Archive for June, 2010

Today’s Unemployment Crisis by the Numbers

Report from Alon Cohen and Andrew Jakabovics examines current state-based foreclosure mediation programs and offers proposals for how to bring them to scale.

Our nation today is mired in one of the worst labor markets since the Great Depression. There are currently nearly 15 million Americans unemployed, with the unemployment rate hovering at or just under 10 percent for nearly a year. At the end of May, nearly half of those unemployed (46 percent) have been out of work and actively seeking a job for at least six months, a post-World War II record high. Currently, there are nearly five workers actively searching for work for every job available, compared to just one and a half job searchers per job opening before the Great Recession began.

Worse still, the labor market problems we see right now will be with us for some time. The massive employment hole left by the Great Recession will take years to fill. If we added 218,000 private-sector jobs each month from now on—the highest monthly payroll increase seen so far this year in the private sector—it would still take almost five years to fill the hole. That’s why ensuring that unemployment insurance reaches the unemployed remains a critical component of any serious effort to help stem the harmful effects of this recession and to help the American economy recover.

Unemployment insurance is the primary mechanism to provide financial assistance to workers who are unemployed through no fault of their own. Yet in early June, Congress allowed unemployment benefits to expire for 1.2 million workers over the course of the month and has repeatedly been unable to pass legislation to fix this problem. This has serious implications for the unemployed, as well as every one of us who still has a job. Allowing benefits to the long-term unemployed to expire threatens our nascent economic recovery. Economists across the board agree that unemployment benefits are one of the most important counter-cyclical economic policies we have.

Full Story: Today’s Unemployment Crisis by the Numbers.

Is High-Fructose Corn Syrup Bad for You?

Availability of total fructose, high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS ), and free fructose in relation to overweight & obesity prevalence in the United States

Last month, I saw an interesting commercial where a mother was throwing a birthday party for her five-year old. She had a fruit drink that was sweetened with high fructose corn syrup and another mother scolded her for serving it. She replied that it was ok, because high-fructose corn syrup is all natural and made from corn, so what could be so bad?

Up to now, my only qualm with high-fructose corn syrup was that it is being added in higher quantities than necessary to so many packaged and bottled foods. Excess consumption of calories and sugar is a serious issue for Americans and probably one of the factors responsible for the rapid rise of obesity over the last 30 years. Americans eat around 150 pounds of sugar a year – in 1970, it was only 120. So that means the average American is eating 6 cups of sugar a week, mostly in the form of high-fructose corn syrup.

So What is High-Fructose Corn Syrup, and Why Could It Be Harmful?

High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is a sweetener that is found in many packaged and fast foods – everything from crackers to cookies, ice cream and jarred sauces. It originates from corn syrup that has undergone enzymatic processing to increase its fructose content, and is then mixed with pure corn syrup (100% glucose), becoming a high-fructose corn syrup in the process.

Full Story: Is High-Fructose Corn Syrup Bad for You? | Skinny Chef.

We Are Losing Our Nation to Lies About the Necessity of War

Rep. Dennis Kucinich:

In a little more than a year the United States flew $12 billion in cash to Iraq, much of it in $100 bills, shrink wrapped and loaded onto pallets. Vanity Fair reported in 2004 that “at least $9 billion” of the cash had “gone missing, unaccounted for.” $9 billion.

Today, we learned that suitcases of $3 billion in cash have openly moved through the Kabul airport.

One U.S. official quoted by the Wall Street Journal said, “A lot of this looks like our tax dollars being stolen.” $3 billion. Consider this as the American people sweat out an extension of unemployment benefits.

Last week, the BBC reported that “the US military has been giving tens of millions of dollars to Afghan security firms who are funneling the money to warlords.” Add to that a corrupt Afghan government underwritten by the lives of our troops.

Full Story: Rep. Dennis Kucinich: We Are Losing Our Nation to Lies About the Necessity of War.

Caterpillar Building New Facility in Brazil, Not the U.S.

Caterpillar, the world’s largest manufacturer of construction and mining equipment announced on Tuesday that it planned to build a new manufacturing facility, but not in America.

The Peoria, Illinois-based company said it will open up a facility in Brazil that will produce backhoe loaders and small wheel loaders. The move will allow the company to expand its footprint in Latin America, according to a statement.

“The strategic decision to expand our operations in Brazil will position Caterpillar to meet customer demand, particularly considering the strong economic recovery that has taken place across the region in the last year,” said Luiz Carlos Calil, Caterpillar Brazil president, in a news release.

Full Story: Caterpillar Building New Facility in Brazil, Not the U.S. | Economy In Crisis.

Free Trade Decimating Textile Industry

Much like any other labor intensive sector of the economy, America’s textile industry has been decimated by free trade agreements, globalization and outsourcing. However, things could get much worse if the Obama administration’s proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership is implemented, according to the National Council of Textile Organizations.

The NCTO argues that providing Vietnam with duty-free access into the American market would wreak havoc on the domestic textile industry.

“NCTO is strongly opposed to the inclusion of Vietnam in the TPP agreement because it would mean the loss of tens of thousands of U.S. textile export jobs in this country,” Cass Johnson, President of the NCTO said in a press release.

Full Story: Free Trade Decimating Textile Industry | Economy In Crisis.

Dis-United States – Toxic Talk is Destroying the U.S.

All Obama-Nazi/Hitler comparisons aside, the answer is still a resounding no. Even stripping away the most-hateful of rhetoric and examining their basic governing philosophy (if it can be described as such), both espouse a libertarian view, that, if followed, would lead to more economic degradation.

It is in these times of great economic peril that America most needs government intervention into the economy. To restore the nation’s manufacturing base, the country needs a national industrial policy overseen at the top levels of government, a more protectionist trade policy to protect American businesses from the mercantilist practices of others and a tax system that encourages domestic innovation and production rather than outsourcing.

Full Story: Dis-United States – Toxic Talk is Destroying the U.S. | Economy In Crisis.

Dis-United States – Toxic Talk is Destroying the U.S.

They command enormous audiences of loyal followers, set the agenda for some in the Republican Party and have made fortunes through their media empires, but are Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck good for America?

All Obama-Nazi/Hitler comparisons aside, the answer is still a resounding no. Even stripping away the most-hateful of rhetoric and examining their basic governing philosophy (if it can be described as such), both espouse a libertarian view, that, if followed, would lead to more economic degradation.

It is in these times of great economic peril that America most needs government intervention into the economy. To restore the nation’s manufacturing base, the country needs a national industrial policy overseen at the top levels of government, a more protectionist trade policy to protect American businesses from the mercantilist practices of others and a tax system that encourages domestic innovation and production rather than outsourcing.

Full Story: Dis-United States – Toxic Talk is Destroying the U.S. | Economy In Crisis.

Top Democrat drafting plan to deny BP new offshore drilling leases

Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) said Wednesday that he’s drafting legislation to deny BP new offshore oil-and-gas leases for up to seven years due to the oil giant’s pattern of safety and environmental problems.

“British Petroleum has a flagrant history of taking risks to boost profits that has resulted in deaths of workers, destruction of the environment, and economic chaos in local communities,” Miller said in a prepared statement about BP, which is struggling to contain oil from its blown-out Gulf of Mexico well.

Miller, a top ally of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), hopes to offer his plan as an amendment to drilling safety legislation under construction in the House Natural Resources Committee. He once headed that panel and currently chairs the Education and Labor Committee.

Full Story: Top Democrat drafting plan to deny BP new offshore drilling leases – The Hill’s E2-Wire.

The GOP’s Genetic Link to Big Oil

by Jim Hightower

If scientists were to compare the DNA of Republican congress-critters and of oil corporations, I’ll bet they’d find that they match perfectly. After all, the two species have identical political instincts and seem to have a natural affinity for each other — so I’m pretty sure they sprang from the same genetic pool.

How else can you explain the remarkable gusher of compassion that Republican lawmakers are presently directing toward Big Oil in general and BP in particular? For example, only hours after winning his party’s nomination for a Kentucky Senate seat, GOP teabag darling Rand Paul was on national TV decrying Barack Obama as “un-American” for daring to demand that BP be held accountable for its human and ecological destruction in the Gulf of Mexico.

Next came Minnesota’s Lioness of Loopiness, Michelle Bachmann, implying that the hard-hit people of the gulf are shiftless moochers who’re using the oil disaster to grab corporate cash. Brimming with tears of compassion, the kooky congresswoman wailed that, “(BP) shouldn’t have to be fleeced and made chumps to have to pay for perpetual unemployment and all the rest.”

Full Story: The GOP’s Genetic Link to Big Oil by Jim Hightower on Creators.com – A Syndicate Of Talent.

Ancient Fossils Show Arctic Now Near Climate Tipping Point

Current levels of Earth’s atmospheric carbon dioxide may be high enough to bring about “irreversible” shifts in Arctic ecosystems, according to new research published today by scientists from the United States, Canada and The Netherlands.

The Arctic climate system is more sensitive to greenhouse warming than previously known said the researchers, who gathered evidence on what is now Ellesmere Island in Canada’s High Arctic from a time period 2.6 to 5.3 million years ago. This period, known as the Pliocene Epoch, occurred shortly before Earth was plunged into an ice age.

“Our findings indicate that CO2 levels of approximately 400 parts per million are sufficient to produce mean annual temperatures in the High Arctic of approximately zero degrees Celsius (32 degrees F),” said lead author Ashley Ballantyne of the University of Colorado at Boulder.

“As temperatures approach zero degrees Celsius, it becomes exceedingly difficult to maintain permanent sea and glacial ice in the Arctic. Thus current levels of CO2 in the atmosphere of approximately 390 parts per million may be approaching a tipping point for irreversible ice-free conditions in the Arctic,” Dr. Ballantyne warned.

Full Story: Ancient Fossils Show Arctic Now Near Climate Tipping Point.

Feingold: ‘Standing Up to the Unholy Alliance Between Washington and Wall Street’

by Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI)

WASHINGTON – Wall Street and its allies have been calling the shots in Congress for decades, so they must be glad to see how things are shaping up on financial regulatory reform. Congress is about to vote on a final bill that fails to fix the key flaws in the bills passed by both the House and Senate. At the start of this process I made clear that I had a simple test for financial reform — will it stop another financial meltdown? This bill fails that test, and I won’t support legislation that fails to protect the people of Wisconsin from the pain of another economic disaster. And I don’t need to be lectured about this issue by people who supported the repeal of Glass-Steagall, which paved the way for this terrible recession.

I had hoped I would be able to support the legislation, given the clear need for strong reform. I cosponsored a number of critical amendments during Senate consideration of the bill including a Cantwell-McCain amendment to restore Glass-Steagall safeguards, Senator Dorgan’s amendment that addressed the problem of “too big to fail” financial institutions, and another “too big to fail” reform offered by Senators Brown and Kaufman that proposed strict limits on the size of those institutions. Each of those amendments would have improved the bill significantly, and each of them either failed or was blocked from even getting a vote

Full Story: Feingold: ‘Standing Up to the Unholy Alliance Between Washington and Wall Street’ | CommonDreams.org.

White People For ‘Rent’ In China

To some, it’s known as “White Guy Window Dressing.” Others call it “The Token White Guy Gig” or even a “Face Job.”

These are terms used to describe a recently established practice employed by Chinese firms, who are willing to pay high prices for fair-skinned expatriates to act as faux employees and white-collar business partners — all in an effort to impress other area businesses.

According to a blitz of news reports, the practice works as a complex, if bogus, promotional tool. To the Chinese public, the number of foreigners a company has is believed to have a direct correlation to its level of prestige, money and authority — which, in turn, increases their chances of securing additional business. In an increasingly globalized Chinese workforce, an office’s “diversity,” real or not, makes it seem more international.

Full Story: White People For ‘Rent’ In China.

Terrafugia Transition ‘Flying Car’ (PHOTOS, VIDEO): Extraordinary Vehicle Gets Authorities’ OK

The Transition’s creators have dubbed the two-seater vehicle a “roadable aircraft:” it can drive on any surface, and, thanks to its foldable wings, can transform into a personal airplane. It can fly at a speed of 115 MPH and has a 460-mile range. As the Telegraph notes, it “requires a 1,700-foot (one-third of a mile) runway to take off and can fit in a standard garage.” The “flying car” is expected to retail for $194,000.

As AutoBlog explains, the Transition has just received special approval from US air authorities:

The FAA has just awarded the Terrafugia Transition an exemption which will allow the 1,440-pound car/aircraft hybrid to fly under a “light sport” designation, even though it hits the scales at a hefty 120 lbs. more than the rules allow. A light sport pilot license only requires 20 hours of seat time – far less than what a full license would demand.

CNET likens the Terrafugia Transition to a “Volkswagen Beetle in the belly of a carp.” Think so? See for yourself in the pictures and video of the “flying car” below.

Full Story: Terrafugia Transition ‘Flying Car’ (PHOTOS, VIDEO): Extraordinary Vehicle Gets Authorities’ OK.

Tea Party Jesus: Blog Puts Words Of Conservatives In The Mouth Of Christ (PICTURES)

The concept behind the site Tea Party Jesus is simple: Put the words of conservative Christian social and political figures in the mouth of Christ. The juxtaposition of hateful, ignorant, or otherwise nonsensical rants with serene photos of JC himself isn’t only funny, but says a lot about the people who claim to be Christians. With the site’s permission, we’ve compiled some of our favorites so far. From the predictably fiery Bill O’Reilly and Ann Coulter to various pastors, radio hosts, and senators, these quotes are real, with quote sources linked to in the caption of each slide. If you go to the actual site, you can click on each photo to reveal the person behind the quote, making for for a jaw-dropping game of who-said-what.

Full Story: Tea Party Jesus: Blog Puts Words Of Conservatives In The Mouth Of Christ (PICTURES).

Once America Started Waterboarding, Major Newspapers Stopped Referring To It As Torture, Says Study

If you’ve ever had the funny feeling that the media has largely bent over backwards to normalize and legitimize the practice of waterboarding once the United States started doing it, guess what? You’ve had good reason! It’s all laid out in a new study from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, highlighted today by Glenn Greenwald over at Salon.

There are two key findings worth highlighting. First, did it seem like around 2004, major newspapers just stopped referring to waterboarding as torture, after decades of properly categorizing it as such? Why yes, they did!

The current debate over waterboarding has spawned hundreds of newspaper articles in the last two years alone. However, waterboarding has been the subject of press attention for over a century. Examining the four newspapers with the highest daily circulation in the country, we found a significant and sudden shift in how newspapers characterized waterboarding. From the early 1930′s until the modern story broke in 2004, the newspapers that covered waterboarding almost uniformly called the practice torture or implied it was torture: The New York Times characterized it thus in 81.5% (44 of 54) of articles on the subject and The Los Angeles Times did so in 96.3% of articles (26 of 27). By contrast, from 2002-2008, the studied newspapers almost never referred to waterboarding as torture. The New York Times called waterboarding torture or implied it was torture in just 2 of 143 articles (1.4%). The Los Angeles Times did so in 4.8% of articles (3 of 63). The Wall Street Journal characterized the practice as torture in just 1 of 63 articles (1.6%). USA Today never called waterboarding torture or implied it was torture.

Full Story: Once America Started Waterboarding, Major Newspapers Stopped Referring To It As Torture, Says Study.

Pelosi To Boehner: You’re Not Taking My Gavel

Nancy Pelosi On The 2010 Elections: The GOP Isn’t A Threat

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Cali.) said last Friday that she fully expects to hold on to her gavel even as Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) finishes every campaign-related speech by predicting he will be the next Speaker.

“Of course that’s what he says,” said Pelosi, in an exclusive interview with the Huffington Post. “Of course he does. But we are very confident we will [remain in power] because we don’t take anything for granted. We run every race one race at a time, and I make it really clear to my colleagues that my responsibility is to reelect our incumbents, to win our Democratic open seats and then to go after some of their seats.”

In a quick detour into the world of electoral politics, Pelosi predicted with gusto that Democrats will retain control of the House even during the likely tumultuous midterm elections. Part of the reason, she said, is that the slate of House Democrats in close races has already “fought the fight” with respect to health care reform, and has the time and confidence to win over their constituents before the election. The main factor, however, is that the GOP has yet to present itself as a threat.

Full Story: Pelosi To Boehner: You’re Not Taking My Gavel.

Unemployment: Congress Has Never Before Dropped Extended Benefits With Jobless Rate So High

Though the jobs crisis shows few signs of abating and the unemployment rate continues to hover near 10 percent, Congress allowed extended unemployment benefits to expire at the beginning of June, causing so far more than 1.2 million long-term unemployed to miss checks.

During normal times, state provide 26 weeks of unemployment benefits for workers laid off through no fault of their own. Federally-funded extended benefits have given the unemployed additional weeks during eight recessions since the 1950s. If Congress fails to reauthorize the current round of extra jobless aid, it will be the first time since then that extended benefits have been allowed to expire when the national unemployment rate is above 7.2 percent.

“This is both unfair to the unemployed, who face a historically difficult situation through no fault of their own, and economically unwise as it threatens the prospect of a strong and sustainable recovery,” says a new report from the National Employment Law Project and the Center for American Progress. “The consequences are obviously dire for those Americans out of work, and could be equally devastating for employed Americans who are counting on a sustained economic recovery to keep their jobs and boost their earnings.”

Full Story: Unemployment: Congress Has Never Before Dropped Extended Benefits With Jobless Rate So High.

How bad is the oil spill? Flight sheds light on magnitude of disaster

Author David Helvarg takes a flight from the shores of Alabama to the site of the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion. What he finds is disturbing

Full Story: BP Slick.

Recession cut into employment for half of working adults, study says

The recession has directly hit more than half of the nation’s working adults, pushing them into unemployment, pay cuts, reduced hours at work or part-time jobs, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.

The economic shock has jolted many Americans into a new, more austere reality, which is likely to have lasting consequences for an economy fueled mostly by consumer spending. More than six in 10 Americans say they have cut down on borrowing and spending, the survey found.

The reason: Nearly half of the survey’s respondents say they are in worse financial shape as a result of the downturn, which destroyed 20 percent of Americans’ wealth.

Full Story: Recession cut into employment for half of working adults, study says.

VA hospital may have infected 1,800 veterans with HIV

A Missouri VA hospital is under fire because it may have exposed more than 1,800 veterans to life-threatening diseases such as hepatitis and HIV.

John Cochran VA Medical Center in St. Louis has recently mailed letters to 1,812 veterans telling them they could contract hepatitis B, hepatitis C and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) after visiting the medical center for dental work, said Rep. Russ Carnahan.

Carnahan said Tuesday he is calling for a investigation into the issue and has sent a letter to President Obama about it.

“This is absolutely unacceptable,” said Carnahan, a Democrat from Missouri. “No veteran who has served and risked their life for this great nation should have to worry about their personal safety when receiving much needed healthcare services from a Veterans Administration hospital.”

Full Story: VA hospital may have infected 1,800 veterans with HIV – CNN.com.

‘Not enough money in world’ to pay every spill claim: oil fund czar

The prominent US lawyer managing BP’s 20-billion-dollar oil disaster fund said Wednesday not all claimants will be paid, especially some of those seeking compensation for falling houses prices.

“There’s not enough money in the world to pay every single small business that claims injury no matter where or when,” Kenneth Feinberg told the House of Representatives Committee on Small Business.

“You’ve got to decide in a principled way… and work out some definition in that regard,” he said, while stating his determination to “pay every eligible claim.”

Full Story: ‘Not enough money in world’ to pay every spill claim: oil fund czar | Raw Story.

Doctor testing drug to ‘prevent’ lesbianism, interest in ‘male careers’

Dr. Maria New has a new strategy for treating unborn fetuses: the use of a potentially dangerous steroid aimed at preventing a rare congenital disorder that affects the adrenal gland, potentially consigning the future child to a lifetime regime of drugs.

It also prevents “some of the symptoms of [this disorder] in girls, namely ambiguous genitalia. Because the condition causes overproduction of male hormones in the womb, girls who are affected tend to have genitals that look more male than female, though internal sex organs are normal.”

Dr. New offers pregnant women dexamethasone, a risky steroid aimed at female fetuses that may have this disorder. Many exposed to dexamethasone through this off-label use are not being enrolled in controlled clinical trials.

Full Story: Doctor testing drug to ‘prevent’ lesbianism, interest in ‘male careers’ | Raw Story.

Obama: ‘Civilian expeditionary force’ can aid wearied troops | Raw Story

US soldiers in combat could use an assist from a civilian workforce while trying to rebuild war-torn nations, President Barack Obama said Wednesday.

Speaking at a town hall in Racine, Wisconsin, Obama called for sending a “civilian expeditionary force” to Afghanistan and Iraq to help overburdened military troops build infrastructure. His remarks were first reported by The Associated Press.

“So what I’m trying to say is, don’t put all the burden on the military. Make sure that we’ve got a civilian expeditionary force,” said the president, adding that the civilian force would build schools, bridges and roads in regions cleared by the military as safe.

Full Story: Obama: ‘Civilian expeditionary force’ can aid wearied troops | Raw Story.

OPS: A new euphemism for Blackwater - way to go champ

MSNBC’s Scarborough: ‘Every Republican I Talk To On The Hill’ Tells Me John Boehner ‘Is Not A Hard Worker’

On MSNBC’s Morning Joe, host Joe Scarborough made a damning accusation against House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), with whom he used to work in the House of Representatives. Scarborough said that the rap on Boehner amongst people who know him best is that he’s lazy:

SCARBOROUGH: I hear it on the Hill, I’m sure you hear it on the Hill all the time, it’s not reported but so many Republicans tell me this is a guy that is not the hardest worker in the world. After 5 o’clock, 6 o’clock at night, he is disengaged at best. You can see him around town. He does not have, let’s say, the work hours of Newt Gingrich. … Every Republican I talk to says John Boehner by 5 or 6 o’clock at night, you can see him at bars. He is not a hard worker.

Politico’s co-founder and executive director Jim VandeHei, doing his best to defend Boehner from Scarborough’s accusations, first tried to dodge the discussion but then said, “Well, a lot of those bars are fundraisers for Republicans, his people might say.”

Scarborough retorted that his accusation about Boehner’s work ethic “comes from every Republican I talk to on the Hill.” VandeHei, again defending Boehner, said that’s “not the biggest knock” on him and added that he didn’t know if John Boehner is a hard worker.

Full Story: Think Progress » MSNBC’s Scarborough: ‘Every Republican I Talk To On The Hill’ Tells Me John Boehner ‘Is Not A Hard Worker’.

Angle Calls Unemployed Americans ‘Spoiled,’ Claims There Are Plenty Of Jobs Out There

Yesterday, after weeks of ducking interviews with the mainstream press, Senate candidate Sharron Angle — who is running on the Republican ticket in Nevada — appeared on Face to Face with Nevada journalist Jon Ralston to clarify some of her positions, including her view that unemployment benefits should be cut because “spoiled” workers are living off of them instead of getting a job.

Ralston asked Angle what she meant by that statement, and Angle replied that there are plenty of jobs out there for the unemployed, but extended benefits are discouraging workers from reentering the workforce because they pay more than entry-level work does:

They keep extending these unemployment benefits to the point where people are afraid to go out and get a job because the job doesn’t pay as much as the unemployment benefit does. … What has happened is the system of entitlement has caused us to have a spoilage with our ability to go out and get a job. … There are some jobs out there that are available. Because they have to enter at a lower grade and they cannot keep their unemployment, they have to make a choice now.

Watch it:

Full Story: Think Progress » Angle Calls Unemployed Americans ‘Spoiled,’ Claims There Are Plenty Of Jobs Out There.

Obama Slams Boehner: Americans Know The Country Needs More Than An ‘Ant Swatter’ To Recover

In recent weeks, Republicans have been making headlines for their unabashed advocacy on behalf of Wall Street and big business at the expense of American taxpayers. In a recent interview with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) compared the financial crisis to a poor little ant, and criticized Democrats for “killing” it with a “nuclear weapon” (i.e. financial reform).

Yesterday, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs went after Boehner and called him “completely out of touch with America.” A staffer for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) responded, “An ant, Mr. Boehner? It was the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression — Americans lost 8 million jobs and $17 trillion in retirement savings and net worth.”

Today at a town hall event in Racine, WI, President Obama went directly after Boehner, telling him that most Americans don’t think “the financial crisis was an ant and we just need a little ant swatter to fix this thing”:

Full Story: Think Progress » Obama Slams Boehner: Americans Know The Country Needs More Than An ‘Ant Swatter’ To Recover.

Sen. Bennett (R-UT): ‘I find plenty of slogans on the Republican side, but not very many ideas.’

Last month, Sen. Bob Bennett (R-UT) came in a distant third behind two other GOP candidates vying for the three-term senator’s seat at the Utah Republican Party’s nominating convention in Salt Lake City. His defeat was heralded as a Tea Party victory and prompted Utah’s other GOP U.S. senator, Orrin Hatch, to say tea partiers “don’t have an open mind” and “won’t listen.” Yesterday, Bennett had some harsh words for his party and its future:

“As I look out at the political landscape now, I find plenty of slogans on the Republican side, but not very many ideas,” Bennett told The Ripon Society.

“Indeed, if you raise specific ideas and solutions, as I’ve tried to do on health care with [Oregon Democratic Sen.] Ron Wyden, you are attacked with the same vigor as we’ve seen in American politics all the way back to slavery and polygamy; you are attacked as being a wimp, insufficiently pure, and unreliable.”

Full Story: Think Progress » Sen. Bennett: ‘I find plenty of slogans on the Republican side, but not very many ideas.’.

Klobuchar Hits Coburn For Saying America Was More Free When There Were No Women On The Supreme Court

As confirmation hearings on Elena Kagan’s nomination to the Supreme Court proceed, Senate Republicans continue blustering through their arguments — even going as far as to lambast Kagan’s clerkship under Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American justice. Today, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) echoed classic Republican talking points under President Obama, lecturing the Supreme Court nominee about how Americans are “losing freedom,” and how we were more free “30 years ago.” Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) then responded to Coburn by pointing out that Coburn’s idea of a more “free” society was when women had fewer rights:

KLOBUCHAR: I was really interested and listening to Senator Coburn. … He was actually asking you, just now, back 30 years ago if you thought that we were more free. … But I was thinking back 30 years ago, was 1980. … And then I was thinking, were we really more free, if you were a woman in 1980? Do you know, solicitor general, how many women were on the U.S. Supreme Court in 1980?

KAGAN: I guess zero.

KLOBUCHAR: That would be correct. There were no women on the Supreme Court. Do you know how many women were sitting up here 30 years ago in 1980?

Full Story: Think Progress » Klobuchar Hits Coburn For Saying America Was More Free When There Were No Women On The Supreme Court.

The Ugly Party vs. the Grown-Up Party

My political friendships and sympathies are increasingly determined not by ideology but by methodology. One of the most significant divisions in American public life is not between the Democrats and the Republicans; it is between the Ugly Party and the Grown-Up Party.

This distinction came to mind in the case of Washington Post blogger David Weigel, who resigned last week after the leak of messages he wrote disparaging figures he covered. Weigel is, by most accounts, a bright, hardworking young man whose private communications should have been kept private. But the tone of the e-mails he posted on a liberal e-mail list is instructive. When Rush Limbaugh went to the hospital with chest pain, Weigel wrote, “I hope he fails.” Matt Drudge is an “amoral shut-in” who should “set himself on fire.” Opponents are referred to as “ratf — -ers” and “[expletive] moronic.”

This type of discourse is an odd combination between the snideness of the cool, mean kids in high school and the pettiness of Richard Nixon rambling on his tapes. Weigel did not intend his words to be public. But they display the defining characteristic of ugly politics — the dehumanization of political opponents.

Full Story: Michael Gerson – The Ugly Party vs. the Grown-Up Party.

New study documents media’s servitude to government

- Glenn Greenwald -

A newly released study from students at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government provides the latest evidence of how thoroughly devoted the American establishment media is to amplifying and serving (rather than checking) government officials. This new study examines how waterboarding has been discussed by America’s four largest newspapers over the past 100 years, and finds that the technique, almost invariably, was unequivocally referred to as “torture” — until the U.S. Government began openly using it and insisting that it was not torture, at which time these newspapers obediently ceased describing it that way:

Similarly, American newspapers are highly inclined to refer to waterboarding as “torture” when practiced by other nations, but will suddenly refuse to use the term when it’s the U.S. employing that technique:

Full Story: New study documents media’s servitude to government – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.

Whale sharks unable to avoid oil spill (with video)

Last week, scientists cheered the discovery of one of the largest groups of whale sharks ever sighted in the northern Gulf of Mexico — about 100 animals feeding on the surface over a deepwater feature off Louisiana called the Ewing Bank.

This week’s report: Three whale sharks swimming in heavy oil four miles from the gushing Deepwater Horizon wellhead.

“Our worst fears are realized. They are not avoiding the spill area,” said Eric Hoffmayer, the University of Southern Mississippi scientist who found the large aggregation last week. “Those animals are going to succumb. Taking mouthfuls of oil is not good. It is not the toxicity that will kill them. It’s that oil is going to be sticking to their gills and everything else.”

Full Story: Whale sharks unable to avoid oil spill (with video) | al.com.

Is Advice From the IMF Better Than Advice From a Drunk on the Street?

DEAN BAKER :-

That is the question that people around the world should be asking as the International Monetary Fund dishes out its prescription for austerity. The IMF program calls for cutbacks in government support for health care, pensions and a wide range of other public services. It also calls for weakening labor market regulations that provide workers with job security.

These recommendations are being given in a context where the world economy is suffering from a massive shortfall of demand. In other words, tens of millions of people are unemployed right now because there is not enough spending to keep them employed. The IMF’s program is almost certain to reduce spending further leading to even larger shortfalls in demand and more unemployment.

But, the IMF says that we should trust them. The question we should all be asking is “why?”

Where was the IMF when the housing bubble in the United States and elsewhere was inflating to ever more dangerous levels? Was it frantically yelling at governments to rein in the bubbles before they burst with disastrous consequences? After all, what could possibly have been more important than warning of the dangers of these bubbles?

Full Story: Dean Baker Is Advice From the IMF Better Than Advice From a Drunk on the Street?.

OPEN MIC CATCHES REPORTERS TELLING THE TRUTH..

Former half-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) spoke at a California university fundraiser last week, which generated some controversy due to her excessive speaking fees. Now, it appears the event has become controversial for an entirely different reason.

The local Fox affiliate overheard a variety of journalists reflecting on Palin’s remarks on a live mic, with reporters unaware that they were being recorded. The result was some unexpected candor.

“I feel like I just got off a roller coaster, going round and round,” one reporter is heard saying on audio captured by Fox40 News. “S— flying out everywhere.”

“She didn’t finish a statement,” another reporter says.

“Did she make a statement?” another asks, drawing laughs.

“I don’t know how we’re gonna make a story out of that,” a voice is heard saying.

“Now I know that dumbness doesn’t come from just sound bites,” yet another reporter

Full Story: The Washington Monthly.

How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America

The Great Recession may be over, but this era of high joblessness is probably just beginning. Before it ends, it will likely change the life course and character of a generation of young adults. It will leave an indelible imprint on many blue-collar men. It could cripple marriage as an institution in many communities. It may already be plunging many inner cities into a despair not seen for decades. Ultimately, it is likely to warp our politics, our culture, and the character of our society for years to come.

How should we characterize the economic period we have now entered? After nearly two brutal years, the Great Recession appears to be over, at least technically. Yet a return to normalcy seems far off. By some measures, each recession since the 1980s has retreated more slowly than the one before it. In one sense, we never fully recovered from the last one, in 2001: the share of the civilian population with a job never returned to its previous peak before this downturn began, and incomes were stagnant throughout the decade. Still, the weakness that lingered through much of the 2000s shouldn’t be confused with the trauma of the past two years, a trauma that will remain heavy for quite some time.

The unemployment rate hit 10 percent in October, and there are good reasons to believe that by 2011, 2012, even 2014, it will have declined only a little. Late last year, the average duration of unemployment surpassed six months, the first time that has happened since 1948, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking that number. As of this writing, for every open job in the U.S., six people are actively looking for work.

Full Story: How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America – Magazine – The Atlantic.

Scrap dollar as sole reserve currency: U.N. report

A new United Nations report released on Tuesday calls for abandoning the U.S. dollar as the main global reserve currency, saying it has been unable to safeguard value.

But several European officials attending a high-level meeting of the U.N. Economic and Social Council countered by saying that the market, not politicians, would determine what currencies countries would keep on hand for reserves.

“The dollar has proved not to be a stable store of value, which is a requisite for a stable reserve currency,” the U.N. World Economic and Social Survey 2010 said.

The report says that developing countries have been hit by the U.S. dollar’s loss of value in recent years.

Full Story: Scrap dollar as sole reserve currency: U.N. report | Reuters.

Why should we trust the IMF?

Dean Baker:

The IMF is shouting about the need for austerity today, but it was strangely quiet during the build-up of the bubble that got us here

Is advice from the IMF better than advice from a drunk in the street? That is the question that people around the world should be asking as the International Monetary Fund dishes out its prescription for austerity. The IMF programme calls for cutbacks in government support for healthcare, pensions, and a wide range of other public services. It also calls for weakening labour market regulations that provide workers with job security.

These recommendations are being given in a context where the world economy is suffering from a massive shortfall of demand. In other words, tens of millions of people are unemployed right now because there is not enough spending to keep them employed. The IMF’s programme is almost certain to reduce spending further leading to even larger shortfalls in demand and more unemployment.

But, the IMF says that we should trust them. The question we should all be asking is: “why?”

Full Story: Why should we trust the IMF? | Dean Baker | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

Catholic Churches Filing For Bankruptcy To Protect Assets From Sex Abuse Lawsuits

Dan Rather:

Spiritually Bankrupt

This is written with a sense of sadness and some mixed feelings. While not a member of the Roman Catholic Church, I have great respect for the church and its followers.

The church has done and continues to do much good in the world. I’ve seen it among the poor, the downtrodden, and the ill all around the globe. But with a team of other investigative reporters, we uncovered some things that should be brought to light and pondered.

Earlier this month, Pope Benedict XVI issued the first apology to priest abuse victims from St. Peter’s Square – a gesture intended to show that church leadership is finally ready to confront this growing scandal.

Full Story: Dan Rather: Spiritually Bankrupt.

Daily Kos Founder Suing Pollster Research 2000: ‘We Were Defrauded’

Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas took to his website Tuesday morning to announce his recent decision to file a lawsuit against former pollster, Research 2000.

According to Moulitsas, a recent report carried out by “three statistics wizards” shows that a certain amount of the data compiled by the Maryland-based polling company for the Daily Kos’s weekly “State of the Nation” poll was, in fact, “bunk.”

“We were defrauded by Research 2000, and while we don’t know if some or all of the data was fabricated or manipulated beyond recognition, we know we can’t trust it,” Moulitsas wrote in his post.

Full Story: Daily Kos Founder Suing Pollster Research 2000: ‘We Were Defrauded’.

‘A Whale’ Of A Skimmer Offers Up Its Services

A massive, newly-retooled supertanker that its owner claims could skim millions of gallons of oily water a day is now in the Gulf of Mexico, where government and BP officials intend to run tests shortly to see if it actually works.

With residents of four states complaining about the dearth of skimming vessels off their shores, the 10-story tall, 372-yard long Taiwanese-owned behemoth — called A Whale — could be an enormous boon to the region.

Or it could be a really, really big disappointment.

Nobu Su, the CEO and founder of Taiwan Maritime Transport (TMT), told reporters in Norfolk on Friday that on account of the special holes he had cut in its sides, his vessel would roll across the Gulf “like a lawn mower cutting the grass.”

Full Story: Gulf Oil Spill: ‘A Whale’ Of A Skimmer Offers Up Its Services.

Unemployment Benefits Bill Fails In House, 261-155

Democrats in both chambers of Congress are scrambling to pass legislation to reauthorize expired unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless before a looming July 4 recess. One such measure failed in a 261-155 House vote on Tuesday.

Bill cosponsor Rep. Sander Levin (D-Mich.) said Democrats will return to the measure on Wednesday, when it will face a much lower simple-majority 219-vote threshold. “It will pass,” said Levin, who added that he is coordinating with his counterparts in the Senate. (The House bill required a two-thirds majority on Tuesday because it was brought to the floor under a suspension of the rules.)

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has been shuttling back and forth between Democrats and Republicans in the upper chamber in hopes of winning 60 votes for the Senate’s own version of a standalone unemployment benefits bill.

Full Story: Unemployment Benefits Bill Fails In House, 261-155.

Airport body scanners deliver radiation dose 20 times higher than first thought

Full body scanners at airports could increase your risk of skin cancer, experts warn.

The X-ray machines have been brought in at Manchester, Gatwick and Heathrow.

But scientists say radiation from the scanners has been underestimated and could be particularly risky for children.

They say that the low level beam does deliver a small dose of radiation to the body but because the beam concentrates on the skin – one of the most radiation-sensitive organs of the human body – that dose may be up to 20 times higher than first estimated.

Full Story: Airport body scanners deliver radiation dose 20 times higher than first thought | Mail Online.

Exclusive: Congressman wants Attorney General to explain $12 million settlement for $100 million energy fraud

A proposed anti-trust settlement between the U.S. Justice Department and a subsidiary of energy giant National Grid is under fire for allegedly being too lenient to the power company — and critics say it’s just another sign of a dysfunctional regulatory climate.

National Grid subsidiary Keyspan Energy has been accused of using Enron-style tactics to manipulate the New York State energy market between 2006 and 2008, a scheme which withdrew power capacity from the market, raising prices and increasing profits for the power distributor.

But now Congressman Dennis Kucinich has joined consumer groups and regulatory agencies to urge the Justice Department to reconsider the settlement that requires the company to pay $12 million penalty to the government while not refunding a single dime of the $100 million the market manipulation cost consumers.

Full Story: Exclusive: Congressman wants Attorney General to explain $12 million settlement for $100 million energy fraud | Raw Story.

Conyers co-sponsors ‘War is Making You Poor Act’; would make first $35k of every American’s annual income tax free

It seems that Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) would agree, perpetual war is making you poor.

To begin rectifying the situation, he’s joined with Congressman Alan Grayson (D-FL) in co-sponsoring the “War is Making You Poor Act,” which would limit defense spending to $548.9 billion: the exact figure alloted in the fiscal year 2011 budget.

The act also seeks to utilize an additional $159.3 billion set aside for “discretionary” operations abroad to relieve the full federal income tax burden on every American’s first $35,000 earned per year, or up to $70,000 per year for married couples.

According to Detroit publication MLive, Conyers, who chairs the powerful House Committee on the Judiciary, is adding his name to the roster of support.

Full Story: Conyers throws in with Grayson, co-sponsors ‘War is Making You Poor Act’ | Raw Story.

New saliva test ‘can detect various cancers’

Japanese and US universities have jointly developed a medical technique that can quickly detect various cancers using a simple saliva test, researchers said on Tuesday.

Japan’s Keio University and University of California, Los Angeles, have developed the technology with which they detected high probabilities of pancreatic cancer, breast cancer and oral cancer.

The researchers analysed saliva samples of 215 people, including cancer patients, and identified 54 substances whose presence can be used to detect the disease, Keio University said in a statement released Monday.

By further analysing the substances, the test detected 99 percent of pancreatic cancer cases, 95 percent of breast cancer and 80 percent of oral cancer cases among those taking part, it said.

Full Story: New saliva test ‘can detect various cancers’ – Yahoo! News.

Boehner weeps for big business: The financial crisis was an ‘ant’ that Congress killed with a ‘nuclear weapon.’

In a new interview with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) blasts Democrats for everything from health care reform to the BP response to financial reform. “They’re snuffing out the America that I grew up in,” Boehner said, adding, “There’s a political rebellion brewing, and I don’t think we’ve seen anything like it since 1776.” Taking up the GOP agenda of defending big business at all costs, he compared the financial crisis to an “ant” and criticized Congress for passing financial reform, which he likened to a “nuclear weapon“:

Boehner criticized the financial regulatory overhaul compromise reached last week between House and Senate negotiators as an overreaction to the financial crisis that triggered the recession. The bill would tighten restrictions on lending, create a consumer protection agency with broad oversight power and give the government an orderly way to dissolve the largest financial institutions if they run out of money.

“This is killing an ant with a nuclear weapon,” Boehner said. What’s most needed is more transparency and better enforcement by regulators, he said.

Full Story: Think Progress » Boehner weeps for big business: The financial crisis was an ‘ant’ that Congress killed with a ‘nuclear weapon.’.

Rubio Argues For Making Bush Tax Cuts For The Wealthy Permanent: We Must Start ‘Doing It Now’

One of the key planks of Senate candidate Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) campaign is scaremongering about the nation’s deficit and debt. “The United States government spends more money than it takes in,” Rubio said. “It’s as simple as that. You can’t do that for long without getting into trouble.” Rubio has repeatedly called on President Obama to “stop spending money we don’t have.”

However, Rubio’s concern with the deficit seems to evaporate when it comes to tax cuts. Democrats in Congress want to allow the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans to expire on schedule at the end of the year, but yesterday on Fox News, Rubio wholeheartedly endorsed making the cuts permanent and “doing it now”:

RUBIO: I would argue in favor of making permanent the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. And I would argue doing it now, before they recess, so that people have some level of certainty. [...]

VARNEY: You’re arguing economics. I put it to you that, if you suggested that we not increase taxes on the rich on January the 1st, you would be demagogued to death. You would be accused of giving money to the rich at a time of a nasty recession.

RUBIO: Well, the bottom line is that we need folks to create jobs in America. And jobs in America are created by people that have money or access to money.

Watch it:

Full Story: Think Progress » Rubio Argues For Making Bush Tax Cuts For The Wealthy Permanent: We Must Start ‘Doing It Now’.

Rick Santelli Launches Rant Against Government, Storms Off The CNBC Set When Challenged On Tax Cuts

On the Squawk Box yesterday, CNBC’s personalities argued over the value of government spending versus tax cuts in an economic downturn. CNBC personality Rick Santelli bemoaned federal economic aid as a “hard-headed” policy in which “paying firemen and teachers across the country” does nothing for the “unemployment situation.” Contributor Steve Liesman rebutted, asking Santelli, “Unaffected how? Unaffected by being much higher if more teachers and policemen were laid off?” Liesman also challenged the familiar conservative tax refrain, stating, “In general, I would say the rule is this, is that lower taxes generally do not pay for themselves.”

Liesman’s points threw Santelli into a mental breakdown. When prompted on whether tax cuts would truly help address the deficit, he and fellow right-wing economist Jeff Nielson launched into a childish tirade against government spending and the capital gains tax:

LIESMAN: Let me get this straight, all you guys wanna cut taxes en route to bringing down the deficit,

Full Story: Think Progress » Rick Santelli Launches Rant Against Government, Storms Off The CNBC Set When Challenged On Tax Cuts.

Supreme Court gives Don Siegelman a second chance.

In 2006, former Democratic Alabama governor Don Siegelman was sentenced to serve seven years in a bribery case. Siegelman charges that he was the victim of political persecution by former Bush official Karl Rove, and his case has been plagued by improper conduct by the prosecution. In 2008, a “bipartisan group of 54 former state attorneys general from across the country” supported Siegelman’s bid to overturn his conviction, but a year later, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta upheld five of the seven charges. Today, however, the Supreme Court gave Siegelman a second chance, ordering the court to look at his case again:

The Supreme Court ordered the 11th Circuit to review the appeals again in light of a high-court ruling last week that found fault with part of the government’s prosecution of former Enron Corp. Chief Executive Jeffrey Skilling. The justices used Mr. Skilling’s case to narrow the reach of a federal law that allowed prosecutors to bring cases against company executives and government officials who deprived the public of “the intangible right of honest services.”

Full Story: Think Progress » Supreme Court gives Don Siegelman a second chance..

Senate Republicans block measure to provide additional benefits to homeless veterans.

Today, Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) brought her bill — the Homeless Women Veterans and Homeless Veterans With Children Act — to the Senate floor seeking unanimous consent. Murray said the bill would “expand assistance for homeless women veterans and homeless veterans with children and would increase funding and extend federal grant programs to address the unique challenges faced by these veterans.” However, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) objected on behalf of Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) to this seemingly non-controversial issue:

McCONNELL: Madam president, reserving the right to object and I will have to object on behalf of my colleague Sen. Coburn from Oklahoma. He has concerns about this legislation, particularly as he indicates in a letter that I’ll ask the Senate to appear on the record that it be paid for up front so that the promises that makes the Veterans are in fact kept. So madam president I object.

Watch it:

Full Story: Think Progress » Senate Republicans block measure to provide additional benefits to homeless veterans..

The Real Deficit Is Jobs!

The real deficit is jobs. That is one more of those things that everyone can see in front of their faces, but we’re told it isn’t what it is. There aren’t enough jobs, and we’re being told this is our fault because we wanted pensions and good wages and vacations and respect and dignity and please, sir, just a little slice of the pie.

In case you haven’t noticed, the world’s economy is suddenly undergoing a classic “Shock Doctrine”-style, coordinated propaganda attack. The wealthy and powerful, having insisted that countries cut their taxes and run up debt, now insist that the middle class and poor must work harder, have their pensions reduced, sell off (to them) their publicly-held resources, and take other “austerity” steps to pay off the debt that these lazy, parasitic peasants dared to run up.

Full Story: The Real Deficit Is Jobs! | OurFuture.org.

Louisiana Reports Oil Spill Illnesses

More people who have been exposed to the BP oil spill are falling ill. To date, reports CNN, 162 cases of sickness have been reported to the Louisiana state health department, citing a report released yesterday. Of the 162 cases, 128 involved workers who were either on oil rigs or who were involved in clean-up efforts.

Generally, symptoms involved “throat irritation, shortness of breath, cough, eye irritation, nausea and headaches,” said CNN, citing the department’s oil spill surveillance report. The report, which is released weekly, pulls together information from physicians and various medical facilities. This week’s report stated that since the disaster struck, 120 male and eight female workers and nine men and 25 women from the general public have complained of illnesses allegedly linked to the spill, according to CNN.

The report indicated that those complaining of illness were between the ages of 18 and 64; six illnesses were reported for the week of June 20 and 38 illnesses were reported the first week of June.

Full Story: Louisiana Reports Oil Spill Illnesses.

Blackwater’s New Sugar Daddy: The Obama Administration

Jeremy Scahill:

Blackwater has spent heavily on Democratic lobbyists in 2010 and clearly it has paid off. Despite the investigations, the indictments, the trail of dead bodies, George W Bush’s favorite mercenary company is thriving under the Obama Administration. After its original sugar daddy left town, Blackwater has happily remarried. Over the past two weeks, the Administration has awarded nearly a quarter billion dollars in new US government contracts to Blackwater to work for the State Department and CIA in Afghanistan and other hot zones globally

In an interview Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” CIA Director Leon Panetta made it clear that the Agency is dependent upon private security companies to operate globally. But, not just any private security companies. Specifically, Panetta said, the CIA needs Blackwater.

“I have to tell you that in the war zone, we continue to have needs for security. You’ve got a lot of forward bases. We’ve got a lot of attacks on some of these bases. We’ve got to have security. Unfortunately, there are a few companies that provide that kind of security,” Panetta told Jake Tapper. “So we bid out some of those contracts. [Blackwater] provided a bid that was underbid everyone else by about $26 million. And a panel that we had said that they can do the job, that they have shaped up their act. So there really was not much choice but to accept that contract.” While Tapper specifically asked Panetta about Blackwater’s work in Afghanistan, the CIA contract is not limited to Afghanistan–it is a global contract.

Full Story: Blackwater’s New Sugar Daddy: The Obama Administration | The Nation.

Lara Logan, You Suck

Matt Taibbi:

Lara Logan, come on down! You’re the next guest on Hysterical Backstabbing Jealous Hackfest 2010!

I thought I’d seen everything when I read David Brooks saying out loud in a New York Times column that reporters should sit on damaging comments to save their sources from their own idiocy. But now we get CBS News Chief Foreign Correspondent Lara Logan slamming our own Michael Hastings on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” program, agreeing that the Rolling Stone reporter violated an “unspoken agreement” that journalists are not supposed to “embarrass [the troops] by reporting insults and banter.”

Anyone who wants to know why network television news hasn’t mattered since the seventies just needs to check out this appearance by Logan. Here’s CBS’s chief foreign correspondent saying out loud on TV that when the man running a war that’s killing thousands of young men and women every year steps on his own dick in front of a journalist, that journalist is supposed to eat the story so as not to embarrass the flag. And the part that really gets me is Logan bitching about how Hastings was dishonest to use human warmth and charm to build up enough of a rapport with his sources that they felt comfortable running their mouths off in front of him. According to Logan, that’s sneaky — and journalists aren’t supposed to be sneaky:

Full Story: Lara Logan, You Suck — RollingStone.com.

US banks off the hook until 2022

Political reality has forced compromise into the final version of the financial regulation reform bill in the US

It was billed by Barack Obama as the toughest crackdown on Wall Street since the great depression. But top US banks could be given until 2022 to comply with the so-called Volcker rule, which is supposed to restrict financial institutions’ risker trading activities.

A string of delays and extension periods written into a final version of Congress’s financial regulation reform bill means that firms such as Citigroup and Goldman Sachs could exploit loopholes until 2022 before withdrawing from “illiquid” funds such as private equity. The long gestation period is an example of the degree of compromise inserted into the package following months of lobbying on Capitol Hill by powerful banks.

“You can’t just say ‘stop’, you can’t just say ‘unwind,’” said Lawrence Kaplan, a lawyer at Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker in Washington, who said the delay was a dose of political reality. “These things have contracts and detailed legal frameworks. You can’t undo them without doing considerable harm.”

Full Story: US banks off the hook until 2022 | Business | The Guardian.

BP Made $58.5 Bil in Net Profits over Past Three Years But Spent $0 – Zero Dollars – on Spill Response Research

From MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show last night:

MADDOW: Remember, this is how much BP made in profits over the last three years. Ding, ding, ding $58.5 billion with a B. This is how much they spent on researching safer ways to drill over a three-year period $29 million. And this is how much they spent on oil spill response research. Zero dollars. BP has spent zero dollars researching how to respond to an oil spill. Aren`t you glad BP is in charge of the oil spill response in the gulf right now?

Video and transcript follow…

Full Story: Pensito Review » BP Made $58.5 Bil in Net Profits over Past Three Years But Spent $0 – Zero Dollars – on Spill Response Research.

High court won’t review San Francisco health care plan

The Supreme Court has rejected a business-led challenge to San Francisco’s universal health care program that has enrolled more than 53,000 people who lacked health insurance.

The justices on Monday denied an appeal from the Golden Gate Restaurant Association of an appeals court ruling that upheld the program’s requirement that employers help pay the bill or give their workers health coverage.

The association said the city cannot require employers to pay the fee because a federal law generally prohibits state and local interference in the area of benefits that are offered to employees.

Full Story: High court won’t review San Francisco health care plan – latimes.com.

GAO Study Finds Improper Burrowing During Bush Years

A study by the Government Accountability Office has found seven instances of improper burrowing — political appointees shifting to career civil servant positions in a given agency — during the Bush Administration, though none of the seven occurred close to the 2008 presidential election.

Regular TPMmuckraker readers will remember our reporting on burrowing back in late 2008 when several Bush Administration officials made eyebrow-raising shifts to career positions.

The GAO did an exhaustive study of these so-called “conversions” from political to career positions between May 2005 and May 2009. It found 139 conversions in that period, with the most — 32 — occurring at the Justice Department, and the second-most, 17, occurring at the Department of Homeland Security. The GAO found the vast majority, 117, followed “fair and open competition” and proper procedures to ensure that the conversions were justified.

Full Story: GAO Study Finds Improper Burrowing During Bush Years | TPMMuckraker.

Top Republican: Raise Social Security’s retirement age to 70

A Republican-held Congress might look to raise the retirement age to 70, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) suggested Monday.

Boehner, the top Republican lawmaker in the House, said raising the retirement age by five years, indexing benefits to the rate of inflation and means-testing benefits would make the massive entitlement program more solvent.

“We’re all living a lot longer than anyone ever expected,” Boehner said in a meeting with the editors of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. “And I think that raising the retirement age — going out 20 years, so you’re not affecting anyone close to retirement — and eventually getting the retirement age to 70 is a step that needs to be taken.”

Full Story: Top Republican: Raise Social Security’s retirement age to 70 – The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room.

Marijuana Can Stimulate California’s Economy

It is funny how a so called “illegal dug” is in position to potentially help ease California’s $20 billion budget deficit. Democratic state assemblyman Tom Ammiano is pushing for the legalization of marijuana and the marijuana industry, through which the state could potentially earn billions of much needed dollars in tax revenue. As of today, around $200 million in medical marijuana is subject to sales tax. If Ammiano’s bill is passed, the Marijuana Control Regulation and Education Act (AB 2254) would legalize and hand over the control of marijuana taxation to California.

In 2000, Colorado legalized medical marijuana and by 2007 over 60,000 medical marijuana dispensaries were paying tens of thousands of dollars in taxes to the state. When the global economic meltdown hit the U.S., the state of Colorado got by with a little help from these old friends.

Full Story: Campaigns That Matter – Marijuana Can Stimulate California’s Economy.

Sharron Angle: Rape & Incest: Are Part Of God’s ‘Plan’

Sharron Angle Is Against Abortion In Cases Of Rape Or Incest: It Would Interfere With God’s ‘Plan’

In a radio interview with Bill Manders on Jan. 25, Sharron Angle — the GOP candidate and Tea Party darling challenging Harry Reid for Nevada’s U.S. Senate seat — came out firmly against abortion. She even took the extreme position that women should not have control over their reproductive rights in cases of rape or incest, because it would interfere with God’s “plan” for them:

MANDERS: Is there any reason at all for an abortion?

ANGLE: Not in my book.

MANDERS: So, in other words, rape and incest would not be something?

ANGLE: You know, I’m a Christian, and I believe that God has a plan and a purpose for each one of our lives and that he can intercede in all kinds of situations and we need to have a little faith in many things.

Listen here:

Full Story: Think Progress » Sharron Angle Is Against Abortion In Cases Of Rape Or Incest: It Would Interfere With God’s ‘Plan’.

Sticking the Public With the Bill for the Bankers’ Crisis

Naomi Klein

My city feels like a crime scene and the criminals are all melting into the night, fleeing the scene. No, I’m not talking about the kids in black who smashed windows and burned cop cars on Saturday.

I’m talking about the heads of state who, on Sunday night, smashed social safety nets and burned good jobs in the middle of a recession. Faced with the effects of a crisis created by the world’s wealthiest and most privileged strata, they decided to stick the poorest and most vulnerable people in their countries with the bill.

How else can we interpret the G20’s final communiqué, which includes not even a measly tax on banks or financial transactions, yet instructs governments to slash their deficits in half by 2013. This is a huge and shocking cut, and we should be very clear who will pay the price: students who will see their public educations further deteriorate as their fees go up; pensioners who will lose hard earned benefits; public sector workers whose jobs will be eliminated. And the list goes on. These types of cuts have already begun in many G20 countries including Canada, and they are about to get a lot worse. For instance, reducing the projected 2010 deficit in the U.S. by half, in the absence of a sizeable tax increase, would mean a whopping $780-billion cut.

Full Story: Sticking the Public With the Bill for the Bankers’ Crisis | CommonDreams.org.

FDA urges less antibiotics in meat

The federal recommendation comes amid rising concern that the drugs in animals pose a health threat to humans.

Meat producers should use certain antibiotics only to assure animal health and stop using the drugs to increase production and promote growth, the Food and Drug Administration said Monday.

The recommendation to cut back on the use of antimicrobial drugs comes amid rising concern that extensive use in animals contributes to antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria afflicting humans.

Full Story: FDA urges less antibiotics in meat – latimes.com.

Greeks strike on Tuesday, test government pension reform

Greek workers stage a new 24-hour strike on Tuesday that will gauge public discontent with government austerity measures, including a radical pension reform aimed at helping the country solve its huge debt crisis.

Transport will be disrupted while public offices, local media, schools and banks will close in the fifth joint walkout by major public and private sector unions this year. Hospitals will operate with emergency staff.

Thousands of civil servants and private sector workers are expected to march in Athens at about midday (5 a.m. EDT), as parliament starts to discuss the reform which raises the retirement age, cuts benefits and curtails early pensions.

“These measures won’t help. They will only lead to deeper recession and poverty,” said Despina Spanou, board member of public sector union ADEDY. “Workers will clearly answer the government and this reform which abolishes social security.”

Full Story: Greeks strike on Tuesday, test government pension reform | Reuters.

Is BP guilty of ecocide?

Thom  Hartman asks Kieran Suckling, Center for Biological Diversity,

Uninsured Americans Still Waiting For Coverage Promised By Health Care Reform

High-Risk Pools: Slow Start To New Program To Help The Uninsurable

For the past six months, Mary Duffy of Redwood City, Calif. has eagerly awaited news about how to apply for a program created by the health care reform bill that will allow her to buy health insurance. So far, she’s waited in vain.

“Every week for the last month I’ve been thinking, ‘God, surely they’ll have something out by June 1,’” said Duffy, a 60-year-old three-time cancer survivor. “It’s been difficult because I’ve still been ordering medications from Canada.”

Duffy has been uninsured since December because of her previous cancer. The health care reform bill signed into law on March 23 called for the creation of a $5 billion “high-risk pool” to cover people who are uninsurable due to preexisting conditions. The program would last until 2014, when an “exchange” will be set up for people to choose from a range of newly-affordable policies.

“Not later than 90 days after the date of enactment of this Act,” says the bill, “the Secretary shall establish a temporary high risk health insurance pool program to provide health insurance coverage for eligible individuals during the period beginning on the date on which such program is established and ending on January 1, 2014.”

Full Story: High-Risk Pools: Slow Start To New Program To Help The Uninsurable.

Windows 8 Features Revealed In Leaked Microsoft Documents

Several leaked Microsoft presentations, posted on MSFTKitchen, Microsoft Journal, and Business Insider, offer a look at some of the features we might expect to see in Windows 8, the next iteration of Microsoft’s operating system.

Some potential Windows 8 features detailed in the alleged Microsoft slides (see them here or here):

* Facial recognition technology that allows users to log in just by positioning their face in front of their PC’s webcam. “My PC could detect my presence and log me in automatically,” Microsoft’s explanation reads. As Gizmodo notes, Windows 8 could offer a range of “Kinect-like” features: “When you get up and leave, it can go to sleep automatically as well. Additionally, if someone else shows up, it can quickly switch between user accounts based on who it sees in front of the computer.”

* Streamlining the ability to switch between user accounts. The leaked document notes that among the things “we are considering for Windows 8″ is “making it fast and easy to switch between user accounts.” Microsoft says it aims to evolve the Windows identity “from machine centric to user centric.”

* A fast startup time for Windows 8: “Windows 8 PC’s turn on fast, nearly instantly in some cases, and are ready to work without any long or unexpected delays,” the document says.

* According to the leaked documents, one of the features under consideration for Windows 8 is connecting users’ accounts to the cloud. This feature would allow the computer to “log on to websites on the user’s behalf” and make it possible for a users’ settings and preferences to be consistent across multiple devices.

* Compatibility with 3D platforms, wireless TV sets, and slates. “Developers can build modern experiences around display devices by leveraging Windows 8 support for premium media experiences such as stereoscopic 3D and Wireless TVs,” Microsoft notes. The leaked presentation also specifically mentions slates as a “target form factor.”

Full Story: Windows 8 Features Revealed In Leaked Microsoft Documents.

House Dems, Citing Corruption, Block Reconstruction Funds For Afghanistan

The House Democrat who oversees funding for Afghanistan’s redevelopment and reconstruction said on Monday that she is stripping money from her foreign aid bill in reaction to pervasive corruption. Dave Obey, chairman of the Appropriations Committee, supports the move made by subcommittee chairwoman Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), according to an Obey spokesman.

Lowey cited pervasive corruption in Afghanistan as the cause for her decision to pull the funding from the appropriations bill working its way through her State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee.

“I do not intend to appropriate one more dime for assistance to Afghanistan until I have confidence that U.S. taxpayer money is not being abused to line the pockets of corrupt Afghan government officials, drug lords and terrorists,” said Lowey.

Full Story: House Dems, Citing Corruption, Block Reconstruction Funds For Afghanistan.

1.2 million to lose benefits in days if stalemate continues

Millions of people will lose their health insurance and unemployment benefits because of the Senate stalemate over a tax package.

More than 1.2 million Americans will exhaust their unemployment benefits by the end of June if Congress fails to work out a deal on an extension of unemployment benefits, according to the National Employment Law Project, a group studying the issue.

In addition, neither the House nor the Senate bill have approved an extension of the COBRA subsidy that requires unemployed workers to pay only 35 percent of a premium to maintain health insurance. That subsidy was originally included in last year’s stimulus bill.

Full Story: 1.2 million to lose benefits in days if stalemate continues – The Hill’s On The Money.

Fish modified to glow in the dark

An aquarium fish — a convict cichlid, also known as the zebra cichlid — that has been transgenically modified to glow in the dark. A whole school of the glow-in-the-dark fish, which were modified using genes from a deep water jellyfish, were presented by Taiwan’s Council of Agriculture at a press conference on Friday in Taipei. Taiwan exports ornamental fish to more than 20 countries worldwide and in the past, scientists there have also bred glowing pigs.

Check out the Picture This archive here.

Full Story: Picture This: Fluoro Fish – SPIEGEL ONLINE – News – International.

House GOP threatens ‘no’ on war bill

House Republicans are warning that they may vote against the Afghanistan war funding bill if additional spending projects are added.

California Republicans Jerry Lewis, the top Republican on the Appropriations committee, and Buck McKeon, the top Republican on Armed Services, sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Monday, urging her to act on the bill this week to avoid “compromising budget decisions due to the lack of adequate funding.”

They are calling for a clean bill — one with no non-defense spending projects — saying they may oppose any legislative maneuvering that would split the bill into two parts: one part that deals with funding the war and another with unrelated spending. The purpose of such a bifurcation would allow Republicans to vote for funding, while allowing anti-war lawmakers to oppose it while maintaining a chance that the bill will pass.

Full Story: House GOP threatens ‘no’ on war bill – Jake Sherman and Simmi Aujla – POLITICO.com.

US Supreme Court deals pedophilia blow for Vatican

The US Supreme Court declined Monday to hear an appeal by the Vatican in a landmark case that opens the way for priests in the United States to stand trial for pedophilia.

Allowing a federal appeals court ruling to stand, the decision means Vatican officials including theoretically Pope Benedict XVI could face questioning under oath related to a litany of child sex abuse cases.

The Supreme Court effectively confirmed the decision of an appellate court to lift the Vatican’s immunity in the case of an alleged pedophile priest in the northwestern state of Oregon.

Full Story: US Supreme Court deals pedophilia blow for Vatican | Raw Story.

‘Dozens’ of US citizens on assassination list, White House adviser hints

When it was confirmed last winter by then-Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair that the Obama administration had authorized the assassination of American citizens working with terrorist groups overseas, it appeared that no more than three Americans were being targeted in this manner.

In an interview last week with the Washington Times, however, Deputy White House National Security Adviser for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism John O. Brennan suggested that the number might actually amount to “dozens.”

“There are, in my mind, dozens of U.S. persons who are in different parts of the world, and they are very concerning to us,” Brennan stated, “not just because of the passport they hold, but because they understand our operational environment here, they bring with them certain skills, whether it be language skills or familiarity with potential targets, and they are very worrisome, and we are determined to take away their ability to assist with terrorist attacks,”

Full Story: ‘Dozens’ of US citizens on assassination list, White House adviser hints | Raw Story.

Sharron Angle’s energy plan: Deregulate the ‘mining industry,’ as well as the ‘oil and petroleum industry.’

On May 26, a few weeks after BP’s oil disaster began, U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle (R-NV) told a local media outlet that her solution to America’s energy policy would be to “deregulate” the oil industry. While both conservatives and liberals agree that this catastrophe could have been prevented if BP had invested more in safety and if regulators had been more attentive, few, if any, have taken the extreme view at there is actually too much regulation on the oil industry. However, last Wednesday, while appearing on the hate-filled website ResistNet’s Internet radio station, Angle reiterated her position and explained that if elected, she would ensure that “government isn’t over-regulating” the “oil and petroleum industry,” as well as the “mining industry.” Angle appeared to attack her opponent, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), for supporting the Mining in the Parks Act, a law that prohibits mining in National Parks:

Full Story: Think Progress » Sharron Angle’s energy plan: Deregulate the ‘mining industry,’ as well as the ‘oil and petroleum industry.’.

Cuccinelli: Gay men and women are excluded from the 14th amendment’s protections.

In March, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) told the state’s colleges and universities to rescind policies that ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, arguing that schools have no legal authority to adopt such statements. On Friday, Cuccinelli appeared at Boys State, where a high school student asked him, “How is that not a violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment?” Cuccinelli responded by suggesting that the amendment was not designed to protect gay men and women:

“State universities are not free to create any specially protected classes other than those dictated by the General Assembly,” Cuccinelli said. “Your question is, why is that not a violation of the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. Frankly, the category of sexual orientation would never have been contemplated by the people who wrote and voted for and passed the 14th Amendment,” he said.

Full Story: Think Progress » Cuccinelli: Gay men and women are excluded from the 14th amendment’s protections..

The Pentagon’s Threat to the Republic

The New York Times’ David Brooks minimized General Stanley McChrystal’s remarks in Rolling Stone magazine as “kvetching.” For the Times’ Maureen Dowd, McChrystal and his “smart-aleck aides” were merely engaging in “towel-snapping” jocularity. The Washington Post editorial board noted that Afghan President Hamid Karzai called McChrystal the “best commander of the war,” and concluded that the general should be retained as the Afghan commander. The Post and Times’ editorial boards have called for the replacement of President Obama’s key civilian advisors on Afghanistan. Meanwhile, these papers and many others have downplayed the critical issue that dominates this sad affair – the fundamental importance of civilian supremacy in military policy and decision-making.

There is no more important task in political governance than making sure that civilian control of the military is not compromised and that the military remains subordinate to political authority. Unfortunately, President Obama has demonstrated too much deference to the military, retaining the Bush administration’s secretary of defense as his own; appointing too many retired and active-duty general officers to such key civilian positions as national security adviser and intelligence tsar; and making the Pentagon’s budget sacrosanct in an age of restraint.

The reappointment of General David Patraeus as commander of forces in Afghanistan places the general on an extremely high political plateau that makes it more difficult to discuss alternatives to the failed counter-insurgency strategy, and places too much influence in the hands of the Pentagon on decisions involving war and peace. President Obama recognized the McChrystal affair as a challenge to civilian control and leadership, but the appointment of Petraeus enhances the political power of the military and could become an obstacle to the president’s exercise of civilian control in the near term. Too many influence people view Petraeus as the answer to our Afghan problems; he isn’t.

Full Story: t r u t h o u t | The Pentagon’s Threat to the Republic.

Court’s Dual Standards on Free Speech

A majority of justices on the U.S. Supreme Court seems to believe in free speech for corporations when it comes to influencing elections, but not so much for actual people trying to end wars.

Five months after the Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that the First Amendment guarantees corporations the right to spend unlimited amounts of money in political campaigns, the Court issued a ruling making the First Amendment less sacrosanct when it comes to private citizens advocating for peaceful conflict resolution.

In a 6-3 ruling on June 21, the Court upheld a federal law that criminalizes giving “material support,” including providing “expert advice,” to groups that have been designated by the State Department as terrorist organizations.

Human rights groups had claimed the law’s vague language would inhibit their work by preventing education projects and limiting their ability in offering advice on how to resolve conflicts and work within the political process.

Full Story: Consortiumnews.com.

BP’s toxic acids make Pensacola Beach boil and bubble | – video

The view is atrocious with a large amount of oil slick and dirt spread all over the beach as far as the eye can see. Now the toxic acids and the chemical reaction between Methane and Corexit9500 reach the shores with the surf.

The chemical compounds are evaporating directly in the air which makes the entire environment unsafe and hazardous when inhaled. Exposure to the mixture and specifically Corexit9500 and Corexit9527 will cause permanent damage to red blood cells, known as Hemolysis, as well as liver and kidneys.

Full Story: BP’s toxic acids make Pensacola Beach boil and bubble | HULI….

Marine Toxicologist Susan Shaw Dives Into Gulf Spill, Talks Dispersants and Food Web Damage

When marine toxicologist Susan Shaw set out to investigate the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, she didn’t do it from behind a desk.

Late in May, a few miles offshore of Louisiana’s Pass a Loutre marshlands, Shaw donned a wetsuit, coated her exposed skin with a protective coat of petroleum jelly, and dove into the oil slick. “What I witnessed was a surreal, sickening scene beyond anything I could have imagined,” Shaw wrote a few days later in The New York Times:

There were patches of oil on the gulf’s surface. In some places, the oil has mixed with an orange-brown pudding-like material, some of the 700,000 gallons of a chemical dispersant called Corexit 9500 that BP has sprayed on the spreading oil…

[O]nly a few meters down, the nutrient-rich water became murky, but it was possible to make out tiny wisps of phytoplankton, zooplankton and shrimp enveloped in dark oily droplets. These are essential food sources for fish like the herring I could see feeding with gaping mouths on the oil and dispersant.

Full Story: Marine Toxicologist Susan Shaw Dives Into Gulf Spill, Talks Dispersants and Food Web Damage – OnEarth Magazine.

Gutting Public Education: Neoliberalism and the Politics of Opportunism

America’s political and economic elites have declared a war on working, middle-class and poor Americans. Now that war is coming to a head with the draconian cuts in education, among other vital services, under the economic recession. Progressive critics of Republicans and Democrats have attacked the return of “Hooverian economics” in recent years – understood as the do-nothing approach to dealing with the economic crisis and declining state budgets. Political officials stubbornly refuse to either raise taxes or increase federal or state spending, so as to stimulate economic demand and fill in annual state deficits, at a time when the private sector is unable to produce an economic recovery. Keynesian government spending – which aims at stimulating economic demand during times of recession and depression – has received support at one level or another from most economists, but has become taboo at a time when officials worship at the altar of “budget cuts” and fiscal austerity. Neoliberal policies have long been known to be extremely destructive in less developed countries where they have been implemented for decades. Now, these same policies are appearing in the US and are set to decimate social services along with any lingering economic vitality.

The Hooverian approach should more accurately be classified, not as a “do nothing” approach to dealing with the economy and budgets, but as a “do much against” American workers policy – one that aims at gutting vital social services such as education, health care, police and public transit services, spending for the disabled, and other areas of state services and employment. Quite cynically, subsidies to corporate elites in the form of the 2008 TARP bailout are given urgent priority, while officials speak of the need to “tighten our belts” when it comes to sacrificing access to quality education.

Full Story: t r u t h o u t | Gutting Public Education: Neoliberalism and the Politics of Opportunism.

Top court extends gun rights to states, cities

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday extended gun rights to every state and city in the nation in a ruling likely to spur new challenges to gun control measures across the United States.

The 5-4 ruling could ultimately make it easier for individuals to own handguns in a country that already has the world’s highest civilian gun ownership rate. Some 90 million Americans own an estimated 200 million guns.

Splitting along conservative and liberal lines, the nation’s highest court extended its landmark 2008 ruling — that individual Americans have a constitutional right to own guns — to all cities and states for the first time.

The decision extending gun rights, one of the country’s most divisive social, political and legal issues, was a setback for Chicago’s 28-year-old ban on handguns, which now faces new judicial review and is likely to be eventually overturned.

Full Story: Top court extends gun rights to states, cities | Reuters.

“Unprecedented” fish kill in Jacksonville for past two weeks “isn’t related to annual cycle”; “Lesions in the brain… points to toxicity” (PHOTOS)

Fish kill in St. Johns isn’t related to annual cycle

There’s no easy solution for the puzzling fish kill in St. Johns, Jacksonville Times-Union, June 26, 2010:

CAPTION: Dead red fish litter the bank of the St. Johns River north of the Buckman Bridge [in Jacksonville] Monday, June 7, 2010. A multitude of dead red fish have been reported for the past two weeks with the cause being unknow [sic] at present.

Jacksonville Times-Union

If you think the… fish kill on the St. Johns River is an annual event that just came early this year — think again.

That’s the message that two men with close ties to the river want you to know. …

“This kill is unprecedented,” he said. He explained that fish kills due to low oxygen levels are typically confined to smaller areas, not as widespread as the problem has become. …

Fish continue to die in an area from roughly the Buckman Bridge [in Jacksonville] south to Lake George…

[Quinton White, the executive director of the marine science institute at Jacksonville University] said that last week the St. Pete lab sent staff to Jacksonville University to sample more recently killed fish. “They did necropsies on site,” he said.

He said they found lesions in the brains of some redfish. “I’m not sure what else,” White said.

via “Unprecedented” fish kill in Jacksonville for past two weeks “isn’t related to annual cycle”; “Lesions in the brain… points to toxicity” (PHOTOS) | Florida Oil Spill Law.

Scientists forecast large gulf ‘dead zone’

The Gulf of Mexico’s oxygen-starved “dead zone” will be larger than average this year and threatens the region’s $659 million fishing industry, scientists say.

The 2010 dead zone could be between 6,500 and 7,800 square miles, an area roughly the size of Lake Ontario, says a forecast released Monday by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The average size of the zone over the past five years has been 6,000 square miles, NOAA said.

via Scientists forecast large gulf ‘dead zone’ – UPI.com.

Its Scandal May Be Lost Within Gulf Oil, But Toyota’s Car Safety Still At Issue

BP, of course, has become the poster child for bad corporate behavior for its monster oil spill that the energy giant can’t seem to stop.

But before oil executives like Tony Hayward and Lamar McKay began coming to Capitol Hill for their regular tongue-lashings over the Deepwater Horizon disaster, it was Toyota bigwigs like James Lentz who came to town for congressional reaming due to problems with the carmaker’s vehicles that would accelerate uncontrollably, causing a number of fatalities.

It may seem as the Toyota safety scandal was from another age, as preoccupied as the nation has become with oil continuing to spew into the Gulf of Mexico. But, in reality, it was just a few months ago that Congress was probing the Toyota issue, hot-and-heavy. And just because Toyota’s ham-handed answers for “unintended acceleration” have given way in the headlines to BP’s ineffectual mutterings about “top kill” and paying damage claims, the issue itself isn’t over.

via On The Hill: Its Scandal May Be Lost Within Gulf Oil, But Toyota’s Car Safety Still At Issue.

The Third Depression

Paul Krugman:

We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression.

Recessions are common; depressions are rare. As far as I can tell, there were only two eras in economic history that were widely described as “depressions” at the time: the years of deflation and instability that followed the Panic of 1873 and the years of mass unemployment that followed the financial crisis of 1929-31.

Neither the Long Depression of the 19th century nor the Great Depression of the 20th was an era of nonstop decline — on the contrary, both included periods when the economy grew. But these episodes of improvement were never enough to undo the damage from the initial slump, and were followed by relapses.

We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression. It will probably look more like the Long Depression than the much more severe Great Depression. But the cost — to the world economy and, above all, to the millions of lives blighted by the absence of jobs — will nonetheless be immense.

And this third depression will be primarily a failure of policy. Around the world — most recently at last weekend’s deeply discouraging G-20 meeting — governments are obsessing about inflation when the real threat is deflation, preaching the need for belt-tightening when the real problem is inadequate spending.

via Op-Ed Columnist – The Third Depression – NYTimes.com.

The Powers-That-Be Are Terrified of the Mass Awakening Taking Place Worldwide

Our situation is admittedly dire.

Oligarchs are seizing more overt control in most countries in the world, the worldwide economy is on course for another – even bigger – train wreck, countries are cracking down on freedom and becoming more tyrannical, we are in a permanent state of war (and see this), and companies like BP are destroying our natural resources without any checks and balances.

But as Andrew Gavin Marshall points out, the elites are actually terrified of the mass political awakening which is occurring worldwide.

Marshall collects quotes from flexian Zbigniew Brzezinski – Obama’s former foreign affairs adviser, National Security Adviser to President Carter, creator of America’s strategy to lure Russia into Afghanistan, and creator of America’s plans for Eurasia in general - to make his point.

Listen to Brzezinski’s own words (consolidated from various writings and speeches, and edited as if they were a single passage):

For the first time in history almost all of humanity is politically activated, politically conscious and politically interactive. Global activism is generating a surge in the quest for cultural respect and economic opportunity in a world scarred by memories of colonial or imperial domination.

Washington’s Blog.

Does the Judge Who Blocked Obama’s Drilling Moratorium Suffer from an Unethical Conflict of Interest?

John Dean:

Notwithstanding his widely-reported financial ties to the oil industry, U.S. District Court Judge for the Eastern District of Louisiana Martin Leach-Cross Feldman — after two hours of oral argument — issued a preliminary injunction against the U.S. Department of Interior’s drilling moratorium.

The moratorium seeks to ban deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico for six months, while the federal government studies the reasons for the eleven deaths and the terrible environmental disaster caused by the spill involving BP’s Deepwater Horizon platform.

If Judge Feldman, in fact, still holds the oil investments that he last reported holding in 2008, then it is difficult to understand why he did not recuse himself. Indeed, if he still owns these oil and gas interests, then he has violated the canons of judicial ethics for the federal judiciary — which would be shocking, for Judge Feldman is a savvy, experienced and highly-respected federal judge. But something is going on here, for he has refused to comment: The Associated Press reported that ” Feldman did not respond to requests for comment and to clarify whether he still holds some or all of these investments.”

via Does the Judge Who Blocked Obama’s Drilling Moratorium Suffer from an Unethical Conflict of Interest?.

Bubble Bath

CHRYSTIA FREELAND:

People didn’t drown the markets; a bad system did.

The temptation is to see the 2008 Wall Street implosion that helped trigger the broader economic crisis as the consequence of individual idiocy and avarice. That thesis is emotionally appealing — nowadays everyone loves to hate and, better still, feel superior to wealthy Masters of the Universe. It is intellectually appealing, too. Blaming the crisis on human error is a lot easier than trying to work out the systemic problems it laid bare.

But just because something is easy doesn’t make it accurate. Call it the Michael Lewis fallacy. His book The Big Short deserves its place on the best-seller lists; it offers the best insight yet into the lunacy of subprime borrowing and the intricate world of structured financial products used to bet on those dreadful home loans. But the fabulous human stories of greed and stupidity Lewis tells are a seductively dangerous basis for understanding the global economic meltdown

Start with the hedge-fund crowd Lewis introduces us to. It is easy to cheer for the smart outsiders who bet against those risky subprime mortgages, and to think that if only everyone else had been as sharp and as contrarian, the system wouldn’t have imploded. But both academic research and real-life market experience show that buying into a bubble — rather than betting against it — is often the wiser, safer, and more lucrative approach.

via Bubble Bath – By Chrystia Freeland | Foreign Policy.

G-20 Leaders Pledge To Halve Deficits By 2013

Wary of slamming on the stimulus brakes too quickly but shaken by the European debt crisis, world leaders pledged Sunday to reduce government deficits in richer countries in half by 2013, with wiggle room to meet the goal.

Leaders of 20 major industrial and developing countries generally sided with cutting spending and raising taxes, despite warnings from President Barack Obama that too much austerity too quickly could choke off the global recovery.

“Serious challenges remain,” they cautioned in a closing statement. “While growth is returning, the recovery is uneven and fragile, unemployment in many countries remains at unacceptable levels, and the social impact of the crisis is still widely felt,” according to the document from the Group of 20 major industrial and developing nations.

via G-20 Leaders Pledge To Halve Deficits By 2013.

The Coming Gulf Coast Firestorm: How the BP oil catastrophe could destroy a major U.S. city

It’s hurricane season in the Atlantic, and that means Mother Nature could be whipping up fierce storms and sending them charging into the Gulf Coast any day now. In a normal hurricane season, that’s bad enough all by itself… remember Katrina? But now there’s something even more worrisome in the recipe: There’s oil in the water.

So what happens when a Katrina-class hurricane comes along and picks up a few million gallons of oil, then drops that volatile liquid on a major U.S. city like Galveston or New Orleans?

Now, before we pursue this line of thinking any further, let’s dismiss the skeptics out there who think oil can’t drop from the sky because oil doesn’t evaporate. Actually, if you look at the history of hurricanes and storms, you’ll find thousands of accounts of lots of things that don’t evaporate nonetheless falling out of the sky. The phrase “raining cats and dogs” it’s entirely metaphor, you know: There are documented accounts of all sorts of things raining down from the sky: Fish, frogs, large balls of ice, and so on.

via The Coming Gulf Coast Firestorm: How the BP oil catastrophe could destroy a major U.S. city.

Leon Panetta: There May Be Less Than 50 Al Qaeda Fighters In Afghanistan

CIA Director Leon Panetta said on Sunday there may be less than 50 al-Qaida fighters in Afghanistan, with “no question” that most of the terrorist network is operating from the western tribal region of Pakistan.

Panetta’s remarks came as President Barack Obama builds up U.S. forces in Afghanistan to prop up the government and, in his words, “disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda.” About U.S. 98,000 troops will be in Afghanistan by fall.

Asked by ABC’s Jake Tapper to estimate the number of al Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan, Panetta said, “I think the estimate on the number of Al Qaeda is actually relatively small. At most, we’re looking at 50 to 100, maybe less. It’s in that vicinity.”

via Leon Panetta: There May Be Less Than 50 Al Qaeda Fighters In Afghanistan.

Obama calls for bank tax as next step in reform

President Barack Obama, fresh from a win on a sweeping overhaul of Wall Street regulations, on Saturday urged Congress to take up his proposal for a $90 billion, 10-year tax on banks as the next step in reform.

Obama wants to slap a 0.15 percent tax on the liabilities of the biggest U.S. financial institutions to recoup the costs to taxpayers of the financial bailout.

“We need to impose a fee on the banks that were the biggest beneficiaries of taxpayer assistance at the height of our financial crisis — so we can recover every dime of taxpayer money,” Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address.

Obama, who is in Canada to attend gatherings with leaders of the world’s biggest economies, also used the address to welcome a deal by congressional negotiators on a historic rewriting of U.S. financial regulations.

Obama hopes to tout the changes as a model for other countries at the Group of 20 summit on Saturday and Sunday.

via Obama calls for bank tax as next step in reform | Reuters.

Speaker Pelosi, More War Funding Next Week Is No “Emergency”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she is committed to passing an emergency war supplemental before the July Fourth recess, Roll Call reports.

Let us be perfectly clear, as President Obama might say. There is no “emergency” requiring the House to throw another $33 billion into our increasingly bloody and pointless occupation of Afghanistan before we all go off to celebrate the anniversary of our Declaration of Independence from foreign occupation.

This fact – that there is no emergency requiring an immediate appropriation – is absolutely critical, because the claim that there is some “emergency” requiring an immediate infusion of cash, otherwise there will be some new apocalyptic catastrophe, is the means by which the Pentagon and the White House hope to dodge two sets of questions about the war supplemental urgently being asked for by Democratic leaders in the House.

Full Story: t r u t h o u t | Speaker Pelosi, More War Funding Next Week Is No “Emergency”.

Hands off Social Security: There are better ways to cut the national debt.

The Social Security Trustees’ Annual Report on the program’s finances comes out Wednesday, delayed from March by the health bill. It will be turned into a marketing tool by advocates of cutting Social Security to reduce the national debt.

Among those, the president’s newly appointed National Commission on Fiscal Reform (the “debt commission”) is threatening to strangle the economic lifeblood of seniors by denying the solvency of Social Security and then using the solvent funds for other purposes.

It’s an illusion that cutting Social Security would reduce the deficit. If the new report does not point out that the money seniors have given to Social Security keeps it solvent through 2043, and after that 80 percent funded, it’s a propaganda fraud for defunders.

Full Story: Commentary: Hands off Social Security: There are better ways to cut the national debt..

North Korea to convene communist party delegates, select new political leader

North Korea’s ruling communist party will convene a rare meeting of key party delegates in September to elect new leaders, Pyongyang’s official media reported Saturday.

It will be only the third such meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) since the communist state was founded in 1948 and will probably designate leader Kim Jong-Il’s son as his political heir, analysts said.

The session would be “for electing its (the party’s) highest leading body,” said the North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
Full Story: North Korea to convene communist party delegates, select new political leader | Raw Story.

BP oil spill Corexit dispersants suspected in widespread crop damage

Last May 24, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson promised, “We will conduct our own tests to determine the least toxic, most effective dispersant available in the volumes necessary for a crisis of this magnitude… I am not satisfied that BP has done an extensive enough analysis of other dispersant options.”

As of today, those tests have not been completed, according to the EPA. In the meantime, BP has dumped 1.4 million gallons of Corexit on the gulf. Next week, we could have a hurricane pushing Corexit inland.

Full Story: City Brights: Yobie Benjamin : BP oil spill Corexit dispersants suspected in widespread crop damage.

Genetically Altered Salmon Set to Move Closer to Your Table

The Food and Drug Administration is seriously considering whether to approve the first genetically engineered animal that people would eat — salmon that can grow at twice the normal rate.

The developer of the salmon has been trying to get approval for a decade. But the company now seems to have submitted most or all of the data the F.D.A. needs to analyze whether the salmon are safe to eat, nutritionally equivalent to other salmon and safe for the environment, according to government and biotechnology industry officials. A public meeting to discuss the salmon may be held as early as this fall.

Some consumer and environmental groups are likely to raise objections to approval. Even within the F.D.A., there has been a debate about whether the salmon should be labeled as genetically engineered (genetically engineered crops are not labeled).

Full Story: Genetically Altered Salmon Set to Move Closer to Your Table – NYTimes.com.

‘No playbook’ if storm displaces oil onto land

Tropical Storm Alex expected to churn toward Gulf of Mexico

A potentially dangerous tropical storm named Alex that experts say could complicate the Gulf of Mexico oil spill clean-up formed Saturday in the Caribbean Sea.

At 0900 GMT, the eye of the storm, which packed sustained winds of 40 miles (65 kilometers) an hour, was located 220 miles (355 kilometers) east of Belize City, according to the Miami-based US National Hurricane Center.

A tropical storm warning was in effect on the east coast of Belize, Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula and on the coastal islands in Honduras.

But after dropping rain on the Central American nations, the storm was expected to turn toward the Gulf of Mexico.

“A gradual turn toward the northeast and an increase in forward speed are expected in the next 48 hours,” the government-controlled center said in an advisory.

Full Story: Tropical Storm Alex expected to churn toward Gulf of Mexico | Media In Politics.

Fox Business’ solution to financial crisis: Tax the poor more

A recent report from the Congressional Budget Office shows that the gap between the richest one percent of earners in the US and the middle class has more than tripled since 1979.

But that didn’t stop Fox Business host Cheryl Casone from using the report as the basis of her proposed solution to the US’s mushrooming budget deficit: Increase taxes on the poor.

In a discussion on the CBO report (PDF), which showed that 40 percent of income tax filers ended up paying no federal income tax in 2007, Casone argued that fixing this “imbalance” would solve the federal debt problem.

“The fact that most [sic] Americans are not paying any income tax at the end of the day kind of shows the imbalance,” Casone said on Cashin’ In Saturday.”What if everyone pays just a little bit — we’re out of debt in this country.”

Full Story: Fox Business’ solution to financial crisis: Tax the poor more | Raw Story.

Report: Toronto police rough up journalists, arrest peaceful protesters at G20

Reporters covering the G20 summit in Toronto say they were the target of police violence overnight, as riots blamed on anarchist groups left four police cars burning in the financial district and resulted in the arrests of some 150 people.

“A newspaper photographer was shot with a plastic bullet in the backside, while another had an officer point a gun in his face despite identifying himself as a member of the media,” reported the Canadian Press news agency. The agency did not say if it was its own reporters who were targeted.

Previously: Toronto gets ‘secret’ arrest powers ahead of G20 protests

In a remarkable series of Tweets early Sunday morning, journalist Steve Paikin of public broadcaster TV Ontario said he witnessed “police brutality” against a reporter and the arrests of peaceful demonstrators.

Full Story: Report: Toronto police rough up journalists, arrest peaceful protesters at G20 | Raw Story.

Poll: Tea partiers want gov’t to protect manufacturing jobs, impose tariffs to safeguard environment.

One of the organizing principles of the conservative-led tea party movement is an “aversion to big government,” with tea party organizers turning their ire on comprehensive health reform, clean energy legislation, and even mandatory trash collection. Yet a new poll finds that, despite their anti-government rhetoric, a majority of tea partiers favor the government enacting policies to protect manufacturing jobs and placing tariffs on goods from countries with weak environmental standards:

A new poll contradicts the widely held belief that the the tea party movement is opposed to government action to help the economy. It shows that self-described Tea Party supporters are very much in favor of government action to revitalize America’s manufacturing base.

Seventy-four percent of self-described Tea Party Supporters would support a “national manufacturing strategy to make sure that economic, tax, labor, and trade policies in this country work together to help support manufacturing in the United States,” according to the poll, put out by the Mellman Group and the Alliance for American Manufacturing. Likewise, 56 percent of self-described Tea Party Supporters “favor a tariff on products imported from other countries that are cheaper because they came from a country that does not have to comply with any climate change regulations in the country where the products were made.”

Full Story: Think Progress » Poll: Tea partiers want gov’t to protect manufacturing jobs, impose tariffs to safeguard environment..