Archive for June, 2010

FAA under pressure to open US skies to drones

Unmanned aircraft have proved their usefulness and reliability in the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq. Now the pressure’s on to allow them in the skies over the United States.

The Obama Administration has stepped up the use of drones in Pakistan and Afghanistan, killing hundreds, but concern to date about their use in the United States has focused on their potential collision threat to civilian aircraft.

The Federal Aviation Administration has been asked to issue flying rights for a range of pilotless planes to carry out civilian and law-enforcement functions but has been hesitant to act. Officials are worried that they might plow into airliners, cargo planes and corporate jets that zoom around at high altitudes, or helicopters and hot air balloons that fly as low as a few hundred feet off the ground.

On top of that, these pilotless aircraft come in a variety of sizes. Some are as big as a small airliner, others the size of a backpack. The tiniest are small enough to fly through a house window.

Full Story: FAA under pressure to open US skies to drones | Raw Story.

BREAKING: U.S. Senate Candidate Files Challenge to SC’s ‘Unreliable, Unverifiable’ E-Vote Results

Vic Rawl says inexplicable Democratic primary contest casts ‘cloud’ over state election; Notes ‘irregularities’, problem reports from voters, poll workers, vows ‘electoral reform’, calls for ‘full and unblinking investigation of overall integrity’ of state’s ES&S voting system…

A formal challenge to the announced results of South Carolina’s Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate has now been filed by Judge Vic Rawl, the candidate who wasn’t announced the winner by the state’s oft-failed, easily-manipulated, 100% unverifiable ES&S e-voting system.

Rawl released an official statement on his website today, in conjunction with the filing and a press conference he held in Charleston this afternoon.

The statement points generally to a number of findings being made by the campaign as independent experts have analyzed the results, voting patterns and problems being reported by poll workers and voters on Election Day where the unknown, unemployed candidate Alvin Greene defeated Rawl on the unverifiable ES&S iVotronic touch-screen voting systems, performing 11 points better on those machines than he did in the paper-based absentee results. The oft-failed, easily-manipulated ES&S election results reporting system gave Greene a 59% to 41% “victory” over Rawl.

Full Story: The BRAD BLOG : BREAKING: U.S. Senate Candidate Files Challenge to SC’s ‘Unreliable, Unverifiable’ E-Vote Results.

FBI files reveal Ted Kennedy death threats, plots

The FBI released more than 2,200 pages from its archives about Kennedy, who died at age 77 in August 2009 of brain cancer, most of which revealed details of threats and extortion schemes against the Massachusetts senator.

Kennedy spent 47 years as one of the liberal champions of the U.S. Senate, focusing on health care and civil rights, carrying on the political legacy of his slain brothers.

While some of the threats against him appeared to be nonpolitical, they also originated from members of radical groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, “Minutemen” organizations and the National Socialist White People’s Party.

The senator wrote in his memoir about his fears of being killed in the wake of the assassinations of his brothers President John F. Kennedy Jr. and Senator Robert Kennedy Jr. in 1963 and 1968 respectively.

Full Story: FBI files reveal Ted Kennedy death threats, plots | Reuters.

BP oil spill: Canada suspends licenses for deepwater drilling

Just weeks before the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster BP was actively lobbying the Canadian government to ease some of the planned rules for Arctic Ocean oil and gas exploration.

Full Story: BP oil spill: Canada suspends licenses for deepwater drilling – Telegraph.

BP: It’s Not a Contest Between the US and Britain; It’s a Contest Between Citizenship Interests and Shareholder Interests

Robert Reich :

This from today’s Wall Street Journal:

In a letter sent Sunday to U.S. Coast Guard Rear Admiral James Watson, BP said it expects to have the capacity to capture between 40,000 and 53,000 barrels of oil a day by the end of June. That compares with 15,000 barrels a day now, out of a flow of 20,000 to 40,000 barrels scientists estimate are coming from the well.

BP, which said further enhancements will increase the collection capacity to as high as 80,000 barrels a day by mid-July, submitted its latest plan after Mr. Watson, the federal government’s second-in-command for the spill response, told the company Friday its previous plan was insufficient and gave BP a 48-hour deadline to come up with a revised approach.

Mr. Watson said in a statement Monday that “BP is now stepping up its efforts to contain the leaking oil,” noting that the new plan’s call for collecting 50,000 barrels of oil by the end of June is two weeks earlier than the previous timeline.

But the Journal isn’t telling the truth. BP is not capable of writing a letter or “saying” anything, “submitting” anything, or “stepping up its efforts.”

You see, BP is not a person.

Full Story: Robert Reich (BP: It’s Not a Contest Between the US and Britain; It’s a Contest Between Citizenship Interests and Shareholder Interests).

“Lure People Into That Calm and Then Just Totally F–k ‘Em”: How All of Us Pay for the Derivatives Market

Derivatives are a hotbed of abuses and bailouts. So why are taxpayers footing the bill?

For the Wall Street reform package currently making its way through Congress to work, it has to accomplish two broad goals: It must take a huge bite out of banking profits and end the too-big-to-fail oligopoly that encourages megabanks to take megarisks and stick taxpayers with the tab. Neither of these goals can be accomplished without taking on derivatives — the wild, unregulated market that brought down AIG. Right now, the U.S. government pays big banks for operating derivatives casinos. If we’re going to clean up the derivatives mess, we have to move taxpayer money out of the market.

“The dirty little secret here is that the American government has been subsidizing the derivatives market through the Fed and other avenues since its inception,” says Adam White, director of research for White Knight Research and Trading. “That’s crazy.”

Full Story: “Lure People Into That Calm and Then Just Totally F–k ‘Em”: How All of Us Pay for the Derivatives Market | Economy | AlterNet.

When Your Doctor is Willing to Destroy Your Hip Cuz He’s A Lobbied-Kickbacked-Corporate-Whore

More shocking news from the basement of corporate evil.

A few months ago I was multi-tasking at home with NPR on in the background and I heard a story about back surgeries. I was sorry not to have grabbed a pen at that point and jotted down the details since not only was I infuriated by the time the interview concluded, but later when googling I was not able to track down the story.

The essence of the analysis was that there has been a marked increase in serious back surgeries (the kind that go on for maybe 6-12 hours) despite the fact that articles in present medical journals are strongly advising that such surgeries are not worth the risk.

The interviewee said that there were three reasons for the prevalence of high risk back surgeries. (1) The doctors really believed they were best for their patients despite the negative findings. (2) The doctors received substantially more in payment for the longer surgeries. (3) Something I would not have regarded as a serious factor but apparently was the major factor, according to this expert, there is strong, seductive lobbying of back surgeons by the medical industry that makes the mechanical gizmos, screws, devices, etc. that get implanted in one’s back during such surgeries.

Full Story: When Your Doctor is Willing to Destroy Your Hip Cuz He’s A Lobbied-Kickbacked-Corporate-Whore | Corrente.

Firm hired to handle BP claims boasts of “reducing payouts”

Publicly, BP has said it intends to be generous in compensating those affected by the Gulf oil spill: CEO Tony Hayward has pledged to pay all “legitimate” claims resulting from the disaster, even offering to waive the $75 million cap on liability for economic damages.

But to handle claims from the spill, BP has hired a risk-management company who advertises that a main benefit of its services is “reducing our clients’ loss dollar pay-outs” — a goal Gulf advocates say is in direct contradiction to Washington and BP’s promises to fully compensate coastal residents for mounting economic losses.

ESIS Inc. — part of the Swiss-based global insurance giant the ACE Group — is a risk-management firm whose mission is to “impact our clients’ business and reduce their total cost.”

One of ESIS’s many services for corporate clients is handling claims made against companies, which Darryl Willis, VP for Resources at BP America said in recent Congressional testimony [pdf] is the role they’re playing for BP in the wake of the spill:

Full Story: Daily Kos: State of the Nation.

How Blue Dog Boys kept Obama’s boot off neck of BP’s US partner

• 73 per cent of all Gulf incidents involve Transocean
• All bonuses banned after four died on firm’s oil rigs
• Obama desperate for support of politicians linked to Transocean lobbyist

The American owners of the drilling rig at the centre of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill have been involved in nearly three-quarters of all significant safety incidents on rigs in the region since 2008, according to new figures.

Transocean, the world’s largest rig operator, has so far avoided much of the fall-out from the environmental disaster heaped on BP by President Obama and members of Congress following the Deepwater Horizon explosion.

But an analysis of government data reveals it has a highly questionable safety record.

Full Story: Oil spill: How Blue Dog Boys kept Obama¿s boot off neck of BP¿s US partner | Mail Online.

Obama to Address Nation This Week on Oil Spill

President Barack Obama plans an Oval Office speech Tuesday night about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

White House adviser David Axelrod says Obama will talk about the disaster after he returns from a visit to the region on Monday and Tuesday.

Axelrod tells NBC’s ”Meet the Press” that the president will lay out steps that the government will take to cope with the fallout from the spill.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama plans to address the nation this coming week about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Full Story: Obama to Address Nation This Week on Oil Spill – NYTimes.com.

Hospitals Block Nurses from Returning to Work

Abbott Northwestern, Children’s Minneapolis and St. Paul and United Hospitals refused to allow a total of 122 nurses to return to work on Friday, June 11 after the conclusion of the one-day Minnesota Nurses Association strike. The nurses had all been scheduled to work on Friday and refusal to allow them return to their jobs and patients broke the MNA contract with the hospitals. This contract remains legally in effect until a new one is bargained and ratified by both parties or the employers declare an official impasse and impose a final offer. The hospital administration also failed to call back nurses on the basis of seniority, another violation of the contract. This employer-imposed recall process, without agreement by the union, is a violation of labor law, which the union is calling a selective lockout of the nurses who were refused resuming of their work duties and pay.

Homeowners Score Points With $108 Million Fine, Wells Fargo Case

Fair Game – Finally, Mortgage Borrowers Score Points

WHILE the wheels of justice have turned very slowly in the years since our nation’s financiers and regulators nearly cratered our economy, the Federal Trade Commission’s settlement last Monday with Countrywide Home Loans suggests that they haven’t entirely ground to a halt.

Countrywide, now a unit of Bank of America, was once led by Angelo Mozilo and was the nation’s largest mortgage lender in the glorious, pre-crisis days of the housing boom. But it was also a predatory institution, and the F.T.C., citing Countrywide’s serial abuse of troubled borrowers, extracted a $108 million fine from Bank of America last week.

That money will go back to some 200,000 customers whom Countrywide forced to pay outsized fees for foreclosure services. These included billing a borrower $300 to have a property’s lawn mowed and levying $2,500 in trustees’ fees on another borrower, when the going rate for that service was about $600.

Full Story: Fair Game – Finally, Mortgage Borrowers Score Points – NYTimes.com.

Obama To Demand BP Create Liability Account For Spill Claims

Hoping to make progress on the issue of retroactive liability for the oil spill, The White House is set to demand that executives at BP set up an account from which they will pay out claims to those affected by the spill.

A White House official emails the following information about the process:

The biggest focus in our upcoming meeting with BP will be setting up an BP-funded escrow account for a third-party administered claims process

The President will make clear that he expects, and that if necessary I will exercise his full legal authority to ensure, that BP sets aside the funds required to pay individuals and businesses damaged by this massive spill. And that those funds will be paid out under fair, efficient, and transparent procedures administered by an independent third-party panel established just for this purpose.

This is, if nothing else, a step in a more aggressive direction from the administration. Already the White House has come out in favor of unlimited liability for economic damages caused by an oil spill. There were questions as to whether that policy could be applied retroactively to BP, with Senator Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) — who had a meeting with the president this past week — urging the White House to force BP to sign a legally binding agreement to pay all legitimate claims.

Full Story: Obama To Demand BP Create Liability Account For Spill Claims.

Obama Warns Of ‘Massive Layoffs Of Teachers, Police, And Firefighters’

If Chuck Lacasse had gotten his pink slip four days earlier, Uncle Sam would have covered most of his family’s health insurance while he looked for a new job.

But Congress allowed emergency health care assistance for unemployed workers to expire May 31, and seems unwilling to renew it despite pleas from President Barack Obama.

On Saturday night, the White House released a letter Obama sent to congressional leaders of both parties asking for nearly $50 billion in emergency aid to state and local governments to fend off “massive layoffs of teachers, police and firefighters” and to prevent a possible double-dip recession.

Full Story: Obama Warns Of ‘Massive Layoffs Of Teachers, Police, And Firefighters’.

OPS: Trading Teachers, Firefighter and Police for 737 US Military bases around the world, two wars and a Military Budget that equals or exceeds the Military budgets of ALL OF THE OTHER nations on the planet COMBINED, is FASCIST INSANITY.

Report: Japan bribed countries ‘with cash, prostitutes’ to keep whaling

Japanese government agencies trying to loosen a 24-year-old moratorium on commercial whaling used cash and the offer of prostitutes to convince small countries to vote in favor of lifting the ban, a news report claims.

The UK’s Sunday Times reports it has film of officials from various governments admitting that Japan offered financial aid in exchange for a pro-whaling vote on the International Whaling Commission.

The IWC meets this month in Morocco to decide the fate of the moratorium on whaling, which Japan has largely skirted by classifying its annual whale hunt as “scientific research.”

The Times reports officials admitted:

Full Story: Report: Japan bribed countries ‘with cash, prostitutes’ to keep whaling | Raw Story.

Chevron Spills More Than 400 Barrels Of Oil In Utah, Just Days After Governor Called For More Domestic Production

Yesterday, Chevron discovered a leaking pipeline that was spewing 50 gallons of crude oil per minute into Red Butte Creek in Salt Lake City, UT. By the time crews capped the leak, more than 21,000 gallons — between 400-500 barrels — of oil had spilled out, “coating geese and ducks” and closing the city’s largest park. The Salt Lake City Tribune writes:

Chevron pledged to clean up the 6-mile mess, but the company could not quantify the damage. As of late Saturday, Chevron said the leak had been stopped. But company representatives could not say when it began, how much oil spilled into city waterways and why — despite pipeline monitors — it apparently took hours to learn of the accident. [...]

Full Story: Think Progress » Chevron Spills More Than 400 Barrels Of Oil In Utah, Just Days After Governor Called For More Domestic Production.

Why the United States Still Can’t Get BP to Do What’s Necessary

Robert Reich :

Here’s what Coast Guard Rear Adm. James A. Watson wrote to BP’s chief operating officer on Friday:

“Recognizing the complexity of this challenge, every effort must be expended to speed up the process.” BP’s plans don’t “go far enough to mobilize redundant resources” in the event of an equipment failure or another problem. “BP must identify in the next 48 hours additional leak containment capacity that could be operationalized and expedited to avoid the continued discharge of oil.”

Translated: You’re dragging your heels and aren’t even using all the equipment you have, damn it. You better, or I’ll … I’ll … .

BP spokesman Jon Pack said the company received Watson’s letter and would respond to it as soon as possible.

Translated: Too bad. Have a nice weekend.

The Administration has not used legal authority to order BP to do a thing, because it hasn’t asserted any legal authority.

Full Story: Robert Reich (Why the United States Still Can’t Get BP to Do What’s Necessary).

The Death Of Las Vegas

There are quite a few U.S. cities that are complete and utter economic disaster zones in 2010 (Detroit for example), but there is something about the demise of Las Vegas that is absolutely stunning. In recent decades, Las Vegas has become a symbol for the over-the-top affluence and decadence of America. But now it is a microcosm of the economic nightmare that has gripped the entire nation. When the subprime mortgage crisis stuck, no major U.S. city was more devastated than Las Vegas. When the recession went from bad to worse, Americans decided that they really didn’t need to gamble so much and casino revenues plummeted. Suddenly unemployment started to increase dramatically in Vegas and even today it continues to soar. Like so many other cities that are highly dependent on tourism and entertainment, Las Vegas has gone from boom to bust. Local officials are hoping that the worst will soon be over, but the truth is that the worst is yet to come. As the U.S. economy continues to unravel, average Americans will be spending what little money they do have to put a roof over their heads and to feed their families. The truth is that the glory days of Las Vegas are over and they are not coming back.

Already, the number of unemployed in Las Vegas is reaching unprecedented levels. Unemployment rates for the state of Nevada and for the city of Las Vegas both set new records during the month of April. In Las Vegas the unemployment rate in April was 14.2%. For the entire state the unemployment rate was 13.7%.

Of course those are just the “official” numbers. We all know that the “real” unemployment numbers are much higher.

Full Story: The Death Of Las Vegas.

More Than 1 In 5 American Children Are Now Living Below The Poverty Line

Perhaps the greatest victims of the economic nightmare that is unfolding right in front of our eyes are our children. The overall economic numbers are really bad, but when you examine the impact that this economy is having on children things get really horrifying. Today, 1 in 5 American children live in poverty and 1 in 4 American children are on food stamps. Experts tell us that about 50 percent of all U.S. children will be on food stamps at some point before they reach the age of 18. Up to half a million American children are homeless even as you read this. And yet we continue to insist that we are the wealthiest nation in the world. Well, if we are so wealthy, then why are so many millions of our children suffering so desperately?

Part of the reason is because an increasing number of parents can’;t find work. According to a U.S. Labor Department report, the average duration of unemployment in the United States hit 34.4 weeks in May, which was a big increase from 33 weeks during April. To give you some perspective how incredibly bad that is, the average duration of unemployment was only 16.5 weeks in December 2007.

The truth is that when U.S. workers lose their jobs they are finding it exceedingly difficult to find new ones.

Full Story: More Than 1 In 5 American Children Are Now Living Below The Poverty Line.

Alabama Beaches Filled with Waves of Oil

Thousands of people lined Gulf Shores beaches this afternoon, but almost none dared even put a toe in the water.

In some sections, large pools of black oil sat on the shoreline.

As far east or west as the eye could see, oil stained the white sands.

Small groups of workers took turns for hours shoveling clumps of the oil into black plastic bags. But as quickly as they dug, the oil washed ashore — in sheets, in globs, with each successive, dark wave.

Occasionally, a group of beachgoers would rise from their towels and stand at the edge of the oil, which kept them four or five feet from the water’s edge.

They stared and took photographs of the devastation and the oil-stained sands.

Full Story: Alabama Beaches Filled with Waves of Oil — Signs of the Times News.

Nuclear Physicist Describes Vast UFO Cover-Up

“Some UFOs are intelligently controlled extraterrestrial spacecraft, and this is the biggest story of the millennium.” These words are not the rantings of a deranged individual looking for attention or a comfortable straitjacket. Stanton Friedman is a maverick of sorts. Employed for 14 years as a nuclear physicist for companies like General Electric, General Motors, Westinghouse and Aerojet General Nucleonics, he worked on highly classified programs involving nuclear aircraft, fission and fusion rockets.

In 1958, UFOs caught his attention, and Friedman has since lectured about this subject at more than 700 colleges and professional groups in all 50 states and around the world. “After 53 years of investigation, I’m convinced we’re dealing here with a cosmic Watergate,” he told AOL News. “That means a few people within major governments have known since at least 1947 that some UFOs are alien spacecraft.” In Friedman’s new book, “Science Was Wrong,” co-authored with Kathleen Marden, he wrote, “There’s been no shortage of strong, negative proclamations from debunking groups and individuals who refuse to examine the evidence … to support the notion that some UFOs are of extraterrestrial origin.”

Full Story: Make A History.

BP Oil Disaster Could Hit Europe Via the Powerful Gulf Stream Current

The Obama Administration and senior BP officials are frantically working not to stop the world’s worst oil disaster, but to hide the true extent of the actual ecological catastrophe. Senior researchers tell us that the BP drilling hit one of the oil migration channels and that the leakage could continue for years unless decisive steps are undertaken, something that seems far from the present strategy.

n a recent discussion, Vladimir Kutcherov, Professor at the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden and the Russian State University of Oil and Gas, predicted that the present oil spill flooding the Gulf Coast shores of the United States “could go on for years and years … many years.”

According to Kutcherov, a leading specialist in the theory of abiogenic deep origin of petroleum, “What BP drilled into was what we call a ‘migration channel,’ a deep fault on which hydrocarbons generated in the depth of our planet migrate to the crust and are accumulated in rocks, something like Ghawar in Saudi Arabia.” Ghawar, the world’s most prolific oilfield has been producing millions of barrels daily for almost 70 years with no end in sight. According to the abiotic science, Ghawar like all elephant and giant oil and gas deposits all over the world, is located on a migration channel similar to that in the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico.

As I wrote at the time of the January 2010 Haiti earthquake disaster, Haiti had been identified as having potentially huge hydrocasrbon reserves, as has neighboring Cuba. Kutcherov estimates that the entire Gulf of Mexico is one of the planet’s most abundant accessible locations to extract oil and gas, at least before the Deepwater Horizon event this April.

Full Story: BP Oil Disaster Could Hit Europe Via the Powerful Gulf Stream Current :: The Market Oracle :: Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting Free Website.

B.P, Halliburton and Transocean have unleashed Armageddon and now there is no stopping it.

B.P, Halliburton and Transocean have unleashed Armageddon and now there is no stopping it. Senator Bill Nelson has told us how bad it is.

This is our worst nightmare. The oil industry has killed the Gulf of Mexico.

My worst fears have been realized. If this link is true and the oil is coming through the sea floor, they have either blown out the formation or blown out the cement (which we know they did anyway to get the blowout to occur). I am beginning to realize why they have not wanted toclose the valves on the cap. The more they close it, the more oil is going to come up through the sea floor, next to the well casing. I listed 12 points in my attached article. The really big concern here is that their directional wells are now pointless. They are GUARANTEED to fail because you can not pump mud or cement into a blown out well. It just does not set with oil and gas roaring past.

The next biggest concern is that they have to get 8 new wells in immediately to relieve the background oil and gas pressure. The oil is going to start coming up at an ever increasing rate along the casing and the blowout preventer. The oil and gas is going to act as a high pressure pressure washer and erode away all the sandstone and mud stone.There is nothing they can do about it.

This is also the end of B.P. The claims will go on forever.

Full Story: OpEdNews – Article: B.P, Halliburton and Transocean have unleashed Armageddon and now there is no stopping it..

60 MINUTES — THE BLOWOUT

What really happened to cause the devastating oil leak in the gulf of Mexico? And what is BP doing to fix the problem?

For an answer to the first question, watch this 60 Minutes story. As for the answer to the second question, read my special report on the devastating choices made by BP to “clean up” the mess — choices that could WORSEN the environmental impact of the spill, rather than improve it.

The story of how the BP oil drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico, “Deepwater Horizon”, was destroyed on April 20, 2010, causing the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

Part 1

Part 2

BP Official Admits to Damage BENEATH THE SEA FLOOR

As I noted Tuesday, there is growing evidence that BP’s oil well – technically called the “well casing” or “well bore” – has suffered damage beneath the level of the sea floor.

The evidence is growing stronger and stronger that there is substantial damage beneath the sea floor. Indeed, it appears that BP officials themselves have admitted to such damage. This has enormous impacts on both the amount of oil leaking into the Gulf, and the prospects for quickly stopping the leak this summer.

On May 31st, the Washington Post noted:

Sources at two companies involved with the well said that BP also discovered new damage inside the well below the seafloor and that, as a result, some of the drilling mud that was successfully forced into the well was going off to the side into rock formations.

“We discovered things that were broken in the sub-surface,” said a BP official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. He said that mud was making it “out to the side, into the formation.”

On June 2nd, Bloomberg pointed out:

Plugging the well is another challenge even after BP successfully intersects it, Robert Bea, a University of California Berkeley engineering professor, said. BP has said it believes the well bore to be damaged, which could hamper efforts to fill it with mud and set a concrete plug, Bea said.

Washington’s Blog.

Real Time with Bill Maher: New Rules June 11th, 2010

On last night’s season finale of Real Time with Bill Maher, Bill came out hard against BP. In fact, the entire show focused on the disaster in the gulf. Maher had some biting words for those who say we need oil industry jobs.

Who Owns BP? Biggest Shareholder is JPMorgan Chase

In the wake of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, BP’s stock value has plummeted, prompting news stories identifying the company’s largest investors. Oddly enough, some media outlets have failed to identify the largest BP shareholder: the U.S. investment firm JPMorgan Chase.

According to the European financial database Amadeus, JPMorgan Chase is the No. 1 holder of stock in BP. That distinction also has earned the Wall Street bank the title of “Global Ultimate Owner” of the oil giant, as it owns 28.34% of BP. Next, at 7.99%, is Legal and General Group, a British-based financial services company with assets of more than $350 billion. Another U.S. investment firm, BlackRock Inc., owns 7.1% of BP. Other owners include the governments of Kuwait, Norway, Singapore and China.

Full Story: AllGov – News – Who Owns BP? Biggest Shareholder is JPMorgan Chase.

The Supreme Court Says NO to the People – Again

Michael Winship:

At a dinner party, an ever-so-proper aristocrat who had been at the British evacuation of Dunkirk sixty years ago, remained tightlipped despite intense questioning from the other guests about what he had seen there.

Finally, he shuddered at the memory and exclaimed, “The noise, my dear, and the people!”

An apocryphal story, perhaps, but the highfalutin' Supreme Court of the United States has the same attitude toward America — this would be such a great country if it wasn't for all the noise and all those people.

Full Story: The Supreme Court Says NO to the People – Again | CommonDreams.org.

US ‘Stonewalling’ Continues to ‘Undermine’ Global Climate Talks

Draft text from UN proposes that rich countries cut emissions up to 40% but requires poor countries to ‘peak’ emissions by 2020

A new blueprint for a global climate agreement would force the United States to massively reduce its greenhouse gas emissions but could also limit developing countries’ attempts to grow their economies, diplomats at the resumed global climate change talks said today.

A new draft negotiating text, prepared by the UN secretariat at the close of two weeks of official talks in Bonn, proposes that rich countries cut their emissions between 25-40% by 2020. The draft follows submissions to the UN by more than 185 countries.

It also outlines a goal of cutting global emissions by “at least 50-85% from 1990 levels by 2050″. Rich countries specifically would have to cut at least 50-95% from 1990 levels by 2050″.

Full Story: Climate deal blueprint could curb US emissions and poor nations’ growth | Environment | guardian.co.uk.

Michael Bloomberg: Leave BP Alone!

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, of the Bloomberg Bloombergs, thinks that everyone is being unnecessarily hard on BP, and hopes that we can all avoid a “rush to judgment.” Per the New York Post:

The billionaire former CEO mayor is known for defending private businesses dealing with public relations problems. Friday was no different.

Bloomberg said on his weekly radio show that the head of British Petroleum “didn’t exactly go down there and blow up the well.”

Full Story: Michael Bloomberg: Leave BP Alone!.

Regional Fed Chiefs Lining Up To Support Tough Derivatives Provision, Obama Admin. Still Opposed

Another top Federal Reserve official offered his support this week to a Senate provision that would force megabanks to spin off their lucrative and risk-laden swaps desks.

In a letter dated Thursday, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Richard W. Fisher wrote Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Blanche Lincoln in support of her measure that would significantly change the way Wall Street's financial behemoths sell and trade a type of financial derivatives product.

The provision “appropriately allows banks to hedge their own portfolios with swaps or to offer them to customers in combination with traditional banking products,” Fisher wrote in his letter, which was obtained by the Huffington Post. “However, it prohibits them from being a swaps broker or dealer, or conducting proprietary trading in derivatives. The risks related to these latter activities are generally inconsistent with the funding subsidy afforded institutions backed by a public safety net.

Full Story: Regional Fed Chiefs Lining Up To Support Tough Derivatives Provision, Obama Admin. Still Opposed.

Why Obama Refuses To Lead His Party

Democrat in Chief?

A year and a half after they sat, shivering and awestruck, on a January morning and listened to the sounds of a million cheers careering off the marble walls of the Capitol, the Democrats who work under the dome can feel those same walls closing in fast. Throughout the dismal spring, it seemed as if every visiting delegation that drove up in a coach bus — Main Street merchants, family farmers, Rotarians and Elks — arrived with tales of angst and unrest back home. Every well-paid pollster who came through the door brought with him a stack of surveys and focus-group memos, each more dispiriting than the last, numbers portending an emphatic rejection of the majority in this fall’s elections. Every new thickly bound jobs report landed with a sickening thud on the desks of committee chairmen — a reminder that, despite modest improvements, time was running out to change people’s minds about the direction of the economy.

And then there was the president — their president — who for 17 months had cajoled them into taking tough votes on stimulus spending, on the trading of carbon emissions, on health care. Barack Obama, the postpartisan president. He continued to go out and shake his head disbelievingly at “the culture of Washington,” which to the Democrats in the House sounded as if he were saying that his own party was the problem, as if somehow the Democratic majorities in Congress hadn’t managed to navigate the bulk of his ambitious agenda past a blockade of Republican vessels, their ship shredded by cannon fire. And all this while the president’s own approval ratings fell below 50 percent — an ominous sign, historically speaking, for a majority party.

This frustration among Democrats was bound to find an outlet, and that’s what happened at a meeting in Nancy Pelosi’s conference room at the end of April to discuss the party’s election-year message. Around three sides of the table were close to a dozen Democratic leaders in the House. On the remaining side sat David Axelrod, the president’s senior adviser and message-molder, along with two other White House operatives: Jim Messina, the deputy chief of staff, and Stephanie Cutter, a senior aide to the president.

Full Story: Democrat in Chief? – NYTimes.com.

Obama Faces Rare Defeat On Health Care Help For Jobless

If Chuck Lacasse had gotten his pink slip four days earlier, Uncle Sam would have covered most of his family’s health insurance while he looked for a new job.

But Congress allowed emergency health care assistance for unemployed workers to expire May 31, and seems unwilling to renew it despite pleas from President Barack Obama.

Not three months after lawmakers passed his $1 trillion insurance overhaul, Obama is facing a rare defeat on health care at the hands of his own divided Democrats. Moderates have rebelled against adding billions more to the deficit in a treacherous election year.

Full Story: Obama Faces Rare Defeat On Health Care Help For Jobless.

Prayer, Confession and the Police

On June 1, the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Berghuis v. Thompkins. At the heart of the facts of that case was this bit of dialogue, in which a police officer elicited an incriminating statement after nearly three hours of questioning:

The interviewer asked Thompkins if he believed in God.

“Yes,” Thompkins replied. The Supreme Court opinion notes that at this point Thompkins made eye contact with the interviewer and “his eyes welled up with tears.”

The interviewer forged on: “Do you pray to God?”

“Yes,” the target again said.

Finally, the interviewer moved in to close the deal: “Do you pray to God to forgive you for shooting that boy down?”

Again, the crying Thompkins said, “Yes,” and his conviction was nearly assured.

Full Story: Mark Osler: Prayer, Confession and the Police.

Why Lead Poisoning May Be Causing Your Health Problems

We are too heavy, and I don’t mean overweight. We’re heavy with metals, not fat. Nearly 40 percent of us have toxic levels of lead in our bodies. And we don’t even know it. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have symptoms…

You may have headaches, insomnia, irritability, a low sex drive or tremors. You may have mood problems, nausea, depression, memory difficulties, trouble concentrating, poor coordination or even constipation. Yet most of us attribute these symptoms to other problems. We don’t recognize that they may be caused by lead poisoning.

Full Story: Mark Hyman, MD: Why Lead Poisoning May Be Causing Your Health Problems.

Most comets may have extra-solar origin

Many famous comets may have formed in other Solar Systems, a new theory proposes.

Astronomers now believe that when our Sun was still a young star, it may have gravitationally captured the “dusty” Oort cloud comets formed elsewhere in the galaxy.

This contradicts the earlier theory that most comets were born in the Sun’s protoplanetary disk.

The scientists described their findings in the journal Science.

The formation of the Oort cloud has long been a mystery.

Full Story: BBC News – Most comets may have extra-solar origin.

Belgium votes in election that could split the nation

The flag tugs at the wrought-iron balcony railing as if to reach out to the other tricolore across the road.

Elegant Art Nouveau houses dominate the avenues of Ixelles, this leafy neighbourhood of Brussels, but Belgian flags have also suddenly become a ubiquitous feature in the streetscape. Since the fall of the government in April, the black, red and yellow Belgian flag has been fluttering about window sills and above shop signs.

“When I heard that the government had fallen yet again I was totally shocked and started to worry about the future of this small country of ours,” said Ariane, a French-speaking resident. “So I put out the flag to show my concern and to express my sense of belonging to Belgium.” Casting a worried glance upward towards the symbol of unity she added: “The problem is that our politicians seem bent on wrecking our country.”

Full Story: Belgium votes in election that could split the nation – Europe, World – The Independent.

‘Dark Pulse Laser’ produces bursts of … almost nothing

In an advance that sounds almost Zen, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and JILA, a joint institute of NIST and the University of Colorado at Boulder, have demonstrated a new type of pulsed laser that excels at not producing light. The new device generates sustained streams of “dark pulses” — repeated dips in light intensity — which is the opposite of the bright bursts in a typical pulsed laser.

Despite its ominous name, the dark pulse laser is envisioned as a tool for benign communications and measurements based on infrared light frequencies. The laser’s ultrashort pulses span just 90 picoseconds (trillionths of a second), making the device suitable for measurements on short timescales. Dark pulses might be useful in signal processing because, unlike bright pulses, they generally propagate without distortion. Dark pulses might be used like a camera shutter for a continuous light beam in optical networks.

Described in Optics Express, the new NIST/JILA technology is the first to generate dark pulses directly from a semiconductor laser cavity, without electrical or optical shaping of pulses after they are produced. The chip-sized infrared laser generates light from millions of quantum dots (qdots), nanostructured semiconductor materials grown at NIST. Quantum dot lasers are known for unusual behavior.

Full Story: ‘Dark Pulse Laser’ produces bursts of … almost nothing.

Exclusive: Republican senator’s plan to let guns on Amtrak moves closer to reality

A Government Accountability Office study quietly released Thursday has bolstered a Republican senator’s efforts to force Amtrak’s rail service to accommodate gun toting riders or face shutdown, Raw Story has found.

The GAO ruled Thursday that an amendment inserted into a transportation funding bill by Republican Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) was permanent law, erasing doubts that Amtrak would have to comply. The mandate would force Amtrak to reverse a longstanding rule banning passengers from bringing guns onto trains instituted after 9/11.

The ruling comes just one week before the cash-strapped rail service must report back to the U.S. Senate with a plan to provide for gun-owning passengers. Wicker’s amendment would strip the passenger rail service of $1.6 billion in federal funding if it does not formulate a gun-friendly plan.

Full Story: Exclusive: Republican senator’s plan to let guns on Amtrak moves closer to reality | Raw Story.

Commission outlines $1 trillion in defense budget cuts

A bipartisan commission of defense experts has released a plan that would reduce the US’s defense spending by nearly $1 trillion over 10 years — a plan sure to gather support from progressives and libertarians, but unlikely to pass through Congress.

The commission’s report comes at a time when public concern about the US’s national debt has hit a fever pitch, and the claim that nearly $1 trillion can be saved from defense spending will certainly color future debates about what government services to cut.

The Sustainable Defense Task Force, put together at the behest of Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) to “explore options for reducing the defense budget’s contribution to the federal deficit without compromising the essential security of the US,” recommends saving $200 billion by reducing the presence of US troops in Western Europe and the Far East, and reducing total troop strength to 1.3 million.

Full Story: Commission outlines $1 trillion in defense budget cuts | Raw Story.

Poles arrest alleged Mossad agent in Dubai killing

Polish authorities have arrested at the request of Germany a suspected Mossad agent thought to have played a role in the Dubai assassination of a Hamas commander, German prosecutors said Saturday.

“He was arrested in Warsaw and is suspected of being involved in illegally obtaining a (German) passport,” a spokesman for German federal prosecution said, confirming a report in German magazine Der Spiegel.

“It’s now up to the Poles to decide if they are going to hand him over to Germany.”

According to an article to be published Monday in Der Spiegel, the suspect identified as Uri Brodsky was arrested early June on arrival at Warsaw’s airport on suspicions that he helped a member of the hit squad get a German passport in June 2009.

Full Story: Poles arrest alleged Mossad agent in Dubai killing | Raw Story.

Tea Party and FreedomWorks plan demonstration against mandatory trash collection.

The tea party movement and their corporate-funded astroturf backers at FreedomWorks often claim to be fighting “big government.” For instance, FreedomWorks complained that the individual mandate in the new health care law was an “unacceptable, unconscionable, … complete perversion of the liberties our founders fought and died to protect.” Now, local chapters of the tea party and FreedomWorks are collaborating to plan a protest in Gwinnet County, Georgia, to voice their latest grievance against government powers — mandatory home trash collection:

Three political activist groups are joining together Saturday to protest Gwinnett County’s new trash plan, which begins July 1. The Four Corners Tea Party, FreedomWorks Gwinnett and Gwinnett Citizens for Responsible Government have organized the protest, which will begin at 11 a.m. Saturday at the gazebo next to the Gwinnett Historic Courthouse on the Lawrenceville square. [...]

“It’s our way of letting the commissioners know we remember their vote and we’re not going to forget it,” said Debbie Dooley, a Dacula resident and the Georgia grassroots coordinator for FreedomWorks. “We want to make sure they are held accountable for their vote.”

Full Story: Think Progress » Tea Party and FreedomWorks plan demonstration against mandatory trash collection..

OPS: Ideology trumps everything – even survival

More than half the members of the GOP’s ‘Young Guns’ program are eligible for AARP membership.

The National Republican Congressional Committee often touts its “Young Guns” program, an initiative “dedicated to identifying, recruiting, and mobilizing a new generation of conservative leaders.” But as the Daily Beast points out, this fresh-faced group really isn’t that young:

In fact, the current crop of the 22 Young Guns looks very much like the old generation of conservative leaders. These upstarts together average an age of 49.6 years old — two months shy of the average age of new members who joined Congress in 2008. And those current reps are no spring chickens themselves. According to one analysis, the 111th Congress is the oldest, on average, of any since 1907.

Full Story: Think Progress » More than half the members of the GOP’s ‘Young Guns’ program are eligible for AARP membership..

Rove Says Obama Should Hear From Academics On Oil Spill, Then Complains He Is Surrounded By Academics

In his latest Wall Street Journal column, Karl Rove drudges out the old 2008 campaign attack on President Obama’s “present” votes as a state senator in Illinois, and wittily remarks that Obama “may now be president, but at times he appears to be merely present” in dealing with BP’s oil spill.

On Fox News last night, Rove discussed the column and advised Obama to get ideas from academics around the country on dealing with the oil disaster:

ROVE: So why has he not met with industry experts to say, Explain to me what we ought to be doing? And if he doesn’t want to meet with people in the oil industry, then you — there are plenty of very smart petroleum engineering professors in America’s great colleges and universities he could meet with. [...]

Full Story: Think Progress » Rove Says Obama Should Hear From Academics On Oil Spill, Then Complains He Is Surrounded By Academics.

Bill Clinton to health insurers: ‘I want to thank you for your support of the health care reform movement.’

Earlier this week, former President Bill Clinton visited the group that almost single-handedly brought down his health care bill in 1993 with their infamous Harry and Louise ads. Clinton delivered the keynote address at the America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) conference in Las Vegas, where he thanked them for supporting reform the second time around:

“I want to thank you for your support of the health care reform movement,” Clinton said numerous times during his lengthy, largely economics-oriented speech, which dealt with everything from the BP oil spill, to a new bus system in Lima, Peru.

“You deserve credit for taking a different position on this health care reform debate than the last one,” he said. The Health Insurance Association of America, an earlier incarnation of AHIP, was largely credited with torpedoing Clinton’s reform plans with their multimillion dollar “Harry and Louise” ad campaign.[...]

Full Story: Think Progress » Bill Clinton to health insurers: ‘I want to thank you for your support of the health care reform movement.’.

OPS What else would you expect from a Corporate Whore?

Pat Robertson’s advice to woman whose husband flirts: Make yourself more attractive and ‘don’t hassle him.’

Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson frequently stresses the importance of monogamous heterosexual relationships and is happy to offer his viewers advice on how to maintain them. As Media Matters documents, Robertson fielded a question on yesterday’s edition of the 700 Club from a woman who was concerned that her husband frequently flirts with “other women he finds attractive.” Naturally, Robertson blamed the wife, advising her to “make yourself as attractive as possible,” and to not “hassle him about it,” lest she “drive him away”:

CO-HOST: Pat, this is from Anne who says, “My husband has always been a flirt and loves to talk with other women he finds attractive. He says he would never cheat on me but his actions are starting to get to me. What should I do?”

Full Story: Think Progress » Pat Robertson’s advice to woman whose husband flirts: Make yourself more attractive and ‘don’t hassle him.’.

Chicago Fans Boo Presentation Of ‘BP Crosstown Cup’ At Cubs/White Sox Baseball Game

This weekend, the National League’s Chicago Cubs are facing off against their crosstown American League rivals, the Chicago White Sox. The interleague showdown is being sponsored by BP. The British company signed a three-year deal with the teams on April 26, just days after the oil disaster in the Gulf occurred.

BP’s sponsorship of the games features broad dissemination of their company logo and includes the presentation of an official trophy — the “BP Crosstown Cup” — to the victor:

Full Story: Think Progress » Chicago Fans Boo Presentation Of ‘BP Crosstown Cup’ At Cubs/White Sox Baseball Game.

McCain Pretends That He Now Opposes The DREAM Act For ‘Humanitarian’ Reasons

One of the areas where Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) veer to the far right in his struggle for re-election has been the most apparent is on immigration. In 2003, 2005, and 2007, for example, McCain co-sponsored the DREAM Act, which would provide provide undocumented high school graduates a path to legal residency and the chance to attend college.

McCain now opposes the DREAM Act. This shift came while he was running for president. In 2007, he skipped a vote on this legislation, which he had co-sponsored earlier in the year, and said he would probably have voted “against it in its present form.” Yesterday in an interview with KTAR, McCain reiterated his opposition to the DREAM Act, trying to argue that his stance of securing the border first was more “humane” because it would fully address the “human tragedy”:

Full Story: Think Progress » McCain Pretends That He Now Opposes The DREAM Act For ‘Humanitarian’ Reasons.

‘Experts’ Eye 100% Unverifiable E-Vote System in ‘Win’ of SC’s Mystery U.S. Senate Nominee

‘Staggering’ disparities seen between Alvin Greene’s Election Day touch-screen results and paper-based absentee vote

Will corporate MSM have courage to ‘go there’?…

Nobody in the South Carolina Democratic Party had ever heard of Alvin Greene, the jobless candidate for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination, before he reportedly defeated state legislator Vic Rawl last Tuesday. That, despite the jobless candidate’s lack of actual campaigning, campaign website, or even spending any money on a campaign as far as anyone can tell. And there remain questions at this hour, as to where he even came up with the $10,400 filing fee to get on the ballot in the first place. Greene’s interview on MSNBC last night is one of the most bizarre ever seen on television (full video posted at end of article).

Unless something changes between now and November, however, Greene’s inexplicable victory will pit him against the state’s often-controversial, and far-Rightwing Republican incumbent Sen. Jim DeMint.

Full Story: The BRAD BLOG : ‘Experts’ Eye 100% Unverifiable E-Vote System in ‘Win’ of SC’s Mystery U.S. Senate Nominee.

U.S. Unilaterally Disarming Itself in Trade War

While most politicians go out of their way to avoid the term “trade war,” which harkens back to the days of the Depression and protectionist tariffs, the fact of the matter is that the United States is currently engaged in just such a battle.

Unfortunately, the U.S. is unilaterally disarming itself in the trade war by allowing China and other nations to get away with mercantilist practices with no consequences.

“The USA has laws against: unsafe working conditions, pollution, child labor, sub-minimum wages, theft of intellectual property, etc. Violating those laws is considered cheating. If our government keeps our companies from getting an unfair price advantage by ignoring those laws, why do they let China do it?” Jeff Putnam writes at MFRTech.com.

Full Story: U.S. Unilaterally Disarming Itself in Trade War | Economy In Crisis.

Don’t Buy in Bulk! Busting Down the Myths of Bargain Shopping and Coupon Clipping

Everything you’ve heard about saving money at the store is wrong!

We all think we “know” how to save: Buy in bulk, buy generic, and you can’t go wrong. And, of course, you can only save on things that are really, really bad for you. Well, guess what? Everything you’ve heard about saving money at the store is wrong! Here, some realities behind common bargain shopping myths.

Always buy in bulk

It seems to make sense: Bigger is better, so buy pallets full at the warehouse store. With a little strategy, though, you can save so much more buying smaller items at regular grocery and drug stores. Here’s why:

You can’t use coupons at warehouse stores. Sam’s Club and Costco don’t accept manufacturer’s coupons, one of the biggest ways to save.

Warehouse stores don’t have sales. Even big box stores have fewer big sales than grocery or drug stores — where everyday prices are higher, but sale prices much, much lower. Be patient, and the best sale prices at grocery and drug stores beat the everyday prices at big box and warehouse stores.

Full Story: Don’t Buy in Bulk! Busting Down the Myths of Bargain Shopping and Coupon Clipping | Economy | AlterNet.

You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught

Younger People Are Fundamentally Less Concerned with Race, Putting the Republicans on the Defensive
I spent Memorial Day in New Orleans, where I watched a group of citizens lay a wreath at the foot of a statue of Jefferson Davis. It was a jarring reminder of how the South understands American history. Memorial Day was founded after the Civil War to honor Union soldiers. When Southerners choose to memorialize Confederate leaders, it is an act of subversive historical revision and an indication of the unresolved political and cultural anxieties that stir just below the surface of the “New South.”

The white New Orleanians paying their respects to Davis made me nervous. Few things disgusted Confederates more than property-owning women, free blacks and evidence of miscegenation. I am all of these, so I feel the very legitimacy of my citizenship is challenged by their nostalgia. But I noticed that those gathered at the monument appeared to be mostly senior citizens. In contrast, young New Orleanians were hanging out in integrated groups in the park, listening to music, drinking beer and worrying about how the impending hurricane season would affect the BP oil disaster.

The generational divide in how these Southerners spent Memorial Day was jarring and instructive. In May, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed a bill cutting state funding to schools that offer classes “designed primarily for students of a particular ethnic group” or “advocating ethnic solidarity.” The law aims to ban ethnic studies curriculums and implies that classes in African-American history or Latino literature are dangerous and discriminatory. Then the Texas State Board of Education voted to introduce a considerably more conservative slant to the social studies curriculum. In the revised Texas version of history, there is an increased emphasis on Phyllis Schlafly, segregationist George Wallace and the National Rifle Association, while the United Nations is presented as an enemy of American sovereignty and the separation of church and state is reduced to an ideological suggestion rather than a constitutional mandate.

Full Story: You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught | The Nation.

The Next Drilling Disaster?

How Long Will the Natural Gas Industry Run Amok in the Northeast?  From Pennsylvania to Ohio, natural gas drilling is wreaking havoc on communities and landowners. What will it take to get stronger regulatory oversight?

A tour of Dimock, Pennsylvania, with Victoria Switzer is a bumpy ride over torn-up roads, around parking lots filled with heavy machinery and storage tanks, and past well pads that not long ago were forests. The winter here was quiet, but with the thawing ground came the return of the rigs, the trucks, the constant noise and lights of a twenty-four-hour-a-day gas drilling operation. “It’s a modern-day Deadwood out here,” Switzer says, likening the activity to the gold rush. “No rules, no regs, just rigs.”

The “occupation,” as she calls it, hasn’t just transformed Dimock into an industrial hub; it has also damaged the local water supply and put residents’ health at risk. After a stray drill bit banged four wells in 2008, Switzer says, weird things started happening to people’s water: some flushed black, some orange, some turned bubbly. One well exploded, the result of methane migration, and residents say elevated metal and toluene levels have ruined twelve others. Then, in September 2009, about 8,000 gallons of hazardous drilling fluids spilled into nearby fields and creeks. The contamination and related health problems have prompted fifteen families to file suit against Cabot Oil and Gas, the primary leaseholder in the area, alleging fraud and contract violation and seeking to stop the damage from spreading.

If she could do it all over again, Switzer says, she never would have signed the 2006 drilling lease that helped open Pandora’s Box here. But at the time, she’d never heard of hydrofracking—the Cabot representative didn’t mention the word to her when he gained the rights to drill on her land. The story of gas drilling in Dimock begins more than a mile below the earth’s surface in the Marcellus Shale, a huge rock formation that extends from New York to Tennessee. Some geologists estimate that the Marcellus contains enough shale gas to power the United States for two decades. But the gas is caught in millions of tiny pores and can be extracted only through hydraulic fracturing, or hydrofracking, a controversial process that requires blasting millions of gallons of water, sand and toxic chemicals deep underground to create fissures that open the pores and free gas to rise to the surface.

Full Story: The Next Drilling Disaster? | The Nation.

Oil Spills, Ecology, and the Food Chain

While we become sick to our stomachs watching the spreading plumes of oil in the gulf, viewing photos of oil slicked birds, and footage of oil covered beaches in Florida and Alabama, let’s take a step back and think about the cycle of life. The reason disasters like this happen is due to a lack of understanding that, though we may be at the top of the food chain, we are not separate from it. Even though this is a lesson we were supposed to have learned in the first grade, we have separated ourselves from nature in an attempt to manage it and use its resources without a thought for how this impacts the entire system. The oil spill is a 12,000 mile wide, 50-million gallon proof point that we have been wrong.

The oceans are engines of life for the entire planet. Scientists believe that all life on earth began in the sea about four billion years ago. Our ancestors were the first tiny creatures that crawled onto the land. Today life depends on the ocean. Oceans are where life originated and hold the keys to our survival.

Half of the world’s oxygen is produced in the ocean. The BP oil spill is the largest in history. How far will it go? How much of the world’s oceans will it affect? All of this remains to be seen, but we do know that each tier of the marine food chain is affected by the oil spill. The only thing we don’t know yet is how widespread it will be.

Full Story: Oil Spills, Ecology, and the Food Chain | EcoSalon.

Alvin Greene: Republican Plant or… North Korean Spy?

Mother Jones:

Is Alvin Greene a Communist plant from North Korea? That’s at least what one casual observer believes, according to an email I received on Wednesday drawing attention to Greene’s previous military service on the Korean peninsula. “All US Servicemen there are controlled by the ‘crazy’ people!” read the message. “It’s a communist plot, soiled with the Greene plant!” This may sound loopy—but it’s not that much more far-fetched than some of the theories flying around regarding Greene’s improbable victory in South Carolina’s Democratic Senate primary on Tuesday night.

There are at least two key mysteries that state officials are trying to unravel. How did the unemployed Greene come up with the $10,400 filing fee required to run for office? And why did 100,000 voters cast a ballot for a total unknown who had no website, no party support and no visible campaign? Some are convinced that shadowy forces are pulling the strings. But hard proof of any foul play or outside manipulation remains elusive. And others who have met with Greene have come away convinced that he is the beneficiary—or victim—of circumstance.

Greene is also facing felony obscenity charges brought against him in November. Former state Democratic Party chair Dick Harpootlian points out that he’s being represented in this matter by a public defender—meaning he would have had to state that he didn’t have the funds to pay for his own defense. Yet four months later, Greene had somehow come up with the election filing fee, which he told me he paid out of his own savings. “He represented himself as indigent, at the same time that he’s paid a $10,400 charge for Senate,” said Harpootlian, a former prosecutor in Richland County, where Greene is being tried. The discrepancy raises two questions, Harpootlian said. Did Greene get the funds from an undisclosed source? Or did he misrepresent his financial status to the state during his arraignment in order to receive a free lawyer?

Full Story: Alvin Greene: Republican Plant or… North Korean Spy? | Mother Jones.

Feature: Medical Marijuana Madness in Montana

With the number of medical marijuana patients expanding dramatically in the Big Sky State, with storefront operations springing up around the state, and with at least one group of medical marijuana advocates/entrepreneurs touring the state in a medical marijuana caravan complete with pot smoke-filled vans and doctors issuing instant recommendations via web cam, opposition to the way Montana’s medical marijuana law is playing out is on the increase.

In 2004, 62% of Montana voters approved a medical marijuana ballot initiative. The number of registered patients and caregivers remained relatively low until last year, when the Obama administration announced that it would not prosecute medical marijuana users and providers in states where it is legal. At the beginning of last year, the number of registered medical marijuana cardholders was about 3,000. Now it is closing in on 15,000. And alongside the increase in registered patients has been a boom in “dispensaries,” or caregiver storefront operations.

While growing concern is evident across the state, it has burned red hot in Billings, a city of about 100,000 people on I-90 in southeastern Montana, where Western conservatism is strong. There, things have turned ugly, with fire bomb attacks on two medical marijuana businesses a month ago as the city council approved a moratorium on new medical marijuana business licenses. Accompanying those attacks was graffiti painted across windows: “Not in our town,” it said.

Full Story: Feature: Medical Marijuana Madness in Montana | StoptheDrugWar.org.

The Inside Story of How Obama Let the World’s Most Dangerous Oil Company Spiral out of Control

Though George W. Bush paved the way for the catastrophe, it was Obama who gave BP the green light to drill.

An extensive new investigation into the Obama administration’s handling of the BP oil spill disaster reveals that it was government mismanagement, delays and absence of oversight that allowed the crisis to spiral out of control. In the article “The Spill, the Scandal, and the President,” Rolling Stone’s Tim Dickinson writes, “Though George W. Bush paved the way for the catastrophe, it was Obama who gave BP the green light to drill.” Dickinson explores how Interior Secretary Ken Salazar kept in place the oil industry-friendly environmental guidelines that Bush had implemented and ultimately let BP, an oil company with the worst safety record, to get away with murder.

JUAN GONZALEZ: New government estimates have found the BP oil spill may be spewing twice as much oill into the Gulf of Mexico as previously thought. On Thursday, the Flow Rate Technical Group released its new estimate of 25,000 to 30,000 barrels of oil a day based on information gathered last week, before BP installed a new capture device. Some scientists have warned that the flow rate sharply increased after BP cut the pipe, known as the riser, to install the new device last week. The current estimates from the government panel suggest that an amount equivalent to the Exxon Valdez disaster could be flowing into the Gulf of Mexico every eight to ten days. The new numbers were released shortly after a scientist on the Flow Rate Technical Group publicly warned that the oil may be spewing out at a rate of more than 100,000 barrels a day, a figure BP once called its worst-case scenario.

As public anger over BP continues to grow, President Obama was questioned on NBC’s The Today Show earlier this week about why he had not yet directly spoken to BP CEO Tony Hayward. This was his response when asked what he would do if Hayward was a part of his administration.

Full Story: The Inside Story of How Obama Let the World’s Most Dangerous Oil Company Spiral out of Control | News & Politics | AlterNet.

10 Things That Terrify Right-Wingers

These are some of the things that keep American conservatives awake at night.

Modern American conservatism is based on an almost endless series of grievances. Author Thomas Frank coined a term for it: the conservative “plenty-plaint” — a long and ever-evolving list of personal and cultural gripes dressed up as an ideology.

But there’s also fear! And while it spans the breadth of the movement, this is the year of the Tea Party revolt, when the grassroots right, disgusted with the idea of semi-affordable health-care and tepid financial reforms is rebelling against even its own establishment. And the divide between the grassroots base and its leadership extends to the very fears that animate them. As we’ll see, the conservative movement’s business-attired hacks and the hard-right Tea Party types waving misspelled signs out in the streets have some very different causes for alarm.

So, here are ten of the most interesting things that absolutely terrify Wingnuttia. First, a few terrors of the real hard-core Right. For the Tea Partier, the midterm GOP primary voter, it’s not just the anxiety over social change that typifies more traditional conservatism. A broad chunk of the GOP base today is animated by wildly unrealistic terrors — monsters stalking them as the sun sets, perhaps hovering just beyond their peripheral vision.

1. Government Concentration Camps

Full Story: 10 Things That Terrify Right-Wingers | News & Politics | AlterNet.

Do We Really Have a 5th Taste? What Is the Umami Fad All About?

Is the umami fad nothing more than a massive counterattack against a few decades of anti-MSG bad press?

You know a food fad has permeated the mainstream when it has been covered on NPR, when restaurants all over the country are named after it, and the American Idol runner-up loves it. Well, that’s where we are with umami, the Japanese-derived so-called “fifth taste” (after sweet, salty, bitter and sour) that’s somewhere between richness and savoriness and has generated so much buzz these last few years as to no longer merit italics. Asked to name her favorite Idol-season meal in Los Angeles, Joplinesque second-placer Crystal Bowersox praised Umami Burger, which now has four locations. And so it spreads like Marmite, which allegedly purveys it: the notion that umami is cool, that umami is real, and that umami has always been here.

Hailed as the wow factor in food and now even wine, umami is not an ancient Japanese word for an ancient Japanese concept — as is wabi, say, or sabi. Umami was coined in 1909 by Tokyo Imperial University chemistry professor Kikunae Ikeda after he performed experiments to see why he so enjoyed seaweed broth. Identifying the source of his pleasure as glutamic acid, an amino acid produced by the human body and present in many foods, where it results from the breaking down of proteins through cooking, aging, and ripening. Ikeda invented a revolutionary process for isolating crystalline monosodium glutamate — “the flavor in its purest form,” we read at the Japan Patent Office’s website. Ikeda patented this process and, with a partner, promptly began manufacturing MSG under the brand name Ajinomoto.

Full Story: Do We Really Have a 5th Taste? What Is the Umami Fad All About? | Food | AlterNet.

Liberal Diaspora Jewry afraid to talk, afraid to be silent

in Britain, for the most part, ordinary people don’t care about the complicated story of the Middle East. They don’t buy the line that Israel stands on the front line of the war against terror.

Last week I wrote a comment piece for the Guardian comparing the Israeli attack on the Gaza aid ships to the British assault on the Exodus in 1947. The comparison between the two events is far from exact, but both involved the running of a naval blockade as a public relations stunt, and both succeeded in dramatically winning over world opinion. In each case a more complex narrative told by the other side went unheard. Israel has failed to convince the public in Europe that those on board included terrorists smuggling arms to Hamas, and that they attacked the Israeli commandos first. As in 1947, rightly or wrongly, the sympathy was with those whose vessels were boarded, not those doing the boarding.

Full Story: Liberal Diaspora Jewry afraid to talk, afraid to be silent – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Senators propose granting president emergency Internet power

A new U.S. Senate bill would grant the president far-reaching emergency powers to seize control of or even shut down portions of the Internet.

The legislation announced Thursday says that companies such as broadband providers, search engines, or software firms that the government selects “shall immediately comply with any emergency measure or action developed” by the Department of Homeland Security. Anyone failing to comply would be fined.

That emergency authority would allow the federal government to “preserve those networks and assets and our country and protect our people,” Joe Lieberman, the primary sponsor of the measure and the chairman of the Homeland Security committee, told reporters on Thursday. Lieberman is an independent senator from Connecticut who caucuses with the Democrats.

Full Story: Senators propose granting president emergency Internet power | Politics and Law – CNET News.

Heads Up, Citizen Scientists: The Moon Needs You!

We’re seeing the most detailed images of the moon’s surface ever captured from afar — thanks to NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO. The space probe carries a super-powerful camera, which photographs every bit of the moon’s surface for scientists to examine.

Only one problem: The LRO is doing such a good job that the scientists can’t keep up.

Enter Oxford astrophysicist Chris Lintott. He’s asking amateur astronomers to help review, measure and classify tens of thousands of moon photos streaming to Earth. He has set up the website MoonZoo.org, where anyone can log on, get trained and become a space explorer.

“We need anybody and everybody,” Lintott tells NPR’s Guy Raz on Weekend All Things Considered.

Full Story: Heads Up, Citizen Scientists: The Moon Needs You! : NPR.

Why We Are Moving Toward a Recessionary Era, and Why Keynes is Being Exhumed

Robert Reich:

Double-dip watch: Retail sales in May took their biggest nose-dive in eight months, according to today’s report from the Commerce Department. Remember: Consumers account for 70 percent of the nation’s economic activity.

American Corporations are sitting on huge piles of cash but they’re not investing, and they’re creating only a measly number of new jobs. And they won’t invest and create jobs until they know there are customers out there to buy what they sell.

For three decades, starting in the late 1970s, the biggest economic problem America faced on an ongoing basis was inflation. Demand always seemed to be on the verge of outrunning the productive capacity of the nation. The Fed had to be ready to raise interest rates to stop the party, as it did on several occasions.

Full Story: Robert Reich (Why We Are Moving Toward a Recessionary Era, and Why Keynes is Being Exhumed).

Government Deploys Drones to Patrol US-Mexico Border

Unarmed Predator B drones, the same unmanned aircraft used by the CIA for targeted killings in the Middle East, began patrolling the US-Mexico border between Arizona and southwestern Texas this week.

Top lawmakers from Texas and Arizona, several of whom have recently received campaign contributions from drone makers, have asked the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to approve drone flights over the entire Texas border despite recent reports that the border is the safest it’s been in years.

The announcement came amid rising tensions in the region, where US Border Patrol officers have killed two Mexican citizens in as many weeks, including a teenage boy who was shot after throwing rocks.

Full Story: t r u t h o u t | Government Deploys Drones to Patrol US-Mexico Border.

BP bailout proposal coming soon

Get ready for the BP bailout debate. As the most hated company in America led by the most despised CEO in business continues its systematic deceptions about the magnitude of the catastrophe, its systematic secrecy and threats of reprisal against employees who speak the truth in public and its systematic blockade against reporters seeking the basic facts, get ready for the mother of all political debates.

When the full damage of the oil is calculated, and the full payment of restitution is required and the full consequences of lawsuits are understood and the monetary consequences of such enormous personal and economic misery are realized, BP will tell us that we face the choice of BP going bankrupt and being unable to pay its debts or receiving a government bailout so it can meet its obligations from the damage it has done.

We will be told that BP is too big to fail.

Full Story: BP bailout proposal coming soon | The Smirking Chimp.

Honda Lock strike in China continues as industrial unrest spreads

Strikes at Honda’s transmission and exhaust system plants in the southern Chinese city of Foshan that won significant pay rises, and ongoing industrial action by Honda Lock workers in Zhongshan, have been followed by strike action in other parts of the country. Workers are demanding higher wages, better conditions, and secure jobs in cities including Shanghai, Zhuhai and Xian, in both foreign- and state-owned enterprises.

The Honda Lock strike, involving 1,700 workers, appears to be intensifying, with employees yesterday morning rallying outside the factory before staging a short protest march, in defiance of black-clad riot police. Police left without clashing with workers. Honda nevertheless threatened workers over loud speakers that they would face “serious consequences” unless they accepted the offered 100 yuan pay rise. Many Honda Lock workers currently earn the local official minimum wage of 900 yuan a month, $US132, for a 42-hour week. They are demanding an additional 800 yuan a month, 89 percent more.

On Thursday, the South China Morning Post reported, workers chanted at a factory fence: “Are we settling for 200? No way. 300? No! How about 400? No way.” A 32-year-old female worker from Hunan said: “We want the same wage level as Nanhai Honda workers. Not a single cent less.” A 33-year-old worker from Guangxi told the newspaper why she had joined the strike: “I am in the paint spraying unit,” she explained. “The air quality is terrible inside. I’ve been sniffing toxic fumes for four years and only earn 1,800 yuan a month. The wage level is too low.”

Full Story: Honda Lock strike in China continues as industrial unrest spreads.

Obama Needs to Decide Which Side He’s On: Corporatist or Populist. Time is Running Out.

STEPHEN CROCKETT  :

It is time to purge the corporatists from the Democratic power structure. The real work of the Democratic Party is done by grassroots activists. These activists are the Democratic Party. They should run it at every level.

This conclusion has become clear in the aftermath of tainted Blanche Lincoln primary victory in Arkansas. It took massive voter disenfranchisement and the intervention of both former President Bill Clinton and President Barack Obama for Lincoln to squeak out a victory.

Obama still has not learned that the Obama Movement that put him in the White House was not really about Obama. It was about a set of progressive policies that constituted “change we can believe in.”

Full Story: Obama Needs to Decide Which Side He’s On: Corporatist or Populist. Time is Running Out. | BuzzFlash.org.

Strangulation Economics

By MIKE WHITNEY:

Europe Chooses Depression

Forget about a smooth recovery. Finance ministers and central bank governors of the G-20, met this weekend in Busan, South Korea and decided to substitute “tried and true” expansionary fiscal policies for their own strange brew of belt-tightening and austerity measures. The EU members are eager to restore the illusory “confidence of the markets”, something that will surely be lost when the eurozone slides back into recession and the hobbled banking sector begins hemorrhaging red ink. Trimming deficits while the economy is still on the mend will weaken demand and force businesses to lay off more workers. That will decrease economic activity and slow growth. It’s a prescription for disaster.

Here’s the final paragraph from the G 20 communique:

“The recent events highlight the importance of sustainable public finances and the need for our countries to put in place credible, growth-friendly measures, to deliver fiscal sustainability, differentiated for and tailored to national circumstances. Those countries with serious fiscal challenges need to accelerate the pace of consolidation. We welcome the recent announcements by some countries to reduce their deficits in 2010 and strengthen their fiscal frameworks and institutions. Within their capacity, countries will expand domestic sources of growth, while maintaining macroeconomic stability.”

EU finance ministers show that they still do not understand the origins of the credit bubble that triggered the financial crisis and subsequent recession. Greek bonds are no more to blame than subprime loans. When banks issue loans or purchase bonds it is incumbent on the lender to do due diligence and to check the creditworthiness of the borrower. Traditionally, banks have been very good at getting their money back because they have followed standardized procedures. The rise of shadow banking changed all that. Securitization and repo market transactions create powerful incentives for repackaging dodgy loans so banks can heap huge amounts of leverage atop bad paper. The quality of the loan no longer matters. EU leaders believe the problem can be solved by gutting social programs and strangling the unions, but this misses the point entirely. The shadow system has to be strictly regulated so the threat of credit bubbles is minimized.

U.C. Berkeley economist Brad DeLong explains what the EU should be doing in his article “We Need Bigger Deficits Now”:

Full Story: Mike Whitney: Strangulation Economics.

Pelosi: We’ll Stop Blaming Bush When the Crises We Face Stop Being His Fault

In an interview with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), MSNBC’s Chuck Todd asked the speaker if Democrats’ efforts to remind the public that it was the policies of George W. Bush that led to the various crises facing the country is a smart political strategy:

Asked how much longer Democrats should continue to blame Bush, Pelosi replied: “Well, it burns out when the problems go away. And here’s what the president inherited. He inherited a deficit, when this president [Bush] inherited from the Clinton administration four budgets that were either in surplus or in balance. And he turned it into a massive deficit. He … brought us to the brink of a financial crisis. He brought us to the brink of deep recession, ignoring issues that relate to climate change.”

It’s not surprising that Washington Republicans and Beltway media types like Chuck Todd don’t want Democrats to remind Americans what happened during the Bush years — they were complicit in his downfall, to one degree or another.

Republicans in Congress rubberstamped Bush’s anti-regulatory policies and deficit spending on war, Medicare and other Big Government conservative programs. They stood by while he, Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice turned the United States into a torture regime.

Full Story: Pensito Review » Pelosi: We’ll Stop Blaming Bush When the Crises We Face Stop Being His Fault.

Breaking News from Florida: Crist Vetoes Ultrasound Bill

The Friday afternoon news dump, wherein someone tries to hide their major, super important news in the hustle and bustle and happy hours of a dawning weekend, was the tool of choice as Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (NPA) announced his veto of a horrifically bad piece of Republican legislation.

Known as the “ultrasound bill,” the law would have required women seeking an abortion to first pay for and obtain an ultrasound test, in which they would either have to view the embryo or listen to a doctor describe it. Tests range from several hundred dollars to $1,500, and would effectively block the abortion option for many, if not most, women.

In his veto statement, Crist, who earlier this week signaled his intention by removing harsh anti-abortion language from his campaign web site, acknowledged a woman’s right to decide.

Full Story: Pensito Review » Breaking News from Florida: Crist Vetoes Ultrasound Bill.

BP Censoring Media, Destroying Evidence

While President Obama insists that the federal government is firmly in control of the response to BP’s spill in the Gulf, people in coastal communities where I visited last week in Louisiana and Alabama know an inconvenient truth: BP — not our president — controls the response. In fact, people on the ground say things are out of control in the gulf.

Even worse, as my latest week of adventures illustrate, BP is using federal agencies to shield itself from public accountability.

For example, while flying on a small plane from New Orleans to Orange Beach, the pilot suddenly exclaimed, “Look at that!” The thin red line marking the federal flight restrictions of 3,000 feet over the oiled Gulf region had just jumped to include the coastal barrier islands off Alabama.

Full Story: Riki Ott: From the Ground: BP Censoring Media, Destroying Evidence.

Victory: Peace Groups Permanently Shut Down Army Experience Center in Philadelphia

Army announcement made just days before planned protest. Several large demonstrations, non-violent civil resistance and regular vigils contributed to its demise.

WASHINGTON – June 11 – Franklin Mills Mall, Philadelphia, PA – A coalition of thirty peace groups has proven triumphant in their goal of forever shutting down the “Army Experience Center” in a suburban shopping mall in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported today that the Army plans to permanently close the facility.  http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/96031939.html

After almost two years of glorifying the “Army experience” and U.S. wars through video and war games, the Army Experience Center at Franklin Mills Malls announced it will shut down on July 31, 2010.  The $13 million, 14,500 square foot Army Experience Center at Franklin Mills Mall boasts dozens of video game computers and X-Box video game consoles with various interactive, military-style shooting games.  The facility has sophisticated Apache helicopter and Humvee simulators that allow teens to simulate the killing of Arabs and Afghans.  Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Rob Watson compared the Army Experience Center to “a heavy dose of candy cigarettes.”

Full Story: Victory: Peace Groups Permanently Shut Down Army Experience Center in Philadelphia | CommonDreams.org.

Economist: Housing crisis to linger for years

The housing market won’t hit bottom until the third quarter and a true turnaround in new home-building is not foreseen until 2013, key economists said today.

“The bottom will be long and flat,” said Stan Humphries, chief economist for Zillow.com, at the Austin Hilton during the National Association of Real Estate Editors conference.

Home prices are not expected to appreciate for the next three to five years, he said.

Humphries said the market cannot repair itself quickly because of the large inventory of houses on the market, the large amount of shadow inventory, underwater properties and high unemployment. Zillow defines shadow inventory as those homes in foreclosure plus those mortgages more than 30 days’ delinquent.

Full Story: Economist: Housing crisis to linger for years | freep.com | Detroit Free Press.

Atlas Shagged: Colorado Springs Is What Happens When Rich Twits Refuse To Pay Taxes

The city of Colorado Springs, Colo., has become a microcosm of what happens when those in the community who are prospering are unwilling to pay the taxes needed to fund basic government services.

I visited C.S. way back in 1984, and was blown away by what a beautiful place it was. There were gorgeous plants and flowers everywhere. You could see Pike’s Peak through some residents’ kitchen windows. There were mild days and cool nights even in August. And, most of all, one was taken by how pristine everything always looked. “This is Heaven!” one resident, a former Texan, told me unabashedly.

But, one other thing I noticed: I had never seen so many extreme right-wingers congregated in one place in my whole life. And, mind you, I’m an almost lifelong Texan.

Full Story: Manifesto Joe’s Texas Blues: Atlas Shagged: Colorado Springs Is What Happens When Rich Twits Refuse To Pay Taxes.

Why the Main Street Economy Isn’t Getting Any Better

Robert Reich:

Today’s most important economic news: U.S. household debt fell for the seventh straight quarter in the first three months of 2010 as Americans continued to respond to the recession’s fallout.

But like all economic news, its significance depends on where you’re standing — whether you’re a typical American or someone at the top.

The common wisdom is that excessive debt-financed spending was one of the causes of the recent recession, so the news that household debt is dropping is being celebrated by business cheerleaders as reason to believe we’re on the mend.

Full Story: Robert Reich (Why the Main Street Economy Isn’t Getting Any Better).

The Spill, The Scandal and the President

The inside story of how Obama failed to crack down on the corruption of the Bush years – and let the world’s most dangerous oil company get away with murder

On May 27th, more than a month into the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, Barack Obama strode to the podium in the East Room of the White House. For weeks, the administration had been insisting that BP alone was to blame for the catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf – and the ongoing failure to stop the massive leak. “They have the technical expertise to plug the hole,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs had said only six days earlier. “It is their responsibility.” The president, Gibbs added, lacked the authority to play anything more than a supervisory role – a curious line of argument from an administration that has reserved the right to assassinate American citizens abroad and has nationalized much of the auto industry. “If BP is not accomplishing the task, can you just federalize it?” a reporter asked. “No,” Gibbs replied.

Now, however, the president was suddenly standing up to take command of the cleanup effort. “In case you were wondering who’s responsible,” Obama told the nation, “I take responsibility.” Sounding chastened, he acknowledged that his administration had failed to adequately reform the Minerals Management Service, the scandal-ridden federal agency that for years had essentially allowed the oil industry to self-regulate. “There wasn’t sufficient urgency,” the president said. “Absolutely I take responsibility for that.” He also admitted that he had been too credulous of the oil giants: “I was wrong in my belief that the oil companies had their act together when it came to worst-case scenarios.” He unveiled a presidential commission to investigate the disaster, discussed the resignation of the head of MMS, and extended a moratorium on new deepwater drilling. “The buck,” he reiterated the next day on the sullied Louisiana coastline, “stops with me.”

Full Story: The Spill, The Scandal and the President | Rolling Stone Politics.

Obama Formally Requests to Meet with BP Executives Next Week – Political Punch

ABC News’ Jake Tapper and Sunlen Miller report: President Obama has formally requested a meeting with Carl-Henric Svanberg, Chairman of the Board of BP, and any other “appropriate officials” from BP next Wednesday, June 16th at the White House.

The request was made by Admiral Thad Allen, National Incident Commander, in a letter sent directly to Carl-Henric Svanberg today.

Allen says that “time is of the essence” in resolving the issues in the Gulf, as they ensure that all individuals and communities impacted by the spill are made whole.

Full Story: Obama Formally Requests to Meet with BP Executives Next Week – Political Punch.

Soros Says `We Have Just Entered Act II’ of Crisis

Billionaire investor George Soros said “we have just entered Act II” of the crisis as Europe’s fiscal woes worsen and governments are pressured to curb budget deficits that may push the global economy back into recession.

“The collapse of the financial system as we know it is real, and the crisis is far from over,” Soros said today at a conference in Vienna. “Indeed, we have just entered Act II of the drama.”

Soros, 79, said the current situation in the world economy is “eerily” reminiscent of the 1930s with governments under pressure to narrow their budget deficits at a time when the economic recovery is weak.

Concern that Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis may spread sent the euro to a four-year low against the dollar on June 7 and has wiped out more than $4 trillion from global stock markets this year. Europe’s debt-ridden nations have to raise almost 2 trillion euros ($2.4 trillion) within the next three years to refinance, according to Bank of America Corp.

Full Story: Soros Says `We Have Just Entered Act II’ of Crisis – Bloomberg.

The Danger of Invisible Corporate Power

John Steel:

It may take several election cycles to scrub corporate influence and control from our political system.

Let’s face it: Large corporations have our country, and us, in a death grip. Some of their bad behavior makes big headlines: the BP oil disaster, Goldman Sachs’ financial shenanigans, Enron’s book-cooking. However, equally dangerous corporate activity happens every day, far from public view.

Corporations have seeped almost invisibly into nearly every government agency and too many congressional offices. And they’re as poisonous as carbon monoxide. In the last 20 years, protective legislation and regulation, carefully constructed from the days of President Coolidge and vastly strengthened due to the Depression, have seriously deteriorated.

There’s nothing inherently evil, or even bad, about corporations. Indeed, the combination of capital and management under one roof is efficient and essential in a global, competitive world. So much of our standard of living and our worldwide leadership are directly traceable to our corporate and entrepreneurial culture. But even good things, when they get out of control, turn destructive. Cancer, after all, is just growth gone wild.

Full Story: OtherWords: The Danger of Invisible Corporate Power.

BP oil leak aftermath: Slow-motion tragedy unfolds for marine life

The wildlife haven Grand Isle is at the heart of the environmental catastrophe engulfing Louisiana

Out on the water, it starts as a slight rainbow shimmer, then turns to wide orange streamers of oil whipping through the waves. Later, on the beach, we witness a vast, Olympic-sized swimming pool of dark chocolatey syrup left behind at low tide, and thick dark patches of crude bubbling on the sand.

The smell of the oil on the beach is so strong it burns your nostrils, and leaves you feeling dizzy and headachey even after a few minutes away from it.

According to marine biologist Rick Steiner, my companion on a boat ride through the slick, this is the most volatile and toxic form of crude oil in the waters and lapping on to the beaches of Grand Isle, the area at the heart of the slowly unfolding environmental apocalypse that has engulfed Louisiana, and is now moving eastwards, threatening Mississippi, Alabama, and the Florida Panhandle.

Full Story: BP oil leak aftermath: Slow-motion tragedy unfolds for marine life | Environment | The Guardian.

$713 Million WTC Health Settlement A ‘Very Good’ Deal: Judge

A federal judge who held up an effort to settle thousands of lawsuits filed by 9/11 responders exposed to World Trade Center dust dropped his opposition Thursday after the deal was redrafted to give more money to sick workers and less to their lawyers.

U.S. District Judge Hellerstein gave his enthusiastic endorsement to a new settlement that could pay as much as $713 million to about 10,000 police, firefighters and construction workers.

He implored them to take the money, saying it was time to end an ugly and complicated case that has pitted New York City officials against thousands of men and women hailed as heroes for their service at the trade center.

Full Story: $713 Million WTC Health Settlement A ‘Very Good’ Deal: Judge.

Alvin Greene A GOP ‘Plant’? James Clyburn Warns Of ‘Shenanigans’ With South Carolina Candidate

Is something fishy going on with Alvin Greene, the man who clinched an unlikely victory to become the Democratic nominee for South Carolina Senate? Fellow South Carolinian Rep. James Clyburn (D) thinks so, and on Thursday went as far as to say that Greene might be a “Republican plant.”

Speaking with liberal radio show host Bill Press, Clyburn questioned Greene’s improbable victory (Greene had no campaign signs, no website, and was largely invisible in the lead-up to Tuesday’s primary) and said that his candidacy warranted an investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s office.

“There were some real shenanigans going on in the South Carolina primary,” Clyburn said of Tuesday’s race. “I don’t know if he was a Republican plant; he was someone’s plant.”

Clyburn said the circumstances of Greene’s entry and eventual upset of the race were baffling.

Full Story: Alvin Greene A GOP ‘Plant’? James Clyburn Warns Of ‘Shenanigans’ With South Carolina Candidate.

Louisiana Rep. Charlie Melancon has a message for Sen. David Vitter: you’re a liar.

Offshore Drilling Halt Puts Louisiana Congressman Charlie Melancon In Tough Spot

Louisiana Rep. Charlie Melancon has a message for Sen. David Vitter: you’re a liar.

Melancon, a Democratic congressman from the state’s third district who is vying capture Vitter’s Senate seat, said exactly that about his opponent this week after Vitter asserted that Melancon supports the Obama administration’s moratorium on offshore drilling.

“He’s out there doing what David Vitter does all the time and that is lying,” Melancon said during a conference-call-turned-vitriolic-rant on Wednesday. “First, he sent out a solicitation which was a lie. Second, he started robocalling people around the state basically perpetuating the same lie… I want it out that David Vitter is doing another David Vitter!”

Full Story: Offshore Drilling Halt Puts Louisiana Congressman Charlie Melancon In Tough Spot.

What Happens When You Die? Evidence Suggests Time Simply Reboots

What happens when we die? Do we rot into the ground, or do we go to heaven (or hell, if we’ve been bad)? Experiments suggest the answer is simpler than anyone thought. Without the glue of consciousness, time essentially reboots.

The mystery of life and death can’t be examined by visiting the Galapagos or looking through a microscope. It lies deeper. It involves our very selves. We wake and find ourselves in the present. There are stairs below us, which we seem to have climbed; there are stairs above us, which go upward into the unknown future. But the mind stands at the door by which we entered and gives us the memories by which we go about our day. Everything is ordered and predictable. We’re like cuckoo birds who appear through a door each morning. We fancy there’s a clockwork set in motion at the beginning of time.

But if you remove everything from space, what’s left? Nothing. The same applies for time — you can’t put it in a jar. You can’t see through the bone surrounding your brain (everything you experience is information in your mind). Biocentrism tells us space and time aren’t objects — they’re the mind’s tools for putting everything together.

Full Story: Robert Lanza, M.D.: What Happens When You Die? Evidence Suggests Time Simply Reboots.

Murkowski Measure To Block EPA From Regulating Greenhouse Gases FAILS

The Senate has rejected a bid to stop the Obama administration from imposing regulations on greenhouse gases, giving a boost to President Barack Obama as he pursues broader clean energy legislation.

Senators turned back a resolution that would have rescinded the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.

Supporters of the measure, mostly Republicans, argued that the EPA had usurped the authority of Congress to set climate policy and that the EPA regulations would increase energy costs and kill jobs.

But the White House, which threatened to veto the measure, said depriving the EPA of its ability to regulate carbon and other greenhouse emissions would result in greater dependence on oil and more pollution.

Full Story: Murkowski Measure To Block EPA From Regulating Greenhouse Gases FAILS.

House GOP Targets Underwater Homeowners

GOP Congressman: Unemployment Benefits Keep People From Looking For Work

The House GOP launched an assault Thursday on homeowners who walk away from underwater mortgages, arguing that such foreclosed-on former homeowners are using the money they save to dine out and go on cruises.

“The Wall Street Journal has reported on families that have chosen to stop paying their mortgage and instead use the extra money they are saving each month to 'buy season tickets to Disneyland…take a Carnival cruise to Mexico…' and go out to dinner more often,” says House Republican leadership in an e-mail to colleagues explaining the anti-strategic-default effort.

In other words, consumers with more money tend to spend it, spurring demand — exactly what the economy needs. More than a few economists argue that the ongoing jobless crisis is a direct result of a lack of consumer demand. A homeowner stuck in an underwater mortgage is, each month, paying off a mortgage that is worth more than their home. The increased cost of housing means that money that could otherwise could be circulated through the economy – at restaurants, Disneyland, or on cruises, for instance – is sent off to Wall Street, whose profits have been soaring despite the economic downturn.

Full Story: House Targets Underwater Homeowners.

Oil spill disaster could cost Florida 200,000 jobs

If oil ruins beaches up and down Florida’s coast, it would cost the state nearly 200,000 jobs, according to a new report. With all beaches open, the Sunshine State is a long way from that nightmare scenario.

If Florida suffers a nightmare scenario of oil soaking its Gulf Coast, the economic cost could top $10 billion and put about 195,000 people out of work, according to a new report.

The grim estimates from a University of Central Florida economist involve fairly simple math: Take the value of tourism on Florida’s western coast and cut it in half.

The economist, Sean Snaith, said a 50 percent drop in tourism and related spending seemed reasonable should Florida suffer a massive, direct hit from the Gulf oil spill. Still, he acknowledged it’s hard to predict the consequences of a nightmare scenario.

“The whole economic impact of the episode is a giant layer cake of uncertainty,” Snaith said.

“How many counties will be affected? I don’t know. We won’t really know until the oil starts washing up on the shore.”

Full Story: Oil spill disaster could cost Florida 200,000 jobs – Business – MiamiHerald.com.

OPS: If you think it’s bad now – wait till the first large Hurricane makes it rain oil from coast to coast across Florida – all all of the vegetation (including crops) dies.

Think tank: Neocons’ influence remains strong under Obama | Raw Story

For those who thought the end of the Bush Administration spelled doomsday for the neoconservative movement, think again.

According to a May report (pdf) from the Brookings Institution, a Washington, DC think tank, neoconservatives associated with prominent figures like former Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol and pundit Richard Perle are still broadly active, despite policy failures associated with the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Brookings Institution senior fellow Justin Vaisse, author of Neoconservatism: A Biography of a Movement, argues that because neocons never had the degree of influence that opponents credited them with, and also because of a general unawareness of their history, observers don’t fully understand the trajectory of the neoconservative movement that began long before the Iraq invasion and one continues today.

Full Story: Think tank: Neocons’ influence remains strong under Obama | Raw Story.

Senate aide says cap and trade dead, scaled-back bill likely

Comprehensive energy legislation is likely off the table after the departure of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a Senate Democratic aide said Wednesday evening, but the chamber can still pass a “scaled back” bill that boosts clean energy.

“I just can’t see where we’d get 60 votes for a comprehensive energy bill with a cap on carbon at this point,” the aide to a senator on the Environment and Public Works Committee, who is closely involved with the issue, told Raw Story.

Graham, the sole and critical Republican in the Senate who pledged to support a cap and trade bill, told CongressDaily Wednesday he’d vote against the Kerry-Lieberman bill he helped craft, leaving Democrats confused and upset.

Full Story: Senate aide says cap and trade dead, scaled-back bill likely | Raw Story.

Former Bush Official Josh Bolten Advising BP On How To ‘Defend Its Interests’ And Restore Its Reputation

BP has embarked on an aggressive campaign to repair its public image in the wake of its disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. It has repeatedly run full-page ads in major newspapers, retained high-powered lobbying and public relations firms, and launched a series of television ads with CEO Tony Hayward looking apologetic. The company has even hired Anne Womack-Kolton, a former top aide to Vice President Cheney, to be its new spokesperson.

Now, joining Womack-Kolton in helping BP repair its image is former chief of staff to President Bush, Josh Bolten:

The former European Commission president Romano Prodi is understood to be assisting BP in its attempt to restore its battered reputation in the United States.

Full Story: Think Progress » Former Bush Official Josh Bolten Advising BP On How To ‘Defend Its Interests’ And Restore Its Reputation.

Boehner agrees with the Chamber of Commerce that taxpayers should pay for oil spill cleanup.

Late last month, Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Tom Donohue said that he feels its appropriate for taxpayers to cover some of the costs of cleaning up the Gulf Coast in the wake of British Petroleum’s ongoing oil spill. “Everybody is going to contribute to this clean up. We are all going to have to do it. We are going to have to get the money from the government and from the companies and we will figure out a way to do that,” he said. Evidently, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) agrees that taxpayers should be footing the bill, as reported by TPMDC’s Brian Beutler:

In response to a question from TPMDC, House Minority Leader John Boehner backed Tom Donohue, President of the Chamber of Commerce, in saying taxpayers should help pick up the tab. “I think the people responsible in the oil spill — BP and the federal government — should take full responsibility for what’s happening there.”

Full Story: Think Progress » Boehner agrees with the Chamber of Commerce that taxpayers should pay for oil spill cleanup..

Ugandan Bishop: Some U.S. Christian Groups Are ‘Preaching A Gospel Of Hatred’ Toward Gays Worldwide

The Ugandan parliament is considering legislation that would impose the death penalty or life imprisonment for some homosexual acts (which are already illegal), require people to report every LGBT individual they know, and criminalize renting property to gay men and women.

As Rachel Maddow repeatedly highlighted on her MSNBC show, this anti-gay push in Uganda was inspired — and promoted — by the religious far right in the United States. In March 2009, three American evangelicals — whose anti-gay teachings have been widely discredited — went to Uganda and preached about the “dark agenda” of LGBT individuals. Just one month later, Ugandan lawmaker David Bahati introduced the “Anti-Homosexuality Bill.”

While many evangelical leaders who promote hatred toward gays have tried to distance themselves from the Uganda bill, Bishop Christopher Senyonjo, a retired Anglican bishop from Uganda and Chaplain of Integrity Uganda, spoke at the Center for American Progress this week and blamed global anti-LGBT sentiments on the religious right in the United States. From his discussion with CAP Visiting Senior Fellow Bishop Gene Robinson (13:35):

Full Story: Think Progress » Ugandan Bishop: Some U.S. Christian Groups Are ‘Preaching A Gospel Of Hatred’ Toward Gays Worldwide.

BP manager hassles journalist reporting from a public beach, makes cleanup crew move away from him.

While BP has denied that it is blocking the media from reporting on the Gulf oil spill, numerous press reports indicate otherwise. Today, while preparing for a Skype chat on his laptop at a public beach in Alabama, ABC News reporter Matt Gutman “was hassled by the manager of a nearby crew, asking Gutman why he was on the beach.” Gutman captured the interaction on video, and said “several people” had asked him “not to talk to any of the workers here”:

Full Story: Think Progress » BP manager hassles journalist reporting from a public beach, makes cleanup crew move away from him..

Energy on the Right? Voter Turnout in the California Primary was 25%, Lowest in 96 Years

The Democratic candidates at the top of the ticket in the California primary ran mostly unopposed, so turnout on Tuesday should have been driven by the purportedly intense “energy on the right” that the national media has been promoting.

If voter turnout is a gauge, however, the right-wing’s “energy” fizzled in California. With all but a few mail-in ballots counted, it appears that voter turnout on Tuesday was about 25 percent, which makes it the lowest turnout in almost a century. The last time only a quarter of California voters showed up at the polls was 1914.

Until now, the lowest recent turnout was in 2006, when, as a solidly Democratic state that already had a majority Democratic congressional delegation, California merely ratified the wave that swept Democrats into power on Capitol Hill. The turnout that year was 33.6 percent.

Full Story: Pensito Review » Energy on the Right? Voter Turnout in the California Primary was 25%, Lowest in 96 Years.

The Democratic Party and Blanche Lincoln

Glenn Greenwald -

The run-off between Democratic Senate incumbent Blanche Lincoln and challenger Bill Halter, which culminated on Tuesday night in Lincoln’s narrow victory, brightly illuminates what the Democratic Party establishment is. Lincoln is supposedly one of those “centrist”/conservative/corporatist Senators who thwarts the good-hearted progressive agenda of the President and the Party. She repeatedly joined with Republicans to support the extremist Bush/Cheney Terrorism agenda (from the the Protect America Act to the Iraq War and virtually everything in between), serves the corporate interests that run Washington as loyally as any member of Congress, and even threatened to join the GOP in filibustering health care reform if it contained the public option which Obama claimed he wanted. Obama loyalists constantly point to the Blanche Lincolns of the world to justify why the Party scorns the values of their voters: Obama can’t do anything about these bad Democratic Senators; it’s not his fault if he doesn’t have the votes, they insist.

Lincoln’s 12-year record in the Senate is so awful that she has severely alienated virtually every important Democratic constituency group — other than the large corporate interests that fund and control the Party. That record, along with her extreme unpopularity in Arkansas, is the reason Accountability Now — the group I co-founded and run in order, among other things, to recruit primary challengers against corporatist incumbents — targeted Lincoln and why it expended so much effort and resources to recruit Halter into the race. We knew that most key progressive factions — grass-roots organizations, progressive blogs, civil liberties groups, and unions — would want to see Lincoln removed from the Senate, and that’s the type of formidable coalition needed to persuade a credible challenger that a 2-term Senate incumbent can be defeated.

Full Story: The Democratic Party and Blanche Lincoln – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.

New Approach Sought as Pressure Grows to End Gaza Embargo

Three years after Israel and Egypt imposed an embargo on this tormented Palestinian strip, shutting down its economy, a consensus has emerged that the attempt to weaken the governing party, Hamas, and drive it from power has failed.

In the days since an Israeli naval takeover of a flotilla trying to break the siege turned deadly, that consensus has taken on added urgency, with world powers, anti-Hamas Palestinians in Gaza and some senior Israeli officials advocating a shift.

In its three years in power, Hamas has taken control not only of security, education and the justice system but also the economy, by regulating and taxing an extensive smuggling tunnel system from Egypt. In the process, the traditional and largely pro-Western business community has been sidelined.

This may be about to change.

Full Story: New Approach Sought as Pressure Grows to End Gaza Embargo – NYTimes.com.

Scoop: Sweden to launch weeklong boycott on Israeli ships

Sweden to launch weeklong boycott on Israeli ships

Swedish Port Workers Union says won’t handle Israeli ships in protest of Monday’s raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla

Associated Press

Swedish dockworkers are set to launch a weeklong boycott of Israeli ships and goods to protest Monday’s raid on a Gaza-destined aid flotilla, a union spokesman said Saturday

Nine activists died after Israeli troops intercepted the convoy. Nearly 700 activists had joined that operation, most of them aboard the lead boat from Turkey that was the scene of the violence.

Full Story: Scoop: Sweden to launch weeklong boycott on Israeli ships.

How Many Democrats Will Join In Thursday’s ‘$47 Billion Giveaway To Big Oil’?

It’s rare indeed for President Obama to threaten to veto legislation coming from a Congress controlled by his fellow Democrats. But that’s just what the White House says it plans to do with a so-called “disapproval resolution” scheduled to come up in the Senate Thursday.

The bill was authored by a Republican, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and is derided by the spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid as “a $47 billion giveaway to big oil companies.”

But with the potential for some Democrats to defect and support the Murkowski bill, which would block the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gas emissions blamed for climate change, the threat is serious enough for the White House to call for a veto.

Full Story: On The Hill: How Many Democrats Will Join In Thursday’s ‘$47 Billion Giveaway To Big Oil’?.

Daniel Ellsberg: ‘Obama Deceives the Public’

Daniel Ellsberg, legendary leaker of the “Pentagon Papers” in 1971, still has a bone to pick with the White House. In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, the 79-year-old peace activist accuses President Obama of betraying his election promises — in Iraq, in Afghanistan and on civil liberties.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mr. Ellsberg, you're a hero and an icon of the left. But we hear you're not too happy with President Obama anymore.

Daniel Ellsberg: I voted for him and I will probably vote for him again, as opposed to the Republicans. But I believe his administration in some key aspects is nothing other than the third term of the Bush administration.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: How so?

Ellsberg: I think Obama is continuing the worst of the Bush administration in terms of civil liberties, violations of the constitution and the wars in the Middle East.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: For example?

Full Story: Left-Wing Icon Daniel Ellsberg: ‘Obama Deceives the Public’ – SPIEGEL ONLINE – News – International.

Airlines Battle Workplace Democracy

If you ever want to spook a smug, stuffed-shirt corporate CEO — I mean spook him so bad that he jumps clear out of his Guccis and screams louder than Little Richard — sneak up behind him and shout “union!”

They hate that.

Corporate chieftains get the heebie-jeebies at the mere mention of unionization for the exact same reason that millions of workers perk up at the idea: power. In today’s plutocratic, corporate-controlled economy, the most direct and effective way for working folks to assert their interests and restore a measure of fairness to America’s economic system is for them to unite in unions.

Indeed, while the corporate powers and their political apologists constantly insist that the union movement is passe — neither needed nor wanted in or modern, globalized workplace — more than 60 million Americans (over half of the workforce) say they would join a union if they could.

Well … why can’t they?

Full Story: t r u t h o u t | Airlines Battle Workplace Democracy.