Archive for May, 2010

New Orleans Police Under Comprehensive Federal Investigation

Federal authorities launched a top-to-bottom review of the troubled New Orleans Police Department on Monday, a probe requested by Mayor Mitch Landrieu, who predicted it will result in court-ordered transformation of a department beleaguered by allegations of sometimes deadly brutality.

Assistant U.S. Attorney General Tom Perez said the investigation will include lawyers and non-lawyers with broad experience in police issues. At a news conference with Landrieu, Perez said the probe will be independent of ongoing federal criminal investigations of the department. Those include the probe of the fatal 2005 shootings of unarmed citizens at the Danziger bridge in the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Perez, who heads the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said other such independent examinations by the department have resulted in successful change at other cities’ police departments, including Los Angeles. However, he said, the level of cooperation already being displayed in New Orleans is high and the consensus for change among city officials, including new police chief Ronal Serpas, is unprecedented.

Full Story: New Orleans Police Under Comprehensive Federal Investigation.

BP Safety Violations: OSHA Says Company Has ‘Systemic Safety Problem’

BP Has ‘Systemic Safety Problem’, Responsible For 97% Of ‘Egregious Willful’ Safety Violations

A Washington-based research group says two BP refineries in the U.S. account for 97 percent of “egregious willful” violations given by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

The study by the Center for Public Integrity says the violations were found in the last three years in BP's Texas City refinery and another plant in Toledo, Ohio. In 2005, 15 people were killed in an explosion at the Texas City refinery.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA Jordan Barab says BP has a “systemic safety problem.” He told The Associated Press BP has not adequately addressed the issues, despite being fined more than $87 million.

Full Story: BP Safety Violations: OSHA Says Company Has ‘Systemic Safety Problem’.

Brit Hume: Where Is The Oil? (VIDEO)

As I was taking in the Sestak-versus-Specteriana on CNN’s State Of The Union yesterday morning, I missed Fox News Sunday’s typically entertaining panel discussion. But this segment shouldn’t go unnoted, seeing as how former newsman Brit Hume was wondering if the BP oil slick was so awesomely terrifying, why couldn’t he see any of the oil? Seriously! This happened!

WATCH:

Full Story: Brit Hume: Where Is The Oil? (VIDEO).

MMS Official, To Step Down In Wake Of Gulf Oil Spill

Chrys Oynes, the associate director of Offshore Energy and Minerals Management at the Minerals Management Service will retire May 31, reports The Washington Post:

Oynes, who oversaw oil and gas leasing in the Gulf of Mexico for 12 years before being promoted to MMS associate director for Offshore Energy and Minerals Management, has come under fire for being too close to the industry officials he regulated.

The Post reports that Oynes made the announcement Monday.

His move follows the April 20 explosion aboard the offshore oil rig Deepwater Horizon and the subsequent oil spill.

Full Story: Chris Oynes, MMS Official, To Step Down In Wake Of Gulf Oil Spill.

Research links pesticides with ADHD in kids

A study published today in the Journal of Pediatrics says that one type of pesticide commonly used on fruits and vegetables may be contributing to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD.

Pesticides commonly found on frozen blueberries, strawberries, celery and other fruits and veggies kids love may be contributing to ADHD in American children.

“It’s consistent with other studies that have looked at organophosphate pesticides and have found that exposure in early life can cause brain injury.”

Researchers tested urine for pesticide levels from over a thousand kids – ages 8 to 15. 119 of the children had symptoms of ADHD. Those with the highest concentration of were more likely to have the disorder.

Scientists claim the chemicals can have harmful effects on development — including behavioral problems and the ability to think and communicate.

Full Story: Research links pesticides with ADHD in kids | abc7.com.

US may have to divert the Mississippi to fight oil slick’s spread

For the US Coast Guard, the mighty Mississippi River is its “best friend” in the fight against the oil spill.

Trying to keep the spreading oil at bay, authorities have diverted the river into dozens of canals. But fishermen and ecologists are concerned an environmental disaster could be in the offing.

After crossing the United States from north to south, the 2,350-mile (3,800-kilometer) long river delivers its waters to the Gulf of Mexico through a sprawling delta formed by dozens of canals.

With the outflow measuring between 7,000 and 20,000 cubic meters of water per second, the Mississippi represents a powerful natural ally of US authorities scrambling to control what could become the worst oil spill in US history.

Full Story: US may have to divert the Mississippi to fight oil slick’s spread | Raw Story.

Oceans’ fish could disappear in 40 years: UN

The world faces the nightmare possibility of fishless oceans by 2050 without fundamental restructuring of the fishing industry, UN experts said Monday.

“If the various estimates we have received… come true, then we are in the situation where 40 years down the line we, effectively, are out of fish,” Pavan Sukhdev, head of the UN Environment Program’s green economy initiative, told journalists in New York.

A Green Economy report due later this year by UNEP and outside experts argues this disaster can be avoided if subsidies to fishing fleets are slashed and fish are given protected zones — ultimately resulting in a thriving industry.

Full Story: Oceans’ fish could disappear in 40 years: UN | Raw Story.

Army recalls 44,000 helmets that failed ballistic tests

The US Army has recalled 44,000 helmets that failed ballistic tests and federal authorities are investigating the firm that manufactured them, officers said on Monday.

The helmets, made by ArmorSource in Hebron, Ohio, were issued to American troops since 2007, including an unknown number of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, Brigadier General Pete Fuller told reporters.

“We don’t know where they (helmets) are. So they could be on some soldier’s head in either Iraq or Afghanistan. They could also be anywhere else in the world,” Fuller said.

Full Story: Army recalls 44,000 helmets that failed ballistic tests | Raw Story.

BP chose more toxic, less effective oil dispersant manufactured by company with ‘close ties’ to oil giant.

As BP believes it has finally made progress plugging the massive oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, it has managed to prevent much of the oil already released from washing onshore by using huge quantities of oil dispersants. BP rounded up a “third of the world’s available supply of dispersants” and has been deploying them aggressively. But Greenwire reports that the chemical BP is using is more toxic and perhaps even less effective than other available dispersents:

So far, BP has told federal agencies that it has applied more than 400,000 gallons of a dispersant sold under the trade name Corexit and manufactured by Nalco Co., a company that was once part of Exxon Mobil Corp. and whose current leadership includes executives at both BP and Exxon. And another 805,000 gallons of Corexit are on order, the company said, with the possibility that hundreds of thousands of more gallons may be needed if the well continues spewing oil for weeks or months.

But according to EPA data, Corexit ranks far above dispersants made by competitors in toxicity and far below them in effectiveness in handling southern Louisiana crude.

Full Story: Think Progress » BP chose more toxic, less effective oil dispersant manufactured by company with ‘close ties’ to oil giant..

Transocean to give shareholders $1 billion while trying to cap its responsibility for Gulf spill at $27 million.

Transocean, Ltd., the giant oil contractor that leased its Deepwater Horizon rig to BP, held a “closed-door meeting” with shareholders Friday, “just days after” executives appeared before Congress to explain the company’s role in the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill. As ThinkProgress noted, the meeting took place at the company’s headquarters in Zug, Switzerland, where Transocean relocated two years ago to avoid paying taxes. Though CEO Steven Newman “ignored questions from reporters,” the company said in a statement that it would distribute $1 billion in dividends to shareholders:

The revelation that Transocean is distributing a $1 billion profit to shareholders as one of its drill sites leaks millions of gallons of oil into the sea is sure to inflame an already smarting debate over offshore drilling and the company’s role.[...]

To put the distribution in perspective, the amount of profit that Transocean plans to pay out in the next year is half of what Exxon ultimately paid for the Exxon Valdez disaster off the Alaska Coast.

It’s also more than double what BP has said they’ve spent on the cleanup to date.

Full Story: Think Progress » Transocean to give shareholders $1 billion while trying to cap its responsibility for Gulf spill at $27 million..

Rand Paul Wants To Abolish The Americans With Disabilities Act, Citing Fairness ‘To The Business Owner’

click to enlarge

U.S. Senate candidate Rand Paul (R-KY), a darling of the tea party movement, has gained notoriety for his extreme views and close relationships with fringe leaders like Alex Jones. Part of Paul’s appeal has been his supposed support of individuals over large interests, like the government. But Paul appeared to reveal his true priorities during an interview with the candidate in Lexington over the weekend.

Paul was asked whether he supports the Americans with Disabilities Act, the landmark 1990 legislation that established a prohibition of discrimination on the basis of disability. Paul said he advocates local governments to decide whether disabled individuals deserve rights. Requiring businesses to provide access to disabled people, Paul argued, isn’t “fair to the business owner.” Later in the interview, when asked if he believes Americans have a right to use the 2nd Amendment to violently overthrow the government, a Paul staffer physically intercepted the recording and shuffled Paul away:

PAUL: You know a lot of things on employment ought to be done locally. You know, people finding out right or wrong locally. You know, some of the things, for example we can come up with common sense solutions — like for example if you have a three story building and you have someone apply for a job, you get them a job on the first floor if they’re in a wheelchair as supposed to making the person who owns the business put an elevator in, you know what I mean? So things like that aren’t fair to the business owner. [...]

Full Story: Think Progress » Rand Paul Wants To Abolish The Americans With Disabilities Act, Citing Fairness ‘To The Business Owner’.

Tea Bagger Sen. DeMint Single-Handedly Killed Bipartisan Bill to Increase Senate Transparency

Back in the days of Republican one-party rule, today’s tea partiers were silent about the breath-taking secrecy and lack of transparency under George Bush, Dick Cheney and the GOP-controlled Congress. That makes their complaints about Democrats’ purported lack of openness now more than a little suspicious, and now one of their leaders in the Senate, Jim DeMint of South Carolina, has revealed through his actions where tea partiers’ actually stand on the issue:

Secret holds allow senators to indefinitely prevent a presidential nominee from coming up for a vote, without ever having to provide a reason or identify themselves. Senate Republicans have used secret holds to an unprecedented degree under President Obama, and are currently anonymously blocking at least 52 nominees, all of whom were “noncontroversial in committee debate.”

Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) proposed new rules to rein in secret holds, but “Republicans thwarted” the bipartisan effort yesterday when Sen. Jim DeMint attached a poison pill amendment.

The usually mild-mannered Wyden was apoplectic:

Full Story: Pensito Review » Tea Bagger Sen. DeMint Single-Handedly Killed Bipartisan Bill to Increase Senate Transparency.

Gulf Oil spill linked to ecocide to make way for more oil profits

Why has the U.S. Navy been held back from using its sophisticated technology that is at its disposal to protect vital Gulf Oil spill?

One writer has suggested an intentional ecocide. Ecocide is basically an “environmental genocide”.

What I propose to you is that these oil spills are intentional, and they are being done by the oil companies themselves, not to create “False flags,” but to kill off the local wildlife.

The wildlife refuges and protected zones in the area have been hampering the ability of the big name oil companies to drill into untapped goldmines of easy to access oil that is close to home…

Full Story: The Canadian National Newspaper: Gulf Oil spill linked to ecocide to make way for more oil profits.

Fighting Religious Extremism and Intolerance… By Promoting Religious Extremism and Intolerance

How have some Israeli and Jewish leaders become convinced that they should partner with right wing extremists, including many who would certainly have been considered virulently anti-Semitic only a few years ago? Has anti-Semitism been redefined only to apply to those who criticize Israeli policy? Is promoting Islamophobia really beneficial to Israel’s cause, or to the American Jewish community?

These are difficult questions that I was trying to address in my recent ZEEK article in which I focused on the role that Jewish feminist Phyllis Chesler played in the Rifqa Bary controversy, a drama which turned into a national platform for promoting Islamophobia and Lou Engle’s brand of Christian supremacism. Within hours of the publication of my article, the pages of American Spectator, David Horowitz’s RealNews Blog, and the blog of Robert Stacy McCain, were attacking me. This response perhaps tells us more about what Chesler now represents than anything I could have possibly written.

Link to Part Two of this article, on the role of Lou Engle and Christian dominionists in the Rifqa Bary saga.

Full Story: Talk To Action | Fighting Religious Extremism and Intolerance… By Promoting Religious Extremism and Intolerance.

Researchers Ponder a Hurricane Hitting the Oil-Slicked Gulf of Mexico

The Atlantic Ocean hurricane season begins June 1, and scientists tracking the Gulf of Mexico oil spill are beginning to think about what would happen if a storm hit the growing slick.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration won’t release its initial hurricane season forecast until Thursday, but experts said it would only take one storm in the Gulf to complicate the ongoing effort to stanch the gushing oil and limit its environmental impact.

NOAA talking points list a number of open questions, such as whether the oil plume could affect storm formation by suppressing evaporation of Gulf water and how a hurricane could change the size and location of the oil slick. There’s little information about what would happen if a hurricane hit the spill, experts said.

Still, several scientists are worried that a hurricane could drive oil inland, soiling beaches and wetlands and pushing polluted water up river estuaries.

Full Story: Researchers Ponder a Hurricane Hitting the Oil-Slicked Gulf of Mexico – NYTimes.com.

OPS:  Hurricanes?!

You heard it here first.

Massive underwater oil cloud may destroy life in Gulf of Mexico

Over a week ago, I published an article here on NaturalNews questioning the media spin on the massive oil spill in the Gulf. That story, entitled Is Gulf oil rig disaster far worse than we’re being told? (http://www.naturalnews.com/028749_G…), stated the following:

“It’s hard to say exactly what’s going on in the Gulf right now, especially because there are so many conflicting reports and unanswered questions. But one thing’s for sure: if the situation is actually much worse than we’re being led to believe, there could be worldwide catastrophic consequences. If it’s true that millions upon millions of gallons of crude oil are flooding the Gulf with no end in sight, the massive oil slicks being created could make their way into the Gulf Stream currents, which would carry them not only up the East Coast but around the world where they could absolutely destroy the global fishing industries.”

Full Story: Massive underwater oil cloud may destroy life in Gulf of Mexico.

Calif. bill would block Texas textbook changes

California may soon take a stand against proposed changes to social studies textbooks ordered by the Texas school board, as a way to prevent them from being incorporated in California texts.

Legislation by Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, seeks to protect the nation’s largest public school population from the revised social studies curriculum approved in March by the Texas Board of Education. Critics say if the changes are incorporated into textbooks, they will be historically inaccurate and dismissive of the contributions of minorities.

The Texas recommendations, which face a final vote by the Republican-dominated board on May 21, include adding language saying the country’s Founding Fathers were guided by Christian principles and a new section on “the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s.” That would include positive references to the Moral Majority, the National Rifle Association and the Contract with America, the congressional GOP manifesto from the 1990s.

The amendments to the state’s curriculum standards also minimize Thomas Jefferson’s role in world and U.S. history because he advocated the separation of church and state, and require that students learn about “the unintended consequences” of affirmative action and Title IX, the landmark federal law that bans gender discrimination in education programs and activities.

Full Story: Calif. bill would block Texas textbook changes – San Jose Mercury News.

The G.O.P. – Going to Extreme

Paul Krugman:

Utah Republicans have denied Robert Bennett, a very conservative three-term senator, a place on the ballot, because he’s not conservative enough. In Maine, party activists have pushed through a platform calling for, among other things, abolishing both the Federal Reserve and the Department of Education. And it’s becoming ever more apparent that real power within the G.O.P. rests with the ranting talk-show hosts.

News organizations have taken notice: suddenly, the takeover of the Republican Party by right-wing extremists has become a story (although many reporters seem determined to pretend that something equivalent is happening to the Democrats. It isn’t.) But why is this happening? And in particular, why is it happening now?

The right’s answer, of course, is that it’s about outrage over President Obama’s “socialist” policies — like his health care plan, which is, um, more or less identical to the plan Mitt Romney enacted in Massachusetts. Many on the left argue, instead, that it’s about race, the shock of having a black man in the White House — and there’s surely something to that.

Full Story: Op-Ed Columnist – The G.O.P. – Going to Extreme – NYTimes.com.

Whistleblower Sues to Stop Another BP Rig From Operating

A whistleblower filed a lawsuit today to force the federal government to halt operations at another massive BP oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico, alleging that BP never reviewed critical engineering designs for the operation and is therefore risking another catastrophic accident that could “dwarf” the company’s Deepwater Horizon spill.

The allegations about BP’s Atlantis platform were first made last year, but they were laid out in fresh detail today in the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Houston against Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and the Minerals and Management Service, the agency responsible for regulating offshore drilling in the Gulf.

The whistleblower is Kenneth Abbott, a former project control supervisor contracted by BP who also gave an interview to “60 Minutes” on Sunday night. In a conversation last week with ProPublica, Abbott alleged that BP failed to review thousands of final design documents for systems and equipment on the Atlantis platform — meaning BP management never confirmed the systems were built as they were intended – and didn’t properly file the documentation that functions as an instruction manual for rig workers to shut down operations in the case of a blowout or other emergency.

Full Story: On The Hill: Whistleblower Sues to Stop Another BP Rig From Operating.

Nurses gather Wednesday for historic contract vote

More than 12,000 Twin Cities nurses will gather inside the St. Paul RiverCentre Wednesday to cast what could become a historic vote.

Nurses will either approve the pension and contract proposals made by six different Twin Cities Hospital systems representing 13 different hospitals or vote to authorize the largest nursing strike in U.S. history.

Nurses will be able to vote all day long, beginning at 6:00 a.m. until the polls close at 10 p.m. Voting results will be made available and announced shortly after 10 p.m.

If authorized, a strike could begin as early as June 1. However, bargaining committees may decide to begin at a later date, the union said. Hospital systems affected are North Memorial, HealthEast, Allina, Methodist, Children’s and Fairview.

Full Story: Welcome to Workday Minnesota, your leading source for labor news!.

Scientists forecast decades of ash clouds

Iceland could be at the start of a surge in volcanic activity that may produce more eruptions

Many more of Iceland’s volcanoes seem to be stirring

THE Icelandic eruption that has caused misery for air travellers could be part of a surge in volcanic activity that will affect the whole of Europe for decades, scientists have warned.

They have reconstructed a timeline of 205 eruptions in Iceland, spanning the past 1,100 years, and found that they occur in regular cycles — with the relatively quiet phase that dominated the past five decades now coming to an end.

At least three other big Icelandic volcanoes are building towards an eruption, according to Thor Thordarson, a volcanologist at Edinburgh University.

“The frequency of Icelandic eruptions seems to rise and fall in a cycle lasting around 140 years,” he said. “In the latter part of the 20th century we were in a low period, but now there is evidence that we could be approaching a peak.”

Full Story: Scientists forecast decades of ash clouds – Times Online.

Models indicate Gulf oil spill may be in major current

Researchers tracking the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico say computer models show the black ooze may have already entered a major current flowing toward the Florida Keys, and are sending out a research vessel to learn more.

William Hogarth, dean of the University of South Florida’s College of Marine Science, told The Associated Press Sunday that one model shows that the oil has already hit the loop current, which is the largest in the Gulf. The model is based on weather, ocean current and spill data from the U.S. Navy and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, among other sources.

Hogarth said a second model shows the oil is 3 miles from the current — still dangerously close.

The current flows in a looping pattern in the Gulf, through the area where the blown-out well is, east to the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.

Full Story: Desdemona Despair: Models indicate Gulf oil spill may be in major current.

Bill Maher New Rules 05 14 2010

More truth about Obama, Capers, Oil Spills, Our Country, Our Monetary Change System And Steve Jobs.

New Poll: Restless Voters Prefer Democrats Again, But Still Hate Incumbents

People want Democrats to control Congress after this fall’s elections, a shift from April, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll released Saturday. But the margin is thin and there’s a flashing yellow light for incumbents of both parties: Only about one-third want their own lawmakers re-elected.

The tenuous 45 percent to 40 percent preference for a Democratic Congress reverses the finding a month ago on the same question: 44 percent for Republicans and 41 percent for Democrats. The new readout came as the economy continued showing signs of improvement and the tumultuous battle over the health care law that President Barack Obama finally signed in March faded into the background.

“To the extent that Democrats can focus on job creation rather than health care, they tend to do better,” said Jack Pitney, a political scientist at California’s Claremont McKenna College.

Full Story: New Poll: Restless Voters Prefer Democrats Again, But Still Hate Incumbents.

BP: Mile-Long Tube Sucking Oil Away From Gulf Well

In a significant step toward containing a massive Gulf of Mexico oil leak, BP said a mile-long tube was funneling crude Sunday from a blown well to a tanker ship after three days of wrestling to get the stopgap measure into place on the seafloor.

Yet even as the company reported the success after weeks of fruitless efforts, scientists warned oil that has already spewed into the Gulf could have dire consequences for the environment. Computer models show the black ooze may have already entered a major current flowing toward the Florida Keys, a researcher told the Associated Press on Sunday.

The contraption used by BP was hooked up successfully and sucking oil from a pipe at the blown well Sunday afternoon after being hindered by several setbacks. Engineers remotely guiding robot submersibles had worked since Friday to place the tube into a 21-inch pipe nearly a mile below the sea.

Full Story: BP: Mile-Long Tube Sucking Oil Away From Gulf Well.

GOP Kills Science Jobs Bill By Forcing Dems To Vote For Porn

In an example of Republican obstructionism rendered beautiful by its simplicity, the GOP yesterday killed a House bill that would increase funding for scientific research and math and science education by forcing Democrats to vote in favor of federal employees viewing pornography.

Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX), the ranking member of the House science committee, introduced a motion to recommit, a last-ditch effort to change a bill by sending it back to the committee with mandatory instructions.

In this case, Republicans included a provision that would bar the federal government from paying the salaries of employees who’ve been disciplined for viewing pornography at work.

Full Story: GOP Kills Science Jobs Bill By Forcing Dems To Vote For Porn | TPMDC.

BP’s Own Probe Finds Safety Issues on Atlantis Rig

BP operates rig in Gulf without proper safety documents; experts say this can lead to a spill

The company whose drilling triggered the Gulf of Mexico oil spill also owns a rig that operated with incomplete and inaccurate engineering documents, which one official warned could “lead to catastrophic operator error,” records and interviews show.

In February, two months before the Deepwater Horizon spill, 19 members of Congress called on the agency that oversees offshore oil drilling to investigate a whistle-blower’s complaints about the BP-owned Atlantis, which is stationed in 7,070 feet of water more than 150 miles south of New Orleans .

The Associated Press has learned that an independent firm hired by BP substantiated the complaints in 2009 and found that the giant petroleum company was violating its own policies by not having completed engineering documents on board the Atlantis when it began operating in 2007.

Stanley Sporkin, a former federal judge whose firm served as BP’s ombudsman, said that the allegation “was substantiated, and that’s it.” The firm was hired by BP in 2006 to act as an independent office to receive and investigate employee complaints.

Full Story: BP’s Own Probe Finds Safety Issues on Atlantis Rig – ABC News.

Is 70,000 barrels a day a possibility for the oil spill?

NPR is now reporting that the oil spill could be 70,000 barrels of oil a day, which is considerably greater than the estimate of 5,000 barrels per day currently being reported. What is the view of Oil Drum readers regarding the likelihood of the higher estimate being accurate? According to the story:

The analysis was conducted by Steve Werely, an associate professor at Purdue University, using a technique called particle image velocimetry. Harris tells Michele Norris that the method is accurate to a degree of plus or minus 20 percent. That means the flow could range between 56,000 barrels a day and 84,000 barrels a day.

Another analysis by Eugene Chiang, a professor of astrophysics at the University of California, Berkeley, calculated the rate of flow to be between 20,000 barrels a day and 100,000 barrels a day.

Full Story: The Oil Drum | Is 70,000 barrels a day a possibility for the oil spill?.

U.S. Drug Czar Required to Lie – video

Earlier this week, the Obama administration released their National Strategy for Drug Control. And it turned out that their rhetoric, of switching from enforcement to treatment and prevention, didn't match

the figures of how much funding was allotted to each. Now, U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske has come out and publicly admitted that the drug war can be seen as a failure. So just more rhetoric? Alyona discusses

with Michael Whitney from FireDogLake.

President Obama’s Campaign Arm Tries to Get Grass-Roots Democrats to Defeat Fellow Progressive

Organizing for America, the former grass-roots campaign arm for President Obama’s 2008 campaign, is trying to rally supporters to phone bank and get out the vote in Pennsylvania for Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Penn., the former Republican locked in a tight primary race with a far more progressive Democrat, Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Penn.

Chris Bolling, the national volunteer coordinator for OFA, writes in an email that the “stakes of this election are high: ensuring that allies of the President are elected in the House and Senate to fight for change. So starting this weekend, through Tuesday’s election, there will be phone banks for OFA volunteers in D.C. We’ll call into Pennsylvania and encourage voters to support leaders who will fight for President Obama’s vision for change.”

Specter, of course, supported the presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and only became a Democrat when it became clear he would suffer an ignominious defeat in the GOP primary to former Rep. Pat Toomey, R-Penn. But the White House, needing Specter’s support for various parts of the president’s agenda, pledged to help him in his re-election.

Full Story: President Obama’s Campaign Arm Tries to Get Grass-Roots Democrats to Defeat Fellow Progressive – Political Punch.

OPS:  ‘Fellow Progressive’ ? This dumb-ass is still trying to sell the snake-oil that Obama is a Progressive.

Oil spill: BP accused of using Gulf of Mexico as ‘toxic testing-ground’

Louisiana officials have accused BP of turning the Gulf of Mexico into a toxic testing-ground after winning permission for experimental chemical methods of fighting the oil slick.

State officials are angry that federal regulators gave the company permission to try out new chemical techniques to break up and hold back the growing tide of oil.

Despite registering concerns about the potential implications for the environment, marine life and human health, Governor Bobby Jindal’s administration was cut out of deliberations over the use of dispersants that break up the oil, as the Environmental Protection Agency granted BP permission to release large quantities underwater.

“We don’t have any data or evidence behind the use of these chemicals in the water. We’re now basically using one of the richest ecosysystems in the world as a laboratory,” complained Alan Levine, the head of Louisiana’s Department of Health and Hospitals

Full Story: Oil spill: BP accused of using Gulf of Mexico as ‘toxic testing-ground’ – Telegraph.

OPS: Say good-bye to an Ocean and an ecosystem

5 Simple Steps to Cure IBS

Imagine having a condition with symptoms so severe that you can’t leave the house, yet your doctor calls it a “functional,” or “psychosomatic,” disease — meaning that it’s all in your head.

But it’s a very real problem for the 60 million people — that’s 20 percent of Americans — who have irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). These people are plagued by uncomfortable and often disabling symptoms like bloating, cramps, diarrhea, constipation and pain.

I have many patients with IBS, some of whom have suffered for decades without relief. Their previous doctors couldn’t find the cause of the illness, so they were told to just get more fiber or take Metamucil, or were prescribed sedatives, anti-spasm drugs, or antidepressants.

That is NOT the answer. Most of those treatments don’t work because they don’t address the underlying causes of why your digestion is not working. Emerging research has helped identify the underlying causes. For over 15 years I have been successfully treating irritable bowel syndrome and other digestive conditions using a very simple methodology based on Functional Medicine (www.functionalmedicine.org) that helps identify and remove the underlying causes and restores normal digestive function and health.

Full Story: Mark Hyman, MD: 5 Simple Steps to Cure IBS.

Secretive Speed Traders In Spotlight After Flash Crash On Wall Street

If you saw a penny on the sidewalk, would you pick it up?

You may think it’s not worth the effort, but a breed of investors who have been in the news do. Using super-fast computers, high-frequency traders in effect bend down to pick up pennies lying about in the stock market – then do it again, sometimes thousands of times a second.

More than a week after the Dow Jones industrial average fell nearly 1,000 points, its biggest intraday drop ever, regulators are still sifting through buy and sell orders to figure out what sparked it. One big focus are orders placed by high-frequency traders, or HFTs, and for good reason. These quick-buck firms barely existed a few years ago but now account for two-thirds of all U.S. stock trading.

In other words, all those TV pictures of the stately New York Stock Exchange building on the evening news are an illusion. The real action on Wall Street is far away in Kansas City, Mo., and in New Jersey, in towns like Carteret and Red Bank, where HFTs named Tradebot and Wolverine and Tradeworx ply their trade.

Full Story: Secretive Speed Traders In Spotlight After Flash Crash On Wall Street.

Pat Leahy Throws Cold Water On Obama’s Hope For Miranda Fix (VIDEO)

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-V.T.) on Sunday threw a bit of cold water on chatter that the administration would seek a legislative fix to expand the amount of time a terrorist suspect could be interrogated without reading Miranda warnings.

Congressional action isn’t out of the realm of possibility, Leahy said. But the scope of what lawmakers could do is limited by the fact that the Supreme Court has ruled Miranda warnings to be a constitutional right.

“I sat down and talked with the president about this,” Leahy said during an appearance on ABC’s “This Week.” “The question is not so much whether I’m concerned about the civil rights one way or another, it is what a court will agree to. After all, it was the Supreme Court that set down the rules of Miranda. Whatever changes might be made, have to made within the confines of what the United States Supreme Court has already said.

Full Story: Pat Leahy Throws Cold Water On Obama’s Hope For Miranda Fix (VIDEO).

Mary Glasspool, First Openly Gay Female Bishop, Ordained By Episcopal Church

Seven years after the Episcopal Church caused an uproar by consecrating its first openly gay bishop, it has done the same thing again – only this time with a woman.

The Rev. Canon Mary Glasspool, of Baltimore, was ordained and consecrated on Saturday, making her the second openly gay bishop in church history and one of the first two female bishops in the Diocese of Los Angeles’ 114-year history.

She was installed at Long Beach Arena before 3,000 people, who burst into applause at the end, church spokesman Bob Williams said.

Full Story: Mary Glasspool, First Openly Gay Female Bishop, Ordained By Episcopal Church.

Delete Your Facebook Account: ‘Quit Facebook Day’ Wants Users To Leave

As controversy swells around Facebook’s latest changes to its privacy policy–which is now longer than the Constitution and offers some 50 settings and over 170 options–users’ interest in deleting their Facebook accounts has soared.

A group of dissatisfied Facebook users have teamed up in an effort to organize a mass, coordinated exodus from Facebook–and they’re using social networks to do it.

Their site, QuitFacebookDay.com, asks users to “commit to quit” Facebook on May 31 by signing their name or Twitter handle to the list of pledges.

The cause has attracted several hundred pledges–about 780 at the time of writing.

There’s also a Facebook Page devoted to the planned exit.

Full Story: Delete Your Facebook Account: ‘Quit Facebook Day’ Wants Users To Leave.

Bomb Designer, Mars Expert Sent by Obama to Fix Oil Spill

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu signaled his lack of confidence in the industry experts trying to control BP Plc’s leaking oil well by hand-picking a team of scientists with reputations for creative problem solving.

Dispatched to Houston by President Barack Obama to deal with the crisis, Chu said Wednesday that five “extraordinarily intelligent” scientists from around the country will help BP and industry experts think of back-up plans to cut off oil from the well, leaking 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) below sea-level.

Members of the Chu team are credited with accomplishments including designing the first hydrogen bomb, inventing techniques for mining on Mars and finding a way to precisely position biomedical needles.

Full Story: Bomb Designer, Mars Expert Sent by Obama to Fix Oil Spill – Bloomberg.

‘Star Wars’ meets reality? Military testing laser weapons

Are we finally witnessing the dawn of the “death ray”?

Five decades after the creation of the laser, the ubiquitous technology of the modern era may be ready to serve up that Star Wars science-fiction staple: the laser blaster.

Advances in the technology have made it possible for military testers to shoot down incoming mortar rounds with land-based lasers, and military commanders are on the verge of being able to fire laser blasts from the air that could be aimed at tanks or mines.

“We literally are the invisible death ray, let me tell you,” says Mike Rinn of Boeing’s Airborne Laser Program in Seattle, a missile- defense effort, one among dozens of Defense Department-supported “directed energy” programs run by military contractors such as Boeing, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman.

“This beam is invisible to the naked eye; you can’t see it.”

Full Story: ‘Star Wars’ meets reality? Military testing laser weapons – USATODAY.com.

Gulf Spill: BP Gets Go Ahead For Full-scale Underwater Use Of Dispersants

Approval can be pulled if harm outweighs benefits

All week, U.S. federal agencies have been evaluating an unprecedented use of oil dispersants: to break up crude spewing from the seafloor. BP won preliminary approval to try them in limited tests against an ongoing torrent of oil spewing from the base of a devastated exploration rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Late morning on May 15, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Coast Guard issued their joint approval for a scale-up of the novel subsea application of these chemicals.

“Based on the scientific analysis of the EPA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and review by the National Response Team, it has been determined that the use of dispersants at the subsea source is the prudent and responsible action to take along with other tactics including surface dispersant, skimming and controlled burns,” said Coast Guard Admiral Thad W. Allen, the spill’s national incident commander.

Dispersants have been employed widely to treat surface oil spills. But in a May 12 briefing, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson noted that things are so bad in the Gulf right now that all reasonable emergency measures must be considered – including the experimental use of dispersants undersea, before oil reaches the surface.

Full Story: Gulf Spill: BP Gets Go Ahead For Full-scale Underwater Use Of Dispersants – Science News.

OPS: some of these dispersants contain “petroleum distillates’ : Paint Thinner.  Say good-bye to an Ocean.

Greek Leader Considers Action Against US Banks

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou is not ruling out taking legal action against U.S. investment banks for their role in creating the spiraling Greek debt crisis.

Papandreou told CNN on Sunday that ”I wouldn’t rule out” going after the U.S. banks.

The government, as well as many Greeks, have blamed international banks for fanning the flames of the debt crisis with comments about Greece’s likely default.

The Greek leader also says a parliamentary investigation will soon examine the rapid swelling of Greece’s debt and the country’s banking practices.

Full Story: Greek Leader Considers Action Against US Banks – NYTimes.com.

OPS: The American Taxpayer should be doing the same

US warns on Thailand travel, evacuating staff

The United States warned its citizens Saturday to avoid non-essential travel to Thailand and began evacuating non-essential embassy staff and families due to unrest in the country.

The State Department said in a statement it would allow non-essential US personnel and their dependents to leave Bangkok if they chose due to escalating violence.

“US citizens should defer all travel to Bangkok and defer all non-essential travel to the rest of Thailand,” a statement said.

“The Department of State has authorized the departure of all non-emergency US government personnel and eligible family members from Bangkok,” the statement added.

Full Story: US warns on Thailand travel, evacuating staff – Yahoo! News.

Oil Washing Ashore at Island Off Louisiana Coast

Sands on Marshland Have Pinkish Oily Substance Washing Ashore in Confirmed Oil Sighting

Oil is washing up on the shores of New Harbor Island off the coast of Louisiana.

An Associated Press reporter saw a pinkish oily substance washing up Thursday on the sands and into the marshland at this part of the Chandeleur barrier islands chain.

It was at least the second time the AP has confirmed oil coming ashore. Oil was seen washing up at the mouth of the Mississippi last week.

On New Harbor island, birds are diving into the oily waters, but they didn’t seem to be in any distress. It’s nesting time for sea gulls and pelicans and the danger is they may be taking contaminated food or oil on feathers to their young.

Full Story: Oil Washing Ashore at Island Off Louisiana Coast – CBS News.

Obama plan would delay probable cause hearings to allow uninterrupted interrogations

In a move that’s being heavily criticized by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Obama administration is planning to ask Congress to delay terror suspects’ probable cause hearings as a way to allow interrogators additional time for questioning before the individual is informed of their rights or shown to a judge.

Standing law requires suspects be read their Miranda warning — the age-old “right to remain silent” in the presence of officers — and be presented to a judge to establish probable cause for imprisonment within six hours of detaining them, unless a judge is unavailable: a fact that did not go unnoticed by Talk Left.

“Just a year ago, the Supreme Court decided Corley v. U.S.,” the blog noted, quoting the ruling as saying:

Full Story: Obama plan would delay probable cause hearings to allow uninterrupted interrogations | Raw Story.

More troops hospitalized for mental health than any other reason

More U.S. troops were hospitalized for mental health disorders than any other reason in 2009.

Mental health hospitalizations throughout the military topped injuries, battle wounds and even pregnancy and childbirth for the first time in 15 years of tracking by the Pentagon’s Medical Surveillance Monthly report.

USA Today’s Gregg Zoroya broke the news Friday.

Mental health care accounted for almost 40% of all days spent in hospitals by servicemembers last year, the report said. Of those hospitalizations, 5% lasted longer than 33 days. For most other conditions, fewer than 5% of hospitalizations exceeded 12 days, the report said.

In 2009, there were 17,538 hospitalizations for mental health issues throughout the military, the study shows. That compares with 17,354 for pregnancy and childbirth reasons, and 11,156 for injuries and battle wounds.

Full Story: More troops hospitalized for mental health than any other reason | Raw Story.

Gates takes aim at ‘gusher’ of defense spending

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates is vowing to rein in the Pentagon’s mushrooming budget and bloated bureaucracy, hoping to succeed where his predecessors mostly failed.

After having scaled back some major weapons programs, the former CIA director wants to cut up to 15 billion dollars a year in overhead costs, saying the United States can no longer afford a “gusher” of defense spending.

But Gates is venturing into treacherous political territory, as American lawmakers view cuts in defense programs as taboo, especially any changes to pay or benefits for service members and veterans.

After a May 8 speech that called for a modest overall rise in defense funding coupled with cost-saving measures, right-leaning commentators accused Gates and President Barack Obama of scheming to gut the American military.

Full Story: Gates takes aim at ‘gusher’ of defense spending | Raw Story.

OPS:  Here’s some perspective – click to enlarge

As oil continues to gush into the Gulf, Mississippi offers $75 gas cards to tourists who come to the region.

Hotel room cancellations are above 50 percent right now,

As ThinkProgress reported yesterday, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) has been an outlier amongst Gulf Coast governors, downplaying the BP oil spill instead of working to mitigate the disaster and rethinking the wisdom of offshore drilling. He has claimed that this new spill “it isn’t anything like Exxon Valdez” and is encouraging visitors to “[c]ome on down here and play golf, enjoy the beach, catch a fish.” Now, Mississippi officials are encouraging tourists to use more oil, offering people gas cards if they come to the region:

Gov. Haley Barbour said that the Mississippi Gulf Coast is open for business, despite the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

In an effort to encourage tourism, Mississippi Gulf Coast officials are offering $75 gas cards for those who book a two-night stay at one of the participating hotels or resorts listed online at www.gulfcoast.org. Resident can also sign up online for a chance to win one of four getaway packages.

Full Story: Think Progress » As oil continues to gush into the Gulf, Mississippi offers $75 gas cards to tourists who come to the region..

OPS: Trading an Ocean for a gas card

Pawlenty Hypocritically Supports Chamber Using Taxpayer Bailout Funds To Lobby Against Wall St Reform

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is the most powerful lobbying force fighting financial reform in Congress. Last month, the Chamber announced that it is “fundamentally” against reform efforts. Accordingly, the Chamber has hired top insider lobbyists to pressure Senators to water down the bill while running millions of dollars worth of television and online ads smearing Wall Street reform as a “government takeover.”

Historically, the Chamber’s role is to help big business achieve its goals — fighting the minimum wage, opposing health reform, pushing for outsourcing — while hiding the corporate identities of its funders. As ThinkProgress originally reported, many backers of the Chamber with a stake in financial reform are banks that were bailed out by taxpayer TARP funds. For instance, CitiGroup is a Chamber member that was bailed out by taxpayers and still has not repaid the money.

ThinkProgress recently caught up with Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN) to ask him about firms who are using bailout money to lobby against financial reform. Pawlenty became defensive when asked about this, eventually arguing that the Chamber has a right to use taxpayer money in lobbying because “it’s important that groups in a free society with free speech rights to express themselves in the public policy arena”:

Full Story: Think Progress » Pawlenty Hypocritically Supports Chamber Using Taxpayer Bailout Funds To Lobby Against Wall St Reform.

Saudi-funded Fox News contributor Newt Gingrich attacks Harvard for Saudi funding.

On Fox News this morning, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said President Obama “should withdraw” Elena Kagan’s Supreme Court nomination. While calling her an “anti-military” nominee for upholding Harvard’s policy of prohibiting employers who discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, Gingrich got side-tracked for a moment and engaged in a Harvard-bashing critique:

On the one hand, Harvard accepts money from Saudis. Saudi Arabia, by the way, executes homosexuals. Saudi Arabia represses women. Saudi Arabia does not allow Christians or Jews to practice their religion, but Saudi money is fine.

Watch it: video at link

Full Story: Think Progress » Saudi-funded Fox News contributor Newt Gingrich attacks Harvard for Saudi funding..

The Terminator ‘Soaks the Poor’

Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The terminator has terminated futures for some 1.3 million citizens with sweeping budget cuts that affect only the poor. The terminator’s cuts eliminate CalWorks, the state’s main welfare program. Some 1.3 million –one million of which are children who will be left to fend for themselves with little choice but to turn to crime.

The rest will be unemployed, cut off, some left to starve or turn to crime. Is this what the GOP has mind? Is this an opportunistic move to fill up the corporate-owned prison, like those in Texas, in which every child that is left behind? Is this a deliberate move to provide ‘corporate-persons’ with slave labor because the ‘state’ has refused to support education?

This is slavery –pure and simple, a crime against humanity! Nothing in the old south was nearly so horrible.

Full Story: The Existentialist Cowboy: The Terminator ‘Soaks the Poor’.

Quest for oil leaves trail of damage across the globe

Like many of her neighbors, Celina Harpe is angry about the oil pollution at her doorstep. No longer can she eat the silvery fish that dart along the shore near her home. Even the wind that hurries over the water reeks of oil waste.

“I get so mad,” she said. “I feel very sad.”

Harpe, 70, isn’t a casualty of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. She lives in a remote corner of Alberta, Canada, where another oil field that’s vital to the United States is damaging one of the world’s most important ecosystems: Canada’s northern forest.

Across the globe, people such as Harpe in oil-producing regions are watching the catastrophe in the Gulf with a mixture of horror, hope and resignation. To some, the black tide is a global event that finally may awaken the world to the real cost of oil.

Full Story: Quest for oil leaves trail of damage across the globe | McClatchy.

‘Nobody is winning,’ admits McChrystal

The weakness of the Kabul government is hindering attempts by US and Nato forces to gain much ground from the insurgents

Afghan President Hamid Karzai arrived in London yesterday as US generals express doubts that the fight against the Taliban is having any success.

The US and Nato commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, who was boasting of military progress only three months ago, confessed last week that “nobody is winning”. His only claim now is that the Taliban have lost momentum compared with last year.

Mr Karzai’s reception in London and Washington highlights the political dilemma of the US and UK in Afghanistan since both have more or less openly denounced the corruption of his regime and the mass fraud at the polls by which he was re-elected last year.

Full Story: ‘Nobody is winning,’ admits McChrystal – Asia, World – The Independent.

OPS: This has destroyed  us just as it did the Soviet Union.

Republican Counter-Offer to Raising Oil Spill Liability Cap – Let BP’s Accountants Figure It Out!

Sensing an opportunity after Lisa Murkowski stood up for poor oppressed oil executives and blocked consideration of a rise in the liability cap for companies implicated in oil spills, Democrats plan to bring up the Menendez-Nelson-Lautenberg “Oil Company Bailout Prevention Act” again and again next week, daring Republicans to continue to block it. So in response, Republicans have put together their own bill, raising the liability cap to a floating, easily gamed number.

A day after Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski shot down a Democratic-led effort to lift the liability cap on oil companies, Florida Sen. George LeMieux and three other Gulf Coast Republicans introduced legislation they say would “dramatically increase” the industry’s liability.

The legislation — which also has the backing of Sens. David Vitter, R-La., Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. and Roger Wicker, R-Miss., would set a new cap equal to the last four quarters of the responsible party’s profits — or double the current limit, whichever is greater.

“BP is already responsible for the costs of the cleanup, but we must ensure taxpayers are not forced to pay for associated damages,” LeMieux said. He said economic damage from the spill will “far exceed” the current $75 million cap, and that under the bill, BP’s liability would jump to $17 billion dollars.

Full Story: Republican Counter-Offer to Raising Oil Spill Liability Cap – Let BP’s Accountants Figure It Out! | FDL News Desk.

OPS:  The problem is that Republicans don’t realize that they are insane.

Insurers warn of price hikes as Deepwater Horizon losses head for $3.5bn

Reinsurers and Lloyd’s of London say biggest loss in energy market since Piper Alpha will trigger rate rises

The insurance industry is forecasting a loss of up to $3.5bn (£2.4bn) from the growing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. This will be the biggest energy insurance loss in more than 20 years, and could drive up premiums.

According to Lloyd’s of London insurer Catlin, the 20 April explosion, which triggered an undersea well leak, will be the biggest loss in the energy market since the explosion of the Piper Alpha platform in 1988. A spiral of reinsurance losses from that disaster cost Lloyd’s £8bn between 1988 and 1992.

Swiss Re has estimated total insured losses from the oil rig at between $1.5bn and $3.5bn, and its own loss at $200m. JPMorgan Chase analyst Michael Huttner, who initially put the insurance industry’s liability at $1.6bn, says Swiss Re’s $3.5bn figure reflects additional costs if the oil comes ashore: “As soon as the oil hits the shore, it triggers additional policies linked to business disruption.”

Full Story: Insurers warn of price hikes as Deepwater Horizon losses head for $3.5bn | Environment | The Observer.

OPS: Well, recently we’ve had a major coal disaster and the worst oil related eco-disaster in US (world?) history and growing by the hour. Nuclear next for the trifecta? US Chernobyl on deck? Is the Nuke industry regulated by the same kind of clever Bush people that the Big O left in place?

Think about this: The oil and coal companies theoretically are insured by private, for profit, corporations, and the oil and coal companies pay for that insurance. The Nuclear industry is acknowledged as being SO dangerous that no private insurance company will insure them. They are insured by YOU and me through the Price–Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act

Giant Plumes of Oil Found Under Gulf of Mexico

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar visited a wildlife treatment center in Louisiana on Saturday.

Scientists are finding enormous oil plumes in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, including one as large as 10 miles long, 3 miles wide and 300 feet thick in spots. The discovery is fresh evidence that the leak from the broken undersea well could be substantially worse than estimates that the government and BP have given.

“There’s a shocking amount of oil in the deep water, relative to what you see in the surface water,” said Samantha Joye, a researcher at the University of Georgia who is involved in one of the first scientific missions to gather details about what is happening in the gulf. “There’s a tremendous amount of oil in multiple layers, three or four or five layers deep in the water column.”

The plumes are depleting the oxygen dissolved in the gulf, worrying scientists, who fear that the oxygen level could eventually fall so low as to kill off much of the sea life near the plumes.

Full Story: Giant Plumes of Oil Found Under Gulf of Mexico – NYTimes.com.

OPS: Seize ALL assets of BP, Halibutron and Transoceanic until they have paid every penny.

Asphalt volcanoes discovered off California: 40,000 years ago

Seven small undersea “volcanoes” that once spewed asphalt into the Pacific Ocean have been mapped off the coast of California. They could be the cause of a prehistoric marine dead zone thought to exist in the area.

David Valentine and colleagues at the University of California, Santa Barbara, surveyed the sea floor and discovered the mounds, the largest of which rises 20 metres above the seabed, made from tar. Some were still releasing methane. It is the first time that asphalt volcanoes have been identified in the area. Valentine says they formed as sticky hydrocarbons seeped from the seabed around 40,000 years ago.

Methane would also have been released at a rate that greatly exceeds today’s output, with devastating consequences for the local ecosystem. The gas would have attracted bacteria that metabolise methane and deplete oxygen. That fits with analysis of sea-floor sediments, which suggests that a dead zone of around 600 square kilometres formed here about 40,000 years ago.

Full Story: Asphalt volcanoes discovered off California – environment – 27 April 2010 – New Scientist.

How the Gulf of Mexico oil spill happened: a graphic presentation

Click to see a full size PDF file about what happened on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig.

NOLA -

Over two weeks after the catastrophic explosion and fire that killed 11 workers and caused the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, details are beginning to emerge about what went wrong. This diagram helps explain what was supposed to happen, and what failed.

Full Story: How the Gulf of Mexico oil spill happened: a graphic presentation | NOLA.com.

OPS:  We have to wonder if this ‘explanation’ is as accurate as the official explanations of: The Magic Bullet, 2000 Presidential ‘Election’, 9-11, The Anthrax Attack…..

GOP’s Utah and Maine conventions show a party coming unglued

Dana Milbank -

Future historians tracing the crackup of the Republican Party may well look to May 8, 2010, as an inflection point.

That was the day, as is now well known, that Sen. Robert Bennett, who took the conservative position 84 percent of the time over his career, was deemed not conservative enough by fellow Utah Republicans and booted out of the primary.

Less well known, but equally ominous, is what happened that same day, 2,500 miles east in Maine. There, the state Republican Party chucked its platform — a sensible New England mix of free-market economics and conservation — and adopted a manifesto of insanity: abolishing the Federal Reserve, calling global warming a “myth,” sealing the border, and, as a final plank, fighting “efforts to create a one world government.”

Full Story: Dana Milbank – GOP’s Utah and Maine conventions show a party coming unglued.

New Study on Milk Quality Runs Away from Its Own Findings

A Monsanto-funded study by scientists at Cornell University measured the concentrations of heart-healthy fatty acids in 292 samples of conventional rbST, and organic whole milk. The study was needed, according to the authors, to clear up “confusion” among consumers over nutritional differences between conventional, rbST, and organic milk.

The team found significant differences in the two key fatty acids that are higher in organic milk – conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) and omega 3 fatty acids. CLA levels were 23% higher in the organic milk compared to conventional and rbST milk, and omega 3 levels were 63% higher.

The authors dismissed the differences as not nutritionally relevant, reflecting accurately their opinions but not hundreds of studies on the health benefits of elevated CLA and omega 3 intakes.

Full Story: New Study on Milk Quality Runs Away from Its Own Findings.

James K. Galbraith: Why the ‘Experts’ Failed to See How Financial Fraud Collapsed the Economy

Galbraith to senators: “I write to you from a disgraced profession. Economic theory … failed miserably to understand the forces behind the financial crisis.”

Editor’s Note: The following is the text of a James K. Galbraith’s written statement to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee delivered this May.

Chairman Specter, Ranking Member Graham, Members of the Subcommittee, as a former member of the congressional staff it is a pleasure to submit this statement for your record.

I write to you from a disgraced profession. Economic theory, as widely taught since the 1980s, failed miserably to understand the forces behind the financial crisis. Concepts including “rational expectations,” “market discipline,” and the “efficient markets hypothesis” led economists to argue that speculation would stabilize prices, that sellers would act to protect their reputations, that caveat emptor could be relied on, and that widespread fraud therefore could not occur. Not all economists believed this – but most did.

Thus the study of financial fraud received little attention. Practically no research institutes exist; collaboration between economists and criminologists is rare; in the leading departments there are few specialists and very few students. Economists have soft- pedaled the role of fraud in every crisis they examined, including the Savings & Loan debacle, the Russian transition, the Asian meltdown and the dot.com bubble. They continue to do so now. At a conference sponsored by the Levy Economics Institute in New York on April 17, the closest a former Under Secretary of the Treasury, Peter Fisher, got to this question was to use the word “naughtiness.” This was on the day that the SEC charged Goldman Sachs with fraud.

Full Story: James K. Galbraith: Why the ‘Experts’ Failed to See How Financial Fraud Collapsed the Economy | | AlterNet.

OPS:  remember the Three Stooges routine:

“I can’t see! I can’t see!”

“Why not kid?”

“I’ve got my eyes closed”

Will the Wall Street Banksters Ever Be Held Accountable?

Director, Plunder The Crime of Our Time

We are all still stuck in the “big Muddy.” No, not the wars of old or even the oil disaster. The mud I am referring to is more like quicksand and it sucks anyone who wants to look at what happened in the financial crisis deeper and deeper into it.

Soon, you are buried in shifting sea of so-called “exotic financial instruments,” and tranches, derivatives, credit default swaps, naked short-selling, etc and so forth, ad fin item. It’s murkier in there than in the oil-infested waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

Stop, my head hurts.

A far simpler explanation, pervasive fraud and financial crime, has been ignored by most of our economic geniuses. As I made my film Plunder The Crime of Our Time offering a “crime narrative,” I ran up against the denial that greeted my 2006 film In Debt We Trust warning of a meltdown. Then I was called, a “doom and gloomer.” Now I have just been ignored or considered simplistic.

Full Story: Will the Wall Street Banksters Ever Be Held Accountable? | CommonDreams.org.

Lawsuit to Challenge Salazar’s Wholesale Disregard of Marine Mammal Protection Laws in Gulf of Mexico

"Under Salazar's watch, the Department of the Interior has treated the Gulf of Mexico as a sacrifice area where laws are ignored and wildlife protection takes a backseat to oil-company profits," said Miyoko Sakashita, oceans director for the Center for

400-plus Oil Projects Illegally Approved by Salazar Without Permits to Harm Endangered Whales

The Center for Biological Diversity today filed a formal notice of intent to sue Interior Secretary Ken Salazar for ignoring marine-mammal protection laws when approving offshore drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico. Since Salazar took office, the Department of the Interior has approved three lease sales, more than 100 seismic surveys, and more than 300 drilling operations without permits required by the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act that are designed to protect endangered whales and other marine mammals from harmful offshore oil activities.

“Under Salazar’s watch, the Department of the Interior has treated the Gulf of Mexico as a sacrifice area where laws are ignored and wildlife protection takes a backseat to oil-company profits,” said Miyoko Sakashita, oceans director for the Center.

Seismic exploration surveys, which are used by oil companies to search for oil, generate sounds loud enough to cause hearing loss in marine mammals, can disturb essential behaviors such as feeding and breeding, and mask communications between individual whales and dolphins. A single seismic survey carried out by scientists in the Gulf in 2007 was estimated to expose more than 3,000 whales and dolphins to dangerous sounds. More than 100 such surveys by the industry have been approved by Salazar since he took office in January 2009, all without any authorization to harm or harass marine mammals.

Full Story: Lawsuit to Challenge Salazar’s Wholesale Disregard of Marine Mammal Protection Laws in Gulf of Mexico | CommonDreams.org.

Stocks Fall On Europe Fears

Stocks tumbled for a second day Friday after concerns grew that the deep spending cuts under Europe’s bailout plan would slow a global recovery.

The Dow Jones industrial average ended down 163 points but closed well off its lows of the day. The Dow and other indexes posted big gains for the week after rocketing higher Monday on hopes that Europe’s emergency loan package would prevent a debt crisis in Greece from spreading. Enthusiasm about the plan wore off as the week went on.

The drop in U.S. markets Friday followed a slide of more than 3 percent in European indexes. The euro dropped to a 19-month low against the dollar and is close to its lowest level in four years as confidence in Europe’s ability to contain its fiscal problems wanes.

Full Story: Stocks Fall On Europe Fears.

Bill Maher: Why Can’t Liberals Get A Liberal On Supreme Court? (VIDEO)

Newly re-elected Newark Mayor Cory Booker, Daily Beast columnist John Avlon, and author S.E. Cupp appeared on Bill Maher’s “Real Time” panel Friday.

Maher began the discussion with the topic of Elena Kagan’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Pointing to questions about Kagan’s judicial philosophy, Maher wondered why President Obama would nominate a person who is a “huge question mark.”

“I find it very scary that the liberals win two elections in a row, the Democrats at least, and the best they can put on the Supreme Court is a huge question mark,” Maher said. “The Republicans don’t do it that way. Bush wins an election, he gets John Roberts a known, dyed in the wool conservative on the court. He gets Alito. Why can’t the liberals get somebody who’s a liberal on the court to balance it.?”

Full Story: Bill Maher: Why Can’t Liberals Get A Liberal On Supreme Court? (VIDEO).

Google Private Data Collection: Company ADMITS Snooping Via WiFi Networks

G-SPY Google Grabbed Personal Info Off Wi-Fi Networks During ‘Street View’ Sweeps

In a blog post published Friday, Google admitted to ‘mistakenly’ collecting sensitive private data sent over WiFi networks.

Germany’s data protection authority (DPA) requested Google audit the WiFi data collected by its Street View cars. The audit revealed that contrary to the company’s claims, for at least three years, Google has been collecting payload data (the information users send over a wireless network) from non-password-protected WiFi networks. A programming error from 2006 was at fault.

Explaining how this collection of sensitive data occurred, Google’s Senior VP of Engineering & Research Alan Eustace said, “Quite simply, it was a mistake.” He explained, “An engineer working on an experimental WiFi project wrote a piece of code that sampled all categories of publicly broadcast WiFi data. A year later, when our mobile team started a project to collect basic WiFi network data like SSID information and MAC addresses using Google’s Street View cars, they included that code in their software—although the project leaders did not want, and had no intention of using, payload data.”

Google outlined the steps it plans to take as a result of the mistake. The company says it intends to delete the data “as quickly as possible.” It has already grounded its Street View cars, and will halt collection of WiFi network data.

Full Story: Google Private Data Collection: Company ADMITS Snooping Via WiFi Networks.

Repairing The Job Machine

More jobs might be created this year than during George W. Bush’s presidency.

If the economy produces jobs over the next eight months at the same pace as it did over the past four months, the nation will have created more jobs in 2010 alone than it did over the entire eight years of George W. Bush’s presidency.

That comparison comes with many footnotes and asterisks. But it shows how the economic debate between the parties could look very different over time — perhaps by November, more likely by 2012. More important, the comparison underscores the urgency of repairing an American job-creation machine that was sputtering long before the 2008 financial meltdown.

First, the numbers: From February 2001, Bush’s first full month in office, through January 2009, his last, total U.S. nonfarm employment grew from 132.5 million to 133.5 million, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s an increase, obviously, of just 1 million. From January through April of this year, the economy created 573,000 jobs. Over a full year, that projects to 1.72 million jobs. Job-creation numbers are notoriously volatile, so the actual result could run above or below that estimate. But Obama administration economists are increasingly optimistic that job growth this year will exceed expectations. Few of them will be surprised if more jobs are created in 2010 than over Bush’s two terms.

Full Story: National Journal Magazine – Repairing The Job Machine.

Bangkok tense after 16 die in clashes

Plumes of smoke could be seen over a tense Bangkok early Saturday as the death toll from the latest clashes between the Thai army and anti-government “Red Shirt” protesters hit 16.

Violence continued overnight after troops on Friday opened fire on demonstrators during a military lockdown of their vast fortified rally site in the heart of Bangkok.

Soldiers have blocked roads and set up checkpoints to seal off the area around the wider protest site, which extends for several square kilometres (miles).

The protesters, who are trying to bring down the government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, threw stones, used slingshots and launched fireworks at the troops as the two-month standoff descended into more violence.

Full Story: Bangkok tense after 16 die in clashes – Yahoo! News.

Republicans search schoolroom, remove pro-labor teaching materials

‘A Republican was here. What gives you the right to propagandize impressionable kids?’

Teachers at a middle school in Portland, Maine, are upset with attendees of a Republican convention who rifled through teachers’ materials in a classroom they were using and reportedly stole materials from the room, replacing it with GOP slogans.

Officials from the Maine Republican Party quickly apologized this week after local news sources reported on an incident at Portland’s King Middle School. Eighth-grade social studies teacher Paul Clifford returned to his classroom following a meeting of the Knox County Republican caucus there to find that his teachers’ materials had been rifled through and a poster outlining the history of the US labor movement was missing, replaced with a bumper sticker that reads, “Working People Vote Republican,” reports the Portland Press-Herald.

What’s more, according to the Bangor Daily News, the Republican operatives also rifled through a closed cardboard box containing copies of the US Constitution, donated by the American Civil Liberties Union. And Clifford found a note nearby that stated, “A Republican was here. What gives you the right to propagandize impressionable kids?”

Full Story: Republicans search schoolroom, remove pro-labor teaching materials | Raw Story.

President Obama, Bringing the Truthiness on Afghanistan

Michael Moore: Video

President Obama told reporters on May 12, 2010, that “we’re beginning to reverse the momentum of the insurgency” in Afghanistan.

According to his administration’s own report given to Congress last week, that’s not true. The insurgency is growing in size and capabilities. Simply put, the president’s continued troop increases aren’t working.

Full Story: President Obama, Bringing the Truthiness on Afghanistan | MichaelMoore.com.

Detroit to Demolish 10,000 Abandoned Properties

Wrecking crews are preparing to tear down a landmark 5,000-square-foot house in the posh neighborhood of Palmer Woods in the coming weeks, a sign that Detroit is finally getting serious about razing thousands of vacant and abandoned structures across the city.

In leveling 1860 Balmoral Drive, the boyhood home of one-time presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Detroit is losing a small piece of its history. But the project is part of a demolition effort that is just now gaining momentum and could help define the city’s future.

Detroit is finally chipping away at a glut of abandoned homes that has been piling up for decades, and intends to take advantage of warm weather and new federal funding to demolish some 3,000 buildings by the end of September.

Full Story: Detroit to Demolish 10,000 Abandoned Properties – WSJ.com.

OPS: Just like the 1930′s Great Depression dust bowl, without the dust.  And this hasn’t been the second Republican Great Depression?  Wonder how many homes were demolished in the 30′s?

Obama to fund Israel’s missile system

US President Barack Obama wants Congress to pay Israel more than $200 million to fund a new missile system, the White House spokesman says.

Obama has asked Congress to approve the aid so that Israel could deploy a controversial missile system called the “Iron Dome.”

White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said on Thursday that Washington recognizes the need for Israel to have such a system.

Israel has completed tests in January on the short-range anti-missile system which is designed to intercept rockets and artillery shells.

“As the president has repeatedly said, our commitment to Israel’s security is unshakable and our defense relationship is stronger than ever,” said Vietor.

Full Story: Obama to fund Israel’s missile system.

Peak Soil: It’s Like Peak Oil, Only Worse

Resource collapse is bigger than peak oil, and bigger even than the projected depletion of natural gas, coal and uranium – it encompasses each and every natural resource extracted, exploited or otherwise processed on an industrial scale.

This is not to deny peak oil, or the subsequent decline of all the other hydrocarbons that are essential to our lives and economies; the point is that even if we switched to renewable energy tomorrow, we would still not be out of the mess that we’re in. We’re experiencing problems with our living environment – climate, soil and water – that are more than just energy issues.

Once again, Hubbert’s model can be applied to any finite resource we extract from the Earth. If it’s tragic that we are burning through all available resources with no thought for future consequences, it’s worse still to think that the payback will likely happen all together. We will probably find ourselves dealing with a widespread hydrocarbons collapse right when we have to face a greatly reduced global capacity to grow crops and find people enough water to drink.

The peak debate, although on the surface about energy security, comes back to food supply. So here I’m going to look at peak soil, peak water and peak phosphorous.

Full Story: Peak Soil: It’s Like Peak Oil, Only Worse « Wake-up Call.

The Salazar Quotient

How Big Oil Bought the Interior Department

By Billy Wharton -

Big oil and coal interests seemed to have reached their high point with the re-election of George W. Bush in 2004. He was a well-heeled oil man, as firmly committed to the military seizure of the world’s oil spigot, as he was hostile to the kind of science that spoke about anti-business notions such as global warming. However, the time of big energy was supposed to have faded with the election of Barack Obama to the presidency. Obama hailed the beginning of a new age of political sanity, where the US would be brought into line with global opinion about pressing issues such as carbon emissions and the transition to clean energy sources. Then, a humble Coloradan, with a cowboy hat that seemed permanently affixed to his head, named Ken Salazar ambled to the microphone to accept Obama’s nomination to be the new Secretary of the Department of the Interior (DOI). Somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico, a bird shuttered as the future of its habitat was being sealed by putting big energy back in charge of the one part of government capable of reining it in.

The Early Clashes

Salazar had a long record of clashes with environmental activists while serving as the Attorney General for the State of Colorado in the 1990s. One case with particularly ominous tones, given the current BP-oil spill cleanup, involved Salazar botching the Summitville Mine Superfund cleanup. The then Attorney General claimed that the Canadian-based Summitville Consolidated Mining Corp. would be made to pay for all of the environmental damage caused by their gold mining operation. In the end, Salazar’s inept negotiations and unwillingness to legally prosecute the company meant that millions of dollars in public funds were expended during the cleanup (Counterpunch, 12/18/2008). Salazar allowed Summitville to cut and run.

However, a good track record on environmental issues was not the new administration’s primary criteria as suitable candidates for Secretary of the DOI were considered. Political expediency was the guiding principle in this Obama appointment. Salazar fit the bill. He was likely to fly through confirmation hearings by bringing together an odd coalition of energy corporations and Republican senators preparing to make war against the new administration and big-name environmental groups. What ensued was one part political theatre – the backwoods, cowboy hat wearing Senator with rural sensibilities comes to the capital – and one part pure Washington power politics – yet another example of big corporations installing their representative into a position of decision-making power.

Full Story: Billy Wharton: The Salazar Quotient.

A World of Benefits from Biotechnology? For Whom?

When the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) met in Chicago last week they were, no doubt, elated to hear that the U.S. State Department would be aggressively confronting critics of agricultural biotechnology.

Wouldn’t you think the State Department might have more pressing issues than carrying water for Monsanto and the rest of the biotechnology industry?

Jose Fernandez, Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Economic, Energy and Business Affairs noted that the State Department was ready to take on the naysayers. In addition to confronting the critics, Fernandez stated they would be building alliances (presumably with the biotech industry and foreign governments), anticipating roadblocks to acceptance and highlighting the science.

Highlighting the science, that’s rich, to this point the only “science” they can highlight is the fact that nearly 100% of the commercially available genetically modified (GM) crops worldwide are engineered to be insecticidal, resistant to herbicide application, or both.

Full Story: A World of Benefits from Biotechnology? For Whom? | CommonDreams.org.

Ecosystem in Peril after Gulf Oil Spill

With engineers giving a best-case scenario of “weeks” before the catastrophic oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico is sealed, some scientists are warning that the region’s ecosystem could face major long-term damage.

As many as 70,000 gallons of oil per day have been gushing into the waters of the Gulf Coast since an oil rig operated by British Petroleum exploded on Apr. 20. The well itself is located at a depth of about 5,000 feet, presenting formidable obstacles to efforts to shut it down.

The spill is expected to ultimately eclipse the 11-million-gallon Exxon Valdez spill in 1989, the worst oil spill in U.S. history. It is not known how much oil could potentially pour into the Gulf before the leak is plugged.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says water sampling collected on May 1 and 2 along the Louisiana coast found chemicals associated with oil. “However, these results still indicate that water quality does not pose increased risk to aquatic life, such as fish and shellfish,” the agency said in a statement.

“As of May 4, 2010, water sampling results off the Gulf Coast still indicate that water quality does not pose increased risk to aquatic life,” the EPA said.

Full Story: Ecosystem in Peril after Gulf Oil Spill – IPS ipsnews.net.

Papantonio: BP, Does Their Conduct Rise to Manslaughter

As the BP oil spill investigation heats up, the question has arisen as to whether or not BP’s negligence (which led to the deaths of 11 men) border on manslaughter. Mike Papantonio appears on MSNBC’s The Ed Show to discuss the possibilty of criminal convictions against BP.

Scientists find oil plume below Gulf’s surface

Since the Gulf of Mexico oil spill began three weeks ago, most eyes and cameras have been focused on the widening, orange slick. But now, as experts argue that the flow rate could far exceed the government’s estimate of 210,000 gallons a day, a team of independent scientists studying the water in and around the disaster zone have found another problem: stores of leaked oil lingering beneath the surface in long, stringy filaments and snowflake-like collections.

“It doesn’t float right up on top as you would think,” Raymond Highsmith of the National Institute for Undersea Science and Technology tells AOL News. “Some of it floats right under the surface, and some of it now looks like it’s quite a ways down.”

Highsmith and his team, formed by a joint venture between the University of Mississippi and the University of Southern Mississippi, had been planning a seafloor mapping expedition when news of the spill began to get worse and worse. Their focused turned immediately to what might be happening to the oil as it rushed out. Given the depth of the source, they figured the leaked hydrocarbons wouldn’t take a direct path to the surface.

Full Story: Desdemona Despair: Scientists find oil plume below Gulf’s surface.

Lloyd Blankfein Dropped $26 Million In CASH On New Apartment

Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein dropped $26 million — in cash — on his new 15 Central Park West duplex.

And that was before Blankfein sold off his old apartment, a slightly “humbler” five-bedroom, seven-bath Park Avenue apartment.

According to Page Six, “The luxurious abode, asking $15 million last year, was most recently listed for $13.5 million — on top of which a buyer must pay $11,327 a month maintenance.”

Blankfein reportedly just accepted a bid on the place.

Full Story: Lloyd Blankfein Dropped $26 Million In CASH On New Apartment.

Wyden Rages At DeMint: ‘I Never, Ever Would Have Done That To Another Colleague’

A bipartisan effort to bring increased transparency to the system that allows individual senators to secretly hold up legislation and nominations collapsed in acrimony on Thursday evening. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) accused Sen. Jim DeMint of having “kneecapped” the legislation he’d offered with Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).

Declaring himself “flabbergasted,” Wyden railed against DeMint for attaching an unrelated amendment regarding a southern border fence to his transparency measure.

“I can’t recall another instance where the cause of open government took a beating — took a blindsiding — like the cause open government took this afternoon,” said the generally mild-mannered Wyden. “We didn’t win this afternoon because we got kneecapped.”
Full Story: Wyden Rages At DeMint: ‘I Never, Ever Would Have Done That To Another Colleague’.

BP CEO: Gulf Oil Spill ‘Relatively Tiny’

Don’t worry about that pesky oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, BP CEO Tony Hayward says: It’s “relatively tiny” compared to the “very big ocean.”

Hayward launched this novel defense of the worst spill in U.S. history during an interview with the Guardian that deserves a full read, especially with BP fighting the Obama administration’s push to make the company pay the full tab for cleanup costs. The BP chief executive acknowledged for the first time that he expects his future with the company to be “judged by the nature of the response” to the current crisis; this may help explain his stream of delaying tactics and excuses.

“We will fix it. I guarantee it. The only question is we do not know when,” Hayward told the Guardian. “The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume.”

Full Story: Tony Hayward, BP CEO: Gulf Oil Spill ‘Relatively Tiny’.

OPS: The latest expert estimates are : An Exxon Valdez sized disaster, EVERY 5 DAYS

Wall Street inquiry expands beyond Goldman Sachs

New York’s attorney general subpoenas eight banks and three ratings firms on their actions involving mortgage-backed securities.

The investigation that has been focused on Wall Street titan Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is widening to include questionable business practices of several other major banks.

New York Atty. Gen. Andrew Cuomo subpoenaed eight banks and three ratings firms late Wednesday, seeking information on how the banks may have tried to influence the ratings of mortgage-backed securities that eventually lost value with the housing market collapse.

The banks on Thursday confirmed receiving the subpoenas and said they would cooperate.

Full Story: Wall Street inquiry expands beyond Goldman Sachs – latimes.com.

Justice Dept. confirms criminal probe of mine

The Justice Department is investigating whether there was “willful criminal activity” by the company that operates the West Virginia mine where 29 workers died in an accident last month.

The U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of West Virginia says in a letter that investigators are looking into the actions by the mine’s operator, Performance Coal, its directors, officers and agents.

The letter, obtained by The Associated Press, asks the Labor Department to hold off pursuing dozens of civil cases against Performance Coal for mine safety violations.

Performance Coal is a subsidiary of Massey Energy Co., which owns the Upper Big Branch mine.

Full Story: Justice Dept. confirms criminal probe of mine – Bay News 9.

Schwarzenegger unveils budget plan: slashes welfare, mental health

The governor’s proposal would eliminate the state’s welfare-to-work program and most child care for the poor. ‘California no longer has low-hanging fruits,’ he says.

Proposing a budget that would eliminate the state’s welfare-to-work program and most child care for the poor, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger outlined on Friday a stark vision of a California that would no longer lend a helping hand to some of its poorest and neediest citizens.

His $83.4-billion plan would also freeze funding for local schools, further cut state workers’ pay and take away 60% of state money for local mental health programs. State parks and higher education are among the few areas the governor’s proposal would spare.

The proposal, which would not raise taxes, also relies on $3.4 billion in help from Washington — roughly half of what the governor sought earlier this year — to help close a budget gap now estimated at $19.1-billion. Billions of dollars more would be saved through accounting moves and fund shifts.

Full Story: Schwarzenegger unveils budget plan – latimes.com.

Buchanan: With Kagan, too many Jews on Supreme Court bench

Given Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan’s general lack of a judicial record, conservative opponents of the Obama administration are having some difficulty finding an issue on which to criticize the former Harvard Law dean and current solicitor-general.

Which is not to say they’re not trying: There is the issue of Kagan’s sexuality, which has become a source of discontent for some right-wing pundits; and there’s also the standard fall-back accusation against anyone suspected of not being conservative — the “socialist” label.

But conservative commentator Pat Buchanan has found a different way to criticize the president’s choice of Supreme Court judge: Kagan’s Jewishness.

Full Story: Buchanan: With Kagan, too many Jews on Supreme Court bench | Raw Story.

Experts: BP disaster spilling the equivalent of two Exxon Valdezes a week.

Based on “sophisticated scientific analysis of seafloor video made available Wednesday,” Steve Wereley, an associate professor at Purdue University, told NPR the actual spill rate of the BP oil disaster is about 3 million gallons a day — 15 times the official guess of BP and the federal government. Another scientific expert, Eugene Chiang, a professor of astrophysics at the University of California, Berkeley, calculated the rate of flow to be between 840,000 and four million gallons a day. These estimates mean that the Deepwater Horizon wreckage could have spilled about five times as much oil as the 12-million-gallon Exxon Valdez disaster, with relief only guaranteed by BP in three more months. Watch video of oil flooding out of one of the two remaining leaks, which BP had suppressed for weeks:

Full Story: Think Progress » Experts: BP disaster spilling the equivalent of two Exxon Valdezes a week..

Obama to Republicans: ‘You can’t drive!’

From holding up nominees to proposing frivolous amendments and gumming up committee hearings, the Republicans have tried nearly any tactic they could conceive to block progressive reforms. Last night, President Obama delivered a pointed and sharp political critique of Republicans. Employing a variety of metaphors to describe the GOP’s strategy of obstruction, Obama first likened Republicans to fussy supervisors. “We’ve got our mops and our brooms out here and were cleaning stuff out and they’re sitting there saying, ‘Hold the broom better, that’s not how you mop.’ Don’t tell me how to mop!” Obama said. “Pick up a mop!” The president then compared Republicans to bad drivers who once drove the car into a ditch and now want the keys back:

OBAMA: After they drove the car into the ditch, made it as difficult as possible for us to pull it back, now they want to keys back. No! You can’t drive! We don’t want to have to go back into the ditch. We just got the car out.

“You would have thought at a time of historic crisis that Republican leaders would have been more willing to help us find a way out of this mess,” Obama added. “Particularly since they created the mess.” Watch it:

Full Story: Think Progress » Obama to Republicans: ‘You can’t drive!’.

DeMint Blocks Bipartisan Effort To Rein In Secret Holds With Frivolous Border Amendment

“Of all the maddening practices that clog the arteries of the national legislature, the most infuriating may be the Senate institution known as the ‘secret hold,’” the Washington Post noted in an editorial this week. Secret holds allow senators to indefinitely prevent a presidential nominee from coming up for a vote, without ever having to provide a reason or identify themselves. Senate Republicans have used secret holds to an unprecedented degree under President Obama, and are currently anonymously blocking at least 52 nominees, all of whom were “noncontroversial in committee debate.”

Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) proposed new rules to rein in secret holds, but “Republicans thwarted” the bipartisan effort yesterday when Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) attached a poison pill amendment:

The Senate was expected to vote Thursday afternoon on an amendment by Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) restricting secret holds. But Wyden chose to withdraw the measure after Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) said he would attempt to attach to it language requiring construction of a 700-mile security fence along the Southwest border.

Full Story: Think Progress » DeMint Blocks Bipartisan Effort To Rein In Secret Holds With Frivolous Border Amendment.

Downplaying The BP Spill, Barbour Encourages Tourists To ‘Enjoy The Beach’ As Dead Dolphins Wash Ashore

While other Gulf state governors have been racing to mitigate the damage from the massive BP spill, or rethinking their support for offshore drilling, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) has been aggressively downplaying the disaster and bristling at comparisons to the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill. Barbour told radio host Bill Bennett last week that if the spill comes ashore, “it will have some effect,” but that “it isn’t anything like Exxon Valdez.” Later that day, on Fox News, Barbour suggested the oil had “turned around” and wouldn’t be “another Valdez situation.” And last Wednesday, Barbour said, “Some in the news media keep forcing this on the public as the equivalent of Exxon Valdez. Well, the difference is just enormous.”

He’s right. New analysis shows the spill is “already far larger” than the Exxon Valdez crash, and that it only takes a “few days, [or] at most a week” for the BP spill to release as much oil as the Valdez did. However, Barbour continues to try to wish away the spill, saying it could have a “minimal impact” on his state, and comparing it to a harmless gasoline sheen found around motor boats:

He told The Associated Press the oil spill could be disastrous for Mississippi’s coastal economy. Then he added: “But it’s just as possible that what happens here will be manageable and of moderate and even minimal impact.”

Full Story: Think Progress » Downplaying The BP Spill, Barbour Encourages Tourists To ‘Enjoy The Beach’ As Dead Dolphins Wash Ashore.

ANALYSIS: The GOP’s Use Of Frivolous Sex And Porn Amendments To Kill Substantive Bills

Yesterday, House Democrats were forced to scrap the COMPETES Act — a jobs bill to increase investments in science, research, and training programs. Despite initial bipartisan support, the bill went down suddenly as House Republicans staged a parliamentary ambush to insert a provision that would fire any federal worker “disciplined for violations regarding the viewing, downloading, or exchanging of pornography.”

The unadulterated partisan politics were on full display shortly before the vote. Rep. Lynn Jenkins (R-KS) unveiled the GOP porn amendment, announcing that it would be a referendum on the use of porn on government computers. However, Rep. Bart Gordon (D-TN) quickly took to the floor to denounce the minority party’s “embarrassing” gimmicks to “undermine an important bill for my 9-year-old daughter, for your kids and your grandkids”:

JENKINS: If you think spreading pornography with a government computer is an act that should lead to dismissal, then vote for this motion. [...]

GORDON: For God’s sakes. And when it gets to the conference, we’ll take care of that even more. But everyone raise your hand that’s for pornography. C’mon raise your hand. Nobody? Nobody is for pornography? Well I’m shocked so I guess we need this little bitty provision that means nothing is going to gut the entire bill. This is an embarrassment. If you vote for this, you should be embarrassed.

Watch it:

Full Story: Think Progress » ANALYSIS: The GOP’s Use Of Frivolous Sex And Porn Amendments To Kill Substantive Bills.

Maine GOP Forced To Apologize After Convention-Goers Vandalize An Eighth-Grade Classroom

Although Maine is known for its two moderate Republican senators — Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins — last week’s state GOP convention showed the growing influence of far-right activists. An “overwhelming majority of delegates” voted to “scrap the the proposed party platform and replace it with a document created by a group of Tea Party activists.” Maine Politics called it “a mix of right-wing fringe policies, libertarian buzzwords and outright conspiracy theories.”

The Republican convention was at the Portland Expo, but participants went to the nearby King Middle School to hold their caucuses. While there, they went through eighth-grade teacher Paul Clifford’s items, opened sealed boxes, stole a prized poster, and vandalized the room with Republican slogans. Some details on what they did:

– For seven years, Clifford has had “a collage-type poster depicting the history of the U.S. labor movement” on his classroom door. He uses it “to teach his students how to incorporate collages into their annual project on Norman Rockwell’s historic ‘Four Freedoms’ illustrations.” When Clifford returned to his classroom on Monday, after the GOP caucuses, the poster was gone; in its place was a sticker reading, “Working People Vote Republican.”

Full Story: Think Progress » Maine GOP Forced To Apologize After Convention-Goers Vandalize An Eighth-Grade Classroom.

The Truth About the Big Banks’ Unprecedented Lobbying Avalanche

The six biggest banks have hired at least 243 lobbyists to infiltrate and buy out the regulatory framework that’s supposed to keep the financial industry in check.

Over the course of the financial reform process, the six biggest banks and their murky trade associations have waged an historic assault on democracy, hiring hundreds of revolving door lobbyists and spending hundreds of millions of dollars to push their legislative agenda. I’ve detailed this all in a comprehensive report for Campaign for America’s Future and SEIU, which you ought read because it shows the extent to which these too-big-to-fail bank behemoths own Congress.

The report details how the Big Six banks hired 243 lobbyists who once worked in the federal government, including 202 who used to work in Congress, as well as others who worked at the Treasury, the White House, or a relevant federal agency like the SEC. This is at best a conflict of interest, and at worst, a takeover of all checks-and-balances on the financial industry.

All of this translates into an average of 40 revolving door lobbyists per big bank.

Full Story: The Truth About the Big Banks’ Unprecedented Lobbying Avalanche | Economy | AlterNet.

Drug Policy Disconnect: Is Obama Serious About Ending the War on Drugs?

Obama has promised to do away with the war on drugs. So far, policy is lagging.

The rhetoric has changed. According to new U.S. “drug czar” Gil Kerlikowske, who heads the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), the Obama administration doesn’t use the term “drug war” because the government shouldn’t be waging war against its own citizens. In March 2009, U.S. Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke described the opium poppy eradication effort in Afghanistan as “the most wasteful and ineffective program that I have seen in 40 years.” He bluntly stated that the U.S. government had wasted millions of dollars on a counterproductive program that generates political support for the Taliban and undermines nation-building efforts. And in his trip to Peru this past April, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Arturo Valenzuela noted that the fundamental problem is not coca cultivation itself, but poverty and inequality.

Yet the indigenous and Afro-Colombian groups along the Naya River on Colombia’s Pacific coast tell a different story. For the past three months, coca fumigation operations have taken place in one of the most biologically diverse regions of the world. Despite myriad concerns – from its ineffectiveness to the damage done to human health and the environment – the Obama administration remains committed to this fumigation strategy as well as to the overall Plan Colombia. The rhetoric may have changed for the better, but the reality of the how the U.S. “war on drugs” is waged on the ground in Latin America has not.

Full Story: Foreign Policy In Focus | Drug Policy Disconnect.

Chomsky: How the Tea Partiers Are Getting Screwed by Their Own Ideology

‘We should not underestimate the depth of moral indignation that lies behind the furious, often self-destructive bitterness about government and business power.”

Rustbelt Rage

Noam Chomsky:

On Feb. 18, Joe Stack, a 53-year-old computer engineer, crashed his small plane into a building in Austin, Texas, hitting an IRS office, committing suicide, killing one other person and injuring others.

An acute sense of betrayal comes readily to people who believed they had fulfilled their duty to society in a moral compact with business and government.

Stack left an anti-government manifesto explaining his actions. The story begins when he was a teenager living on a pittance in Harrisburg, Pa., near the heart of what was once a great industrial center.

His neighbor, in her ’80s and surviving on cat food, was the “widowed wife of a retired steel worker. Her husband had worked all his life in the steel mills of central Pennsylvania with promises from big business and the union that, for his 30 years of service, he would have a pension and medical care to look forward to in his retirement.

Full Story: Rustbelt Rage — In These Times.

Gulf Oil Spill Proves the Idiocy of Unfettered Deregulation

Government regulation of multinational corporations needs to be made respectable once again with adequately funded agencies pursuing an uncompromised public interest agenda.

Verify, Baby, Verify!

Robert Scheer

“Drill, baby, drill!” Those were the words that Sarah Palin used to electrify the 2008 Republican National Convention. But while she popularized that environment-be-damned slogan, it had already defined the eight years of oil-drilling policy that prevailed during the presidency of George W. Bush.

Those red state voters of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana whose livelihood is now threatened by the idiocy of that unfettered deregulatory stance might well be having second thoughts. So, too, those Democratic Party opportunists who had prevailed on President Barack Obama to one-up the GOP by vastly increasing the scope of offshore drilling.

Not so Palin, who last week took to Twitter to defend such inanities, blaming the oil spill problem not on lax regulation but rather on those damn foreigners. Ignoring the fact that her target alien company, British Petroleum, had employed her own husband, Palin tweeted: “Gulf: learn from Alaska’s lesson w/foreign oil co’s: don’t naively trust—VERIFY.”

Full Story: Robert Scheer: Verify, Baby, Verify! – Robert Scheer’s Columns – Truthdig.

West Coast senators seek ban on Pacific offshore drilling

Washington state sits on no known oil reserves, and no oil rigs dot its coast. Yet the state’s two U.S. senators on Thursday joined their colleagues from California and Oregon to propose permanently outlawing oil and natural-gas drilling in the outer Pacific shores.

Washington state sits on no known oil reserves, and no oil rigs dot its coast.

Yet the state’s two U.S. senators Thursday joined their colleagues from California and Oregon to propose permanently outlawing oil and natural-gas drilling in the outer Pacific shores.

The legislation’s immediate catalyst was the Deepwater Horizon rig blast, which continues to contaminate the Gulf of Mexico with an undersea crude-oil leak.

But the bill’s six sponsors — all Democrats — also aim to take a unified stance against any larger plans to drill the nation’s way out of dependence on fossil fuels

Full Story: Local News | West Coast senators seek ban on Pacific offshore drilling | Seattle Times Newspaper.

We’re Not Greece

Paul Krugman:

It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good, and the crisis in Greece is making some people — people who opposed health care reform and are itching for an excuse to dismantle Social Security — very, very happy. Everywhere you look there are editorials and commentaries, some posing as objective reporting, asserting that Greece today will be America tomorrow unless we abandon all that nonsense about taking care of those in need.

The truth, however, is that America isn’t Greece — and, in any case, the message from Greece isn’t what these people would have you believe.

So, how do America and Greece compare?

Both nations have lately been running large budget deficits, roughly comparable as a percentage of G.D.P. Markets, however, treat them very differently: The interest rate on Greek government bonds is more than twice the rate on U.S. bonds, because investors see a high risk that Greece will eventually default on its debt, while seeing virtually no risk that America will do the same. Why?

Full Story: Op-Ed Columnist – We’re Not Greece – NYTimes.com.

Republicans Protect BP In The Senate

GOP senators have blocked consideration of legislation that would force BP and other oil companies to pay the full amount for cleanup and other damage resulting from a spill, such as that currently underway in the Gulf of Mexico.

Republicans objected Thursday to the Big Oil Bailout Prevention Act, a Democratic bill that would raise the liability caps for oil companies from $75 million to $10 billion.

New Jersey Sens. Frank Lautenberg and Bob Menendez, as well as Florida Sen. Bill Nelson, introduced the legislation, as well as the companion bill, the Big Oil Bailout Prevention Trust Fund Act (S.3306) would remove the $1 billion “per incident” limit on total claims against the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund.

Full Story: On The Hill: Republicans Protect BP In The Senate.

Gulf Oil Leaks Could Gush for Years

National Geographic:

“We don’t have any idea how to stop this,” expert says.

If efforts fail to cap the leaking Deepwater Horizon wellhead in the Gulf of Mexico (map), oil could gush for years—poisoning coastal habitats for decades, experts say.

(See satellite pictures of the Gulf oil spill’s evolution.)

Last week the joint federal-industry task force charged with managing the spill tried unsuccessfully to lower a 93-ton containment dome (pictures) over one of three ruptures in the rig’s downed pipe.

Crystals of methane hydrates in the freezing depths clogged an opening on the box, preventing it from funneling the spouting oil up to a waiting ship.

Watch video of the failed attempt to cap the leaking pipe.

Full Story: Gulf Oil Leaks Could Gush for Years.

Psychiatric Solutions Executive Pay Probed by Justice Department

The U.S. Department of Justice has opened an investigation into executive compensation at Psychiatric Solutions Inc., which is the nation’s leading provider of inpatient mental health care and has been the subject of several stories by ProPublica.

According to a report filed earlier this week with the SEC, the Tennessee chain has received a subpoena demanding records related to executive salaries, stock sales, stock options and option exercises. The Justice Department also has asked for communications between company leaders, investors and investment firms, the filing says.

A story published today in the Tennessean, says the probe may have been triggered by the timing and composition of 2010 pay packages for top PSI managers, which were set about two weeks before reports surfaced in March that the company was in talks to be acquired. No deal has been struck to date. The 2010 pay packages boosted executives’ stock and option awards substantially over 2009 levels. The company’s stock price has risen since it confirmed buyout talks.

Full Story: On The Hill: Psychiatric Solutions Executive Pay Probed by Justice Department.

Is Your Senator on the Side of the People or the Banksters? Report Card: Banksters Winning in the Senate

The Financial Reform Report Card was put together by my colleague at the Mobilization for OUR Economy, www.forOUReconomy.org, David DeGraw of AmpedStatus.com. The report card lists senators and whether they are voting for the people’s interests, the banksters or their party. This report card is based on three critical votes concerning breaking up the big banks, a real audit of the Federal Reserve and a compromise, narrow, one-time audit of the Fed.

ForOUReconomy.org is bringing together people who want real financial reform in protests at big banks, crony capitalist Wall Streeters and others who are putting the interests of the economic elite ahead of the people. Sign up at www.ForOUReconomy.org. We are building a movement for an economy that shrinks the wealth divide, democratizes the economy and breaks-up the financial oligarchy.

Financial Reform Report Card: Banksters 37, People 10, Partisans 53

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Anheuser-Busch offers buyout packages to union workers

Syracuse, NY–Anheuser-Busch InBev said today that it has reached an agreement with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters on the terms of a buyout package for union workers at the company’s U.S. breweries, including the one in Lysander.

The company said it will offer about 300 packages to interested Teamster workers. The agreement provides for cash incentives based on years of service for employees who voluntarily resign.

Eligibility for pension and healthcare benefits are based on provisions of the local labor contracts at each brewery, the company said.

Anheuser-Busch employs about 800 workers at its Lysander plant on Route 31. Its contract with the Teamsters runs through 2013.

Officials from Teamsters Local 1149, which represents workers at the Lysander brewery, could not be reached for comment.

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