Archive for May, 2010
New target of rights erosions: U.S. citizens
Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com
A primary reason Bush and Cheney succeeded in their radical erosion of core liberties is because they focused their assault on non-citizens with foreign-sounding names, casting the appearance that none of what they were doing would ever affect the average American. There were several exceptions to that tactic — the due-process-free imprisonment of Americans Yaser Hamdi and Jose Padilla, the abuse of the “material witness” statute to detain American Muslims, the eavesdropping on Americans' communications without warrants — but the vast bulk of the abuses were aimed at non-citizens. That is now clearly changing.
The most recent liberty-abridging, Terrorism-justified controversies have focused on diluting the legal rights of American citizens (in part because the rights of non-citizens are largely gone already and there are none left to attack). A bipartisan group from Congress sponsors legislation to strip Americans of their citizenship based on Terrorism accusations. Barack Obama claims the right to assassinate Americans far from any battlefield and with no due process of any kind. The Obama administration begins covertly abandoning long-standing Miranda protections for American suspects by vastly expanding what had long been a very narrow “public safety” exception, and now Eric Holder explicitly advocates legislation to codify that erosion. John McCain and Joe Lieberman introduce legislation to bar all Terrorism suspects, including Americans arrested on U.S. soil, from being tried in civilian courts, and former Bush officials Bill Burck and Dana Perino — while noting (correctly) that Holder's Miranda proposal constitutes a concession to the right-wing claim that Miranda is too restrictive — today demand that U.S. citizens accused of Terrorism and arrested on U.S. soil be treated as enemy combatants and thus denied even the most basic legal protections (including the right to be charged and have access to a lawyer).
Full Story: New target of rights erosions: U.S. citizens – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.
Afghan war costs now outpace Iraq’s
The monthly cost of the war in Afghanistan, driven by troop increases and fighting on difficult terrain, has topped Iraq costs for the first time since 2003 and shows no sign of letting up.
Pentagon spending in February, the most recent month available, was $6.7 billion in Afghanistan compared with $5.5 billion in Iraq. As recently as fiscal year 2008, Iraq was three times as expensive; in 2009, it was twice as costly.
The shift is occurring because the Pentagon is adding troops in Afghanistan and withdrawing them from Iraq. And it’s happening as the cumulative cost of the two wars surpasses $1 trillion, including spending for veterans and foreign aid. Those costs could put increased pressure on President Obama and Congress, given the nation’s $12.9 trillion debt.
Full Story: Afghan war costs now outpace Iraq’s – USATODAY.com.
Petition For Unemployment Benefits Goes Viral, Garners 26,000 Signatures
Decker, a laid-off schoolteacher in Marin County, Calif., expected only a few people would sign her petition on Change.org demanding extra weeks of unemployment benefits from Congress.
“I thought it would get 30 or 40 friends’ signatures,” she said. Instead, as she put it, “It went viral.”
Decker posted her petition online on March 12. Two months later, it has more than 26,000 signatures. It’s the most popular user-generated petition Change.org has ever seen. It’s partly a testament to the huge problem of unemployment, partly a testament to the extremely dedicated online community of unemployed people.
“Some petitions have gotten more signatures, but those are petitions we do more promotion on,” said Change.org’s Matthew Slutsky. Change.org is a for-profit site built on “rapid-response social action campaigns” every week. “In terms of touching a vein, this has really taken off.”
Full Story: Petition For Unemployment Benefits Goes Viral, Garners 26,000 Signatures.
Federal Oversight Panel Slams Obama’s Small Business Plans, Says Administration Not Doing Enough
A federal oversight panel criticized the Obama administration’s attempts to boost small business lending, expressing doubts on everything from the plan’s promised success to whether the administration is taking the right approach.
The administration has proposed a host of programs fuel small business loans, which have nosedived over the last 20 months. However, the bulk of the money is centered on a TARP-like program that would invest up to $30 billion in taxpayer money into banks. The cost of the funds would decrease as banks increase their lending to small businesses.
“[S]mall business credit remains severely constricted,” according to the Thursday report issued by the Congressional Oversight Panel, the bailout watchdog. Lending “plummeted during the 2008 financial crisis and remained sharply restricted throughout 2009.” With Wall Street banks cutting lending and smaller banks “strained by their exposure to commercial real estate and other liabilities,” many small businesses “have had to shut their doors, and some of the survivors are still struggling to find adequate financing.”
Full Story: Federal Oversight Panel Slams Obama’s Small Business Plans, Says Administration Not Doing Enough.
Shell Arctic Drilling Plan Gets Court Approval
A federal appeals court Thursday removed a legal challenge standing in the way of Shell Oil’s plans to drill wells off Alaska’s shore this summer.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a case that challenged federal approval of Shell’s exploratory drilling plans in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas.
The expedited ruling followed oral arguments last week in Portland, Ore.
The court determined that the federal Minerals Management Service met its obligations to consider the potential threat to wildlife and the risk for disaster before it approved Shell’s Arctic Ocean project.
Full Story: Shell Arctic Drilling Plan Gets Court Approval.
Lewis Black: “Glenn Beck Has Nazi Tourette’s” (VIDEO)
Glenn Beck’s antics have always proved to be great fodder for the “Daily Show.” Lewis Black took it a step further with an entire segment mocking the Fox News host for his tendency to make everything Nazi-related.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Back in Black – Glenn Beck’s Nazi Tourette’s | ||||
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Full Story: Lewis Black: “Glenn Beck Has Nazi Tourette’s” (VIDEO).
College For All? Experts Say Not Necessarily
In a town dominated by the University of Missouri’s flagship campus and two smaller colleges, higher education is practically a birthright for high school seniors like Kate Hodges.
She has a 3.5 grade-point-average, a college savings account and a family tree teeming with advanced degrees. But in June, Hodges is headed to the Tulsa Welding School in Oklahoma, where she hopes to earn an associate’s degree in welding technology in seven months.
“They fought me so hard,” she said, referring to disappointed family members. “They still think I’m going to college.”
Full Story: College For All? Experts Say Not Necessarily.
OPS: Idiots.
Protectionism Didn’t Cause the Great Depression
The debate over free trade is riddled with myth after myth. One that keeps resurfacing again and again, no matter how many times it is discredited, is the idea that protectionism caused the Great Depression. One occasionally even hears that the same protectionism—specifically the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930— was responsible in significant part for World War Two! This is nonsense dreamed up for propaganda purposes by free traders, and can easily be debunked.
Let’s start by reminding ourselves of a basic fact: the Depression’s cause was monetary. The Federal Reserve had allowed the money supply to balloon excessively during the late 1920s, piling up in the stock market as a bubble. The Fed then panicked, miscalculated, and let the money supply collapse by a third by 1933, depriving the economy of the liquidity it needed to breathe. Trade had nothing to do with it.
The Smoot-Hawley tariff was simply too small a policy change to have so large an effect as triggering a Depression. For a start, it only applied to about one-third of America’s trade: about 1.3 percent of our GDP. One point three percent! America’s average tariff on goods subject to tariff went from 44.6 to 53.2 percent—not a very big jump at all. America’s tariffs were higher in almost every year from 1821 to 1914. Our tariffs went up in 1861, 1864, 1890, and 1922 without producing global depressions, and the great recessions of 1873 and 1893 spread worldwide without needing the help of any tariff increases.
Full Story: Protectionism Didn’t Cause the Great Depression | Economy In Crisis.
The Proudest Collapsing Country
Americans have become so oblivious or apathetic to our country’s peril, that they are unaware of how far gone the U.S. already is.
The United States must stop fooling itself. We are riding on the wealthy coattails of the elite who came before us, squandering away their wealth and faking the good life.
We no longer have the industrial productive capacity to sustain ourselves. In September alone industrial production plummeted to astounding lows that haven’t been witnessed in almost 34 years, according to Bloomberg.
In America, imported products dominate the purchases of U.S. households and businesses. Over 92 percent of the money Americans spend on footwear goes overseas. Americans purchase 90 percent of their audio and video equipment from foreign produced entities and 90 percent of the money Americans spend on leather travels back overseas.
Full Story: The Proudest Collapsing Country | Economy In Crisis.
Chinese Automakers Seeking to Gain Foothold in American Market
Already struggling to compete in a down economy against Asian automaking giants such as Honda, Toyota and Hyundai, Detroit’s Big Three could soon face stiff competition from Chinese automakers, who have long sought to gain a foothold in the lucrative North American auto market but have struggled mightily to do so.
China has rapidly grown into a manufacturing powerhouse, largely through the help of the World Trade Organization, exporting its products throughout the world and amassing a giant trade surplus in the process. China has become the world’s factory, producing everything from textiles to electronics to steel to consumer products.
One of the glaring weaknesses of China’s industrial rise has been its inability to compete against the world’s top automakers. While last year China surpassed the U.S. to become the world’s largest auto market and supplanted Japan as the top producer of autos, the Asian giant has been unable to make a dent in foreign markets. While China’s auto industry thrived domestically, their automakers exported just 369,600 vehicles in 2009.
Full Story: Chinese Automakers Seeking to Gain Foothold in American Market | Economy In Crisis.
China scientists find use for cigarette butts
Chemical extracts from cigarette butts — so toxic they kill fish — can be used to protect steel pipes from rusting, a study in China has found.
In a paper published in the American Chemical Society’s bi-weekly journal Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, the scientists in China said they identified nine chemicals after immersing cigarette butts in water.
They applied the extracts to N80, a type of steel used in oil pipes, and found that they protected the steel from rusting.
“The metal surface can be protected and the iron atom’s further dissolution can be prevented,” they wrote.
Full Story: China scientists find use for cigarette butts – Yahoo! News.
US joins Alliance of Civilizations
The Obama administration said Thursday it has decided to join the UN Alliance of Civilizations aimed at fostering greater cross-cultural understanding but shunned by the previous Bush administration.
State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters that the United States will, for the first time, attend an alliance gathering when Brazil hosts the next forum in Rio de Janeiro on May 28-29.
“The United States has decided to join the Alliance of Civilizations,” Crowley said.
Full Story: US joins Alliance of Civilizations – Yahoo! News.
Gulf Oil Spill More Than 10X Greater Than Thought: Experts
NPR has learned that much more oil, 70,000 barrels a day or more than ten times the official estimate, is gushing into the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon pipe, based on scientific analysis of the video released Wednesday.
That’s the equivalent of one Exxon Valdez tanker full every four days.
The U.S. Coast Guard has estimated that oil was gushing into the ocean at the rate of 5,000 barrels a day. But, again, NPR has been told that estimate is very low.
We’ll link in a bit to a segment on All Things Considered that explains more.
Full Story: Gulf Oil Spill More Than 10X Greater Than Thought: Experts – The Two-Way – Breaking News, Analysis Blog : NPR.
OPS: …or 20x or 30x….. they simply don’t know
Oklahoma Is At It Again: State Legislature Passes Bill Stripping Abortion Coverage From Health Insurance
As ThinkProgress has reported, many far-right members of the Oklahoma legislature have made denying women rights a full-time mission. What the legislature has done in recent weeks:
– Both the House and the Senate passed a law mandating the collection of personal details about every single abortion performed in the state, which will then be posted on a public website.
– The legislature overrode the governor’s veto of an ultrasound mandate, which requires that doctor’s show women seeking an abortion ultrasounds of their babies and “describe the size of the fetus and any viewable organs and limbs. There are no exceptions for rape or incest.” The law also “limits who can do the ultrasound and which technology can be used — issues lawmakers are ill-equipped to decide.”
– The legislature also overrode the governor’s veto of a measure to prevent women from filing “wrongful life” lawsuits against “doctors who withhold information about a fetus or pregnancy that could cause a woman to seek an abortion.”
McCain Attacks Kagan For Harvard’s ROTC Policy — Even Though She Had Nothing To Do With It
In the wake of President Obama’s nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court, one of the central lines of attack by conservatives has been to falsely claim that Kagan “banned” military recruiters from Harvard Law School when she was dean. In fact, Kagan briefly continued an existing policy of preventing the military from using the school’s Office of Career (OCS), but never barred recruiters from campus, allowing them to operate through the school’s Veterans Association during her entire tenure.
On his Fox News show last night, Sean Hannity repeated the myth, saying that Kagan tried to “kick off military recruiters from a college campus in this case Harvard.” When Hannity asked Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) for his reaction, McCain added a new falsehood to the right wing’s false Kagan narrative, suggesting that Harvard’s general policy on ROTC was a result of Kagan’s efforts:
HANNITY: Your reaction to her? Are you likely at this point to support, not support?
Full Story: Think Progress » McCain Attacks Kagan For Harvard’s ROTC Policy — Even Though She Had Nothing To Do With It.
BP Has ‘No Certainty’ About Scale Of Disaster, Oil Spill May Be Five Times Greater Than Current Estimate
click to enlarge
BP does not know how fast its oil disaster is growing, a top executive testified on Tuesday. Although its claim that the spill is growing at 210,000 gallons a day is widely accepted, BP America chairman and president Lamar McKay said that is just a guess based on the size of the surface slick from the destroyed Deepwater Horizon well. After Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) questioned why BP’s estimate changed a week after the fatal explosion from 1000 barrels (42,000 gallons) to 5000 barrels (210,000 gallons) a day, McKay said “there’s no certainty around that number” because “you can’t measure what’s coming out at the seabed”:
The volume estimates are based effectively on surface expression, because you can’t measure what’s coming out at the seabed. So this is based on NOAA models and Coast Guard — NOAA, Coast Guard, and BP estimates effectively from surface information, overflights and things like that, and then backed into in terms of the volume. So, there’s no certainty around that number. There’s a large uncertainty bound around 1000, there’s uncertainty around 5000. It’s the best estimate currently.
Watch it:
OPS: …or it may be 20 or 40 times larger……
Indiana GOP Senate Candidate Dan Coats Endorses Paul Ryan’s Plan To Privatize Social Security And Gut Medicare
In January, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) — who Glenn Beck says he loves — released his Roadmap for America’s Future, which would eliminate long-term deficits by essentially privatizing Medicare and Social Security and placing arbitrary, non-specific freezes on all non-discretionary spending. In an analysis of the plan, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities said Ryan’s plan “would result in a massive transfer of resources from the broad majority of Americans to the nation’s wealthiest individuals”:
The Roadmap would give the most affluent households a new round of very large, costly tax cuts by reducing income tax rates on high-income households; eliminating income taxes on capital gains, dividends, and interest; and abolishing the corporate income tax, the estate tax, and the alternative minimum tax. At the same time, the Ryan plan would raise taxes for most middle-income families, privatize a substantial portion of Social Security, eliminate the tax exclusion for employer-sponsored health insurance, end traditional Medicare and most of Medicaid, and terminate the Children’s Health Insurance Program. The plan would replace these health programs with a system of vouchers whose value would erode over time and thus would purchase health insurance that would cover fewer health care services as the years went by.
As Tar Balls Wash Up On Gulf Coast, Support For Drilling Plummets In North Carolina
As BP attempts to once again plug the massive oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, balls of tar have begun washing up on the “prized white sands” of the Louisiana and Alabama coasts, alongside dead dolphins, sea turtles and 600 dead catfish. The Coast Guard released these photos yesterday of tar on Raccoon Island in Louisiana, “a protected bird breeding sanctuary with a variety of breeds“:
As ThinkProgress has noted, a number former pro-drilling advocates from affected states have reconsidered their support in the wake of the disaster. In Florida, which could face major economic fallout from the spill, Gov. Charlie Crist (I) said the disaster convinced him that offshore drilling “certainly isn’t safe enough,” and today called for a constitutional amendment to ban drilling off his state’s coast. A majority of voters in Florida now oppose drilling, in “stark contrast” to a poll from last year which showed majority support.
A new PPP poll shows that even in North Carolina, which is not likely to be directly affected by the spill, support for drilling has fallen off precipitously:
Full Story: Think Progress » As Tar Balls Wash Up On Gulf Coast, Support For Drilling Plummets In North Carolina.
After Saying Senate Should Prepare For Other Spills, Murkowski Votes Against Increasing Big Oil’s Liability
As the ongoing oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico continues to ravage the southeastern coast of the United States, Congress is working on federal reforms that would decrease the likelihood of future disasters and force oil companies to take more responsibility for the financial cost of such catastrophes.
One senator who claims to be in support of such reforms is Lisa Murkowski (R-AK). Following the spill, she introduced legislation that would increase the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, a special fund paid for by a pennies-per-barrel fee that oil companies pay into to cleanup potential spills, up to $10 billion — an increase from the $1.6 billion currently in it. In a statement accompanying the introduction of her legislation, Murkowski claimed the amendment is “one of several steps” Congress should take to make sure we’re “prepared to respond adequately in the unlikely event of future spills”:
In 2005, Sen. Murkowski proposed increasing the industry per-barrel fee that supports the liability fund by 60 percent. Her new amendment make sure the fund would not be depleted by a single catastrophic spill.
Now We Know Why Banks Have Taken So Much Interest in Charter Schools
Albany charter cash cow: Big banks making a bundle on new construction as schools bear the cost
Wealthy investors and major banks have been making windfall profits by using a little-known federal tax break to finance new charter-school construction.
The program, the New Markets Tax Credit, is so lucrative that a lender who uses it can almost double his money in seven years.
In Albany, which boasts the state’s highest percentage of charter school enrollments, a nonprofit called the Brighter Choice Foundation has employed the New Markets Tax Credit to arrange private financing for five of the city’s nine charter schools.
But many of those same schools are now straining to pay escalating rents, which are going toward the debt service that Brighter Choice incurred during construction.
Full Story: Albany charter cash cow: Big banks making a bundle on new construction as schools bear the cost.
Labor Unions May Have To Abandon Obama to Beat Corporate America
Labor unions need to start fighting their battles in the workplace, not on Capitol Hill.
As president of the AFL-CIO, Richard Trumka is emerging as the voice of an increasingly irrelevant labor movement. As unionized work sinks to only 7 percent of the private sector, the labor movement is losing its influence within the Democratic Party. To revitalize labor, Trumka must not only challenge Democratic leaders, but wage political battles outside the bounds of party politics by bringing labor back to its working-class activist roots.
The failure of President Barack Obama to make a major push on the Employee Free Choice Act — let alone give even a single speech dedicated to the topic — is a telling sign of organized labor’s declining momentum inside the Beltway. As Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson noted in February, “For American labor, year one of Barack Obama’s presidency has been close to an unmitigated disaster.” Labor ranks so low on the president’s list of priorities that a new generation of Obama activists is now planning for a political environment altogether devoid of the labor movement.
Full Story: Labor Unions May Have To Abandon Obama to Beat Corporate America | Economy | AlterNet.
Capitalism Without Capital
Volatility is Back With a Vengeance
By MIKE WHITNEY
Volatility is back and stocks have started zigzagging wildly again. This time the catalyst is Greece, but tomorrow it could be something else. The problem is there’s too much leverage in the system, and that’s generating uncertainty about the true condition of the economy. For a long time, leverage wasn’t an issue, because there was enough liquidity to keep things bobbing along smoothly. But that changed when Lehman Bros. filed for bankruptcy and non-bank funding began to shut down. When the so-called “shadow banking” system crashed, liquidity dried up and the markets went into a nosedive. That’s why Fed Chair Ben Bernanke stepped in and provided short-term loans to under-capitalized financial institutions. Bernanke’s rescue operation revived the system, but it also transferred $1.7 trillion of illiquid assets and non-performing loans onto the Fed’s balance sheet. So the problem really hasn’t been fixed after all; the debts have just been moved from one balance sheet to another.
Last Thursday, troubles in Greece triggered a selloff on all the main indexes. At one point, shares on the Dow plunged 998 points before regaining 600 points by the end of the session. Some of losses were due to High-Frequency Trading (HFT), which is computer-driven program-trading that executes millions of buy and sell orders in the blink of an eye. HFT now accounts for more than 60 percent of all trading activity on the NYSE. Paul Kedrosky explains what happened in greater detail in his article, “The Run on the Shadow Liquidity System”. Here’s an excerpt:
Full Story: Mike Whitney: Capitalism Without Capital.
Obama Scraps Iraq Withdrawal
David Swanson
So, we elected a president who promised a withdrawal from Iraq that he, or the generals who tell him what to do, is now further delaying. And, of course, the timetable he’s now delaying was already a far cry from what he had promised as a candidate.
What are we to think? That may be sad news, but what could we have done differently? Surely it would have been worse to elect a president who did not promise to withdraw, right?
But there’s a broader framework for this withdrawal or lack thereof, namely the SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement), the unconstitutional treaty that Bush and Maliki drew up without consulting the U.S. Senate. I was reminded of this on Tuesday when Obama and Karzai talked about a forthcoming document from the two of them and repeatedly expressed their eternal devotion to a long occupation.
Full Story: Obama Scraps Iraq Withdrawal | Let’s Try Democracy.
Pentagon rethinking value of major counterinsurgencies
Nearly a decade after the United States began to focus its military training and equipment purchases almost exclusively on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. military strategists are quietly shifting gears, saying that large-scale counterinsurgency efforts cost too much and last too long.
The domestic economic crisis and the Obama administration’s commitment to withdraw from Iraq and begin drawing down in Afghanistan next year are factors in the change. The biggest spur, however, is a growing recognition that large-scale counterinsurgency battles have high casualty rates for troops and civilians, eat up equipment that must be replaced and rarely end in clear victory or defeat.
In addition, military thinkers say such wars have put the U.S.’s technologically advanced ground forces on the defensive while less sophisticated insurgent forces are able to remain on the offensive.
Full Story: Pentagon rethinking value of major counterinsurgencies | McClatchy.
Alabama Teachers’ Union Undermines Education by Getting in Bed With Creationists
When I first watched this video, I thought it was satirical. Check it out; you’ll see why:
“Geez, Wonkette has gone a little far with their mockery of southerners’ love and protection of their own ignorance,” I thought. “But come on. No one would actually use a belief in evolution as the main reason to oppose a candidate for state-wide office, even in Alabama!”
I was more incorrect than I thought I could be. Not only is belief in evolution a worthy slur against a candidate, but it is a slur that the Alabama Teachers Union is comfortable hurling. The ad in question was apparently funded by a half-million dollars in contributions by the Alabama Education Association (AEA) to a newly-formed group known as the True Republican PAC of Linden, AL.
It is sad that a group associated with both teachers and progressive values such as equal access to a quality education would put out a political smear advocating ignorance.
But perhaps even more depressing is that the targeted gubernatorial candidate, Bradley Byrne, decided to double down on dumb. In response to the ad (which he totally could have laughed off) he told his uber-religious constituency that he believes “the Bible is the Word of God and that every single word of it is true” and that his “belief in Jesus Christ… guides my every action.” Furthermore, Byrne recommitted himself to ensuring “the teaching of creationism in our school text books.”
Full Story: Alabama Teachers’ Union Undermines Education by Getting in Bed With Creationists | BuzzFlash.org.
America’s Ten Most Corrupt Capitalists
Wall Street’s captains of industry and top policymakers in Washington are often the same people. A lot of them get rich by playing for both teams.
The financial crisis has unveiled a new set of public villains—corrupt corporate capitalists who leveraged their connections in government for their own personal profit. During the Clinton and Bush administrations, many of these schemers were worshiped as geniuses, heroes or icons of American progress. But today we know these opportunists for what they are: Deregulatory hacks hellbent on making a profit at any cost. Without further ado, here are the 10 most corrupt capitalists in the U.S. economy.
1. Robert Rubin
Where to start with a man like Robert Rubin? A Goldman Sachs chairman who wormed his way into the Treasury Secretary post under President Bill Clinton, Rubin presided over one of the most radical deregulatory eras in the history of finance. Rubin’s influence within the Democratic Party marked the final stage in the Democrats’ transformation from the concerned citizens who fought Wall Street and won during the 1930s to a coalition of Republican-lite financial elites.
Full Story: America’s Ten Most Corrupt Capitalists | Economy | AlterNet.
Boat captain: Thunderous hiss before Deepwater Horizon blew
First a geyser of mud and gas erupted on the Deepwater Horizon with a thunderous hiss, followed about two minutes later by a “green flash” and deafening concussion, the captain of a boat parked beside the rig said Tuesday.
“I saw mud falling on the back of my boat, sort of a black rain,” said Alwin Landry, standing watch on the support vessel Damon B. Bankston.
Landry told a federal inquiry into the April 20 explosion and the deaths of 11 crewmen that he immediately radioed the bridge of the rig when the mud rained down and was told something had gone wrong.
Full Story: Boat captain: Thunderous hiss before Deepwater Horizon blew | McClatchy.
Senate Defeats GOP Attempt To Water Down Derivatives Reform By Wide Margin
The Senate Thursday swept aside a Republican amendment which would have weakened proposed legislation to regulate and shine a light one of the most shadowy markets on Wall Street.
By a vote of 39-59, senators defeated a substitute amendment offered by Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) that would have weakened a measure put forward to impose new rules on what today is an unregulated $600 trillion derivatives market.
That means the Wall Street Transparency and Accountability Act of 2010, introduced by Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) remains alive as part of the broader financial reform package authored by Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), currently under consideration in the Senate.
Full Story: On The Hill: Senate Defeats GOP Attempt To Water Down Derivatives Reform By Wide Margin.
New target of rights erosions: U.S. citizens
Glenn Greenwald:
A primary reason Bush and Cheney succeeded in their radical erosion of core liberties is because they focused their assault on non-citizens with foreign-sounding names, casting the appearance that none of what they were doing would ever affect the average American. There were several exceptions to that tactic — the due-process-free imprisonment of Americans Yaser Hamdi and Jose Padilla, the abuse of the “material witness” statute to detain American Muslims, the eavesdropping on Americans' communications without warrants — but the vast bulk of the abuses were aimed at non-citizens. That is now clearly changing.
The most recent liberty-abridging, Terrorism-justified controversies have focused on diluting the legal rights of American citizens (in part because the rights of non-citizens are largely gone already and there are none left to attack). A bipartisan group from Congress sponsors legislation to strip Americans of their citizenship based on Terrorism accusations. Barack Obama claims the right to assassinate Americans far from any battlefield and with no due process of any kind. The Obama administration begins covertly abandoning long-standing Miranda protections for American suspects by vastly expanding what had long been a very narrow “public safety” exception, and now Eric Holder explicitly advocates legislation to codify that erosion. John McCain and Joe Lieberman introduce legislation to bar all Terrorism suspects, including Americans arrested on U.S. soil, from being tried in civilian courts, and former Bush officials Bill Burck and Dana Perino — while noting (correctly) that Holder's Miranda proposal constitutes a concession to the right-wing claim that Miranda is too restrictive — today demand that U.S. citizens accused of Terrorism and arrested on U.S. soil be treated as enemy combatants and thus denied even the most basic legal protections (including the right to be charged and have access to a lawyer).
Full Story: New target of rights erosions: U.S. citizens – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.
Exposing the Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Makes Money Out of Thin Air
Author Bill Greider argues that a more democratic money creation system could have save
d the country from the brink of financial collapse.
For some, the Federal Reserve is the right place to house any new regulatory powers contained in financial reform legislation. For others, the Fed is at the center of all that ails us. In fact, over 95,000 have signed a petition at auditthefed.com.
In a major victory for transparency at the Federal Reserve, the Senate passed on Tuesday an amendment by Sen. Bernie Sanders that directs the Government Accountability Office to conduct a top-to-bottom audit of all emergency actions by the Fed since the start of the financial crisis in 2007. In addition to the audit, the Fed for the first time would have to reveal by Dec.1, 2010, the identities of banks and other financial institutions that took more than $2 trillion in nearly zero-interest loans.” — from the office of Sen. Sanders, 05/11/10
Full Story: Exposing the Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Makes Money Out of Thin Air | Economy | AlterNet.
9 indicted on charges of accessing Obama records
Nine people were indicted Wednesday on federal charges of accessing President Barack Obama’s student loan records while they were employed for a Department of Education contractor in Iowa.
The U.S. attorney’s office said a grand jury returned the indictments in U.S. District Court in Davenport.
All nine are charged with exceeding authorized computer access. They are accused of gaining access to a computer at a Coralville office where they worked between July 2007 and March 2009, and accessing Obama’s student loan records while he was either a candidate for president, president-elect or president.
U.S. attorney spokesman Mike Bladel referred questions to online copies of the indictments.
Full Story: 9 indicted on charges of accessing Obama records.
Which one of you DELETED dumped the oil???
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Bankers jailed, sued as Iceland seeks culprits for crisis
More than a year and a half after Iceland’s major banks failed, all but sinking the country’s economy, police have begun rounding up a number of top bankers while other former executives and owners face a two-billion-dollar lawsuit.
Since Iceland’s three largest banks — Kaupthing, Landsbanki and Glitnir — collapsed in late 2008, their former executives and owners have largely been living untroubled lives abroad.
But the publication last month of a parliamentary inquiry into the island nation’s profound financial and economic crisis signaled a turning of the tide, laying much of the blame for the downfall on the former bank heads who had taken “inappropriate loans from the banks” they worked for.
On Wednesday, the administrators of Glitnir’s liquidation announced they had filed a two-billion-dollar (1.6-billion-euro) lawsuit in a New York court against former large shareholders and executives for alleged fraud.
Full Story: AFP: Bankers jailed, sued as Iceland seeks culprits for crisis.
Wall Street: Land of the Million Dollar Babies
Dean Baker
Wall Street is know around the world as the land of the million dollar babies since is chock full of people who have gotten incredibly rich as a result of handouts from the government. These handouts come in all forms, but most in the size extra large. The basic story is always the same; the banks and financial firms take gambles that provide big payoffs for their shareholders and “top performers” and pass along big risks to the taxpayers.
The TARP and the associated bailouts through the Fed were the most obvious example. The industry and their paid hacks are telling us that we shouldn’t be upset about these deals because we got repaid most of our money. The reality was that we gave the banks the money they needed to survive in the midst of a financial panic. They used this money – and the backing of the federal government – to restore themselves to health.
While we may have gotten most of our money back, the loans we gave them were way more valuable at the time they were given. This is like giving someone water in the middle of the desert.
Full Story: Wall Street: Land of the Million Dollar Babies | TPMCafe.
How to turn Congress Inc. back to just Congress
Katrina vanden Heuvel -
What is the biggest scandal of 2010 so far?
Allegations of fraudulent misrepresentation from Goldman Sachs? An oil spill that poses a threat to our environment and economy for generations? Mining operators freely ignoring safety violations and treating workers as disposable?
Each of these is bad. But perhaps the biggest political scandal is the one that aids and abets these others — the pay-to-play system that buys up Congress, pollutes our political system with special-interest cash and deep-sixes the kind of bold reform agenda that we voted for and need.
The health-care industry has contributed more than $200 million to congressional candidates in the 2008 and 2010 election cycles, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Is it any wonder that there was no public option in the final bill, or that Medicare isn't able to negotiate lower drug prices for seniors the same way the Veterans Administration does for veterans?
Full Story: Katrina vanden Heuvel – How to turn Congress Inc. back to just Congress.
Obama on Civilian Deaths in Afghanistan: “I Am Accountable”
Jeremy Scahill
During his White House press conference Wednesday with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, President Obama addressed the issue of civilian deaths caused by US operations in Afghanistan. “I take no pleasure in hearing a report that a civilian has been killed,” said Obama. “That's not why I ran for president, that's not why I'm Commander in Chief.”
“Let me be very clear about what I told President Karazi: When there is a civilian casualty, that is not just a political problem for me. I am ultimately accountable, just as Gen. McChrystal is accountable, for somebody who is not on the battlefield who got killed,” said Obama.
That statement is quite remarkable for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it is not true. How are President Obama or Gen. McChrystal accountable? Afghans have little, if any, recourse for civilian deaths. They cannot press their case in international courts because the US doesn’t recognize an International Criminal Court with jurisdiction over US forces, Afghan courts have not and will not be given jurisdiction and Attorney General Eric Holder has made clear that the Justice Department will not permit cases against US military officials brought by foreign victims to proceed in US courts. So, what does it mean to be accountable for civilian deaths? Public apology? Press conferences? A handful of courts martial?
Full Story: Obama on Civilian Deaths in Afghanistan: “I Am Accountable” | The Nation.
Kerry-Lieberman Climate Proposal a Disaster for Climate
Kerry-Lieberman Climate Proposal a Disaster for Climate
WASHINGTON— In the midst of what appears to be the worst offshore oil disaster in American history, U.S. Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) will today put forth a draft climate bill that will not solve the problems of global warming and continues pandering to the fossil fuel industry – including expanded offshore oil drilling – that created the problems in the first place.
The proposal, leaked one day before its official release, reflects months of back-room negotiations between the senators, major polluters, and other Washington insiders, and would:
* provide only a fraction of the greenhouse gas pollution reductions scientists have said are necessary to avoid catastrophic climate disruption;
* ban successful Clean Air Act programs from reducing greenhouse pollution;
* ban existing state and local efforts to tackle climate change;
* catalyze increased oil and gas drilling – including offshore drilling; and
* subsidize dangerous and costly nuclear energy.
In response, Center for Biological Diversity Executive Director Kierán Suckling urged rejection of the proposal unless these problems are addressed. He issued the following statement:
“The climate proposal put forth today by Senators Kerry and Lieberman represents a disaster for our climate and planet. This proposal moves us one baby step forward and at least three giant steps back in any rational effort to address the climate crisis.
Full Story: Kerry-Lieberman Climate Proposal a Disaster for Climate.
Will Machines Take Over the World? The Scientific Turning Point
Imagine watching TV without a screen or communicating with friends without a phone or facebook. Would you have an implant to have virtual sex with anyone you wanted — or to be stronger or smarter? What’s the status of the science? When do humans become obsolete?
It’s not a matter of if, but rather when it’s going to happen. We already know how to clone entire organisms — for instance, our team has cloned herds of cows and even the first human embryos and endangered species (Science 294, 1893, 2001), we’ve reversed aging at the cellular level (Science 288, 665, 2000), and we’ve made progress growing replacement tissues for every organ system of the body, including the heart and kidney (Nature Biotechnology 20, 689, 2002). However, there’s one organ that’s a far greater challenge: the brain.
I remember a journey I took with my dog Shepp. I’d wandered miles, when from the trees came the sound of a train. Clatter-clatter-rap-rap! To Shepp, still a puppy and a few days out of the pound, it’s possible an extraterrestrial would look not unlike the steel caterpillar that rounded the corner, thunder billowing out of its nostrils. It seemed so alive. Shepp let out a yelp. You can scarce imagine his expression as it rushed toward us rattling the earth. “It’s not alive,” I said, more to myself than to Shepp. How could I convey that it was only a lump of metal and quite unconscious — that it was only a machine with sliding bars and wheels hauling TV sets into the city? A loud whoosh and it vanished into the trees.
Full Story: Robert Lanza, M.D.: Will Machines Take Over the World? The Scientific Turning Point.
Intelligent Design: Scientifically and Religiously Bankrupt
In case you had any doubt, the last nail was just placed in the coffin of intelligent design (ID). And, in case you had any doubt, that last nail joins many others that have been in place for quite some time.
The latest attack appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) and provides conclusive evidence that the design of the human genome is incredibly imperfect, or, in other words, very far from being intelligently structured. As John Avise, a University of California-Irvine biologist, noted in the paper, his focus “is on a relatively neglected category of argument against ID and in favor of evolution: the argument from imperfection, as applied to the human genome.”
The basic concept of intelligent design comes in two parts and is as simple as it is satisfying for those unwilling to think deeply about the natural world, science, or the nature of religion. Part one, stretching way back to the ancient Greeks, notes that nature is so perfectly integrated that it must have been designed just as we see it. Part two, largely attributed to Lehigh University biologist Michael Behe, says that while some aspects of nature might certainly have changed (evolved?) over time, others are so complex that they must always have existed in the form we find them in today. Indeed, he coined the term “irreducibly complex” to explain such structures. Change anything at all in these irreducibly complex structures and they fail to work.
Both parts of ID are spectacularly wrong.
Full Story: Michael Zimmerman, Ph.D.: Intelligent Design: Scientifically and Religiously Bankrupt.
Stephanie Smith, Cargill Settle E. Coli Case After New York Times Story About Tainted Meat
A Minnesota woman who became severely ill with an E. coli infection from a tainted hamburger has reached a settlement with the meatpacking arm of agribusiness giant Cargill Inc., both sides announced Wednesday.
Stephanie Smith, 23, of Cold Spring, and Cargill said the terms of the settlement were confidential, but that it will provide for Smith’s care throughout her life. The former children’s dance instructor was left paralyzed, with cognitive problems and kidney damage.
Smith became ill in 2007 after eating a patty produced by Cargill Meat Solutions Corp., a Wichita, Kans.-based unit of Minnetonka-based Cargill Inc. Her E. coli infection led to kidney failure. She went into seizures and was kept in a medically induced coma for three months.
Smith’s battle to recover was the centerpiece story last year in a New York Times series that won a Pulitzer Prize. The story spurred several members of Congress to demand better enforcement of food safety laws and a pledge from Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack for stepped up efforts to fight E. coli contamination. The story traced how the beef trimmings that went into her hamburger came from four plants in the U.S. and Uruguay, and that while such scraps are particularly vulnerable to contamination, many companies including Cargill did not normally test them prior to grinding.
Full Story: Stephanie Smith, Cargill Settle E. Coli Case After New York Times Story About Tainted Meat.
Ted Haggard Formally Opens St. James Church In Colorado Springs
Ted Haggard and his wife Gayle formally incorporated their new church, the St. James, in Colorado Springs on Tuesday.
The opening of the new church represents the latest step in a revival of sorts for the controversial former leader of New Life Church, a conservative megachurch with 14,000 parishioners.
In November, 2006, Haggard was forced out of his position at New Life Church after a very public scandal in which he admitted to soliciting oral sex and buying crystal meth from a male prostitute.
Haggard recently started hosting informal prayer groups at his home in Colorado Springs.
Full Story: Ted Haggard Formally Opens St. James Church In Colorado Springs.
Stewart Hammers Conservatives For Hypocritical Obama-Bush Comparisons (VIDEO)
When Jon Stewart’s on his game, it’s a thing of beauty. And considering he’s always on his game, last night’s opening segment was flat-out gorgeous, as he ripped hypocritical conservatives for constantly comparing Obama to Bush – but only terms of missteps.
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Senate Votes To Rein In Mortgage Lenders In Financial Reform Bill
Taking aim at deceptive lending, the Senate on Wednesday voted to ban mortgage brokers and loan officers from getting greater pay for offering higher interest rates on loans, and to require that borrowers prove they can repay their loans.
The Senate, however, rejected a measure that would have required homebuyers to make a minimum downpayment of 5 percent on their loans. The votes were part of the Senate’s deliberations on a broad overhaul of financial regulations designed to avoid a repeat of the crisis that struck Wall Street in 2008.
President Barack Obama weighed in on the Senate debate Wednesday, criticizing efforts to exclude auto dealerships that offer car loans from the oversight of a proposed consumer financial protection bureau. Auto dealers – influential figures in their communities – have been aggressively lobbying for an exemption from the law, and the amendment, offered by Sen. Sam Brownback R-Kan., could win bipartisan backing.
Full Story: Senate Votes To Rein In Mortgage Lenders In Financial Reform Bill.
Whistleblower Claims That BP Was Aware Of Cheating On Blowout Preventer Tests
As the federal and congressional probes continue into the causes of the Gulf oil rig explosion, new information is coming to light about the failure of a key device, the blowout preventer, to shut off the gushing well, which could have prevented the growing catastrophe.
And new questions are being raised about the testing of the preventers. At today’s hearing before a House subcommittee, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., revealed that the blowout preventer had a leak in a crucial hydraulic system and had failed a negative pressure test just hours before the April 20 explosion. And at a hearing in Louisiana on Tuesday, the government engineer who gave oil giant BP the final approval to drill admitted that he never asked for proof that the preventer worked.
In addition, an oil industry whistleblower told Huffington Post that BP had been aware for years that tests of blowout prevention devices were being falsified in Alaska. The devices are different from the ones involved in the Deepwater Horizon explosion but are also intended to prevent dangerous blowouts at drilling operations.
Full Story: Whistleblower Claims That BP Was Aware Of Cheating On Blowout Preventer Tests.
Arizona governor signs bill banning ethnic studies
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has signed a bill targeting a school district’s ethnic studies program, hours after a report by United Nations human rights experts condemned the measure.
State schools chief Tom Horne, who has pushed the bill for years, said he believes the Tucson school district’s Mexican-American studies program teaches Latino students that they are oppressed by white people.
Public schools should not be encouraging students to resent a particular race, he said.
Full Story: Arizona governor signs bill banning ethnic studies | Raw Story.
US troops executing prisoners in Afghanistan, journalist says
he journalist who helped break the story that detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq were being tortured by their US jailers told an audience at a journalism conference last month that American soldiers are now executing prisoners in Afghanistan.
New Yorker journalist Seymour Hersh also revealed that the Bush Administration had developed advanced plans for a military strike on Iran.
At the Global Investigative Journalism Conference in Geneva, Hersh criticized President Barack Obama, and alleged that US forces are engaged in “battlefield executions.”
“I’ll tell you right now, one of the great tragedies of my country is that Mr. Obama is looking the other way, because equally horrible things are happening to prisoners, to those we capture in Afghanistan,” Hersh said. “They’re being executed on the battlefield. It’s unbelievable stuff going on there that doesn’t necessarily get reported. Things don’t change.:
Full Story: US troops executing prisoners in Afghanistan, journalist says | Raw Story.
US agency admits lax enforcement of oil drilling
A US official acknowledged Wednesday that the oil and gas industry largely polices its own drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico with little government supervision.
At a hearing into the deadly rig explosion that led to a massive, growing oil spill, the Minerals Management Service official said the regulatory agency did not enforce compliance with its “safety alerts” on underwater blowout preventers and allowed oil companies to inspect their own drilling equipment.
“I am not aware of who does the self-certification,” Michael Saucier, the Minerals Management Service regional supervisor, said when asked about the inspections.
Full Story: US agency admits lax enforcement of oil drilling – Yahoo! News.
California GOP Candidate Wants To ‘Issue Hunting Permits’ For Conservatives To ‘Thin’ The Liberal ‘Herd’
In California’s 11th congressional district, there are four people running for the Republican nomination in the June primary election. One of the front-runners is Brad Goehring, who posted a message on his Facebook wall this week, declaring “hunting season” on liberals:
If I could issue hunting permits, I would officially declare today opening day for liberals. The season would extend through November 2 and have no limits on how many taken as we desperately need to “thin” the herd.
Goehring has reportedly taken down the post, but the Political Blotter captured a screenshot:
VIDEO: As House Opens Hearing To Investigate Oil Spill Disaster, House GOP Gathers At Oil Industry Fundraiser
This morning, executives including BP’s chairman Lamar McKay, Transocean CEO Steve Newman, and Halliburton’s Timothy Probert appeared before a hearing in the House Energy and Commerce Committee to dodge responsibility for their respective roles in the Deepwater Horizon Gulf Coast oil spill. About an hour before the investigation began, however, House Republicans gathered a few blocks away for an “oil and gas breakfast” fundraiser with the oil and gas industry to benefit Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX). View a screenshot of the invitation from the Political Party Time blog below:
Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) breakfast
ThinkProgress reported from the fundraiser and spoke with several lawmakers as they went in and out of the building. We asked Brady, who praised the environmental record of the oil industry shortly after the spill, if he still believed that oil drilling still has a “very positive” record. He replied, “you know, I do.”
Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) — the chairman of the Republican committee tasked with raising funds to elect more House Republicans — told us that he saw no conflict with his members raising money from the oil industry just about an hour before BP was scheduled to appear for questioning:
Boycott update: Arizona tourism association counts 23 canceled meetings at a total loss of $6-10 million.
Today, the Republican National Convention (RNC) site selection committee decided against holding the 2012 convention in Phoenix, AZ, instead choosing Tampa, FL. Although local and national RNC officials have denied that the outcome had anything to do with Arizona’s recently passed immigration law SB-1070, their decision is just another blow to the state’s ailing tourism industry. Since the passage of SB-1070, at least 23 events have been canceled, totaling a reported loss of between $6 and $10 million. The Washington Post reports:
Hispanic civil rights groups are boycotting Arizona and urging others to do the same. Officials at the National Council of La Raza, one of the groups driving the boycott, had privately asked the RNC not to meet in Phoenix.
The city risks losing as much as $90 million in hotel and convention business over the next five years because of the controversy, according to city estimates released Wednesday. The state’s hotel and lodging association has counted 23 canceled meetings for a loss of between $6 and $10 million.
A New Earthquake Hits Haiti: Monsanto’s deadly gift of 475 tons of genetically-modified seeds to Haitian farmers
Haiti’s earthquake on 12 January this year has been a lucky business break for some. The transnational firm Monsanto is offering the country’s farmers a deadly gift of 475 tonnes of genetically-modified (GM) seeds, along with associated fertiliser and pesticides, which will be handed out free by the WINNER project, with the backing of the US embassy in Haiti. Do Haitians know Monsanto made the “Agent Orange” defoliant sprayed over Vietnam by US planes during the war there, poisoning both US soldiers and Vietnamese civilians?
Do Haitians know that these GM seeds have been declared dangerous by many countries? They often come in kits along with a Monsanto herbicide called “Roundup,” which contains glyphosate. In my native Brittany, it has already polluted the water table. But Monsanto insists its product is biodegradable. It is being sued for this by anti-frauid officials in Lyon.
A former employee of Monsanto, Linda Fischer, has just been named to head the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which monitors environmental issues. It’s like giving a cat the job of looking after a mouse’s welfare.
Monsanto has already begun distributing its GM maize seeds around Gonaïves, Kenscoff, Pétionville, Cabaret, Arcahaie, Croix-des-Bouquets and Mirebalais. Soon there will be only Monsanto seeds in Haiti. Then it will be goodbye to farmers’ independence. Monsanto recently invested $550 million in Brazil to manufacture the Roundup herbicide in the northeastern state of Bahia. But the country seems to be fighting back against the firm.
Monsanto is publicising the seeds as a generous gift. But Haitian farmers wishing to use them for future harvests will have to pay royalties to Monsanto. The Monsanto representative in Haiti is Jean- Robert Estimé, who served as foreign minister under the Duvalier family’s 29-year dictatorship.
Full Story: A New Earthquake Hits Haiti: Monsanto’s deadly gift of 475 tons of genetically-modified seeds to Haitian farmers.
Data Seizure at the Airport
Be prepared for a search of what’s on your laptop as you cross into the United States these days.
Two years ago a freelance journalist named Bill Hogan returned home to Virginia from a trip to Germany and had his laptop seized at Dulles International Airport. U.S. Customs agents reportedly told him he'd been selected for a random investigation. The agents went through photos on his digital camera, he said, and impounded the computer for two weeks.
He was especially angry because “they knew I was a reporter,” he said at the time. “They did not seem to give a rat's patootie.”
One underreported aspect of border security in America since 9/11 is that U.S. Customs and Border Protection sees a laptop as a sort of digital briefcase, to be rifled through without a warrant. And court decisions in recent years have upheld the government's right to prosecute people based on data found on their hard drives.
The latest ruling is by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, which declared last month that child pornography found during a warrantless search of Sandeep Verma's laptop at a Houston airport in 2008 was material evidence against him.
Full Story: t r u t h o u t | Data Seizure at the Airport.
House Oil Spill Hearings Find That Oil is Cheap Because R&D Dollars are Spent on Drilling, Not Safety or Clean-Up Technology
When she heard about the boom chemicals being used to disperse oil from the sunken rig in the Gulf of Mexico, the thoughts of Rep. Lois Capps (D-CA) were far away. She was thinking about her hometown Santa Barbara in the late 1960s when Union Oil’s Platform A had a destructive blowout.
Clean-up efforts at the time utilized the same kinds of oil dispersant, or boom materials, as BP is using in the Gulf today. However, recent studies have found that such clean-up efforts can be more destructive than simply leaving the oil to its own devices.
Her question for BP CEO Lamar McKay at a hearing today in the House Energy Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations was if oil exploration has advanced leaps and bounds since the 1960s, “Why was there not equivalent technology developed to clean up after a spill?”
The Sachs circle: Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan has zero judicial experience, but she did work for Goldman Sachs
This apparent Obama nominee is unusual. She’s never been a prosecutor or attorney general, or defense attorney or Legal Aid litigator or sitting judge. In fact, she’s never been a lawyer in a trial….never. Until her appointment as Solicitor General last year, she hadn’t argued before a court; so her very first, maiden argument, was before the United States Supreme Court last year!
Kagan’s connections to Summers are interesting. She was a professor there when Summers arrived from his work at Treasury, under Bill Clinton, to deregulate banks and derivatives to get the gambling moving…guaranteed by the taxpayer. As President Summers of Harvard from 2001 to 2006, Kagan thrived. She was made a full professor, then Summers tapped her to be the Dean of Harvard Law. Her pet peeve there was to keep the American military and ROTC off campus because she disputes the “don’t ask, don’t tell” provisions put in place by Clinton. In 2008, Kagan got money as an advisor to Goldman Sachs global investment house. Meanwhile, she made Cass Sunstein, who is now an advisor to Obama too, a full professor at Harvard. He has suggested the concept of marriage be discontinued. He also has argued that dogs and cats should have “standing” to sue in court.
BP caves to pressure, releases first video of oil gushing into Gulf
Finally.
Earlier today we reported on how BP was coming under heavy pressure from the media, Washington politicians and the general public to release underwater video footage of the oil spewing into the Gulf so that a better assessment of its potential damage could be made. ABC even asked White House spokesman Robert Gibbs if the Obama administration could pressure the company. BP held firm.
But now, the beleaguered energy company has released a 30-second clip and publicized the move on Twitter.
Watch it:
Full Story: BP caves to pressure, releases first video of oil gushing into Gulf – Yahoo! News.
ANALYSIS: At Long Last, Some Pre-Election Economic Wind At Democrats’ Backs?
Democrats, for months, have been bracing for the worst in November as voter sentiment turned against them.
Midterm elections usually are unkind toward the party who holds the White House, and this year a growing anti-incumbent sentiment only has seemed to exacerbate the Democrats’ troubles.
Unemployment, and a slow economy, have driven voters to increasingly turn on President Obama and his fellow Democrats. That unemployment continued to rise and the economy continued to drag — even in the face of the massive $787 billion economic stimulus enacted by Obama and congressional Democrats — stirred deepening anxiety and worry on the part of many Americans who became more and more skeptical of the economic remedies Obama the Democrats were applying.
Full Story: On The Hill: ANALYSIS: At Long Last, Some Pre-Election Economic Wind At Democrats’ Backs?.
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.
Full Story: Billy Wharton: The Salazar Quotient.
Amateur Video Of Gulf Oil Slick – Worse Than BP Admits
Video is from Alabama resident John Wathen as a volunteer pilot flew him over the area where the oil rig sank. Officials have stopped guessing at the amount of oil leaking although some speculate it may be closer to 1 million gallons per day.
Don’t let BP spin this into something trivial.
“It’s not a leak, it’s a volcano spewing oil”
Eisenhower: Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, Labor
Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”
— Dwight D. Eisenhower
French Nuclear Industry Faces Meltdown
A much-awaited report on France’s nuclear industry — due out later this week — is understood to offer ways for France’s diverse nuclear industry to work together to garner big contracts around the globe.
It may succeed. That is, if the government can use it to end, or at least calm, a complex of feuds among the heads of France’s biggest energy companies.
The stakes are high. Clean nuclear power is enjoying a renaissance and France is home to some of the world’s largest players in the nuclear industry. Indeed, it is president Nicolas Sarkozy’s dream to streamline the nuclear power sector, from design to operation, working as a team to win high profile contracts around the world.
“All bosses of France’s biggest energy companies more or less hate or at least despise each other, for one reason or another,” an executive at one French energy company told Dow Jones Newswires under conditions of anonymity
Full Story: French Nuclear Industry Faces Meltdown – The Source – WSJ.
Poll: Support for More Offshore Oil Drilling Plummets
In the wake of the growing environmental disaster brought about by the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, Americans have turned far less supportive of increased drilling for oil and natural gas off the U.S. coastline, according to a new CBS News survey.
Forty-six percent of Americans now say the support offshore drilling – a 16 point drop from the 64 percent who backed such drilling back in July of 2008, when “drill, baby, drill” was an oft-chanted Republican campaign slogan.
Forty-one percent, meanwhile, say the costs and risks of offshore drilling are too great – up from 28 percent in the summer of 2008.
The Obama administration ended the moratorium on new offshore drilling off some coastal areas prior to the collapse of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig site, though no new drilling had yet been authorized. It has vowed not to authorize new drilling until the cause of the Gulf leak is clear.
Full Story: Poll: Support for More Offshore Oil Drilling Plummets – Political Hotsheet – CBS News.
Papantonio: BP – The Very Corrupt Side of Dick Cheney
While executives from BP, Halliburton, and Transocean were pulled into Congressional hearings today where they formed a circular firing squad, no one seemed to mention the man who was truly responsible for making sure that the oil industry was able to operate without regulations – Dick Cheney. Mike Papantonio appears on MSNBC’s Hardball to tell us why he believes we might actually be able to prosecute Dick Cheney for his cozy relationship with Halliburton that led to this disaster.
Part 1
Part 2
Obama drug plan ‘firmly opposes’ legalization as California vote looms
The Obama administration said Tuesday that it “firmly opposes” the legalization of any illicit drugs as California voters head to the polls to consider legalizing marijuana this fall.
The president and his drug czar re-emphasized their opposition to legalizing drugs in the first release of its National Drug Control Strategy this morning.
“Keeping drugs illegal reduces their availability and lessens willingness to use them,” the document, prepared by Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske, says. “That is why this Administration firmly opposes the legalization of marijuana or any other illicit drug.”
President Barack Obama has repeatedly expressed opposition to legalizing illicit drugs, though California voters could buck the federal government when it comes to legalize pot.
Full Story: Obama drug plan ‘firmly opposes’ legalization as California vote looms – The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room.
Banks failing to lend is not the problem
Dean Baker :
It’s a myth that the slump persists due to the banks’ squeeze on credit, so ‘fixing’ them will not mean escaping the downturn
One of the big myths of the current downturn is that the reason the slump persists is that banks are refusing to lend. The story goes that because the banks have taken such big hits to their capital as a result of the collapse of the housing bubble and record default rates, they no longer have the money to lend to small- and mid-sized businesses.
We then get the story about how small businesses are the engine of job creation, responsible for most new jobs. Therefore, if they can’t get capital, we can’t expect to see robust job growth.
This story of banks not lending is used to justify all sorts of special policies to help out small businesses and banks. In fact, the Obama administration has plans to make a special $30bn slush fund available to banks if they promise to lend it out to small businesses.
Full Story: Banks failing to lend is not the problem | Dean Baker | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.
How Do Christians Become Conservative?
When you are in the political world, you have decisions to make every single day about who you will try to help and who you won’t. In spite of the earnest quest of good technocrats everywhere, the simple fact is that there are only a few win-win solutions. Who you tax, who you give a tax break to, what programs you cut or add to, who you tighten regulations on, and who you loosen them on, what kind of contractors are eligible for government work, which school districts and non-profit groups get federal money, etc: these political decisions are generally not win-win. Instead, they mean that one group of people win, and one group of people loses. It is the nature of politics, and you can’t take the politics out of politics.
The most fundamental difference between progressives and conservatives is that question of which side you are on. Conservatives believe that the rich and powerful got that way because they deserve to be, that society owes its prosperity to the prosperous, and that government’s job when they have to make choices is to side with those businesspeople who are doing well, because all good things trickle down from them. Progressives, on the other hand, believe it is the poor and those who are ill-treated who need the most help from their government, and that prosperity comes from all of us — the worker as well as the employer, the consumer as well as the seller, the struggling entrepreneur trying to make it as well as the wealthy who already have.
Usually, I might spend my time arguing which of those worldviews gives us better policy outcomes, or which is better politics, but in this post I want to focus on something else: which side the God of the Judeo-Christian Biblical tradition is on.
Full Story: Mike Lux: How Do Christians Become Conservative?.
Comcast CEO: We Won’t Interfere With NBC News
The chief executive of Comcast says he won’t interfere with the editorial decisions of NBC’s news programs.
Brian Roberts said Tuesday at a cable industry trade convention in Los Angeles that NBC News is an “awesome asset” that needs to be protected. He also called “Meet the Press” an “incredibly important institution in this country.”
Roberts said he won’t interfere in NBC’s editorial decisions.
“Let it have its own voice,” he said.
Full Story: Comcast CEO: We Won’t Interfere With NBC News.
OPS: Wanta bet?
US Commanders Forced To Reconsider Pace Of Iraq Troop Pullout
American commanders, worried about increased violence in the wake of Iraq’s inconclusive elections, are now reconsidering the pace of a major troop pullout this summer, U.S. officials said Tuesday.
The withdrawal of the first major wave of troops is expected to be delayed by about a month, the officials said. Waiting much longer could endanger President Barack Obama’s goal of reducing the force level from 92,000 to 50,000 troops by Aug. 31.
More than two months after parliamentary elections, the Iraqis have still not formed a new government, and militants aiming to exploit the void have carried out attacks like Monday’s bombings and shootings that killed at least 119 people – the country’s bloodiest day of 2010.
Full Story: US Commanders Forced To Reconsider Pace Of Iraq Troop Pullout.
JPMorgan Chase Warns Investors About Underwater Homeowners Walking Away
The nation’s second-biggest bank is warning investors that underwater homeowners may walk away from their mortgages.
In a Monday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, JPMorgan Chase told investors and regulators that homeowners who owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth may not continue to make their payments — even when they’re able to.
“Declining home prices have had a significant impact on the collateral value underlying the firm’s residential real estate loan portfolio,” the bank stated. “In general, the delinquency rate for loans with high LTV [loan-to-value] ratios is greater than the delinquency rate for loans in which the borrower has equity in the collateral.
“While a large portion of the loans with estimated LTV ratios greater than 100% continue to pay and are current, the continued willingness and ability of these borrowers to pay is currently uncertain.”
Full Story: JPMorgan Chase Warns Investors About Underwater Homeowners Walking Away.
U.S. agency let oil industry write offshore drilling rules
The oil industry, not the federal agency that regulates it, plays a crucial role in writing the safety and environmental rules for offshore drilling, a role that critics say reflects cozy ties between an industry and its regulators that need to be snapped.
Nearly 100 industry standards set by the American Petroleum Industry are included in the nation’s offshore operating regulations. The API asserts that its standards are better for the industry’s bottom line and make it easier to operate offshore than if the Minerals Management Service set the rules.
Following the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the MMS is increasingly under a microscope. Congressional hearings beginning Tuesday will examine the cause of the April 20 drilling rig explosion and whether the MMS’s regulatory framework ought to be changed.
Full Story: U.S. agency let oil industry write offshore drilling rules | McClatchy.
Rosen claims AIPAC made promises in spy case
Steve Rosen is flashing a new weapon in his defamation suit against his former employer, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the powerful lobbying group usually referred to as AIPAC.
Rosen, a central figure in the Israeli espionage scandal that shook official Washington a few years ago, made available to SpyTalk an e-mail that he said shows AIPAC, which feared a widening federal investigation into its ties to Israel, signaled it would “do right by” him down the road, even after they had fired him with public denunciations of his conduct.
AIPAC had fired Rosen, its longtime foreign affairs chief, and Keith Weissman, its Iran analyst, in March 2005, after they were implicated in the FBI‘s investigation of alleged Israeli espionage, saying their conduct did not “reflect AIPAC standards.” The two were accused of passing along classified information not only to Israel but to news outlets including The Washington Post.
Full Story: SpyTalk – Rosen claims AIPAC made promises in spy case.
Off-the-shelf genetics tests to hit US pharmacies
Want to find out what diseases await you in the future, your chances of developing Alzheimer’s? Or whether you will pass something on to your child? Then a trip to the pharmacy may reveal all.
Biotech firm Pathway Genomics announced Tuesday that personalized DNA tests to detect the risks of developing certain diseases will soon be available at Walgreens, a large chain of pharmacies.
It would be the first time that such tests would be commercially available for consumers, even though the company has offered them online for some time.
The Pathway Genomics kit, dubbed the “Insight Saliva Collection,” enables the user to take saliva swabs following simple instructions and send them off to a California laboratory for analysis.
Full Story: AFP: Off-the-shelf genetics tests to hit US pharmacies.
Kagan helped shield Saudis from 9/11 lawsuits
Elena Kagan, President Barack Obama’s latest nominee to the Supreme Court, helped protect the Saudi royal family from lawsuits that sought to hold al Qaeda financiers responsible in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
The suits were filed by thousands family members and others affected by the Sept. 11 attacks. In court papers, they provided evidence that members of the Saudi royal family had channeled millions to al Qaeda prior to the bombings, often in contravention of direct guidance from the United States.
But Kagan, acting as President Obama’s Solicitor General, argued that the case should not be heard even if evidence proved that the Saudis helped underwrite al Qaeda, because it would interfere with US foreign policy with the oil-rich nation. She posited “that the princes are immune from petitioners’ claims” because of “the potentially significant foreign relations consequences of subjecting another sovereign state to suit.”
Full Story: Kagan helped shield Saudis from 9/11 lawsuits | Raw Story.
Ron Paul hopes Hemp History Week will reap more co-sponsors for legalization bill
Groups hope to collect 50,000 signed post cards urging Obama and Holder to put end to industrial hemp ban
Jack Herer, “the self-described Emperor of Hemp”, passed away nearly a month ago, but that doesn’t mean his dream died with him.
Roll Call reports, “Hemp History Week might not earn anyone time off work, but Rep. Ron Paul still thinks it’s worth celebrating.”
The Texas Republican and erstwhile presidential candidate on Thursday submitted a statement to the Congressional Record recognizing next week, May 17-23, as Hemp History Week and urging his colleagues to pass legislation legalizing hemp farming. In the statement, which hemp advocates are touting as a big endorsement for their cause, Paul notes that Thomas Jefferson and George Washington both grew the leafy crop.
Full Story: Ron Paul hopes Hemp History Week will reap more co-sponsors for legalization bill | Raw Story.
BP makes enough profit in four days to cover the costs of the spill cleanup thus far.
“As hopes dim for containing the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico anytime soon” after a giant containment dome failed, the cost of cleaning up the spill will continue to rise. BP is financially responsible for the disaster, and President Obama wants to raise the cap on what the company is liable for, as cleanup costs have already surpassed the current limit. BP said yesterday that it had already spent $350 million on the spill response, and the company’s stock has taken a big hit, but the “behemoth” company will almost certainly survive the disaster with little long term damage. BP’s daily profits dwarf the daily cost of spill response, and at the current rate, the company could cover the entire cost of cleanup thus far in just under four days of profits:
For now, at least, BP’s prodigious costs combating the oil spill in the Gulf are outweighed by prodigious profits.
On Monday, BP said it spent $350 million in the first 20 days of the spill response, about $17.5 million a day. It has paid 295 of the 4,700 claims received, for a total of $3.5 million. By contrast, in the first quarter of the year, the London-based oil giant’s profits averaged $93 million a day.
Full Story: Think Progress » BP makes enough profit in four days to cover the costs of the spill cleanup thus far..
Telecoms’ Secret Plan To Attack Net Neutrality: Target Video Gamers And Stoke Fear Of Chinese Censorship
Net neutrality, a guiding principle for preserving a free and fair Internet, means that Internet service providers are not allowed to discriminate based on content for its customers. However, telecommunications firms — like AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and others — are firmly against net neutrality because they would like to increase their profits by deciding which websites customers can see, and at what speed. The telecom industry has dumped hundreds of millions of dollars into a lobby campaign against net neutrality. As the FCC now takes up net neutrality rule making, the industry is pushing an “outside approach” of hiring front groups and astroturf operatives.
This morning, representatives from various front groups launched a new coordinated campaign to kill net neutrality. Speaking on Capitol Hill, these front groups took turns decrying the evils of the principle of a fair and unbiased Internet. LULAC, which is funded by AT&T, called Net Neutrality “Obamacare for the Internet.” Americans for Prosperity — a corporate front group founded by oil billionaire David Koch but also funded by telecom interests — unveiled a new ad smearing net neutrality as a “government takeover” (the initial ad buy is $1.4 million dollars). And Grover Norquist, representing his “Americans for Tax Reform” corporate front group, said net neutrality is like what China does, “putting policemen on every corner, on the street or on the Internet.” Watch it:
Republicans And Right-Wing Media Push Myth That Kagan ‘Banned’ Military Recruiters From Harvard Law School
Moments after President Obama nominated Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, the right wing mobilized against her, claiming that she “banned” military recruiters during her tenure as dean of Harvard Law School.
Yesterday, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) became the first senator to oppose Kagan, citing her “poor judgment” when she “banned the U.S. military from recruiting on campus.” Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) said last night that Kagan “block[ed] these wonderful men and women from being on the campus,” while House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) said in statement that her decision to “ban” recruiters was “troubling.”
The right-wing media has dutifully latched onto this talking point. Watch a compilation
REPORT: Kagan’s Experience Involved Handling More Than 23,000 Cases
As ThinkProgress previously reported, many of Solicitor General Elena Kagan’s right-wing opponents now claim that her lack of prior judicial experience disqualifies her for the bench — in many cases despite their previous willingness to embrace conservative nominees who also have not served on the bench. The right’s attack on Kagan’s record does far more than expose its hypocrisy, however. It ignores how fully General Kagan’s prior experience prepares her for a seat on the Supreme Court.
Presently, Kagan serves as Solicitor General of the United States, a burdensome job which supervises tens of thousands of cases every year across a wide-range of legal issues and jurisdictions. General Kagan’s most well-known duty is also the most high-profile aspect of her job: Kagan serves as the United States’ chief litigator before the Supreme Court, where she argued six cases this past Term.
General Kagan’s second duty is to advise the Justices on which of the over 8,000 parties seeking Supreme Court review should receive a rare hearing before the high Court. The Supreme Court commonly calls for the views of the Solicitor General with respect to whether a particular petition for review should be granted, a request lawyers refer to as a “CVSG.” Moreover, the SG’s views are taken very seriously by the Justices, who agree with the SG’s recommendation approximately 80% of the time. In this sense, the job of SG prepares Kagan for one the most important tasks of a Supreme Court justice: culling through the thousands of petitions seeking Supreme Court review to identify the handful of petitions that should be granted.
Full Story: Think Progress » REPORT: Kagan’s Experience Involved Handling More Than 23,000 Cases.
Obama administration helped BP quash environmental challenges to Gulf drilling
The Obama administration intervened in court to ensure that BP’s Gulf drilling operations would go forward, even in the absence of serious environmental and safety studies, a World Socialist Web Site analysis of 2009 legal documents reveals.
The administration’s efforts applied not only to deep sea drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico, but specifically to the site that would be used by BP’s Deepwater Horizon drill rig, which on April 20 exploded, killing 11 workers and generating an oil slick that is inflicting an unprecedented environmental and economic disaster on the Gulf Coast.
A May 11, 2009 legal brief written on behalf of Obama’s secretary of the interior, Ken Salazar, requested that the Washington, DC federal court of appeals overturn or amend an earlier decision blocking new drilling in the Gulf of Mexico’s outer continental shelf. The petition referred specifically in several instances to site “206”—the same area where the Deepwater Horizon would explode in a blowout less than one year later.
Full Story: Obama administration helped BP quash environmental challenges to Gulf drilling.
Tax bills in 2009 at lowest level since 1950
Amid complaints about high taxes and calls for a smaller government, Americans paid their lowest level of taxes last year since Harry Truman’s presidency, a USA TODAY analysis of federal data found.
Some conservative political movements such as the “Tea Party” have criticized federal spending as being out of control. While spending is up, taxes have fallen to exceptionally low levels.
Federal, state and local taxes — including income, property, sales and other taxes — consumed 9.2% of all personal income in 2009, the lowest rate since 1950, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reports. That rate is far below the historic average of 12% for the last half-century. The overall tax burden hit bottom in December at 8.8.% of income before rising slightly in the first three months of 2010.
Full Story: Tax bills in 2009 at lowest level since 1950 – USATODAY.com.
Big Bank Lobby Spending +$1 Million a Day to Stop Reform
Eye on the Big Bank Lobby
Over the course of the financial reform process, the six biggest banks and their 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 according to a report released today by the Campaign for America’;s Future.
The report, Big Bank Takeover: How Too-Big-To-Fail’s Army of Lobbyists Has Captured Washington, shows how the six too-big-to-fail banks have hired 243 lobbyists who once worked in the federal government, including 202 who used to work in Congress, with others having worked at the Treasury, the White House, or a relevant federal agency like the SEC. (I authored the report, with assistance from researchers at LittleSis.org).
This translates into an average of 40 revolving door lobbyists per big bank.
Previous studies, including one by Public Citizen, have shown that the finance industry is spending $1 million dollars a day to fight financial reform and employing 940 former federal government employees. The report shows that the six biggest banks — JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo — account for a disproportionate share of this activity.
Full Story: Eye on the Big Bank Lobby | OurFuture.org.
Radioactive water from Oyster Creek nuclear plant has reached a major New Jersey drinking-water aquifer
Radioactive water that leaked from the nation’s oldest nuclear power plant has now reached a major underground aquifer that supplies drinking water to much of southern New Jersey, the state’s environmental chief said Friday.
The state Department of Environmental Protection has ordered the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station to halt the spread of contaminated water underground, even as it said there was no imminent threat to drinking water supplies.
The department launched a new investigation Friday into the April 2009 spill and said the actions of plant owner Exelon Corp. have not been sufficient to contain water contaminated with tritium.
Miran-Duhhhhh!
- Matt Taibbi -
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said Sunday it would seek a law allowing investigators to interrogate terrorism suspects without informing them of their rights, as Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. flatly asserted that the defendant in the Times Square bombing attempt was trained by the Taliban in Pakistan.
via Attorney General Backs Miranda Limit for Terror Suspects – NYTimes.com.
Memo to those Tea Party activists out there who’ve been howling about those liberal wusses in the Obama Justice Department who read Faisal Shahzad his Miranda rights: congratulations. You’ve just opened the door for a major new expansion of government power.
Having followed the Tea Party around on and off for a few months now it’s been hard not to notice some of the contradictory messages emanating from the movement. You’ll hear the same people who want to abolish the EPA complaining about the slow federal response to the Gulf oil spill, or the same people who are stocking up on guns to ward off the inevitable government assault on their property cheering for beefed-up drug enforcement laws and the no-knock search warrant.
Full Story: Miran-Duhhhhh! – Matt Taibbi – Taibblog – True/Slant.
Company says it has solution for Gulf oil spill, but being ignored
St Petersburg, Florida — With the disaster in the Gulf keeping everyone on edge looking for a solution, the answer might lay in material manufactured by a Columbian company with an office in Florida.
The company, Global Environmental Technology, has a product that is 100 percent organic and was invented in 1998 by its president, Carlos Forero. He won science competitions in Switzerland and Austria for the product, which encapsulates oil and cleans the material up.
Not only does the product clean up the oil, it can also be recycled for use afterwards. In addition, if birds are contaminated, the product can used for them as well.
You would think that with the disaster in the Gulf, and oil spilling out and heading to the beaches, the Coast Guard would be interested in the product. However, the company says all they are getting is red tape and getting nowhere.
Liz Cabot, Forero’s sister, says the Coast Guard said come back when they got EPA approval.
When EPA reviewed the product and said it could be used, the company went back to the Coast Guard and Cabot says they were told they had to fill out paperwork. Cabot says they have been waiting and waiting for the paperwork to clear.
Full Story: Company says it has solution for Gulf oil spill, but being ignored — Signs of the Times News.
Challenger Investigation Got $175 Million. Columbia $152 Million. Lewinsky $30 Million. 9/11 $15 Million. Financial Crisis Gets Only $8 Million
The government spent $175 million investigating the Challenger space shuttle disaster.It spent $152 million on the the Columbia disaster investigation.
It spent $30 million investigating the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
The government only authorized $15 million for the 9/11 Commission.
And how much has the government authorized for the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission? You know, the commission charged with getting to the bottom of what caused the financial crisis?
Just $8 million.
These figures don’t account for inflation. For example, the Challenger investigation cost over $300 million in today’s dollars.
You can tell alot about the questions which the government is truly interested in finding answers to by the amount of money it authorizes for the various investigations.
OPS: the price of Kabiki
Copy Machines, a Security Risk!
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the good, old-fashioned copy machine. But, as Armen Keteyian reports, advanced technology has opened a dangerous hole in data security.
The Cover-up: BP’s Crude Politics and the Looming Environmental Mega-Disaster
WMR has been informed by sources in the US Army Corps of Engineers, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and Florida Department of Environmental Protection that the Obama White House and British Petroleum (BP), which pumped $71,000 into Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign — more than John McCain or Hillary Clinton–, are covering up the magnitude of the volcanic-level oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and working together to limit BP’s liability for damage caused by what can be called a “mega-disaster.”
Obama and his senior White House staff, as well as Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, are working with BP’s chief executive officer Tony Hayward on legislation that would raise the cap on liability for damage claims from those affected by the oil disaster from $75 million to $10 billion. However, WMR’s federal and Gulf state sources are reporting the disaster has the real potential cost of at least $1 trillion. Critics of the deal being worked out between Obama and Hayward point out that $10 billion is a mere drop in the bucket for a trillion dollar disaster but also note that BP, if its assets were nationalized, could fetch almost a trillion dollars for compensation purposes. There is talk in some government circles, including FEMA, of the need to nationalize BP in order to compensate those who will ultimately be affected by the worst oil disaster in the history of the world.
Plans by BP to sink a 4-story containment dome over the oil gushing from a gaping chasm one kilometer below the surface of the Gulf, where the oil rig Deepwater Horizon exploded and killed 11 workers on April 20, and reports that one of the leaks has been contained is pure public relations disinformation designed to avoid panic and demands for greater action by the Obama administration, according to FEMA and Corps of Engineers sources. Sources within these agencies say the White House has been resisting releasing any “damaging information” about the oil disaster. They add that if the ocean oil geyser is not stopped within 90 days, there will be irreversible damage to the marine eco-systems of the Gulf of Mexico, north Atlantic Ocean, and beyond. At best, some Corps of Engineers experts say it could take two years to cement the chasm on the floor of the Gulf.
Full Story: The Cover-up: BP’s Crude Politics and the Looming Environmental Mega-Disaster.
Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!
Ralph Nader – Video
Talk by Ralph Nader, founder of Public Citizen and author of “Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!” given May 7, 2010 at Town Hall Seattle.
After Religion Fizzles, We’re Stuck With Nietzsche
Chris Hedges:
It is hard to muster much sympathy over the implosion of the Catholic Church, traditional Protestant denominations or Jewish synagogues. These institutions were passive as the Christian right, which peddles magical thinking and a Jesus-as-warrior philosophy, hijacked the language and iconography of traditional Christianity. They have busied themselves with the boutique activism of the culture wars. They have failed to unequivocally denounce unfettered capitalism, globalization and pre-emptive war. The obsession with personal piety and “How-is-it-with-me?” spirituality that permeates most congregations is narcissism. And while the Protestant church and reformed Judaism have not replicated the perfidiousness of the Catholic bishops, who protect child-molesting priests, they have little to say in an age when we desperately need moral guidance.
I grew up in the church and graduated from a seminary. It is an institution whose cruelty, inflicted on my father, who was a Presbyterian minister, I know intimately. I do not attend church. The cloying, feel-your-pain language of the average clergy member makes me run for the door. The debates in most churches—whether revolving around homosexuality or biblical interpretation—are a waste of energy. I have no desire to belong to any organization, religious or otherwise, which discriminates, nor will I spend my time trying to convince someone that the raw anti-Semitism in the Gospel of John might not be the word of God. It makes no difference to me if Jesus existed or not. There is no historical evidence that he did. Fairy tales about heaven and hell, angels, miracles, saints, divine intervention and God’s beneficent plan for us are repeatedly mocked in the brutality and indiscriminate killing in war zones, where I witnessed children murdered for sport and psychopathic gangsters elevated to demigods. The Bible works only as metaphor.
Full Story: Chris Hedges: After Religion Fizzles, We’re Stuck With Nietzsche – Chris Hedges’ Columns – Truthdig.
High Frequency Terrorism: How the Big Banks and Federal Reserve Maintained Their Death Grip Over the United States
By David DeGraw & Max Keiser:
The following article is the third-part of a six-part report titled: “The Financial Oligarchy Reigns: Democracy’s Death Spiral From Greece to the United States.”
In the aftermath of Goldman Sachs’ public flogging before the world in Congress, and while under investigation, on the very day that Congress was voting on the “break up the too big to fail banks” amendment and cutting behind the scenes deals to gut the audit of the Federal Reserve, the stock market had its greatest sudden drop in history, plummeting 700 points in ten minutes – shades of September 29, 2008 all over again.
If you recall, back in September ‘08, as Congress was voting down the first bailout, the big banks made the market plunge a record 778 points in one day. Fear and panic then led Congress to pass the bailout. Trillions of our tax dollars, the money that we desperately need to keep our society functioning over the long run, then went out the window and into the pockets of the very people who caused the crash.
What happened on September 29, 2008 will go down in history as one of the greatest acts of terrorism ever.
9/29/08 proved that when you have so much power concentrated in the hands of a few, you can manipulate a computer algorithm and make the market and economy go whichever way you want it to go. So on 5/6/10, just as the power of the big banks was again threatened on the floor of the Senate and a deal on auditing the Federal Reserve was being negotiated, in came a sudden and unprecedented ten-minute 700 point market drop, a precision-guided High Frequency Trading (HFT) attack to show Congress who’s boss.
ADDING TOXIC CHEMICALS TO A TOXIC OIL SPILL
Jim Hightower |
Let’s say that you have a water well, and a leak from an underground tank at a nearby gasoline station has contaminated your water. Not to worry, says the station owner, for he can fix the problem by dumping a secret mixture of toxic chemicals into your well.
Would you say “thank you” – or immediately dial 911 to tell authorities to come quickly with a large net and a straightjacket?
Astonishingly, this insane scenario is playing right now. The “water well” is the Gulf of Mexico, the gas station contaminator is BP, and the toxic fix is called “dispersants.”
Full Story: Jim Hightower | ADDING TOXIC CHEMICALS TO A TOXIC OIL SPILL.
Why Local Economies Matter
‘Going local’ currently remains a fringe, grassroots process made up of small-scale initiatives. The real question is how to steer government priorities away from big business and global finance, and to gain political and popular support for an economy geared toward localisation, writes Anna White.
Around the world, there is a growing movement to pull back from the relentless march of corporate globalisation by re-rooting economic and social activities at the community level. From the burgeoning popularity of farmers’ markets and food co-ops to the revitalisation of community banking, people are organising themselves to reclaim the economy from large profit-driven corporations and instead build sustainable, local alternatives.
While the term ‘localisation’ has never gained popular currency (perhaps because it is so easily misunderstood), it is worth considering a broad definition for this trend towards small-scale, community-oriented businesses. In Localization: A Global Manifesto, Colin Hines defines localisation as “a process which reverses the trend of globalisation by discriminating in favour of the local”. It is important to note, however, that this does not mean “walling off the outside world” through nationalistic protectionism (see Micahel Schuman, Going Local: Creating Self Reliant Communities in a Global Age). Nor does it mean creating communal autarky, with self-sufficient groups cutting themselves off from the monetary economy. International trade, travel and cultural exchange would continue, but locally-controlled, diversified economic activity would reorient production and service provision towards meeting the needs of the community first.
Full Story: Why Local Economies Matter – STWR – Share The World’s Resources.
Containment Dome Fails to Stop Oil Gusher: No Plan B
BP officials desperately searched Monday for a new fix to the enormous Gulf of Mexico oil spill after efforts to cap a gushing leak with a containment dome hit a perilous snag.
British energy giant BP, which owns the lion’s share of the leaking oil and has accepted responsibility for the clean-up, is facing the jaw-dropping possibility that, failing a swift fix it has yet to deliver with a containment dome, the crisis could spiral into an even worse environmental calamity.
The White House also was scrambling to contain fallout from the massive disaster threatening to take a toll on President Barack Obama’s political and energy agenda.
In Washington, Obama on Monday “will meet with a number of Cabinet members and senior staff in the White House Situation Room to review BP efforts to stop the oil leak, as well as to decide on next steps to ensure all is being done to contain the spread, mitigate the environmental impact and provide assistance to affected states,” a White House statement said.
Full Story: Containment Dome Fails to Stop Oil Gusher: No Plan B | CommonDreams.org.
SEC investigating Moody’s, sending stock price down
While the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose almost 4 percent Monday, share prices for Moody’s Corp. tumbled 6.807 percent as investors digested confirmation of a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into the credit-rating agency.
The fall in Moody’s share value of to $21.77, down $1.59, dragged down its chief competitor, Standard & Poor’s, part of McGraw-Hill Companies, which fell almost 4 percent.
Investors rely on ratings agencies to determine whether a bond or complex security is considered investment grade. These companies are now in the crosshairs of Congress and regulators for their role in the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression.
Full Story: SEC investigating Moody’s, sending stock price down | McClatchy.
For Air, Rail Workers, NMB Rule Means ‘Democracy Won Today’
A new rule issued this morning by the National Mediation Board (NMB) means airline and rail workers will now be able to choose whether to join a union under rules that are more fair and more in line with democratic principles.
For decades, the deck has been stacked against workers covered under the Rail Labor Act (RLA) because every worker who did not cast a vote in a representation election was automatically counted as a “No” vote. The new NMB rule says that an election’s outcome will be decided by the majority of votes cast, just like every other election, from city council to the presidency.
Patricia Friend, president of the Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA-CWA), says that flight attendants and other aviation and rail workers “have faced significant obstacles in their quest for collective bargaining rights.”
Outdated and unreliable voting procedures have fostered a unique culture of voter suppression as companies understand that impeding union organizing merely requires preventing employees from voting.
Full Story: AFL-CIO NOW BLOG | For Air, Rail Workers, NMB Rule Means ‘Democracy Won Today’.
Double-dip recession looms
THE fallout from the European debt crisis raises the risk of a “double dip” recession for the global economy, said Stephen Roach, chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia Ltd.
“When you have a vulnerable post-crisis economic recovery and crises reverberating in the aftermath of that, you have some very serious risks to the global business cycle,” Roach said in an interview today on Bloomberg Radio with Tom Keene. “This concept of the global double dip which no one wants to talk about,” he said, “is alive and well.”
Governments of the 16 euro nations agreed today to lend as much as 750 billion euros ($962 billion) to the most-indebted countries. The European Central Bank said it will counter “severe tensions” in “certain” markets by purchasing government and private debt.
Stocks rallied around the world after the announcement, sending the MSCI World Index up the most in 13 months. Greek bonds soared and the euro strengthened. Concerns that the Greek financial crisis will spread wiped $3.7 trillion from the value of global stock markets last week.
Full Story: Double-dip recession looms: Roach-International Business-News-The Economic Times.
How do we stop the hedge fund wolfpacks from destroying the Europe..and California is next?
Thom Hartmann
The Thom Hartmann Program can be heard daily M-F 12-3pm ET. Visit www.thomhartmann.com to listen live, join the community or purchase a podcast.
A Radical Plan to Reform the Financial System
The president’s half-measures won’t fix our failed financial system. Here’s what will
In early January, Ben Bernanke defended the Fed’s handling of the recent financial crisis. The lesson he drew was simple: better regulation could have prevented it.
The president’s half-measures won’t fix our failed financial system. Here’s what will
But sometimes it’s not enough to impose new regulations on the status quo; sometimes a bit of regulatory “creative destruction” is in order. Many of President Obama’s reform proposals are good, but they don’t go far enough. There are more drastic changes that can and should be imposed in the coming years, including breaking up big banks and imposing new firewalls in the financial system. There is an even more radical idea: use monetary policy to prevent speculative bubbles.
What follows is a glimpse of the possible future of finance—if policymakers and politicians recognize that confronting crises requires radical reform.
Full Story: A Radical Plan to Reform the Financial System – Newsweek.com.
Donna Brazile: Let’s Get Rid Of The Pundits!
The Washington Post apparently asked various luminaries to name one thing the world should just get rid of (sadly, none said “jeggings”) and Donna Brazile offered a suggestion that would afford her considerably more free time: let's get rid of the pundits!
If a single move could restore civility to politics, that is it. Get rid of the left-vs.-right commentators who are just out scoring points for their team. This sort of opinion-mongering is not only boring and predictable, it is destructive of the truth. If your only credentials are “GOP shill” or “Democratic hack,” you've no business cluttering up the airwaves or the op-ed pages. My momma always told me that if you don't know what you're talking about, it's best to keep your mouth shut. That's good advice.
Whom do we put in their place? I say replace the pundits with people who have genuine expertise — whether from their academic work, professional life or personal experience — on the key issues of the day. Instead of partisan talking heads or mad hatters from the “tea party” preaching their views on, say, health care and taxes, let's hear from doctors and insurance professionals, or the number-crunchers from the Congressional Budget Office. They're much better equipped to help viewers, listeners and readers wade through the facts, arguments and data.
Full Story: Donna Brazile: Let’s Get Rid Of The Pundits!.
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Republicans Don't Care about Voter Fraud....owa Republicans are trying to dismiss claims that the vote count in Tuesday's Iowa Caucus was wrong. An Iowa voter told a local TV station yesterday that he noticed a 20-vote discrepancy in the count - and that Rick Santorum was the real winner of the Caucuses. Republican Party officials, though, are sticking to their first count - showing Mitt Romney as the winner by 8-votes - and there will be no recount.The Republican Party has launched a war on voters around the nation this year with strict new laws that will disenfranchise over 5 million Americans. They claim these laws are necessary to combat so-called voter fraud. Yet in Iowa - where there are no such laws - and where a very, very close and questionable election was just held - Republicans don't seem to care at all about getting it right.Clearly - the war on voters isn't about making sure the people's voices are represented accurately - it's about making sure poor people, young people, and minorities who tend to vote for Democrats - can't vote at all.-Thom(Who do you think won? Tell us here.) -
LEGALIZE Democracy
" We the corporations" On January 21, 2010, with its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons, entitled by the U.S. Constitution to buy elections and run our government. __________
MOVE to AMEND
a project of the CAMPAIGN TO LEGALIZE Democracy
Help end Corporate personhood
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The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. 
