Archive for April, 2010

Catholic League president: Priests aren’t pedophiles, molesting children is ‘what gays do’

In other words:  Priests aren’t pedophiles, they’re just gay!

In another coup for the seemingly part-time political pundit Bill Donohue, CNN broadcast on Tuesday a conversation about the Catholic church’s thousands of pedophilia scandals that would be awkward to even over-hear in public, let alone broadcast nation-wide.

That’s because Donohue, who presides over the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, decided to take the matter of a 14-year-old’s sexual abuse to a level of technicality where none of his fellow contributors really cared to tread.

Objecting to the term “pedophilia” being used to describe the rampant claims of children being sexually abused by priests and nuns, Donohue instead called the acts “homosexuality,” later suggesting “that’s what gays do.”

Full Story: Catholic League president: Priests aren’t pedophiles, molesting children is ‘what gays do’ | Raw Story.

OPS: Insane desperation!

McDonnell: Slavery Wasn’t ‘Significant’ Enough To Be Included In My Proclamation Honoring The Confederacy

Yesterday, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) issued a proclamation quietly declaring April 2010 Confederate History Month, saying it was important for Virginians to “understand the sacrifices of the Confederate leaders, soldiers and citizens during the period of the Civil War, and to recognize how our history has led to our present.”

Notably absent from McDonnell’s proclamation was any mention of slavery. Yesterday, McDonnell explained that it wasn’t “significant” enough to merit a mention:

McDonnell said Tuesday that the move was designed to promote tourism in the state, which next year will mark the 150th anniversary of the start of the war. McDonnell said he did not include a reference to slavery because “there were any number of aspects to that conflict between the states. Obviously, it involved slavery. It involved other issues. But I focused on the ones I thought were most significant for Virginia.“

Full Story: Think Progress » McDonnell: Slavery Wasn’t ‘Significant’ Enough To Be Included In My Proclamation Honoring The Confederacy.

OPS: Every Black Republican should be made to explain this, and why they are members of this party

Protectionism Didn’t Cause the Great Depression

The debate over free trade is riddled with myth after myth. One that keeps resurfacing again and again, no matter how many times it is discredited, is the idea that protectionism caused the Great Depression.

One occasionally even hears that the same protectionism—specifically the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930— was responsible in significant part for World War Two! This is nonsense dreamed up for propaganda purposes by free traders, and can easily be debunked.

Let’s start by reminding ourselves of a basic fact: the Depression’s cause was monetary. The Federal Reserve had allowed the money supply to balloon excessively during the late 1920s, piling up in the stock market as a bubble. The Fed then panicked, miscalculated, and let the money supply collapse by a third by 1933, depriving the economy of the liquidity it needed to breathe. Trade had nothing to do with it.

The Smoot-Hawley tariff was simply too small a policy change to have so large an effect as triggering a Depression. For a start, it only applied to about one-third of America’s trade: about 1.3 percent of our GDP. One point three percent! America’s average tariff on goods subject to tariff went from 44.6 to 53.2 percent—not a very big jump at all. America’s tariffs were higher in almost every year from 1821 to 1914. Our tariffs went up in 1861, 1864, 1890, and 1922 without producing global depressions, and the great recessions of 1873 and 1893 spread worldwide without needing the help of any tariff increases.

Full Story: Protectionism Didn’t Cause the Great Depression | Economy In Crisis.

Declining Superpower Act

China’s currency peg to the U.S. dollar prevents correction of the U.S. trade imbalance and imperils the U.S. dollar’s role as the international reserve currency.

In the post World War II period, the dollar took over the reserve currency role from the British pound, because the supremacy of U.S. manufacturing guaranteed U.S. trade surpluses. The British pound lost its role due to debts from two world wars, loss of empire, a run-down industrial base and socialist attack on U.K. business.

The reserve currency conveys unique advantages on the favored country. As the reserve currency, the U.S. dollar is guaranteed a high level of demand. Foreign central banks hold their reserves in dollars, and countries are billed in dollars for their oil imports, which

requires other countries to buy dollars with their currencies.

Full Story: Declining Superpower Act | Economy In Crisis.

Economic Crises Expected More Frequently

As long as U.S. lawmakers and regulators neglect to scale down the size of financial institutions deemed “too big to fail,” global economic crises should be expected much more frequently, a former top economist at the International Monetary Fund told CNNMoney.com.

Simon Johnson, former chief economist at the IMF and a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Business, said in an interview with CNN that because of the global nature of today’s economy and the size and influence of some of the largest financial institutions that operate in the globalized economy, major crises could occur at least once a decade.

“The cycle is not every year or two years, but it’s probably more like every four, five or six years,” he said, according to CNNMoney.com. “You’ll end up where the borrowers can’t pay and the big banks are in trouble. And they’re bigger now as a percent of our economy, so it’ll be another huge catastrophe.”

Full Story: Economic Crises Expected More Frequently | Economy In Crisis.

None Dare Call It Sedition

It’s time to openly confront the fact that conservatives have spent the past 40 years systematically de-legitimizing the very idea of US government.

Sedition: Crime of creating a revolt, disturbance, or violence against lawful civil authority with the intent to cause its overthrow or destruction

– Brittanica Concise Dictionary

Well, finally. It's high time somebody had the guts to say the S-word — sedition — right out loud.

When the indictments against the Hutaree were unsealed last week, the S-word was right there, front and center, in Count One. The Justice Department accused them of “seditious conspiracy,” charging that the defendants “did knowingly conspire, confederate, and agree with each other and other persons known and unknown…to levy war against the United States, and to prevent, hinder, and delay by force the execution of any United States law.”

This is very serious stuff. But the Hutaree are getting nailed for sedition only because they crossed the line with inches to spare. They're by no means the only ones. Advocating, encouraging, and sanctioning sedition is the new norm on the conservative side.

Full Story: None Dare Call It Sedition | OurFuture.org.

GM’s Exploding Pickup Problem

The carmaker—and the feds—have known for 20 years that a popular truck line is prone to going up in flames.

Brian Taft joined the C/K death list in November 2007. As he pulled out of a parking lot near midnight in Clifton Township, Pennsylvania, his pickup was broadsided by an SUV. Taft suffered broken ribs, but that’s not what killed him, an autopsy found. Instead, it was the fireball that engulfed both vehicles when Taft’s gas tank ruptured and the pickup exploded. Burned on 99 percent of his body, Taft left a wife and two young children. (The other driver survived.)

Taft, 36, was behind the wheel of a 1986 GM pickup, one of more than 9 million in the popular C/K line sold in the 1970s and ’80s. For marketing reasons, the trucks had an unusual design feature. GM wanted to offer 40 gallons of fuel capacity, but there was no place to mount a tank that big. So it offered twin 20 gallon tanks, each nearly 5 feet long, two explosive containers hanging like saddle bags outside the truck’s protective frame. Even after decades, that choice still resonates in the courts, in the lives of bereaved families and in the disfiguring scars of survivors.

Hundreds have been killed in fiery crashes of the side-saddle pickups, and many others suffered disfiguring burns. A review by FairWarning found that at least 100 people have perished by fire since federal authorities dropped an investigation that could have led to the trucks’ recall.

Full Story: GM’s Exploding Pickup Problem | Mother Jones.

Post-Hutaree: How Glenn Beck and Fox News spread the militia message

Media Matters for America -

Reading last week’s disturbing news accounts about the Midwestern arrest of nine alleged members of a Christian militia known as the Hutaree, a group whose members were reportedly planning to kill cops in order to spark a wider, armed revolt against the U.S. government, I noticed this nugget [emphasis added]:

FBI agents moved quickly against Hutaree because its members were planning an attack sometime in April, prosecutors said.

My hunch is the self-described “warriors” of the Hutaree probably circled April 19 on their calendars for any cop-killing fantasy they might have planned to pull off. Why April 19? That was the day, 17 years ago, when the FBI staged its final failed assault on cult leader David Koresh’s heavily armed compound in Waco, Texas. It was on April 19, 1993, following a 51-day siege, that Koresh’s fanatical followers, rather than surrendering to authorities, staged mass suicides (and, in some cases, executions) as the compound burned to the ground.

Full Story: Post-Hutaree: How Glenn Beck and Fox News spread the militia message | Media Matters for America.

Babies and Bathwater

By MATT TAIBBI -

I think it’s time to place a ban, once and for all, on something I call the “Babies and Bathwater Defense.”

Now there’s an idea. Maybe someone can stop Wall Street from corrupting the politicians by putting the politicians in charge of Wall Street. Find someone from Chicago who can do it. Or, if that doesn’t work, abolishing capitalism will get results so that in the first place there’s no money to corrupt anyone. Either more government or no business. That’s sure to work in the same sense that you can avoid cancer entirely by having all your organs removed.

via Belmont Club » “Stop me before I steal again”.

I think it’s time to place a ban, once and for all, on something I call the “Babies and Bathwater Defense.” I first started to see it last year after pieces written by Zero Hedge, New York’s Joe Hagan and I all went after Goldman, Sachs. The gist of it goes like this: if you criticize a corrupt bank, you must necessarily be advocating an end to the entire system of free enterprise. Asking these banks to adhere to, say, the law is unjustly punitive and just plain wrong — you’re restricting capitalism and throwing the baby out with the bathwater!

This stuff blows my mind. It’s like saying we shouldn’t prosecute ballot-stuffing because the alternatives to Democracy are too horrible to contemplate. You’d have to have a skull full of wilted lettuce to think a belief system like that makes sense. But there are a surprising number of people who cling to the Babies and Bathwater take on financial corruption.

Full Story: Babies and Bathwater – Matt Taibbi – Taibblog – True/Slant.

Court: FCC has no power to regulate Net neutrality

The Federal Communications Commission does not have the legal authority to slap Net neutrality regulations on Internet providers, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

A three-judge panel in Washington, D.C. unanimously tossed out the FCC’s August 2008 cease and desist order against Comcast, which had taken measures to slow BitTorrent transfers before voluntarily ending them earlier that year.

Because the FCC “has failed to tie its assertion” of regulatory authority to an actual law enacted by Congress, the agency does not have the power to regulate an Internet provider’s network management practices, wrote Judge David Tatel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

Full Story: Court: FCC has no power to regulate Net neutrality | Politics and Law – CNET News.

Who Killed the Miners? Profits Over Safety?

All coal mining safety laws have been written in miner’s blood.

My grandfather, who barely survived an explosion in a coal mine in southern Illinois, taught me this phrase. He also taught me about the 150-year-old battle in the coalfields over reckless production at the cost of responsible safety measures.

As our prayers and condolences go out to the many coal mining families in Raleigh County, West Virginia, I think about the needless safety violations and subsequent disasters that have taken place over the past century.

Full Story: Who Killed the Miners? Profits Over Safety? | CommonDreams.org.

Brown calls UK general election for May 6

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has confirmed May 6 as the date of the UK’s long-awaited general election, triggering a fierce political battle for control of the country.

Speaking outside 10 Downing Street, Brown said he had met Queen Elizabeth earlier Tuesday to ask for parliament to be dissolved next week.

Brown’s announcement sounds the starting gun on a month of frenetic campaigning that is likely to be dominated by arguments over the state of the economy, public spending cuts and the size of the UK’s national deficit.

Full Story: Brown calls UK general election for May 6 – CNN.com.

America: The Grim Truth

Americans, I have some bad news for you:

You have the worst quality of life in the developed world – by a wide margin.

If you had any idea of how people really lived in Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and many parts of Asia, you’d be rioting in the streets calling for a better life. In fact, the average Australian or Singaporean taxi driver has a much better standard of living than the typical American white-collar worker.

I know this because I am an American, and I escaped from the prison you call home.

I have lived all around the world, in wealthy countries and poor ones, and there is only one country I would never consider living in again: The United States of America. The mere thought of it fills me with dread.

Full Story: America: The Grim Truth.

A Win for Whistle Blowers

Ralph Nader -

Why would Pfizer, the world’s largest drug company, so mistreat and silence one of their top molecular biologists that a federal jury in Connecticut awarded her $1.37 million in damages last week?

The unraveling answer promises to tear open the curtain covering hazards confronting tens of thousands of scientists and assistants in corporate and university labs doing genetic engineering work with viruses and bacteria.

Becky McClain’s lawsuit against Pfizer claimed that the company’s sloppiness in 2002-03 exposed her to an engineered form of the lentivirus, a virus related to one that could lead to immune deficiencies. Pfizer denied any connection between its lab practices and Ms. McClain’s recurring paralysis and other illnesses.

Full Story: A Win for Whistle Blowers – The Nader Page.

Massey Energy & Don Blankenship: Million-dollar Tea Party sponsors

Meet Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy Company. Blankenship is also on the Board of Directors of the US Chamber of Commerce. In this speech above, he denies climate change, derisively refers to Speaker Pelosi, Senator Reid, and others as “greeniacs”, and calls them all crazy. Watch the speech, you’ll see. In his mind, “the greeniacs are taking over the world.”

Massey Energy Company, Blankenship’s highly successful strip-mining and mountaintop removal operation is the parent company of Performance Coal Co, where a tragic explosion occurred on April 5th. As of this writing, 25 miners have died and 4 more are still missing. Twenty-five families are without a loved one. Four more may discover they have lost someone they love too. 29 families in all, forever changed by one single, violent event in a coal mine. One single violent event in a coal mine run by a company so obsessed with profit it runs roughshod over employees’ and neighbors’ health and safety.

Here’s something else about Don Blankenship and Massey Energy Company: Blankenship spent over $1 million dollars along with other US Chamber buddies like Verizon to sponsor last year’s Labor Day Tea Party, also known as the “Friends of America Rally.” Here’s Massey’s pitch. Note how he makes it sound like he isn’t one of the corporate enemies of America.

Video at link

Full Story: Massey Energy & Don Blankenship: Million-dollar Tea Party sponsors | Crooks and Liars.

The death of public education

Lack of money is killing our schools

Full Story: The death of public education – The Boston Globe.

U.S. No Longer An ‘Economically Free’ Country, According To Heritage Foundation

The United States has fallen from the ranks of economically “free” countries, according to the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom World Rankings.

America has slipped below 80 percent, into the category of “mostly free” this year — just below Canada and above Denmark.

The Heritage Foundation analysis cites “notable decreases in financial freedom, monetary freedom, and property rights” as reasons that the United States has dropped out of their list of totally “free” countries

Though the analysis of American freedom acknowledges a longer-term trend stretching back to the end of the Bush administration, it seems to put the lion’s share of blame on the policy initiatives of President Obama:

Full Story: U.S. No Longer A ‘Free’ Country, According To Heritage Foundation.

Unemployment: More Than 3 Million Americans Jobless For Longer Than A Year, An All-Time High (CHARTS)

More than three million Americans have been out of work for at least a year, according to a new analysis of unemployment data.

That represents 23 percent of the roughly 14.8 million Americans out of work and looking for a job — a post-World War II high. For those 3.4 million Americans, the consequences from such a long time out of work — a cost of the Great Recession — can be calamitous.

“[T]he likelihood of finding a job declines as the length of unemployment increases,” notes the team led by Ingrid Schroeder, director of the Pew Fiscal Analysis Initiative, a program of the Pew Economic Policy Group and the Pew Charitable Trusts. “People who are unemployed for a long time can lose their job skills. A long unemployment spell can mark them as undesirable, making it more difficult to compete against other job candidates. [Federal] data suggests that workers who are jobless for the longest duration incur the largest reductions in weekly earnings upon returning to work.”

Full Story: Unemployment: More Than 3 Million Americans Jobless For Longer Than A Year, An All-Time High (CHARTS).

Minnesota Attorney General Denies Pawlenty’s Request To Challenge Constitutionality Of Health Reform

Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson (D) has rebuffed Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s request to challenge the constitutionality of health reform, and has announced that she will instead file a friend-of-the-court brief supporting the federal government. In a formal letter responding to Pawlenty’s request, Swanson defended the the new law:

Having carefully reviewed the applicable Supreme Court precedent and other legal authority, it is my legal opinion that health care — which comprises over one-sixth of our country’s economy — substantially affects interstate commerce. See Gonzales, 545 U.S. at 17 (noting that Congress has the authority to regulate even purely local activities if the local activities are prt of a “class of activities” that have a substantial affect on interstate commerce). The United States government has been involved for years in many aspects of health care, including Medicare and Medicaid, both of which were enacted in the 1960s, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, enacted in the 1970s, and the Public Helath Service Act, enacted in 1944.

Full Story: Think Progress » Minnesota Attorney General Denies Pawlenty’s Request To Challenge Constitutionality Of Health Reform.

Deadly Record: Massey’s Mine In Montcoal Has Been Cited For Over 3,000 Violations, Over $2.2 Million In Fines

Massey Energy is actively contesting millions of dollars of fines for safety violations at its West Virginia coal mine where disaster struck yesterday afternoon. Twenty-five miners were killed and another four are missing after a explosion took place at 3 pm Monday at Massey subsidiary Performance Coal Co.’s Upper Big Branch Mine-South between the towns of Montcoal and Naoma. It is “the most people killed in a U.S. mine since 1984, when 27 died in a fire at Emery Mining Corp.’s mine in Orangeville, Utah.” This deadly mine has been cited for over 3,000 violations by the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), 638 since 2009:

Since 1995, Massey’s Upper Big Branch-South Mine has been cited for 3,007 safety violations. Massey is contesting 353 violations, and 127 are delinquent. [MSHA]

Massey is contesting over a third (34.7%) of the 516 safety citations the Upper Big Branch-South Mine received in 2009, its greatest count in the last 15 years. [MSHA]

Full Story: Think Progress » Deadly Record: Massey’s Mine In Montcoal Has Been Cited For Over 3,000 Violations, Over $2.2 Million In Fines.

Court Favors Comcast in F.C.C. ‘Net Neutrality’ Ruling

A federal appeals court on Tuesday dealt a sharp blow to the efforts of the Federal Communications Commission to set the rules of the road for the Internet, ruling that the agency lacks the authority to require broadband providers to give equal treatment to all Internet traffic flowing over their networks.

The decision, by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, specifically concerned the efforts of Comcast, the nation’s largest cable provider, to slow down customers’ access to a service called BitTorrent, which is used to exchange large video files, most often pirated copies of movies.

After Comcast’s blocking was exposed, the F.C.C. told Comcast to stop discriminating against BitTorrent traffic and in 2008 issued broader rules for the industry regarding “net neutrality,” the principle that all Internet content should be treated equally by network providers. Comcast challenged the F.C.C.’s authority to issue such rules and argued that its throttling of BitTorrent was necessary to ensure that a few customers did not unfairly hog the capacity of the network, slowing down Internet access for all of its customers.

Full Story: Court Favors Comcast in F.C.C. ‘Net Neutrality’ Ruling – NYTimes.com.

Mankind leaves mark on the planet with the end of the 12,000-year Holocene age

Landmark in the Earth’s 4.7bn-year history as geologists hail dawn of the ‘human epoch’

Biologists have their principles of evolution, physicists have their laws of thermodynamics and chemists have their periodic table. For geologists, perhaps the most hallowed reference source is the Geological Time Scale, a complex timeline depicting the entire history of the Earth as a series of distinct periods, epochs and ages, from the birth of the planet 4.7 billion years ago to the present day.

The Geological Time Scale is quite literally set in stone. As geologists dig down through the different sedimentary layers of rock, they go back in time to periods when prehistoric humans with stone tools hunted mammoths, to an earlier time 100 million years ago when dinosaurs roamed the land, and even to a distant era 3.8 billion years ago when life first arose in the ancient oceans of a more primitive world.

Changes to the Geological Time Scale resulted from natural events, whether it was the mass extinction of life from a giant asteroid impact, or an ice age resulting from changes to the orbit of the Earth around the Sun. Now, however, geologists are about to consider whether humans themselves have started to influence the geological history of the world.

Full Story: Mankind leaves mark on the planet with the end of the 12,000-year Holocene age – Science, News – The Independent.

CA-Ching: Meg Whitman Chips In $20 Million More In Governor’s Race

Former eBay chief executive Meg Whitman on Monday gave her campaign for the GOP gubernatorial nomination another $20 million, bringing her contributions from her personal fortune to $59 million in what is expected to be the most expensive governor’s race in California history.

Whitman has already spent more than $46 million in her quest to beat state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner in the June Republican primary, paying tens of millions to blanket television and radio airwaves with ads introducing herself to California voters.

Recent polls show her with a 40- to 50-percentage point lead over Poizner and neck-and-neck with presumed Democratic nominee Jerry Brown in a presumed matchup in next November’s general election.

Full Story: CA-Ching: Meg Whitman Chips In $20 Million More In Governor’s Race.

If You Are Likely To Get A Life-Altering Disease, Would You Want To Know?

Anne Wojcicki Of 23AndMe Discusses Consumer Genomics At TED MED 2009 (VIDEO)

It’s an age-old question: If you could know you were likely to acquire a life-altering disease like Alzheimer’s or breast cancer, would you want to know?

The mere thought is enough to terrify some. Yet this is precisely the question Anne Wojcicki’s innovative start-up, 23andMe, is interested in. Utilizing the latest genetic mapping technologies, Wojcicki and her team of scientists have created the one of the first successful Consumer Genome companies in history.

Sound impressive? There’s more: In the last two years, 23andMe has been able to create one of the largest databases of genetic information in the world — with “over 30,000 active genomes of people who are participating.” The process is simple: Consumers sign up for a $400 genetic self-test kit, provide a saliva sample and — boom — they receive a full breakdown of their genetic history, including their disease risk factors.

Full Story: TED Talks: Anne Wojcicki Of 23AndMe Discusses Consumer Genomics At TED MED 2009 (VIDEO).

Mars PHOTOS: Volcanoes, Craters, And Ice Sheets On Mars

NASA’s HiRISE camera, the most powerful camera ever sent into space, is currently doing a tour of duty on Mars, and has been returning stunning pictures of the Red Planet’s “trees,” gullies, and even avalanches.

Through a program called “HiWish,” NASA invited the public to submit suggestions for where the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter should point its lens–earning the camera the nickname “the people’s camera.”

The first eight images of Mars landscapes chosen by the public are in!

Check them out in the slideshow below, then see more incredible photos of space, including gorgeous photos of mars, stars, and earth, as well as images from NASA’s WISE sky-mapping spacecraft.

Full Story: Mars PHOTOS: Volcanoes, Craters, And Ice Sheets On Mars (PICTURES).

Jon Stewart Slams Insurance Companies Sill Looking For Loopholes (VIDEO)

With the Health Care Bill passed, many insurance companies and doctors are still looking for ways to deny coverage. And just like before the bill was passed, Jon Stewart was right there to take them down.

Full Story: Jon Stewart Slams Insurance Companies Sill Looking For Loopholes (VIDEO).

Israel Warns Palestine Not To Declare State

Israel’s hard-line foreign minister warned Palestinians against plans to unilaterally declare independence next year, saying in an interview Tuesday that such a move could prompt Israel to annex parts of the West Bank and annul past peace agreements.

Avigdor Lieberman also made harsh comments about Turkey, Israel’s increasingly alienated ally, saying the Turkish prime minister was coming to resemble Libyan ruler Moammar Gadhafi.

Lieberman, who heads an ultranationalist party, has become known for a belligerent tone that has earned him critics abroad and inside Israel.

Full Story: Israel Warns Palestine Not To Declare State.

MINE DISASTER SITE HAD 57 SAFETY VIOLATIONS LAST MONTH

West Virginia Mine EXPLOSION: Massey Energy Mine Had Scores Of Safety Citations

A huge underground explosion blamed on methane gas killed 25 coal miners in the worst U.S. mining disaster in more than two decades.

Four others were missing Tuesday, their chances of survival dimming as rescuers were held back by poison gases that accumulated near the blast site, about 1.5 miles from the entrance to Massey Energy Co.'s sprawling Upper Big Branch mine.

The mine, about 30 miles south of Charleston, has a significant history of safety violations, including 57 infractions just last month for (among other things) not properly ventilating the highly combustible methane.

ABC News reported:

Full Story: West Virginia Mine EXPLOSION: Massey Energy Mine Had Scores Of Safety Citations.

Chicago Most Closely Watched U.S. City

Extensive Network of Cameras in Windy City one of Most Sophisticated Surveillance Systems in World

When the body of Chicago’s school board president was found partially submerged in a river last fall, a bullet wound to the head, cameras helped prove it was a suicide.

Friends had speculated someone forced Michael Scott to drive to the river before shooting him – and maybe even wrapped his fingers around the trigger.

But within days, police recreated Scott’s 20-minute drive through the city using high-tech equipment that singled out his car on a succession of surveillance cameras, handing the image from camera to camera. The video didn’t capture Scott’s final moments, but it helped convince police his death was a suicide: He wasn’t followed. He wasn’t following anyone. He never picked up a passenger.

Full Story: Chicago Most Closely Watched U.S. City – CBS News.

Ethics Complaint Alleges New Politicized Probe Involving Siegelman Prosecutor

A U.S. attorney in Alabama whose close ties to local Republicans were at the heart of previous high-profile charges of politicized justice is drawing scrutiny again. Last week, the U.S. Justice Department received a formal complaint alleging that an investigation being run in part by U.S. attorney Leura Canary was intended to influence the vote on an upcoming bill in the statehouse, and asking that Canary be removed from the probe because of her “close political ties” to Governor Bob Riley.

This isn’t the first time that Canary’s ties to Riley and Alabama Republicans have generated controversy. Numerous observers have charged that the prosecution by Canary’s office of former governor Don Siegelman, who in 2006 was convicted on corruption charges, was politically motivated. Canary’s husband, Bill Canary, a top Alabama GOP political consultant and associate of Karl Rove, ran Riley’s 2002 gubernatorial campaign against Siegelman, a Democrat.

The new case centers on a bill passed last Tuesday by the state Senate, aimed at legalizing electronic bingo — a major political issue in the state. On Thursday, legislative leaders were summoned to a meeting with prosecutors from Canary’s office and DOJ’s Public Integrity unit, where they were informed that the Feds were probing whether senators had been bribed by pro-bingo interests into changing their votes. Riley, a committed foe of efforts to legalize bingo except on Indian reservations, strongly opposes the legislation, which must now be voted on by the House.

Full Story: Ethics Complaint Alleges New Politicized Probe Involving Siegelman Prosecutor | TPMMuckraker.

Obama Limits When U.S. Would Use Nuclear Arms

President Obama said Monday that he was revamping American nuclear strategy to substantially narrow the conditions under which the United States would use nuclear weapons.

But the president said in an interview that he was carving out an exception for “outliers like Iran and North Korea” that have violated or renounced the main treaty to halt nuclear proliferation.

Discussing his approach to nuclear security the day before formally releasing his new strategy, Mr. Obama described his policy as part of a broader effort to edge the world toward making nuclear weapons obsolete, and to create incentives for countries to give up any nuclear ambitions. To set an example, the new strategy renounces the development of any new nuclear weapons, overruling the initial position of his own defense secretary.

Full Story: Obama Limits When U.S. Would Use Nuclear Arms – NYTimes.com.

RNC chief of staff Ken McKay resigns

Republican National Committee chief of staff Ken McKay has resigned in the wake of a controversy over an expenditure at a risque California nightclub, RNC communications director Doug Heye said Monday.

McKay’s resignation comes one week after the Daily Caller Web site reported that the RNC’s January expenditure report included nearly $2,000 spent at Voyeur in West Hollywood, a topless nightclub.

RNC officials worked to distance Chairman Michael Steele from the controversy — insisting that not only was he not in attendance but that he had no knowledge of the reimbursement — and promised changes in the way that people were reimbursed by the committee.

Full Story: The Fix – RNC chief of staff Ken McKay resigns.

Ernest “Fritz” Hollings: Afghanistan – Not Necessary

With the President of Afghanistan campaigning against us, it is time we learn that Afghanistan is not necessary – that it’s necessary to “be gone.”

One of the best writers and observers of the war in Afghanistan, David Ignatius of The Washington Post, writes,: “The coming battle for control of this ancient crossroad city [Kandahar] will be the toughest challenge of the war in Afghanistan – not because it will be bloody, necessarily, but because it will require the hardest item for U. S. commanders to deliver, which is an improvement in governance.” Question: Are we to ask GIs to lay down their lives for “an improvement in governance?” Is this kind of war necessary? After eight years of trying?

I was “a hard charger” on the war in Vietnam. In fact, the motion for the last $500 million that went into the Vietnam War was made by me on the Senate Appropriations Committee. I thought the Vietnamese were willing to fight and die for democracy. Some were, but a lot more were willing to give up their lives over ten years for communism. Now I have learned people want different types of government other than democracy. I’ve been to Hanoi; visited John McCain’s prison, and the people of Vietnam are happy.

In 1966, I was off shore Hanoi on the aircraft carrier, Kitty Hawk – as our brave pilots bombed POL supplies in Hanoi, only to precariously land back on the carrier and be court-martialed if they strayed to other targets. I felt the strategy of “build and destroy” at the same time was wrong. In World War II we cleared the area and kept it cleared. In Vietnam, we cleared the area in the daytime and let the Viet Cong come in at night. Are we to spend another eight years force feeding democracy in Afghanistan?

Full Story: Afghanistan – Not Necessary | Economy In Crisis.

76 Groups Representing Tens of Millions Implore USDA to Immediately Strengthen Protections Against Mad Cow Disease

USA today, along with 75 other organizations sent formal correspondence to the USDA to request that the agency immediately strengthen protections against Canada’s ongoing problems with mad cow disease.

R-CALF USA today, along with 75 other organizations that represent tens of millions of Americans, sent formal correspondence to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to request that the agency immediately strengthen protections against Canada’s ongoing problems with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), also known as mad cow disease. The groups’ letter is in response to the disclosure this month of Canada’s 18th case of BSE in a Canadian-born animal, which also is the 11th case of BSE in a Canadian cow that met USDA’s age requirements to enter the United States. USDA’s relaxed import standards are putting not only U.S. beef consumers at risk, but also the U.S. cattle herd and the livelihoods of independent U.S. cattle producers.

“Mr. Secretary, above all other considerations, the health and safety of the people of the United States and United States’ livestock must come first first before trade and first before international relations,” the letter states. “Your agency’s current BSE policies and regulations compromise directly this health and safety priority and we, the undersigned, urge you to take immediate action to, at the very least, restore for the United States the protections against the introduction and spread of BSE that were in place before USDA began to systematically dismantle its BSE-related border restrictions. We respectfully implore you to, as a first step, immediately overturn the OTM Rule.”

USDA first relaxed U.S. safeguards against BSE in 2005, and then further relaxed those safeguards in 2007 with its OTM (over-30-month) Rule, which facilitates the importation of Canadian cattle born after March, 1, 1999, and beef from Canadian cattle of any age. At that time, Canada had detected only three BSE-positive animals born after March 1, 1999, but as of March 10, 2010, Canada has detected 11 BSE-positive animals born after that date all of which met USDA’s age requirement for export to the United States.

Full Story: OpEdNews – Article: 76 Groups Representing Tens of Millions Implore USDA to Immediately Strengthen Protections Against Mad Cow Disease.

U.S. Economy Cannot Evolve Without its Backbone

Without a strong and vibrant manufacturing base, the U.S. economy will continue to weaken over time. Throughout history, manufacturing has been the backbone of any strong nation.

Despite reports of the manufacturing sector expanding for the sixth month in a row in January, the nation’s industrial decline is readily apparent in the fact that manufacturing makes up just 12 percent of the economy, down from a post-war high of 28 percent in 1953.

Without a strong and vibrant manufacturing base, the U.S. economy will continue to weaken over time. Throughout history, manufacturing has been the backbone of any strong nation.

“The reality is, in recent times, every great empire has been built on a manufacturing economy,” Lynn Tilton, CEO of Patriarch Partners, told Yahoo News‘ Tech Ticker. “The fall of every empire has been the failure to remember that one fundamental fact.”

Full Story: U.S. Economy Cannot Evolve Without its Backbone | Economy In Crisis.

Jobless Rate May Rise Despite Monthly Increase

Obama administration officials spent the weekend cautioning that the unemployment rate would stay high for some time. The economy created 162,000 jobs in March, however, the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 9.7 percent.

Despite the largest monthly increase in new jobs created in three years, Obama administration officials spent the weekend cautioning that the unemployment rate would stay high for some time.

The economy created 162,000 jobs in March, however, the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 9.7 percent.

Obama administration officials warned that it is a trend that is likely to continue as discouraged workers – those unemployed that have given up on looking for a job – encouraged by the good news on the jobs front, will once gain try to find work, causing the unemployment rate to remain high.

“As you see progress in job creation, you tend to [assume unemployment will] go down. It's not quite as simple as some people think, Jake, because as conditions get better, more people decide to look for work and are counted as in the labor force. So sometimes it's frustrating and the progress doesn't show up immediately in the unemployment rate, but it's progress nonetheless in giving jobs to people who need them,” Obama economic advisor Larry Summers said during an appearance on ABC’s This Week.

Full Story: Jobless Rate May Rise Despite Monthly Increase | Economy In Crisis.

Did Jindal Bribe Louisiana’s Attorney General To Force Him To Join Frivolous Health Care Lawsuit?

Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell is the only Democrat in the lawsuit challenging the federal government over the constitutionality of health care reform. On March 26, he explained why he joined the suit, which is being led by Florida:

As Attorney General, I am duty bound by my oath of office to pursue a request by the Governor of the state of Louisiana for legal assistance, so long as it has substantial legal merit.

To save Louisiana the potential expense of filing a separate suit regarding the health-care legislation, it was my decision to sign-on to Florida’s well-drafted action at minimal cost to Louisiana and accomplish the same legal purpose.

It’s questionable whether the suit actually has “substantial legal merit.” At least eight other attorneys general have refused to go along, saying that doing so would be a frivolous waste of taxpayer resources to make a partisan point. The Wonk Room’s Igor Volsky has also pointed out the political motivations driving the attorneys general who suing the federal government, noting that they are overwhelmingly running for running for higher office or up for re-election.

Full Story: Think Progress » Did Jindal Bribe Louisiana’s Attorney General To Force Him To Join Frivolous Health Care Lawsuit?.

Michigan Militia plans ‘open carry’ gun tea party to ‘take the stigma out of the word militia.’

This Saturday, on April 10, the Michigan Militia plans to host a tea party “open carry” gun rally. The Militia, which is a successor to the violent anti-government Michigan Militias of the mid-’90s, has come under criticism since the FBI raids of the Hutaree, a Michigan-based Christian militia that had planned to murder police officers. The Michigan Militia cooperated with the FBI to arrest the Hutaree and claimed that although they “had occasional contacts with the Hutaree militia,” they “had never trained with them.” Mike Lackomar, a spokesman for the militia, defended the planned “open carry” rally and again tried to distance himself from the Hutaree:

“This event primarily tries to take the stigma out of the word ‘militia,’ and provide information on what we are and who we are,” Lackomar said. “It lets people meet us and see what we’re all about.” [...] “I want it to be perfectly clear,” Lackomar said. “(The Hutaree) are not us, and we are not them, and we did not agree with their philosophy.”

Full Story: Think Progress » Michigan Militia plans ‘open carry’ gun tea party to ‘take the stigma out of the word militia.’.

OPS:  Oh, that’ll fix it, huh!

Tea Party Movement As Popular As Socialism

The numbers don’t lie.

The percentage of Americans viewing “The Tea Party movement” favorably: 37 percent. The percentage of Americans with a positive image of “socialism”: 36 percent. (Both sources, Gallup).

Full Story: Think Progress » Tea Party Movement As Popular As Socialism.

ExxonMobil paid no federal income tax in 2009.

Last week, Forbes magazine published what the top U.S. corporations paid in taxes this year. “Most egregious,” Forbes notes, is General Electric, which “generated $10.3 billion in pretax income, but ended up owing nothing to Uncle Sam. In fact, it recorded a tax benefit of $1.1 billion.” Big Oil giant Exxon Mobil, which last year reported a record $45.2 billion profit, paid the most taxes of any corporation, but none of it went to the IRS:

Exxon tries to limit the tax pain with the help of 20 wholly owned subsidiaries domiciled in the Bahamas, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands that (legally) shelter the cash flow from operations in the likes of Angola, Azerbaijan and Abu Dhabi. No wonder that of $15 billion in income taxes last year, Exxon paid none of it to Uncle Sam, and has tens of billions in earnings permanently reinvested overseas.

Full Story: Think Progress » ExxonMobil paid no federal income tax in 2009..

OPS: …and YOU made up the shortfall

Despite Some PR Spin, the Top U.S. Bank Cop Is Still Pushing the Same Anti-Consumer Agenda

Instead of strengthening the framework that lead the economy to the brink of collapse, the top U.S. bank regulator wants to sabotage it further.

Just two weeks after echoing the bank lobby’s primary argument against financial reform, the top U.S. bank regulatory agency is changing its tune—sort of. While the Office of Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) is still pushing hard to weaken consumer protection rules in banking, the agency is working hard to make its deregulatory zeal appear less abrasive to the public.

Establishing a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) has become the central political battle in the debate over financial reform. The bank lobby fiercely opposes it, because banks like making money any way they can, predatory or not. The existing federal regulators, including the OCC, are charged with both preventing consumer abuses and ensuring that banks don’t fail—the latter known as “safety and soundness” regulation. In practice, this dual mandate has meant that consumers almost always get thrown under the bus in the name of bank profitability. So long as a consumer abuse creates short-term profits for banks, the OCC and their cohorts simply look the other way.

And for the most part, the OCC wants to maintain the status quo. Consider these comments from Comptroller of the Currency John Dugan—who heads the OCC—before a meeting of the American Banker’s Association, the top bank lobby group, on March 17, in which Dugan essentially argued against consumer protection regulation altogether.

Full Story: Despite Some PR Spin, the Top U.S. Bank Cop Is Still Pushing the Same Anti-Consumer Agenda | Economy | AlterNet.

6 Bad Things That Have Happened to the Republican National Committee This Week

The week is still young, but already the RNC is flailing.

Although the Republican National Committee has not had to overcome any soft-core porn scandals yet, its week is still off to a rough start. Here are six bad things that have happened to the RNC in the past 48 hours.

1. Michael Steele went on TV and talked; Robert Gibbs slammed him

Clearly the last thing the RNC wants is for Michael Steele to stop embarrassing the organization/running it into the ground/alienating rich people and quietly go away. So Steele went on TV Sunday to announce that he would absolutely not step down, reassuring nervous colleagues and donors that the only way for them to stop the RNC’s implosion is to very publicly boot one of the few prominent African Americans involved in GOP politics.

Then Steele wisely reached out to his critics — a category that last week included anyone interested in the fortunes of the Republican Party — by accusing them of racism. “I tend to come at it a little bit stronger, a little bit more streetwise if you will,” said Steele to George Stephanopoulos. When asked if he faced a slimmer margin of error because of his race, Steele said, “The honest answer is yes.” This gave Robert Gibbs the opportunity to say the following: ”I think Michael Steele’s problem isn’t the race card, it’s the credit card.”

Full Story: 6 Bad Things That Have Happened to the Republican National Committee This Week | News & Politics | AlterNet.

The Privatization of Wildlife: How Ted Turner Scored Yellowstone’s Bison Herd

Yellowstone buffalo, despite being on the verge of extinction, have virtually no protections in the West. And media mogul Ted Turner’s going to cash in on it.

It is just one more battle in the century-and-a-half-old range wars, where land and wildlife have come into direct conflict with selfish, private interests. It’s also a story of privileged ethnocentrism, where a once proud indigenous culture and the wild species it depended on have been all but eviscerated.

Welcome to the Interior West, the land of selective freedom and prosperity.

“I love this land and the buffalo and will not part with it,” wrote the great Kiowa Chief Santana, who later killed himself while imprisoned in Texas after being tricked by General William Sherman into believing a peaceful council meeting was in his tribe’s future. ” … A long time ago this land belonged to our fathers, but when I go up to the river I see camps of soldiers on its banks. These soldiers cut down my timber, they kill my buffalo and when I see that, my heart feels like bursting.”

The betrayal continues. American bison once roamed these Great Plains in such large numbers that Lewis and Clark noted seeing 10,000 head in a single glance. Their observation no doubt sealed the species’ fate. As anyone who has driven down Interstate 90 through Wyoming from Montana today can surely attest, these awe-inspiring creatures no longer dominate the Plains.

Full Story: The Privatization of Wildlife: How Ted Turner Scored Yellowstone’s Bison Herd | Environment | AlterNet.

How to Fight Hate When it Shows Up in Your Community

Political and social dynamics have created a volatile environment for dangerous expressions of hate across America. Here’s how to fight back.

We are all aware of how nasty and uncivil our society has become. The election of a black president and successful health care legislation have driven hate radio and conservative officials over the edge, fueling an atmosphere of intolerance that has many of us feeling tense. Large segments of the population are thinking and expecting the worst. There is a gaping political divide, and as the racial and ethnic makeup of the country changes, some feel desperate for a past that is long gone, and in many ways never really existed.

There have been racial attacks, bricks thrown through windows and death threats. Recently, militia members reportedly planning to murder cops were arrested. The scary news encourages paranoia and hysteria, which while understandable, nevertheless adds fuel to the fire. However, increasingly there are some effective tools we can all use to fight back against hate.

You may have heard about the tragic death of Ecuadorean immigrant Marcelo Lucero. He was stabbed to death in Patchogue, Long Island by a group of high school students out looking for Hispanic immigrants to beat up. The murder trial is currently underway. The good news is how the community has responded to raise consciousness and support Marcelo’s family.

Full Story: How to Fight Hate When it Shows Up in Your Community | News & Politics | AlterNet.

Goodbye Paper Money: Does It Mean More Ways for the Banks to Screw Us?

The spiral of economic calculation is dizzying, when you factor in inscrutable fees and other invisible transactions banks attach to the light-speed movement of our money.

Currency has come a long way in the past few thousand years of human existence. Ancient Turkey started using hybrid silver and gold coins around 640 B.C. and the Chinese started passing paper around 800 A.D. But it wasn’t until the middle of the 20th century that Diners Club finally invented credit cards, or that electronic transfer payment systems like PayPal threw dirt on the century’s grave in the late ’90s. And now that the 21st century has fully arrived on the heels of both a harrowing terrorist attack targeting finance nerve centers in New York City and an economic depression downsizing everything from global bank accounts to job prospects, it is high time we rethought how we should pay and get paid to live and die.

Despite the deep thoughts and deeper concerns, it’s not hard to see that our digital age perhaps deserves a fully digital currency, compliant across real and virtual geographies. In fact, we’re pretty much already there, without admitting it.

Nowadays, when the Federal Reserve prints money, it doesn’t mint a new penny or dollar,” Mikka Pineda, research analyst at famed economist Nouriel Roubini’s think-tank Roubini Global Economics, explained to AlterNet. “It just changes numbers in bank accounts. Individuals can do this too, provided they have electronic access to their accounts. They can transfer money from one account to another, accept deposits and pay bills online.”

Full Story: Goodbye Paper Money: Does It Mean More Ways for the Banks to Screw Us? | Economy | AlterNet.

OPS: eMoney is a weapon for the Corporations, Government, and the 14 year old hacker next store, for which there is no defense. Any one of them can shut you down, completely and without cause or notice

eDollars are another major step…

Is Vatican Guilty in Child-Sex Scandal?

By Robert Parry -

Often the worst scandals are ones that have become engrained as business as usual within an organization or a society, not entirely accepted but tolerated by the Old Boys Network in command, like racial segregation, anti-Semitism, bias against women – or in the case of the Vatican, pedophilia.

No one’s suggesting that child rape is to the Catholic Church hierarchy what the casting couch is to a Hollywood producer – one of the job’s expected side benefits – but it is troubling that the chief reaction to new revelations about the sexual abuse of boys by Catholic priests was to rally in defense of Pope Benedict XVI.

If the Vatican truly took the under-age rape charges as seriously as it should – and they have been spilling out now for several decades – there would have been a full-scale investigation and a purging of Church officials who had any role in tolerating or covering up these crimes. In the vernacular, many heads would roll, including those of senior Vatican leaders.

Yet, one of the leaders implicated in the cover-up is Pope Benedict, both when he was German Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger and later when he served as chief of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Full Story: Consortiumnews.com.

Nanotechnology Bringing Foods, Regulated or Not, to Grocery Near You

For centuries, it was the cook and the heat of the fire that cajoled taste, texture, flavor and aroma from the pot. Today, that culinary voodoo is being crafted by white-coated scientists toiling in pristine labs, rearranging atoms into chemical particles never before seen.

At last year’s Institute of Food Technologists international conference, nanotechnology was the topic that generated the most buzz among the 14,000 food-scientists, chefs and manufacturers crammed into an Anaheim, Calif., hall. Though it’s a word that has probably never been printed on any menu, and probably never will, there was so much interest in the potential uses of nanotechnology for food that a separate daylong session focused just on that subject was packed to overflowing.

In one corner of the convention center, a chemist, a flavorist and two food-marketing specialists clustered around a large chart of the Periodic Table of Elements (think back to high school science class). The food chemist, from China, ran her hands over the chart, pausing at different chemicals just long enough to say how a nano-ized version of each would improve existing flavors or create new ones.

Full Story: Nanotechnology Bringing Foods, Regulated or Not, to Grocery Near You – AOL News.

HELP FIGHT THE STUPIDITY

Jim Hightower -

DFAS is one of the many obscure government agencies you never hear anything about – unless and until the officials in charge do something stupid.

So, here comes stupid. Defense Finance and Accounting Services, a Pentagon agency, has an office in Cleveland that writes and dispenses the paychecks of U.S. military personnel – including the paycheck of one commander-in-chief named Barack Obama. It’s routine, low-key work, but DFAS suddenly popped into the news recently because at least 62 of its Cleveland employees have received termination notices.

Were they stealing, doing poor work, or maybe drawing silly faces on Obama’s monthly paycheck? No, they were doing nothing wrong and were even getting job performance ratings of “exceptional.” Their offense was merely that the national economic crisis has squeezed them pretty hard, causing them to fall behind on some of their bills. It turns out that DFAS monitors employees’ credit reports and deems a bad one grounds for dismissal!

Full Story: Jim Hightower | HELP FIGHT THE STUPIDITY.

Full audio and transcript at link

U.S. Atrocities: Collateral Murder

The following is excerpted verbatim from Wikileaks. It is an account of the murder of civilians by the U.S. military which has absolutely NO legitimate business in Iraq in the first place! Out of Iraq now! Round up and charge ALL U.S. personnel involved must be arrested, charged and detained until they can be tried for murder.

Additionally, every U.S. government official involved in the U.S. government’s conspiracy to attack and invade Iraq upon lies and deceptions should be arrested now and detained until they can be tried for capital war crimes including overt violations of U.S. Codes, Title 18, Section 2441, war crimes for which the penalty is death.

Not only are the perps depicted in the act of committing murder, they lied about afterward. That’s a crime in and of itself!

International law and common decency requires that every member of the U.S. government materially involved in the illegal war crime –the U.S. attack and invasion of the sovereign nation of Iraq be held to account now!

Full Story: The Existentialist Cowboy: U.S. Atrocities: Collateral Murder.

Sublime Tea Baggery: ‘Don’t Steal from Medicare to Support Socialized Medicine’

This demonstrates, again, that these people have no idea what socialism is. They believe it’s synonymous with authoritarianism — a belief that is a conceptual artifact from McCarthy era, when socialism was demonized by eliding it with Soviet-style communist despotism.

Trapped inside their Fox News/Limbaugh bubble, tea baggers are oblivious to the reality that democracy and socialism have existed successfully side by side in every industrialized country in the world, including the United States, for decades.

The paradox is, their stunted worldview and inability to do critical thinking are results of the fact that they are products of America’s socialized but broken educational system.

Full Story: Pensito Review » Sublime Tea Baggery: ‘Don’t Steal from Medicare to Support Socialized Medicine’.

Impending GMO Contamination of the Food Chain

Farmers and Consumers Demand Prohibition of Genetically Engineered Alfalfa

Resulting contamination of non-GE and organic alfalfa hay and seed would devastate livelihoods and organic industry

The National Organic Coalition (NOC) today announced that more than 200,000 people submitted comments to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) critiquing the substance and conclusions of its Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) on Genetically Engineered (GE) Alfalfa. Groups, including NOC, Center for Food Safety (CFS), Organic Consumers Association, Food & Water Watch, CREDO Action and Food Democracy Now, mobilized their communities to help generate the unprecedented number of comments.

In addition, more than 300 public interest organizations, farmers, dairies, retailers and organic food producers from the U.S. and Canada delivered a strongly worded letter to USDA, calling upon it to deny approval of Monsanto’s genetically engineered, Roundup Ready alfalfa (GE alfalfa). The letter cites the inevitable contamination of organic and non-GE alfalfa hay and seeds and threats to the viability of organic dairies, livestock, and meat and dairy producers as reasons for urging the denial. NOC, Organic Valley, Whole Foods, National Cooperative Grocers Association, CFS and others agree that it would be irresponsible government policy to approve GE alfalfa in the absence of legal requirements holding companies accountable for GE contamination, as is currently the case.

Full Story: Impending GMO Contamination of the Food Chain.

Break Up The Banks

Robert Reich -

A fight is brewing in Washington – or, at the least, it ought to be brewing – over whether to put limits on the size of financial entities in order that none becomes “too big to fail” in a future financial crisis.

Some background: The big banks that got federal bailouts, as well as their supporters in the Administration and on the Hill, repeatedly say much of the cost of the giant taxpayer-funded bailout has already been repaid to the federal government by the banks that were bailed out. Hence, the actual cost of the bailout, they argue, is a small fraction of the $700 billion Congress appropriated.

True, but the apologists for the bailout leave out one gargantuan cost — the damage to the economy, which we’re still living with (witness the latest unemployment figures). Leave it to the Brits to calculate this. Andrew Haldane, Bank of England’s Financial Stability Director, figures the financial crisis brought on by irresponsible bankers and regulators has cost the world economy about $4 trillion so far.

Full Story: Robert Reich (Break Up The Banks).

Obama Gives Key Agriculture Post to Monsanto Man

Today, President Obama announced that he will recess appoint Islam A. Siddiqui to the position of Chief Agricultural Negotiator, Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

Siddiqui is a pesticide lobbyist and Vice President for Science and Regulatory Affairs at CropLife America, an agribusiness lobbying group that represents Monsanto.

Following is a letter sent by 98 organizations to U.S. Senators in opposition to Siddiqui’s appointment, and a fact sheet about him.

Dear Senator:

The following 98 organizations are writing you to express our opposition to the nomination of Islam Siddiqui as Chief Agriculture Negotiator at the office of the United States Trade Representative. Our organizations— representing family farmers, farmworkers, fishers and sustainable agriculture, environmental, consumer, anti-hunger and other advocacy groups—urge you to reject Dr. Siddiqui’s appointment when it comes up for a floor vote, despite the Senate Finance Committee’s favorable report of his nomination on December 23, 2009.

Siddiqui’s record at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and his role as a former registered lobbyist for CropLife America (whose members include Monsanto, Syngenta, DuPont and Dow), has revealed him to consistently favor agribusinesses’ interests over the interests of consumers, the environment and public health (see attached fact sheet). We believe Siddiqui’s nomination severely weakens the Obama Administration’s credibility in promoting healthier and more sustainable local food systems here at home. His appointment would also send an unfortunate signal to the rest of the world that the United States plans to continue down the failed path of high-input and energy-intensive industrial agriculture by promoting toxic pesticides, inappropriate seed biotechnologies and unfair trade agreements on nations that do not want and can least afford them.

Full Story: Obama Gives Key Agriculture Post to Monsanto Man.

Paper: Senator Ensign likely to be indicted

Nevada Republican Sen. John Ensign is likely to be indicted for a $96,000 payment he made to the husband of the aide with whom he had an affair, a leading Nevada political reporter says.

John Ralston of the Las Vegas Sun reports that prosecutors looking into the scandal surrounding Ensign’s affair with former aide Cynthia Hampton are focusing on the payment made by Ensign’s parents to the Hamptons. Critics have charged that Ensign used his parents to pay off the cuckolded husband, Doug Hampton.

But prosecutors believe the money may have been a form of “structuring,” an illegal activity where transactions are reclassified to avoid reporting rules. While Ensign’s defenders sat the payment to the Hamptons was a “gift,” federal prosecutors believe it may have been a severance payment to Ensign’s aide, in which case it broke the law surrounding reporting of severance payments.

Ralston reports:

Full Story: Paper: GOP senator likely to be indicted | Raw Story.

‘Something’s Got To Give’: Massive Pension Fund Shortfalls Threaten To Bankrupt States

State governments have already been slammed by the recession, but there’s an even more massive financial threat looming in the form of immense projected shortfalls in public-employee pension funds — in some cases so big there is literally no way the states can make them up anytime soon, even if they tried.

Chronic underinvestment (particularly in the bubble years), poor management of assets before and during the financial crisis, and, in some cases, unfunded benefit increases have put many pension funds wildly out of balance.

But state taxpayers are contractually obligated to make good on the retiree benefits — even as those promises threaten to crash headfirst into obligations to pay for schools, public safety, health care and the like.

Full Story: ‘Something’s Got To Give’: Massive Pension Fund Shortfalls Threaten To Bankrupt States.

WikiLeaks VIDEO Exposes 2007 ‘Collateral Murder’ In Iraq

Calling it a case of “collateral murder,” the WikiLeaks Web site today released harrowing until-now secret video of a U.S. Army Apache helicopter in Baghdad in 2007 repeatedly opening fire on a group of men that included a Reuters photographer and his driver — and then on a van that stopped to rescue one of the wounded men.

None of the members of the group were taking hostile action, contrary to the Pentagon’s initial cover story; they were milling about on a street corner. One man was evidently carrying a gun, though that was and is hardly an uncommon occurrence in Baghdad.

Reporters working for WikiLeaks determined that the driver of the van was a good Samaritan on his way to take his small children to a tutoring session. He was killed and his two children were badly injured.

Full Story: WikiLeaks VIDEO Exposes 2007 ‘Collateral Murder’ In Iraq.

Health Problems on Genetically Modified Foods

Jeffrey Smith, author of  Seeds of Deception, explains how genetically modified foods cause health problems, and potential for creating a vast array of unforeseen and surprising illnesses.

In this interview, Jeffrey Smith, author of the bestseller Seeds of Deception, explains how genetically modified foods cause health problems, and their potential for creating a vast array of unforeseen and surprising illnesses.

He also sheds light on how the corruption within the U.S. government, the FDA and the GMO industry has allowed, and perpetuated, the cover-up.

Video at link

Corn chips, or tortilla chips, are quite pervasive. Perhaps you’ve had some yourself this week? Well, let’s see how you feel about buying them again once you realize what you’re risking by eating them.

In the only human feeding study ever published on genetically modified foods, seven volunteers ate so-called Roundup-ready soybeans. These are soybeans that have herbicide-resistant genes inserted into them in order to survive being sprayed with otherwise deadly doses of Roundup herbicide.

In three of the seven volunteers, the gene inserted into the soy transferred into the DNA of their intestinal bacteria, and continued to function long after they stopped eating the GM soy!

Full Story: Health Problems on Genetically Modified Foods.

Greenspan Says His ‘Friends’ Got The Financial Crisis Right – And Trades Barbs With Michael Burry (VIDEO)

In a New York Times op-ed yesterday, Michael Burry, the reclusive hedge-fund manager profiled in Michael Lewis’s best-selling “The Big Short,” lambasted former Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan and his colleagues, claiming that they “either willfully or ignorantly aided and abetted the bubble.”

Burry, who was trained as a medical doctor and suffers from Aspberger’s syndrome, placed huge bets that the subprime market would collapse and helped make his investors many millions.

Greenspan responded to Burry’s op-ed in an interview on ABC News’s “This Week,” where he told Jake Tapper that while almost everyone failed to predict the implosion of the subprime market and while some people predicted it by chance, there was a “very small group, most of whom are my friends, who got it right, for the right reasons.” Burry, he said, may well have been one of those people:

“I don’t know whether or not he is in that extremely small group… . I know four or five people who are really good. I don’t know six, seven, eight or nine.”

Full Story: Greenspan Says His ‘Friends’ Got The Financial Crisis Right – And Trades Barbs With Michael Burry (VIDEO).

No joke: Karzai threatens to join the Taliban

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has slammed Western backers for the second time in a week, accusing the United States of interference, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday.

In a private meeting with up to 70 Afghan lawmakers Saturday, Karzai also warned that the Taliban insurgency could become a legitimate resistance movement if foreign meddling in Afghan affairs continues, the Journal said, citing participants in the talks.

During the talks, Karzai, whose government is supported by billions of dollars of Western aid and 126,000 foreign troops fighting the Taliban, said he would be compelled to join the insurgency himself if the parliament does not back his bid to take over Afghanistan's electoral watchdog.

Full Story: No joke: Karzai threatens to join the Taliban | Raw Story.

Californians Favor Reelecting Reps Who Voted for Health-Care Reform By Double Digits

A new poll of California voters found a 17-point lead among those who say they will vote to reelect their congressional representatives who voted for health-care reform — including 34 House members and Sen. Barbara Boxer (Sen. Dianne Feinstein voted for reform but is not up reelection this year) — over voters who say they’ll vote against the reformers:

By a margin of 46 percent to 29 percent, California voters surveyed said they would be more likely to vote for a politician who had supported the health bill. And just over half the voters polled said they believed the country would be better off because of the bill…

On the health bill, 35 percent of those polled said that if their senator or U.S. representative had voted for the legislation, they would be “much more likely” to support them in November. Eleven percent said they would be “somewhat more likely” to vote that way.

Full Story: Pensito Review » Californians Favor Reelecting Reps Who Voted for Health-Care Reform By Double Digits.

How Americans are propagandized about Afghanistan

- Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com -

On February 12 of this year, U.S. forces entered a village in the Paktia Province in Afghanistan and, after surrounding a home where a celebration of a new birth was taking place, shot dead two male civilians (government officials) who exited the house in order to inquire why they had been surrounded, and then shot and killed three female relatives (a pregnant mother of ten, a pregnant mother of six, and a teenager) who sought to help the victims. The Pentagon then issued a statement claiming that (a) the dead males were “insurgents” or terrorists, (b) the bodies of the three women had been found by U.S. forces bound and gagged inside the home, and (c) suggested that the women had already been killed by the time the U.S. had arrived, likely the victim of “honor killings” by the Taliban militants killed in the attack.

Although numerous witnesses on the scene as well as local investigators vehemently disputed the Pentagon’s version, and insisted that all of the dead (including the women) were civilians and were killed by U.S. forces, the American media largely adopted the Pentagon’s version, often without any questions. But enough evidence has now emerged disproving those claims such that the Pentagon was forced yesterday to admit that their original version was totally false and that it was U.S. troops who killed the women:

Full Story: How Americans are propagandized about Afghanistan – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.

After Condemning Democrats For Using The ‘Race Card’ When In ‘Trouble,’ Steele Uses Race As Excuse

RNC Chairman Michael Steele has come under heavy criticism in recent weeks following news that RNC donor money was used to pay a $2,000 tab at a Los Angeles strip club. Days later, a fundraising letter “mistakenly directed would-be donors to call a telephone number belonging to a phone-sex operation.”

Even allies were quick to attack Steele and the committee, following months of other missteps. Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council, urged members to stop giving money to the RNC. Sen. John Kyl (R-AZ) publicly chided Steele yesterday, refusing to say whether Steele “should step down or not.” “This kind of thing has got to stop,” Kyl said on Fox News Sunday. A recent National Journal poll found that 71 percent of Republican “insiders” thought of Steele as a “liability.”

But today, in his first interview since the scandal broke, Steele said he would not step down and that he was “very angry” about the sex club “behavior.” Steele also suggested some the criticism directed towards him may be a result of his race, saying that African-Americans have a smaller “margin of error”:

Full Story: Think Progress » After Condemning Democrats For Using The ‘Race Card’ When In ‘Trouble,’ Steele Uses Race As Excuse.

Why Sen. Ensign should be worried about possible indictment

In the federal penal code, it is known as “structuring.”

And it is a word Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) should remember because it is very likely to be on any indictment with his name on it.

That’s what I am told by a reliable source familiar with the deliberations occurring inside the Justice Department as federal authorities in Washington try to do with Ensign what they could not do with former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens: Get their man. Or, because they had Stevens and then lost him because of misconduct, Justice wants to make sure if it goes to the next step with Ensign, the charges stick.

Structuring is a broad term that refers to the crime of creating financial transactions to evade reporting requirements — for example, a $96,000 payment to your mistress laundered through a trust controlled by your parents and calling it a “gift” instead of what it obviously was: a severance payment that had to be reported.

Full Story: Why Sen. Ensign should be worried about possible indictment – Sunday, April 4, 2010 | 2 a.m. – Las Vegas Sun.

Tea Party Outraged Over Rep. Steve Cohen TYT Interview

This interview has outraged some Tea Party leaders, accoridng to this AP story. More interviews with members of Congress and others (including Michael Moore, Jesse Ventura and the managing editor of Time Magazine) can be found on our TYT Interviews Channel. Cenk Uygur and Michael Shure interviewed Rep. Steve Cohen about Tea Party craziness and if any Republican will step up to move the party in a sane direction.

Full Transcript here

Threats, Violence Against Congress Show Urgent Need for King Records Act

Thom Hartmann and Lamar Waldron -

Sunday, April 4, 2010 marks the forty-second anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. The recent spate of violence and threats directed at members of Congress evoke all too well the tumult of the 1960s. Seeing a hero of the Civil Rights movement like Rep. John Lewis (D-Georgia) facing an angry gauntlet of protestors–some using the N-word–as he left the Capitol brought back memories of similar scenes from the 1960s, when Rep. Lewis worked with Martin Luther King.

The resurgence in violent acts and rhetoric was building even before the surge that accompanied passage of healthcare reform. This not only includes white supremacist shootings of several police officers over the past year, but arrests in ten different states for serious plots to assassinate Obama, most by white supremacists.

Some of the large corporations and mainstream politicians stoking the anger at President Obama may not realize how quickly such an atmosphere of hate can get beyond their control. For them, it’s just a matter of money and power, by making sure populist anger that should be directed at them is instead diverted to President Obama and others.

Full Story: Threats, Violence Against Congress Show Urgent Need for King Records Act | CommonDreams.org.

Oceans’ Acidity Levels Reach 20 Million Year High

EPA may try to use Clean Water Act

The Environmental Protection Agency is exploring whether to use the Clean Water Act to control greenhouse gas emissions, which are turning the oceans acidic at a rate that’s alarmed some scientists.

With climate change legislation stalled in Congress, the Clean Water Act would serve as a second front, as the Obama administration has sought to use the Clean Air Act to rein in emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases administratively.

Since the dawn of the industrial age, acid levels in the oceans have increased 30 percent. Currently, the oceans are absorbing 22 million tons of carbon dioxide a day.

Full Story: EPA may try to use Clean Water Act to regulate carbon dioxide | McClatchy.

Bob Schieffer: Catholic Church has More than PR Issue

On this Easter Sunday, the Catholic Church faces more scandal surrounding child sex-abuse. As Bob Schieffer notes, the Church’s problem is not PR but it’s cover-up.

U.S. Admits Role in February Killing of Afghan Women

After initially denying involvement or any cover-up in the deaths of three Afghan women during a badly bungled American Special Operations assault in February, the American-led military command in Kabul admitted late on Sunday that its forces had, in fact, killed the women during the nighttime raid.

The admission immediately raised questions about what really happened during the Feb. 12 operation — and what falsehoods followed — including a new report that Special Operations forces dug bullets out of the bodies of the women to hide the true nature of their deaths.

A NATO official also said Sunday in an interview that an Afghan-led team of investigators had found signs of evidence tampering at the scene, including the removal of bullets from walls near where the women were killed. A senior NATO official later denied on Monday that any evidence tampering occurred.

Full Story: U.S. Admits Role in February Killing of Afghan Women – NYTimes.com.

How to Lick Bad Breath Fast — as Easy as 1, 2, 3…

The bothersome combination of dry mouth and bad breath, also known as xerostomia, can be chalked up as yet another common problem caused by prescription drug use.

Xerostomia is not to be confused with halitosis, or bad breath, which is typically caused by systemic diseases, gastrointestinal and/or upper respiratory tract disorders, and microbial metabolism from your tongue, saliva or dental plaque.

Common Causes of Dry Mouth and Bad Breath (Xerostomia)

First of all, it’

s important to realize that xerostomia is NOT a disease in and of itself. Rather it is a common side effect of prescription- and OTC drugs.

Full Story: Dr. Joseph Mercola: How to Lick Bad Breath Fast — as Easy as 1, 2, 3….

Sustainable Seafood (PHOTOS): The Best And Worst Fish To Eat

As part of HuffPost Green’s Our Oceans project, we’re highlighting how you can make sustainable seafood choices. Sustainable seafood is fish that is caught in a way that doesn’t impede the fish’s population growth or natural habitat, as well as the habitats of marine life in close proximity. Unfortunately, many fishing practices in place today do just the opposite, shrinking their populations, ecosystems, and polluting the waters.

It can be overwhelming to know which fish to best to eat when you’re literally wading through a sea of options. The Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch has compiled an extensive list of which seafoods are best, good alternatives, and which you should definitely avoided. You can print out a pocket guide on which seafoods are best for your region of the U.S. or download a convenient iPhone app. We’re compiled a selection of Seafood Watch’s best and worst options of fish to eat. Take a look, and vote for your favorite, or least favorite, fish.

Full Story: Sustainable Seafood (PHOTOS): The Best And Worst Fish To Eat.

David Shuster ‘Ripped A New One,’ May Be Off MSNBC Indefinitely

David Shuster may be about to find out what “punished appropriately” feels like.

When news broke that the MSNBC anchor had filmed a CNN pilot, the network did not immediately comment; spokesman Jeremy Gaines would later say that, if the report turned out to be true, Shuster would be “punished appropriately.”

After not appearing on-air Friday, Shuster may be off-air indefinitely, according to TVNewser’s Gail Shister.

Shister reports that MSNBC President Phil Griffin “ripped Shuster a new one over the phone” and that “a repeat performance is expected [Monday] in the office.” She adds that Shuster will not appear on-air Monday and may not appear on the network again. His contract reportedly expires this year.

Full Story: David Shuster ‘Ripped A New One,’ May Be Off MSNBC Indefinitely.

More Than 200,000 Could Lose Unemployment Benefits This Week

Thanks to congressional inaction, more than 200,000 laid-off workers could lose access to unemployment benefits this week, and no flood insurance policies will be renewed or issued until Congress returns on April 12 — despite record long-term joblessness and record rainfall.

Congress failed to pass an extension of several programs expiring today, including Emergency Unemployment Compensation, the National Flood Insurance Program, and a 65 percent subsidy of COBRA health benefits before adjourning for a two-week Easter break on March 25.

It’s a game of political chicken: Democrats and Republicans in the Senate are each gambling that the other side will look worse for the lapse. Senate Republicans blocked the Democrats’ $9 billion proposal to extend the programs on an emergency basis (without a funding offset); Democrats rejected a Republican proposal to pay for the programs by raiding stimulus bill funds. Party leadership in the Senate had apparently negotiated a one-week stopgap extension with a funding offset, which Senate Republicans said House Democrats rejected.

Full Story: More Than 200,000 Could Lose Unemployment Benefits This Week.

High-risk health insurance pools set to begin in June

One of the first big pieces of the federal health-care overhaul to take effect is the creation by late June of temporary high-risk insurance pools for people who can’t get affordable coverage because of a pre-existing condition.

On Friday, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius sent letters to governors and state insurers, laying out the requirements for these pools and asking states to decide whether they’ll participate.

States have 90 days from the March 23 signing of the health reform bill to set up a program to cover people with pre-existing conditions who have been uninsured for at least six months. If they can’t or won’t comply, the Department of Health and Human Services will administer one for them.

Full Story:  Here

Exclusive: Obama ‘won’t have the courage’ to rebuild the liberal wing of the Supreme Court

President Barack Obama should have the courage to try to rebuild the liberal wing of the Supreme Court but he probably won’t, free speech attorney Marjorie Heins told Raw Story in an exclusive interview conducted Saturday.

When Obama appoints a new Justice to replace John Paul Stevens, “that Justice wouldn’t make a dent in the 5 justice right-wing majority that ruled in Citizens United,” Heins said.

Heins, founder of Free Expression Policy Project, and longtime director of the ACLU arts censorship project, pointed out Anthony Kennedy’s going to be the swing Justice regardless of whom Obama appoints to replace Stevens. “Obama has had a record of being very slow with judicial appointments below the Supreme Court level,” said Heins. “And that’s of course where most cases are decided and that’s a real problem. At the Supreme Court level, he won’t be slow, but he’ll probably be very cautious.”

Full Story: Exclusive: Obama ‘won’t have the courage’ to rebuild the liberal wing of the Supreme Court | Raw Story.

Pope’s immunity to prosecution may be challenged in Britain

Protests are growing against Pope Benedict XVI’s planned trip to Britain, where some lawyers question whether the Vatican’s implicit statehood status should shield the pope from prosecution over sex crimes by pedophile priests.

More than 10,000 people have signed a petition on Downing Street’s web site against the pope’s 4-day visit to England and Scotland in September, which will cost U.K. taxpayers an estimated 15 million pounds ($22.5 million). The campaign has gained momentum as more Catholic sex abuse scandals have swept across Europe.

Although Benedict has not been accused of any crime, senior British lawyers are now examining whether the pope should have immunity as a head of state and whether he could be prosecuted under the principle of universal jurisdiction for an alleged systematic cover-up of sexual abuses by priests.

Full Story: Pope’s immunity to prosecution may be challenged in Britain | Raw Story.

Tea Party could cost Republicans in census

Republicans were thrilled when Tea Party-backed Scott Brown won a special election to capture Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat in Massachusetts.

But they’re not quite as thrilled with the Tea Party now. Angst at the government in power may fuel some conservatives to boycott the US census, costing their party coveted seats in Congress for years to come. Republicans could also lose seats in state legislatures if districts are redrawn.

The US population count, done every ten years, determines how House seats are allocated and informs distribution of federal funding.

Full Story: Tea Party could cost Republicans in census | Raw Story.

Kristol: ‘Better’ for US to attack Iran than if Israel did

The Obama administration should be seriously considering a strike on Iran, according to neoconservative Fox News contributor Bill Kristol.

An Israeli Deputy Defense Minister said last week that he expected Israel would have to attack Iran within a year. Kristol believes it would be better for the US to attack first.

“I think we have to have a credible threat of force and the preparation to use force against Iran. It would be much better if we used force against — to delay the Iranian nuclear program than if Israel did and there is no evidence that the US government is being at all serious about the use force there,” Kristol told Fox News’ Chris Wallace Sunday.

Full Story: Kristol: ‘Better’ for US to attack Iran than if Israel did | Raw Story.

Will The U.S. Economy Recover This Time?

Richard Clark -

What most people don’t yet know is that the “second wave” of mortgage defaults is on the way.

As we all know, the massive wave of subprime mortgages that defaulted in 2007 and 2008 caused the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression. What most people don't yet know, however, is that the “second wave” of mortgage defaults is on the way. A huge mountain of adjustable rate mortgages are scheduled to reset this year, and once those ramped-up mortgage payments have to be made, then once again there are going to be plenty more folks who simply cannot or will not continue paying on those mortgages, most of which will be foreclosed, leaving the banks with tens of thousands of properties which they will eventually be forced to sell, for prices well below what had been considered a fair market price. This in turn will press the market value of all other homes down still further, well below their current value.

But what if six million great new well-paid jobs are created in the next six months, to replace the six million we've lost in the last few years? Wouldn't that allow these owners to hang on? Well yes, it might begin to, but with Obama and most members of Congress having been bagged and captured by the big banks, what are the chances that such jobs will be created?

The answer is, zero.

Full Story: OpEdNews – Article: Will The U.S. Economy Recover This Time?.

The U.S. Must Eliminate the Trade Deficit: Here’s How | Economy In Crisis

W. Raymond Mills  -

All trading nations would be better off abandoning “free trade” and adapting equal trade. Equal trade will expand exports and thus expand domestic production in each nation to the level of the goods traded.

The U.S. needs to cut our trade deficit in half in the next three years and force the quality of our domestic products to improve so they are competitive with foreign made products. We also need to reduce America’s intake of imports. In order to retain competition while simultaneously reducing imports we must be selective in the imports that are attacked. We want to eliminate only those imports that are creating the trade deficit. We have no interest in reducing imports from those nations that accept as many exports from us as we receive from them. All those nations in the world that can maintain an equal trade with the U.S. are welcome to sell their products in the U.S.

The U.S. should impose a tariff of 20 percent on all goods made in the five countries that account for 60 percent of the U.S. merchandise trade deficit (as of the year 2005), which are China, Japan, Germany, Canada and Mexico. These countries have the largest trade surplus with the U.S. Even after paying a tariff of 20 percent, they will be able to sell some products in the U.S. Thus, domestic producers will face competition from every nation in the world, but the most effective competitors will operate with a handicap. All nations that have near equal trade with the U.S. will also benefit from the tariff because they will have a better opportunity to sell in the U.S.

Full Story: The U.S. Must Eliminate the Trade Deficit: Here’s How | Economy In Crisis.

Rustbelt America, Creating The Newest Banana Republic

It is now well understood that we have lost an economic war that we were not even aware we were fighting.

Those industrial companies not yet acquired face looming bankruptcy where subsidized foreign competitors are able to sustain losses in order to out-price and out-service American domestics. Twenty years ago the U.S. trade deficit came mostly from oil imports. Today, the bulk of U.S. exports are hides and skins, metal ores and scrap, pulp and waste paper, tobacco and cigarettes, rice, cotton, coal, meat, wheat, gold, animal feeds, soybeans and corn (very few value-added products, formerly created by our capital intensive industries). The only high-tech goods of which the United States is a net exporter are airplanes and airplane parts, military technology and specialized machine tools. In 2000, the United States was a net importer even of spacecraft. We are racing to replace our factories with state-of-the-art supply-chains, shopping malls, and warehouses overflowing with foreign goods.

In place, we are becoming wholly dependent on consumer spending on foreign goods to sustain what is left of our economy. 70 percent of our GDP is comprised of consumer spending largely on imports or goods made domestically by foreign owned corporations. Only 11 percent of jobs in this country are in manufacturing, falling down from 20 percent in 1981 and 25 percent in 1970. From 1993-2003 the U.S. has shed manufacturing jobs at an average rate of 3 percent per year. Recently wages for warehouse and distribution surpassed manufacturing for the first time. It now pays U.S. workers more to distribute imported goods than to manufacture them domestically.

Full Story: Rustbelt America, Creating The Newest Banana Republic | Economy In Crisis.

U.S. Dependent on Consumption to Survive

The American economy, in its current makeup, is utterly dependent on consumption to survive. Nearly 70 percent of our economy depends on people going out and buying goods. With nearly two-thirds of these purchases coming from foreign-made or foreign-owned products, the net result is an outflow of cash away from the domestic economy and into the rest of the world.

When our domestic consumption grew by 0.3 percent in February 2010, two-thirds of that growth went overseas to stimulate economic recovery in Japan, China, the E.U. or elsewhere.

On top of the fact that our consumer dollars flow overseas and out of our economy, there is the looming problem presented by low savings and stagnating income. Incomes in the United States has been out of touch with inflation for nearly a generation. There are working professionals in the United States who have not gotten a real “raise” to their pay in 20 years – any raises they did garner were trumped by overall monetary inflation.

Full Story: U.S. Dependent on Consumption to Survive | Economy In Crisis.

Fighting School Failure Isn’t Rocket Science — We Know What Works

In the U.S., 30% of youth fail high school every year, and the vast majority come from poor communities and populations of color. We must solve this problem.

In the United States, 30% of youth fail high school every year, and the vast majority come from poor communities and populations of color. We must acknowledge that this is a problem of proportions that cannot be solved with tests or scholarships alone.

Only around 50% of African-American and Hispanic kids ever graduate. And nationwide, only 50% of everyone who is eligible to go to college ever does. Of these few, only 50% ever graduate from college. So we’re not just talking about getting a few more kids into college, but about a serious structural problem that requires a serious structural analysis of the causes. Then we can talk solutions.

Unfortunately, a lot of funders fall short of drawing these conclusions.

Over the past 9 years the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has made more than $2 billion in grants to help improve high school graduation rates in the USA. Bill Gates himself acknowledges they continue to fall short of their targets. They, like so many others, set admirable targets. In his “Annual Letter” for 2009 Gates suggests our goal as a nation should be to ensure that 80% of students graduate from high school by 2025. The goal has as long a record as the challenge of school failure.

Full Story: Fighting School Failure Isn’t Rocket Science — We Know What Works | Vision | AlterNet.

10 Things You Didn’t Know Were in the Health Care Bill

Calorie counts? A disclosure of swag Big Pharma reps give doctors? Abstinence education? Here are some surprising items in the health care bill.

The 2,000-page health care bill that became law the week before last is packed with major reforms probably well known (in concept if not in detail) by anyone who has channel-surfed through the nightly news over the past year. There’s an individual mandate, a system of exchanges, new government subsidies and a ban on some of the worst practices of the insurance industry.

Let’s say the small print on the big stuff accounts for about 1,500 pages, give or take a ream. What’s in the rest? Some random, weird and interesting solutions to problems you may or may not have known you had, some with dubious connection to health care at best. As a public service, we explain some of them here.

The Idea Lobby lists these provisions without endorsement or critique (although cobbling them all together on a single page does make the aggregate look a little scatterbrained). But, rest assured, someone in the know championed hard for each one: the Center for Science in the Public Interest, National Indian Health Board, the National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care.

Full Story: 10 Things You Didn’t Know Were in the Health Care Bill | | AlterNet.

Racial Questions Rock the Census

If you have Central or Latin American blood coursing through your veins, imagine the confusion confronting you.

On your 2010 Census form, should you just check off “Hispanic”? Or if the shoe fits, why not the more precise “Mexican-American” option? Or how about writing something in: chicano, mestizo, indio, moreno, tejano, or trigueno? Egad, the Census form does not capture the rich complexions, cultures, or ancestry that you embody.

How do we count America’s largest racial minority, so-called “Latinos”?

This question is more than just a conversation set piece for pointy-headed social scientists. Rather, it imparts dramatic consequences for future elections, for those nettlesome culture wars, and for the very shaping of public policy and its distribution of goodies.

Counting what most Americans understand as the “Latino” population has always been politically fraught and conceptually squishy.

Full Story: Racial Questions Rock the Census | | AlterNet.

Will Fox News Destroy the Republican Party?

Fox news realizes that the best way to defend right-wing victories is to keep American politics in a state of chaos, with tea parties and fresh social outrages at every turn.

Over the past week or so, stories about conservative hypocrisies have been popping up in mainstream media like cute kitten videos on the internets. There was the Vatican blaming the news media for the pedophilia practiced by priests; the Republicans blaming the violence against Democrats on the Democrats themselves; Sarah Palin, intoning that “violence isn’t the answer,” studding a map with gunsights to target the Dems who should be gotten rid of come November; and, of course, fundraisers for the family values party trying to expense-account their visit to that faux-lesbian, bondage-themed nightclub in West Hollywood. It almost made you think the conservative movement was about to collapse under the weight of its own delusions.

But then the cable ratings came out and showed that Fox News had had its best quarter ever, and that it’s the second most-watched cable channel in prime time, right after USA Network.

And that made me think of another recent story, the purge of former Bush speechwriter David Frum from the American Enterprise Institute, largely for delivering quotes like this: “The Republicans originally thought that Fox works for us, and now we’re discovering we work for Fox. The balance here has been completely reversed, and the thing that sustains a strong Fox network is the thing that undermines a strong Republican Party.”

Full Story: Will Fox News Destroy the Republican Party? | | AlterNet.

What You’re Eating Could Make or Break Our Planet — 7 Principles of a Climate-Friendly Diet

Click to buy it now

Anna Lappe talks about her new book “Diet for a Hot Planet” and explains how to change our diet so it becomes part of the solution, not the problem.

Anna Lappe’s new book, Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It, may just be the most important book published this year. This past month, rising oceans buried New Moore Island, a tiny island in the Bay of Bengal that India and Bangladesh fought over for nearly 30 years. Closer to home, Massachusetts has suffered “two 50-year storms in the course of two or three weeks,” according to Governor Deval Patrick. That’s a reality check that the climate crisis has already caused tangible effects on our planet, with much more to come. Lappe’s book does not only expose how our current dominant methods of food production, processing, distribution and disposal significantly contribute to climate change; she also tells us how food production can actually mitigate climate change by sequestering carbon in the soil.

However, climate-friendly agriculture is a money-loser for currently powerful industries — agrochemicals, oil and meatpackers to name a few. Lappe debunks their spin, putting the lie to claims that people on earth would starve without Big Ag and factory farms. Instead she reveals the truth, based on well-documented science, on how agriculture can be part of the solution.

Full Story: What You’re Eating Could Make or Break Our Planet — 7 Principles of a Climate-Friendly Diet | Food | AlterNet.

Pope Ratzinger and the Bushes: Two Peas In a Pedophile Protection Pod

A Newsday article from 2005 details the dirtbags, including Neil Bush, who served on Pope Ratzinger’s ‘ecumenical foundation’ — all protected from on ‘High.’ Also in 2005, Pope Rat asked US President [sic] George W. Bush to ‘declare the pontiff immune from liability’ in a lawsuit that accused him of conspiring to cover up the molestation of three boys by a seminarian in Texas. In September 2005, the U.S. asserted that the lawsuit should be dismissed, as the Pope enjoys immunity as head of state of the Holy See.

The New Pope Benedict XVI –Neil Bush, Ratzinger co-founders — President’s younger brother served with then-cardinal on board of relatively unknown ecumenical foundation By Knut Royce and Tom Brune, Washington (Newsday) April 21, 2005 Neil Bush, the president’s controversial younger brother, six years ago joined the cardinal who this week became Pope Benedict XVI as a founding board member of a little known Swiss ecumenical foundation. The charter members of the board were all well-known international religious figures, except for Bush and his close friend and business partner, Jamal Daniel, whose family has extensive holdings in the United States and Switzerland, public records show. The Foundation for Interreligious and Intercultural Research and Dialogue was founded in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1999 to promote ecumenical understanding and publish original religious texts, said a foundation official. Besides then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, founding board members included Rene-Samuel Sirat, the former chief rabbi of France; Jordan’s Prince Hassan, a Muslim dedicated to religious dialogue; the late Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, another prominent Muslim; Olivier Fatio, director of the Institute of the History of the Reformation; and foundation president Metropolitan Damaskinos, a Greek Orthodox leader. Gary Vachicouras, a theologian and foundation official in Geneva, would not explain in a telephone interview yesterday why Bush, who has no clear public connection to religious causes, was on the first board… In his highly publicized divorce last year, Bush revealed he and Daniel are co-chairs of Texas-based Crest Investment Co., which pays him $60,000 a year for consulting. Recently, Crest Investment officials used Bush’s name as a reference in cutting an exclusive deal with Texas officials on construction of a liquid natural gas storage facility that will guarantee Crest payments of at least $2 million a year, according to the Los Angeles Times… The foundation, based at the Orthodox Center of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Geneva, is listed by Dun & Bradstreet business credit reports as a management trust for purposes other than education, religion, charity or research… Fatio, who left the board three years ago, said the foundation “never had any money.” Vachicouras declined to discuss finances.

Full Story: Citizens For Legitimate Government.

Defending the freedom to hate: Supreme Court to take up anti-gay-protest case

How addled by hatred do you have to be, asks Leonard Pitts Jr., to show up at the funeral services of dead soldiers to spew anti-gay epithets? The family of one such soldier is locked in a legal battle to find out.

You will be furious when you finish this column. Fair warning.

In March 2006, a 20-year-old Marine, Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, was killed in a motor-vehicle accident in Iraq. His family probably thought that the most painful blow imaginable. Truth is, their pain was only beginning.

Cpl. Snyder’s death, you see, came to the attention of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan. Westboro, for those who do not know, is no more a church than is your average gas-station toilet. According to published reports, it claims about 75 members, most of them kin to its leader, Fred Phelps. And Phelps preaches a “gospel” of anti-homosexuality that is grotesque even by the standards of fundamentalist hate.

Full Story: Editorials & Opinion | Defending the freedom to hate: Supreme Court to take up anti-gay-protest case | Seattle Times Newspaper.

As The Crisis Deepens, More Attention Is Being Paid To Financial Fraud

A Cavalcade of U.S. Corruption Is Finally Being Scrutinized

The “F Word” (for fraud) is back in polite conversation on Wall Street. Fraud and financial crime are slowly becoming part of the debate over what must be done to restore confidence in what has so plainly been a confidence game.

Drilling for oil has knocked financial reform out of the headlines, but among commentators, a concern with crime and the absence of punishment is being raised again.

First there was Robert Reich, the former Clinton Labor Secretary, a small man with a large and insistent voice. He’s practically spitting because he’s so pissed off with the inaction, asking where has the SEC been–not the Bush SEC which blew the Madoff probe, but the Obama appointees:
Full Story: As The Crisis Deepens, More Attention Is Being Paid To Financial Fraud | The Smirking Chimp.

Aral Sea Almost DRIED UP: UN Chief Calls It ‘Shocking Disaster’

The drying up of the Aral Sea is one of the planet’s most shocking disasters, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Sunday, as he urged Central Asian leaders to step up efforts to solve the problem.

Once the world’s fourth-largest lake, the sea has shrunk by 90 percent since the rivers that feed it were largely diverted in a Soviet project to boost cotton production in the arid region.

The shrunken sea has ruined the once-robust fishing economy and left fishing trawlers stranded in sandy wastelands, leaning over as if they dropped from the air. The sea’s evaporation has left layers of highly salted sand, which winds can carry as far away as Scandinavia and Japan, and which plague local people with health troubles.

Ban toured the sea by helicopter as part of a visit to the five countries of former Soviet Central Asia. His trip included a touchdown in Muynak, Uzbekistan, a town once on the shore where a pier stretches eerily over gray desert and camels stand near the hulks of stranded ships.

Full Story: Aral Sea Almost DRIED UP: UN Chief Calls It ‘Shocking Disaster’.

Making Financial Reform Fool-Resistant

Paul Krugman -

The White House is confident that a financial regulatory reform bill will soon pass the Senate. I’m not so sure, given the opposition of Republican leaders to any real reform. But in any case, how good is the legislation on the table, the bill put together by Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut?

Not good enough. It’s a good-faith effort to do what needs to be done, but it would create a system highly dependent on the wisdom and good intentions of government officials. And as the history of the last decade demonstrates, trusting in the quality of officials can be dangerous to the economy’s health.

Now, it’s impossible to devise a truly foolproof regulatory regime — anyone who believes otherwise is underestimating the power of foolishness. But you can try to create a system that’s relatively fool-resistant. Unfortunately, the Dodd bill doesn’t do that.

Full Story: Op-Ed Columnist – Making Financial Reform Fool-Resistant – NYTimes.com.

Time For Another War, Folks? 59% of America Says YOU BETCHA!!!!

I am slapping this down really fast cuz I am really, really, really angry. I will write a fuller blog later I am sure on the Iran and US situation, but I couldn’t let this moment pass. Please indulge me.

I caught part of a podcast of Meet the Press. A part where David Gregory sets up Senator Joe Lieberman to “war monger” once again for war with Iran. That part begins at 30:25 if you access the podcast link for Meet the Press before next Sunday 4/11/10.

David Gregory disingenuously asks Senator Lieberman if Lieberman is AFRAID that the US and the West, in general, are DRIFTING to a war with Iran. Drifting to war with Iran? We all know damn well Lieberman is paddling away like crazy to get us there!

Full Story: Time For Another War, Folks? 59% of America Says YOU BETCHA!!!! | Corrente.

How the Corporations Broke Ralph Nader and America, Too

Chris Hedges -

Ralph Nader’s descent from being one of the most respected and powerful men in the country to being a pariah illustrates the totality of the corporate coup. Nader’s marginalization was not accidental. It was orchestrated to thwart the legislation that Nader and his allies—who once consisted of many in the Democratic Party—enacted to prevent corporate abuse, fraud and control. He was targeted to be destroyed. And by the time he was shut out of the political process with the election of Ronald Reagan, the government was in the hands of corporations. Nader’s fate mirrors our own.

“The press discovered citizen investigators around the mid-1960s,” Nader told me when we spoke a few days ago. “I was one of them. I would go down with the press releases, the findings, the story suggestions and the internal documents and give it to a variety of reporters. I would go to Congress and generate hearings. Oftentimes I would be the lead witness. What was interesting was the novelty; the press gravitates to novelty. They achieved great things. There was collaboration. We provided the newsworthy material. They covered it. The legislation passed. Regulations were issued. Lives were saved. Other civic movements began to flower.”

Nader was singled out for destruction, as Henriette Mantel and Stephen Skrovan point out in their engaging documentary movie on Nader, “An Unreasonable Man.” General Motors had him followed in an attempt to blackmail him. It sent an attractive woman to his neighborhood Safeway supermarket in a bid to meet him while he was shopping and then seduce him; the attempt failed, and GM, when exposed, had to issue a public apology.

Full Story: Chris Hedges: How the Corporations Broke Ralph Nader and America, Too – Chris Hedges’ Columns – Truthdig.

Greenspan, Summers, and Why the Economy Is So Out of Whack

Robert Reich  -

I’m in the “green room” at ABC News, waiting to join a roundtable panel discussion on ABC’s weekly Sunday news program, This Week.

Alan Greenspan is now being interviewed. He says he bore no responsibility for the housing bubble that catapulted the nation into a financial crisis in 2008 because no one could have known about the bubble when he chaired the Fed in the years before it burst. Larry Summers was interviewed just before Greenspan. He said the economy is expanding, that the Administration is doing everything it can to bring jobs back, and that the regulatory reform bills moving on the Hill will prevent another financial crisis.

What?

If any single person is most responsible for the financial crisis, it’s Alan Greenspan. He presided over a Fed that lowered interest rates to zero (adjusted for inflation) but failed to prevent banks from using essentially free money to speculate wildly. You do not have to be a brain surgeon to understand that if money is free, banks will take it and lend it out. And if oversight is inadequate, the banks will lend the money to anyone who can stand up straight and to many who cannot. The result will be a giant subprime lending bubble that will burst.

Full Story: Robert Reich (Greenspan, Summers, and Why the Economy Is So Out of Whack).

100 million Americans question or find fault with the official 9/11 story

The failure to rebuild the World Trade Center site in Manhattan has received endless attention. But public anger about this failed reconstruction should not been seen so negatively. After all, mental reconstruction has also still not been successful and is surely more needed, with too many Americans still accepting the official government story about 9/11. This, despite a huge amount of compelling evidence that elements of the US government played some role, despite a very large, active 9/11 truth movement, and despite an impressive number of highly credible people demanding a new investigation as documented at patriotsquestion911.com.

In the recent Angus Reid Public Opinion survey of a representative national sample of American adults, 62 per cent of respondents disagree with the view that the “Sept. 11 incident was a big fabrication as a pretext for the campaign against terrorism and a prelude for staging an invasion against Afghanistan.” Far more Republicans disagree at 80 percent, compared to 66 percent of Independents and 55 percent of Democrats.

Consistent with this is that two-thirds of Americans (67 percent) agree with the government commission that investigated the events of Sept. 11, 2001, which concluded that an attack was carried out by 19 hijackers who were members of the al-Qaeda terrorist organization, led by Osama bin Laden. Though 12 per cent of respondents reject the commission’s findings, one-in-five Americans (21 percent) are undecided. In particular, 35 percent of Independents and 34 percent of Democrats do not accept the official version, compared to just 20 percent of Republicans.

Full Story: 100 million Americans question or find fault with the official 9/11 story.

Obama’s Economic Brain Trust

The Guys Who Got It Wrong

By PAM MARTENS

America is held out to the world as a meritocracy. You work hard, you play by the rules, you make sound judgment calls, you succeed. That’s the American dream. Right? That’s what the President of the United States should exemplify in his actions. Right?

Then how does one explain the individuals who represent the abject failures of financial and regulatory theory chosen by the President to dominate the dialogue on financial reform. How does one reconcile President Obama appointing Lawrence Summers as head of the National Economic Council after Mr. Summers played a central role in rolling back the safeguards that led to the current financial crisis.

This is what Mr. Summers had to say at the November 12, 1999 signing ceremony for the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, the draconian legislation that repealed the Glass-Steagall Act and allowed commercial banks holding insured deposits to merge with investment banks, brokerage firms and insurance companies: the very same combinations that led to the 1929 stock market crash and ensuing Great Depression:

Full Story: Pam Martens: Obama’s Economic Brain Trust.

Not satisfied with U.S. history, some conservatives are rewriting it

Is American history being changed?

The right is rewriting history.

The most ballyhooed effort is under way in Texas, where conservatives have pushed the state school board to rewrite guidelines, downplaying Thomas Jefferson in one high school course, playing up such conservatives as Phyllis Schlafly and the Heritage Foundation and challenging the idea that the Founding Fathers wanted to separate church and state.

The effort reaches far beyond one state, however.

In articles and speeches, on radio and TV, conservatives are working to redefine major turning points and influential figures in American history, often to slam liberals, promote Republicans and reinforce their positions in today's politics.

The Jamestown settlers? Socialists. Founding Father Alexander Hamilton? Ill-informed professors made up all that bunk about him advocating a strong central government.

Full Story: Not satisfied with U.S. history, some conservatives are rewriting it | McClatchy.

U.S. Admits Role in February Killing of Afghan Women – NYTimes.com

After initially denying involvement or any cover-up in the deaths of three Afghan women during a badly bungled American Special Operations assault in February, the American-led military command in Kabul admitted late on Sunday that its forces had, in fact, killed the

The admission immediately raised questions about what really happened during the Feb. 12 operation — and what falsehoods followed — including a new report that Special Operations forces dug bullets out of the bodies of the women to hide the true nature of their deaths.

A NATO official also said Sunday in an interview that an Afghan-led team of investigators had found signs of evidence tampering at the scene, including the removal of bullets from walls near where the women were killed. A senior NATO official later denied on Monday that any evidence tampering occurred.

women during the nighttime raid.

Full Story: U.S. Admits Role in February Killing of Afghan Women – NYTimes.com.

Israel Gags News on Extrajudicial Killings

An Israeli journalist remains under house arrest and another lives abroad after they broke news on Israeli undercover units carrying out assassinations or “targeted killings” of non-combatant Palestinian political opponents.

Anat Kam, 23, who used to work for the Israeli news site Walla, was arrested last December for allegedly copying secret Israeli Defense Force (IDF) documents during her compulsory military service.

These documents outlined how Israeli assassination squads would plan the killing of Palestinian political leaders and fighters months beforehand and then pass their deaths off as “mishaps” during “failed” attempts to arrest them.

Uri Blau, a reporter from the daily Ha’aretz, then wrote a piece on the copied documents and is refusing to return to Israel from Britain fearing that Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, the Shin Bet, will arrest him if he does.

Full Story: Israel Gags News on Extrajudicial Killings by Mel Frykberg — Antiwar.com.

Obama ‘Even Worse’ Than Bush On Secret Wiretapping Case, Says S.F. Lawyer

San Francisco attorney Jon Eisenberg thinks he’s learned a thing or two about Barack Obama over the past 15 months. Eisenberg, who won a landmark decision against the government in Northern California’s U.S. District Court Wednesday on a wiretapping case, says that when it comes to violating civil liberties in the name of national security, the present occupant of the White House is just as bad as — or “even worse” than — his predecessor.

“The Obama Administration stepped right into the shoes of the Bush Administration, on national security generally and on this case in particular,” Eisenberg said, referring to the lawsuit brought by his clients, an Oregon branch of an Islamic charity and two American lawyers. The plaintiffs argued successfully before federal Judge Vaughn Walker that their conversations were illegally wiretapped under the Bush Administration’s secret surveillance program.

Just as significant as the ruling, however, may be what the case demonstrates about the Obama Justice Department’s approach to surveillance of suspected terrorists. Eisenberg told SF Weekly that government lawyers working for Obama had been “more strident” than those working for Bush, refusing to let him see important federal documents related to the case even after he was approved for a top-secret security clearance.

Full Story: Obama ‘Even Worse’ Than Bush On Secret Wiretapping Case, Says S.F. Lawyer – San Francisco News – The Snitch.

OPS: maybe the ‘President’ isn’t really in charge?