Archive for April, 2010
The Death of a Nation
I’m often rattled by manifestations of my own intellectual impotence. A conversation with a professor who mentions whole genres of literature I’m unfamiliar with. An acknowledgment that I’ve been mispronouncing Die Linke and pronouncing Alexander Cockburn’s name a bit too correctly for a good year and a half. That stretch after reading Sula when I thought Toni Morrison was a guy. The feeling I get when I try to deceiver Postone’s notion of abstract time… sobering, but undoubtedly healthy for a 20-year-old.
Thumbing through “the flagship of the left” lends itself to a very different sensation. Though not quite on a fast track to The New Republic levels of noxiousness, the deterioration of The Nation into a vapid, politically complacent mouthpiece of the establishment has been marked to any candid observer. Large tracts of the magazine are now indistinguishable from that of The Huffington Post.
It was not always so. The first issue of Dissent in 1954, a year a bit too devoid of red-baiting for their tastes, featured an editorial that lambasted the publication for being soft on Stalinism. A decade later The Nation published Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven’s plot to bring about the End Times. Amid the rancor of the Cold War and the neoliberal reaction that followed, editor Victor Navasky ran regular columns from two radicals in their prime: then Trotskyist Christopher Hitchens and—a follower of his own inchoate brand of a leftism—Alexander Cockburn. Navasky even gave exposure to Marxist economist and former Soviet agent Victor Perlo and named a young(er) Doug Henwood contributing editor a scant few years after the launch of Left Business Observer. Though never aspiring to be The New Masses, the magazine was described by Navasky as a debating ground between liberals and radicals.
Full Story: The Death of a Nation | The Activist.
WellPoint CEO receives a 51 percent increase in compensation.
Angela Braly, CEO of health insurance giant WellPoint, saw her compensation jump 51 percent to $13.1 million in 2009. The LA Times adds, “At least three other WellPoint executives got compensation increases of as much as 75%.” Braly’s boost comes as “WellPoint’s California subsidiary, Anthem Blue Cross in Woodland Hills, seeks double-digit rate increases for many of its 800,000 members who buy individual policies.” During the health care debate, WellPoint became the poster child for the abuses of the health insurance industry, pressuring lawmakers to support drastic reform and pushing Obama to add stronger cost control provisions into his health care blueprint. A Center for American Progress analysis from February found that “double-digit hikes have been implemented or are pending in at least 11 other states among the 14 where WellPoint’s Blue Cross Blue Shield companies are active.” WellPoint spokesman Jon Mills justified Braly’s compensation by saying that the company “wants to attract and retain top talent.”
Full Story: Think Progress » WellPoint CEO receives a 51 percent increase in compensation..
OPS: and how many people dies, or are living in physical misery or are bankrupted as a direct result of this?
Triple blasts in Baghdad embassies kill dozens
Three suicide bombers detonated car bombs near foreign missions in central Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least 30 people and wounding 168.
The blasts near the Iranian, Egyptian and German embassies followed mortar attacks on the Iraqi capital’s Green Zone, home to government buildings, official residences and foreign embassies. They came two days after gunmen slaughtered 24 people in a Sunni village south of Baghdad.
Iraqi authorities had warned of a possible escalation of violence because of rising tension after a March 7 parliamentary election that produced no clear winner.
Full Story: Triple blasts in Baghdad embassies kill dozens – Telegraph.
Doctor Against Treating Obama Supporters Admits Not Knowing What’s In Health Reform Bill
Dr. Jack Cassell, the Orlando urologist who put a sign on his door letting patients know he doesn’t want to have to treat them if they are Obama/health care reform supporters, was on my radio show Friday night, but didn’t seem to know much about the health care bill he’s criticizing.
audio available at link
Cassell: Hospice cuts in 2012…Does the government want people to die slowly?
Colmes: Do you really think the government wants people dead?
Cassell: Well I think that they’re cutting all supportive care, like nursing homes, ambulance services…
Colmes: What to you mean they’re cutting nursing homes?
Cassell: They’re cutting nursing home reimbursements
Colmes: Isn’t what they’re cutting under the Medicare plan what was really double dipping; they were getting credits and they were getting to deduct them at the same time.
Cassell: Well you know, I can’t tell you exactly what the deal is.
Colmes: If you can’t tell us exactly what the deal is, why are you opposing it and fighting against it?
Cassell: I’m not the guy who wrote the plan.
Colmes: But if you don’t know what the deal is why are you speaking out against something you don’t know what the deal is?
Cassell: What I get online, just like any other American. What I’m supposed to understand about the bill should be available to me.
Colmes: It is; it’s been online for a long time; it’s also been all over the media…
Full Story: Doctor Against Treating Obama Supporters Admits Not Knowing What’s In Health Reform Bill « Alan Colmes’ Liberaland.
OPS: Perfect, and predictable. Ideology Trumps Everything – even survival
Orwell Watch: Democracy Being Linked to Socialism
Those who remember the sorry saga of the Iraq war no doubt recall the numerous, shifting explanations of why the US attacked an unprovoked invasion of a country that had no ability to mount an attack on the US. Once the canard of “weapons of mass destruction” was dismissed, one of the next set of bogus explanations was that Osama bin Laden was in cahoots with Sadaam Hussein. That was implausible on its face; bin Laden had tried to destabilize Iraq, and various leaks from intelligence sources disputed the Administration lies party line (see here and here for example). Bush eventually ‘fessed up that there was no connection between Iraq and al Quaeda.
But there was no risk in denying the myth at that point. Indeed, it turns out that our brains are wired so badly that mentioning two ideas as being connected, whether to claim they are linked or to deny it, serves to reinforce the belief that they ARE connected. Call it “the lady doth protest too much” effect. A 2007 Washington Post article explains:
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently issued a flier to combat myths about the flu vaccine. It recited various commonly held views and labeled them either “true” or “false.” Among those identified as false were statements such as “The side effects are worse than the flu” and “Only older people need flu vaccine.”
Full Story: Orwell Watch: Democracy Being Linked to Socialism « naked capitalism.
The Evangelical “Mainstream” Insanity Behind the Michigan “End Times” Militia
A federal prosecutor in Michigan says authorities decided to arrest members of the Hutaree Christian militia after learning “they were prepared to kill.”
When I first learned of the news I went to the Hutaree Militia homepage and was struck by the fact that their site included links to a number of evangelical “End Times” sites like that of the Jack Van Impe ministries.
In the 1970s and 80s I appeared several times with Jack Van Impe on his TV program. His act was to predict the “imminent” return of Jesus. My act was to raise money for my latest far religious right effort to make abortion illegal.
Full Story: Frank Schaeffer: The Evangelical “Mainstream” Insanity Behind the Michigan “End Times” Militia.
What the Top U.S. Companies Pay in Taxes
As you work on your taxes this month, here’s something to raise your hackles: Some of the world’s biggest, most profitable corporations enjoy a far lower tax rate than you do — that is, if they pay taxes at all.
The most egregious example is General Electric (NYSE: GE – News). Last year the conglomerate 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.
Avoiding taxes is nothing new for General Electric. In 2008 its effective tax rate was 5.3%; in 2007 it was 15%. The marginal U.S. corporate rate is 35%.
How did this happen? It’s complicated. GE’s tax return is the largest the IRS deals with each year — some 24,000 pages if printed out. Its annual report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission weighs in at more than 700 pages.
Inside you’ll find that GE in effect consists of two divisions: General Electric Capital and everything else. The everything else — maker of engines, power plants, TV shows and the like — would have paid a 22% tax rate if it was a standalone company.
Full Story: what-the-top-us-companies-pay-in-taxes: Personal Finance News from Yahoo! Finance.
Out-Republicaning the Republicans
Obama Revives Clinton’s Disastrous Triangulation Strategy
“It was Bill Clinton who recognized that the categories of conservative and liberal played to Republican advantage and were inadequate to address our problems,” President Obama wrote in his book The Audacity of Hope. “Clinton’s third way…tapped into the pragmatic, non-ideological attitude of Americans.”
Clinton’s “third way” was “triangulation,” a term and strategy invented by his pollster Dick Morris. Triangulation is a candidate’s attempt to position himself above and between the left and the right. A Democrat, Clinton insulated himself from Republican attacks by appropriating many of their ideas.
Obama is even more of a triangulator than Clinton.
Full Story: Out-Republicaning the Republicans | CommonDreams.org.
Oil threat to Great Barrier Reef after ship runs aground
A Chinese coal ship stuck on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is leaking oil and in danger of breaking apart, raising fears of serious environmental damage to the world’s largest coral reef.
The Shen Neng 1, carrying 65,000 tonnes of coal to China from the Australian port of Gladstone, ran aground 43 miles (70km) off the east coast of Great Keppel Island tourist resort, in north east Australia, late on Saturday. Early today it was found that the hull had been breached, increasing concerns of a major oil spill.
Aircraft flying over the ship early this morning reported that patches of oil were visible up to 2.5 miles (4 km) from the stricken ship.
Maritime Safety Queensland said that there had been no major loss from the ship’s 950-tonne store of oil, but said that a fuel tank with 150 tonnes of heavy oil had been breached and that the oil spill was being treated as a “serious problem”.
Full Story: Oil threat to Great Barrier Reef after ship runs aground – Times Online.
Why we won’t file states’ rights suits
- Richard Cordray and Tom Miller -
The new health care reform law has already become the target of multiple lawsuits, including many filed by public parties.
Some are arguing that the new law is unconstitutional because Congress lacks authority to address the health care issue by mandating coverage and that people have a right to refuse to buy health insurance. Others see it as an affront to their basic freedoms.
As attorneys general for our respective heartland states, we take issue with the constitutional arguments being made against this new legislation. Under long-settled Supreme Court precedents, Congress has ample power under the commerce clause of the Constitution to legislate on health care.
Full Story: Why we won’t file states’ rights suits – Richard Cordray and Tom Miller – POLITICO.com.
Missing link between man and apes found
A “missing link” between humans and their apelike ancestors has been discovered.
The new species of hominid, the evolutionary branch of primates that includes humans, is to be revealed when the two-million-year-old skeleton of a child is unveiled this week.
Scientists believe the almost-complete fossilised skeleton belonged to a previously-unknown type of early human ancestor that may have been a intermediate stage as ape-men evolved into the first species of advanced humans, Homo habilis.
Full Story: Missing link between man and apes found – Telegraph.
The Church’s Easter: What Needs to Die in the Catholic Church so That it May Live
Rev. James Martin, S.J.: -
This year the religious symbolism of Easter could not be more resonant for the Catholic Church. Each day from Good Friday to Easter Sunday offers the Church a profound spiritual message as it confronts the horrific effects of the crimes of clerical sexual abuse, which have convulsed the church, first in the United States, and now in Europe.
Start with Good Friday, the day that commemorates the death of Jesus of Nazareth. On that day, Jesus willingly surrendered himself to his fate, which would lead to his brief trial, his grueling torture, his arduous walk to Calvary and his ultimate crucifixion. The Catholic Church, too, is undergoing a kind of crucifixion.
But not in the way that you might think. And not in the way that you might think of “the church.”
Full Story: Rev. James Martin, S.J.: The Church’s Easter: What Needs to Die in the Catholic Church so That it May Live.
Critics Say Firm Weakens Safety Net as It Fights Jobless Claims
With a client list that reads like a roster of Fortune 500 firms, a little-known company with an odd name, the Talx Corporation, has come to dominate a thriving industry: helping employers process — and fight — unemployment claims.
Talx, which emerged from obscurity over the last eight years, says it handles more than 30 percent of the nation’s requests for jobless benefits. Pledging to save employers money in part by contesting claims, Talx helps them decide which applications to resist and how to mount effective appeals.
The work has made Talx a boom business in a bust economy, but critics say the company has undermined a crucial safety net. Officials in a number of states have called Talx a chronic source of error and delay. Advocates for the unemployed say the company seeks to keep jobless workers from collecting benefits.
Full Story: Critics Say Firm Weakens Safety Net as It Fights Jobless Claims – NYTimes.com.
Growth of Unpaid Internships May Be Illegal, Officials Say
With job openings scarce for young people, the number of unpaid internships has climbed in recent years, leading federal and state regulators to worry that more employers are illegally using such internships for free labor.
Convinced that many unpaid internships violate minimum wage laws, officials in Oregon, California and other states have begun investigations and fined employers. Last year, M. Patricia Smith, then New York’s labor commissioner, ordered investigations into several firms’ internships. Now, as the federal Labor Department’s top law enforcement official, she and the wage and hour division are stepping up enforcement nationwide.
Many regulators say that violations are widespread, but that it is unusually hard to mount a major enforcement effort because interns are often afraid to file complaints. Many fear they will become known as troublemakers in their chosen field, endangering their chances with a potential future employer.
The Labor Department says it is cracking down on firms that fail to pay interns properly and expanding efforts to educate companies, colleges and students on the law regarding internships.
Full Story: Growth of Unpaid Internships May Be Illegal, Officials Say – NYTimes.com.
US delaying currencies report amid China dispute
The Obama administration is delaying a report to Congress on currency policies amid calls from some lawmakers that it should cite China as a currency manipulator harmful to the U.S. economy.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Saturday that he will delay publication of the report, due April 15, because several high-level international meetings in the coming months will be a better way to advance the United States’ position.
Still, Geithner said in a statement that China should adopt “a more market-oriented exchange rate” to balance the U.S. trade deficit with China, which totaled $226.8 billion last year – the largest imbalance with any country. U.S. manufacturers say China’s yuan is undervalued by as much as 40 percent and is a big reason for the massive trade deficit.
Full Story: News from The Associated Press.
Laid-off workers threaten to blow up French plant
Workers at a French car accessories plant north of Paris threatened Friday to blow up their factory unless they were given better layoff compensation.
Employees at the Sodimatex plant placed petrol bombs near a large gas tank and were threatening to set them on fire.
“The plant is going to go up in smoke, if that’s what they want,” said one worker.
Managers sat down with union leaders and labour mediators at the town hall in Crepy-en-Valois in a bid to defuse tensions at the plant, where 92 jobs will be shed.
Full Story: Laid-off workers threaten to blow up French plant – Yahoo! News.
US Cardinal protected child abusing priest: document
US Cardinal William Levada, a staunch defender of Pope Benedict XVI in the paedophile priests scandal gripping the Vatican, reassigned a US priest and alleged child molester in the 1990s without warning his parishioners, court documents showed.
In a sworn testimony in 2006 about his time as Archbishop of Portland, Oregon (1986-1995), Levada said he decided to reassign the offending priest after he underwent therapy.
“The abuse in question had happened 20 years before, or so… the recommendation of the therapy was that he was not at risk for re-abusing and that it would be prudent to reassign him… and prudent also to put conditions that would make sure that he would not be overstressed to do some inappropriate behavior,” Levada testified.
Full Story: US Cardinal protected child abusing priest: document – Yahoo! News.
Crist wants probe of Fla. GOP finances: ‘This thing stinks’
Florida governor Charlie Crist has requested a federal investigation into the Republican Party of Florida as accusations of mismanagement and under-the-table deals continue to mount.
Crist’s call for federal authorities to take over the probe followed a similar request from Florida Chief Financial officer Alex Sink, who also sent a request for intervention to the state attorney general Friday.
“It’s a mess,” Crist said. “This thing stinks.”
Most of the “mess” centers around Jim Greer, the former Chairman of the state’s Republican party. Greer’s personal finances are being investigated, especially for a secret contract he signed in 2009 that sent almost $200,000 in fundraising money to a private company of which Greer owns 60 percent.
Full Story: Crist wants probe of Fla. GOP finances: ‘This thing stinks’ | Raw Story.
Crist wants probe of Fla. GOP finances: ‘This thing stinks’
Florida governor Charlie Crist has requested a federal investigation into the Republican Party of Florida as accusations of mismanagement and under-the-table deals continue to mount.
Crist’s call for federal authorities to take over the probe followed a similar request from Florida Chief Financial officer Alex Sink, who also sent a request for intervention to the state attorney general Friday.
“It’s a mess,” Crist said. “This thing stinks.”
Most of the “mess” centers around Jim Greer, the former Chairman of the state’s Republican party. Greer’s personal finances are being investigated, especially for a secret contract he signed in 2009 that sent almost $200,000 in fundraising money to a private company of which Greer owns 60 percent.
Full Story: Crist wants probe of Fla. GOP finances: ‘This thing stinks’ | Raw Story.
FBI, DHS probe ‘Guardians’ who demanded governors resign
The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security have launched an investigation into letters sent by an anti-government group to over 30 governors demanding they resign within three days or face peaceful removal from office.
The letters, sent by a group calling themselves the “Guardians of the Free Republics,” do not threaten violence but warned recipients they would be removed from office if they did not resign by the deadline, law enforcement and state officials said.
Virginia’s Republican Governor Robert McDonnell and Arkansas’s Democratic Governor Mike Beebe were among those who received the letters, as was Texas’s Republican Governor Rick Perry.
Full Story: FBI, DHS probe ‘Guardians’ who demanded governors resign | Raw Story.
Justice Stevens to leave while Obama in office
Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens says he “will surely” retire while President Barack Obama is still in office, giving the president the opportunity to maintain the high court’s ideological balance.
Stevens said in newspaper interviews on the Web Saturday that he will decide soon on the timing of his retirement, whether it will be this year or next. Stevens, the leader of the court’s liberals, turns 90 this month and is the oldest justice.
His departure would give Obama his second nomination to the court, enabling him to ensure there would continue to be at least four liberal-leaning justices. The high court is often split 5 to 4 on major cases, with the vote of moderate Justice Anthony Kennedy often deciding which side prevails.
Full Story: Justice Stevens to leave while Obama in office – Yahoo! News.
GOP obstruction of employment bill means trouble for flooded homeowners
With at least one in 10 Americans unemployed, Senate Democrats weren’t happy when Republicans repeatedly obstructed efforts to extend unemployment benefits.
It turns out the package also included an extension of federal flood insurance. As northeastern states face flooding from record rainfalls, many homeowners may not receive their insurance claims because Senate Republicans prevented an immediate extension of the insurance program.
Expiration of the program leaves “homeowners across the country vulnerable to the devastating effects of flood waters and adding greater uncertainty to the real estate market in flood-prone areas,” said PCI Federal Government Relations Senior Vice President Ben McKay in a statement.
Full Story: GOP obstruction of employment bill means trouble for flooded homeowners | Raw Story.
It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Obama!
Frank Rich -
NOT since Clark Kent changed in a phone booth has there been an instant image makeover to match Barack Obama’s in the aftermath of his health care victory. “He went from Jimmy Carter to F.D.R. in just a fortnight,” said one of the “Game Change” authors, Mark Halperin, on MSNBC. “Look at the steam in the man’s stride!” exclaimed Chris Matthews. “Is it just me, or does Barack Obama seem different since health care passed?” wrote Peter Beinart in The Daily Beast, which, like The Financial Times, ran an illustration portraying the gangly president as a newly bulked-up Superman.
What a difference winning makes — especially in America. Whatever did (or didn’t) get into Obama’s Wheaties, this much is certain: No one is talking about the clout of Scott Brown or Rahm Emanuel any more.
But has the man really changed — or is it just us? Fifteen months after arriving at the White House, Obama remains by far the most popular national politician in the country, even with a sub-50 percent approval rating. And yet he’s also the most enigmatic. While he is in our face more than any other figure in the world, we still aren’t entirely sure what to make of him.
Depending on where you stand — or the given day — he is either an overintellectual, professorial wuss or a ruthless Chicago machine pol rivaling the original Boss Daley. He is either a socialist redistributing wealth to the undeserving poor or a tool of Wall Street’s Goldman Sachs elite. He is a terrorist-coddling, A.C.L.U.-tilting lawyer or a closet Cheneyite upholding the worst excesses of the Bush administration’s end run on the Constitution. He is a lightweight celebrity who’s clueless without a teleprompter or a Machiavellian mastermind who has ingeniously forged his Hawaiian birth certificate, covered up his ties to Islamic radicals and bamboozled the entire mainstream press. He is the reincarnation of J.F.K., L.B.J., F.D.R., Reagan, Hitler, Stalin, Adlai Stevenson or Nelson Mandela. (Funny how few people compared George W. Bush to anyone but Hitler and his parents.)
Full Story: Op-Ed Columnist – It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Obama! – NYTimes.com.
Putin signs energy deals with Chavez on Venezuela visit
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has signed a series of key energy deals with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez during a visit to the capital, Caracas.
Mr Chavez said Russia had agreed to help Venezuela with a nuclear power plant and on building a space industry.
However, the Venezuelan leader, a long-time adversary of Washington, insisted that “we are not building an alliance against the United States”.
Bolivian President Evo Morales was also invited to meet Mr Putin in Caracas.
Full Story: BBC News – Putin signs energy deals with Chavez on Venezuela visit.
The Paper Entrepreneurs Are Winning Over the Product Entrepreneurs (A Thirty Year Retrospective)
Robert Reich -
Paper entrepreneurs — trained in law, finance, accountancy — manipulate complex systems of rules and numbers. They innovate by using the systems in novel ways: establishing joint ventures, consortiums, holding companies, mutual funds; finding companies to acquire, “white knights” to be acquired by, commodity futures to invest in, tax shelters to hide in; engaging in proxy fights, tender offers, antitrust suits, stock splits, spinoffs, divestitures; buying and selling notes, bonds, convertible debentures, sinking-fund debentures; obtaining government subsidies, loan guarantees, tax breaks, contracts, licenses, quottas, price supports, bailouts; going private, going public, going bankrupt.
Product entrepreneurs — engineers, inventors, production managers, marketers, owners of small businesses — produce goods and services people want. They innovate by creating better products at less cost.
Full Story: Robert Reich (The Paper Entrepreneurs Are Winning Over the Product Entrepreneurs (A Thirty Year Retrospective)).
Rolling Stone – The Last Confessions of E. Howard Hunt
… the ultimate keeper of secrets… toppled banana republics, planned the Bay of Pigs invasion… led the Watergate break-in. Now he would reveal what he’d always kept hidden: who killed JFK
Once, when the old spymaster thought he was dying, his eldest son came to visit him at his home in Miami. The scourges recently had been constant and terrible: lupus, pneumonia, cancers of the jaw and prostate, gangrene, the amputation of his left leg. It was like something was eating him up. Long past were his years of heroic service to the country. In the CIA, he’d helped mastermind the violent removal of a duly elected leftist president in Guatemala and assisted in subterfuges that led to the murder of Che Guevara. But no longer could you see in him the suave, pipe-smoking, cocktail-party-loving clandestine operative whose Cold War exploits he himself had, almost obsessively, turned into novels, one of which, East of Farewell, the New York Times once called “the best sea story” of World War II. Diminished too were the old bad memories, of the Bay of Pigs debacle that derailed his CIA career for good, of the Watergate Hotel fiasco, of his first wife’s death, of thirty-three months in U.S. prisons — of, in fact, a furious lifetime mainly of failure, disappointment and pain. But his firstborn son — he named him St. John; Saint, for short — was by his side now. And he still had a secret or two left to share before it was all over.
They were in the living room, him in his wheelchair, watching Fox News at full volume, because his hearing had failed too. After a while, he had St. John wheel him into his bedroom and hoist him onto his bed. It smelled foul in there; he was incontinent; a few bottles of urine under the bed needed to be emptied; but he was beyond caring. He asked St. John to get him a diet root beer, a pad of paper and a pen.
Saint had come to Miami from Eureka, California, borrowing money to fly because he was broke. Though clean now, he had been a meth addict for twenty years, a meth dealer for ten of those years and a source of frustration and anger to his father for much of his life. There were a couple of days back in 1972, after the Watergate job, when the boy, then eighteen, had risen to the occasion. The two of them, father and son, had wiped fingerprints off a bunch of spy gear, and Saint had helped in other ways, too. But as a man, he had two felony convictions to his name, and they were for drugs. The old spymaster was a convicted felon too, of course. But that was different. He was E. Howard Hunt, a true American patriot, and he had earned his while serving his country. That the country repaid him with almost three years in prison was something he could never understand, if only because the orders that got him in such trouble came right from the top; as he once said, “I had always assumed, working for the CIA for so many years, that anything the White House wanted done was the law of the land.”
Full Story: The Last Confessions of E. Howard Hunt : Rolling Stone.
Rove on attempted citizen’s arrest: ‘I wish there wasn’t so much attention paid to it.’
Earlier this week, Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans approached Karl Rove at a book signing event in Beverly Hills, CA with handcuffs, telling Rove she wanted to make a citizen’s arrest. “You outted a CIA officer; you lied to take us to war,” she said. Seemingly taken off guard, Rove later said to the audience that the event “shows the totalitarianism of the left.” Perhaps feeling shamed, last night on Fox News, Rove expressed regret that the incident has received so much media attention:
ROVE: Well, you know, what was interesting was I thought this was a well-organized event, it was supposed to be a prestige venue as my publisher said and it was the first and it will be the last book tour stop I have where there was not security. But, you know what? I wish there wasn’t so much attention paid to it. Because I had a fantastic swing through California.
Watch it:
Full Story: Think Progress » Rove on attempted citizen’s arrest: ‘I wish there wasn’t so much attention paid to it.’.
Ten Things You Can Do to Help Progressive Journalism
Wha’s wrong with this picture? Air America vanishes into the ether, while Glenn Beck indoctrinates 2.7 million daily viewers with his histrionic brand of right-wing lunacy. Independent news agencies must continuously solicit donations from readers to stay afloat, while hate-filled shock jock Rush Limbaugh makes $50 million a year.
On the other hand, there’s still a lot of great progressive media on the airwaves, including Democracy Now!, which airs on more than 800 TV and radio stations worldwide, along with radio shows by Ed Schultz and Stephanie Miller. The Nation and TheNation.com are part of a progressive journalistic community that is challenging the right in every medium. ZP Heller, a writer (HuffPo, OpenLeft, AlterNet) who is working on a novel lampooning corporate media, lists ten steps you can take to help keep progressive journalism alive
- Check it. Media Matters and Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) have been dogged in holding Fox News accountable for spewing gross misinformation on a near daily basis. Get the facts about how Fox’s right-wing agenda still oozes on the air, even when Beck, O’Reilly and Hannity aren’t on-screen. Go to mediamatters.org and fair.org.
Full Story: Ten Things You Can Do to Help Progressive Journalism.
Have Americans become useful idiots for the Koch Industries?
The Thom Hartmann Program can be heard daily M-F 12-3pm ET. Visit www.thomhartmann.com to listen live, join the community or purchase a podcast.
On the Edge with Max Keiser – 02 April 2010
The MPAA is going to have its hands full when CantorX new box office futures contracts launch.
When I was CEO of HSX/Cantor in 1996/98 – The cash inducements offered to rig markets from studio execs and
agents was intense.
Also, the MPAA should take a look at the 2005 best picture Oscar for “Crash” was, according to some, the result of information about trading on HSX being passed to studio insiders – from HSX/Cantor – who used that info. to lobby Academy members to vote for “Crash.”
Democrats stand by candidate for Obama’s old seat
Democrats are quietly worrying about whether Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias can win President Barack Obama’s old Senate seat. His family’s bank is believed to be on the verge of collapse and reportedly made $20 million in loans to two convicted felons.
Republican Rep. Mark Kirk is already accusing Giannoulias of lying to the voters about the loans, and his campaign is guaranteed to be pounding away at the bank’s problems in millions of dollars worth of television ads.
But the 34-year-old Giannoulias is still electable if he meets the bank embarrassment head on and strikes back at the Republican congressman as more conservative than this Democratic-trending state, Democratic insiders say.
Democrats brush aside any talk of getting Giannoulias to bow out of the race.
Full Story: My Way News – Democrats stand by candidate for Obama’s old seat.
WellPoint hikes CEO’s pay package
The insurer, boosting Angela F. Braly’s compensation package up to $13.1 million, draws further ire from policyholders in California.
WellPoint Inc. revealed Friday that it boosted its chief executive’s compensation 51% last year, even as the health insurance giant prepared massive rate increases in California that embroiled it in a national controversy over skyrocketing health insurance costs.
The proposed rate increases of up to 39% in individual policies turned the insurer into a flash point in the healthcare overhaul battle, breathing new life into President Obama’s effort at a crucial time in the debate.
Chief Executive Angela F. Braly saw her total compensation shoot to $13.1 million, from $8.7 million a year earlier, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. At least three other WellPoint executives got compensation increases of as much as 75%.
Full Story: WellPoint hikes CEO’s pay package – Los Angeles Times.
This is what happens when you show up at a tea party with a “no medicare” pledge?
The Thom Hartmann Program can be heard daily M-F 12-3pm ET. Visit www.thomhartmann.com to listen live, join the community or purchase a podcast.
Organic Farming Opens a Way for Farmers to Return to Their Proper Role as Innovators and Stewards of the Land
“There seems to be three ways for a nation to acquire wealth: the first is by war…this is robbery; the second by commerce, which is generally cheating; the third by agriculture, the only honest way.” Benjamin Franklin
The twenty-first century’s uncertainty about the future abounds with predicaments like climate change, depletion of our water resources, and the end of cheap energy. And farmers are being called upon to assume a new role as innovators and stewards of the land because they know how to produce food.
“Farmers were the true founders of the United States,” said Lisa Hamilton, author of Deeply Rooted: Unconventional Farmers in the Age of Agribusiness, “because they went out into the wild and built the first structures and communities that eventually became our cities and the nation.” In 1800, 90 percent of Americans were farmers.
More than 200,000 to lose jobless benefits Monday with Congress out
Starting Monday, more than 200,000 unemployed Americans won’t see jobless benefits they’re expecting because Congress failed to act.
The interruption in benefits will last two weeks at a minimum, according to Judy Conti of the National Employment Law Project (NELP), since lawmakers return from spring break on April 12.
As the two-week recess began, Congress was at an impasse over how to extend the emergency unemployment insurance program and other expiring provisions, including increased COBRA health insurance subsidies for the unemployed, the Medicare doctor payment rate and federal flood insurance.
Senate Republicans said the $9.3 billion, 30-day extension preferred by Democrats should be paid for, while Democrats said the bill’s cost didn’t need to be offset because the program was “emergency spending.”
Full Story: More than 200,000 to lose jobless benefits Monday with Congress out – TheHill.com.
iPad Release:
The Apple iPad has officially been released, and lines outside Apple Stores nationwide are going wild on the first day of the iPad’s launch.
Get the latest iPad release developments here: this page will bring you all the breaking news, tweets, photos, and video, all in one place.
Follow Twitter updates below from HuffPost Tech, as well as Apple sites, journalists, and tech news outlets. (Get our Twitter feed directly by following @HuffPostTech.)
If you’re wondering whether to pick up an iPad yourself, check out our guide to ’13 Things You Need To Know About The iPad,’ the ’9 Worst Things About The iPad,’ or our comprehensive review round-up. See our selection of ‘iPad Killers’–alternatives to the iPad–here, as well as ’9 Reasons NOT To Buy An iPad’.
Full Story: iPad Release: LIVE News Updates On The iPad Launch.
Number Of Long-Term Unemployed Continues To Rise, Sets Another All-Time High
While the increase in jobs over the past month provides hope that the economy’s nascent recovery will continue to blossom, one troubling trend in Friday’s monthly employment report continues to put a damper on the recovery.
As of last month, more than 6.5 million Americans have been without a job for at least six months, an all-time high, according to Labor Department data. That’s more than double the amount this time last year.
Of the more than 15 million unemployed Americans, nearly 44 percent have been without a job for at least six months — another all-time high.
The negative trend among the long-term unemployed belie the view that Friday’s figures were overwhelmingly positive.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said “the economy is definitely getting stronger” during a Friday interview with Bloomberg Television. Christina Romer, chair of the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers, said the employment report is “the most positive jobs report we have had in three years.”
But Robert Reich, an economist at the University of California at Berkeley and former Labor Secretary under President Bill Clinton, was much more pessimistic.
Reich wrote on his blog:
Full Story: Number Of Long-Term Unemployed Continues To Rise, Sets Another All-Time High.
Resveratrol — Eat Whatever and Live to 120?
“Live to 120 years old by eating as much as you want and drinking lots of red wine!”
That’s the intriguing finding of a recent study from Harvard researcher David Sinclair and his group.
The only catch is that you’d have to drink about 1,500 bottles of wine a day to get those results. Of course, that would kill you pretty quickly — before you’d have a chance to reach age 120! Still, those are important findings …
In fact, Dr. Sinclair thinks they’re so important that he started a company to produce a pharmaceutical derivative of the active compound in red wine, resveratrol.
Full Story: Mark Hyman, MD: Resveratrol — Eat Whatever and Live to 120?.
More Evidence Emerges That Pope Benedict Helped Shield Pedophiles Before He Became Pope
The abuse cases of two priests in Arizona have cast further doubt on the Catholic church’s insistence that Pope Benedict XVI played no role in shielding pedophiles before he became pope.
Documents reviewed by The Associated Press show that as a Vatican cardinal, the future pope took over the abuse case of the Rev. Michael Teta of Tucson, Ariz., then let it languish at the Vatican for years despite repeated pleas from the bishop for the man to be removed from the priesthood.
In another Tucson case, that of Msgr. Robert Trupia, the bishop wrote to then-Cardinal Ratzinger, who would become pope in 2005. Bishop Manuel Moreno called Trupia “a major risk factor to the children, adolescents and adults that he many have contact with.” There is no indication in the case files that Ratzinger responded.
Full Story: More Evidence Emerges That Pope Benedict Helped Shield Pedophiles Before He Became Pope.
Army has 35% of equipment out of Iraq
U.S. shift from Iraq to Afghanistan presents massive logistical operation for Army
As the United States draws down troops in Iraq and reinforces them in Afghanistan, the Army is pushing to complete the largest movement of military materiel since World War II, a massive logistical operation involving nearly 3 million pieces of equipment.
The operation, dubbed Nickel II after the code name for Gen. George S. Patton’s celebrated repositioning of an entire Army corps during the 1944 Battle of the Bulge, began last June and is now about 35 percent complete, said Lt. Gen. William G. Webster Jr., commander of the Third Army, Patton’s former unit.
In a briefing for Pentagon reporters from his headquarters in Kuwait, where equipment from Iraq is sorted, Webster said some of the gear is being refurbished for use in Afghanistan and some returned to the United States for use in training.
Full Story: U.S. shift from Iraq to Afghanistan presents massive logistical operation for Army – washingtonpost.com.
Fox Business’ Stuart Varney Shoots Down Former Bush Labor Secretary Elaine Chao’s Negative Jobs Report Spin
Earlier today, the Labor Department released its employment report for March 2010, which found that “employment in the U.S. increased in March by the most in three years.” In the report, the Bureau of Labor Statistics also revised its January total from
-26,000 to +14,000, and February’s from -36,000 to -14,000. President Obama called the report “encouraging” while his economic adviser Christina Romer said it “shows continued signs of gradual labor market healing.” Paul Krugman described the job numbers as meaning that “the patient is in stable condition.”
As ThinkProgress noted earlier today, conservatives have sought to rain on Obama’s parade, falsely claiming that the numbers are a “disappointment” because they were “mostly” due to hiring Census workers. On Fox Business today, former Bush labor secretary Elaine Chao attempted to spin the numbers negatively. But host Stuart Varney, who has been cynical about the administration’s economic policies, wouldn’t buy her spin, telling her that “this is not a blip up on a one month basis, there is a trend”:
Kansas Attorney General Refuses To Sue Federal Government Over Health Care Reform
Yesterday, Kansas Attorney General Steve Six announced that his office would not be joining other states’ attorneys general in suing the federal government on the allegation that the new health care law is unconstitutional. From his statement:
The attorney general’s office has completed its legal review of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Based on that extensive analysis, I do not believe that Kansas can successfully challenge the law. Our review did not reveal any constitutional defects, and thus it would not be legally or fiscally responsible to pursue this litigation. [...]
Legal precedent demonstrates that throughout our nation’s history, the U.S. Supreme Court has been reluctant to overturn legislative acts unless a clear and direct constitutional violation is shown. Article I, section 8 of the U.S. Constitution expressly gives Congress the power to legislate on matters affecting interstate commerce. The Supremacy Clause makes these laws supreme, regardless of any state laws or state constitutional provisions to the contrary. No serious argument may be advanced that the healthcare industry and all those who participate in it — including doctors, nurses, patients and insurers — are not part of interstate commerce. [...]
Full Story: Think Progress » Kansas Attorney General Refuses To Sue Federal Government Over Health Care Reform.
Game Changers to Alter the American Economy
In Saving Capitalism Dr. Choate outlines six “game changing” proposals to meet the challenge presented by global competition and get America back on its feet.
Economist and best-selling author Pat Choate has crusaded for fiscal responsibility and long-term management in government for many years. He campaigned as the 1996 Reform Party vice-presidential candidate on a platform of responsible spending, balanced international commerce, and government encouragement for domestic employment. He has written several books and news articles on the topic, and his most recent work Saving Capitalism: Keeping America Strong may be his best to date.
In Saving Capitalism Dr. Choate outlines six “game changing” proposals to meet the challenge presented by global competition and get America back on its feet. The first is to impose strict federal supervision of financial markets, refurbishing the regulatory framework destroyed during each presidency from Reagan to George W. Bush.
The second is to replace most income and corporate taxes with a consumption based value-added tax. This would be in line with the practices of every other country on earth and allow the U.S. to raise enough revenue to fund itself and pay down its debt.
Full Story: Game Changers to Alter the American Economy | Economy In Crisis.
We Need to Rescind Permanent Normal Trade Relations With China
Byron Dorgon -
There are many good examples that illustrate the failure of U.S. trade policy over the last two decades – but none is as significant as our trading relationship with China.
Our country has short-sightedly embraced the following bargain. We get all kinds of cheap products from China, produced and exported under unfair conditions and sold at big-box retailers like Wal-Mart. In exchange, we allow our manufacturing base to be decimated and we assume a growing debt with the Chinese.
The numbers tell the story. In 2000, when the United States granted permanent normal trade relations with China, our merchandise trade deficit with China stood at $83 billion. By the end of last year, that trade deficit had exploded to $233 billion. Today, for every six dollars of merchandise that we buy from China, the Chinese buy only one dollar of merchandise from us.
Full Story: We Need to Rescind Permanent Normal Trade Relations With China | Economy In Crisis.
FDA Expansion – A long Shot
With our government already sorely constrained by its own budgetary shortcomings, reforms for the FDA and expansions of its funding, seem like a long shot.
Food safety has become a new buzz topic in the news of late, but it is a problem that America has faced for many years. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) simply lacks the necessary resources to cover every product in this country. More importantly, it lacks enough funding to cover and inspect products coming from outside the United States. Third World nations are notorious for lax food regulations, and the developed/developing world still has issues of its own. The worst offender of all is typically China, but all nations present their own particular hurdles.
Last month The Atlantic published an article about the obstacle of funding the FDA and adequately enforcing its policies. For instance, the FDA lacks the ability to order mandatory recalls of food products believed to be contaminated by some harmful substance or contagion. It can issue warnings – as was the case with salmonella in recent years – but it cannot pull items from the shelves. In other industries regulatory agencies are regularly able to recall anything from toys to automobiles.
Full Story: Important Daily News You Need to Know, Today’s Issue: FDA | Economy In Crisis.
Obama’s Historic Offshore Drilling
Under President Obama’s offshore oil drilling plan, large areas of the nation’s Atlantic coastline, the eastern portion of the Gulf of Mexico and large swaths of the northern Alaska coastline would be opened to oil and natural gas drilling for the first time in three decades.
In an effort to gain bipartisan support for comprehensive energy legislation that would recognize the dangers of climate change and, for the first time in U.S. history, cap carbon emission, President Barack Obama announced Wednesday a plan to open large portions of coastal water to offshore oil drilling, garnering instead bipartisan scorn.
Under the plan, large areas of the nation’s Atlantic coastline, the eastern portion of the Gulf of Mexico and large swaths of the northern Alaska coastline would be opened to oil and natural gas drilling for the first time in three decades. The president also announced plans to strengthen fuel economy standards in domestic vehicles, the purchase of 5,000 new hybrid vehicles for the government’s fleet and spoke of the need to continue developing biofuels.
However, the focus remained on the plan to open up coastal areas to offshore oil and gas exploration, a move which Obama acknowledged would earn him detractors on each side of the political spectrum.
Full Story: Obama’s Historic Offshore Drilling | Economy In Crisis.
Regaining America’s Backbone
The gears of industry that won the Second World War, that put a man on the Moon, that created everything from the modern automobile to the personal computer have long since atrophied in the U.S.
American corporations and universities were once the backbone of global innovation and invention. When we faced international challenges, we rose up and surpassed any and all competitors.
Unfortunately, the United States is no longer a leader of innovation on a global scale. The gears of industry that won the Second World War, that put a man on the Moon, that created everything from the modern automobile to the personal computer have long since atrophied in the U.S. We cannot hope for some other nation to altruistically give back what we have lost. We cannot hope that this country will win some sort of economic lottery and miraculously find a product to save our society. Our only hope is to invest in innovation, research, design and development once again and actively pursue our limits.
Arianna Huffington, writing for The Huffington Post, outlined some of the things that must be done to make the United States an “innovation nation” once again. Huffington believes that the first key to success is embracing the idea that our best days lie ahead, rather than behind. The backward looking mentality of American exceptionalism does not prepare students for the workforce or prepare workers for global competition. Our accomplishments in the 20th century were great; so great that referring to the period as the “American Century” is relatively well-accepted almost anywhere in the world. However, those accomplishments are a thing of the past.
Full Story: Regaining America’s Backbone | Economy In Crisis.
New Cosmetic Has Dangerous Side-Effects — Why Do People Use It?
Despite the Maybelline close-ups, Allergan’s new drug Lattise is not mascara, but a glaucoma drug repurposed as an eyelash grower. And its side-effects are frightening.
Not enough lashes? GROW THEM! exhorts a billboard with a life-size likeness of Brooke Shields at a Chicago shopping mall. Grow longer, fuller, darker lashes says a TV ad for the same product showing Brooke enchanting everyone at a party with new flutter appeal.
But despite the Maybelline close-ups, lash applicator and vanity sell, Allergan’s new drug, Lattise, is not mascara — but a glaucoma drug repurposed as an eyelash grower.
Like Viagra, intended as a blood pressure medication until a certain side effect surfaced, Retin-A, which treated acne before wrinkles, and Botox, first used for eye spasms, the ingredient in Allergan’s Lumigan, bimatoprost, turned out to stimulate eyelash growth. Older glaucoma drugs like latanoprost and travoprost — called prostaglandin analogs because they bind to prostaglandins or lipids — also stimulated lash growth but not as much.
A lash stimulator also fit well into Allergan’s portfolio. The Irvine, CA-based eyecare company launched Botox in 2002 and now markets the facial filler Juvederm, breast aesthetics, and balloon and banding devices for obesity “interventions.”
Full Story: New Cosmetic Has Dangerous Side-Effects — Why Do People Use It? | | AlterNet.
“No Lie Is Too Low For Them”: What the Terri Schiavo Affair Can Teach Us About Today’s Right-Wing Zealots
Five years after the death of Terri Schiavo, right-wing opportunists continue to use her case to advance their political agenda.
March 31st marked the fifth anniversary of the death of Terri Schiavo. For that one month in 2005, the nation was transfixed, as the cable television news networks gathered en masse for a round-the-clock campout outside Terri’s hospice, the public was sucked in by the portrayal of a defenseless victim about to have her feeding tubes pulled. The real story of a family’s struggle with end of life decisions: Terri’s husband Michael’s efforts to facilitate her recovery since her collapse fifteen years earlier into a permanent vegetative state, the bitter estrangement of her husband and parents through this exhausting process, and the ultimate, wretching decision about what to do became the fodder of a fully-owned conservative enterprise who framed the events as “the struggle to keep Terri alive.”
The media acted “like sharks attacking the wounded,” Jon Eisenberg, an Oakland, California appellate lawyer who was one of Michael Schiavo’s attorney’s in the Terri Schiavo case, recently told AlterNet in an e-mail exchange. And the Religious Right acted out of “pure opportunism.” It appeared, Eisenberg added, that they were concerned with much broader issues like attacking the fundamental constitutional right of control over your own body, known as “personal autonomy”: “They cared not one whit about Terri Schiavo.
Why Are Pedophilia-Hiding, Child-Abusing Church Fathers Allowed to Write Laws About Women’s Bodies?
The moral authority granted the Catholic Church in the secular world is the most repellent aspect of the current crisis.
Papal Indulgences -
My favorite moment of the whole child abuse scandal in the Catholic Church was when Father Klaus Malangré suggested that Peter Hullermann, the redoubtable German pedophile priest, might be sent to work in a girls’ school. No boys, no molestation. Or, in churchly language, no occasion of sin. Problem solved! Plus, the good father would spend his life warding off female cooties. Malangré must not have heard about priests–and they do exist–who abused both male and female children. Nor had he learned the lesson of Watergate: the cover-up is worse than the crime.
The church has yet to learn that lesson. There is a positively Nixonian smarmy truculence in the response of church hierarchs to the ongoing scandal, which now involves Pope Benedict XVI himself. On Palm Sunday, New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan urged worshipers at St. Patrick’s Cathedral to show “love and solidarity for our earthly shepherd now suffering some of the same unjust accusations, shouts of the mob and scourging at the pillar, as did Jesus.” On his blog, Dolan explains that what gets Catholics angry is not just the molestations themselves but also that “the sexual abuse of minors is presented as a tragedy unique to the Church alone.” Oh, really? Does the name Mary Kay Letourneau mean nothing to him? This man needs to read the tabloids, which have for years featured an endless parade of molesting teachers, doctors, dentists, therapists and scout leaders. To go by the news, looking at child pornography on one’s office computer is so common, it’s a wonder anyone finds the time to abuse real kids. At this late date I doubt anyone is unaware that the sexual abuse of children is a widespread phenomenon.
The difference is, when other professionals who work with children are caught out, justice takes its course. People are fired. Licenses are lost. Reputations are ruined. Sometimes jail is involved. No human institution is perfect, and it would be foolish to suggest that incidents are always investigated and that abusers who don’t happen to be priests are never protected by colleagues or superiors. Still, it’s probably safe to say that if a principal was accused of overlooking a child molester in his classrooms or recycling him to other schools, nobody would compare his suffering to Christ’s.
Full Story: Papal Indulgences.
Coal-Fired Plants Gulp 1.5 Trillion Gallons of Water and We’re Left to Drink the Dirty Backwash
In many respects, some folks might use more water flicking on their lights, than chugging back a glass of that wondrous stuff.
Here’s a sobering fact: Coal-fired power plants use approximately 1.5 trillion gallons of water a year in the US.
In many respects, some folks might use more water flicking on their lights, than chugging back a glass of that wondrous stuff.
Makes you wonder: Has the EPA ever tabulated the external costs of coal on our water resources?
And then, after that refreshing drink of desperately needed water, the 600-odd coal-fired plants (the EIA actually reports 1,445 coal-fired generators) typically throw up their chemically enhanced processed wastewater into our rivers and waterways, poisoning our own drinking water.
According to a recent analysis of EPA data, the NY Times concluded:
“Power plants are the nation’s biggest producer of toxic waste, surpassing industries like plastic and paint manufacturing and chemical plants.”
But the cleaner air has come at a cost. Each day since the equipment was switched on in June, the company has dumped tens of thousands of gallons of wastewater containing chemicals from the scrubbing process into the Monongahela River, which provides drinking water to 350,000 people and flows into Pittsburgh, 40 miles to the north.
Full Story: Coal-Fired Plants Gulp 1.5 Trillion Gallons of Water and We’re Left to Drink the Dirty Backwash | Water | AlterNet.
Is Israel About to Trigger a New Middle East War?
Ramping up the rhetoric of war in a volatile region can lead to a misstep and once the dogs of war are off their leash, it will be hard to bring them to heel.
When Israeli Minister without Portfolio Yossi Peled said recently that a war with Lebanon’s Hezbollah was “just a matter of time” and that such a conflict would include Syria, most observers dismissed the comment as little more than posturing by a right-wing former general. But Peled’s threat has been backed by Israeli military maneuvers near the Lebanese border, violations of Lebanese airspace, and the deployment of an anti- missile system on Israel’s northern border.
The Lebanese are certainly not treating it as Likud bombast.
“We hear a lot of Israeli threats day in and day out, and not only threats,” Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri told the BBC. “We see what is happening on the ground and in our airspace.during the past two months-every day we have Israeli airplanes entering Lebanese airspace.” Hariri added that he considered the situation “really dangerous.”
The increasing tension was behind the recent visit to Beirut by Senator Philippe Marini, French President Nicholas Sarkozy’s special envoy to Lebanon. After Marini met with Hariri, Christian Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea, and Hezbollah leaders, the envoy said that he feared a Hezbollah-Israel rematch could easily become a regional war.
Full Story: Is Israel About to Trigger a New Middle East War? | World | AlterNet.
“The Only Way to Survive is By Taking Care of One Another”
Detroit Activist, Philosopher Grace Lee Boggs: on Democracy NOW! -
The legendary Detroit activist and community organizer Grace Lee Boggs has been involved with the civil rights, Black Power, labor, environmental justice, and feminist movements over the past seven decades. She was born to Chinese immigrant parents in 1915. In 1992, she co-founded the Detroit Summer youth program to rebuild and renew her city. Her 95th birthday is June 27th, the day after the close of the U.S. Social Forum in Detroit.
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Full Story: Detroit Activist, Philosopher Grace Lee Boggs: “The Only Way to Survive is By Taking Care of One Another”.
Intelligence Agencies Allegedly Going to Extremes to Suppress Video Confirming Pentagon Massacre Cover-up
Disturbing allegations have surfaced around WikiLeaks’ promise to release a video April 5 at the National Press Club confirming a war-time massacre.
On April 5, online truth and transparency advocate WikiLeaks.org plans to release at the National Press Club what it alleges is a video confirming a Pentagon cover-up of a wartime massacre of civilians and journalists committed under the leadership of General David Petraeus.
In a recent editorial that was later scrubbed, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange claimed WikiLeaks is under fire from American and international intelligence agencies angered by his site’s oversharing of the global village’s dark political and financial secrets, and that they are responding with harassment, surveillance, unnecessary detention and worse.
“We’ve become used to the level of security service interest in us and have established procedures to ignore that interest,” Assange wrote in the editorial. “But the increase in surveillance activities this last month, in a time when we are barely publishing due to fundraising, are excessive.”
The IMF’s new wisdom
How much change can we expect from the IMF while Wall Street and European banks still get to have their say?
Over the past year or two the IMF has made some positive changes in policy and in their published work, some of which challenges the conventional wisdom among central banks and even the past practice of the IMF itself. The fund, which prior to the current decade was one of the most powerful financial institutions in the world, has presided over a number of economic disasters and was widely seen – at least in the low-and middle-income countries to which it has lent for the past four decades – as generally doing more harm than good. Now there is debate over how much it has changed, and what these changes mean for the IMF itself and its role in the global economy going forward.
First, the good news: last year the IMF created some $283bn of its reserve currency, Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), available for borrowing by its 186 member countries. This is exactly the kind of thing that should be done in a world economic downturn. It is similar to the “quantitative easing” – ie creating money – that the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England have done during the recession. Although the IMF is not a world central bank, in this case it was acting as one, in a positive way. And the SDRs were made available to member countries without any conditions attached – something the IMF has never done before. Unfortunately, the SDRs were allocated according to each country’s IMF quota, which meant that the high-income countries got the bulk of the money. And of course most of the low-income countries can’t afford to take on more debt. Nonetheless, this was a positive step for the IMF toward developing countries.
The IMF has also recently published some interesting papers which indicate a re-consideration of their views on some important policy issues. The first, entitled Rethinking Macroeconomics (pdf), was co-authored by the IMF’s chief economist Olivier Blanchard and released on 12 February. In this paper the authors question a number of orthodoxies: is the 2% inflation target that is common among central banks too low? Should central banks in some countries target the exchange rate? This kind of re-thinking could lead to governments having more room to pursue policies that lead to higher employment
Full Story: The IMF’s new wisdom | Mark Weisbrot | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.
Meet the Toxic 100 Corporate Air Polluters
Amherst, MA – Researchers at the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst today released the Toxic 100 Air Polluters, an updated list of the top corporate air polluters in the United States.
“The Toxic 100 Air Polluters informs consumers and shareholders which large corporations release the most toxic pollutants into our air,” said Professor James Boyce, co-director of PERI’s Corporate Toxics Information Project. “We assess not just how many pounds of pollutants are released, but which are the most toxic and how many people are at risk. People have a right to know about toxic hazards to which they are exposed. Legislators need to understand the effects of pollution on their constituents.”
The Toxic 100 Air Polluters index is based on air releases of hundreds of chemicals from industrial facilities across the United States. The rankings take into account not only the quantity of releases, but also the toxicity of chemicals, transport factors such as prevailing winds and height of smokestacks, and the number of people exposed.
Full Story: t r u t h o u t | Meet the Toxic 100 Corporate Air Polluters.
THE REBELLION SPREADS TO WALL STREET ITSELF
Jim Hightower -
An odd brotherhood is joining the populist push to rein in the narcissistic greed of Wall Street giants: Wall Streeters themselves!
There’s John Bogle, the 80-year-old founder of Vanguard Group: “I am a believer that the system has gone badly awry and needs massive reform,” bellowed the old Wall Street bull. That surely must’ve astonished the business-as-usual elites on Wall Street and the petite reformers in Washington, who want delicate tweakings of the system – not “massive reform.” Joining Bogle’s cry for change are such former financial barons as Nicholas Brady, William Donaldson, and John Reed, all calling for structural reforms, rather than the timid regulatory proposals moving through Congress.
And, good grief, can it be? Why yes, it’s Alan Greenspan, the laissez-faire absolutist and former Fed chairman, who was once hailed as the infallible guru of America’s economic policy. That was, of course, before his extremist libertarian theories expired in the fire of the recent Wall Street crash. Now, even Greenspan is on the reformist stump, urging the federal government to develop plans for splitting up financial empires that fail.
Audio available at link
Full Story: Jim Hightower | THE REBELLION SPREADS TO WALL STREET ITSELF.
Child Obesity in America: “Mommy, Mommy! Why Am I Fat?”
Malnutrition comes in a delightful assortment of colorful flavors nowadays. But poverty and obesity are a correlation that Americans find hard to swallow.
“Genetics and family history can predict whether you will become obese but then so can your ZIP code,” says Adam Drewnowski, world-renowned leader in innovative research approaches for the prevention and treatment of obesity, and Director of the Nutritional Sciences Program at the University of Washington in Seattle. In December of 2003, Drewnowski said, “If poverty and obesity are truly linked, it will be a major challenge to stay poor and thin.” [1]
In a more recent interview regarding her new “Let’s Move” campaign to combat childhood obesity, First Lady Michelle Obama argues: “A recent study put the health care cost of obesity-related diseases at $147 billion a year. This epidemic also impacts the nation’s security, as obesity is now one of the most common disqualifiers for military service.” [2]
It seems morbid that national security is Michelle Obama’s primary concern regarding obesity in American children. After all, raising healthy American children to become dead American soldiers doesn’t seem like a viable health care objective. But aside from that, poverty is directly correlated with obesity in Americans of all ages. So isn’t American poverty an even worse security threat than American obesity?
Full Story: Child Obesity in America: “Mommy, Mommy! Why Am I Fat?”.
Western Civilization and the Economic Crisis: The Impoverishment of the Middle Class
Andrew Gavin Marshall -
When Empire Hits Home, Part 2
The western nations of the world have built their great wealth and societies on the exploitation and plundering of the people and resources of the rest of the world. The wealth, freedom, and structures of our societies have been built on the starvation, robbery, deprivation and murder of millions upon millions of the world’s people, both historically and presently.
It seemed for a time that “Western Civilization” had worked, even if only for the west. We saw the emergence and growth of a vibrant middle class, which has its origins in the Industrial Revolution, out of which we also saw the formation of the “nuclear family.” The middle classes of the west grew in wealth, education, and access. While the great problems of the world, and for the majority of the world’s people, persisted and expanded exponentially, the great purpose of the middle class was siphoned and expanded into facilitating the development of a massive consumerist society. The function of the middle class became that of consuming, not necessarily contributing to determining the direction of society.
Nevertheless, life was good; or so it seemed. Thus, the people were by and large able to turn a blind eye to the plight of the world’s majority. As the decades progressed, however, the great western empires, increasingly united under the umbrella of a US-led NATO empire, grossly expanded their plundering and exploitation of the rest of the world. New avenues for capitalist expansion needed to be found, more money to be made, more assets to be owned, more power to be had. As a part of this process, class structure was being reorganized, which meant that the middle class was to undergo an evolution.
Full Story: Western Civilization and the Economic Crisis: The Impoverishment of the Middle Class.
Financial Fraud and the Economic Crisis
A Cavalcade of U.S. Corruption Is Finally Being Scrutinized
by Danny Schechter
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:
“It’s now clear Lehman Brothers’ balance sheet was bogus before the bank collapsed in 2008, catapulting the Street and the world into the worse financial crisis since 1929. The Lehman bankruptcy examiner’s recent report details what just about everyone on the Street has known since the firm imploded – that Lehman defrauded its investors. Even Hank Paulson, in his recent memoir, referred to Lehman’s balance sheet as bogus.
In order to look like it could borrow $30 for every dollar of its own money, Lehman shifted liabilities off its books at the end of each quarter. Its CPA, Ernst and Young, approved of this fraud against the advice of its own whistle blower, whom Ernst and Young fired.
Lehman’s practices couldn’t have been all that different from those of every other big bank on the Street. After all, they were all competing for the same business, and using many of the same techniques. Lehman was just the first to go under, causing a financial run that led George W. to warn “this sucker could go down” unless the federal government came up with hundreds of billions to bail out the others.”
Reich is joining former Bank regulator Bill Black who has been contending that the banks have been robbing us. To see some of his recent interviews, check out Real News
Full Story: Financial Fraud and the Economic Crisis.
Chinese-Made Drywall Destroys, Poisons U.S. Homes: Now Who Pays?
Thousands of U.S. homes tainted by Chinese drywall should be gutted, according to new guidelines released Friday by the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
The guidelines say electrical wiring, outlets, circuit breakers, fire alarm systems, carbon monoxide alarms, fire sprinklers, gas pipes and drywall need to be removed.
“We want families to tear it all out and rebuild the interior of their homes, and they need to start this to get their lives started all over again,” said Inez Tenenbaum, chairwoman of the commission, the federal agency charged with making sure consumer products are safe.
Full Story: Chinese-Made Drywall Destroys, Poisons U.S. Homes: Now Who Pays?.
GEN. MCCHRYSTAL: WE’VE SHOT ‘AN AMAZING NUMBER OF PEOPLE’ WHO WERE NOT THREATS
As reported in the New York Times last week, a significant number of innocent Afghans continue to be killed by US and NATO forces despite new rules issued by Gen. Stanley McChrystal meant to help reduce civilian casualties. Indeed, the number of Afghans who have been killed or hurt by troop shootings at convoys and military checkpoints has basically remained the same since McChrystal announced his directives.
“We have shot an amazing number of people, but to my knowledge, none has ever proven to be a threat,” said McChrystal during a recent video-conference with troops, the Times reported.
Talking Points Memo has obtained a longer transcript of McChrystal’s statements, which you can read in full here.
Full Story: McChrystal: We’ve Shot ‘An Amazing Number’ Of Innocent Afghans.
Voluntary Foreclosure Prevention Fails to Deliver
The foreclosure crisis has gone from bad to worse.
Over 2.4 million foreclosures are expected this year, up from 2.1 million in 2009. One out of every four homeowners is now underwater–owing more on their mortgages than their homes are worth. More than one in seven are behind on their payments.
The Obama administration’s main focus in its fight against foreclosures is the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP).
It’s failing.
Once touted as a program that would help 3 to 4 million borrowers by December 31, 2012, it has helped fewer than 200,000 people receive permanent modifications. (And “permanent” modifications only guarantee the lower payments for five years.)
Full Story: Voluntary Foreclosure Prevention Fails to Deliver.
Feds found Pfizer too big to nail
Imagine being charged with a crime, but an imaginary friend takes the rap for you.
That is essentially what happened when Pfizer, the world’s largest pharmaceutical company, was caught illegally marketing Bextra, a painkiller that was taken off the market in 2005 because of safety concerns.
When the criminal case was announced last fall, federal officials touted their prosecution as a model for tough, effective enforcement. “It sends a clear message” to the pharmaceutical industry, said Kevin Perkins, assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division.
But beyond the fanfare, a CNN Special Investigation found another story, one that officials downplayed when they declared victory. It’s a story about the power major pharmaceutical companies have even when they break the laws intended to protect patients.
Full Story: Feds found Pfizer too big to nail – CNN.com.
Matt Taibbi : Looting Main Street
How the nation’s biggest banks are ripping off American cities with the same predatory deals that brought down Greece
If you want to know what life in the Third World is like, just ask Lisa Pack, an administrative assistant who works in the roads and transportation department in Jefferson County, Alabama. Pack got rudely introduced to life in post-crisis America last August, when word came down that she and 1,000 of her fellow public employees would have to take a little unpaid vacation for a while. The county, it turned out, was more than $5 billion in debt — meaning that courthouses, jails and sheriff’s precincts had to be closed so that Wall Street banks could be paid.
As public services in and around Birmingham were stripped to the bone, Pack struggled to support her family on a weekly unemployment check of $260. Nearly a fourth of that went to pay for her health insurance, which the county no longer covered. She also fielded calls from laid-off co-workers who had it even tougher. “I’d be on the phone sometimes until two in the morning,” she says. “I had to talk more than one person out of suicide. For some of the men supporting families, it was so hard — foreclosure, bankruptcy. I’d go to bed at night, and I’d be in tears.”
Homes stood empty, businesses were boarded up, and parts of already-blighted Birmingham began to take on the feel of a ghost town. There were also a few bills that were unique to the area — like the $64 sewer bill that Pack and her family paid each month. “Yeah, it went up about 400 percent just over the past few years,” she says.
Full Story: Looting Main Street : Rolling Stone.
Obama Packs Debt Commission with Social Security Looters
Obama has filled his new ‘debt commission’ with Wall Street insiders determined to gut Social Security.
A decade of wars, tax cuts for the wealthy, and the fallout from Wall Street’s housing bubble have almost tripled U.S. public debt since 2001, from $5 trillion to $14 trillion. Big, scary numbers like this, along with carefully timed downgrade warnings from Wall Street’s obedient rating agencies and continuing worries about the financial collapse of Greece, Portugal and other nations have changed the political climate in Washington, breathing new life into decades-old schemes to slash Social Security and Medicare entitlements.
And defending Social Security does indeed sound like yesterday’s issue — a fight the people won when they defeated Bush’s attempt to privatize the system in 2005. Our Social Security program is currently solvent through 2037, while millions of Americans are unemployed, millions more are losing their homes, and still millions more are struggling to meet soaring health insurance costs after watching their retirement accounts dwindle in the financial collapse. Would the entitlement wolves — primarily Wall Street executives who stand to reap billions from Social Security privatization — really have the gall to go after Social Security now? In a word, yes.
Full Story: Obama Packs Debt Commission with Social Security Looters | | AlterNet.
Washington Attorney General Suing Over Health Care Says It’s Not A ‘Right’
Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna said yesterday that state officials suing the federal government over health care reform are in active conversations to try and convince the rest of the nation’s attorneys general to join.
McKenna (R) said in an online chat hosted by the Seattle Times that he does not believe health care is a “right” and deflected critics who believe that the lawsuit he and more than a dozen other states have joined will not be upheld.
“Health care as ‘right’ is a policy argument, not found in the law,” McKenna said. “Supporting this lawsuit means that the Constitution still matters and that every law has to be constitutional in its details, and the rest of the unchallenged law is unaffected.”
Full Story: Washington Attorney General Suing Over Health Care Says It’s Not A ‘Right’ | TPMDC.
Are Democrats Too Confident About Wall Street Reform?
You’d think that after watching the four month health care fight turn into a year-long game of legislative Calvinball, Democrats wouldn’t take anything for granted. But when it comes to financial regulatory reform, they’re downright assured: they’re going to get a bill, and it’s not going to require any concessions to the GOP.
This confidence manifests itself in many ways.
Congressional Dems are taunting Republicans, daring them to stand in the way.
“They need to be reminded that actions have consequences,” said Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Full Story: Are Democrats Too Confident About Wall Street Reform? | TPMDC.
FBI Issues Warning About Threat From Yet Another Anti-Government Group With Ties To The Radical Right
The Associated Press reports that the FBI has issued an intelligence note warning police that an anti-government group’s call to remove dozens of sitting governors may encourage others to act out violently. The group, “Guardians of the Free Republics,” wants to “restore America” by dismantling parts of the government, according to its web site. Governors receiving the threat include Bobby Jindal (R-LA), Jim Doyle (D-WI), Chet Culver (D-IA), Jim Gibbons (R-NV), among others.
While much of the rhetoric from the group resembles the style of patriot extremist organizations, their concerns seem to stem directly from economic anxiety. The group’s broadcasting affiliate, Republic Broadcasting Network, advertises survival kits, gold buying guides, and other hallmarks of a movement in America which believes that the country is heading towards economic collapse. The website also promotes tea party protests, calls for revolution, videos from Glenn Beck, and sympathetic articles about recent right-wing domestic terrorist activities, like the suicide attack on an IRS building in Austin earlier this year.
Guardians of the Free Republics’ call to dismantle the government has gained traction on right-wing tea party websites. The groups’ proclamation is posted on ResistNet, the popular tea party forum, as well as Tree of Liberty, a tea part forum known to have been frequented by users which supported Hutaree, the Christian militia recently arrested in Michigan.
Where was Moody’s board when top-rated bonds blew up?
As the bottom fell out of the housing market and complex mortgage-backed securities began tanking in 2007, a strange thing happened at Moody’s Investors Service, one of the largest firms that rate bonds for the risks they pose to investors.
Moody’s blue-ribbon board of directors stopped receiving key information from an internal committee that was supposed to keep the board informed of risks to the company, a McClatchy investigation has found.
Instead, the ad hoc risk-management committee suddenly disappeared, precisely at the time when the board and management should have been shifting to higher alert as the financial world began quaking.
Full Story: Where was Moody’s board when top-rated bonds blew up? | McClatchy.
Let’s End the War on Drugs
Sting -
Whether it’s music, activism or daily life, the one ideal to which I have always aspired is constant challenge — taking risks, stepping out of my comfort zone, exploring new ideas.
I am writing because I believe the United States must do precisely that — and so, therefore, must all of us — in the case of what has been the most unsuccessful, unjust yet untouchable issue in politics: the War on Drugs.
The War on Drugs has failed — but it’s worse than that. It is actively harming our society. Violent crime is thriving in the shadows to which the drug trade has been consigned. People who genuinely need help can’t get it. Neither can people who need medical marijuana to treat terrible diseases. We are spending billions, filling up our prisons with non-violent offenders and sacrificing our liberties.
Full Story: Sting: Let’s End the War on Drugs.
Web Bot Predictions
George Ure & Clif High presented predictions about the economy, and U.S. and world events for the summer of 2010 and beyond. Their predictions are based on High’s Web Bot technology which gives archetype descriptors of future events by tracking language pattern changes within Internet discussions forums. Here are some of the highlights of what they see coming:
* No warfare between Israel and Iran, at least not until November.
* Six very large earthquakes are yet to come during the rest of 2010.
* A major tipping point will occur between November 8th – 11th, 2010, followed by a 2-3 month release period. This tipping point appears to be US-centric, and could be a dramatic world-changing event like 9-11 that will have rippling after-effects. The collapse of the dollar might occur in November.
* From July 8th, 2010 onward, civil unrest will take place, possibly driven by food prices skyrocketing, and the devaluation of the dollar.
* A second depression, triggered by mass layoffs, bankruptcies, and the popping of the “derivatives bubble,” will see people moving out of cities.
* After March 2011, the revolution wave will settle down into a period of reformation.
* A “data gap” has been found between early 2012 running through May 2013. One explanation is that “our civilization gets knocked back to a pre-electronic state,” such as brought about by devastating solar activity.
* A new benign form of capitalism will emerge during 2017-2020.
Full Story: Web Bot Predictions
Pentagon Overhauling System That Let Retired Officers Consult, Hide Business Interests
Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday ordered an overhaul of the Pentagon’s use of retired senior officers to advise the military, limiting the pay of “senior mentors” and requiring them to disclose their business ties to defense contractors.
The new policy balances the military’s desire to tap the wisdom of its former leaders “with the need to hire such experts in a manner that promotes public trust and confidence,” says a Pentagon fact sheet sent to lawmakers. As the new rules take effect over the next 90 days, mentors will be subject to federal conflict-of-interest laws and regulations. Under those rules, mentors may not:
• Participate in matters in which they have a conflict of interest, defined in federal law as taking officials action that has “a direct and predictable effect” on their personal interests.
• Divulge non-public information to defense contractors and other outside entities.
• Represent a private client on matters in which they participated personally and substantially while serving as an adviser to the military.
Full Story: Gates orders overhaul of Pentagon mentor program – USATODAY.com.
March Unemployment Report: Everything You Need To Know About The Latest Jobs Figures
Though the U.S. economy showed the biggest monthly increase in jobs in three years, the national unemployment rate held steady at 9.7 percent, according to the government’s latest jobs report.
And while there is certainly some cause for celebration — adding jobs is always a good thing, of course — we decided to take a bit deeper dive into the latest jobs figures.
Here’s a different look at the broad unemployment numbers, including some reasons why we shouldn’t get too excited about the latest data.
Full Story: March Unemployment Report: Everything You Need To Know About The Latest Jobs Figures.
Florida doctor tells Obama voters they are not welcome: ‘Seek urologic care elsewhere.’
Last August, the RNC sent a fundraising appeal suggesting that if health reform passed, Democrats might deny medical care to Republicans. “It has been suggested,” a question on the RNC push poll read, “that the government could use voter registration to determine a person’s political affiliation, prompting fears that GOP voters might be discriminated against for medical treatment in a Democrat-imposed health care rationing system.” Of course, this was nonsense and the RNC was forced to walk back the claim. But ironically, now that reform is a reality, a Republican doctor is discriminating against Democrats:
“I’m not turning anybody away — that would be unethical,” Dr. Jack Cassell, 56, a Mount Dora urologist and a registered Republican opposed to the health plan, told the Orlando Sentinel on Thursday. “But if they read the sign and turn the other way, so be it.”
The sign reads: “If you voted for Obama … seek urologic care elsewhere. Changes to your healthcare begin right now, not in four years.” [...]
Full Story: Think Progress » Florida doctor tells Obama voters they are not welcome: ‘Seek urologic care elsewhere.’.
Northeast Hit With Devastating Floods, As Federal Flood Insurance Expires Due To GOP Obstruction
Last week, Senate Republicans, led by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), blocked an extension of unemployment benefits, claiming that they objected to granting the extension without offsetting it with a spending cut elsewhere. Last month, Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) and a handful of his Republican allies did the same thing, with Bunning telling Democrats who wanted to pass an extension by unanimous consent “tough sh*t.”
But it wasn’t only unemployment benefits that expired: the same package that the Republicans blocked also included extenders for the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). And the critical nature of NFIP was brought into the spotlight this week, as many northeastern states have been battered with record amounts of rainfall, which has led to widespread flooding.
Flooding in Rhode Island was the worst it’s been in 100 years, with some rivers “several feet above all-time records.” Boston saw its wettest March since record keeping began in 1872, while “bridges and highways have washed out from Maine to Connecticut and sewage systems have been overwhelmed to the point that families were asked to stop flushing toilets.” National Guard troops have been mobilized to aid residents in both Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
Full Story: Think Progress » Northeast Hit With Devastating Floods, As Federal Flood Insurance Expires Due To GOP Obstruction.
OPS: Republicans seemed DETERMINED to create as many Katrina’s as they can.
The Criminal NSA Eavesdropping Program
Glenn Greenwald -
While torture and aggressive war may have been the most serious crimes which the Bush administration committed, its warrantless eavesdropping on American citizens was its clearest and most undeniable lawbreaking. Federal District Judge Vaughn Walker yesterday became the third federal judge — out of three who have considered the question — to find that Bush’s warrantless eavesdropping program was illegal (the other two are District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor and 6th Circuit Appellate Judge Ronald Gilman who, on appeal from Judge Taylor’s decision, in dissent reached the merits of that question [unlike the two judges in the majority who reversed the decision on technical "standing" grounds] and adopted Taylor’s conclusion that the NSA program was illegal).
That means that all 3 federal judges to consider the question have concluded that Bush’s NSA program violated the criminal law (FISA). That law provides that anyone who violates it has committed a felony and shall be subject to 5 years in prison and a $10,000 fine for each offense. The law really does say that. Just click on that link and you’ll see. It’s been obvious for more than four years that Bush, Cheney, NSA Director (and former CIA Director) Michael Hayden and many other Bush officials broke the law — committed felonies — in spying on Americans without warrants. Yet another federal judge has now found their conduct illegal. If we were a country that actually lived under The Rule of Law, this would be a huge story, one that would produce the same consequences for the lawbreakers as a bank robbery, embezzlement or major drug dealing. But since we’re not such a country, it isn’t and it doesn’t.
Full Story: The Criminal NSA Eavesdropping Program | CommonDreams.org.
The Next Civil War
The Civil War ranks as the most costly of US wars, with 625,000 deaths and a comparable number of injuries. Now the Republican Party is stoking the fires of insurrection and for thousands of right-wing zealots a new civil war seems a political necessity. As increasing numbers of Democratic politicians are threatened, how long will it be before domestic terrorists use their weapons?
The first Civil War was precipitated by a dispute regarding slavery and states' rights. It was inflamed by volatile rhetoric and widespread use of guns.
The looming civil war reincarnates the debate about states' rights. Immediately after President Obama signed Healthcare Reform into law, several state Attorney Generals filed lawsuits arguing the Federal government violated the Constitution.
Rather than slavery, the new civil war is being waged over the necessity to guarantee human rights for all Americans – whether or not every citizen deserves healthcare. Many Republicans feel this is not a legitimate use of government power, that it infringes on the sacred “free market.”
Full Story: The Next Civil War | CommonDreams.org.
US ‘to Begin Profiling Air Passengers’
The United States will announce Friday it plans to begin profiling US-bound passengers in a major shake up of air travel security measures, US media said.
Under the new measures to begin this month, which will apply to US citizens as well, the level of screening of travellers will depend on how closely their personal characteristics match against intelligence on potential terrorists.
The measures will replace mandatory enhanced screening of all passengers travelling to the United States from 14 mostly-Muslim nations, put into place following a failed Al-Qaeda attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound flight on Christmas Day.
Full Story: US ‘to Begin Profiling Air Passengers’ | CommonDreams.org.
New regulations will put an end to mountaintop mining
Obama administration proposals will make destructive mountaintop mining operations effectively impossible
The Obama administration effectively called time today on one of the most destructive industries in America, proposing new environmental guidelines for mountaintop mining removal.
The move was seen as a bold action from the White House, which has in the past disappointed environmental organisations for failing to move more aggressively on pollution and climate change.
But in a conference call with journalists, just an hour after the administration for the first time finalised regulations setting limits on greenhouse gas emissions from cars, officials spelled out guidelines that they acknowledged would make it virtually impossible for mining companies in Appalachia to carry on with business as usual.
Full Story: New regulations will put an end to mountaintop mining | Suzanne Goldenberg | Environment | guardian.co.uk.
Ruling Against Bush Wiretaps Also Slaps Down Obama’s Executive Overreach
Wednesday’s landmark court ruling that the Bush administration’s warrantless surveillance program was flatly illegal is, unfortunately, not only of historical significance.
The program, after all, continues to this day, in a somewhat modified but still arguably unconstitutional manner — and hasn’t always stayed even within those parameters.
But even more importantly, the ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn R. Walker angrily rejected the Obama administration’s attempts to get the case dismissed on the basis of a “state secrets” privilege. That assertion was first made by Bush administration lawyers, but was enthusiastically re-asserted by President Obama’s Justice Department.
Full Story: Ruling Against Bush Wiretaps Also Slaps Down Obama’s Executive Overreach.
Boy Scouts Of America Portland, Oregon President Blames Negligent Parents For Sex Abuse
The president of the Boy Scouts council for the Portland metro area has testified he believes the parents of some Scouts were negligent and even criminal for allowing sleepovers that led to sex abuse.
Eugene Grant told a jury in a $29 million sex abuse lawsuit against the Boy Scouts of America and its Cascade Pacific Council that parents should not have allowed boys to stay overnight with a single man at his apartment.
The man, Timur Dykes, has admitted molesting the victim who filed the lawsuit and has been convicted of other sex abuse dating back to the early 1980s, when Dykes was an assistant Scoutmaster.
During cross-examination by Kelly Clark, an attorney for the victim, Grant said Thursday it was not Boy Scouts policy to allow sleepovers, especially when they were unsupervised.
Full Story: Boy Scouts Of America Portland, Oregon President Blames Negligent Parents For Sex Abuse.
Moreno struggled to defrock 2 priests
The late Tucson Bishop Manuel D. Moreno, often characterized as a poor advocate for sexual abuse victims, struggled with both canon law and Vatican mandates in his efforts to defrock two local priests, documents obtained by the Arizona Daily Star show.
In one case, Moreno pleaded with then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, for help in removing the Rev. Michael Teta, who was convicted by the church in 1997 of five crimes including sexual solicitation in the confessional.
“I make this plea to you to assist me in every way you can to expedite this case, because the accused was a priest in whom I had great confidence at one time, but who, unfortunately, worked among our former seminarians, and, terrible to say, evidently corrupted many of them,” Moreno wrote in an April 1997 letter to Ratzinger.
Full Story: Moreno struggled to defrock 2 priests.
OPS: Is he fishing to be the next Pope? Good Pope, Bad Pope?
FBI Investigating Extremist Group Letters Telling Governors To Leave Office
The FBI is warning police across the country that an anti-government group’s call to remove governors from office could provoke violence by others.
A group that calls itself the Guardians of the free Republics wants to “restore America” by peacefully dismantling parts of the government, according to its Web site.
As of Wednesday, more than 30 governors had received letters saying if they don’t leave office within three days they will be removed, according to an internal intelligence note by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. The note was obtained by The Associated Press.
Full Story: FBI Investigating Extremist Group Letters Telling Governors To Leave Office.
Why Evangelicalism Is Failing A New Generation
We are in the midst of a shift in American Christianity, as Evangelicalism is failing to reach a new generation. For the last couple of decades, Christians looked to the Evangelical movement to show us how to gain new members and keep our churches relevant. They showed us how to attract young members. Even stodgy denominational congregations could not hide their curiosity when megachurches took root in our nation’s religious landscape. They watched as families drove to the sprawling parking lots of the giant suburban church — the one with the rock band, theater seating, and that charismatic guy at the center of it all. Evangelical talking heads began to pop up on news programs, claiming that they represented vast swaths of the American population. But now those megachurch crowds are graying and there is something about Evangelicalism that is not transferring to a new generation. The shift is well documented: everyone from Christine Wicker, to Robert Wuthnow to the Barna Group is pointing out the change. Many who grew up in those packed seats, clapping along with the praise band, are abandoning Evangelical congregations. Why is that? The robust churches had it all — large staffs, great programs, and engaging preaching. Why would a new generation, including me, leave that behind?
Full Story: Carol Howard Merritt: Why Evangelicalism Is Failing A New Generation.
John Paul Stevens Retiring?: Top Picks To Be The Next Supreme Court Justice
In an interview in early March, Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens said he would make up his mind in about a month’s time about when to retire from the High Court. That deadline is fast approaching.
The anchor of the court’s liberal wing, Justice Stevens has made it clear that his days on the bench are numbered. Stevens told legal savant and New Yorker contributor Jeffrey Toobin the following: “You can say I will retire within the next three years. I’m sure of that.”
Speculation about the timing of a Justice’s retirement invariably tends to be just that — speculative. (Prognosticators who tried to divine the direction of monetary policy by looking at the size of ex-Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan’s briefcase were proven embarrassingly wrong). But where Justice Stevens is concerned, the signs are increasingly suggestive: the octogenarian is on the brink of turning 90 and last fall, he appointed a single law clerk, as opposed to his usual four.
Justice Stevens has been a valiant, ferociously independent and outspoken member of the Court, attributes on display in his recent dissent in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, a ruling on the use of corporate contributions for political campaigns. And though Stevens is one-of-a-kind, there’s always room for a little informed speculation about who might replace him.
Full Story: John Paul Stevens Retiring?: Top Picks To Be The Next Supreme Court Justice.
Top Fed Official Wants To Break Up Megabanks
and , Stop The Fed From Guaranteeing Wall Street’s Profits [EXCLUSIVE]
The U.S. should bust up its megabanks and impose strict laws curbing the size and complexity of financial institutions, a top Federal Reserve official told the Huffington Post.
In a 45-minute interview this week, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City President Thomas M. Hoenig, who’s emerged as one of the few influential voices calling for a fundamental redesign of a broken U.S. financial system:
- Lambasted the tilted playing field that benefits Wall Street banks over Main Street banks;
- Called the idea that the U.S. needs megabanks to compete globally a “fantasy”;
- Said Congress should mandate simple, easily understood and enforceable rules — rather than guidelines — so regulators can restrain financial firms and rein in the financial system;
- Prodded the Senate to get tougher on permanently ending Too Big To Fail by enacting laws that would take away much of the discretion currently held by policymakers (who bailed out financial firms when confronted with these decisions in late 2008);
- And criticized the Federal Reserve’s ongoing policy to keep the main interest rate near zero because it “guarantee[s] a spread to Wall Street”, enabling unearned profits and “encourag[ing] speculation.”
Full Story: Top Fed Official Wants To Break Up Megabanks, Stop The Fed From Guaranteeing Wall Street’s Profits [EXCLUSIVE].
Eighteen Million, Out in the Road
How cold and callous can we become? When, as a society and as a nation, we can undergo a massive earthquake under our very feet and before our very eyes, how can we just ignore its victims?
RealtyTrac, the California-based authority on property trends and valuations, projects 4.5 million home foreclosures before the end of this year. That’s 4.5 million homes, and with four people to a household that is eighteen million people. Eighteen million men, women and children put out into the road, people who must scramble to find shelter and scramble to find new schools for their children.
Last year it was 2.8 million homes or 11.2 million Americans put out into the road. In two years that is 29.2 million people just put out into the road.
Full Story: OpEdNews – Article: Eighteen Million, Out in the Road.
The High Cost of Neglecting Manufacturing
As our American owned companies produce less, they become inefficient, uncompetitive, and ultimately go out of business.
This article was originally written in 2004. We at EconomyInCrisis.org tried to inform the country five years ago that our direction and priorities were not on the right track. America's erroneous ways continued unchanged, which have caused our present plight.
The United States is considered to be a rich country. We have accumulated much abundance through most of the twentieth century, as we were a very productive country whose wealth derived to a great extent from manufacturing. Our companies invented and produced many of the things we needed plus much of what the rest of the world needed.
Today, American owned corporations manufacture less and less each year and import more each year. This difference between the amount we import and export has created a huge balance of trade deficit. This has caused us to lose over 1 million high paying manufacturing jobs this year alone.
Full Story: The High Cost of Neglecting Manufacturing | Economy In Crisis.
How China Discrimates Against U.S. Manufacturing
China’s lack of intellectual property rights protection have hurt a myriad of U.S. businesses and products, including clothing, medical devices, information technology, films, music and publishing software among others.
Non-tariff trade barriers such as tax rebates, quotas, subsidies, lack of intellectual property rights protections, restrictive licensing systems and foreign equity limitations are all tools with which China discriminates against American manufactured and farm goods and services, according to the U.S. Trade Representative’s 2010 National Trade Estimate.
“The Obama Administration is following through on its commitment to call out and break down barriers to American exports worldwide,” U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said in a statement following the release of the report. “This year, we’ve gone beyond obligatory reporting to focus on some of the toughest hurdles America’s farmers, ranchers, manufacturers, and service providers face when they try to sell overseas.”
The report says that China has been able to maintain an advantage against the U.S. in industrial goods through favoring protected sectors of the economy, local content rules and standards.
Full Story: How China Discrimates Against U.S. Manufacturing | Economy In Crisis.
Foreign Companies Dominate Nuclear Energy Market
“If we’re going to start shoveling a lot of money at nuclear, and nuclear is part of America’s plan to get less oil-dependent, then we need to build it ourselves,” Thomas M. Conway, vice president for the United Steelworkers union said in a statement.
While proponents of nuclear power claim that increased usage of the technology would create countless jobs, provide cheaper energy and lessen the nation’s dependence on foreign energy sources, others claim that when taking into account the cost of clean up and subsidies and the fact that much of the production is foreign-owned, it is simply too costly.
According to D.A. Barber, writing in The Huffington Post, foreign-owned companies dominate the domestic uranium mining and milling market.
“Ironically, most mining and milling proposals of recent years are from foreign-owned companies … Even the newest enrichment plant to convert uranium to reactor fuel is wholly foreign owned,” he writes.
Full Story: Foreign Companies Dominate Nuclear Energy Market | Economy In Crisis.
OPS: Just one more reason to not go forward with nuclear power
Kan. abortion doc’s murderer gets life prison term
An anti-abortion zealot who murdered one of the few U.S. doctors who performed late-term abortions was sentenced Thursday to life in prison and won't be eligible for parole for 50 years — the maximum allowed by law.
Scott Roeder, 52, faced a mandatory life prison term for gunning down Dr. George Tiller in the back of Tiller's Wichita church last May.
Sedgwick County District Judge Warren Wilbert could have made the Roeder eligible for parole after 25 or 50 years, but gave him the harsher sentence because he said the evidence showed Roeder stalked Tiller before killing him.
Full Story: Kan. abortion doc’s murderer gets life prison term – Yahoo! News.
Thirteen Israeli air strikes hit Gaza Strip
Israeli planes have carried out 13 air strikes on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, Palestinian sources have told the BBC.
Four of the strikes took place near the town of Khan Younis, where two Israeli soldiers were killed in clashes with Palestinian fighters last week.
Israel says the operation was targeting four weapons factories. Reports say three children were injured.
The latest violence is the most serious since the end of Israel’s assault on Gaza in January 2009.
Palestinians and rights groups say more than 1,400 Gazans died in the conflict, while Israel puts the figure at 1,166. Thirteen Israelis, including three civilians, were killed.
Full Story: BBC News – Thirteen Israeli air strikes hit Gaza Strip.
U.S. economy adds 162,000 jobs; unemployment rate unchanged at 9.7% -
The U.S. economy added 162,000 jobs in March, the Labor Department reported today, marking only the second time in 27 months that jobs have been created.
The unemployment rate remained unchanged at 9.7% for the third straight month.
Economists who had forecast the jump in jobs noted that as many as 100,000 could reflect temporary hiring for the U.S. Census.
Update at 8:34 p.m. ET: The total includes 48,000 temporary workers hired for the U.S. Census, the Associated Press reports. Private employers added 123,000 jobs, the most since May 2007.
Full Story: U.S. economy adds 162,000 jobs; unemployment rate unchanged at 9.7% -.
Forensic experts to reexamine WTC rubble
New York forensic experts will start a major new search Monday through debris from the World Trade Center for remains of people killed in the 9/11 terrorist attack, officials said.
About 844 cubic yards (645 cubic meters) of material recovered from the reconstruction site at Ground Zero will be combed for bones and other remains of the 2,752 people killed when hijacked airliners slammed into the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001.
“That material is going to be sifted to see if there are any human remains,” said Jason Post, a spokesman for Mayor Michael Bloomberg. “We’re taking every step we can to recover the remains of 9/11 victims.”
Experts, including anthropologists, will hand check the material in the 1.4-million-dollar operation, which could go on as long as three months at a closed location at a landfill on Staten Island.
Full Story: Forensic experts to reexamine WTC rubble | Raw Story.
US sues contractor KBR over Iraq bills
The federal government sued KBR Inc., the largest contractor in Iraq, on Thursday over what prosecutors say were improper charges to the Army for private security services.
Houston-based KBR Inc. is a former subsidiary of Halliburton Co. It recently won a new contract potentially worth more than $2 billion for support work in the country.
The lawsuit filed in federal court in Washington charged that KBR and 33 of its subcontractors used private armed security at various times from 2003 to 2006. The suit claimed KBR knew under the terms of its contract the company could not bill the U.S. government for such services but did so anyway.
While the lawsuit is a contractual dispute, the case highlights what became a confusing problem in the U.S. occupation of Iraq: What authority did private contractors have to carry weapons and use force in the unstable country?
Full Story: The Associated Press: US sues contractor KBR over Iraq bills.
Sen. Bennett: ‘Greenhouse Gas Emissions Have Nothing Whatever To Do With Clean Air’
In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency must regulate greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, under the stipulations in the Clean Air Act. Last month, the EPA announced that it would phase-in the regulation over several years, starting with the largest sources of emissions. Many — mostly Republican — state legislators have recently introduced measures to block or limit the EPA’s authority to regulate the gases.
Reporting on the state action today on Fox News, host Megyn Kelly went a bit overboard on the EPA mandate and its plan to regulate auto emissions. “A laundry list of new regulations set to increase the cost of nearly everything in America,” she said, adding without any sense of irony: “And that may not be an exaggeration!” Taking the discussion a bit further into right field, Sen. Bob Bennett (R-UT) actually argued that greenhouse gases are helpful:
Full Story: Think Progress » Sen. Bennett: ‘Greenhouse Gas Emissions Have Nothing Whatever To Do With Clean Air’.
GOP congressman calls out conservatives pushing ‘blatant misinformation’ about the Census.
For over a year, many on the right have led a smear campaign against the Census, potentially undermining the constitutionally mandated decennial count. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) led the charge, making outlandish claims about internment camps and proudly declaring in June that she would not fill her form, in violation of federal law. Meanwhile, right-wing talk show hosts Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh urged listeners to not fully complete their forms, with Beck warning that answering the race question would somehow “increase slavery.” Today, in a post on the conservative blog Red State, Republican Rep. Patrick McHenry (NC) called out this “blatant misinformation” and urged all Americans to complete the Census, as it is our “Constitutional duty”:
No, what worries me is blatant misinformation coming from otherwise well-meaning conservatives. They are trying to do the right thing, but instead they are helping big government liberals by discouraging fellow conservatives from filling out their census forms. [...]
Full Story: Think Progress » GOP congressman calls out conservatives pushing ‘blatant misinformation’ about the Census..
TIMELINE: From Promoting Acid Rain To Climate Denial, Over 20 Years Of David Koch’s Polluter Front Groups
The corporate-backed front group Americans for Prosperity (AFP) is again leading the charge for industry against environmental protections. Earlier this month, AFP kicked off its “Regulation Reality Tour” — a roadshow through the states of pivotal senators pressuring the Environmental Protection Agency not to regulate carbon emissions, as outlined by the Clean Air Act .
The campaign is part carnival, part sophisticated K Street lobbying. Attendees are welcomed by an inflatable moonbounce for children, free food and drinks, and AFP staff dressed as “carbon cops” distributing freebies to the crowd. The rallies serve as a platform for AFP to scare voters with stories of bureaucrats regulating churches and “radio controlled thermostats.” Moreover, operatives from AFP collect names and train attendees on how to lobby Congress to defeat clean energy reform.
The founder and chairman of Americans for Prosperity is oil baron David Koch, who is one of the richest men in the world because of his oil, chemicals, and manufacturing conglomerate Koch Industries. Koch Industries is a major polluter with an atrocious record of sloppy operations. According to the EPA, Koch Industries is responsible for over 300 oil spills in the US and has leaked three million gallons of crude oil into fisheries and drinking waters. They were fined a record $35 million dollars and an additional $8 million in Minnesota for discharging into streams. But AFP’s recent crusade against the EPA is just the latest in Koch’s twenty-year campaign to have unrestricted power to pollute. Some highlights of the timeline:
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Republicans Don't Care about Voter Fraud....owa Republicans are trying to dismiss claims that the vote count in Tuesday's Iowa Caucus was wrong. An Iowa voter told a local TV station yesterday that he noticed a 20-vote discrepancy in the count - and that Rick Santorum was the real winner of the Caucuses. Republican Party officials, though, are sticking to their first count - showing Mitt Romney as the winner by 8-votes - and there will be no recount.The Republican Party has launched a war on voters around the nation this year with strict new laws that will disenfranchise over 5 million Americans. They claim these laws are necessary to combat so-called voter fraud. Yet in Iowa - where there are no such laws - and where a very, very close and questionable election was just held - Republicans don't seem to care at all about getting it right.Clearly - the war on voters isn't about making sure the people's voices are represented accurately - it's about making sure poor people, young people, and minorities who tend to vote for Democrats - can't vote at all.-Thom(Who do you think won? Tell us here.) -
LEGALIZE Democracy
" We the corporations" On January 21, 2010, with its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons, entitled by the U.S. Constitution to buy elections and run our government. __________
MOVE to AMEND
a project of the CAMPAIGN TO LEGALIZE Democracy
Help end Corporate personhood
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The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. 
