bhutto ‘left to mercy of assassins by security chief’
The former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was left to the mercy of her assassins by her security chief who abandoned her in the minutes before her death, a key witness has told the United Nations inquiry into her death.
Chaudhry Mohummad Aslam, one of Ms Bhutto’s protocol officers who was guarding her vehicle when she was shot, said that Pakistan’s interior minister Rehman Malik and current law minister Babar Awan were to blame for security lapses which allowed her killers to strike.
Ms Bhutto was killed on December 27, 2007 as she left an election campaign rally in Rawalpindi’s Liaqat Bagh. She was standing through the sunroof of her Pajero jeep waving to supporters as she left the venue when she was shot through the head by a marksman. She slumped down into the car and died in the arms of her political secretary Naheed Khan. An explosion which followed the gunfire left more than 20 people dead.
Full Story: Benazir Bhutto ‘left to mercy of assassins by security chief’ – Telegraph.
Report: Germany may consider Goldman action
The German government may consider taking legal action in a case in which Goldman Sachs & Co. is accused of defrauding investors, a newspaper reported Saturday.
The U.S. government alleges Goldman Sachs sold mortgage investments without telling buyers they were crafted with input from a client who was betting on them failing.
Buyers included German bank IKB Deutsche Industriebank AG — an early victim of the financial crisis that was rescued by the state-owned KfW development bank among others.
Full Story: Report: Germany may consider Goldman action – Yahoo! News.
Remove Reaganomics FIX America
There is a reason why the economy is upside down today and the reason is Reaganomics. There is more than enough money out there to bring America back to greatness it is just that the money has taken a turn in a direction to hurt America as opposed to helping America. Thom Hartmann explains how the direction can be changed back to helping Americans rather easily.
Teabaggers 100% WRONG about their Teaparty
The Teabaggers are dead wrong when they say they are anything like the REAL Boston Tea party. THAT Tea party is outlined by Thom Hartmann who compares the two and shows there is no comparison.
Tea party revolt shows ignorance of American history
One of the more hilarious and provably bogus headlines about the tea party in the last few days is that they are supposedly “better educated” than the public at large. The actual polling data behind that absurd conclusion not only proves it false, but shows we desperately need better educated journalists at the New York Times where the poll originated.
But at the core of the Tea Party’s ignorance, ( among many, not to mention their stupefying and transparent hypocrisy) is that the American revolution began as a tax revolt, and not only about taxes but higher taxes. This is why you see some of them dress up in colonial costumes as phony as their arguments.
These poor fools have obviously have gotten their history from Fox News.
Full Story: Tea party revolt shows ignorance of American history.
Lie to Congress; Get a Fourth Star
Alexander the Not So Great
By RAY McGOVERN
U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander may well be harboring the thought attributed to prevaricator Oliver North upon being spared punishment — and instead getting rewarded handsomely — for lying about the Iran-Contra Affair: “Is this a great country or what!”
Gen. Alexander, Director of the National Security Agency since August 2005, is about to become what the Army describes as “dual hatted.” The Senate is about to confirm him to another highly sensitive leadership position requiring the utmost integrity and fidelity to the Constitution when he has shown neither.
Despite that, after sizing up the enormous challenge of running the new U.S. cyber-warfare command, Sen. James Inhofe, R-Oklahoma, looked at Gen. Alexander and added, “And you’re the right person for it.”
Not for the first time, neither Inhofe nor his colleagues seem to have done their homework. Or maybe it is simply the case that Congress now accepts being lied to as part of the woodwork in the Capitol.
Full Story: Ray McGovern: Lie to Congress; Get a Fourth Star.
New York Times poll reveals Tea Party ignorance, dishonesty and hypocrisy
There were new myth making headlines out of a New York Times poll that supposedly showed that tea party supporters are “better educated and wealthier” than the general population. The supposed findings were used by some journalists and tea party organizers to build up the credentials of the tea party.
But when you look at the actual poll data that the NY Times used for its story, it's clear neither the Times editors nor the reporters who wrote the story could analyze their way out of a paper bag. The claims are preposterous and further re-enforces the credentials of the newspaper that brought us Whitewater and Judith Miller’s bogus front page stories on the absolute certainty of WMD in Iraq in the run up to the war.
Many in the news media and on the cable news talk shows just took the preposterous conclusions by a bunch of inept Times reporters at face value without looking at the actual results (which are available here) which paints a very different picture. In fact, supposedly according to Michelle Bachman and some silly reporting, Tea Party supporters are even “hotter” than liberals.
Full Story: New York Times poll reveals Tea Party ignorance, dishonesty and hypocrisy.
Veteran commits suicide in front of Dayton VA center
Jesse Charles Huff walked up to the Veterans Affairs Department’s Medical Center on Friday morning wearing U.S. Army fatigues and battling pain from his Iraq war wounds and a recent bout with depression.
The 27-year-old Dayton man had entered the center’s emergency room about 1 a.m. Friday and requested some sort of treatment. But Huff did not get that treatment, police said, and about 5:45 a.m. he reappeared at the center’s entrance, put a military-style rifle to his head and twice pulled the trigger.
Huff fell near the foot of a Civil War statue, his blood covering portions of the front steps.
Full Story: Veteran commits suicide in front of Dayton VA center.
Arizona Gun Law: Concealed Weapons Allowed Without Permit Under New Law
Favoring the constitutional right to bear arms over others’ concerns about gun safety, Gov. Jan Brewer on Friday signed into law a bill making Arizona the third state allowing people to carry a concealed weapon without requiring a permit.
The measure takes effect 90 days after the current legislative session ends, which likely puts the effective date in July or August.
“I believe this legislation not only protects the Second Amendment rights of Arizona citizens, but restores those rights as well,” Brewer, a Republican, said in a statement.
Alaska and Vermont now do not require permits to carry concealed weapons.
Full Story: Arizona Gun Law: Concealed Weapons Allowed Without Permit Under New Law.
Goldman’s Fraud Case Could Have ‘Massive Implications’ If It’s ‘Done Right’ (VIDEO)
Financial expert Janet Tavakoli weighed in on the Securities Exchange Commission’s fraud charges against Goldman Sachs Friday.
Tavakoli told Katie Couric that she wasn’t surprised by the SEC’s move, but was shocked that that it had taken regulators so long to file a complaint.
She believes that the process could have a far-reaching impact for investment banks–if it’s “done right.”
Tavakoli: This may be the beginning of a lot of questions asked about… a lot of investment banks. And if this is done right, there will be massive implications. If it isn’t done right, the way it hasn’t been done right in the many years past… we’re not going to fix things.
Tavakoli predicted that “a lot more will be coming” for investment banks who participated in “widespread malfeasance.”
The SEC says that Goldman Sachs sold securities to investors that were handpicked — and destined — to fail, without disclosing that to investors. The immediate losers were pension funds, foreign firms and private investors, who lost more than $1 billion on the single security at hand.
WATCH:
Full Story: Janet Tavakoli: Goldman’s Fraud Case Could Have ‘Massive Implications’ If It’s ‘Done Right’ (VIDEO).
Polish President’s Pilots Knew Plane Was Doomed
Harrowing details have emerged of the final moments before the plane carrying Poland’s president crashed in Russia last weekend.
According to investigators, the plane’s black box recorders make it clear that the crew knew they were doomed after hitting trees tops. A source said that there was no suggestion from the tape that the pilots were pushed to make the landing, but the pilot appeared to ignore several warnings about landing.
“The crew was aware of the inevitability of the coming catastrophe, if only due to the plane shaking after the wings hit the trees — which we are certain happened,” Poland’s chief prosecutor Andrzej Seremet said.
Full Story: Polish President’s Pilots Knew Plane Was Doomed.
Eric Massa Paid Chief Of Staff $40,000 After Announcing Resignation
Former New York Rep. Eric Massa wrote a $40,000 check to his chief of staff shortly before resigning his seat last month amid sexual harassment allegations. The aide is among those pursuing complaints against the Democrat.
Federal campaign finance records describe the March 4 check to Joe Racalto from Massa’s campaign account as a “campaign management fee.” Massa had announced a day earlier, on March 3, that he would resign his seat.
Racalto’s lawyer, Camilla McKinney, said Friday the check was a “deferred payment” for Racalto’s work this year and last year on Massa’s 2010 re-election campaign and for his work on Massa’s transition after the 2008 election.
Full Story: Eric Massa Paid Chief Of Staff $40,000 After Announcing Resignation.
James Kwak On ‘Bill Moyers Journal’ (VIDEO)
13 Bankers Authors Explain Financial Crisis, Reform Effort
Simon Johnson and James Kwak, the authors of 13 Bankers, appeared on “Bill Moyers Journal” Friday evening to discuss the financial crisis and the push for Wall Street reform.
The pair, who both blog at BaselineScenario.com, painted a disturbing and dysfunctional picture of the relationship between Wall Street and the politicians who craft the rules that govern them.
Kwak and Johnson explained that Wall Street created the crisis, relied on public money to generate private profits, and is spending billions to defeat reforms that would protect Americans from another financial crisis.
Johnson said that people in Washington are wrong when they talk of “populist anger.”
“Most of what I encounter,” Johnson said “is legitimate, sensible anger. People actually understand what happened. They understand what went wrong and they want to stop it. And the banks don't get this.”
Dylan Ratigan: A Goldman Rebuttal
The following includes questions and commentary for Goldman Sachs as the company defends itself against charges of fraud:
Dear Lucas,
Since I haven’t been able to get you or anyone from Goldman Sachs to appear on my show in months, perhaps we can just try corresponding in writing. Thank you for your press release. I have submitted my follow-up questions in bold:
Press release:
Goldman Sachs Makes Further Comments on SEC Complaint
April 16, 2010
The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE: GS) said today: We are disappointed that the SEC would bring this action related to a single transaction in the face of an extensive record which establishes that the accusations are unfounded in law and fact. We want to emphasize the following four critical points which were missing from the SEC’s complaint.
– Goldman Sachs Lost Money On The Transaction. Goldman Sachs, itself, lost more than $90 million. Our fee was $15 million. We were subject to losses and we did not structure a portfolio that was designed to lose money.
But what about the other “transactions”… You know, the one where you may have potentially shorted this exact transaction with AIG for a lot more than $90 million? You remember AIG, right? It’s where the taxpayers paid you 100 cents on the dollar for a company that you helped blow up.
Full Story: Dylan Ratigan: A Goldman Rebuttal.
Solar ERUPTION: Powerful Sun Activity Captured By NASA Spacecraft (VIDEO)
NASA’s STEREO spacecraft has captured spectacular images of a solar eruption, the largest solar prominence in 15 years.
The activity was caught on camera in extreme UV light as the prominence blasted away from the sun on April 12 and April 13.
Prominences are cool clouds of plasma that hover above the Sun’s surface, notoriously unstable and on occasion they erupt like this one. However, this one was much more dramatic than most, NASA says.
NASA pieced together images to create this amazing video clip, showing about 19 hours of activity.
WATCH THE SOLAR ERUPTION:
Full Story: Solar ERUPTION: Powerful Sun Activity Captured By NASA Spacecraft (VIDEO).
Goldman Sachs’ ‘Fraud’ Explained: How They Pulled Off The Alleged Scheme
Goldman Sachs defrauded investors by failing to disclose a conflict of interest on mortgage investments it sold as the housing market went sour, according to the civil complaint filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday.
Goldman allegedly failed to disclose to investors that it was betting against subprime mortgage investments it pushed on clients. Essentially, according to the complaint, Goldman pushed a product designed to fail.
How did Goldman do that? We broke down the case step-by-step. Check it out:
Full Story: Goldman Sachs’ ‘Fraud’ Explained: How They Pulled Off The Alleged Scheme.
Obama Supreme Court Nominee: The Lessons The White House Is Applying To The Coming Battle
Expect a fight. Enlist supporters but keep them in line. Protect secrecy. Reach out to opponents even though you can’t woo them.
Inside the White House, those are some of the lessons learned from the selection and confirmation of President Barack Obama’s first Supreme Court nominee last year. With a vacancy coming this summer on the nine-member court, those lessons amount to a road map for how Obama will choose the next justice – and what his team will do to get that person confirmed by the Senate.
The choice of a Supreme Court justice, with lifetime tenure, can affect American life for a generation or more, giving a president a reach that lasts far beyond his time in the Oval Office. Justice John Paul Stevens’ decision to retire after more than 34 years has given Obama a second chance within a year to shape the court.
Full Story: Obama Supreme Court Nominee: The Lessons The White House Is Applying To The Coming Battle.
Ice cap thaw may awaken Icelandic volcanoes
A thaw of Iceland’s ice caps in coming decades caused by climate change may trigger more volcanic eruptions by removing a vast weight and freeing magma from deep below ground, scientists said on Friday.
They said there was no sign that the current eruption from below the Eyjafjallajokull glacier that has paralysed flights over northern Europe was linked to global warming. The glacier is too small and light to affect local geology.
“Our work suggests that eventually there will be either somewhat larger eruptions or more frequent eruptions in Iceland in coming decades,” said Freysteinn Sigmundsson, a vulcanologist at the University of Iceland.
Full Story: Ice cap thaw may awaken Icelandic volcanoes – Yahoo! News.
Volcano Ash Cloud Flight Disruptions Worsen In Europe: Italy Closes Airspace
A lingering volcanic ash plume forced extended no-fly restrictions over much of Europe on Saturday, as Icelandic scientists warned that volcanic activity had increased and showed no sign of abating – a portent of more travel chaos to come.
Scientists say that because the volcano is situated below a glacial ice cap, the magma is being cooled quickly, causing explosions and plumes of grit that can be catastrophic to plane engines if prevailing winds are right.
“The activity has been quite vigorous overnight, causing the eruption column to grow,” Icelandic geologist Magnus Tumi Gudmundsson told The Associated Press on Saturday. “It's the magma mixing with the water that creates the explosivity. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be an end in sight.”
Full Story: Volcano Ash Cloud Flight Disruptions Worsen In Europe: Italy Closes Airspace.
Our Pecora Moment
Simon Johnson
Our Pecora Moment Has Finally Arrived With Goldman Sachs
We have waited long and patiently for our Ferdinand Pecora moment – a modern equivalent of the episode when a tough prosecutor from New York seized the imagination of the country in the early 1930s and, over a series of congressional hearings: laid bare the wrong-doings of Wall Street in simple and vivid terms that everyone could understand, and created the groundswell of public support necessary for comprehensive reregulation. On Friday, that moment finally arrived.
There is fraud at the heart of Wall Street, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Pecora took on National City Bank and J.P. Morgan (the younger); these were the supposedly untouchable titans of their day. The SEC is taking on Goldman Sachs; no firm is more powerful.
Pecora exposed the ways in which leading banks mistreated their customers – typically, retail investors. The SEC alleges, with credible detail, that Goldman essentially set up some trusting clients and deliberately misled them – to the tune of effectively transferring $1 billion from them to a particular unscrupulous investor.
Pecora had the drama of the congressional hearing room and used his skills as an interrogator to batter the bastions of Wall Street, day-after-day, with gruesome and convincing detail. We don’t know where and when, but the SEC action points in one direction only: Lloyd Blankfein (CEO of Goldman) in the witness box, while John Paulson (unindicted co-conspirator) waits in the on-deck circle.
Full Story: Our Pecora Moment « The Baseline Scenario.
Obama Slams GOP Obstruction On Financial Reform In Weekly Address (VIDEO)
OBAMA WARNS ‘CYNICAL AND DECEPTIVE’ GOP
‘One Way Or Another, We Will Move Forward’ On Financial Reform
The U.S. is destined to endure a new economic crisis that sticks taxpayers with the bill unless Congress tightens oversight of the financial industry, President Barack Obama said Saturday.
The overhaul is the next major piece of legislation that Obama wants to sign into law this year, but solid GOP opposition in the Senate is jeopardizing that goal.
“Every day we don’t act, the same system that led to bailouts remains in place, with the exact same loopholes and the exact same liabilities,” Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address. “And if we don’t change what led to the crisis, we’ll doom ourselves to repeat it.
“Opposing reform will leave taxpayers on the hook if a crisis like this ever happens again,” the president said.
A proposal that Senate Democrats are readying for debate creates a mechanism for liquidating large financial companies to avoid a meltdown.
Full Story: Obama Slams GOP Obstruction On Financial Reform In Weekly Address (VIDEO).
US Afghan commander: ‘We have too many contractors’
The US commander in Afghanistan said Friday that the military is wasting money by employing too many private contractors to do jobs better done by soldiers or local Afghans.
“We have created in ourselves a dependency on contractors that is greater than it ought to be,” General Stanley McChrystal told an audience of French officers and military experts at France’s defence university in Paris.
“I think we’ve gone too far. I think that the use of contractors was done with good intentions so that we could limit the number of military. I think in some cases we thought it would save money. I think it doesn’t save money.”
Full Story: US Afghan commander: ‘We have too many contractors’ – Yahoo! News.
OPS: ’bout time they figured that out. Privatization is NEVER less expensive
Some sick people will have to lose insurance to see health bill benefits | Raw Story
Suppose your cancer is in remission,” notes the Associated Press in an article Friday. “You had to quit your job while you were having chemotherapy, and your employer coverage ran out. You can’t find a private insurer who’ll take you, but you’re lucky to live in a state that has its own high-risk pool. Still, you have to struggle to pay the premiums, well above standard insurance because sicker people are in the group. Yet as the federal program is designed, you wouldn’t be able to switch over and take advantage of significant savings.”
“The reason: You have to be uninsured to qualify for the new plan.”
Until 2014, under a provision in the Democrats’ health care bill, people who qualify as “high risk” will have to go without insurance for six months before being eligible for a new “high-risk” pool set up by the federal government. The new federal insurance pool is expected to deliver premiums that are 10 to 50 percent cheaper than current ones, with lower deductibles and co-payments.
Full Story: Some sick people will have to lose insurance to see health bill benefits | Raw Story.
Republicans united in opposition to financial reform bill
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has all members of his conference united against the financial reform legislation.
McConnell had circulated a letter to Senate Republicans to marshal opposition to the bill proposed by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), but centrist Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) had withheld her signature.
On Friday, McConnell’s office said that all GOP senators has signed a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) that calls for a “bipartisan and inclusive approach” but says that “we are united in our opposition to the partisan legislation reported by the Senate Banking Committee.”
The letter stops short of saying that Republicans will block the legislation.
The letter shows that Republicans have dug in their heels against the bill backed by the White House and a majority of Senate Democrats, but indicates they could be open to backing a revised package.
Full Story: Republicans united in opposition to financial reform bill – The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room.
OPS; Republicans; supporting Millionaires, Billionaires and Large Corporations over People – every time
Volcano could build into major business problem
The eruption of a volcano in the tiny, isolated island nation of Iceland is threatening to turn into a major headache for businesses across Europe and around the world as a spreading ash cloud closes more European airports.
Airlines are already counting the cost of grounded planes, and there are growing fears about the transportation of food supplies and other essential goods should the flight disruptions persist for several days — or longer.
But there were also some early winners from the unprecedented situation, with rail, bus and ferry tour operators all quick to lay on extra services for stranded business and leisure travelers as hotel rooms filled up.
Full Story: Volcano could build into major business problem – Yahoo! News.
Buying Back their Infrastructure: Small Towns Take On the Energy Giants
After selling off their electricity and gas networks to large energy corporations in the early 1990s, small towns in Germany are now banding together to buy back their energy infrastructure. Their bid to get into the energy market may provide opportunities to make money, but it also involves taking on the energy giants at their own game.
The small German towns of Olfen, Ascheberg, Havixbeck, Billerbeck, Nordkirchen, Senden, Rosendahl and Lüdinghausen rarely make it into the headlines. That will soon change, however. The eight towns, located close to the city of Münster in western Germany, want to wrest away control of the electricity power supply in their region from German energy giant RWE.
Last summer, the towns set up a joint publicly owned electric utility company. In 2013, the group, together with a partner, wants to take over the local power grid from RWE. It is a struggle that pits the municipalities, with their combined population of 115,000, against the mighty RWE, which employs 65,000 people.
Full Story: Buying Back their Infrastructure: Small Towns Take On the Energy Giants – SPIEGEL ONLINE – News – International.
Obama to veto bill without controls on derivatives
President Barack Obama says he’ll veto a financial overhaul bill that doesn’t regulate the derivatives market.
Legislation pending in Congress would for the first time regulate these complex financial instruments, such as mortgage-backed securities that was a cause of a near economic meltdown in 2008 when they lost value during the housing crisis.
Obama says he wants derivatives to be strongly regulated, and he pledged Friday he’s ready to veto legislation without it. But there’s some dispute among Democrats about how far such regulation should go.
Full Story: The Associated Press: Obama to veto bill without controls on derivatives.
GE: 7,000 tax returns, $0 U.S. tax bill
General Electric filed more than 7,000 income tax returns in hundreds of global jurisdictions last year, but when push came to shove, the company owed the U.S. government a whopping bill of $0.
How’d it pull off that trick? By losing lots of money.
GE had plenty of earnings last year — just not in the United States. For tax purposes, the company’s U.S. operations lost $408 million, while its international businesses netted a $10.8 billion profit.
That left GE (GE, Fortune 500) with no U.S. profit left for Uncle Sam to tax. Corporations typically face a 35% federal income tax on their earnings. Thanks to its deductions and adjustments, GE reported an actual U.S. federal income tax rate of negative 10.5%. It got to add a “tax benefit” of $1.1 billion back into its reported earnings.
Full Story: GE: 7,000 tax returns, $0 U.S. tax bill – Apr. 16, 2010.
Bank bill in peril, WH urges part be dropped
In the face of stiff GOP opposition, Obama administration officials want Senate Democrats to purge a $50 billion fund for dismantling “too big to fail” banks from legislation that aims to protect against a new financial crisis. Republicans contend the provision would simply continue government bailouts of Wall Street.
The sweeping bill aims to prevent a recurrence of the crisis that nearly caused a Wall Street meltdown in 2008. Beside creating a mechanism for liquidating large firms, House and Senate bills would govern previously unregulated derivatives, create a council to detect systemwide financial threats and establish a consumer protection agency to police lending, credit cards and other bank-customer transactions.
President Barack Obama declared Friday that he would veto the bill if it doesn’t regulate the freewheeling derivatives market. “We can’t afford another AIG,” the president said, referring to the giant insurance conglomerate that relied heavily on the complex, sometimes exotic investment instruments.
Separately on Friday, the government accused Goldman Sachs & Co., Wall Street’s most powerful firm, of defrauding investors by failing to disclose conflicts of interest in mortgage investments it sold as the housing market was collapsing two years ago.
Full Story: The Associated Press: Bank bill in peril, WH urges part be dropped.
Other Major Banks Did Deals Similar to Goldman’s
As you may have heard, Goldman Sachs is being sued for fraud [1] by the Securities and Exchange Commission [2] for allegedly misleading investors about a deal that Goldman helped structure and sell. In the civil suit, the SEC specifically faulted Goldman for failing to disclose that a hedge fund was helping create the investment while betting big the deal would fail.
According to the SEC, Goldman Sachs knew about the hedge fund’s bets, knew it played a significant role in choosing the assets in the portfolio, and yet did not tell investors about it. (Goldman Sachs has called the SEC’s accusations “completely unfounded in law and fact.” And in another more detailed statement [3], it said it “did not structure a portfolio that was designed to lose money.”)
As we reported at ProPublica last week, many other major investment banks were doing a similar thing [4].
Full Story: Other Major Banks Did Deals Similar to Goldman’s – ProPublica.
School district spied on students at home as they slept: lawsuit
Lawsuit: School administrator ‘may be a voyeur’ who spied on kids for personal gratification
A Philadelphia-area school district secretly took “thousands” of webcam photos of students in their homes and tracked their Web site visits and parts of online chats through spy software installed on the students’ school-issued laptops, a Pennsylvania court heard yesterday.
In February, the family of Blake Robbins, a student at Harriton High School in Rosemont, sued the Lower Merion School District after the district admitted to them it had been spying on students via a remote-activated feature on the laptops it issued to all its 2,300 high school pupils.
In a motion filed in court on Thursday, Robbins’ lawyers asserted that the school district had taken at least 400 snapshots of 15-year-old Robbins, including some of him sleeping. The motion also stated that “thousands of webcam pictures and screen shots have been taken of numerous other students in their homes,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
Full Story: School district spied on students at home as they slept: lawsuit | Raw Story.
Feds indict ex-Blackwater president, four others on gun charges
A former president of security contractor Blackwater and four other company officials have been indicted on federal weapons charges, the Associated Press reports.
Federal prosecutors indicted Gary Jackson, who was president of Blackwater until last year, on Friday in a case that stemmed from a raid on Blackwater’s North Carolina headquarters in 2008, which turned up 22 automatic weapons, including 17 Russian-made AK-47s.
Along with Jackson, the other Blackwater officials charged include the company’s former lawyer, Andrew Howell, former vice president Bill Matthews and two employees tasked with overseeing Blackwater’s armory and documentation having to so with its status as an arms dealer.
The AP reports:
Full Story: Feds indict ex-Blackwater president, four others on gun charges | Raw Story.
Obama on Tea Partiers: “You would think they would be saying, ‘Thank you’” for my tax cuts.
To coincide with tax day, Tea Party groups gathered in cities across the country yesterday to “denounce what they regard as excessive taxation and government spending.” “We’re going to protest excessive taxes,” one tea bagger at the rally in Washington, DC said. But at a fundraiser in Miami yesterday, President Obama seemed perplexed by the tea baggers’ motivations, noting that he helped usher in a tax cut last year for nearly all but the richest Americans:
OBAMA: We cut taxes for 95 percent of working Americans just like I promised we would on the campaign. […] So I’ve been a little amused over the last couple days where people have been having these rallies about taxes. You would think they would be saying, “Thank you!” That’s what you’d think!
Watch it:
Full Story: Think Progress » Obama on Tea Partiers: “You would think they would be saying, ‘Thank you’” for my tax cuts..
Clinton: Media, Politicians Shouldn’t Fuel ‘Hatriot’ Groups With Anti-Government Rhetoric That Inspired McVeigh
Fifteen years ago, a deranged anti-government extremist named Timothy McVeigh set off a truck bomb below the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people, including 19 children under the age of six. In a speech delivered at the Center for American Progress Action Fund today, President Clinton drew eerily parallels between that incident and the current atmosphere of right-wing, anti-government hatred.
He specifically pointed to the influence of right-wing media in the 90s, saying that those hate radio hosts “understood clearly that emotion was more powerful than reason most of the time, and it happened that they got much bigger listenership, and more advertisers, and more commercial success, if they kept people in the white heat.” People like Timothy McVeigh were “highly vulnerable to the suggestions and implications of the most militant rhetoric of the time.” Both media and politicians therefore need to be responsible in their rhetoric since it falls on the “serious and the delirious alike”:
Bachmann’s Latest Whopper: ‘The Federal Government Literally Owns Banks’
Part of Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-MN) argument that President Obama has allegedly turned the United States into a socialist, totalitarian state is her claim that since he took office, the federal government has taken control of the “private economy.” First, the feds allegedly owned 30 percent of the private economy, then she recently upped it to 51 percent. “Once the president signed the health care bill…that effected 51% government takeover of the private economy,” she said last month. Last night on CNN, Bachmann tried to explain her reasoning and in doing so, threw in a new tall tale:
BACHMANN: The story in our country has been the federal government takeover of private industry. The federal government literally, in 18 months’ time, has taken either direct ownership or control of 51 percent of the private economy. Eighteen months ago, 100 percent of the private economy was private. But today, the federal government literally owns banks., the largest insurance company in the United States. The federal government owns over half of all home mortgages today in the United States — Chrysler, G.M. the student loan industry and now health care.
Watch it:
Full Story: Think Progress » Bachmann’s Latest Whopper: ‘The Federal Government Literally Owns Banks’.
Norquist says Haley Barbour ‘is not completely fluent in English.’
Politico reported today that Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS) “is weighing the prospect of a 2012 White House bid” and recently discussed the possibility with his closest advisers. When asked about the discussions, Barbour himself didn’t downplay the possibility of running for president. “After the November election, we’ll sit down and see if there is anything to consider,” he said. Today on ABC’s Top Line, anti-tax activist Grover Norquist may have put a small blemish on Barbour’s prospects for consideration. Norquist ridiculed RNC chair Michael Steele because of his gaffe-prone TV appearances. “Sometimes it hurts,” he said, adding that Steele should take example from former RNC chair Barbour:
Full Story: Think Progress » Norquist says Haley Barbour ‘is not completely fluent in English.’.
The Right Scrambles To Demean Obama’s Successful Nuclear Summit
In response to what was widely considered a highly successful summit to combat nuclear terrorism, the right is in a scramble to say something negative about it. Conservative pundits are now arguing that the summit was a failure because it did not magically solve the Iran situation, a subject that the summit never intended to address. But in making this argument, the right has exposed its naive and negligent approach toward the most urgent and dangerous threat in the post Cold War era: nuclear terrorism.
Charles Krauthammer derisively mocked the summit in a column today in the Washington Post:
What was this great convocation about? To prevent the spread of nuclear material into the hands of terrorists. A worthy goal, no doubt. Unfortunately, the two greatest such threats were not even on the agenda. The first is Iran…Nor on the agenda was Pakistan’s plutonium production… So what was the major breakthrough announced by Obama at the end of the two-day conference? That Ukraine, Chile, Mexico and Canada will be getting rid of various amounts of enriched uranium. What a relief.
Full Story: Think Progress » The Right Scrambles To Demean Obama’s Successful Nuclear Summit.
How Bubble Barons Protected Their Influence While the Economy Tanked
AlterNet citizen journalists investigated bubble barons who got rich as the rest of the economy tanked. The project shed light on the barons’ power delusions and toll on society.
Following the deadly mine explosion in West Virginia last week, the CEO of the company that owned the mine quickly emerged as a sort of Dickensian villain in media reports. Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship’s cavalier, profit-obsessed approach to mining had led him to dismiss pressing safety concerns at his mines. He had called safety regulators “as silly as global warming” and ordered managers to spend more time “running coal” and less time building ventilation structures. One miner told ABC news that working for Blankenship was “like living under a hammer. It’s about the bottom line; we all know that.”
Blankenship was the hammer, but whose bottom line was he looking out for, exactly? The answer is somewhat surprising.
Full Story: How Bubble Barons Protected Their Influence While the Economy Tanked | Investigations | AlterNet.
8 Invented Diseases Big Pharma Is Banking on
Sleep sweating? Here are some new ways the pharmaceutical plans to make money.
Since direct-to-consumer drug advertising debuted in 1997, pharma’s credo has been When The Medication Is Ready, The Disease (and Patients) Will Appear. Who knew so many people suffered from restless legs?
But pharma’s recent plan to move from mass-market molecules into more lucrative vaccines and biologics did not see the anti-vaxer movement coming: millions of Americans saying You Want to Vaccinate Me — and My Child — with WHAT?? and condemning vials of H1N1, rotavirus and MMR vaccines to sit, well, way past their expiration dates. Nor were fears of an international vaccine conspiracy helped by former CDC Director Julie Gerberding resurfacing as President of Merck Vaccines in December. (Nice revolving door if you can catch it.)
Now pharma is back to creating new diseases, patients, risks and “awareness campaigns” faster than you can say thimerosal (the vaccine preservative that started the backlash.)
Full Story: 8 Invented Diseases Big Pharma Is Banking on | | AlterNet.
Corrupt Practices Accelerating the Decline of American Journalism
We have people posturing as journalists on TV who get paid as business spokespeople, financial reporters who retire to work for Goldman Sachs — media parasites.
No matter how much this week’s Pulitzer Prize triumphalism hides it, the fact remains that journalism these days is “a disaster,” as Ted Koppel said recently. And unfortunately, retrospection dominates the news industry’s self-analysis. Like dazed tornado victims, most media experts focus on what happened and why, oh lord, why?
The queries are important, though just as critical are two prospective questions: 1) If, to butcher a Chinese aphorism, every crisis is an opportunity, then who is making an opportunity out of journalism’s current crisis and 2) are those opportunity-maximizers actually parasites destroying journalism for the long haul?
The answer to the initial question is three groups, starting with the Access Traders. These are reporters like The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza, Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter and NBC’s Chuck Todd, who, while covering politics for major media, are also signing separate contracts to write books chronicling White House gossip. Facing a crisis in audience share, these correspondents’ employers encourage the double-dip opportunities, hoping book exposure will result in residual attention. But the simultaneity is problematic: As the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz notes, hard-hitting stories in these reporters’ day jobs “might alienate potential (book) sources and flattering ones might loosen tongues.”
Full Story: Corrupt Practices Accelerating the Decline of American Journalism | Media and Culture | AlterNet.
The Tea Party Crowd Needs to Wake Up to Who the Real Villains Are
The Wall Street banks are the new American oligarchy — but the Tea Party crowd can’t seem to see it.
With all due respect, we can only wish those Tea Party activists who gathered in Washington and other cities this week weren’t so single-minded about just who’s responsible for all their troubles, real and imagined. They’re up in arms, so to speak, against Big Government, especially the Obama administration.
If they thought this through, they’d be joining forces with other grassroots Americans who in the coming weeks will be demonstrating in Washington and other cities against High Finance, taking on Wall Street and the country’s biggest banks.
The original Tea Party, remember, wasn’t directed just against the British redcoats. Colonial patriots also took aim at the East India Company. That was the joint-stock enterprise originally chartered by the first Queen Elizabeth. Over the years, the government granted them special rights and privileges, which the owners turned into a monopoly over trade, including tea.
It may seem a bit of a stretch from tea to credit default swaps, but the principle is the same:when enormous private wealth goes unchecked, regular folks get hurt — badly. That’s what happened in 2008 when the monied interests led us up the garden path to the great collapse.
Full Story: The Tea Party Crowd Needs to Wake Up to Who the Real Villains Are | | AlterNet.
Wall Street’s Stranglehold on Our Democracy Must Be Broken
The progressive economist talks about the fight to reform Wall Street, what Robert Rubin should do with his money, and why Jamie Dimon is the most dangerous man in America.
Simon Johnson is the former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund, and co-founder of the Baseline Scenario, a blog about the financial crisis and financial reform. He is a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Johnson’s latest book, 13 Bankers (co-authored with Baseline Scenario co-founder James Kwak) is a detailed examination of Wall Street’s political and ideological power and the devastating economic results. AlterNet’s economics editor Zach Carter recently talked with Johnson about the U.S. banking system.
Zach Carter: Your push to break up the largest banks into smaller banks that can actually fail without wreaking havoc on the economy has been very well-received by progressives. But historically, the IMF and the Federal Reserve are not exactly hotbeds of progressive thought. How did you and Paul Volcker become the vanguard of the economic left?
Simon Johnson: The ideas that we’re advancing both in Baseline Scenario and in the book should appeal to people on the right, the center and the left. There’s an article by Arnold Kling that we wrote about on Baseline Scenario. He’s a libertarian, which I am not, but he’s come around to our way of thinking about the banks. If you think about it from the right, our financial system is just monstrously unfair. It’s not in any way a market economy to have these banks who are so big that the government can’t let them fail. They have funding advantages over other banks, and those advantages only encourage them to get bigger. That’s just not reasonable
Full Story: Simon Johnson: Wall Street’s Stranglehold on Our Democracy Must Be Broken | Economy | AlterNet.
The Roots of Stalin in the Tea Party Movement
The Koch family, America’s biggest financial backers of the Tea Party, would not be the billionaires they are today were it not for the godless empire of the USSR.
The Tea Party movement’s dirty little secret is that its chief financial backers owe their family fortune to the granddaddy of all their hatred: Stalin’s godless empire of the USSR. The secretive oil billionaires of the Koch family, the main supporters of the right-wing groups that orchestrated the Tea Party movement, would not have the means to bankroll their favorite causes had it not been for the pile of money the family made working for the Bolsheviks in the late 1920s and early 1930s, building refineries, training Communist engineers and laying down the foundation of Soviet oil infrastructure.
The comrades were good to the Kochs. Today Koch Industries has grown into the second-largest private company in America. With an annual revenue of $100 billion, the company was just $6.3 billion shy of first place in 2008. Ownership is kept strictly in the family, with the company being split roughly between brothers Charles and David Koch, who are worth about $20 billion apiece and are infamous as the largest sponsors of right-wing causes. They bankroll scores of free-market and libertarian think tanks, institutes and advocacy groups. Greenpeace estimates that the Koch family shelled out $25 million from 2005 to 2008 funding the “climate denial machine,” which means they outspent Exxon Mobile three to one.
Full Story: The Roots of Stalin in the Tea Party Movement | Economy | AlterNet.
White Nationalism on the March
“Any group whose unifying characteristic is daily engorgement on Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck is, by definition, racist.”
The campaign to bring White nationalism, the founding ideology of the United States, fully out of the closet, kicks into a higher gear on the Right’s anti-holiday, April 15. Newt Gingrich and the various tribes of White Rightists unveil their “Contract From America,” a scaled-down version of the manifesto the Republicans rallied around to win control of the U.S. House of Representatives, in 1994. The 2010 “contract” is leaner, built for mass Caucasian consumption. It is written largely in code, the language of obfuscation that American racists speak in an attempt to hide their white supremacist beliefs from others – and, in many cases, from themselves. Indeed, much of American mass political speech is conducted in code, allowing white people to identify each other through terms like “middle class,” “family values,” “taxpayers,” “patriots,” “law-abiding” – terms which, although literally applicable to people of every ethnicity, are understood to mean “good white American citizens.”
Corporate media almost universally describe the Tea Partyers as “anti-government” – which is nonsense. They oppose the government providing assistance – economic, legal, educational, real or imagined – to those that are “undeserving,” which in their world consists mostly of folks that can be defined by race, language or religion (using code words, when required by polite society). Naturally, the average Tea Partyer – when sober – will deny having “a racist bone” in his body, but any group whose unifying characteristic is daily engorgement on Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck is, by definition, racist. Anyone who tries to tell you different, is far too tolerant of bigoted behavior, assumptions and speech to be anything but a closet racist, himself.
Full Story: White Nationalism on the March | Black Agenda Report.
Chomsky Reveals Concern Over the Potential of Fascist America
Chomsky indicated that “The anger of level and (current) fear is like nothing I can compare in my lifetime.”
Noam Chomsky, a leading opponent of the Vietnam War and an outspoken progressive for many years, is quoted in the April 12 edition of The Progressive revealing concern over the potential for Fascism coming to America.
Chomsky related that he is just old enough to harbor sad and tragic memories of the early Nazi era of Germany highlighted by the stemwinding oratory of Adolf Hitler and tumultuous responses received by the citizenry.
In recent columns posted by me I cited a similar concern. Chomsky indicated that “The anger of level and (current) fear is like nothing I can compare in my lifetime.”
All that is needed to dramatically corroborate Chomsky’s statement is footage from the recent Capitol Hill Tea Bag rally during the critical period preceding the vote on Barack Obama’s health care legislation. The close-up of a shrieking Tea Bagger spitting on an African American congressman was a manifestation of runaway hatred.
Full Story: Chomsky Reveals Concern Over the Potential of Fascist America | Antemedius.
OPS: Here is the video of the Chomsky talk discussed in the above article:
Noam Chomsky: Ridiculing the tea party shenanigans is a serious error
O’Reilly Sanctimoniously Denies GOP Senator’s Charge That Fox Disinformed Viewers with Claim Medical Uninsured Will Go to Prison – Cue Video of 20-Plus Instances of Fox Propagandists, Including O’Reilly, Making That Exact Claim
It’s hard to find someone to root for in this one. Bill O’Reilly, the leading right-wing propagandist on Fox before they hired Glenn Beck versus Sen. Tom Coburn, R-0kla., who is a member of the Family a powerful Christian cult in Washington, who lives in the infamous house on C Street on Capitol Hill. Coburn is a physician and yet was a stalwart opponent of expanding health-care coverage to the 45 million Americans who couldn’t afford it.
O’Reilly is a notorious liar — Al Franken, now a senator from Minnesota, wrote a book that documented, in part, O’Reilly’s lies that he titled, “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right” — but he has rarely been caught so red-handed looking at the camera and lying about something that was so readily proven to be a lie.
This episode shows the perfection of the right-wing propaganda apparatus. First, they convinced their base to mistrust corporate media, in part by framing it as the “liberal media.” Now right-wing propagandists like O’Reilly can be proven to be lying, as Huffington Post did here — but his viewers will never see the proof because, as noted, they have been trained to avoid legitimate news outlets.
The Whistle-Blower They Ignored
Robert Scheer -
There aren’t too many genuine heroes to come out of the banking disaster, but Armando Falcon is one of them. You have probably never heard of him, but his testimony Friday before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, available on the commission’s website, is must reading for anyone trying to figure out why U.S. taxpayers had to bail out companies to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars.
Falcon was the chief regulator attempting to bring order to the houses of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac during the first four years of this decade, and had he been listened to, a significant part of the housing crisis could have been mitigated. Instead his agency was denied serious regulatory power by Democrats in Congress including liberals such as Reps. Barney Frank and Maxine Waters, both of whom assumed he was undermining public support for more affordable housing.
He wasn’t, and instead was attempting to call attention to the reckless bundling of risky mortgages in which the government-chartered agencies acted like the other too-big-to-fail behemoths that together almost wrecked the entire economy. It was those on the lower end of the income scale who had put their life savings into risky mortgages that were most hurt when the bubble burst.
Full Story: Robert Scheer: The Whistle-Blower They Ignored – Robert Scheer’s Columns – Truthdig.
Tennessee cleanup sends coal ash, anxiety, to Alabama site
When the mound of wet coal ash began to rise in the landfill across the road from her pretty yellow house with the peonies and roses in the front yard, Ruby Holmes felt overpowered by a horrible smell.
A few doors down, Mary Williams, a retired Avon sales office manager, shut her windows and kept the air filters running and still couldn’t sleep. She was nauseated. Her eyes, nose and throat burned, and her husband, a retired Greyhound driver, had trouble breathing.
“For a while, it was like we were just cast out and it didn’t matter about people living (with) that crap,” Williams said.
Full Story: Tennessee cleanup sends coal ash, anxiety, to Alabama site | McClatchy.
Kucinich: White House Assassination Policy Is Extrajudicial
There has been almost universal silence among Congressional Democrats on the Obama administration's recently revealed decision to authorize the assassination of a US citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki. Al-Awlaki, who now lives in Yemen, has been accused of providing inspiration for Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the alleged “underwear bomber,” and Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the alleged Fort Hood shooter. In recent weeks, there has been a dramatic surge in US government chatter about the alleged threat posed by al-Awlaki, with anonymous US officials accusing him of directly participating in terror “plots” (his family passionately disputes this).
Several Democrats refused, through spokespeople, to comment on the assassination plan when contacted by The Nation, including Senator Russ Feingold and Representative Jan Schakowsky, both of whom serve on the Intelligence Committees. Representative Jane Harman, who serves on the Homeland Security Committee, said recently that Awlaki is “probably the person, the terrorist, who would be terrorist No. 1 in terms of threat against us.”
One of the few Democrats to publicly address the issue of government-sanctioned assassinations is Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich. “I don’t support it–period,” he said in an interview. “I think people in both parties that are concerned about the Constitution should be speaking out on this. I can’t account for what anyone else doesn’t do.”
Full Story: Kucinich: White House Assassination Policy Is Extrajudicial.
Add-on to Health Care Bill Gives Feds More Power to Investigate Jail Conditions
Among the many lesser-known provisions tucked into the lengthy health care reform bill passed last month is one that expands the U.S. attorney general’s power to look into the abuse and neglect of those living in institutional settings.
The provision, first reported by the Web site Main Justice, amends the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA) to allow the Justice Department to issue subpoenas compelling publicly run prisons, jails, mental health facilities and nursing homes to open their doors to inspectors and turn over records.
Most local and state officials cooperate with CRIPA probes, resolving disputes through settlement agreements. Occasionally, however, they refuse to participate in the process, forcing the federal government to take them to court.
We wrote about one such case in Buffalo, N.Y., where Erie County Sheriff Timothy Howard balked at Justice Department requests for unfettered access to the Erie County Holding Center. The Justice Department opened an investigation into conditions at the 680-bed jail in November 2007 in response to reports of excessive force by guards and a rash of inmate suicides. When Erie County officials would not make improvements voluntarily, the Justice Department filed suit. Its inspectors gained access to the jail last month under a court order, prompted, at least in part, by three additional inmate suicides that have occurred since oral arguments began in the case.
Full Story: On The Hill: Add-on to Health Care Bill Gives Feds More Power to Investigate Jail Conditions.
11 Examples Of Recent Corruption On Wall Street
But the truth is that the vast majority of Americans have no idea just how corrupt the U.S. financial system has become.
The reality is that the American Dream is literally being stolen from millions of Americans right out from under their noses and they don’t even realize it. The corruption on Wall Street has become so deep and so vast that it is hard to even find the words to describe it. The level of greed being displayed by many Wall Street firms would make Gordon Gecko blush. It seems that the major financial players will try just about anything these days – as long as they think they can get away with it. But in the process they are contributing to the destruction of the greatest economic machine that the planet has ever seen.
Full Story: 11 Examples Of Recent Corruption On Wall Street.
What the whistleblower prosecution says about the Obama DOJ
- Glenn Greenwald -
The more I think and read about the Obama DOJ’s prosecution of NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake, the more I think this might actually be one of the worst steps the Obama administration has taken yet, if not the single worst step — and that’s obviously saying a lot. During the Bush years, in the wake of the NSA scandal, I used to write post after post about how warped and dangerous it was that the Bush DOJ was protecting the people who criminally spied on Americans (Bush, Cheney Michael Hayden) while simultaneously threatening to prosecute the whistle-blowers who exposed misconduct. But the Bush DOJ never actually followed through on those menacing threats; no NSA whistle-blowers were indicted during Bush’s term (though several were threatened). It took the election of Barack Obama for that to happen, as his handpicked Assistant Attorney General publicly boasted yesterday of the indictment against Drake.
Aside from the indefensible fact that only crimes committed by high-level Bush officials — but nobody else — enjoy the benefits of Obama’s “Look Forward, Not Backward” decree, think about the interests being served by this prosecution. Most discussions yesterday suggested that Drake’s leaks to The Baltimore Sun’s Sibohan Gorman were about waste and mismanagement in the “Trailblazer” project rather than controversial NSA spying activities, but that’s not entirely accurate.
Just consider this May 18, 2006, article by Gorman, describing how and why the NSA opted for the “Trailblazer” proposal over the privacy-protecting “Thin Thread” program, in the process discarding key privacy protections designed to ensure that the NSA would not eavesdrop on the domestic calls of U.S. citizens (h/t ondelette). In that article — which really should be read to get a sense for the whistle-blowing that is being punished by the DOJ — Gorman described at length how then-NSA head Michael Hayden rejected technologies that could “rapidly separate and encrypt U.S.-related communications to ensure privacy” and “that monitored potential abuse of the records.” As she put it: “Once President Bush gave the go-ahead for the NSA to secretly gather and analyze domestic phone records — an authorization that carried no stipulations about identity protection — agency officials regarded the encryption as an unnecessary step and rejected it.”
Full Story: What the whistleblower prosecution says about the Obama DOJ – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.
U.S. Terror Targets Unprotected, According to Former CIA Official
During the years he dueled terrorists overseas as a top operative for the CIA, Charles S. Faddis came to see the world through the eyes of the enemy.
Working in Iraq, South Asia and other hotspots, he cased streetscapes like a terrorist, identifying potential targets, probing for vulnerabilities. When he returned home he found himself looking through the same instinctive lens, whether riding Amtrak or attending a U.S. Marine Corps graduation.
What he saw — despite a vast campaign to fortify the United States after the Sept. 11 attacks — scared him. In fact, he says it scared him so much that he has written a new book, Willful Neglect: The Dangerous Illusion of Homeland Security.
Full Story: On The Hill: U.S. Terror Targets Unprotected, According to Former CIA Official.
The Only Way to Prevent Another Bailout of Wall Street is to Cap the Size of Wall Street’s Big Banks
Robert Reich -
The best way for Senate Dems and the White House to respond to the Republican charge that the Dem plan for financial reform doesn’t go far enough to prevent another bailout is to call their bluff — and simultaneously do what’s necessary to avoid another bailout: Cap the size of big banks, as the UK is close to doing for its big banks.
The so-called “resolution” mechanism the Dems are pushing to wind down any big bank that gets into trouble is a step in the right direction. But it won’t work if two or more giant banks are endangered at the same time — which is likely to be the case when the next crisis occurs because every big bank uses whatever profitable financial ploys every other bank uses (as they did in the runup to the crash of 2008).
Furthermore, as I’ve noted before, as long as the big banks are allowed to be huge and become even bigger, their political clout in Washington will remain huge and become even bigger. And as long as they have this kind of clout, they’ll wangle a bailout from Washington the next time their bets get them into trouble regardless of any “resolution” authority.
Full Story: Robert Reich (The Only Way to Prevent Another Bailout of Wall Street is to Cap the Size of Wall Street’s Big Banks).
And the heat goes on: warmest March on record
Last month was the warmest March on record worldwide, based on records back to 1880, scientists reported Thursday.
The average temperature for the month was 56.3 degrees Fahrenheit (13.5 degrees Celsius), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported.
That was 1.39 degrees F (0.77 C) above the average for the month over the 20th century.
NOAA researchers said the warmer-than-normal conditions were especially notable in northern Africa, South Asia, Tibet, Delhi, India and Canada.
Cooler-than-normal regions included Mongolia and eastern Russia, northern and western Europe, Mexico, northern Australia, western Alaska and the southeastern United States.
Full Story: And the heat goes on: warmest March on record – Yahoo! News.
Goldman Sachs Busted
Matt Taibbi -
Washington, D.C., April 16, 2010 – The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Goldman, Sachs & Co. and one of its vice presidents for defrauding investors by misstating and omitting key facts about a financial product tied to subprime mortgages as the U.S. housing market was beginning to falter.
Goldman, Sachs is getting busted, finally, for what to me is one of the most devious and brilliant crimes of the last decade.
I can’t get into this too much because I have other material coming out about it. But the upshot of it is that GS teamed up with a hedgie named John Paulson (no relation) to make the biggest ball of subprime shit they could, got short of it by credit-default-swapping it, then roped third parties into buying it. It’s kind of awesome in a way, and I’m sure it was fun while it lasted.
But now I’m reminded of the scene in Goodfellas when the cops bust Henry :
Bye bye, dickhead!
Full Story: Goldman Sachs Busted – Matt Taibbi – Taibblog – True/Slant.
Don Blankenship, the Chamber, and the murky nexus of money and judicial influence
Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy — the company that owned the mine where disaster struck last week — notoriously commented to Forbes in 2003 that “we don’t pay much attention to the violation count” even though the same article went on to note that the company’s three biggest rivals mined “twice as much coal in the state as Massey” and were only cited 175 times collectively, as opposed to Massey’s 501 citations in 2000-2001. Blankenship chalked it up to Massey’s being “unfairly targeted” by regulators (a common theme). Yet, a member of West Virginia’s Surface Mining Board referred to one of the violations Massey wasn’t “paying attention to” in this time period as “absolutely the worst behavior by any company that any member of this board has ever seen over the decades that this board has been in existence.”
But, honestly, why should Mr. Blankenship pay attention to violations when he can buy sympathetic judges and friendly legislators adverse to enforcing, and in some cases favoring efforts to roll back, those unfortunate regulations?
West Virginia Open to Homicide Prosecution for Massey Coal Mine Deaths
For years, the state of West Virginia was proud to say that it was “open for business.”
In a twist, now it might be open for a homicide prosecution in connection with the deaths of 29 miners at the Massey Energy mine in Raleigh County, West Virginia earlier this month.
“If there is evidence to support a homicide prosecution, I would not hesitate to prosecute,” Kristen Keller, the prosecuting attorney for Raleigh County told Corporate Crime Reporter last week.
Keller says she has been in touch with the West Virginia State Police on the matter.
And she says that any federal regulatory investigation would not preclude a state homicide investigation.
“A federal regulatory investigation does not satisfy the need for a state criminal investigation,” Keller said. “If there were a car accident where one or ten or 29 people were killed – a federal investigation would not preclude a state criminal investigation. In fact, there would be a state criminal investigation.”
Full Story: massey041610.
NSA Whistleblower Indicted for Leaking Classified Information to Reporter
A former senior National Security Agency (NSA) official was indicted Thursday on charges he leaked classified information to and served as a source for a reporter who wrote a series of critical articles about the agency’s work.
The indictment “suggests the Obama administration may be no less aggressive than the Bush administration in pursuing whistleblowers and reporters’ sources who disclose government secrets,” the New York Times noted.
According to the federal indictment, Thomas A. Drake, 52, allegedly corresponded and met in person with an unnamed newspaper reporter between February 2006 and November 2007 and exchanged hundreds of emails with the journalist about the inner workings of the super-secret spy agency.
Full Story: t r u t h o u t | NSA Whistleblower Indicted for Leaking Classified Information to Reporter.
Massey Energy to workers: “If you attend the funeral of your co-workers, you’re fired”
Families begin to bury 29 killed in West Virginia explosion
Families of workers killed in the West Virginia mine explosion are beginning to bury their loved ones, as residents speak out against Massey Energy and government regulators responsible for the disaster.
In an especially vindictive move, workers said that Massey has refused to allow miners time off so that they can attend the funerals of their coworkers.
The bodies of four miners were found early Saturday morning, bringing the total number killed to 29. The final death toll makes last week’s tragedy the deadliest mine disaster in the US since 1972, when 91 workers were killed from a fire at the Sunshine silver mine in Idaho. It is the deadliest incident at a coal mine since 1970, when 38 people were killed in an explosion at a Finley Coal mine in Hyden, Kentucky.
Full Story: Families begin to bury 29 killed in West Virginia explosion.
AR: Lt. Gov. Halter & Sen. Joyce Elliott Speak to the Machinists
Blanche Lincoln Got $1.3 Million from Wall Street
The Poll Democrats Need to Know About
Framing, Value-Shifting, the California Budget Crisis, and Why Democrats So Often Act Like Republicans
by George Lakoff
This is a case study of how inadequate polling can lead Democrats to accept and promote a radical Republican view of reality. This paper compares two polls, one excellent and revealing, the other inadequate, misleading, and counterproductive. The issues raised are framing and value-shifting (where voters shift, depending on the wording of questions, between two contradictory political world-views they really hold, but about different issues). It also discusses how polls can reveal the difference between what words are commonly assumed to mean, versus what they really mean to voters — and how polls can test this.
It is a truism that poll results can depend on framing. For example, the NY Times reported last month on a NYT/CBS Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell poll on whether “homosexuals” or “gay men and lesbians” should be allowed to serve openly in the military. Seventy-nine percent of Democrats said they support permitting gay men and lesbians to serve openly. Fewer Democrats however, just 43 percent, said they were in favor of allowing homosexuals to serve openly. That's a 36 percent framing shift on the same literal issue, but not surprising since the words evoked very different frames, one about sex and the other about rights. Newsworthy for the NY Times, but hardly earthshaking.
Full Story: The Poll Democrats Need to Know About | CommonDreams.org.
Iceland’s Volcanic Ash (PHOTOS): Volcano HALTS Flights Across Europe
LONDON – An ash cloud from Iceland’s spewing volcano halted air traffic across a wide swath of Europe on Thursday, grounding planes on a scale unseen since the 2001 terror attacks as authorities stopped all flights over Britain, Ireland and the Nordic countries.
Thousands of flights were canceled, stranding tens of thousands of passengers, and officials said it was not clear when it would be safe enough to fly again.
An aviation expert said it was the first time in living memory that an ash cloud had affected some of the most congested airspace in the world, while a scientist in Iceland said the ejection of volcanic ash — and therefore disruptions in air travel — could continue for days or even weeks. (AP STORY CONTINUES BELOW.)
Full Story: Iceland’s Volcanic Ash (PHOTOS): Volcano HALTS Flights Across Europe.
Senate Democrats Press FCC To Protect Internet From Corporate Takeover (VIDEO)
Key Senate Democrats took to the Senate floor on Wednesday evening to press the Federal Communications Commission to write tough rules that would keep the Internet free from corporate control.
A recent court decision has been widely treated in the press as a blow to Internet freedom, but it also allows the FCC to use separate authority to write broad rules.
Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) urged the agency to do just that. “This is a very important issue in the wake of the Circuit Court decision. I believe that [the] chairman has the capability and the ability to go forward and do the right thing and I encourage him to do that,” he said.
Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), the chairman of the Finance Committee, took the floor to thank Dorgan for his comments and ask him to expound on how it is the FCC can move forward.
“The best way to think about the decision is that it creates a challenge and presents an opportunity,” said Aparna Sridhar of Free Press, a group fighting for net neutrality. Telecom companies, meanwhile, are battling for control of the Internet. Without firm rules in place, companies such as Comcast can legally block Internet users from viewing certain websites.
Full Story: Senate Democrats Press FCC To Protect Internet From Corporate Takeover (VIDEO).
Stephen Breyer: Supreme Court Likely To Review Health Care Reform
Justice Stephen Breyer predicted Thursday that the Supreme Court will one day pass judgment on this year’s health care overhaul.
Breyer told a congressional panel that the massive health care law, like most major federal legislation, is a good candidate for high court review.
More than a dozen Republican attorneys general in several states are determined to challenge the law in federal court, arguing that its requirement that Americans get health insurance is unconstitutional.
Breyer said the court’s relatively light caseload in recent years will soon be a thing of the past.
“I’d predict that three, four years from today, no one’s going to ask us again why we have so few cases,” Breyer said at a hearing on the court’s budget before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government.
Full Story: Stephen Breyer: Supreme Court Likely To Review Health Care Reform.
Saturn Video Captures Extraterrestrial Lightning For First Time EVER (VIDEO)
Using images of Saturn’s night side taken by the Cassini spacecraft, NASA has created the first-ever video showing powerful extraterrestrial lightning strikes.
The footage comes from Saturn, where electrical storms can rage for months.
This particular video, shot in November 2009, shows a storm cloud nearly 2,000 miles long and lightning flashes almost 200 miles in diameter.
NASA reports on the landmark data:
After waiting years for Saturn to dim enough for the spacecraft’s cameras to detect bursts of light, scientists were able to create the movie, complete with a soundtrack that features the crackle of radio waves emitted when lightning bolts struck.
Full Story: Saturn Video Captures Extraterrestrial Lightning For First Time EVER (VIDEO).
Health Insurance Companies Shifting Costs To Protect Profits From New Law
Health insurance companies are already starting to game a key element of health care reform months before it even takes effect, according to a new report from the Senate Commerce Committee.
As in past years, the largest for-profit health insurers are still spending a phenomenal chunk of each premium dollar not on health care but on administrative costs — and profits. The report found that in the individual health care market, for example, the largest health insurers spent on average more than 26 cents out of every premium dollar on administrative costs and profits, with some spending as much as 32 cents. That’s on average; some state-based subsidiaries spent considerably more.
Enter the health care bill. Effective January 1, 2011, health insurers will be required to spend at least 80 cents out of every premium dollar in the individual and small group markets, and at least 85 cents in the large group market — or refund the difference to consumers in the form of rebates.
Full Story: Health Insurance Companies Shifting Costs To Protect Profits From New Law.
This Sweetener Is Far Worse Than High Fructose Corn Syrup
Many people interested in staying healthy have switched to agave as a safer “natural” sweetener. They want to avoid well documented dangerous sweeteners like HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) but are unaware that most agave is actually WORSE than HFCS.
This expose will offend many hard core natural health advocates because they have been convinced of the agave hype by companies that are promoting it.
Some have even criticized me for having “ulterior” motives. But nothing could be further from the truth. Although I do offer natural health products for sale on this site, I sell no competing products to agave.
Full Story: Dr. Joseph Mercola: This Sweetener Is Far Worse Than High Fructose Corn Syrup.
O’Reilly vs. Coburn: The Video Evidence (VIDEO)
On Tuesday night’s installment of “The O’Reilly Factor”, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly went after Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) for a comment Coburn made at a town hall meeting in Oklahoma earlier in the month. Coburn shot down speculation that imprisonment was one of the consequences for those who chose not to purchase health insurance, telling the crowd: “The intention is not to put anybody in jail. That makes for good TV news on FOX but that isn’t the intention.”
O’Reilly didn’t take too kindly to that sort of criticism of his employer, especially coming from a conservative like Coburn. So O’Reilly defied Coburn to name a single person on Fox News who had ever said such a thing. And then O’Reilly dropped the gauntlet, saying, “We researched to find out if anybody on Fox News had ever said you’re going to jail if you don’t buy health insurance. Nobody’s ever said it.”
Full Story: O’Reilly vs. Coburn: The Video Evidence (VIDEO).
Safety Violations At Massey Mines Skyrocket: 130 In Week Since Accident
In the week since the nation’s worst mine disaster in decades took the lives of 29 miners at the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia, the number of safety violations found by government regulators at mine owner Massey Energy’s other operations has skyrocketed.
The Mine Safety and Health Administration cited 130 “significant and substantial” violations at dozens of Massey’s mines from April 6 to April 14, according to a HuffPost analysis of MSHA records. That exceeds the number of violations found at those same mines for the entire month of March. Four of those violations involved ventilation plans which are intended to help prevent explosions and are designed “to control methane and respirable dust and shall be suitable to the conditions and mining system at the mine” — the Upper Big Branch mine was repeatedly cited for such violations and was penalized $136,142 in January.
In total, the agency found 460 violations at Massey’s mines, which exceeds the 351 violations at those same mines in March. Such S&S violations are considered much more serious, because they present a direct risk to the health and safety of mine workers
Full Story: Safety Violations At Massey Mines Skyrocket: 130 In Week Since Accident.
Obama Directs HHS To Establish Rules Ensuring Hospital Visitation Rights For Gay, Lesbian Couples
President Obama has signed a memorandum directing the Department of Health and Human Services to establish rules that would bar hospitals from denying visitation rights to partners of gay and lesbian patients.
Many hospitals currently restrict hospital visitation to a patient’s family members by blood or marriage. Because gay marriage is not legal in most states, partners are often unable to visit their loved ones–even in emergency situations.
Any hospital that receives federal Medicare or Medicaid money will be subject to the new rule, according to a White House official who spoke to The Washington Post.
Full Story: Obama Directs HHS To Establish Rules Ensuring Hospital Visitation Rights For Gay, Lesbian Couples.
Senate GOP Doesn’t Have Votes To Filibuster Wall Street Reform
GOP Warms To Breaking Up The Big Banks
When it comes to opposing the Democratic Wall Street reform plan, Republican leadership has a logic problem: If the Democratic idea to wind down and liquidate banks that are currently deemed “too big to fail” is no good, then what’s the alternative?
The obvious answer, of course, is to break the banks down in size so that failure doesn’t jeopardize the entire system. That might sound like an unusual position for the GOP to adopt but, slowly, Republican senators are beginning to embrace it.
The GOP faces an uphill battle to defeat the plan — Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) does not have the votes to block Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) from going to the floor with reform legislation next week, because Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) is refusing to sign a letter committing to block any bill Reid puts forward, reports The Hill.
Full Story: GOP Warms To Breaking Up The Big Banks.
New US jobless claims unexpectedly jump
New claims for US unemployment insurance benefits unexpectedly rose last week, largely due to Easter holiday-related factors, the Labor Department said Thursday.
Initial jobless claims totaled a seasonally adjusted 484,000 in the week ending April 10, the highest level since late February, the department reported.
That marked an increase of 24,000 from the prior week’s unrevised figure of 460,000 and surprised most analysts who had forecast new claims would fall by 440,000.
In the previous week ending April 3, claims had increased sharply, to 460,000 from 442,000 the prior week.
The Labor Department said the latest increase was due to seasonal factors.
Full Story: New US jobless claims unexpectedly jump – Yahoo! News.
Hmmm…Software That Predicts If You Will Do Crime & Time
The Florida State Department of Juvenile Justice says it will use predictive analytics software from IBM to foretell which of its juvenile offenders are likely to return to crime. The software, made by the SPSS division that Big Blue purchased last year, will replace Excel spreadsheets analyzed by employees. The software can look at far more data inputs and potentially handle more juvenile offenders faster than the older methods, and presumably the ability to incorporate more data points could lead to better results. Those deemed likely to re-offend are given specialized treatment.
The UK Ministry of Justice also uses IBM’s predictive software on its criminal population, to see which ones pose a greater threat to public safety upon release. IBM clearly plans to take SPSS beyond its former domain of market researchers and scientists and apply it to where the big money is — homeland security in these frightening times.
Full Story: Hmmm…Software That Predicts If You Will Do Crime & Time.
“Plastic Soup” Found in Atlantic Ocean
Garbage Patch Spotted between Bermuda and Azores Similar to Floating Junk Pile in Pacific Ocean
Researchers are warning of a new blight on the ocean: a swirl of confetti-like plastic debris stretching over thousands of square miles in a remote expanse of the Atlantic Ocean.
The floating garbage – hard to spot from the surface and spun together by a vortex of currents – was documented by two groups of scientists who trawled the sea between scenic Bermuda and Portugal’s mid-Atlantic Azores islands.
The studies describe a soup of micro-particles similar to the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a phenomenon discovered a decade ago between Hawaii and California that researchers say is likely to exist in other places around the globe.
Full Story: “Plastic Soup” Found in Atlantic Ocean – CBS News.
A Few Tax Reform Ideas Us Poor Folk Can Get Behind
Here’s what so many of our poor and middle class friends and neighbors fail to understand when they vote Republican: their little buzz phrase “tax cut” actually means this …
That’s a chart to think about on Tax Day, eh? Look at how much more the median family is paying compared to 1955. Isn’t 1955 smack in the middle of that the fuzzy sort of moral wonderdom most conservatives want to get back to?
In Today’s America, the greatest social prime mover is classism and, news flash, the vast majority of Americans are on the losing end. Like hip-hop artist Immortal Technique once said, black, white or brown, we’re all in the same boat and it’s (still) sinking.
Full Story: A Few Tax Reform Ideas Us Poor Folk Can Get Behind – Stephen C. Webster – Brave New Hooks – True/Slant.
Bosses in the Bedroom
Privacy is dead. Get over it. So says Scott McNealy, former president of Sun Microsystems.
He’s right. Workplace privacy is dead and buried. Employers can and do read e-mail, eavesdrop on telephone calls, monitor Internet access and watch workers with hidden cameras (even in bathrooms and locker rooms). Virtually all of this is legal. Technically, employers aren’t supposed to listen to personal telephone calls, but it happens all the time and you have no way of knowing. Some judges have found bathroom cameras to be an invasion of privacy, but other judges allow it.
As bad as this is, it’s getting worse. Bosses are now spying on workers’ home lives. Millions of workers carry company-issued cell phones. Every one of these phones is equipped with GPS. The technology required to track cell phones is readily available and not very expensive. The cost of tracking an employee 24/7 is only $5 a month. Employers often keep GPS tracking a secret or tell the workers they can turn off the GPS when they go home and continue to track them. The National Workrights Institute (NWI) has already begun receiving complaints about GPS.
Even more serious are the problems created by company-issued laptops. Employers usually tell workers it’s OK to use them for personal purposes as well as business. It’s presented as a perk—now you don’t need to buy your own computer.
Full Story: Bosses in the Bedroom | The Exception Magazine.
Health insurers cooking books to game reforms
Insurance companies couldn’t defeat reform legislation, so now they’re re-working their books to avoid its impacts.
“Some of the largest U.S. health insurers are changing their accounting practices to book administration costs as medical costs in an attempt to circumvent new industry reforms, according to a U.S. Senate panel’s report released on Thursday,” Reuters reports.
The move appears to be an attempt to avoid the law’s stricter standards for medical-loss ratio, implemented as a way of cutting waste. The law requires 80 to 85 percent of every premium dollar, depending on the plan, to be spent on medical costs.
Full Story: Health insurers cooking books to game reforms | Raw Story.
Feingold bill seeks end to ‘counterproductive’ war in Afghanistan
S military presence in Afghanistan may have rare bipartisan consensus in Washington, but a bipartisan trio of lawmakers are dissatisfied with the open-ended occupation and are calling for a change in strategy.
New legislation introduced by Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Reps. Jim McGovern (D-MA) and Walter Jones (R-NC) would require President Barack Obama to implement a flexible timetable to withdraw troops from Afghanistan and update Congress on its progress every three months.
“A large, open-ended presence in Afghanistan is counterproductive to our global fight against al Qaeda,” said Feingold, who assailed the idea of a “nation-building strategy in a country that isn’t even Al-Qaeda’s base” and called for a “timetable to end our massive presence in Afghanistan.”
Full Story: Feingold bill seeks end to ‘counterproductive’ war in Afghanistan | Raw Story.
WaMu lenders rapped about their wealth as they fueled the housing bubble: ‘I like big bucks and I cannot lie.’
In Sept. 2008, in what was “by far the largest bank failure in American history,” the federal government seized savings and loans giant Washington Mutual (WaMu) and later sold its assets to JP Morgan Chase. Politico reports that two years earlier, with WaMu at the center of the expanding subprime-mortgage bubble, company lenders gathered at a retreat in Hawaii to celebrate their wealth — by rapping. In a “Karaoke-style ode to greed – complete with faux WaMu rappers tossing play money into the crowd,” lenders re-mixed the 1992 hip-hop hit “Baby Got Back” into their own “I Like Big Bucks”:
“I like big bucks and I cannot lie/You mortgage brothers can’t deny,” sang the WaMu rappers.
The presentation, which included cheerleaders moving in time to the music, and choreographed moves by the singers, continued:
“That when the dough roles in like you’re printin’ your own cash/And you gotta make a splash/You just spends/Like it never ends/“
Returning Wall Street’s Favor, Brown Vows To Oppose Financial Reform And Offers No Ideas To Improve It
Sen. Scott Brown’s (R-MA) surprise election in January may not have been possible without the help of Wall Street’s “largest political enforcers.” The U.S. Chamber of Commerce spent $1 million on television ads backing Brown and boasted about its “influence” in the race. After the election, the Chamber proudly said that Brown’s election would “allow Republicans to block legislation” the business lobby opposed. Wall Street front groups FreedomWorks and Club for Growth also mobilized get out the vote efforts and strongly “boost[ed]” Brown’s campaign.
Moreover, as a ThinkProgress analysis revealed, business and Wall Street executives lavished Brown’s campaign coffers with over $200,000 in 11th hour contributions — nearly half of his total haul over that period.
Now, Brown seems to be returning the favor. As the Senate prepares to take up Sen. Chris Dodd’s (D-CT) financial regulatory reform bill, Brown said “in his strongest statement yet” that he “can’t support it.” While Brown said he is still “open” to working on a bipartisan bill, he seemed befuddled when asked how the bill could win his support:
Poll Reveals All You Need to Know about Tea Baggers: 57% Still Support George Bush – And, Yes, Their Rage Is Fueled by Racism, Fox News
For pundits and pols who have been casting about trying to get a fix on the true nature of tea baggers, a new poll finally offers definitive insight. According to the new CBS/New York Times poll of self-described tea-party supporters, 57 percent have a favorable opinion of George W. Bush.
Furthermore, 63 percent say they restrict their their news consumption to right-wing propaganda from Fox News. This may explain why they are outraged over the Obama administration’s efforts to pull the nation back from the brink of economic collapse while apparently having no clue that the person most responsible for the Bush Recession is their own Dear Leader George W. Bush.
It is a tribute to Fox News’ mastery at obfuscating reality with disinformation that these Bush fans are seemingly unaware that the U.S. economy crashed and the Bush Recession began in September 2008, when, indisputably, George Bush was president. Having only been exposed to propaganda from Fox and hatemonger radio and bloggers, tea baggers have no way of knowing that the malfeasant anti-regulatory policies of the Bush administration and the GOP-controlled Congress, combined with Republicans’ now-famous incompetence at governing, were directly responsible for the economic crisis.
How Ronald Reagan and Alan Greenspan Pulled off the Greatest Fraud Ever Perpetrated against the American People
David Leonhardt’s article, “Yes, 47% of Households Owe No Taxes. Look Closer,” in Tuesday’s New York Times was excellent, but it just scratches the tip of the iceberg of how the rich have gained at the expense of the working class during the past three decades. When Ronald Reagan became President in 1981, he abandoned the traditional economic policies, under which the United States had operated for the previous 40 years, and launched the nation in a dangerous new direction. As Newsweek magazine put it in its March 2, 1981 issue, “Reagan thus gambled the future — his own, his party’s, and in some measure the nation’s—on a perilous and largely untested new course called supply-side economics.”
Essentially, Reagan switched the federal government from what he critically called, a “tax and spend” policy, to a “borrow and spend” policy, where the government continued its heavy spending, but used borrowed money instead of tax revenue to pay the bills. The results were catastrophic. Although it had taken the United States more than 200 years to accumulate the first $1 trillion of national debt, it took only five years under Reagan to add the second one trillion dollars to the debt. By the end of the 12 years of the Reagan-Bush administrations, the national debt had quadrupled to $4 trillion!
Ronald Reagan and Alan Greenspan pulled off one of the greatest frauds ever perpetrated against the American people in the history of this great nation, and the underlying scam is still alive and well, more than a quarter century later. It represents the very foundation upon which the economic malpractice that led the nation to the great economic collapse of 2008 was built. Ronald Reagan was a cunning politician, but he didn’t know much about economics. Alan Greenspan was an economist, who had no reluctance to work with a politician on a plan that would further the cause of the right-wing goals that both he and President Reagan shared.
FOX Getting Too Vitriolic, Even for Life-Long Republicans
With the willful partisan distortions of FOX Fraudcasting, the network has consistently endured progressive and nonpartisan criticism for the way it approaches the “news.” FOX and its personalities have taken those kinds of derisions and mocked them in turn as the slanted work of the “lamestream media.” Further emboldened by the successful viewer draw it has amassed, FOX has continued to allow unsubstantiated conspiracy theories and blatant falsehoods to run on the air, sentiments that have grown so outrageous that even stalwart Republicans have grown wary of the caricatures.
Part of the growing conservative concerns about FOX's rhetoric became apparent when David Frum spoke about the network recently. Unsurprisingly, Frum soon afterward found himself fired from the American Heritage Institute for faulting the GOP on healthcare reform and placing at least part of the blame on FOX. Nonetheless, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), a major opponent of healthcare reform, made news for correcting a constituent at a town-hall meeting about the prospect of the government jailing her as part of the passed reform. “The intention is not to put anyone in jail,” said Coburn. “That makes for good TV on FOX, but that isn't the intention.”
Sen. Coburn would go further, defending Speaker Nancy Pelosi as a “nice lady” and that constituents should not “catch yourself being biased by FOX News that somebody is no good.” As someone who boasts a sterling record as a conservative, Coburn certainly had no intention of supporting progressive issues in criticizing FOX. Rather, he recognized how the baseless accusations perpetuated on the network manipulated the political climate into incredibly difficult working conditions.
Full Story: FOX Getting Too Vitriolic, Even for Life-Long Republicans | BuzzFlash.org.
Disposable Soldiers
The mortar shell that wrecked Chuck Luther’s life exploded at the base of the guard tower. Luther heard the brief whistling, followed by a flash of fire, a plume of smoke and a deafening bang that shook the tower and threw him to the floor. The Army sergeant’s head slammed against the concrete, and he lay there in the Iraqi heat, his nose leaking clear fluid.
“I remember laying there in a daze, looking around, trying to figure out where I was at,” he says. “I was nauseous. My teeth hurt. My shoulder hurt. And my right ear was killing me.” Luther picked himself up and finished his shift, then took some ibuprofen to dull the pain. The sergeant was seven months into his deployment at Camp Taji, in the volatile Sunni Triangle, twenty miles north of Baghdad. He was determined, he says, to complete his mission. But the short, muscular frame that had guided him to twenty-two honors–including three Army Achievement Medals and a Combat Action Badge–was basically broken. The shoulder pain persisted, and the hearing in his right ear, which evaporated on impact, never returned, replaced by the maddening hum of tinnitus.
Then came the headaches. “They’d start with a speckling in the corner of my vision, then grow worse and worse until finally the right eye would just shut down and go blank,” he says. “The left one felt like someone was stabbing me over and over in the eye.”
Full Story: Disposable Soldiers.
Study: NRA Is Stoking Anti-Government Fervor Among The Tea Party, Militia Crowd
The National Rifle Association (NRA) has abandoned its more-moderate face, and is once again “embracing—and, equally important, validating—the anti-government rhetoric” coming from the so-called tea party, and other anti-government activists on the Right, according to a new study released by a Washington-based anti-gun organization.
The 21-page report, which recalls the NRA membership of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, comes just ahead of a pro-gun march expected to take place next week in Washington, and right in the midst of a sharp rise in anti-government violence following last month’s enactment of comprehensive healthcare reform legislation.
The study, released by the Violence Policy Center (VPC), cites the need for the gun lobby to stay relevant at a time when ownership of firearms is in decline.
Full Story: On The Hill: Study: NRA Is Stoking Anti-Government Fervor Among The Tea Party, Militia Crowd.
DeMint returns salary, plans to opt-out of Social Security | theDiscust
Senator Jim DeMint announced today that he is returning his Congressional salary, declining all associated benefits, and taking steps to remove himself from other government-backed programs such as Social Security.
After much soul-searching and reflection,” said DeMint, “I have come to the conclusion that I can’t rail against government spending and entitlements and still suckle at the teat that I am battling to eliminate. I urge all my truly patriotic countrymen to do the same.”
DeMint’s annual salary is estimated to be about $170,000, not including health and travel benefits.
“I have been paying into this system my entire life and the money is leaving my wallet and going right into the welfare system, propping up people who are too lazy to take care of themselves,” said DeMint. “I’m tired of supporting those people and I’m not going to do it anymore. I won’t go into the details right now, but I will no longer be paying into Social Security, and I will be expecting a full refund of money I’ve paid into the system. I’m asking all of my fellow patriots to do the same — tear up that Social Security check, turn down that Medicare payment, you’ll be glad you did.”
Full Story: DeMint returns salary, plans to opt-out of Social Security | theDiscust.
OPS: A multi-millionaire opt out of Social Security a and congressional salary. Kinda makes you all warm and runny don’t it.
What do we get for our US tax dollars?
We like to think of Europeans as poor overtaxed serfs but the benefits they receive show the shortcomings of the US system
Most Americans seem to regard 15 April – the day income tax returns are due to the Internal Revenue Service – as a recurring tragedy on the order of a biblical plague. Particularly this year, with US government deficits soaring, everyone from the Teabaggers to Senate Republicans are reviving a scary Friday the 13th scenario from the 1990s about a return to Big Government. Recently Rudy Giuliani even stated that President Obama was moving us towards – heaven forbid – European social democracy.
Europe frequently plays the punching bag role during these moments because there is a perception that the poor Europeans are overtaxed serfs. But a closer look reveals that this is a myth that prevents Americans from understanding the vast shortcomings of our own system.
A few years ago, an American acquaintance of mine who lives in Sweden told me that, quite by chance, he and his Swedish wife were in New York City and ended up sharing a limousine to the theatre district with a southern US senator and his wife. This senator, a conservative, anti-tax Democrat, asked my acquaintance about Sweden and swaggeringly commented about “all those taxes the Swedes pay”. To which this American replied, “The problem with Americans and their taxes is that we get nothing for them.” He then went on to tell the senator about the comprehensive level of services and benefits that Swedes receive.
Full Story: What do we get for our US tax dollars? | Steven Hill | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.
Organic, local farms get a boost from USDA
Obama administration officials Wednesday outlined a broad array of efforts to elevate organic and local farming to a prominence never seen before at the sprawling U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The shift is raising eyebrows among conventional growers and promising federal support to a food movement that began in Northern California and was considered heretical only a few years ago.
“Guys, this is your window – use it,” USDA Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan told organic farmers, processors and retailers at a conference Wednesday in Washington that was sponsored by Santa Cruz’s Organic Farming Research Foundation and the Organic Trade Association.
When her microphone went dead as she discussed genetically modified foods, a member of the audience joked, “They’re already sabotaging you.”
Full Story: Organic, local farms get a boost from USDA.
JPMorgan CEO: Foreclosure is the Moral Thing to Do
Give him credit, JPMorgan’s CEO of home lending, David Lowman, has found a unique reason for saying no to homeowners who want to renegotiate their mortgages …it’s the moral thing to do. Or in Lowman’s words, “If we rewrite the mortgage contract retroactively to restore equity to any mortgage borrower because the value of his or her home declined, what responsible lender will take the equity risk of financing mortgages in the future.”
I actually agree that borrowers stupid enough to borrow more than they could pay back should take some responsibility for the pickle they’re in. All too often this cavalier attitude toward debt gets people in trouble. It gets lenders and the government in trouble too. Hence, financial meltdown.
The key word in Lowman’s statement is “responsible” as in “responsible lender”. From the get-go lenders have defended their practice of handing out outrageous loan candy to diabetics thusly: “I would say that was probably one of the big misses,” Dimon said. “We stressed almost everything else, but we didn’t see home prices going down 40 percent.”
Full Story: » JPMorgan CEO: Foreclosure is the Moral Thing to Do.
Tea Parties created as a political ploy
The Smoking gun. Teabaggers are being taken for fools.
msnbc.com: Tea Parties created as a political ploy.
How Senator Vitter Battled the EPA Over Formaldehyde’s Link to Cancer
When Sen. David Vitter persuaded the EPA to agree to yet another review of its long-delayed assessment of the health risks of formaldehyde, he was praised by companies that use or manufacture a chemical found in everything from plywood to carpet.
As long as the studies continue, the EPA will still list formaldehyde as a “probable” rather than a “known” carcinogen, even though three major scientific reviews now link it to leukemia and have strengthened its ties to other forms of cancer. The chemical industry is fighting to avoid that designation, because it could lead to tighter regulations and require costly pollution controls.
“Delay means money. The longer they can delay labeling something a known carcinogen, the more money they can make,” said James Huff, associate director for chemical carcinogenesis at the National Institute for Environmental Health in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Full Story: On The Hill: How Senator Vitter Battled the EPA Over Formaldehyde’s Link to Cancer.
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Republicans Don't Care about Voter Fraud....owa Republicans are trying to dismiss claims that the vote count in Tuesday's Iowa Caucus was wrong. An Iowa voter told a local TV station yesterday that he noticed a 20-vote discrepancy in the count - and that Rick Santorum was the real winner of the Caucuses. Republican Party officials, though, are sticking to their first count - showing Mitt Romney as the winner by 8-votes - and there will be no recount.The Republican Party has launched a war on voters around the nation this year with strict new laws that will disenfranchise over 5 million Americans. They claim these laws are necessary to combat so-called voter fraud. Yet in Iowa - where there are no such laws - and where a very, very close and questionable election was just held - Republicans don't seem to care at all about getting it right.Clearly - the war on voters isn't about making sure the people's voices are represented accurately - it's about making sure poor people, young people, and minorities who tend to vote for Democrats - can't vote at all.-Thom(Who do you think won? Tell us here.) -
LEGALIZE Democracy
" We the corporations" On January 21, 2010, with its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons, entitled by the U.S. Constitution to buy elections and run our government. __________
MOVE to AMEND
a project of the CAMPAIGN TO LEGALIZE Democracy
Help end Corporate personhood
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The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. 
