Archive for April, 2010

The Battle for Net Neutrality: Corporate Takeover or Opportunity?

On Tuesday, April 6th a federal court decision put the Internet, and your ability to use it, in jeopardy. It’s a major setback for free speech online and for the prospects of connecting the entire country to broadband.

The Washington DC Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) lacks the current authority to enforce rules that keep Internet service providers from blocking and controlling Internet traffic – a principle called Net Neutrality.

The court ruled in favor of the Internet service provider Comcast, which was caught blocking the file sharing service BitTorrent in 2007 and contested the FCC’s attempts to stop the company. The decision makes it nearly impossible for the FCC to follow through with plans to create strong Net Neutrality protections that keep the Internet out of the hands of corporations. Additionally, without authority over broadband, the FCC could be unable to implement portions of its just released National Broadband Plan designed to bridge the digital divide.

Full Story: The WIP Contributors: The Battle for Net Neutrality: Corporate Takeover or Opportunity?.

Mississippi Gov. Barbour Thinks Slavery Omission ‘Doesn’t Matter For Diddly’

This morning on CNN’s State of the Union, Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS) defended Gov. Bob McDonnell’s (R-VA) omission of slavery from his proclamation on Confederate History Month. Barbour told CNN host Candy Crowley that it seems unnecessary to mention slavery because everyone knows that it was a “bad thing” and that people are exaggerating something that “doesn’t matter for diddly.” He also pointed out that the Mississippi Democratic legislature has approved a similar proclamation and has faced little criticism:

CROWLEY: The [Virginia] Governor didn’t even mention slavery in his proclamation. Was that a mistake?

BARBOUR: Well, I don’t think so…I don’t know what you would say about slavery, but anyone who thinks that you have to explain to people that slavery is a bad thing — I think it goes without saying.

Full Story: Think Progress » Mississippi Gov. Barbour Thinks Slavery Omission ‘Doesn’t Matter For Diddly’.

Will: What conservatives truly want are activist judges.

Last week, Justice John Paul Stevens announced that he will retire from the Supreme Court at the end of the current term, giving President Obama his second Supreme Court vacancy to fill. Today, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) urged Obama not to select “someone that is so activist,” while Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) said that Republicans could filibuster “if the president picks someone from the fringe or somone who applies their feelings instead of applying the law.” On ABC’s This Week, conservative columnist George Will criticized conservatives for saying that they want judges who will strictly follow the law while simultaneously cheering decisions that overturn the work of elected officials:

There’s another test, and it’s wielded by my conservatives, and I think it’s mistaken. And that is, they say they’re against judicial activism. By which they mean they want the court to defer to the elected political branches of government. But if you look at what’s happened recently, the decision that most outraged conservatives was the Kelo decision on eminent domain. … The court did defer to the city government in Connecticut and it enraged conservatives. The recent decision that most pleased conservatives — Citizens United, overturning part of McCain-Feingold — was the court not deferring to the Senate.

Watch it:

Full Story: Think Progress » Will: What conservatives truly want are activist judges..

Lieberman Gets A Chuckle Out Of Peddling Far-Right Nuke Myth

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), once a reliable vote in favor of nuclear arms reduction efforts, has now bought into the right-wing myth that our nuclear arsenal is deteriorating and that the U.S. needs to build new nuclear weapons. Lieberman on Fox News Sunday said he is “real hesitant” to vote for a New START treaty unless the US effectively builds new nuclear weapons:

LIEBERMAN: Anytime we are working on something with our old Cold War enemy, Russia, cooperatively, it’s a good sign. Anything we can do to reduce the number of nuclear warheads in the world is a positive development. But in my opinion as we reduce the number of nuclear warheads… we have to make darn sure that are nuclear warheads are capable and modern and a lot of them are decades old. So I feel very strongly that I am going to be real hesitant to vote for this treaty unless we have a commitment from the Administration that they are prepared to modernize our nuclear stockpile.

In a demonstration of just how seriously Lieberman is taking these issues, as Chris Wallace shifted the conversation — noting that the treaty would need 9 Republican votes instead of 8 since “Lieberman was gone” — Lieberman audibly chuckled. Watch it:

Full Story: Think Progress » Lieberman Gets A Chuckle Out Of Peddling Far-Right Nuke Myth.

Europe Offers Greece 30 Billion Euros In Loans To Deal With Debt Crisis

Trying again to halt a debt crisis that has hammered the euro, fellow eurozone governments tossed struggling Greece a financial lifeline Sunday, saying they would make euro30 billion in loans available this year alone – if Athens asks for the money.

The International Monetary Fund stands ready to chip in another euro10 billion, said Olli Rehn, the EU monetary affairs chief.

The promise – filling in details of a March 25 pledge of joint eurozone-IMF help – was another attempt to calm markets that have been selling off Greek bonds in recent days.

Full Story: Europe Offers Greece 30 Billion Euros In Loans To Deal With Debt Crisis.

Huffington Suggests Elizabeth Warren As A Candidate To Replace Justice John Paul Stevens On The Supreme Court (VIDEO)

With John Paul Stevens announcing on Friday that he will be retiring from the Supreme Court this summer, there has been much speculation about who Obama might choose to replace him.

“I think the White House would like to do everything to avoid a fight. And I think they’re very mistaken if they think they can avoid a fight,” Arianna said On ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, as part of a roundtable with George Will, Sam Donaldson, and Cokie Roberts. “I think the president should nominate whoever he thinks is the best and forget this obsession with avoiding a fight because he won’t be able to.”

In addition to the names being bandied about as possible nominees, Arianna had another suggestion: Elizabeth Warren.

Full Story: HuffPost TV: Arianna Suggests Elizabeth Warren As A Candidate To Replace Justice John Paul Stevens On The Supreme Court (VIDEO).

Federal Reserve BANK CON exposed – Video

There is No Money!

Dylan Ratigan with Alan Grayson

Part 1

Part 2

Kissinger Rescinded Warning Against Condor Assassinations

Five days before the assassination in downtown Washington of former Chilean Defence Minister Orlando Letelier, then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger rescinded instructions to U.S. ambassadors in Latin America’s Southern Cone to warn the region’s military regimes against carrying out “a series of international murders”, according to documents released by the National Security Archive (NSA) here.

Kissinger “has instructed that no further action be taken on this matter”, reads a declassified Sep. 16, 1976 cable sent by Kissinger’s office from Zambia, where he was travelling at the time, to his assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs, Harry Shlaudeman.

The “matter” in question concerned instructions sent under Kissinger’s name to U.S. ambassadors to Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay Aug. 23, 1976, to make a formal demarche to the leaders of their host governments regarding Washington’s “deep concern” about reports it had received of “plans for the assassination of subversives, politicians and prominent figures both within the national borders of certain Southern Cone countries and abroad”.

Full Story: U.S.: Kissinger Rescinded Warning Against Condor Assassinations.

Nonsanto: A Month Without Monsanto

When I first heard about April Davila’s quest to live without Monsanto for a month, I thought she was doing something noble in a public setting. But, would it really be that hard? As a locavore, I pride myself on purchasing my produce from farmer’s markets, so couldn’t she just do the same? When we decided to meet, I soon realized that my arrogant assumptions had enough hot air to heat a compost bin.

After many attempts to find a place to meet, we settled on having organic herbal tea at a local coffee shop. She greeted me in her new wardrobe. No, she’s isn’t an Angeleno fashionista. Rather, Monsanto owns most cotton seeds so she had to purchase clothes and shoes made from other sources. April is plain and soft-spoken–I wouldn’t pick her to stand with a bull-horn outside of a McDonald’s protest. Despite her demeanor, her month without Monsanto was her own small but very impactful way of positively affecting our food system.

Full Story: Civil Eats » Blog Archive » Nonsanto: A Month Without Monsanto.

Over Half Of Detroit Homeless Population At Risk Of Dying On City Streets

The homeless in Detroit face a dire situation. The Detroit Free Press reports, that living on the streets puts more than half of them at risk for dying — a far greater percentage than in any other American city.

Fortunately, several nonprofits are stepping up to address this problem. Detroit homeless service providers, in partnership with the Neighborhood Service Organization, took to the streets to identify, interview and find the most at-risk homeless people. This effort is part of Common Ground’s 100,000 Homes Campaign — to give homeless people housing and help them get back on their feet.

Nonprofit workers were able to interview 211 homeless people in three nights to find out what caused them to lose their homes and learn about the risks they face living on the streets.

Full Story: Over Half Of Detroit Homeless Population At Risk Of Dying On City Streets.

U.S. puppet cuts his strings

Henry Kissinger once observed that it was more dangerous being America’s ally than its enemy.

The latest example: the U.S.-installed Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, who is in serious hot water with his really angry patrons in Washington.

The Obama administration is blaming the largely powerless Karzai, a former CIA “asset,” for America’s failure to defeat the Taliban. Washington accused Karzai of rigging last year’s elections. True enough, but the U.S. pre-rigged the Afghan elections by excluding all parties opposed to western occupation.

Full Story: U.S. puppet cuts his strings | Eric Margolis | Columnists | Comment | Toronto Sun.

Death toll from Bangkok protests climbs to 20

The death toll from the weekend’s clashes between anti-government protesters and Thai security forces climbed to 20 on Sunday, authorities said.

Of the dead, 16 are civilians and four are military, the Bangkok Emergency Medical Service said.

The clashes on Saturday also left 825 injured, the service said.

The protesters, known as the “Red Shirts” for their clothing, said Sunday they will parade around Bangkok with the bodies of the demonstrators killed in the clashes.

Full Story: Death toll from Bangkok protests climbs to 20 – CNN.com.

G.O.P. Weighs Cost of Fight on Justice Stevens’s Successor

In the aftermath of the polarized health care debate, some Republican leaders said they were reluctant to give Democrats further ammunition to portray them as knee-jerk obstructionists. But they also want to harness the populist anger at Mr. Obama’s policies and are wary of alienating their base when they need it most.

As they balance these competing imperatives, Republicans said they planned to move deliberately at first and avoid declarations that could box them in. With Democrats’ poll numbers down, Republicans said they did not necessarily want a fight for the sake of a fight, and they left open the possibility that Mr. Obama might pick someone they could largely support.

“We need to do our due diligence, and we need to probably bend over backwards both in appearance and in reality to give the nominee a fair process,” said Senator John Cornyn of Texas, a member of the Judiciary Committee and chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Likewise, some conservatives who led the fight against Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation last year said they should learn from mist

Full Story: G.O.P. Weighs Cost of Fight on Justice Stevens’s Successor – NYTimes.com.

New Barack Obama Green Charter High School is coming to Plainfield | – NJ.com

Plainfield will soon be home to the city’s first charter high school after the zoning Board of Adjustment unanimously approved a variance this week for the educators to set up classrooms at the Plainfield YMCA.

The 120-seat Barack Obama Green Charter High School is slated to open for ninth and tenth graders at the start of the new school year at 530 West Seventh St. It already has approval from the state Department of Education.

The school’s founders tout it as the first charter in New Jersey to implement the philosophy of the nonprofit Green Schools Initiative, which advocates a strategy including a toxin-free campus, sustainable use of resources and a ban on junk food.

Full Story: New Barack Obama Green Charter High School is coming to Plainfield | – NJ.com.

U.S. officials say Pakistani spy agency released Afghan Taliban insurgents

The recent capture of the Afghan Taliban’s second in command seemed to signal a turning point in Pakistan, an indication that its intelligence agency had gone from helping to cracking down on the militant Islamist group.

But U.S. officials now believe that even as Pakistan’s security forces worked with their American counterparts to detain Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar and other insurgents, the country’s Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, or ISI, quietly freed at least two senior Afghan Taliban figures it had captured on its own.

U.S. military and intelligence officials said the releases, detected by American spy agencies but not publicly disclosed, are evidence that parts of Pakistan’s security establishment continue to support the Afghan Taliban. This assistance underscores how complicated the CIA-ISI relationship remains at a time when the United States and Pakistan are battling insurgencies that straddle the Afghanistan border and are increasingly anxious about how the war in that country will end.

Full Story: U.S. officials say Pakistani spy agency released Afghan Taliban insurgents.

Whistleblowers on US ‘massacre’ fear CIA stalkers

Activists behind a website dedicated to revealing secret documents have complained of harassment by police and intelligence services as they prepare to release a video showing an American attack in which 97 civilians were killed in Afghanistan.

Julian Assange, one of the founders of Wikileaks, has claimed that a restaurant where the group met in Reykjavic, the capital of Iceland, came under surveillance in March and one of the group’s volunteers was detained for 21 hours by police.

Assange, an Australian, says he was followed on a flight from Reykjavik to Copenhagen by two American agents. The group has riled governments by publishing documents leaked by whistleblowers.

Full Story: Whistleblowers on US ‘massacre’ fear CIA stalkers – Times Online.

Haitians Race To Relocate Ahead Of Flooding, Mudslides

The first of 50,000 earthquake victims that officials fear are most threatened by Haiti’s looming rainy season were relocated Saturday as nonprofit groups scrambled to receive them.

Adults and children living at the Petionville golf course walked up a steep hill with their belongings and climbed into buses that rumbled off to yet another temporary home.

They wore yellow wristbands that indicated their departure time and new neighborhood: Corail-Cesselesse, an extremely dry and dusty area about nine miles (15 kilometers) north of Port-au-Prince.

Full Story: Haitians Race To Relocate Ahead Of Flooding, Mudslides.

Britain Investigates Almost A MILLION Errors In Organ Donor Lis

Britain’s transplant authority said Saturday that it was investigating several hundred thousand errors in its organ donor list stretching back about a decade.

The National Health Service Blood and Transplant organization said a proportion of its 14 million-strong organ donor list has been affected by technical errors since 1999 – and that a small group of people may have had organs removed without proper authorization as a result.

The programming error meant that, for example, people who wanted to donate organs such as their lungs or their skin were incorrectly identified as people who wanted to donate their corneas or heart.

Full Story: Britain Investigates Almost A MILLION Errors In Organ Donor List.

Explorer Completes First Arctic Balloon Crossing

A French explorer’s team says he has made the first Arctic crossing by balloon, landing in the tundra of eastern Siberia five days after taking off in Norway.

Jean-Louis Etienne traveled 3,130 kilometeres (1,945 miles) in his special balloon, sailing over the Arctic Circle.

The 63-year-old radioed his team after landing Saturday, expressing relief “because there were difficult moments and I was starting to lose sleep.” The landing had been set for Alaska, but Etienne had to change course after a snowstorm Wednesday near the North Pole hindered the recharging of batteries via solar panels.

Full Story: Jean-Louis Etienne: Explorer Completes First Arctic Balloon Crossing.

Government’s Broadband Investment Irks Companies

When Congress included $7.2 billion for broadband in last year’s stimulus bill, its goal was to bring high-speed Internet connections and information-age jobs to parts of the country desperate for both things.

Now as the government awards the money, some phone and cable companies complain that not all of it is being used to bring broadband to places that lack it. Instead, these companies say, much of the money will fund new networks in places where they already offer service.

From the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Great Plains, some local phone and cable companies fear they will have to compete with government-subsidized broadband systems, paid for largely with stimulus dollars. If these taxpayer-funded networks siphon off customers with lower prices, private companies warn that they could be less likely to upgrade their own lines, endangering jobs and undermining the goals of the stimulus plan.

Full Story: Government’s Broadband Investment Irks Companies.

Obama’s Jobs Agenda Stalled In Congress

The election-year jobs agenda promised by President Barack Obama and Democrats has stalled seven months before voters determine control of Congress.

Democrats have no money to pay for the program. That’s because both Republicans and the Democratic chairman of the Senate Budget Committee objected to taking money left over from the fund that bailed out banks, automakers and insurers and using it for the jobs bill.

Such a move, they insisted, would add tens of billions of dollars to the $12.8 trillion national debt.

An $80 billion-plus Senate plan promised an infusion of cash to build roads and schools, help local governments keep teachers on the payroll, and provide rebates for homeowners who make energy-saving investments. Two months after the plan was introduced, most of those main elements remain on the Senate’s shelf.

Obama’s proposed $250 bonus payment to Social Security recipients is dead for the year, having lost a Senate vote last month.

Full Story: Obama’s Jobs Agenda Stalled In Congress.

Cheney to Treasury: “Deficits don’t matter”

Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill was told “deficits don’t matter” when he warned of a looming fiscal crisis.

O’Neill, fired in a shakeup of Bush’s economic team in December 2002, raised objections to a new round of tax cuts and said the president balked at his more aggressive plan to combat corporate crime after a string of accounting scandals because of opposition from “the corporate crowd,” a key constituency.

O’Neill said he tried to warn Vice President Dick Cheney that growing budget deficits-expected to top $500 billion this fiscal year alone-posed a threat to the economy. Cheney cut him off. “You know, Paul, Reagan proved deficits don’t matter,” he said, according to excerpts. Cheney continued: “We won the midterms (congressional elections). This is our due.” A month later, Cheney told the Treasury secretary he was fired.

The vice president’s office had no immediate comment, but John Snow, who replaced O’Neill, insisted that deficits “do matter” to the administration.

Source: [X-ref O'Neill] Adam Entous, Reuters, on AOL News Jan 11, 2004

Full Story: Dick Cheney on Budget & Economy.

Interest Rates Have Nowhere to Go but Up

Even as prospects for the American economy brighten, consumers are about to face a new financial burden: a sustained period of rising interest rates.

That, economists say, is the inevitable outcome of the nation’s ballooning debt and the renewed prospect of inflation as the economy recovers from the depths of the recent recession.

The shift is sure to come as a shock to consumers whose spending habits were shaped by a historic 30-year decline in the cost of borrowing.

“Americans have assumed the roller coaster goes one way,” said Bill Gross, whose investment firm, Pimco, has taken part in a broad sell-off of government debt, which has pushed up interest rates. “It’s been a great thrill as rates descended, but now we face an extended climb.”

Full Story: Interest Rates Have Nowhere to Go but Up – NYTimes.com.

Laura Ingraham Plays Concern Troll for the Rich and Attacks Middle Class Tax Cuts

Laura Ingraham plays concern troll for the rich or the “givers” as she calls them and cries about how overburdened they’re going to be if they have to pay more taxes. She also attacks recent tax credits given to “middle class” earners as well. Watch out or the middle class isn’t going to pay any taxes either just like those lazy “takers” at the bottom she was referring to.

I know they’ve got the teabaggers bamboozled into thinking that the tax cuts for the wealthy are going to benefit them as well, but this segment seemed a bit too obvious even for Fox. Somehow directly attacking tax cuts for the “middle class” (which she should have called working class since we really don’t have much of a middle class left) doesn’t seem like a winning message even for their audience.

Full Story: Laura Ingraham Plays Concern Troll for the Rich and Attacks Middle Class Tax Cuts | Video Cafe.

Does Our Universe Live Inside a Wormhole?

A long time ago, in a universe much larger than our own, a giant star collapsed. Its implosion crammed so much mass and energy together that it created a wormhole to another universe. And inside this wormhole, our own universe was born. It may seem fantastic, but a theoretical physicist claims that such a scenario could help answer some of the most perplexing questions in cosmology.

A number of facets about our universe don’t make sense. One is gravity. Scientists can’t construct a mathematical formula that unites gravity with the three other basic forces of nature: the strong and weak nuclear forces and electromagnetism. Another problem is dark energy, the mysterious phenomenon that seems to be expanding our universe at an accelerating rate, even though gravity should be contracting it or at least slowing the expansion.

These conundrums may be a result of stopping the search for the riddle of the cosmos at the big bang, says Nikodem Poplawski of Indiana University in Bloomington. The big bang theory holds that our universe began as a single point—or singularity—about 13.7 billion years ago that has been expanding outward ever since. Perhaps, Poplawski argues, we need to consider that something existed before the big bang that gave rise to it.

Full Story: Does Our Universe Live Inside a Wormhole? – ScienceNOW.

Bomb damages U.S. consulate in Mexico

No injuries, officials say; attack, possibly linked to drug war, is under investigation

An attacker threw an explosive device over the wall around the U.S. consulate in the border city of Nuevo Laredo, breaking windows and startling employees inside but causing no injuries, the U.S. embassy said Saturday.

The attack, which took place about 11:30 p.m. Friday, is under investigation, embassy spokesman Claude Young said.

Mr. Young said the consulate and the consular agency in the border town of Piedras Negras would be closed Monday pending a review of security measures.

Full Story: Bomb damages U.S. consulate in Mexico – The Globe and Mail.

Potential Obama nominees for the Supreme Court

Sketches of potential candidates to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens, listed alphabetically, with their pros and cons:

List follows…..

Full Story: News from The Associated Press.

OPS: …remembering that this is the AP’s view of what is PRO and CON for each.

Analysis: Ramifications of crash on Polish politics

Experts say the deaths of senior military chiefs in Saturday’s plane crash could have more serious implications for Poland than the loss of the country’s president.

President Lech Kaczynski was killed Saturday when a plane carrying senior Polish officials on their way to a memorial service in Russia crashed at an airport in Smolensk..

Ninety-seven people were killed including the president’s wife, the deputy parliament speaker, the deputy foreign minister and the head of the National Bank of Poland.

Full Story: Analysis: Ramifications of crash on Polish politics – CNN.com.

Facing mounting scandals, RNC chairman says time to ‘move on’

Amid increasing pressure to step down as chairman of the National Republican Committee, Michael Steele told the audience at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference that it was time to “move on” after revelations of his mismanagement of party funds.

Steele said it wouldn’t serve the Republican Party’s interests to dwell on the scandals, which include nearly $2,000 spent at a bondage-themed nightclub, because it plays into a Democratic “trap.”

“They love nothing more than for us to keep pointing fingers at me and others, instead of their radical un-American agenda and we shouldn’t fall for that trap,” Steele said. “I’m the first here to admit that I’ve made mistakes, and it’s incumbent on me to take responsibility, shoulder that burden, make the necessary changes and move on.”

Full Story: Facing mounting scandals, RNC chairman says time to ‘move on’ | Raw Story.

UN judge calls for prosecution of Pope Benedict

Geoffrey Robertson, a renowned human rights lawyer and United Nations jurist, wants to see Pope Benedict put on trial for allegedly protecting predator priests.

In a Guardian UK piece making its rounds this week in Catholic circles, Robertson demanded the pope be “put in the dock” so that the church might “feel the full weight of international law” over its thousands of pedophilia scandals.

The pope’s conduct, he said, “amounted to the criminal offence of aiding and abetting sex with minors,” making Benedict a justifiable target for either the International Criminal Court or a British court acting under the legal principal of universal jurisdiction.

Full Story: UN judge calls for prosecution of Pope Benedict | Raw Story.

Huckabee Compares Gays To Drug Users, Says They’re Unfit To Adopt Kids Because ‘Children Are Not Puppies’

Former Arkansas governor and current Fox News personality Mike Huckabee gave an interview with the College of New Jersey’s magazine The Perspective in which he made clear that he is just as intent on depriving gay men and women of equal status as ever. For instance, he said that gay couples shouldn’t be able to get married because it would be like accommodating drug habits of addicts:

Even civil unions are “not necessary,” Huckabee said. “I think there’s been a real level of being disingenuous on the part of the gay and lesbian community with their goal of civil unions,” he alleged, referring to LGBT activists who first claimed that their goal in several states was to enact civil unions, but subsequently launched efforts to implement full marriage rights.

Huckabee went on to draw parallels between homosexuality and other lifestyles that are considered by some to be morally aberrant. “You don’t go ahead and accommodate every behavioral pattern that is against the ideal,” he said of same-sex marriage. “That would be like saying, well, there are a lot of people who like to use drugs, so let’s go ahead and accommodate those who want who use drugs. There are some people who believe in incest, so we should accommodate them. There are people who believe in polygamy, so we should accommodate them.”

Full Story: Think Progress » Huckabee Compares Gays To Drug Users, Says They’re Unfit To Adopt Kids Because ‘Children Are Not Puppies’.

Lieberman thrilled by prospect that Obama nominee could make Supreme Court ‘slightly less liberal.’

The Washington Post writes that, because of “the current political climate,” Justice John Paul Stevens’ “decision to step down this summer will almost certainly mean a more conservative Supreme Court, even with Barack Obama in the White House and Democrats controlling Congress.” Liberal legal blogger Glenn Greenwald argued that one of the frontrunners who has been widely mentioned — Solicitor General Elena Kagan — “would shift the Court substantially to the Right on a litany of key issues.” Huffington Post notes “liberals worry that, by choosing her, the administration would miss the opportunity to elevate a genuine progressive.” But Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) is excited about the prospect. On Fox News this morning, Lieberman was thrilled about a potential right-ward turn for the Supreme Court:

This is a fascinating moment maybe for all these reasons, acknowledging that the fact that Justice Stevens became the leader of the liberal wing of the Supreme Court, that President Obama may nominate someone in fact who makes the Court slightly less liberal, at least for a while.

Watch it:

Full Story: Think Progress » Lieberman thrilled by prospect that Obama nominee could make Supreme Court ‘slightly less liberal.’.

The Cover-Ups That Exploded

The Pentagon is reeling after two lethal episodes uncovered by diligent journalism show trigger-happy U.S. Army helicopter pilots and U.S. Special Forces slaughtering civilians, then seeking to cover up their crimes.

The World Wide Web was transfixed Monday when Wikileaks put up on YouTube a 38-minute video, along with a 17-minute edited version, taken from a U.S. Army Apache helicopter, one of two firing on a group of Iraqis in Baghdad at a street corner in July 2007. Twelve civilians died, including a Reuters photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and a Reuters driver, Saeed Chmagh, 40.

At a press conference in Washington, D.C., Wikileaks said it had got the footage from whistle-blowers in the military and had been able to break the encryption code. The Pentagon has confirmed the video is genuine.

Full Story: t r u t h o u t | Alexander Cockburn | The Cover-Ups That Exploded.

Frank Rich: No One Is to Blame for Anything

Greenspan : “I was right 70 percent of the time, but I was wrong 30 percent of the time,”  ….. That, of course, is not true.

“I was right 70 percent of the time, but I was wrong 30 percent of the time,” said Alan Greenspan as he testified last week on Capitol Hill. Greenspan — a k a the Oracle during his 18-year-plus tenure as Fed chairman — could not have more vividly illustrated how and why geniuses of his stature were out to lunch while Wall Street imploded. No doubt he applied his full brain power to that 70-30 calculation. But the big picture eludes him. If the captain of the Titanic followed the Greenspan model, he could claim he was on course at least 70 percent of the time too.

Greenspan was testifying to the commission trying to pry loose the still incomplete story of how the American economy was driven at full speed into its iceberg. He was eager to portray himself as an innocent bystander to forces beyond his control. In his rewriting of history, his clout in Washington was so slight that he was ineffectual at “influencing the Congress.” The “roots” of the crisis, he lectured, dated back to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. In other words: Wherever the buck stops, you had better believe it’s not within several thousand miles of the Oracle. As he has previously said in defending his inability to spot the colossal bubble, “Everybody missed it — academia, the Federal Reserve, all regulators.”

That, of course, is not true. In last Sunday’s Times, one of those who predicted the bubble’s burst — Michael Burry, an investor chronicled in “The Big Short” by Michael Lewis — told in detail of how Greenspan and others in power “either willfully or ignorantly aided and abetted” the reckless boom and the ensuing bust. But Greenspan is nothing if not a representative leader of his time. We live in a culture where accountability and responsibility are forgotten values. When “mistakes are made” they are always made by someone else.

Full Story: Op-Ed Columnist – No One Is to Blame for Anything – NYTimes.com.

New Evidence Implicates Henry Kissinger In Assassination Case

As secretary of state, Henry Kissinger canceled a U.S. warning against carrying out international political assassinations that was to have gone to Chile and two neighboring nations just days before a former ambassador was killed by Chilean agents on Washington’s Embassy Row in 1976, a newly released State Department cable shows.

Whether Kissinger played a role in blocking the delivery of the warning against assassination to the governments of Chile, Argentina and Uruguay has long been a topic of controversy.

Discovered in recent weeks by the National Security Archive, a non-profit research organization, the Sept. 16, 1976 cable is among tens of thousands of declassified State Department documents recently made available to the public.

Full Story: New Evidence Implicates Henry Kissinger In Assassination Case.

U.S. officials say Pakistani spy agency released Afghan Taliban insurgents

The recent capture of the Afghan Taliban’s second in command seemed to signal a turning point in Pakistan, an indication that its intelligence agency had gone from helping the militant Islamist group to cracking down on it.

But U.S. officials now think that even as Pakistan’s security forces worked with their American counterparts to detain Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar and other insurgents, the country’s Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, or ISI, quietly freed at least two senior Afghan Taliban figures it had captured on its own.

U.S. military and intelligence officials said the releases, detected by American spy agencies but not publicly disclosed, are evidence that parts of Pakistan’s security establishment continue to support the Afghan Taliban. This assistance underscores how complicated the CIA-ISI relationship remains at a time when the United States and Pakistan are battling insurgencies that straddle the Afghanistan border and are increasingly anxious about how the war in that country will end.

Full Story: U.S. officials say Pakistani spy agency released Afghan Taliban insurgents.

Medical Marijuana Bill Moves Through Maryland Senate In Landslide

The Maryland Senate voted on Saturday to allow patients access to medical marijuana at state-licensed dispensaries. The bill now moves to the state’s lower chamber.

The bill was approved overwhelmingly, with bipartisan support and without objections or discussion, by a 35-12 margin.

Maryland would join 14 other states in legalizing medical marijuana. The neighboring District of Columbia legalized it in a 1998 referendum that was only recently allowed by Congress to go into effect. The District’s city council is writing rules to establish the city’s medical marijuana policy.

Current Maryland law allows defendants charged with pot possession to cite a medical necessity defense. If a judge deems the drug to be beneficial, a maximum hundred dollar civil fine is imposed.

Full Story: Medical Marijuana Bill Moves Through Maryland Senate In Landslide.

U.S. Steps Up Probe of Tech Hiring

The Justice Department is stepping up its investigation into hiring practices at some of America’s biggest companies, including Google Inc., Intel Corp., International Business Machines Corp., Apple Inc. and IAC/InterActiveCorp., people familiar with the matter said.

The inquiry is focused on whether companies, particularly in the technology sector, have agreed not to recruit each others’ employees in ways that violate antitrust law. Specifically, the probe is looking into whether the companies’ hiring practices are costing skilled computer engineers and other workers opportunities to change jobs for higher pay or better benefits.

Full Story: U.S. Steps Up Probe of Tech Hiring – WSJ.com.

OPS: That’s fine, but what about WallStreet?

Exposing Glenn Beck as a Dangerous Fraud

So here goes. Beginning with this post, I intend to expose Glenn Beck as a fraud. A dangerous faker who deliberately manipulates his audience by appealing to their basest instincts. As a man who only embraces conservatism and the tea party movement as a means to furthering his significant personal wealth and career as a successful TV goon.

My theory is as follows. Glenn Beck is engaged in a carefully orchestrated performance that, if taken to its logical end, can only end up in tragedy — a tragedy, not in the name of some great political or social or religious cause, as too many of his viewers might believe, but rather in the name of pure careerism and greed. A tragedy in the name of Glenn Beck’s personal drive for fame and fortune, not to mention the similar motivations of Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch.

Right. I get it. I should probably ignore him. Why should I waste time writing about Glenn Beck again? As hard as it is to believe, most days I intentionally ignore Glenn Beck posts and videos on the blogs. My recurring reaction is generally twofold. One: he’s exhausting to watch because just as I’m wrapping my head around one line of googly-eyed horseshit, he belts out another ridiculous, melodramatic or dangerous line, and before I know it, I’m faced with a log-jam of crazy, forcing me to scramble for either an oxygen mask or a stiff drink. And, two: why pay attention to the television equivalent of an escaped mental patient screaming gibberish on the median strip at a busy intersection?

Full Story: Bob Cesca: Exposing Glenn Beck as a Dangerous Fraud.

Security clampdown in protest-hit Bangkok

Thailand's security forces maintained a heavy presence in Bangkok Saturday as mass anti-government protests approach the one-month mark with no end in sight to the turmoil.

Tens of thousands of police and soldiers have been mobilised to restore order in the capital, where “Red Shirt” demonstrators have occupied the main commercial district, causing traffic gridlock and prompting stores to close.

Tensions escalated on Friday when forces used tear gas and water cannon as thousands of protesters stormed a television broadcaster in the city's outskirts to try to put an anti-government channel back on air.

Full Story: Security clampdown in protest-hit Bangkok – Yahoo! News.

The ‘mind-blowing’ surge of wealth inequality in America

One of the most understated issues in American political discourse is the surging inequality of income and wealth. The Nation has a chart that sheds light on what’s going on.

Notice that the level of inequality was higher by 2006 than even just before the Great Depression. You can bet that figure has risen after the ‘08 bailouts, which (necessary as it may have been to prevent a catastrophic financial plunge) essentially funneled money from poor and working people into the pockets of wealthy financial institutions that participated in the economy’s decline. Heads they win, tails we lose.

FDR’s Fed chairman Marriner S. Eccles explained in kitchen-table discourse why this matter is so damaging to the national economy: “As in a poker game where the chips were concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the other fellows could stay in the game only by borrowing. When their credit ran out, the game stopped,” he said.

Business Insider has an excellent slide show that adds depth and breadth to this phenomenon. Here’s one graphic (via the Institute for Policy Studies) showing that in 2007 the top 1 percent owned over a third of the nation’s wealth while the bottom 50 percent had a measly 2.5 percent.

Full Story: The ‘mind-blowing’ surge of wealth inequality in America – Sahil Kapur – AntiPartisan – True/Slant.

Westboro protesters outnumbered 500 to 6 today at Drake

A family of six carrying signs that read “God hates fags” faced more than 500 counter-protesters singing “All You Need Is Love” on the Drake University campus this morning.

The confrontation was peaceful, lasted 35 minutes, and no arrests were made.

The family of Fred Phelps, founder of the controversial Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, was in Des Moines to picket the university for hosting a symposium on same-sex marriage.

Waving signs that read, “Fags are beasts” and “God hates Jews,” the Phelps family assembled on the south side of University Avenue at 7:40 a.m., while the counter-protesters — for the most part — stayed on the north side with signs that read, “Drake rejects hate,” and “My God loves everyone.”

Full Story: Westboro protesters outnumbered 500 to 6 today at Drake | desmoinesregister.com | The Des Moines Register.

Tax Refunds Up 10%- You Got A Tax Break

Key Quote:So far, Americans who have filed their taxes have discovered that the average refund is up nearly ten percent this year to an all-time high of about $3,000. This is due in large part to the Recovery Act. In fact, one-third of the Recovery Act was made up of tax cuts tax cuts that have already provided more than $160 billion in relief for families and businesses, and nearly $100 billion of that directly into the pockets of working Americans.

Full Story: YouTube – Tax Refunds Up 10%- You Got A Tax Break.

Iraq: Seven Years of Occupation

In the last seven years, one million Iraqis have been killed and millions more injured and displaced from their homes.

On April 9, 2003, exactly seven years ago, Baghdad fell under the US-led occupation. Baghdad did not fall in 21 days, though; it fell after 13 years of wars, bombings and economic sanctions. Millions of Iraqis, including myself, watched our country die slowly before our eyes in those 13 years. So, when the invasion started in March of 2003, everyone knew it was the straw that would break the camel’s back.

I still remember the day of the fall of Baghdad very clearly, as if it happened yesterday. My family and I had fled to my uncle’s home in southern Baghdad because our neighborhood, located near Baghdad’s airport, was bombarded by US airplanes in the days before. I remember the first US tank rolling down the street with a US soldier, wearing black gloves, waving his hand and some people waving back. That was one of the sadist day of my life, not only because Baghdad fell under a foreign occupation, but also because I knew it would be the beginning of another disastrous chapter in Iraq’s history. Now, when I look back at all that happened under the occupation, I find that I was, unfortunately, right.

In the last seven years, one million Iraqis have been killed and millions more injured and displaced from their homes. The country’s infrastructure was destroyed and Iraq’s civil society has been severely damaged. A video posted this week by WikiLeaks is not an exception to how the US occupation operated in Iraq all along, but rather an example of it. While the video is shocking and disturbing to the US public, from an Iraqi perspective it just tells a story of an average day under the occupation. But even from the Pentagon’s perspective, that attack was nothing exceptional. Reuters demanded an investigation into this particular attack because two of its employees were killed in it, and the Pentagon has already conducted an investigation that cleared all soldiers who took part of the attack of any wrongdoing. The video does not show an operation that went wrong, or where “rules of engagement” were not followed. It is simply how the US military has been doing business in Iraq for seven years now.

Full Story: Iraq: Seven Years of Occupation | CommonDreams.org.

Study: Privatizing prisons has questionable benefits

Privatizing Florida’s prison system has done little to lower costs or reduce recidivism rates compared to prisons operated by the state, according to a report released Friday by the Florida Center for Fiscal and Economic Policy.

“Florida’s experience with privatized prisons raises serious questions about whether the taxpayers are getting their money’s worth,” FCFEP Executive Director John Hall said in a news release.

Privatization gained momentum in the last 20 years, with six of the state’s 62 prisons run by two private companies – Nashville, Tenn.-based Corrections Corp. of America (NYSE: CXW) and Boca Raton-based The Geo Group (NYSE: GEO).

Full Story: Study: Privatizing prisons has questionable benefits – South Florida Business Journal:.

Nine Myths about Socialism in the US

As Senator Patrick Moynihan used to say “Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. But everyone is not entitled to their own facts.”

Glenn Beck and other far right multi-millionaires are claiming that the US is hot on the path towards socialism. Part of their claim is that the US is much more generous and supportive of our working and poor people than other countries. People may wish it was so, but it is not.

As Senator Patrick Moynihan used to say “Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. But everyone is not entitled to their own facts.”

The fact is that the US is not really all that generous to our working and poor people compared to other countries.

Consider the US in comparison to the rest of the 30 countries that join the US in making up the OECD – the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. These 30 countries include Canada and most comparable European countries but also include some struggling countries like Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Korea, Mexico, Poland, Slovak Republic, and Turkey. See www.oecd.org

Full Story: Nine Myths about Socialism in the US | CommonDreams.org.

The death of Dawn Johnsen’s nomination

- Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com

After waiting 14 months for a confirmation vote that never came, Dawn Johnsen withdrew today as President Obama’s nominee to head the Office of Legal Counsel. As I documented at length when the nomination was first announced in January, 2009, Johnsen was an absolutely superb pick to head an office that plays as vital a role as any in determining the President’s record on civil liberties and adherence to the rule of law. With 59 and then 60 Democratic votes in the Senate all year long (which included the support of GOP Sen. Richard Lugar, though the opposition of Dem. Sen. Ben Nelson and shifting positions from Arlen Specter), it’s difficult to understand why the White House — if it really wanted to — could not have had Johnsen confirmed (or why she at least wasn’t included in the spate of recently announced recess appointments).

I don’t know the real story behind what happened here — I had an email exchange with Johnsen this afternoon but she was only willing to provide me her official, pro forma, wholly uninformative statement — but here’s what I do know: virtually everything that Dawn Johnsen said about executive power, secrecy, the rule of law and accountability for past crimes made her an excellent fit for what Candidate Obama said he would do, but an awful fit for what President Obama has done. To see how true that is, one can see the post I wrote last January detailing and praising her past writings, but all one really has to do is to read the last paragraph of her March, 2008 Slate article — entitled “Restoring Our Nation’s Honor” — in which she outlines what the next President must do in the wake of Bush lawlessness:

Full Story: The death of Dawn Johnsen’s nomination – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.

Fix The Dodd Bill — Use The Kanjorski Amendment

At the heart of the currently proposed legislation on financial reform (e.g., the Dodd bill and what we are expecting on derivatives from the Senate Agriculture committee), there is a simple premise: Key decisions about exact rules going forward must be made by regulators, not Congress. This is obviously the approach being pushed for capital requirements, but it is also the White House’s strong preference for any implementation of the Volcker Rule – first it must be studied by the systemic risk council (or similar body) and only then (potentially) applied.

Treasury insists that Congress is not capable of writing the detailed rules necessary for a complex financial system – only the regulators can do this. This is either a mistake of breathtaking proportions, or an indication that the ideology of unfettered finance continues to reign supreme.

The regulators who got us into our current mess include Ben Bernanke (a Republican from the Greenspan tradition of financial regulation), John Dugan (also a Republican, who makes Bernanke look progressive), and of course Alan Greenspan himself.

Full Story: Simon Johnson: Fix The Dodd Bill — Use The Kanjorski Amendment.

Former Army Colonel: U.S. Military Leaders Have ‘Forfeited’ Their Purpose

Andrew Bacevich: US Military Leaders Have ‘Forfeited’ Their Purpose With Afghan Victory Claims (VIDEO)

Nine years after the U.S. military invaded Afghanistan, military leaders have “unwittingly forfeited” their claim to providing an important service to society, according to retired U.S. Army Colonel and Boston University professor Andrew J. Bacevich.

In an interview with Bill Moyers, Bacevich argues that admissions from Gen. David Petraeus and Gen. Stanley M. McChrystal that there is no military solution in Afghanistan are historic and ultimately undermine the American officer corps’ purpose to demonstrate that war can work

Bacevich: After Vietnam, this humiliation that we had experienced, the collective purpose of the officer corps, in a sense, was to demonstrate that war worked. To demonstrate that war could be purposeful. That out of that collision on the battlefield, would come decision, would come victory.

And that soldiers could claim purposefulness for their profession by saying to both the political leadership and the American people, ‘This is what we can do. We can in certain situations solve very difficult problems by giving you military victory.’

Well here in the year 2010, nobody in the officer corps believes in military victory…

Full Story: Andrew Bacevich: US Military Leaders Have ‘Forfeited’ Their Purpose With Afghan Victory Claims (VIDEO).

A Surge of Hate

Antigovernment extremists are on the rise—and on the march.

Stewart Rhodes does not seem like an extremist. He is a graduate of Yale Law School and a former U.S. Army paratrooper and congressional staffer. He is not at all secretive. In February he was sitting at a table at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at a fancy downtown hotel in Washington, handing out fliers and selling T shirts for his organization, the Oath Keepers. Rhodes says he has 6,000 dues-paying members, active and retired police and military, who promise never to take orders to disarm U.S. citizens or herd them into concentration camps. Rhodes told a NEWSWEEK reporter, “We’re not a militia.” Oath Keepers do not run around the woods on the weekend shooting weapons or threatening the violent overthrow of the government. Their oath is to uphold the Constitution and defend the American people from dictatorship.

But by conjuring up the specter of revolution—or counterrevolution—is Rhodes adding to the threat of real violence? Oath Keepers are “a particularly worrisome example of the ‘patriot’ revival,” according to Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which monitors hate speech and extremist organizations. “Patriot” groups—described by the SPLC as outfits “that see the federal government as part of a plot to impose ‘one-world government’ on liberty-loving Americans”—are “roaring back” after years out of the limelight, according to Potok. Notorious in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, the patriot groups seemed to fade away under the shadow of 9/11, but hard times and the nation’s first African-American president seem to have brought about a revival—from 149 groups in 2008 to 512 (127 of them militias) in 2009, according to the SPLC.

Full Story: A Surge of Hate – Newsweek.com.

Want Increased Longevity? Spring Into Shape With Smart Exercise

With the recent LA Marathon just over, you may have become inspired to put on your running shoes and get out for a run. And now that spring is here, it is a good time to get off the couch and get back on track with your exercise routine. How you approach your workout can determine the benefits and enjoyment that you’ll get from it while preventing unnecessary injuries.

Activate Your Health In my 25 years of clinical practice and research on centenarians, I have never met a healthy person or centenarian that lived a physically inactive life. Exercise brings with it numerous benefits, from boosting your energy and reducing stress hormones to lowering your risk for heart disease, stroke, cancer depression, and diabetes.

Exercise also helps burn off excess blood sugar, preventing it from getting stored as body fat – good news for your waistline. Moderate load-bearing exercises are essential for bone density and muscle strength, and this is especially important as we age. Cardiovascular exercises increase heart rate and provide stimulation for the heart muscles, helping maintain proper endurance. Every way you look at it, exercise will make you happier, sexier, and more vivacious!

Full Story: Dr. Maoshing Ni: Want Increased Longevity? Spring Into Shape With Smart Exercise.

Alan Grayson Confronts GOP For Spying On Democratic Gathering (VIDEO)

Conservative media spent much of Friday attacking Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) for breaking up a GOP meeting Thursday evening in his Orlando district. Rush Limbaugh talked about the confrontation for good chunks of his show and Fox News hit the story several times, as did Michelle Malkin.

Though the media outlets didn’t make it clear, Grayson had a specific objective in attending the meeting. Grayson had obtained an email from Ron Janssen, the District One Republican Chairman, telling fellow Republicans that at the next meeting there would be a guest speaker who had “snuck behind enemy lines into an Organizing For America Meeting.” He wanted to know if the Orange County Republicans approved of the tactic.

Organizing for America (OFA) is the outgrowth of Obama’s campaign machine, comprised of millions of activists.

Full Story: Alan Grayson Confronts GOP For Spying On Democratic Gathering (VIDEO).

Obama Administration Missed Chance To Get Tougher On Unsafe Mines

Long before the explosion that killed at least 25 coal miners inside Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch Mine on Monday, Obama administration mine safety officials were aware of a major loophole that allowed companies like Massey to avoid stricter enforcement despite alarming safety records.

Mining safety regulations were tightened in 2007, following an explosion the previous year that killed 12 miners at the Sago Mine, also in West Virginia. But mining companies immediately began gaming the new system.

Mines that are designated as having a “pattern of violations” are subject to a greater level of oversight. But Massey and others ducked that designation simply by lodging formal appeals against the major violations issued against them

Full Story: Obama Administration Missed Chance To Get Tougher On Unsafe Mines.

OPS: Did he “miss” the chance, or successfully dodge it?

States Move To Limit Role Of Credit Checks In Hiring

As a Hiring Filter, Credit Checks Draw Questions

In defending employers’ use of credit checks as part of the hiring process, Eric Rosenberg of the TransUnion credit bureau paints a sobering picture.

Retailers lose more than $30 billion a year because of employee theft, he says. Workplace violence costs employers $55 million a year in lost wages. A third of employees provide bogus information on their résumés.

Screening the backgrounds of employees “is critical to protect the safety of Connecticut residents in their homes and offices, in their cars and in all other places they travel,” Mr. Rosenberg testified to Connecticut legislators in February 2009, explaining why TransUnion markets its credit reports to employers.

Trouble is, researchers say there is no evidence showing that people with weak credit are more likely to be bad employees or to steal from their bosses, a fact that Mr. Rosenberg himself later admitted.

Full Story: As a Hiring Filter, Credit Checks Draw Questions – NYTimes.com.

Shroud Of Turin Going Back Up Before The Public

The long linen with the faded image of a bearded man is the object of centuries-old fascination and wonderment, and closely kept under wrap. Starting Saturday, and for six weeks, both the curious and those convinced the Turin Shroud is the burial cloth of Jesus Christ can have a brief look.

By late Friday, 1.5 million people had reserved their three-to-five-minute chance to gaze at the cloth, which is kept in a bulletproof, climate-controlled case. Organizers said earlier this year they hoped some 2 million pilgrims and tourists would see the linen during the special viewing from April 10 to May 23.

That number doesn’t include Pope Benedict XVI, who will fly up to Turin, Piedmont’s capital, in northwest Italy, on May 2 for a day trip to pray before the shroud.

Full Story: Shroud Of Turin Going Back Up Before The Public.

IMF Protesters Try to Disrupt Cambridge University Address by Strauss-Kahn

IMF Executive Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn is “cool under fire”, as Central European University President John Shattuck said when introducing him, and didn’t break his stride during his interesting presentation to a group convened by the Institute for New Economic Thinking at Kings College, University of Cambridge.

I am sitting in the hall now — listening to Strauss-Kahn and witnessing the disruption. The above photo was snapped by me a few moments ago.

Those in the hall during Strauss-Kahn’s talk and the disruption include George Soros, Financial Services Authority Chief Lord Adair Turner, UT Austin’s James K. Galbraith, the American Prospect’s Robert Kuttner, Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz, financier and writer Marshall Auerback, former IMF chief economist and blog provocateur Simon Johnson, Naked Capitalism blogger Yves Smith, Institute for New Economic Thinking Executive Director Rob Johnson, Economic Policy Institute President Lawrence Mishel, and others.

Full Story: Steve Clemons: IMF Protesters Try to Disrupt Cambridge University Address by Strauss-Kahn.

Glutathione: The Mother of All Antioxidants

It’s the most important molecule you need to stay healthy and prevent disease — yet you’ve probably never heard of it. It’s the secret to prevent aging, cancer, heart disease, dementia and more, and necessary to treat everything from autism to Alzheimer’s disease. There are more than 89,000 medical articles about it — but your doctor doesn’t know how address the epidemic deficiency of this critical life-giving molecule …

What is it? I’m talking about the mother of all antioxidants, the master detoxifier and maestro of the immune system: GLUTATHIONE (pronounced “gloota-thigh-own”).

The good news is that your body produces its own glutathione. The bad news is that poor diet, pollution, toxins, medications, stress, trauma, aging, infections and radiation all deplete your glutathione.

This leaves you susceptible to unrestrained cell disintegration from oxidative stress, free radicals, infections and cancer. And your liver gets overloaded and damaged, making it unable to do its job of detoxification.

Full Story: Mark Hyman, MD: Glutathione: The Mother of All Antioxidants.

Toxic Fish Expose Greater Concern of Imported Foods into U.S.

Every year 76 million Americans are afflicted by food poisoning. In 2007 the FDA estimated that it would conduct border inspections of just 0.6 percent of the food it is supposed to regulate.

The American seafood industry is being flooded with products imported from developing countries, much of which have proven to be contaminated with banned chemicals, poisons, carcinogens and high levels of antibiotics, according to a report by ABC News.

The report found that over 80 percent of the seafood sold in America today is imported, much of it from Third World nations such as China, Vietnam and the Philippines, none of which are known for their food safety standards.

The Food and Drug Administration, which is charged with promoting public health through regulation and supervision of food safety, inspects less than one percent of the nation’s imported seafood. Alabama, one of the few states with stringent seafood safety testing, regularly rejects 50 to 60 percent of imported seafood due to safety concerns, ABC News reported.

Full Story: Toxic Fish Expose Greater Concern of Imported Foods into U.S. | Economy In Crisis.

The Time For Talking Is Over

“Every administration has thought it could get something done by talking to China. But years of experience have shown that the Chinese will not be moved by words; they
only respond to tough action,”

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY)

In the wake of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s unscheduled meeting with Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan in Beijing Thursday to discuss China’s undervalued currency, the message coming from Capitol Hill appears to be “Time for talking is over.”

With the national unemployment rate hovering dangerously close to 10 percent and, in an election year already expected to be unkind to many incumbents, a sizable portion of lawmakers have made tackling China’s currency manipulation – and saving American jobs by doing so – a top priority issue.

That’s why many lawmakers were so obviously disappointed last week when Geithner announced that the Treasury Department would delay a report on international currency. After failing to name China in its first two reports, it was widely expected that the Asian powerhouse would finally get the label that it deserved. But Geithner chose to delay the report in favor of high-level discussion with Chinese officials, which many believe is an exercise in futility.

Full Story: The Time For Talking Is Over | Economy In Crisis.

The Prohibitively High Cost of Outsourcing

Our labor force is not better trained, harder working, or more innovative than our foreign competitors. The argument that we will create new jobs in highly paying fields simply is not true.

A great deal of effort is being expended to convince us all that the outsourcing of jobs under the rubric of free trade is a good thing. I would like to discuss some of these arguments.

Our labor force is not better trained, harder working, or more innovative than our foreign competitors. The argument that we will create new jobs in highly paying fields simply is not true. We have no comparative advantage or superiority in innovation. To assume that we are inherently more creative than our foreign competitors is both arrogant and naive. We are currently empowering our competition with the resources to innovate equally as well as we. Consider the number of new non-native Ph.D.s that leave our universities each year; consider our low rank in the education of mathematics and the sciences; and consider the large number of international students enrolled in our most difficult technical degree programs at our most prestigious universities.

Full Story: The Prohibitively High Cost of Outsourcing | Economy In Crisis.

The Harsh Truth About Outsourcing

Outsourcing is not a mutually beneficial trade practice — it’s outright labor arbitrage.

Economists are blind to the loss of American industries and occupations because they believe these results reflect the beneficial workings of free trade. Whatever is being lost, they think, is being replaced by something as good or better. This thinking is rooted in the doctrine of comparative advantage put forth by economist David Ricardo in 1817.

It states that, even if a country is a high-cost producer of most things, it can still enjoy an advantage, since it will produce some goods at lower relative cost than its trading partners.

Today’s economists can’t identify what the new industries and occupations might be that will replace those that are lost, but they’re certain that those jobs and sectors are out there somewhere. What does not occur to them is that the same incentive that causes the loss of one tradable good or service — cheap, skilled foreign labor — applies to all tradable goods and services. There is no reason that the “replacement” industry or job, if it exists, won’t follow its predecessor offshore.

Full Story: The Harsh Truth About Outsourcing | Economy In Crisis.

America is caught in a ‘free trade’ trap

When our government ends its fiscal year Sept. 30, 2010, I would like the following information.

First of all, I would like the trade imbalance with every one of our trading partners in dollars. We can start with China, Japan, India, South Korea, Canada, Mexico, Germany, France, Vietnam, etc., Now I know this request is just a matter of record and can, within a month, be made public. What isn’t made public is the number and quality of the jobs our imports from all our trading partners takes away from our American economy and how many jobs our exports to the same countries provides for our American economy.

Giving us figures, in dollars, of our trade imbalance just tells us where our money has gone. For example, (and these are ballpark figures) if China exported $380 billion to America and they only imported $90 billion from us, they had a $290 billion trade imbalance with America.

Now what I want to know is how many jobs did our exports to China give us and how many jobs did our imports from China take away from us?

Full Story: America is caught in a ‘free trade’ trap – Fosters.

Recovery? There’s No Recovery

Retail analyst Howard Davidowitz of Davidowitz & Co. does not believe the U.S. is charging out of the worst recession since the Great Depression, he believes nothing has changed. Davidowitz thinks the U.S. is still careening down the road toward fiscal instability, over-indebtedness, ballooning budget deficits and interest payments, and declining living standards.

Full Story: Recovery? There’s No Recovery | Economy In Crisis.

Chamber of Commerce is Leading Congress Astray

The Chamber of Commerce is funded by business elites and these elites benefit from international economic liberalization. They have an agenda which serves them and they have the right to that self serving idealism.

The United States Chamber of Commerce is supposed to represent the best interests of American corporations and act as their legislative lobby. Unfortunately many of its efforts are counterproductive and effectively work to undermine the overall competitiveness and stability of U.S. companies. In 2009 the Chamber of Commerce petitioned Congress to drop “buy American” clauses from the Obama stimulus package. The Chamber of Commerce has also increased its efforts to stimulate the development of new broader “free trade” agreements (FTAs) with nations around the world.

The reason the Chamber of Commerce was against so-called “buy American” clauses was due to its belief that such measures would increase the cost of projects while simultaneously creating a “trade war” with those nations who were left out of the bidding. The concept it fails to grasp is that there already is a trade war and the United States is being severely beaten.

The Chamber of Commerce's reasoning for even more FTAs is the misguided belief that the agreements actually result in surpluses for the United States. They highlight the fact that the U.S. is running surpluses with 9 of the 10 nations it entered into FTAs with since 2004. Unfortunately this statistic is misleading. The nations with whom we have established FTAs in the last four years are marginal developing economies; the nations which we run deficits with are massive and well developed economies. For example, the United States has a $10 billion surplus with Australia (one of the 9 successes) – and our largest surplus was $14.5 billion with the Netherlands in 2007. No export surplus exceeds $15 billion annually.

Full Story: Chamber of Commerce is Leading Congress Astray | Economy In Crisis.

Obama Weekly Address: President Advertises Tax Breaks Ahead Of Tax Day (VIDEO)

Just ahead of Tax Day, President Barack Obama is urging Americans to take advantage of tax credits for first-time homebuyers, college students and others.

Obama used his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday to promote some of the tax benefits in last year's stimulus bill, saying they could save people hundreds or even thousands of dollars and were available to more than 100 million Americans. Even those who file before the April 15 deadline can amend their returns if there are savings they missed, Obama noted.

“No one I've met is looking for a handout. And that's not what these tax cuts are,” Obama said. “Instead, they're targeted relief to help middle-class families weather the storm, to jump-start our economy and to bring the fundamentals of the American dream — making an honest living, earning an education, owning a home and raising a family — back within reach for millions of Americans.”

Full Story: Obama Weekly Address: President Advertises Tax Breaks Ahead Of Tax Day (VIDEO).

Polish leader, 96 others dead in Russia jet crash

Polish President Lech Kaczynski and some of the country’s highest military and civilian leaders died on Saturday when the presidential plane crashed as it came in for a landing in thick fog in western Russia, killing 97, officials said.

Russian and Polish officials said there were no survivors on the 26-year-old Tupolev, which was taking the president, his wife and staff to events marking the 70th anniversary of the massacre in Katyn forest of thousands of Polish officers by Soviet secret police.

The crash devastated the upper echelons of Poland’s political and military establishments. On board were the army chief of staff, the navy chief commander, and heads of the air and land forces. Also killed were the national bank president, deputy foreign minister, army chaplain, head of the National Security Office, deputy parliament speaker, Olympic Committee head, civil rights commissioner and at least two presidential aides and three lawmakers, the Polish foreign ministry said.

Full Story: Polish leader, 96 others dead in Russia jet crash.

One in five adults believe aliens are on earth, disguised as humans

Aliens are living on earth disguised as humans, according to one fifth of adults in a new global survey.

The poll questioned 23,000 adults in 22 countries and found that more than 40 per cent of people from India and China believe that alien life exists with a human facade on this planet.

European respondents in the survey were more sceptical with only eight per cent of people from Belgium, Sweden and the Netherlands convinced that life from outer space exists on earth.

Men were more likely to believe in extra-terrestrial life than women with 22 per cent convinced compared to 17 per cent of women.

Full Story: One in five adults believe aliens are on earth, disguised as humans – Telegraph.

Stiglitz: U.S. Monetary Policy Is Creating “Bubbles All Over The World”

video.

Professor Joseph Stiglitz was on Bloomberg Television today talking about the situation in Europe, the crisis of German decision-making on Greece, and the potential for global bubble development.

* 0:20 Crazy markets are driving the Greece scare

* 1:22 If Europe continues to hold out and markets continue to act crazy, Greece will have to go to the IMF

* 2:15 European system has fundamental flaws that need to be dealt with

* 2:45 Germany is the main beneficiary of the E.U. model, yet it doesn’t want to pay out

* 3:50 Unless the euro zone comes to the aid of Greece, some state is going to be next

* 5:20 The U.S. economy exposed China to massive risks, because of U.S. bubble making

* 5:40 The key risk is that U.S. monetary policy is flooding the world with liquidity and creating “bubbles all over the world”

Full Story: Stiglitz: U.S. Monetary Policy Is Creating “Bubbles All Over The World”.

Business Week: Public wrong, markets right, Obama plan working

Never mind the polls, Mike Dorning seems to be suggesting in an article for Business Week which analyzes Obama administration’s economic policies.

In a shorter version of the article for Bloomberg News, Dorning writes, “Americans believe, by an almost 2-to-1 margin, that the economy has gotten worse rather than better during the past year, according to the March Bloomberg National Poll. The market begs to differ, Bloomberg BusinessWeek reports in its April 19 edition. While President Barack Obama’s overall job-approval rating has fallen to a low of 44 percent, down 5 points from late March according to a CBS News Poll, the judgment of financial markets has turned positive.”

Full Story: Business Week: Public wrong, markets right, Obama plan working | Raw Story.

OPS: It’s working for Wall Street – no one argues that. The title should be – It’s working for Wallstreet

FCC May Tweak Broadband Plan After Comcast Ruling

Despite a recent ruling that said the Federal Communications Commission did not have the right to interfere in Comcast’s network management issues, the agency is pushing ahead with its national broadband plan, though there might be some tweaks.

“Does the FCC still have a mission in the Internet area? Absolutely,” Austin Schlick, general counsel for the FCC, wrote in a blog post. “The Court did not adopt the view that the Commission lacks authority to protect the openness of the Internet.”

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The court did, however, say that the FCC lacked the authority to hand down a 2008 enforcement action against Comcast. The commission, under former chairman Kevin Martin, found that Comcast used unreasonable network management when it blocked access to P2P sites like BitTorrent and ordered the company to be more transparent about its policies. Comcast agreed to do that, but appealed the decision anyway because, it argued, the FCC did not have the right to issue orders on the issue.

Full Story: FCC May Tweak Broadband Plan After Comcast Ruling | News & Opinion | PCMag.com.

Earthworms form herds and make “group decisions”

Earthworms form herds and make “group decisions”, scientists have discovered.

The earthworms use touch to communicate and influence each other’s behaviour, according to research published in the journal Ethology.

By doing so the worms collectively decide to travel in the same direction as part of a single herd.

The striking behaviour, found in the earthworm Eisenia fetida, is the first time that any type of worm, or annelid, has been shown to form active herds.

“Our results modify the current view that earthworms are animals lacking in social behaviour,” says Ms Lara Zirbes, a PhD student at the University of Liege in Gembloux in Belgium.

Full Story: BBC – Earth News – Earthworms form herds and make “group decisions”.

Junior Florida Republican Party staffer had $1.3 million charged to party credit card

She was a 25-year-old junior staffer when the Florida Republican Party gave her an American Express card.

Over the next 2½ years, nearly $1.3 million in charges wound up on Melanie Phister’s AmEx — $40,000 at a London hotel, and nearly $20,000 in plane tickets for indicted former House Speaker Ray Sansom, his wife and kids, for starters. Statements show thousands spent on jewelry, sporting goods and in one case $15,000 for what’s listed as a month-long stay at a posh Miami Beach hotel, but which the party says was a forfeited deposit.

The credit card records, obtained by the St. Petersburg Times and Miami Herald, offer the latest behind-the-scenes look at extravagant and free-wheeling spending by the party touting fiscal restraint. Not only did certain elite legislative leaders have their own party credit cards to spend donors’ money with little oversight, but Phister’s records show these leaders also liberally used an underling’s card — without her knowledge, she says.

Full Story: Junior Florida Republican Party staffer had $1.3 million charged to party credit card – St. Petersburg Times.

Ohio official tells residents to ‘arm themselves’ amid police cuts

When the sheriff’s department in Ashtabula County, Ohio, was cut from 112 to 49 deputies, just one vehicle was left to patrol the 720-square-mile county.

Asked what residents should do for protection, Common Pleas Judge Alfred Mackey replied, ” Arm themselves,” and added, “We’re going to have to look after each other.”

Area gun dealers and instructors told WKYC-TV, Cleveland, that they’ve noticed an uptick in sales and interest in self-defense classes.

One instructor, Tracy Williams, said the cuts mean “you don’t have any other option” other than to listen to Mackey’s advice.

Check out this video from WKYC for the full story:

Full Story: Ohio official tells residents to ‘arm themselves’ amid police cuts -.

Colbert: GOP trapped between a rock and a black face – video

“So here we are folks, the Republicans hired this strong, competent leader not because he is black,” Colbert emphasized, “but now they can’t fire this weak incompetent leader because he is black.”

Pat Buchanan: ‘Both sides were right’ in the Civil War

Bloggers suggest MSNBC should ban ‘racist who defends slavery’

Did conservative commentator Pat Buchanan cross a line when he appeared to defend slavery during a debate on MSNBC’s Hardball?

That’s the question political observers are asking after Buchanan told a panel he believed “both sides were right” in the Civil War.

The comment came during a discussion of Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell’s omission of the issue of slavery in a proclamation reinstating Confederate History Month in the state. Buchanan argued that McDonnell was right to ignore slavery because that wasn’t the core issue that prompted Virginia to leave the Union and join the Confederacy.

“Virginia did not secede over slavery,” Buchanan said. “Virginia stayed in the union when Lincoln was elected. … What took them out of the Union was when Abraham Lincoln said, We want 75,000 volunteers, your militia and your soldiers in Virginia, to attack the deep South and bring them back into the union. They said, We’re not going to kill our kinsmen. That’s how Virginia left the union.”

Full Story: Pat Buchanan: ‘Both sides were right’ in the Civil War | Raw Story.

OPS:  Black Republicans, explain to us again why you are a republican.

Letter shows future Pope Benedict resisted defrocking molester priest in Calif. in 1980s – latimes.com

Four years after a California priest and convicted child molester asked to be defrocked, his bishop pleaded with the future Pope Benedict XVI to remove the man from the priesthood. Then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger replied, urging caution.

“Consider the good of the Universal Church,” Ratzinger wrote in a 1985 letter to Oakland Bishop John Cummins. “It is necessary for this Congregation to submit incidents of this sort to very careful consideration, which necessitates a longer period of time.”

Two more years would pass before the Vatican acted on the Rev. Stephen Kiesle’s request to leave.

Full Story: AP: Letter shows future Pope Benedict resisted defrocking molester priest in Calif. in 1980s – latimes.com.

Gingrich Pledges Government Shutdown If GOP Wins Back House And Senate

On Wednesday night, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told Sean Hannity that he’s been tasked by the House Republican leadership to “to organize an effort over the next four or five months to develop a [new] compact or contract [with America].” On previous occasions, Gingrich has made clear that a staple of that new contract with will be to repeal health care reform.

In a speech last night at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, Gingrich delivered an address that was touted to the press as a strategy for how the GOP can become “the party of Yes.” Instead, Gingrich –- the author of a forthcoming book titled To Save America: Stopping Obama’s Secular-Socialist Machine — explained his strategy of obstruction in further detail.

Since more Republicans are conceding the full repeal of health reform is unlikely to occur on President Obama’s watch, Gingrich offered a two-tiered approach that is becoming increasingly popular among conservatives:

Full Story: Think Progress » Gingrich Pledges Government Shutdown If GOP Wins Back House And Senate.

OPS:  Oh there’s something to look forward to.  After he did it that last time, even he called it a failure.  Problem is that this time they have the teabaggers – Ideology Trumps Everything – Even Survival

Analysis: Strong Carbon Cap Would Cut Iran’s Petrodollars By Over $100 Million A Day

A strong cap on carbon would significantly cut the flow of petrodollars to Iran’s hostile regime, a ThinkProgress analysis shows. The economic and political strength of Iran’s dictatorship is a threat to the national security of the United States and the world, and its nuclear ambitions threaten to destabilize the Middle East. Yesterday, diplomats from “six world powers have met for the first time to discuss imposing new sanctions on Iran for its failure to suspend work on its controversial nuclear program,” but negotiators have not yet figured how to achieve President Barack Obama’s goal of being “consistent and steady in applying international pressure.”

Iran, “which holds the world’s second-biggest oil and gas reserves and supplies about 4.5 percent of the world’s oil production,” uses its oil power “as a strategic asset.” One mechanism to control the flow of petrodollars to Iran — whose oil production is worth $120 billion a year at current prices — is for the United States to control its appetite for oil. ThinkProgress has found that a carbon cap that reduces global warming pollution by 80 percent by 2050 would mean Iran would lose approximately $1.8 trillion worth of oil revenues over the next forty years — over $100 million a day:

Full Story: Think Progress » Analysis: Strong Carbon Cap Would Cut Iran’s Petrodollars By Over $100 Million A Day.

OPS:  A twofer

Pawlenty Admits That ‘There’s Probably Some Political Overtones To’ Health Care Lawsuit

Yesterday, ThinkProgress reported that nearly 70 percent of the state officials suing the federal government over the constitutionality of the health care reform law are either running for re-election or gunning for higher office. Even conservative legal scholars have said these lawsuits have little chance in succeeding and appear to be nothing more than political theater.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN) — a prospective candidate for the GOP nomination for president in 2012 — has said recently that he would join the lawsuit despite the misgivings of Minnesota’s attorney general. But last night on Fox News, Pawlenty himself admitted that the lawsuit is political in nature:

Full Story: Think Progress » Pawlenty Admits That ‘There’s Probably Some Political Overtones To’ Health Care Lawsuit.

OPS: No shit! But this will be a revelation to any teabaggers that might have been paying attention.

GOP supporter: Cao has betrayed us, his white donors, by trying to represent his minority district.

Last November, Rep. Joseph Cao (R-LA) — who represents a heavily Democratic district — was the only Republican to vote for health care reform, saying at the time that it was “best for my constituents.” Cao switched his vote when the House took up the issue again in March and strongly condemned the bill as “at a par with slavery,” but it seems some conservatives are still holding his original vote against him. At the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, currently taking place in New Orleans, the Washington Post’s Dave Weigel reports than an “angry” Republican — who had supported Cao in the past — confronted the congressman about his health care vote. The woman was upset that Cao had raised money in “white suburbs” while supporting “liberal, spread-the-wealth, welfare, black” policies:

Full Story: Think Progress » GOP supporter: Cao has betrayed us, his white donors, by trying to represent his minority district..

Jindal: ‘It Hurts Our Feelings’ To Be Called The ‘Party of No’

Today in his speech at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) complained that characterizations of the GOP as the “Party of No” are hurtful:

Speaker Pelosi likes to call the Republicans the ‘Party of No.’ Some of us, we don’t like the way that sounds. It hurts our feelings. … Speaker Newt Gingrich said yesterday the Republicans need to be the ‘Party of Yes,’ and he is right.

Yet in the very next breath, Jindal exclaimed that the GOP isn’t just the “party of No,” but instead “the party of Hell No when it comes to this health care!” The irony appeared to be lost on the crowd. Watch it:

Full Story: Think Progress » Jindal: ‘It Hurts Our Feelings’ To Be Called The ‘Party of No’.

OPS: are you phucking kidding me!

FLASHBACK: Heritage Touted RomneyCare, Key Elements Of Health Reform Heritage Now Opposes

The Heritage Foundation, one of the leading conservative think tanks — which has historically provided many of the policy ideas for the Republican Party, Republican administrations, and Republicans in Congress — has aggressively attacked President Obama’s efforts to reform health care in America. In addition to providing academic voices in the media to knock reform, Heritage has churned out blog posts and reports denigrating reform legislation for various reasons. And in recent days, Heritage has scrambled to mobilize a repeal effort of health reform, calling the law “intolerable.”

But before Democrats took up the mantle of reforming health care on the national level, Heritage experts boosted former Gov. Mitt Romney’s (R-MA) health reform plan in the Bay State. In numerous pieces posted on the Heritage website before 2008, Heritage took a markedly different approach to health reform than it does now:

Full Story: Think Progress » FLASHBACK: Heritage Touted RomneyCare, Key Elements Of Health Reform Heritage Now Opposes.

How Elites Keep Their Private Planes Off the Radar

Off the Radar: Private Planes Hidden From Public View

Televangelist Kenneth Copeland faced a congressional inquiry after flying his ministry’s tax-exempt jet to Maui and the Fiji Islands.

South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds has been questioned about his use of state planes for political and personal trips.

And after getting a $180 billion federal bailout, the insurance giant AIG caught flak for its fleet of corporate jets.

To prevent the public from seeing where they fly, all have over the years turned to a little-known program that lets private plane owners block their flights from view in the government’s system for tracking air traffic.

The owners don’t have to meet any test to keep their flights secret. They merely submit a request to the National Business Aviation Association [1], a trade group that lobbied to set up the program on the grounds that secrecy is justified to protect business deals and the security of executives.

Full Story: Off the Radar: Private Planes Hidden From Public View – ProPublica.

CNN Links Arms with Billionaire’s Project to Fleece Social Security and Other Bedrock Social Programs | Economy | AlterNet

Billionaire Pete Peterson’s anti-Social Security, anti-Medicare anti-public investment deficit propaganda film “I.O.U.S.A” is scheduled for broadcast on CNN.

Unless we successfully pressure CNN to change course,  it will air Pete Peterson’s anti-Social Security, anti-Medicare anti-public investment deficit propaganda film “I.O.U.S.A” along with additional propaganda “commentary” from people who work for the Peterson Foundation on Saturday.

CNN did this last year, and it was a completely one-sided presentation, when in fact, there is an actual debate going about how serious a problem is the national debt, and whether Social Security and Medicare really need to be gutted to reduce the debt.

Now, maybe CNN was actually clueless last year, and was not aware that many of the nation’s most prominent economists do not traffic in deficit hysteria, insist that Social Security is fundamentally sound, and broader health care reform (which just passed) is the way to protect Medicare.

But over the course of the past year, this debate has been raging.

Full Story: CNN Links Arms with Billionaire’s Project to Fleece Social Security and Other Bedrock Social Programs | Economy | AlterNet.

URGENT: Stop CNN’s Deficit Propaganda

Unless we successfully pressure CNN to change course, tomorrow (Today 4.10.10) it will air Pete Peterson’s anti-Social Security, anti-Medicare anti-public investment deficit propaganda film “I.O.U.S.A” along with additional propaganda “commentary” from people who work for the Peterson Foundation.

Hey CNN. There’s This Guy, Krugman. Has Another View About The Deficit. Weird!

CNN did this last year, and it was a completely one-sided presentation, when in fact, there is an actual debate going about how serious a problem is the national debt, and whether Social Security and Medicare really need to be gutted to reduce the debt.

Now, maybe CNN was actually clueless last year, and was not aware that many of the nation’s most prominent economists do not traffic in deficit hysteria, insist that Social Security is fundamentally sound, and broader health care reform (which just passed) is the way to protect Medicare.

But over the course of the past year, this debate has been raging.

Full Story: Hey CNN. There’s This Guy, Krugman. Has Another View About The Deficit. Weird! | OurFuture.org.

Additional Info:  URGENT: Stop CNN’s Deficit Propaganda

The Tea Parties Bring Back Social Darwinism

The right-wing populism manifested in the movement is essentially the same old Social Darwinism that appeared in U.S. society in the nineteenth century.

Finding the Forgotten Man -- In These Times

One thing is certain about this fall’s election: The field upon which American politics will play out is a populist one.

Populism has long been part of the American political tradition, dating at least to the political ascent of Andrew Jackson in the 1820s. Its appeal is deceptively simple. The details vary but populism’s basic, urgent message remains the same: The game has been rigged by a small group of powerful people, and something must be done. Now.

What makes the current moment so rare is that both left- and right-wing populism have surfaced at the same time. Which side’s message wins out may determine the trajectory of the next era in American political life.

Full Story: Finding the Forgotten Man — In These Times.

Enough Tea Party-Style Whining — It’s Time to Take Back Our Jobs and Businesses

Imagine what would happen if we stopped blaming and started living democracy. Imagine what could change if we realized our power to remove big money from its dominance.

Headline-grabbing Tea Party slogans sure could make one think Americans have come down with a bad case of whine-flu.

They — Big Bad government, Obama, Wall Street, or Socialists — did it to me, and they are so scary all I can do is defend myself: Call a talk show to blast them. Join a protest. Buy a gun. Or secede.

Yes, there’s a lot of blaming going on. But fortunately, very fortunately, there is another America. It is a much bigger America. It is made up of do-ers — of builders, not blamers.

Beneath the failing notion of democracy as something done to us or for us, something we inherited that expects virtually nothing of us except voting (optional) and shopping, is a very different view of democracy.

Full Story: Enough Tea Party-Style Whining — It’s Time to Take Back Our Jobs and Businesses | Vision | AlterNet.

The Preposterous Reality: 25 Hedge Fund Managers Are Worth 680,000 Teachers (Who Teach 13 Million Students)

What work do we value most?

“It’s going to take a lot of political will — over a long period of time — to reorder our most basic economic values.

What work do we value most?

In 2009, the worst economic year for working people since the Great Depression, the top 25 hedge fund managers walked off with an average of $1 billion each. With the money those 25 people “earned,” we could have hired 658,000 entry level teachers. (They make about $38,000 a year, including benefits.) Those educators could have brought along over 13 million young people, assuming a class size of 20. That’s some value.

Apparently the 25 hedge managers did something that is even more valued in our society. But how valuable was it, really? To assess that, we need to answer a few basic questions:

Full Story: The Preposterous Reality: 25 Hedge Fund Managers Are Worth 680,000 Teachers (Who Teach 13 Million Students) | Economy | AlterNet.

How Stanislav Grof Helped Launch the Dawn of a New Psychedelic Research Era

The world of medicine may finally be ready to catch back up with psychedelic pioneers, whose work was rejected a half-century ago.

Next week, the brightest lights of the psychedelic cognoscenti will gather in San Jose, California. Leaving swirls of tracer visions in their wakes, they will converge from around the world at an incongruously bland Holiday Inn, 50 miles south of the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood that once served as the pulsing capital of  Psychedelistan. Once assembled, several hundred turned-on and tuned-in doctors, psychologists, artists and laypeople will participate in the annual conference of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). For four days, they will explore — through workshops and lectures, nothing more — the widening gamut of clinical inquiry into the uses of the psychedelic experience, a global resurgence of which has led to hopeful talk of a “psychedelic revival.”

After decades of psychedelic deep freeze, such talk is finally more than just wishful thinking. A skim of the conference agenda offers a tantalizing glimpse into the newly bubbling world of clinical psychedelic research. UCLA Medical professor Charles Grob will speak about his work using psilocybin to treat anxiety in late-stage cancer patients. Psychologist Allan Ajaya will share findings from his research in LSD-assisted myofascial pain therapy. Other speakers will address possible psychedelic-based cures for alcoholism, addiction, depression, migraines,= and post-traumatic stress disorder. Each will represent a different corner in a promising field newly awakened. From North America to the Middle East, recent years have seen a rising interest into the medicinal possibilities of MDMA, LSD, DMT, and other drugs now shaking off decades of government-imposed clinical hibernation.

Full Story: How Stanislav Grof Helped Launch the Dawn of a New Psychedelic Research Era | Drugs | AlterNet.

Breathing problems persist in September 11 rescuers

Rescue workers who responded to the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001, continued to have diminished lung capacity seven years after the attack, researchers reported on Wednesday.

Breathing problems among New York Fire Department employees, caused by dust, smoke and other toxic chemicals, became apparent one year after the twin towers collapsed. Their lung capacity typically diminished as if they had aged 12 years.

Doctors had hoped their lungs would gradually rebound, as they often do from routine smoke exposure.

But over the next six years, their lungs continued to worsen, Dr. David Prezant of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, who led the study, said in a telephone interview.

Full Story: Breathing problems persist in September 11 rescuers — Signs of the Times News.

A COMMUNITY’S ACTION SAVES BANKERS FORM THEMSELVES

Jim Hightower -

How refreshing – a glimmer of light from the dark and depressed housing sector!

This glimmer comes not from some statistical uptick in the national housing market, but from real life people working at the local level to help hard hit families save their homes. This pragmatic project is a joint effort by a nonprofit lender named Boston Community Capital and a housing advocacy group named City Life/ Vida Urbana. In an innovative twist, these two begin at what would seem to be the end of a family’s homeownership experience: foreclosure.

Families across the country have seen the value of their homes plummet, leaving them holding a mortgage that can be twice as expensive as their house is worth. Most big lenders coldly refuse to renegotiate the terms of payment with these families, instead foreclosing and filing eviction notices. Intransigent lenders take a family’s house – but what then? As a Boston Community Capital official notes, “banks really do not want to hold on to these properties, because they don’t know how to manage them, don’t know what to do with them.

Transcript and AUDIO stream or download at link

Full Story: Jim Hightower | A COMMUNITY’S ACTION SAVES BANKERS FORM THEMSELVES.

A Supreme Court Shift to the Right?

Here is an unsettling thought … after waiting eight years for Democratic president: Barack Obama could well end his first term with a more conservative Supreme Court than the one he inherited.

Here is an unsettling thought for those who waited eight years to have a Democratic president appointing judges: Barack Obama could well end his first term with a more conservative Supreme Court than the one he inherited.

This is, I hasten to admit, premature speculation — even with the not-so-surprise announcement that Justice John Paul Stevens, the anchor of the court’s liberal wing, is retiring.

First, the president’s only nominee so far, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, has not even finished her first term. Where she turns out to be on the ideological spectrum in comparison to the justice she replaced, David Souter, is unknown.

Second, the accuracy of this conjecture will depend hugely on who the president selects to fill the vacancy.

Full Story: t r u t h o u t | A Supreme Court Shift to the Right?.

Ex-Bush Official Willing to Testify Bush, Cheney Knew Gitmo Prisoners Innocent

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld once declared that individuals captured by the US military in the aftermath of 9/11 and shipped off to the Guantanamo Bay prison facility represented the “worst of the worst.”

During a radio interview in June 2005, Rumsfeld said the detainees at Guantanamo, “all of whom were captured on a battlefield,” are “terrorists, trainers, bomb makers, recruiters, financiers, [Osama Bin Laden's] body guards, would-be suicide bombers, probably the 20th hijacker, 9/11 hijacker.”

“We’re learning a great deal of information about how al-Qaida operates, and able to stop other terrorist attacks,” he added.

But Rumsfeld knowingly lied, according to a former top Bush administration official.

Full Story: t r u t h o u t | Ex-Bush Official Willing to Testify Bush, Cheney Knew Gitmo Prisoners Innocent.

Boston library trustees approve plan to close four branches

The Boston Public Library Board of Trustees this morning approved a plan to close four neighborhood branches as part of an effort to eliminate a $3.3 million budget shortfall.

The plan would shutter the Faneuil branch in Brighton’s Oak Square, along with Lower Mills in Dorchester, Orient Heights in East Boston, and Washington Village in South Boston’s Old Colony Housing Development. The trustees also approved a plan to slash up to 69 jobs at the main library in Copley Square and in administrative offices.

Before the votes, dozens of people spoke at a public meeting of the board, many expressing anger and resignation as they described the value of libraries and urged trustees to keep all branches open. Nick Collins spoke specifically about the Washington Village branch and warned that the trustees were “turning their backs” on children in the city with the greatest need. John McGrath told the board that, “if you close one library, you are going to have to open a prison.”

But Elizabeth Boveroux thanked administrators for their work and reminded the crowd of the difficulty of the decisions, evoking the word “free”carved on the façade of the Copley Square library

Full Story: Boston library trustees approve plan to close four branches – Local News Updates – MetroDesk – The Boston Globe.

The Oklahoma City Bombing: Still seeking the truth, 15 years later

Oklahoma City bombing victim’s family members and survivors, along with investigative journalists, law-enforcement officers, private investigators, documentary filmmakers and attorneys impacted by the bombing will hold a press conference to review the unanswered questions and latest revelations pertaining to this very important part of U.S. history.

Well-documented information contradicting the patently false, official account of the Oklahoma City bombing of April 19, 1995 as offered by the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI will be reviewed. Why should any one of us be asked to remember the deaths of the Oklahoma City bombing victims in a lie?

In addition, updates pertaining to the unsolved torture – murders of Kenneth Michael Trentadue and Oklahoma City Police Department Sgt. Terrance Yeakey will be presented.

Full Story: The Oklahoma City Bombing: Still seeking the truth, 15 years later.

How the GOP Betrayed Lincoln’s Great Republican Promise

Len Hart,

Richard Nixon sought the Presidency an underdog. To win he had to reshape American politics. He had to force a realignment which his strategist, Kevin Phillips, called ‘Southern Strategy’. Years later, in a televised interview with Bill Moyers, Phillips regretted having unleashed an evil GOP genie.

‘Southern Strategy’ put Nixon in the White House. What had been a Democratic ‘solid South’ was transformed –it is said –though it was the same bigotry that had inspired Southern ‘Democrats’ to promise ‘continued segregation’ as late as the 1960s. ‘Southern Strategy’ did not eliminate bigotry, it exploited it! The resulting ‘transformation’ is the story of which party most successfully kissed up to bigotry, racism, prejudice. For that reason, I take issue with those who write glowingly of a ‘transformation of Southern politics’. The emergence of the GOP in the solid, Democratic south is not so novel and more accurately described as just another instance in which the GOP ‘triangulates’ the stupid and the bigoted, the ‘bubbas’ and the ‘buttheads’!

At the time, Southern politicians openly promised ‘continued segregation’. The Civil War seemed recent and many wounds still bled.

Full Story: The Existentialist Cowboy: How the GOP Betrayed Lincoln’s Great Republican Promise.

The tyranny of bond markets

Credit rating agencies helped cause the financial crisis – and as they rear their heads again, it’s time for Obama to get tough

Credit rating agencies played a big role in creating the financial crisis. Now they are slowing the recovery. Financial regulatory reform legislation in the US has finally put the agencies on the radar screen, but the proposals don’t go far enough.

It is now legendary that the mortgage-backed securities structured in the shadow banking system all had AAA stamps of approval by the rating agencies. Of course when the mortgage bubble that propped up those assets burst, we learned that such assets were indeed “toxic” and unworthy of such high grades. The world couldn’t handle the truth and spun into the worst financial crisis since the Depression.

Full Story: The tyranny of bond markets | Kevin Gallagher | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

Learning From Greece

Paul Krugman -

The debt crisis in Greece is approaching the point of no return. As prospects for a rescue plan seem to be fading, largely thanks to German obduracy, nervous investors have driven interest rates on Greek government bonds sky-high, sharply raising the country’s borrowing costs. This will push Greece even deeper into debt, further undermining confidence. At this point it’s hard to see how the nation can escape from this death spiral into default.

It’s a terrible story, and clearly an object lesson for the rest of us. But an object lesson in what, exactly?

Yes, Greece is paying the price for past fiscal irresponsibility. Yet that’s by no means the whole story. The Greek tragedy also illustrates the extreme danger posed by a deflationary monetary policy. And that’s a lesson one hopes American policy makers will take to heart.

Full Story: Op-Ed Columnist – Learning From Greece – NYTimes.com.

Al Gore Expresses Disapproval Of Obama’s Offshore Drilling Plan

Al Gore and his group, the Alliance for Climate Protection, think President Obama’s decision to pursue offshore oil drilling is a bad idea and they’re letting him know, The Hill reported on Thursday.

In a recent tweet, Gore appeared to endorse a statement released by the Alliance’s CEO Maggie L. Fox in which she criticized Obama’s drilling plan, saying that it “continues our reliance on dirty fossil fuels.”

“We cannot simply drill our way to energy security,” Fox wrote. “Americans are demanding a clean energy future that goes beyond drilling and incentivizes the technologies that are critical to building a 21st-century clean energy economy. What we need now is presidential leadership that drives comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation that caps harmful carbon pollution, puts America back to work, ends our reliance on foreign oil and keeps us safe.”

Full Story: Al Gore Expresses Disapproval Of Obama’s Offshore Drilling Plan.

Tip of Iceberg of Massey’s Titanic Violations: 72-Foot Tidal Wave of Coal Sludge Looms Above Affected Mining Communities

Hope must die last in the coalfields, as our prayers go out to the families of the missing four coal miners and the 25 killed in the recent Montcoal mining disaster in West Virginia.

But as heroic rescue teams attempt to reach the missing miners, another potential disaster instigated by reckless Massey Energy regulatory violations and oversight looms above the very heads of these affected coal mining communities–and the pool of journalists and observers:

Blasting within a football field of the nearby class “C” Brushy Fork impoundment, one of the largest and potentially weakest coal slurry impoundments in the nation, Massey Energy is engaging in a violation-ridden act of aggression against besieged coalfield residents.

Full Story: Tip of Iceberg of Massey’s Titanic Violations: 72-Foot Tidal Wave of Coal Sludge Looms Above Affected Mining Communities | CommonDreams.org.