Archive for June, 2010

Sanders Amendment Would Repeal Big Oil Tax Breaks

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) Wednesday proposed repealing more than $35 billion in oil and gas industry tax breaks.

Sanders says that his amendment would invest $10 billion of the savings in the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program, a Department of Energy program that energy efficiency and renewable energy projects at the state and local levels. The remaining $25 billion would reduce the federal deficit.

“What the amendment does is help transform our energy system away from fossil fuels, end unjustified tax breaks, cut the deficit and invest in energy efficiency,” Sanders says.

The billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded government subsidies that BP and the other big oil companies receive annually from the federal government have been drawing much more scrutiny as a result of the continuing Gulf Coast oil disaster.

Full Story: On The Hill: Sanders Amendment Would Repeal Big Oil Tax Breaks.

A Warning From Noam Chomsky on the Threat of Elites – Truthdig

It was not by making yourself heard but by staying sane that you carried on the human heritage. … [Doublethink is] to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it. … [Continuous] war involves very small numbers of people, mostly highly trained specialists. … The fighting … takes place on the vague frontiers whose whereabouts the average man can only guess at. …

—George Orwell, “1984”

[The treatment of the] hapless race of native Americans, which we are exterminating with such merciless and perfidious cruelty, [is] among the heinous sins of this nation, for which I believe God will one day bring [it] to judgment.

—John Quincy Adams, cited in Noam Chomsky’s new book, “Hopes and Prospects”

Noam Chomsky’s description of the dangers posed by U.S. elites’ “Imperial Mentality” was recently given a boost in credibility by a surprising source—Bill Clinton. As America’s economy, foreign policy and politics continue to unravel, it is clear that this mentality and the system it has created will produce an increasing number of victims in the years to come. Clinton startlingly testified to that effect on March 10 to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:

Full Story: Fred Branfman: A Warning From Noam Chomsky on the Threat of Elites – Truthdig.

Tighter Regulation Of Business Is Really Quite Popular — Even With The Tea Party

Despite rhetoric from the Right, implementing stricter regulations on business is popular with the American people, a new, independent poll finds.

Even many self-styled “tea party” activists support tighter business controls in several areas.

A new Harris Poll finds that among those who favor change, many more people support stricter rather than less strict regulation of business. However, this overall view is based on different attitudes to regulation, depending on who or what is being regulated, the pollsters add.

Full Story: On The Hill: Poll: Tighter Regulation Of Business Is Really Quite Popular — Even With The Tea Party.

Senior Israeli Army Commander: Turkish Attempt To Break The Siege Would Be “Act of War” :: www.uruknet.info :: informazione dal medio oriente :: information from middle east :: [vs-5]

A senior commander in the the Israeli military has stated that he believes that action taken by the Turkish government in protecting an upcoming flotilla to Gaza would be considered an act of war.

Major General (Res.) Uzi Dayan stated, whilst speaking with the army radio station that, “If he [Prime Minister Erdogan] comes here with Turkish warships there can be no doubt that it would amount to a declaration of war. We need to draw a clear line and say that whoever crosses it will not be boarded but sunk.”

The Major General’s comments come in response to a report issued in Lebanon, on Saturday, saying that the Turkish PM is considering traveling aboard a Turkish Navy vessel in support of a forthcoming flotilla to Gaza, in another attempt to break the Israeli siege that has been in place since 2006 and tightened in 2007.

Full Story: Senior Israeli Army Commander: Turkish Attempt To Break The Siege Would Be “Act of War” :: www.uruknet.info :: informazione dal medio oriente :: information from middle east :: [vs-5].

Voter Lawsuit Filed in Arkansas’ Blanche Lincoln, Bill Halter Senate Runoff

A lawsuit on behalf of three Arkansas voters against the Garland County Election Commission was filed late Tuesday afternoon, adding a dramatic twist to Tuesday's runoff between incumbent Sen. Blanche Lincoln and Lt. Governor Bill Halter for the Democratic Senate nomination.

The lawsuit, filed by Hot Springs attorney Ben Hooten, states that the commission intentionally scheduled only two polling sites for “the purpose of disenfranchising ” minority, elderly, poor and disabled voters in the county. It also says that “the greater part of the voting electorate are unable to find or reach” the polling places and are “thereby deprived of their right to vote and were disenfranchised.”

“They’ve tried this before,” Hooten said in an interview with Politics Daily. “They tried it in 2008 and I fled suit then. It was a special election on bonds that year, but they closed all the polls citywide, but one.”

Full Story: Voter Lawsuit Filed in Arkansas’ Blanche Lincoln, Bill Halter Senate Runoff.

Sanders Amendment Would Repeal Big Oil Tax Breaks

The following is a press release from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

WASHINGTON, June 9 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today proposed repealing more than $35 billion in oil and gas industry tax breaks.

Sanders’s amendment would invest $10 billion of the savings in the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program. The remaining $25 billion would reduce the federal deficit.

“What the amendment does is help transform our energy system away from fossil fuels, end unjustified tax breaks, cut the deficit and invest in energy efficiency,” Sanders said.

Calling the tax breaks “absurd,” Sanders noted that Exxon Mobil, the most profitable corporation in the history of the world, last year avoided paying any federal income taxes and pocketed a $46 million refund from the IRS.

“This amendment would begin to make sure that Exxon Mobil, BP and other big oil companies pay at least a minimal amount of their record-breaking profits in taxes to the federal government,” Sanders said.

The oil and gas tax breaks also were targeted for elimination in President Obama’s budget.

During the past decade, Sanders said, the five largest oil companies (ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, ChevronTexaco, and ConocoPhillips) earned more than $750 billion in profits. During the first quarter of this year, big oil’s profits increased by 85 percent.

Full Story: Sanders Amendment Would Repeal Big Oil Tax Breaks | BuzzFlash.org.

Our Only Hope

Ernest F. Hollings:

The recession began in December 2007. Now, after trillions of dollars of stimulation in the past two and a half years, the private sector is only creating 41,000 jobs a month. Something else is wrong.

As a longtime admirer of Warren Buffett, I held up leaving for work earlier this week to hear him on “Morning Joe.” He concluded his optimism on the economy by exclaiming: “America works!” I’m sure he meant the people of America work, which makes the country work. But Buffett pinpoints our trouble – America’s money works in China which makes Americans unable to find work in America. Corporate America offshores work or its production and jobs like gangbusters to China. And the report of an anemic production of 41,000 jobs in the private sector last month proves the point.

Full Story: Our Only Hope | Economy In Crisis.

Present Free Trade Aggreements are Destroying Us and 16 Senators are Pushing for More

Proposed free trade agreements  contributed to the near-collapse of the economy.

Proposed NAFTA-style free trade agreements with Columbia, South Korea and Panama have stalled in Congress for several years now as lawmakers increasingly oppose the policies that some believe contributed to the near-collapse of the economy.

Editor’s Note: Thanks to “free trade” agreements like NAFTA and the WTO, the United States is facing economic disaster on a scale few nations have ever experienced. The idea that any of our leaders would continue on this reckless path of economic destruction should make us question who these people are working for. It is clear that America is losing a major economic war by relinquishing management and control of the economy through the effects of our failed “free trade” agreements. Now we have no choice but to conform our laws, regulation and administrative procedures to the will of countries we signed these agreements with, instead of to our own Constitution. Why would we want to keep shooting ourselves in the foot? This must stop now!

A group of 16 Republican Senators, led by Sen. Orrin Hatch (UT), sent a letter to President Barack Obama urging him to move forward with a trio of stalled free trade agreements leftover from the Bush administration.

Proposed NAFTA-style free trade agreements with Columbia, South Korea and Panama have stalled in Congress for several years now as lawmakers increasingly oppose the policies that some believe contributed to the near-collapse of the economy. Critics of free trade had hoped that inaction on the trade pacts signaled their defeat. But, Hatch and his 15 cohorts are trying to revive the once-dead trade pacts.

Full Story: Present Free Trade Aggreements are Destroying Us and 16 Senators are Pushing for More | Economy In Crisis.

Sex Pill for Women: Big Pharma Trying to Profit from Low Sex Drive?

A new pill promises to cure low sex drive in women. Is big pharma just trying to profit from another made-up disorder?

Drugs to boost women’s libido are not recent. They date all the way back to Roman times when the wife of Augustus Caesar dosed her guests to liven a party. Marquis de Sade did the same, seventeen hundred years later.

Now a new female libido drug, dubbed the Pink Viagra, has husbands, boyfriends and Wall Street cheering, if not its intended patients.

On June 18 an FDA advisory committee will consider approval of flibanserin, manufactured by Germany-based Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, for “treatment of hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) in premenopausal women.”

Full Story: Sex Pill for Women: Big Pharma Trying to Profit from Low Sex Drive? | Reproductive Justice | AlterNet.

Robbed of jobs by the deficit cultists

Dean Baker:

The latest US jobs report shows how feeble this recovery is. Yet those managing the economy are set on a low-employment path.

Friday’s US jobs report caught most economic analysts by surprise. After touting the strength of the recovery for months, they had to come to grips with the fact that the economy just is not creating very many jobs.

If the temporary jobs generated by the census are pulled out of the count, the economy created just 20,000 jobs in May. The average rate of growth of non-census jobs over the last three months has been just 130,000 a month, only slightly faster than the growth of the workforce. At this rate of job growth, it will take decades, not years, to get back to normal levels of unemployment. It’s time that we stop the happy talk about recovery and get serious about the country’s economic problems.

Full Story: Robbed of jobs by the deficit cultists | The Smirking Chimp.

The Christian Fascists Are Growing Stronger

Chris Hedges:

Tens of millions of Americans, lumped into a diffuse and fractious movement known as the Christian right, have begun to dismantle the intellectual and scientific rigor of the Enlightenment. They are creating a theocratic state based on “biblical law,” and shutting out all those they define as the enemy. This movement, veering closer and closer to traditional fascism, seeks to force a recalcitrant world to submit before an imperial America. It champions the eradication of social deviants, beginning with homosexuals, and moving on to immigrants, secular humanists, feminists, Jews, Muslims and those they dismiss as “nominal Christians”—meaning Christians who do not embrace their perverted and heretical interpretation of the Bible. Those who defy the mass movement are condemned as posing a threat to the health and hygiene of the country and the family. All will be purged.

The followers of deviant faiths, from Judaism to Islam, must be converted or repressed. The deviant media, the deviant public schools, the deviant entertainment industry, the deviant secular humanist government and judiciary and the deviant churches will be reformed or closed. There will be a relentless promotion of Christian “values,” already under way on Christian radio and television and in Christian schools, as information and facts are replaced with overt forms of indoctrination. The march toward this terrifying dystopia has begun. It is taking place on the streets of Arizona, on cable news channels, at tea party rallies, in the Texas public schools, among militia members and within a Republican Party that is being hijacked by this lunatic fringe.

Elizabeth Dilling, who wrote “The Red Network” and was a Nazi sympathizer, is touted as required reading by trash-talk television hosts like Glenn Beck. Thomas Jefferson, who favored separation of church and state, is ignored in Christian schools and soon will be ignored in Texas public school textbooks. The Christian right hails the “significant contributions” of the Confederacy. Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who led the anti-communist witch hunts of the 1950s, has been rehabilitated, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is defined as part of the worldwide battle against Islamic terror. Legislation like the new Jim Crow laws of Arizona is being considered by 17 other states.

Full Story: Chris Hedges: The Christian Fascists Are Growing Stronger – Chris Hedges’ Columns – Truthdig.

When Everything Seems Out of Control, the President Must Take Charge

Robert Reich:

As voters head to the polls today for primaries in 12 states, their anger is showing.

A Washington Post/ABC News poll released today shows that fewer than three in 10 voters say they will support their representative in the House in the mid-term election four months from now. That’s a lower percentage than in 1994 — when Republicans recaptured the House and Senate.

Their anger is rooted in the continuing awfulness of the economy. Fed Chair Ben Bernanke said today the economy appeared to have enough momentum to avoid a double-dip recession. That’s hardly reassuring to 15 million jobless Americans. Nor to all those with jobs who are earning less than they did three years ago because they’re temps or part-timers or have had to settle for lower wages.

Full Story: Robert Reich (When Everything Seems Out of Control, the President Must Take Charge).

The Oil Spill Chemicals, Revealed (Updated)

Wanna know what’s in all that dispersant that’s being dumped into the Gulf of Mexico? So did Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, and now we know.

This makes our head hurt, but, leaving out the registry numbers, the component chemicals are listed like this by the EPA:

1,2-Propanediol;

Ethanol 2-butoxy-;

Butanedioic acid, 2-sulfo-, 1,4-bis(2-ethylhexyl) ester, sodium salt (1:1);

Sorbitan, mono-(9Z)-9-octadecenoate;

Sorbitan, mono-(9Z)-9-octadecenoate, poly(oxy-1,2-ethanediyl) derivs;

Sorbitan, tri-(9Z)-9-octadecenoate, poly(oxy-1,2-ethanediyl) derivs;

2-Propanol, 1-(2-butoxy-1-methylethoxy)-,

and distillates (petroleum), hydrotreated light

Is that equivalent of shampoo for oil slicks? Or is it a deadly toxin? We don’t know, but presumably occupational safety experts do, and can now tell workers encountering the stuff how to protect themselves.

Which is what Gillibrand was hoping for when she asked the EPA last week to release the information, considering the problems 9/11 responders have suffered after federal officials told them the air was safe.

“I commend the EPA for releasing this important information. This is a step in the right direction, but we still have more to do to protect the workers on the ground and ensure we are taking the correct steps to address this disaster properly,” said Gillibrand.

Of course, does anyone actually know what these chemicals do to people? The junior New York senator is not sure.

Full Story: The Oil Spill Chemicals, Revealed (Updated).

Maryland, 12 other states form offshore wind partnership

Maryland has joined a dozen other Atlantic coast states to form a partnership exploring offshore wind power generation.

The U.S. Department of the Interior is organizing the Atlantic Offshore Wind Consortium, which will work to ease collaboration and coordination among coastal states to help launch offshore wind mills.

Other members are Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.

Offshore wind power could help meet a Maryland goal of using 20 percent renewable energy by 2022. Achieving that proportion of renewable energy nationwide would take 54 gigawatts of offshore wind power by 2030, according to the Department of Energy.

Full Story: Maryland, 12 other states form offshore wind partnership – Baltimore Business Journal.

Rig Survivors: BP Ordered Shortcut on Day of Blast

The morning the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, a BP executive and a Transocean official argued over how to proceed with the drilling, rig survivors told CNN’s Anderson Cooper in an exclusive interview.

The survivors’ account paints perhaps the most detailed picture yet of what happened on the deepwater rig — and the possible causes of the April 20 explosion.

The BP official wanted workers to replace heavy mud, used to keep the well’s pressure down, with lighter seawater to help speed a process that was costing an estimated $750,000 a day and was already running five weeks late, rig survivors told CNN

Full Story: Rig Survivors: BP Ordered Shortcut on Day of Blast | CommonDreams.org.

Banks Paying Colleges For Students Who Rack Up Credit Card Debt

Some of the nation’s largest and most elite universities stand to gain millions of dollars from selling the names and addresses of students and alumni to credit card companies while granting the companies special access to school events, the Huffington Post Investigative Fund has found.

The schools and their alumni associations are entitled to receive payments that multiply as students use their cards. Some colleges can receive bonuses when students incur debt.

The little-known agreements have enriched schools and some banks at a time when young women and men already are borrowing at record levels, raising questions about whether such collegiate and corporate alliances are in the best interests of students.

Full Story: Banks Paying Colleges For Students Who Rack Up Credit Card Debt.

BP’s Oil Spill Bill: $1.4 Million/Day for Robots, $12/Hr. for Cleaners

What does $1.25 billion get you, if what you’re shopping for is a solution to an oil spill? As BP’s containment and cleanup efforts pushed on through Day 49 Monday, that’s the kingly sum BP brass said the company has spent on its endeavors in the Gulf of Mexico — with only partial and tenuous success to show for it.

So where did all that money go?

Full Story: BP’s Oil Spill Bill: $1.4 Million/Day for Robots, $12/Hr. for Cleaners – AOL News.

Exxon Valdez Lawyer: Louisianans, ‘To Use A Legal Term,’ Are ‘Just F–ked’

Long after oil stops spilling from the Gulf and the ecological catastrophe caused by the spill begins to be cleaned up, the process of determining the extent to which BP owes the afflicted will be litigated in the courts.

And while the case against the oil company seems fairly clear-cut (BP admits, after all, to being responsible for the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history), a lawyer with perhaps the most relevant experience on the matter at hand is painting a depressing picture about the litigation ahead.

“[I]f you were affected in Louisiana,” said Brian O’Neill, an attorney with the firm Faegre & Benson, “to use a legal term, you are just f–ked.”

Full Story: Exxon Valdez Lawyer: Louisianans, ‘To Use A Legal Term,’ Are ‘Just F–ked’.

Rep For Foreign Bankers Physically Restrains HuffPost Reporter From Questioning Treasury Official

A representative for a foreign bankers group forcefully prevented the press — and physically restrained a Huffington Post reporter — from attempting to question a U.S. Treasury Department official who had just addressed a roomful of bankers on the administration’s financial reform efforts.

The effect was to shield the public official, a key lieutenant to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, from answering reporters’ queries.

The official, Marisa Lago, an assistant secretary for international markets and development, told the assorted bankers from foreign institutions that she didn’t expect other countries to follow the Obama administration’s lead in its attempt to prevent banks from trading with their own funds or from owning hedge funds and private equity firms, speculative activities that comprise the so-called “Volcker Rules.”

Full Story: Rep For Foreign Bankers Physically Restrains HuffPost Reporter From Questioning Treasury Official.

No letup in Marine attempted suicides

Marines are trying to kill themselves at a record pace this year despite a 2009 program aimed at stemming the problem, according to Marine Corps data.

Eighty-nine Marines tried to commit suicide through May, most commonly by overdose or lacerations, according to statistics and the Marine Corps suicide prevention program officer, Navy Cmdr. Aaron Werbel. At that rate, there could be more than 210 attempted suicides this year.

There were a record 164 attempted suicides in 2009.

With 21 confirmed or suspected suicides by Marines this year, the Corps is on track to near last year’s record number of 52, Werbel says. The Marine Corps suicide rate in 2009 was 24-per-100,000, the highest in the military, Marine records show. The latest demographically adjusted suicide rate among civilians in 2006 was 20 per 100,000, federal records show.

Full Story: No letup in Marine attempted suicides – USATODAY.com.

Coast Guard to probe report of new Gulf spill: official

US authorities will investigate reports that another oil spill is sullying Gulf of Mexico waters not far from the site of the BP disaster, the top official overseeing the cleanup and containment effort said Tuesday.

The Press Register newspaper based in the Gulf city of Mobile, Alabama, was one of several US news outlets reporting that a second spill had occurred at the Ocean Saratoga rig operated by the Diamond Offshore drilling company.

Asked about the spill, Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen told a press conference here: “We're going to get detailed information and we'll release a statement later on it

Full Story: Coast Guard to probe report of new Gulf spill: official | Raw Story.

US backs international role in flotilla probe

The United States backed calls Tuesday for international participation in Israel’s probe into its deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla saying it was “essential” to ensure credibility.

“We understand that the international participation in investigating these matters will be important to the credibility everybody wants to see,” State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said.

“We recognize that international participation… would be an essential element to putting this tragedy behind us and then hopefully creating some additional trust and momentum to get us to our ultimate destination, which is an agreement that ends the conflict once and for all.”

Full Story: US backs international role in flotilla probe – Yahoo! News.

After taking $96K from oil and gas firms, Toomey pushes for more offshore drilling.

Despite the massive devastation caused by BP’s oil gusher, a growing number of Republicans have called for an immediate increase in offshore drilling, opposing President Obama’s moratorium on new wells until an investigation of the Deepwater Horizon disaster is complete. Pennsylvania Republican Senate nominee Pat Toomey joined the club Friday, telling WHYY in Philadelphia that Obama went too far in stopping new drilling:

Republican Senate candidate Pat Toomey says the Gulf Coast oil spill is a “huge disaster,” but argues the United States shouldn’t shy away from offshore drilling. [...]

Going forward, Toomey wants to see more, and not less, domestic oil exploration.

“You know,” Toomey said, “we choose not to drill in the ANWAR, for instance. In a very obscure, remote part of Alaska that’s sitting on a huge amount of oil, and we don’t touch it. That increases our dependence on foreign oil. And I think that’s a mistake.”

Full Story: Think Progress » After taking $96K from oil and gas firms, Toomey pushes for more offshore drilling..

Murkowski Said Oil Drilling Blowouts Were ‘Impossible,’ Begged Big Oil To Fight ‘Red Tape’

This afternoon, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) held a press conference to tout her “Dirty Air Act” resolution that rolls back the Environmental Protection Agency’s power to regulate carbon emissions under the Clean Air Act. As Climate Progress has detailed, Murkowski’s bill was drafted in consultation with Jeffrey R. Holmstead and Roger R. Martella Jr — lobbyists for the coal and oil industry. Despite this fact, Murkowski has tried to downplay the influence of big oil on her efforts, claiming only her staff writes her actual amendments, and that she is motivated purely by the fear of “detrimental consequences” of Clean Air Act regulations.

But Murkowski’s own words help to clarify her relationship with the oil industry. In a startling speech given to the Oil and Gas Association Board of Directors on May 7, 2008, Murkowski asked the oil industry to “mobilize all your resources” for a massive campaign to “beat[] back bad legislation and regulations.” To combat “the growing hysteria over fossil fuel use,” Murkowski suggested that the oil industry “fund a major campaign to open areas of America to environmentally sensitive oil and gas exploration.” Murkowski commended the oil industry for “fight[ing] off efforts” to “add more red tape to gain drilling permits” and made clear that although she is facing “considerable and growing opposition” from Alaskan fishermen and whalers, her allegiance is with the oil industry in opening new drilling.

But possibly the most stunning statement was Murkowski’s claim that “new technology makes Santa Barbara wellhead blowouts impossible,” and that the oil industry should publicize this claim to the public in pushing for more drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf, in the Gulf of Mexico, off Florida’s shores, and elsewhere. Of course, BP’s oil spill disaster appears to have been caused by problems with the wellhead blowout preventer technology, which Murkowski said was impossible:

Full Story: Think Progress » FLASHBACK: Murkowski Said Oil Drilling Blowouts Were ‘Impossible,’ Begged Big Oil To Fight ‘Red Tape’.

Trumka: Lawmakers Worried More About The Deficit Than Jobs ‘Have Been Reading Too Much Fiction’

Before it adjourned for its Memorial Day recess, the House of Representatives passed a scaled down tax extenders bill, that didn’t include extensions of COBRA health insurance subsidies for unemployed workers, or an extension of FMAP funding to help states meet their Medicaid responsibilities. The bill also only extended unemployment benefits through November, instead of December as had been originally planned.

Despite 9.7 percent unemployment, and long-term unemployment at record highs, the bill was cut down because of concerns regarding its effect on the deficit, as only part of it was offset by revenue raisers. A group of Blue Dogs and freshman Democrats, as well as lockstep Republican opposition, helped to produce legislation with significantly less impact.

Today, ThinkProgress posed a couple of questions regarding such deficit hysteria to AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, who appeared at the America’s Future Now conference to advocate more robust job creation measures from Congress. Trumka said that those more concerned with the deficit than the fact that 15 million Americans are currently out of work have “been reading too much fiction or they have their head in the sand”:

Full Story: Think Progress » Trumka: Lawmakers Worried More About The Deficit Than Jobs ‘Have Been Reading Too Much Fiction’.

BP To Go Ahead with $10 Billion Shareholder Payout — Signs of the Times News

Tony Hayward to defy calls from politicians to cancel dividend until Deepwater Horizon oil spill is resolved

Tony Hayward, BP’s embattled chief executive, will risk incurring further wrath in the US over the Gulf oil spill tomorrow by defying calls from politicians to halt more than $10bn (£6.8bn) worth of payouts due to shareholders this year.

He will hope to appease City investors by promising in a conference call with analysts to stick with BP’s dividend policy amid mounting concern about a plunging share price.

BP declined to comment on its strategy tonight but it is understood that Hayward will say he is confident the company can pay for liabilities resulting from the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion – now estimated by analysts at $20bn to $60bn – as well as rewarding investors.

The move follows demands from senators Charles Schumer and Ron Wyden in a letter to Hayward all dividends be halted until the cost of the clean-up is known.

Full Story: Gulf Oil Spill: BP To Go Ahead with $10 Billion Shareholder Payout — Signs of the Times News.

Key Indicators of a New Depression

With the mainstream media focusing on the country’s leveling unemployment rate, improving retail sales, and nascent housing recovery, one might think that the US government has successfully navigated the economy through recession and growth has returned. But I will argue that a look under the proverbial hood reveals a very different picture. I believe the data shows that the US economy is badly damaged, and a modern-day depression has begun. In fact, just as World War I was originally called The Great War (and was retroactively renamed after World War II), Peter Schiff has said that one day the world will refer to the 1929-41 era as Great Depression I, and the current period as Great Depression II.

For starters, look at unemployment. During Great Depression I, unemployment broke 25%. If government statistics are taken at face value, the current unemployment rate is 9.9%, but a closer look reveals that the broadest measure of unemployment is currently at 20% – and rising. So, today’s numbers are in the same ballpark as the ’30s even though the federal government is using unprecedented measures to keep the economy afloat. Remember, in Great Depression I, FDR never ran a deficit nearly as large as President Obama’s. Moreover, the Federal Reserve of the 1930s still had a gold standard with which to contend, while today’s Fed has increased the monetary base with impunity. Yet even with all that intervention, unemployment figures still indicate that we have entered depression territory.

What is demoralizing to an unemployed person is not simply being let go, it is being unable to find a new job for an extended period of time. And this is where Great Depression II really rears its ugly head. According to the US federal government’s own data, the median duration of unemployment is now over five months – and rising. This is the highest it’s been since the BLS started compiling this statistic in 1965. As workers start to go this long without jobs, they eat into their savings. Eventually – and especially in a country with a savings rate as low as ours and debt as high as ours – they run out of cushion and hit the street. Formerly middle-class people have to make decisions never thought possible: do I eat in a shelter or go hungry in my home?

Euro Pacific Capital.

Brain Injuries Remain Undiagnosed in Thousands of Soldiers

The military medical system is failing to diagnose brain injuries in troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, many of whom receive little or no treatment for lingering health problems, an investigation by ProPublica and NPR has found.

So-called mild traumatic brain injury has been called one of the wars’ signature wounds. Shock waves from roadside bombs can ripple through soldiers’ brains, causing damage that sometimes leaves no visible scars but may cause lasting mental and physical harm.

Officially, military figures say about 115,000 troops have suffered mild traumatic brain injuries since the wars began. But top Army officials acknowledged in interviews that those statistics likely understate the true toll. Tens of thousands of troops with such wounds have gone uncounted, according to unpublished military research obtained by ProPublica and NPR.

Full Story: On The Hill: Brain Injuries Remain Undiagnosed in Thousands of Soldiers.

BP well may be spewing 100,000 barrels a day, scientist says | McClatchy

BP’s runaway Deepwater Horizon well may be spewing what the company once-called its worst case scenario — 100,000 barrels a day, a member of the government panel tasked with determining the size of the spill told McClatchy Monday.

“In the data I’ve seen, there’s nothing inconsistent with BP’s worst case scenario,” Ira Leifer, an associate researcher at the Marine Science Institute of the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a member of the government’s Flow Rate Technical Group, told McClatchy.

Leifer said that based on satellite data he’s examined, the rate of flow from the well has been increasing over time, especially since BP’s “top kill” effort failed last month to stanch the flow. The decision last week to sever the well’s damaged riser pipe from the its blowout preventer in order to install a “top hat” containment device has increased the flow still more _ far more, Leifer said, than the 20 percent that BP and the Obama administration predicted.

Full Story: BP well may be spewing 100,000 barrels a day, scientist says | McClatchy.

CIA Inspector General Position Vacant For 14 Months

More than a year after the CIA’s inspector general stepped down, frustrated members of Congress are urging the White House to fill the internal watchdog position that was central in uncovering abuses inside the spy agency.

Several possible candidates have fallen by the wayside despite assurances from the Obama administration that a nominee will be chosen soon.

The pressure from Congress comes as the administration is contending with concerns about its intelligence structure. A spate of failed terrorist attacks since December exposed flaws in the intelligence community’s oversight. The administration also faces congressional unease over its new nominee for national intelligence director, James R. Clapper, after the forced resignation of the previous director, Dennis Blair.

Full Story: CIA Inspector General Position Vacant For 14 Months.

Senator confirms reports that wellbore is pierced; oil seeping from seabed in multiple places

Video at link:

Senator Bill Nelson was interviewed by Andrea Mitchell this morning on MSNBC and confirmed reports of oil seeping up from additional leak points on the seafloor.

Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL): Andrea we’re looking into something new right now, that there’s reports of oil that’s seeping up from the seabed… which would indicate, if that’s true, that the well casing itself is actually pierced… underneath the seabed. So, you know, the problems could be just enormous with what we’re facing.

Andrea Mitchell, MSNBC: Now let me understand better what you’re saying. If that is true that it is coming up from that seabed, even the relief well won’t be the final solution to cap this thing. That means that we’ve got oil gushing up at disparate places along the ocean floor.

Sen. Nelson: That is possible, unless you get the plug down low enough, below where the pipe would be breached.

Starts at 2:30:

Full Story: Senator confirms reports that wellbore is pierced; oil seeping from seabed in multiple places | Florida Oil Spill Law.

Watchdog Group Urges Defense Department to Cancel BP Contracts Worth More than $2 Billion

A Washington consumer advocacy group wants the Department of Defense (DoD) terminate its business relationship with BP and a BP subsidiary due to what an official with the group calls the energy’s giant’s history of “willful transgression of U.S. laws.”

Citing the ongoing Gulf oil disaster and BP’s history of criminal convictions, Public Citizen Monday called on the Pentagon to suspend and ultimately debar BP and its subsidiaries from serving as a federal contractor, and terminate six current contracts worth $2.1 billion to BP, the group says in a letter to President Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

BP Oil International Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of BP, has six contracts with DoD totaling more than $2.1 billion, primarily for fuel delivery.

Full Story: On The Hill: Watchdog Group Urges Defense Department to Cancel BP Contracts Worth More than $2 Billion.

US Progressives: Time to Make Obama Uncomfortable

Nineteen months after celebrating President Barack Obama’s historic election win, disappointed liberal activists promised on Monday to turn up the political heat on a White House they said is too quick to compromise.

At an annual conference of grassroots progressives, they said the euphoria and high expectations after Obama’s victory had lulled them into a false sense of security, and hopes for his success had sometimes limited their criticism.

That has changed, they said, because of what they called Obama’s go-easy approach on Wall Street, ineffectual efforts to reduce high unemployment, watered-down healthcare and financial regulation reforms and escalation of the Afghanistan war.

“It is not our job to make this president or this administration comfortable. It is our job to make him do the right thing,” said Darcy Burner, head of the Progressive Congress Action Fund.

Full Story: US Progressives: Time to Make Obama Uncomfortable | CommonDreams.org.

Unemployment Benefits Are More Important Than Deficit Reduction, Say 3/4 Of Voters

Three-quarters of registered voters think Congress should forget about the deficit and preserve extended unemployment benefits and health insurance subsidies for laid-off workers, according to a new poll commissioned by the National Employment Law Project.

Citing deficit concerns, Democrats in both chambers of Congress have said it’s time to start thinking about how to wrap up the extended unemployment benefits put in place to fight the recession. But 74 percent of people surveyed said they agreed with the statement that “it is too early to start cutting back benefits and health coverage for workers who lost their jobs.”

“We cannot let a handful of misguided deficit hawks pull the plug on benefits that are precisely the kind of stimulus needed for economic recovery and deficit reduction,” said NELP director Christine Owens in a statement. “Given the choice, the vast majority of the American people would provide unemployed workers and their communities the benefits they continue to need — Congress should be listening to them.”

Full Story: Unemployment Benefits Are More Important Than Deficit Reduction, Say 3/4 Of Voters.

Fake Meat: Scientists Closer To Vegetarian Chicken

Time magazine reports on a team of scientists from the University of Missouri who may have finally cracked the code on vegetarian chicken.

Though fake-meat products like Tofurkey (and many more — see photos of various fake meat products here) have been available for years, emulating the subtle, fibrous texture and taste profile of chicken is particularly difficult. But scientist Fu-Hung Hsieh and his partner Harold Huff have developed a complex formula to overcome chicken’s peculiar challenges.

According to Time, after more than a decade, they have created:

“The first soy product that not only can be flavored to taste like chicken but also breaks apart in your mouth the way chicken does: not too soft, not too hard, but with that ineffable chew of real flesh. When you pull apart the Missouri invention, it disjoins the way chicken does, with a few random strands of “meat” hanging loosely.”

Here’s how the process is described:

Full Story: Fake Meat: Scientists Closer To Vegetarian Chicken.

OPS: Once this is perfected they can start working on Soylent Green

White House To Arkansas Senate Candidate: You’re On Your Own

Arkansas Senate Runoff: Obama Disengages From Race As Blanche Lincoln Slips In Polls

The White House is still formally supporting Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s re-election bid as the Arkansas Democratic primary approaches its runoff vote on Tuesday. But over the past few weeks, as the incumbent senator’s prospects for holding onto the seat have became more unsettled, the president and his team have been noticeably silent about the race.

The president’s political shop can read both polls and tea leaves. And while the official policy is to back incumbents, there is clear shoulder-shrugging resignation that Lt. Gov. Bill Halter will emerge Tuesday as the party’s candidate in the fall.

Aides won’t go there on record, or even on background. But they don’t correct the assertion that they’ve stepped back from the race. The evidence is obvious. Save a perfunctory, donate-to-Blanche-email signed on June 2 by Vice President Joseph Biden, the type of formal campaigning that team Obama rolled out prior to the first vote (with radio ads and robocalls) has been completely non-existent.

Full Story: Arkansas Senate Runoff: Obama Disengages From Race As Blanche Lincoln Slips In Polls.

Goldman Sachs Subpoenaed By Financial Crisis Panel For Withholding Key Info

Referring to its conduct as “abysmal,” “unacceptable,” “egregious,” and “disturbing,” the federal panel created to probe the causes of the financial crisis slapped Goldman Sachs with a subpoena on Friday for its “very deliberate effort to run out the clock” in failing to turn over key documents and make company executives available for interviews with federal investigators.

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission turned to the subpoena after “multiple requests” and “months” of stalling by Wall Street's most profitable firm to turn over requested information.

Goldman Sachs missed at least seven deadlines, requested extensions that were subsequently missed at least three times, and was threatened with a subpoena on at least three different occasions, according to a summary of the back-and-forth provided by the financial crisis panel. The requests for information stretch back to January.

Full Story: Goldman Sachs Subpoenaed By Financial Crisis Panel For Withholding Key Info.

A Victory for Native Americans?

Mistreatment of Indians is America's Original Sin, and the narrative is consistent. They lose their land, get portrayed as caricatures of social maladies, and are ripped off by the likes of Jack Abramoff. So it's no surprise that a tale with a very different ending, namely the righting of a horrible wrong affecting 500,000 Native Americans, proceeds with virtually no notice.

Indeed, you'd think that even Tea Party diehards should rally to this cause, given their anti-government and pro-property rights passion. They might even want to pay homage to the intrepid female accountant-turned-banker, who inspired one of the most fiercely litigated disputes against the federal government in history. But they likely won't. Who will? Not even many Indians believe that belated fairness is now on the way, given more than a century of government abuse and deceit whose undisputed facts strain credulity.

The facts are these: Following the House's approval, the Senate is considering whether to approve a $3.4 billion settlement of a 15-year-old lawsuit, alleging the government illegally withheld more than $150 billion from Indians whose lands were taken in the 1880s to lease to oil, timber, minerals and other companies for a fee. Back then, the government started breaking up reservations, accumulating over 100 million acres, giving individual Indians 80 to 160 acres each, and taking legal title to properties placed in one of two trusts. The Indians were given beneficial ownership but the government managed the land, believing Indians couldn't handle their affairs. With leases for oil wells in Oklahoma, resorts in Palm Springs, and rights-of-ways for roads in Scottsdale, Arizona, some descendants of original owners receive six- and even seven-figure sums annually. But the prototypical beneficiary, now poised to share in the settlement, is a poor Dakotan who struggles to afford propane to heat his quarters and has been receiving as little as $20 a year. More than $400 million a year is collected from Indian lands and paid into U.S. Treasury account 14X6039.

Full Story: A Victory for Native Americans? – National – The Atlantic.

White House Endorses Unlimited Liability Cap For Oil Spillers

Democrats in Congress and officials in the White House are making yet another major push to pass legislation to make the liability for oil companies involved in damaging spills unlimited.

On Monday evening, the White House confirmed that it favors the most recent piece of legislation that would drop any numerical ceiling to the amount of money an oil company like BP would have to pay for economic damages caused by a spill. Currently, the cap is $75 million.

“The president supports removing caps on liability for oil companies engaged in offshore drilling,” said spokesman Ben LaBolt. “Oil companies should have every incentive to maximize safety and arbitrary caps on liability create a disincentive to achieve that goal.”

The statement was the most detailed the administration has offered to date with respect to the debate surrounding BP’s liability. And it reflects a growing sentiment within the White House that more aggressive action (if not optics) need to be in place to stem the fallout of the Gulf crisis. Several weeks ago, U.S. Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli made the case for an unlimited cap without formally endorsing the policy.

Full Story: White House Endorses Unlimited Liability Cap For Oil Spillers.

Gladiator graveyard discovered in northern England

Experts said new forensic evidence suggests the bones belong to the professional fighters, who were often killed while entertaining spectators.

Most of the skeletons were male and appeared stronger and taller than the average Roman, with signs of arm-muscle stress that suggest weapons training that began in the men’s teenage years.

The team investigating the remains said that one of the best clues was carnivore tooth marks found on the hip and shoulder of one of the skeletons.

Full Story: Gladiator graveyard discovered in northern England – Yahoo! News.

Dispersal of Oil Means Cleanup to Take Years, Official Says

Although the Coast Guard had trained for the possibility of cleaning up a disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, it had never anticipated that oil would spread across such a broad area and break up into hundreds of thousands of patches as the current spill has done, the commander heading the federal response to the spill said Monday.

“It’s the breadth and complexity of the disaggregation of the oil” that is now posing the greatest clean-up challenge, the commander, Adm. Thad W. Allen, said at a news conference at the White House.

He underscored the challenge by acknowledging, in response to a reporter’s question, that it would take years to mitigate the impact of the spill on the marshes, beaches and wildlife on the Gulf Coast. On Sunday, the admiral had said it could take well into autumn to deal with the slick that is spreading relentlessly across four states of the gulf.

“This is a long campaign, and we’re going to be dealing with this for the foreseeable future,” he said.

Full Story: Dispersal of Oil Means Cleanup to Take Years, Official Says – NYTimes.com.

Doctors group says Bush Administration conducted medical experiments on detainees

A new report by the watchdog group Physicians for Human Rights alleges Monday that the Bush Administration experimented on terrorism suspects during their enhanced interrogation program put in force starting in 2002.

The group's review, which examined Bush-era documentation, asserts that the administration violated laws set up in the wake of the Holocaust to prevent medical testing on prisoners of war. (Nazi doctors sometimes experimented on their prisoners.)

The report states that, “Medical personnel were required to monitor all waterboarding practices and collect detailed medical information that was used to design, develop and deploy subsequent waterboarding procedures.” Notes the Associated Press:

Full Story: Doctors group says Bush Administration conducted medical experiments on detainees | Raw Story.

Lincoln, Who Gets A Large Amount Of Corporate Cash, Complains About ‘Other People’ Funding Her Opponent

On Tuesday, Arkansas voters will go to the polls to nominate a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate. The race is expected to be close, with incumbent senator Blanche Lincoln facing a tough challenge from former Arkansas Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, who is mounting a populist campaign against Lincoln, claiming she is too close to big corporations.

Today, on CNN’s State of the Union, host Candy Crowley asked Lincoln about how she felt her campaign was going. The incumbent senator said that she has been traveling all over the state to campaign, while Halter has been allowing “other people fund his campaign and do his dirty work”

LINCOLN: I’ve spent the last oh gosh the last week on our countdown to victory tour in 20, 25 county courthouses across the state. Bill hasn’t been doing that, he’s been letting other people fund his campaign and do his dirty work and I’ve been out there with the people.

Watch it:

Full Story: Think Progress » Lincoln, Who Gets A Large Amount Of Corporate Cash, Complains About ‘Other People’ Funding Her Opponent.

58 percent of federal trial judges in oil-affected states have a stake in oil industry.

The AP reports that well over half of the federal trial judges in states affected by the BP oil disaster have financial ties to that industry:

Thirty-seven of the 64 active or senior judges in key Gulf Coast districts in Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida have links to oil, gas and related energy industries, including some who own stocks or bonds in BP PLC, Halliburton or Transocean — and others who regularly list receiving royalties from oil and gas production wells, according to the reports judges must file each year. … [O]ne federal judge in Texas is a member of Houston’s Petroleum Club, an “exclusive, handsome club of, and for, men of the oil industry.”

Full Story: Think Progress » 58 percent of federal trial judges in oil-affected states have a stake in oil industry..

FreedomWorks CEO Goes To Bat For BP, Calls Oil Spill ‘A Natural Disaster’

During an interview today with FreedomWorks President Matt Kibbe on ABC’s Top Line, host Karen Travers noted that the cover of his upcoming book — Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto — says “lower taxes plus less government equals more freedom.” Travers then asked, “How does that less government sentiment square with this massive government effort down there in the Gulf to contain the spill?”

In response, Kibbe was able to kill two birds with one stone: deflect criticism from BP and his own personal philosophy by saying that he expects government to act “when there is a natural disaster”:

KIBBE: Well I think if you look at what’s happened down there, it’s a sad story of government incompetence as well as negligence on the part of BP. And I think what you have to look at is when there is a natural disaster like this we do expect our government to do some things and to do them well. And the whole point of limited government is you want the government to be competent at those few things that we need it to do and this is an example where the government was asleep at the switch and there’s a series of regulations that led to deep drilling as opposed to more economical and safer options.

Watch it (starting at 4:00):

Full Story: Think Progress » FreedomWorks CEO Goes To Bat For BP, Calls Oil Spill ‘A Natural Disaster’.

OPS: Note – FreedomWorks has been the m front group for the millions of dollars behind the teabagger ‘movent’

White House: BP estimates of oil leak into Gulf will no longer be trusted

BP apparently can’t be trusted — for leak estimates, at any rate.

The U.S. government will no longer rely on the London-based oil giant for estimates on how much oil is leaking into the gulf, the White House said Monday.

Rather, flow rates calculated by the U.S. government will help determine penalties leveled against BP based on how much oil has been spilled, said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs.

Progress continued over the weekend on getting the leak under control.

Full Story: White House: BP estimates of oil leak into Gulf will no longer be trusted.

Don’t be surprised if more businesses start asking you for identification

Be prepared to pull out your driver’s license on your next visit to the dentist. And don’t be surprised if a retailer asks for a birth date or mother’s maiden name if it’s giving you credit for your big-ticket purchase.

They’re just following federal rules to protect consumers from identity theft. Beginning next month, a wide range of businesses — auto dealers, cell phone companies, real estate agents, mortgage brokers, utilities and health care providers — must start complying with “Red Flag Rules.” The rules are meant to stop fraud before it happens by requiring certain businesses to look for signs that customers might be imposters and, if there are signs that they are, to take action.

“People will notice more requests for verification for their identity, and some people will feel insulted or annoyed,” says Anne Wallace, president of the Identity Theft Assistance Center. “I would urge them to regard this as a protection.”

Full Story: Don’t be surprised if more businesses start asking you for identification – Baltimore Sun.

Video: Israel owns the USA

– Dr. Paul Craig Roberts:

Sharon to Peres: “We Control America”

Congressional Pandering to Israel proves him Right

by Mohamed Khodr

On October 3, 2001, I.A.P. News reported that according to Israel Radio (in Hebrew) Kol Yisrael an acrimonious argument erupted during the Israeli cabinet weekly session last week between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his foreign Minister Shimon Peres. Peres warned Sharon that refusing to heed incessant American requests for a cease-fire with the Palestinians would endanger Israeli interests and “turn the US against us. “Sharon reportedly yelled at Peres, saying “don’t worry about American pressure, we the Jewish people control America.”

“The Israelis control the policy in the congress and the senate.”

– Senator Fullbright, Chair of Senate Foreign Relations Committee: 10/07/1973 on CBS’ “Face the Nation”.

“I am aware how almost impossible it is in this country to carry out a foreign policy [in the Middle East] not approved by the Jews….. terrific control the Jews have over the news media and the barrage the Jews have built up on congressmen …. I am very much concerned over the fact that the Jewish influence here is completely dominating the scene and making it almost impossible to get congress to do anything they don’t approve of. The Israeli embassy is practically dictating to the congress through influential Jewish people in the country“

—–Sec. of State John Foster Dulles quoted on p.99 of Fallen Pillars by Donald Neff

Full Story: Video: Israel owns the USA – Dr. Paul Craig Roberts « Wake-up Call.

Pro-Israel PAC Contributions to 2010 Congressional Candidates

PRO-ISRAEL PAC CONTRIBUTIONS TO 2010 CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATES

More…..

Full Story: Pro-Israel PAC Contributions to 2010 Congressional Candidates.

Bhopal tragedy: Victims furious over verdict

Victims and activists were furious that seven officials of Union Carbide were on Monday convicted only for criminal negligence, which is punishable with a maximum of two years in jail, despite the enormity of the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy.

“Today’s verdict is a disaster… They’ve made it look like a traffic accident,” said Satinath Sarangi of the Bhopal Group for Information and Action, an NGO representing the survivors and an activist who has been involved with the victims since the 1984 disaster.

“The charges have been diluted. The victims are disappointed,” Sarangi said

Full Story: Bhopal tragedy: Victims furious over verdict.

No methyl iodide on our food

You may have heard that California, the nation’s largest agricultural producer, is on the verge of approving a potent carcinogenic gas for use on strawberry fields and other food crops. The chemical — methyl iodide — is so toxic that scientists in labs use only small amounts with special protective equipment, yet agricultural applications mean it could be released directly into the air and water.

CREDO members have been working hard to stop methyl iodide in California by submitting over 26,000 public comments in opposition to the state’s approval of the pesticide. But there are steps we can take nationally as well. The ultimate power to regulate pesticides lies with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. It originally issued its approval of methyl iodide under George W. Bush’s administration but has the ability to revisit the decision at any time.

Methyl iodide has been subject to ongoing controversy in its approval process. The U.S. EPA approved methyl iodide for agricultural use in 2007, amid criticism from more than 50 prominent scientists[1] that the process was hidden from public view and the research focus was too limited. Even though a report from an independent panel of scientists in California’s review declared that “methyl iodide is a highly toxic chemical and we expect that any anticipated scenario for the agricultural or structural fumigation use of this agent would result in exposures to a large number of the public and thus would have a significant adverse impact on public health,”[2] the state nonetheless proposed that the chemical be approved.

Full Story: No methyl iodide on our food.

Many Federal Judges Have Links To Oil Industry

More than half of the federal judges in districts where the bulk of Gulf oil spill-related lawsuits are pending have financial connections to the oil and gas industry, complicating the task of finding judges without conflicts to hear the cases, an Associated Press analysis of judicial financial disclosure reports shows.

Thirty-seven of the 64 active or senior judges in key Gulf Coast districts in Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida have links to oil, gas and related energy industries, including some who own stocks or bonds in BP PLC, Halliburton or Transocean – and others who regularly list receiving royalties from oil and gas production wells, according to the reports judges must file each year. The AP reviewed 2008 disclosure forms, the most recent available.

Those three companies are named as defendants in virtually all of the 150-plus lawsuits seeking damages, mainly for economic losses in the fishing, seafood, tourism and related industries, that have been filed over the growing oil spill since the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded April 20, killing 11 workers. Attorneys for the companies and those suing them are pushing for consolidation of the cases in one court, with BP recommending Texas and others advocating for Louisiana and other states.

Full Story: Gulf Oil Spill: Many Federal Judges Have Links To Oil Industry.

Leaked Attendee List of the Bilderberg Conference

Bilderberg participants 2010 (in alphabetic order)

BEL Davignon, Etienne F. Honorary Chairman, Bilderberg Meetings; Vice Chairman,

Suez Tractebel

DEU Ackermann, Josef Chairman of the Management Board and the Group Executive

Committee, Deutsche Bank AG

USA Alexander, Keith B. Director, National Security Agency

GRC Alogoskoufis, George Member of Parliament

USA Altman, Roger C. Chairman and CEO, Evercore Partners, Inc.

GRC Arapoglou, Takis Chairman and CEO, National Bank of Greece

TUR Babacan, Ali Minister of State and Deputy Prime Minister

GRC Bakoyannis, Dora Minister of Foreign Affairs

NOR Baksaas, Jon Fredrik President and CEO, Telenor Group

PRT Balsemão, Francisco Pinto Chairman and CEO, IMPRESA, S.G.P.S.; Former Prime

Minister

FRA Baverez, Nicolas Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP

ITA Bernabè, Franco CEO Telecom Italia SpA

SWE Bildt, Carl Minister of Foreign Affairs

SWE Björklund, Jan Minister for Education; Leader of the Lìberal Party

CHE Blocher, Christoph Former Swiss Counselor; Former Chairman and CEO, EMS Group

FRA Bompard, Alexandre CEO, Europe 1

USA Boot, Max Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow for National Security Studies, Council on Foreign Relations

more…….

Full Story: Leaked Attendee List of the Bilderberg Conference.

Gulf Oil Spill: Slick-Coated Animals Struggle And Die As ‘Wildlife Apocalypse’ Becomes Reality

The wildlife apocalypse along the Gulf Coast that everyone has feared for weeks is fast becoming a terrible reality.

Pelicans struggle to free themselves from oil, thick as tar, that gathers in hip-deep pools, while others stretch out useless wings, feathers dripping with crude. Dead birds and dolphins wash ashore, coated in the sludge. Seashells that once glinted pearly white under the hot June sun are stained crimson.

Scenes like this played out along miles of shoreline Saturday, nearly seven weeks after a BP rig exploded and the wellhead a mile below the surface began belching millions of gallon of oil.

Full Story: Gulf Oil Spill: Slick-Coated Animals Struggle And Die As ‘Wildlife Apocalypse’ Becomes Reality.

Breaking the Spell of Sisyphus: How to Let Go of Negative Patterns

We all have habitual, negative thinking, feeling and doing patterns that sabotage our success, happiness and well-being. They become so ingrained that we think we have no power to change them. They simply become part of our daily life.

Being passionate about Greek mythology and archetypes, I thought of how the myth of Sisyphus might relate to our lives. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the myth, let me tell you about it.

Sisyphus — a crafty and arrogant man — was condemned by Zeus for his bad deeds to roll a rock up a hill, only to have it roll right back down before he could get it to the top. He would have to repeat this task day after day for eternity — a punishment you might not wish on your worst enemy, unless perhaps he was an ex-husband, wife or lover who left you for your best friend.

Full Story: Agapi Stassinopoulos: Breaking the Spell of Sisyphus: How to Let Go of Negative Patterns.

Windmill Boom Curbs Electric Power Prices for RWE

On windy nights in northern Germany, consumers are paid to keep the lights on.

Twice this year, the nation’s 21,000 wind turbines pumped out so much power that utilities reduced customer bills for using the surplus electricity. Since the first rebate came with little fanfare at 5 a.m. one October day in 2008, payments have risen as high as 500.02 euros ($665) a megawatt-hour, about as much as a small factory or 1,000 homes use in 60 minutes.

The wind-energy boom in Europe and parts of Texas has begun to reduce bills for consumers. Electricity-network managers have even ordered windmills offline at times to trim supplies. That hurts profit for wind-farm operators, said Christian Kjaer, head of the European Wind Energy Association, which represents RWE AG of Germany, Spain’s Iberdrola SA and Dong Energy A/S of Denmark.

Full Story: Windmill Boom Curbs Electric Power Prices for RWE (Update2) – Bloomberg.com.

GOP consultant in Arizona pulls strings to get Green Party on Texas ballot

The liberal Green Party’s uphill battle to get on the Texas ballot this fall has been fueled by a surprising benefactor: an out-of-state Republican consultant with a history of helping conservative causes and GOP candidates.

If the state validates the petitions the consultant arranged for the party – for free – a Green Party slate could drain support from Democrat Bill White in his bid to oust Republican Gov. Rick Perry.

What’s unknown is who paid for the previously undisclosed arrangement, pieced together by The Dallas Morning News. Green Party officials said they don’t know who funded the effort. The Perry campaign denied any involvement. And Arizona Republican operative Tim Mooney, who set up the petition drive, refused to say.

Green Party officials said an outside group gathered the 92,000 signatures and gave them as “a gift” to the party, which delivered them to the secretary of state, who oversees Texas elections. If the secretary of state determines that enough of them are valid, the party will be able to field a slate of candidates for statewide offices for the first time since 2002.

Full Story: GOP consultant in Arizona pulls strings to get Green Party on Texas ballot | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Morning News | Texas Politics | The Dallas Morning News.

My BP Mole Spills the Secrets of BP’s Cleanup Ops

Mother Jones:

BP’s got a mole working on its cleanup team. The company might be able to keep the press from getting to oiled-up Elmer’s Island Wildlife Refuge, but as long as people have cell phones, it’s going to have a hell of a time keeping Elmer’s Island from getting to the press.

Late Wednesday night I talked to a spill worker involved in the efforts to clean up South Louisiana’s barrier islands. Let’s call him Elmer, because we spoke under condition of strict anonymity. Though he hasn’t signed one of the BP contracts that bars workers from communicating with reporters, he has been told “500 times” that if he talks, he’s fired. He certainly didn’t contact me because his politics are similar to mine. “George Bush was too liberal for me,” he explained. But: “I like the media. The country couldn’t run without it, and it’s important to have media from both the left and right.”

He also called because on Tuesday BP told me (again) that I couldn’t go to Elmer’s Island with a producer from PBS’s Need to Know because the road to it “needed more gravel.” This was a lie: “Everyone else,” Elmer said, “is driving on that road”—about 20 cars and vans going up and down a day, and the re-graveling had happened the day before we arrived. Since BP was making my job so much harder, Elmer wanted to make it a little easier.

BP’s got a mole working on its cleanup team. The company might be able to keep the press from getting to oiled-up Elmer’s Island Wildlife Refuge, but as long as people have cell phones, it’s going to have a hell of a time keeping Elmer’s Island from getting to the press.

Late Wednesday night I talked to a spill worker involved in the efforts to clean up South Louisiana’s barrier islands. Let’s call him Elmer, because we spoke under condition of strict anonymity. Though he hasn’t signed one of the BP contracts that bars workers from communicating with reporters, he has been told “500 times” that if he talks, he’s fired. He certainly didn’t contact me because his politics are similar to mine. “George Bush was too liberal for me,” he explained. But: “I like the media. The country couldn’t run without it, and it’s important to have media from both the left and right.”

He also called because on Tuesday BP told me (again) that I couldn’t go to Elmer’s Island with a producer from PBS’s Need to Know because the road to it “needed more gravel.” This was a lie: “Everyone else,” Elmer said, “is driving on that road”—about 20 cars and vans going up and down a day, and the re-graveling had happened the day before we arrived. Since BP was making my job so much harder, Elmer wanted to make it a little easier.

Full Story: My BP Mole Spills the Secrets of BP’s Cleanup Ops | Mother Jones.

Liz Cheney’s Lie on ABC’s Sunday Show about Halliburton’s Fraud Charges Is Easily Disproved

Liz Cheney seems to need to prove that she is every bit as amoral and shameless about lying as her father. On ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, she flat-out lied about Halliburton, the company her father ran before he appointed himself vice president. In a back and forth with Arianna Huffington about Halliburton’s role in the Gulf Disaster — it appears likely that Halliburton’s bungling in sealing the bottom of the well caused the explosion — Cheney flatly contradicted Huffington’s assertion that Halliburton had ever been charged with defrauding the U.S. government:

“The truth is,” Huffington said, “that right now we have precisely the regulatory system that the Bush-Cheney administration wanted: full of loopholes, full of cronies and lobbyists filling the very agencies they are supposed to be overseeing the industry.”

Full Story: Pensito Review » Liz Cheney’s Lie on ABC’s Sunday Show about Halliburton’s Fraud Charges Is Easily Disproved.

Doctors to be able to ‘print’ new organs for transplant patients | Mail Online

Doctors might one day be able to ‘print’ living body parts they need for surgery, including blood vessels and entire organs.

The astonishing technique is known as bio-printing and it could make the transplant list a thing of the past.

Currently patients on the transplant list have to wait months or even years before a suitable organ becomes available.

Full Story: Doctors to be able to ‘print’ new organs for transplant patients | Mail Online.

Allen Has Ordered ‘Uninhibited Access’ to Oil Spill Operations

Admiral Thad Allen told me he has ordered that oil spill operations be open to the media. The National Incident Commander for the oil spill efforts said in my “This Week” interview, “I put out a written directive and I can provide it for the record that says the media will have uninhibited access anywhere we’re doing operations, except for two things, if it’s a security or safety problem. That is my policy. I’m the national incident commander.”

When I was in Louisiana over the weekend, I experienced stony silence from government workers and private contractors working for BP who were told not to talk about the work they are doing. Allen pledged to make sure word about his directive gets out to workers.

TAPPER: Lastly, I saw firsthand when I was down in Louisiana over

the weekend, all the workers there, whether they work for the governor

or for BP or for private contractors who work for BP, they’ve all been

told not to talk to the press, not to talk to the public about their

work. Shouldn’t they be allowed to share with the public the work that

they’re doing?
Full Story: Allen Has Ordered ‘Uninhibited Access’ to Oil Spill Operations – Political Punch.

Judge James L Shumate Orders Halt to Bank of America Foreclosures in Utah

A court order issued by Fifth District Court Judge James L. Shumate May 22, 2010 in St. George, Utah has stopped all foreclosure proceedings in the State of Utah by Bank of America Corporation; Recontrust Company, N.A; Home Loans Serving, LP; Bank of America, FSB; www.envisionlawfirm.com. The Court Order if allowed to become permanent will force Bank of America and other mortgage companies with home loans in Utah to adhere to the Utah laws requiring lenders to register in the state and have offices where home owners can negotiate face-to-face with their lenders as the state lawmakers intended (Utah Code ‘ 57-1-21(1)(a)(i).). Telephone calls by KCSG News for comment to the law office of Bank of America counsel Sean D. Muntz and Amir Shlesinger, Esq. of Reed Smith, LLP, Los Angeles, CA and Richard Ensor, Esq. of Vantus Law Group, Salt Lake City, UT were not returned.

The lawsuit filed by John Christian Barlow, a former Weber State University student who graduated from Loyola University of Chicago and receive his law degree from one of the most distinguished private a law colleges in the nation, Willamette University founded in 1883 at Salem, Oregon has drawn the ire of the high brow Bank of America attorney and lawyers of the law firm of Reed Smith, LLP, the 15th largest law firm in the world, according to their website.

Full Story: KCSG Television – Judge James L Shumate Orders Halt to Bank of America Foreclosures in Utah.

What the Spill Will Kill

‘It’s The Things We Don’t See That Worry Me Most’

Giant plumes of crude oil mixed with methane are sweeping the ocean depths with devastating consequences. ‘I’m not too worried about oil on the surface,’ says one scientist. ‘It’s the things we don’t see that worry me the most.’

It was in mid-May that independent scientists—not any of the officials or researchers working for any of the government agencies on scene at the Deepwater Horizon disaster, let alone BP—first detected the vast underwater plumes of crude oil spreading like Medusa’s locks from the out-of-control gusher in the Gulf of Mexico. BP immediately dismissed the reports, and in late May CEO Tony Hayward flatly declared “there aren’t any plumes,” stopping just short of accusing the scientists of misconduct. Federal officials called the scientists’ claim “misleading, premature and, in some cases, inaccurate.” Moreover, continued a statement from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, any oxygen depletion in the surrounding waters due to plumes is not “a source of concern at this time,” and critics blaming dispersants for the plumes had “no information” to stand on. NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco, a respected oceanographer when President Obama tapped her to lead the agency, insists there are no plumes, only “anomalies”—though last week she acknowledged the possibility of oil beneath the surface.

Full Story: What the Spill Will Kill – Newsweek.com.

Fair Game – Banks Say No to Freddie and Fannie, but Taxpayers Can’t

FROM the earliest days of the credit crisis, the nation’s big financial institutions have been less than forthcoming about ballooning loan losses buried inside their books. To some degree this is understandable: denial is a powerful thing, after all, and writing off troubled loans during a period of severe stress is, for bankers, the equivalent of getting a root canal.

As profits rebound at many of these institutions, however, artful dodging becomes more disturbing. And when disguising problems winds up harming the taxpayer — the same folks who rode to the rescue of banks with billions of dollars — the denial is downright exasperating.

Among the more glaring bookkeeping fictions on big banks’ balance sheets today are the values they assign to all of the bounteous second mortgage loans. doled out during the mortgage bonanza. As any realist will attest, many of these loans are worth little, and yet there they sit, at fantasy levels, on banks’ ledgers.

Full Story: Fair Game – Banks Say No to Freddie and Fannie, but Taxpayers Can’t – NYTimes.com.

Official BP oil spill estimate is BS says UCSB Scientist

UCSB Press Release: “UCSB Scientist Has Key Role in Gulf Oil Spill Studies “

When the Obama administration announced this morning that the amount of oil leaking from the BP well in the Gulf of Mexico is far greater than previously disclosed, that statement was based on research conducted by a panel of government-appointed scientists that included Ira Leifer, a researcher in the Marine Science Institute at UC Santa Barbara.

The announcement revealed that studies by the experts have determined that 12,000 to 25,000 barrels of oil per day have been spewing from the blown-out well. That's about 500,000 to 1 million gallons of oil per day.

However, according to Leifer, who is principal investigator on one of the studies and co-investigator on another, the numbers disclosed by the administration are a range of “lower bound” estimates from scientists. In reality, he says the ongoing data analysis suggests the numbers likely are significantly higher.

Full Story: UCSB Press Release: “UCSB Scientist Has Key Role in Gulf Oil Spill Studies “.

Rule of the Gun – With U.S. Aid, Warlord Builds Afghan Empire

The most powerful man in this arid stretch of southern Afghanistan is not the provincial governor, nor the police chief, nor even the commander of the Afghan Army.

It is Matiullah Khan, the head of a private army that earns millions of dollars guarding NATO supply convoys and fights Taliban insurgents alongside American Special Forces.

In little more than two years, Mr. Matiullah, an illiterate former highway patrol commander, has grown stronger than the government of Oruzgan Province, not only supplanting its role in providing security but usurping its other functions, his rivals say, like appointing public employees and doling out government largess. His fighters run missions with American Special Forces officers, and when Afghan officials have confronted him, he has either rebuffed them or had them removed.

Full Story: Rule of the Gun – With U.S. Aid, Warlord Builds Afghan Empire – NYTimes.com.

OPS: Your tax dollars at work

Israeli Ambassador To U.S., Michael Oren, Rejects International Investigation Of Flotilla Deaths

One of the few ways the Obama administration has attempted to show it’s displeasure with Israel following the death of pro-Palestinian activists aboard a flotilla was by stressing its support for an international investigation into the incident.

On Sunday, however, Israel’s ambassador to the United States stated firmly that the country wouldn’t go along with that type or probe and even threw a subtle dig at U.S. officials who felt it was a necessary course of action.

“Israel is a democracy,” said Michael Oren, during an appearance on Fox News Sunday. “Israel has the ability and the right to investigate itself, not to be investigated by any international board. I don’t think the United States would want an international inquiry into its military activities in Afghanistan, for example.”

Asked flatly if he was rejecting the very idea of an international commission, Oren confirmed he was.

Full Story: Israeli Ambassador To U.S., Michael Oren, Rejects International Investigation Of Flotilla Deaths.

Long-Term Unemployed Now 46 Percent Of Unemployed, Highest Percentage On Record

If you lose your job these days, it’s worth scrambling to find a new one fast. After six months of unemployment, your chances of landing work dwindle.

The proportion of people jobless for six months or more has accelerated in the past year and now makes up 46 percent of the unemployed. That’s the highest percentage on records dating to 1948. By late summer or early fall, they are expected to make up half of all jobless Americans.

Economists say those out of work for six months or more risk becoming less and less employable. Their skills can erode, their confidence falter, their contacts dry up. Their growing ranks also will keep pressure on Congress to keep extending jobless benefits, which now run for up to 99 weeks.

Full Story: Long-Term Unemployed Now 46 Percent Of Unemployed, Highest Percentage On Record.

Scientists claim to have identified stem cells that spread cancer

Hong Kong scientists say they have identified the cancer stem cells responsible for the spread of colorectal cancer to other organs and believe the find will revolutionize treatment.

Current treatments regard all cancer cells as alike, but the Hong Kong University researchers discovered that cancers contain a small number of stem cells responsible for starting and maintaining tumors.

“It will revolutionise the approach to cancer treatment in future,” one researcher, Ronnie Poon, told the South China Morning Post.

Full Story: Scientists claim to have identified stem cells that spread cancer | Raw Story.

In Gulf, It Was Unclear Who Was in Charge of Oil Rig

Over six days in May, far from the familiar choreography of Washington hearings, federal investigators grilled workers involved in the Deepwater Horizon disaster in a chilly, sterile conference room at a hotel near the airport here.

The six-member panel of Coast Guard and Minerals Management Service officials pressed for answers about what occurred on the rig on April 20 before it exploded. They wanted to know who was in charge, and heard conflicting answers.

They pushed for more insight into an argument on the rig that day between a manager for BP, the well’s owner, and one for Transocean, the rig’s owner, and asked Curt R. Kuchta, the rig’s captain, how the crew knew who was in charge.

“It’s pretty well understood amongst the crew who’s in charge,” he said.

Full Story: In Gulf, It Was Unclear Who Was in Charge of Oil Rig – NYTimes.com.

US demands N. Korea be made to pay for ‘provocations’

The United States demanded North Korea pay a price for allegedly sinking a South Korean warship even as Washington and its Asian allies brace for possible “provocations” by the Pyongyang regime.

In a show of solidarity, US, Japanese and South Korean defence chiefs met in Singapore to discuss punitive steps against North Korea as the UN Security Council prepares to take up the crisis triggered by the sinking of the Cheonan.

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates told his counterparts that “it’s important we have a unified front to deter further provocations,” his press secretary, Geoff Morrell, told reporters.

Full Story: US demands N. Korea be made to pay for ‘provocations’ | Raw Story.

Class action lawsuit: Retailers selling gas hotter than 60 degrees rip off consumers | Raw Story

Kansas paper estimated in 2006 that ripoff scams over $2.3 billion annually

Many oil companies and gasoline retailers carefully track the temperature, volume and exact value of their supplies every step of the way from well to gas station, where the measurement often stops.

Now, two lawsuits out of Kansas have been merged into a class action suit alleging that many big gas retailers are directly causing consumers to get less for their money when fuel is sold hotter than the industry standard of 60 degrees Fahrenheit.

They call it “hot fuel,” which has expanded at time of sale beyond the volume at which the value was based, resulting in more of a product that carries less energy.

Full Story: Class action lawsuit: Retailers selling gas hotter than 60 degrees rip off consumers | Raw Story.

Egypt to strip men married to Israelis of citizenship

A Cairo court on Saturday upheld a ruling to strip Egyptian men married to Israeli women of their citizenship in a case that has highlighted national sentiment towards Israel.

Judge Mohammed al-Husseini, sitting on the Supreme Administrative Court, said the interior ministry must ask the cabinet to take the necessary steps to strip Egyptian men married to Israeli women, and their children, of their citizenship.

The court said that each case should be considered separately, in a ruling that cannot be appealed.

The ruling reflects Egyptian sentiment towards Israel, more than 30 years after Egypt signed an unpopular peace deal with the Jewish state.

Full Story: Egypt to strip men married to Israelis of citizenship | Raw Story.

Barbour skips second meeting with Obama on Gulf Coast oil spill.

Yesterday, President Obama met with the governors of Louisiana, Florida, and Alabama in Kenner, LA, to discuss the oil spill clean-up effort. Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) — who has repeatedly tried to downplay the disaster — was the only no show, making it the second meeting with Obama he’s skipped:

Barbour spokeswoman Laura Hipp said the governor is in New York, meeting with bond rating agencies about the state’s finances and to attend the annual Mississippi Picnic in Central Park, which showcases Magnolia State food and culture to New Yorkers and expatriate Mississippians living there. [...]

Full Story: Think Progress » Barbour skips second meeting with Obama on Gulf Coast oil spill..

OPS:  Another example of ideology over survival

Another BP spill: 500,000 pounds of toxic chemicals at Texas plant that killed 15 workers in 2005.

While BP touts the mild success of its most recent attempt to contain the massive gusher spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico, they would probably rather people don’t notice the other spill they recently caused, this one of deadly benzene from a refinery in Texas City, TX. The refinery released more than 400 pounds a day of the chemical over a 40-day period, BP quietly informed the state environmental regulator yesterday. Over that period, the refinery released 500,000 pounds of benzene and other toxic chemicals into the air, the Galveston Daily News reports:

Refinery spokesman Michael Marr said in its follow up reporting with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, BP estimated 36,000 pounds of nitrogen oxides and 17,000 pounds of benzene were released in the 40 days. State law requires 10 pounds or more of benzene and 200 pounds or more of nitrogen oxide during a 24-hour period must be reported through the commission’s air emissions database.

The bulk of the emissions during that time included an estimated 189,000 pounds of carbon monoxide and 61,000 pounds of propane, according to the company’s report to the TCEQ.

Full Story: Think Progress » Another BP spill: 500,000 pounds of toxic chemicals at Texas plant that killed 15 workers in 2005..

BP buys oil-related search terms to make its official site show up first in search engines.

As BP’s oil disaster continues to ravage the Gulf Coast, the company is ramping up its public relations and legal operations to try to salvage its reputation and protect itself from lawsuits. Now, ABC News is reporting that one such tactic BP is using is purchasing search items that have the word “oil” in them on various search engines to ensure that the first results that appear link directly to BP’s official website:

BP, the very company responsible for the oil spill that is already the worst in U.S. history, has purchased several phrases on search engines such as Google and Yahoo so that the first result that shows up directs information seekers to the company’s official website.

A simple Google search of “oil spill” turns up several thousand news results, but the first link, highlighted at the very top of the page, is from BP. “Learn more about how BP is helping,” the link’s tagline reads. [...]

“We have bought search terms on search engines like Google to make it easier for people to find out more about our efforts in the Gulf and make it easier for people to find key links to information on filing claims, reporting oil on the beach and signing up to volunteer,” BP spokesman Toby Odone told ABC News.

Full Story: Think Progress » BP buys oil-related search terms to make its official site show up first in search engines..

Don’t Get Mad, Mr. President. Get Even.

Frank Rich:

IT turns out there is something harder to find than a fix for BP’s leak: Barack Obama’s boiling point.

The frantic and fruitless nationwide search for the president’s temper is now our sole dependable comic relief from the tragedy in the gulf. Only The Onion could have imagined the White House briefing last week where a CBS News correspondent asked the press secretary, Robert Gibbs, if he had “really seen rage from the president” and to “describe it.” Gibbs came up with Obama’s “clenched jaw” and his order to “plug the damn hole.” (Thank God he hadn’t settled for “darn.”) This evidence did not persuade anyone, least of all Spike Lee, who could be found on CNN the next night begging the president, “One time, go off!”

Not going to happen. Obama will never unleash the anger of the antagonists in “Do the Right Thing” or match James Carville’s rebooted “ragin’ Cajun” shtick. That’s not who Obama is. If he tried to go off, he’d look ridiculous. But the debate over how to raise the president’s emotional thermostat is not an entirely innocuous distraction. It allows Obama to duck the more serious doubts about his leadership that have resurfaced along with BP’s oil.

Full Story: Op-Ed Columnist – Don’t Get Mad, Mr. President. Get Even. – NYTimes.com.

WHO scandal exposed: Advisors received kickbacks from H1N1 vaccine manufacturers

A stunning new report reveals that top scientists who convinced the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare H1N1 a global pandemic held close financial ties to the drug companies that profited from the sale of those vaccines. This report, published in the British Medical Journal, exposes the hidden ties that drove WHO to declare a pandemic, resulting in billions of dollars in profits for vaccine manufacturers.

Several key advisors who urged WHO to declare a pandemic received direct financial compensation from the very same vaccine manufacturers who received a windfall of profits from the pandemic announcement. During all this, WHO refused to disclose any conflicts of interests between its top advisors and the drug companies who would financially benefit from its decisions.

All the kickbacks, in other words, were swept under the table and kept silent, and WHO somehow didn’t think it was important to let the world know that it was receiving policy advice from individuals who stood to make millions of dollars when a pandemic was declared.

Full Story: WHO scandal exposed: Advisors received kickbacks from H1N1 vaccine manufacturers.

Officials warn against losing out on biodiversity

A new UN report released as part of Environment Day celebrations, said that rescuing ecosystems could save money, generate jobs and combat poverty.

Environment officials have called for action against biodiversity loss, warning of dire implications otherwise, as World Environment Day was marked across the globe on Saturday.

“We inherited a fascinating, beautiful and healthy world. However, today the race is on to protect what’s left of our world’s biodiversity.

“We are in a race that is challenging us in our everyday lives to harmonise between progress, modernity, the fast pace of development and environmental protection”, Majid Al Mansouri, Secretary General of the Environment Agency — Abu Dhabi (EAD) said.

“We would like to remind the public how fragile our biodiversity is and that although biodiversity loss is a global issue, action at the local level is needed,” he added.

Full Story: gulfnews : Officials warn against losing out on biodiversity.

Source of Half Earth’s Oxygen Gets Little Credit

phytoplankton release oxygen into the water. Half of the world’s oxygen is produced via phytoplankton photosynthesis.

Fish, whales, dolphins, crabs, seabirds, and just about everything else that makes a living in or off of the oceans owe their existence to phytoplankton, one-celled plants that live at the ocean surface.

Phytoplankton are at the base of what scientists refer to as oceanic biological productivity, the ability of a water body to support life such as plants, fish, and wildlife.

“A measure of productivity is the net amount of carbon dioxide taken up by phytoplankton,” said Jorge Sarmiento, a professor of atmospheric and ocean sciences at Princeton University in New Jersey.

Full Story: Source of Half Earth’s Oxygen Gets Little Credit.

OPS:  Just  some background information to keep in the back of your head as you watch the BP oil/dispersant slick and plume traveling around the World’s oceans

How much of our Planet’s oxygen generating capacity is being destroyed before our eyes….and what will be the effects?

BP official grilled by frustrated mayors at news conference

Frustrated Gulf Coast mayors confronted a BP official during a news conference Saturday after they said requests to meet with high-ranking executives at the oil company went unanswered.

The incident occurred as BP’s senior vice president briefed reporters in Mobile, Alabama, about the ongoing efforts to contain the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Bob Fryar said an operation underway to funnel crude from the underwater gusher to a surface vessel was going “extremely well,” and that he was “pleased” with the effort thus far.

Robert Kraft, the mayor of Gulf Shores, took issue with that characterization, saying, “I don’t know who represents you in our community, but I would love to have one of your guys go down and look at our beaches and tell me that what you see is effective and is working.”

Full Story: BP official grilled by frustrated mayors at news conference – CNN.com.

Prestowitz: What U.S. Industrial Policy Gets Wrong

The growing U.S. trade deficit and the decline of American manufacturing have both been explained away as “fair bargains”: We get inexpensive goods from abroad, and in turn shift our economy from commodity manufacturing to intellectual innovation. But according to Clyde Prestowitz, author of The Betrayal of American Prosperity, this has actually been a terrible deal.

Prestowitz spoke with Eric Schurenberg about unfair competition, protectionism, and the difference between smart and dumb industrial policy.

The standard explanation is that fair trade and open trade has been a good deal for Americans. You disagree. Why?

Well, I think that we often don’t have fair trade or open trade, and in fact, I think it’s a misnomer to talk about trade. What we have is globalization. Trade is: I produce something, ship it to you, you produce something ship it to me. What we have now is global corporations — I put my factory in your country, you put your factory in my country. We have massive cross-border flows of capital and technology. Trade theory assumes that those cross border technology and capital flows don’t take place. But they obviously do take place. So when we talk free trade, it really doesn’t describe the situation that we have globally, and because of that, when we talk about the benefits we’re not really thinking about the totality of the situation.

Full Story: TradeReform.org – Prestowitz: What U.S. Industrial Policy Gets Wrong.

An Emerging Global Threat

No matter how many trillions we borrow from China to throw at the U.S. economy, there can be no long-term recovery without a revitalized U.S. manufacturing base

A U.S.-CHINA TRADE WAR IS RAPIDLY brewing, as President Barack Obama pushes China to adopt a “market-oriented exchange-rate policy” and Premier Wen Jiabao sharply retorts that the yuan isn’t undervalued. Meanwhile, 130 members of the U.S. House of Representatives are pressing the Treasury Department to brand China a “currency manipulator” and to impose countervailing duties, while China promises swift retaliation.

China’s fixed exchange-rate policy isn’t harming just the U.S. It is also threatening the global economic recovery, even as an artificially weak yuan has given rise to what Premier Wen has branded Public Enemy No. 1 in China — rapidly rising inflation.

In fact, Wen’s claim that the yuan is fairly valued is ludicrous. Every credible study draws the opposite conclusion, while the International Monetary Fund and all its major trading partners — from Brazil, Europe and Russia to Japan, South Korea and the U.S. — have called on China to raise the value of its currency.

Full Story: An Emerging Global Threat | Economy In Crisis.

Toxic Seafood

Almost all the seafood sold in American grocery stores – 80 percent – now comes from developing nations. The FDA inspects and tests less than 1 percent of all seafood imports, and the food it does inspect is often rejected due to the presence of banned chemicals and antibiotics. Alabama’s Commissioner of Agriculture, Ron Sparks, recently traveled to Vietnam and witnessed fish farmed in sewage. U.S. fish farmers cannot compete with cheap importers who cut corners on safety, and the flood of foreign fish is devastating their business and threatening America’s health.

VIDEO AT LINK

Full Story: Toxic Seafood | Economy In Crisis.

Oil Spill Wrecking Gulf Coast Industries

Most of the Gulf coast relies on the bounty of the sea for its livelihood. Oysters, shrimp, and general fishing have always been the backbone of the region. Their fishing grounds have been contaminated with tens of millions of gallons of poisonous crude oil.

The seemingly never-ending oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is already perhaps one of the ten largest spills in human history. There is not doubt that it is already the largest spill in American history. There is no way around the catastrophic environmental impact that spill has had on the Gulf region. There is also no telling how long the disastrous effects will linger in the fragile marshes and beaches.

However, it now seems like the Deepwater Horizon spill could become one of the worst economic disasters in American history as well.

Most of the Gulf coast relies on the bounty of the sea for its livelihood. Oysters, shrimp, and general fishing have always been the backbone of the region. Their fishing grounds have been contaminated with tens of millions of gallons of poisonous crude oil. With the spill expected to continue for perhaps another two months the problems will only get worse before they get better.

Full Story: Oil Spill Wrecking Gulf Coast Industries | Economy In Crisis.

Unemployment Benefits For Millions Once Again Hung Up in The Senate

For the third time in as many months, unemployment benefits for millions of jobless Americans could begin running out if the Senate doesn’t act.

Emergency unemployment compensation expired this past Wednesday, a Pennsylvania state official warns. Without immediate Senate attention to the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010, hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians will be left without any supplemental income while they seek new work, according to Pennsylvania Labor & Industry Secretary Sandi Vito. Millions of other jobless Americans also could be affected.

The Labor Department released May jobs data on Friday. The economy added 431,000 jobs last month, but most of those were part-time Census positions. The national unemployment rate dipped from 9.9 percent, to a still-high 9.7 percent. The ongoing economic slump represents the worst such downturn since the Great Depression.

Full Story: On The Hill: Unemployment Benefits For Millions Once Again Hung Up in The Senate.

Why We’re Falling Into a Double-Dip Recession

We Won’t Climb Out of the Great Recession Until the Middle Class Has Money Again. We need a new New Deal that will bolster America’s floundering middle class.

Robert Reich:

We’re falling into a double-dip recession.

The Labor Department reports this morning that the private sector added a measly 41,000 net new jobs in May. (The vast bulk of new jobs in May were temporary government Census workers.) But at least 100,000 new jobs are needed every month just to keep up with population growth.

In other words, the labor market continues to deteriorate.

The average length of unemployment continues to rise – now up to 34.4 weeks (up from 33 weeks in April). That’s another record.

More Americans are too discouraged to look for a job than last year at this time (1.1 million in May,  an increase of 291,000 from a year earlier.)

Full Story: Robert Reich (Why We’re Falling Into a Double-Dip Recession).

Chamber of Commerce Goes on Trade Offensive

The world’s largest non-profit lobbying organization is pushing its weight around and imploring President Barack Obama to promote more free trade in the U.S. while at the same time blaming organized labor for his failure to do so.

President and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Tom Donahue, last month told an audience at the National Press Club that by not engaging in more free trade, the U.S. is missing an opportunity to create jobs and grow the economy. While other nation’s are actively seeking new trading partners, the U.S. is content to sit on the sidelines, he said.

“When it comes to trade agreements, America is being locked out and left behind,” Donahue said, pointing out that the U.S. is partner in just 17 of the world‘s 262 free trade agreements. “It’s time to pass the pending agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea. With nearly one in 10 Americans looking for work, it is irresponsible to delay any further. If we don’t act, not only will we miss out on opportunities to create new jobs, we will lose existing jobs as well.”

Full Story: Chamber of Commerce Goes on Trade Offensive | Economy In Crisis.

BP, feds could make millions from runaway well’s oil

BP’s runaway deepwater well could still become a moneymaker for the company, even as it tries to stem the gush of crude oil that’s fouling the Gulf of Mexico.

If the current containment effort works — and BP and the government say they’re optimistic that it will — the oil giant will salvage much of the oil that’s now spewing from the crumpled pipes on the ocean floor. That captured oil, McClatchy estimates, could generate more than $1.4 million in revenue for BP each day.

Once the oil is piped to the surface to the drill ship Discoverer Enterprise, it will be processed and sent by tanker to a refinery to be sold.

Full Story: BP, feds could make millions from runaway well’s oil | McClatchy.

Real People v. Corporate “People”: The Fight Is On

Allen Michaan, owner of the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland, Calif., routinely exercises his free speech, in this case by sharing his reaction to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. The well-known marquee faces the MacArthur Freeway (I-580).

The Supreme Court says corporations can spend as much money as they want on political advertising. Millions of Americans say they’ve had it.

In 2009, Riki Ott was on the road for 252 days educating people about the dangers of “corporate personhood.” That’s the legal doctrine that says corporations have constitutional rights, just like human beings. She mostly spoke in academic settings, and there was some interest in the idea, says Ott, but not much.

All that changed on January 21, 2010, when the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Now interest has skyrocketed, and Ott finds people eager to volunteer, to organize, to meet, to do anything to reverse the Court’s decision.

Rallying Around Citizens United

Supreme Court cases are usually interesting to lawyers, scholars, and those directly affected. Occasionally, a decision makes the news for a few days before disappearing from the public eye. But sometimes there’s a game changer—a decision that is so clearly wrong that it becomes a rallying point. David Cobb, former Green Party presidential candidate and longtime activist on corporate personhood, points to Dred Scott v. Sandford as one such decision. Citizens United, Cobb says, is shaping up as another.

Full Story: Real People v. Corporate “People”: The Fight Is On by Doug Pibel — YES! Magazine.

BP And Halliburton Build Legal Teams, Attempt To Buy Off Government Officials

Facing possible jail time for their roles in the largest oil spill in American history, BP and Halliburton are building high-powered legal teams with “deep Department of Justice and White House ties.” But the companies are pursuing other means to defend themselves as well.

Halliburton’s campaign donations have spiked as it tries to curry favor with key members of Congress investigating the disaster. The company donated $17,000 in May, making it “the busiest donation month for Halliburton’s PAC since September 2008,” Politico reports. Thirteen of the 14 contributions from May went to Republicans, while seven went to members of Congress who are “on committees with oversight of the oil spill and its aftermath”:

About one week before executive Timothy Probert appeared before the House Energy and Commerce’s investigative subcommittee, Halliburton donated $1,500 to Ranking Republican Joe Barton’s reelection effort. It was Halliburton’s second-largest donation of the month — topped only by $2,500 to former Rep. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), who is running for the Senate.

Full Story: Think Progress » BP And Halliburton Build Legal Teams, Attempt To Buy Off Government Officials.

The truth behind the Israeli propaganda

Robert Fisk:

I have, of course, been outraged at armed men boarding ships in international waters, killing passengers on board who attempt to resist and then forcing their ship to the hijackers’ home port. I am, of course, talking about the Somali pirates who are preying on Western ships in the Indian Ocean. How dare those terrorists dare to touch our unarmed vessels on the high seas? And how right we are to have our warships there to prevent such terrorist acts.

But whoops! At least the Israelis have not demanded ransom. They just want to get journalists to win the propaganda war for them. Scarcely had the week begun when Israel’s warrior “commandos” stormed a Turkish boat bringing aid to Gaza and shot nine of the passengers dead. Yet by week’s end, the protesters had become “armed peace activists”, vicious anti-Semites “professing pacifism, seething with hate, pounding away at another human being with a metal pole”. I liked the last bit. The fact that the person being beaten was apparently shooting another human being with a rifle didn’t quite get into this weird version of reality.

Turkish family protests that their sons wanted to be martyrs – something which most Turkish family members might say if their relatives had been shot by the Israelis – had been transformed into confirmation that they had been jihadis. “On that aid ship,” a Sri Lankan texted me this week, “I had my niece, nephew and his wife on board. Unfortunately Ahmed (20-year-old nephew) got shot in the leg and now treated (sic) under military custody. I will keep you posted.” He did indeed. Within hours, the press was at his family’s home in Australia, demanding to know if Ahmed was a jihadi – or even a potential suicide bomber. Propaganda works, you see. We haven’t seen a frame of film from the protesters because the Israelis have stolen the lot. No one has told us – if the Turkish ship was carrying such ruthless men – how their terrible plots to help the “terrorists” of Gaza were not uncovered in the long voyage from Turkey, even when it called at other ports. But Professor Gil Troy of McGill University in Montreal – in the rabid Canadian National Post, of course – was able to spout all that gunk about “armed peace activists” on Thursday.

Full Story: Robert Fisk: The truth behind the Israeli propaganda – Robert Fisk, Commentators – The Independent.

Get ready, NASA is trying to, the next Solar Max is going to be deadly to Satellites Electric Grid

As the Sun Awakens, NASA Keeps a Wary Eye on Space Weather

Earth and space are about to come into contact in a way that's new to human history. To make preparations, authorities in Washington DC are holding a meeting: The Space Weather Enterprise Forum at the National Press Club on June 8th.

Richard Fisher, head of NASA’s Heliophysics Division, explains what it’s all about:

“The sun is waking up from a deep slumber, and in the next few years we expect to see much higher levels of solar activity. At the same time, our technological society has developed an unprecedented sensitivity to solar storms. The intersection of these two issues is what we’re getting together to discuss.”

The National Academy of Sciences framed the problem two years ago in a landmark report entitled “Severe Space Weather Events—Societal and Economic Impacts.” It noted how people of the 21st-century rely on high-tech systems for the basics of daily life. Smart power grids, GPS navigation, air travel, financial services and emergency radio communications can all be knocked out by intense solar activity. A century-class solar storm, the Academy warned, could cause twenty times more economic damage than Hurricane Katrina.

Full Story: As the Sun Awakens, NASA Keeps a Wary Eye on Space Weather – NASA Science.

BP’s Spill Plan: What they knew and when they knew it

I have obtained a copy of the almost-600-page BP Regional Oil Spill Response Plan for the Gulf of Mexico as of June, 2009, thanks to an insider. Some material has been redacted, but these are the three main takeaways from an initial read. The name of the well has been redacted, but if it’s not Deepwater Horizon, then there’s another rig still out there pumping oil and aimed at Plaquemines Parish.

For crowdsourcing here’s the link, but it’s 29 mb so make sure you have the room to download:

http://www.neworleans.com/images/media/BP_Regional_OSRP_Redactedv2.pdf

1) In the worst case discharge scenario (on chart below), an oil leak was expected to come ashore with highest probability in Plaquemines Parish within 30 days (see map above from the Advance Response Plan). This makes it clear that BP could have stored adequate boom there before a rig failure like the Deepwater Horizon, and workers could have been mobilized to apply the boom in the 30 days that the response plan predicted oil would hit our wetlands.

Full Story: BP’s Spill Plan: What they knew and when they knew it.

Bank of America workers across US sue for overtime

Workers for Bank of America Corp, one of the nation’s largest employers, have sued the company for allegedly failing to pay overtime and other wages.

The lawsuit filed Friday in federal court in Kansas City, Kansas, consolidates 12 lawsuits filed on behalf of employees in California, Florida, Kansas, Texas and Washington.

It seeks nationwide class-action status on behalf of employees at retail branches and call centers over the last three years. The federal Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation in April directed that the cases be combined.

Full Story: Bank of America workers across US sue for overtime-International Business-News-The Economic Times.

Michio Kaku: Hurricane impact along Gulf coast to dump oil ‘all over the South’; Potentially 100s of miles inland

Theoretical Physicist Michio Kaku discusses the ramifications of using nuclear bombs to stop the oil flow.

He says radioactive oil and tar balls could be “raining down on hair” & “rooftops”

The nuclear option is not a good idea because the underground hollow sphere that is left would become “glassified” and collapses into a gigantic hole.

This hole will not be sealed because the walls are unstable.

2000 psi exerted on the glassified walls would cause the wall

support to cave in, creating more places for the oil to rush out.

Full Story: Michio Kaku: Hurricane impact along Gulf coast to dump oil ‘all over the South’; Potentially 100s of miles inland | Florida Oil Spill Law.

James Clapper Named As New Intelligence Chief

He’s the right guy to ride herd over America’s intelligence operations. Or he’s a good guy, but the wrong one for that tough job.

Those warring opinions emerged about James R. Clapper after President Barack Obama said Saturday he wants the Pentagon’s current intelligence chief to serve as director of national intelligence – the fourth since the post was created in 2004 – and wants the Senate to confirm him quickly.

“Eminently qualified,” Obama described the blunt-spoken retired Air Force lieutenant general, offering his “complete confidence and support.”

Those who know Clapper, 69, and have worked with him during his long career in public service say he’s never shied away from a fight. That’s just what he may get from senators who will decide whether to put him in a job that comes with an unforgiving mandate, as explained by Obama: ensuring the 16 spy agencies work “as one integrated team that produces quality, timely and accurate intelligence. Let’s be honest – this is a tough task.”

Full Story: James Clapper Named As New Intelligence Chief.

Redesign Apple TV: Show Us What An Apple TV Set Would Look Like

At All Things Digital’s D conference this week, Apple CEO Steve Jobs dismissed the TV industry, saying that Apple has no plans to develop a new television interface and reiterating that Apple TV was just a “hobby.”

“The TV industry has a subsidized model that gives everyone a set top box for free. So no one wants to buy a box. Ask TiVo, ask Roku, ask us… ask Google in a few months,” Jobs said, referencing Google’s new “Google TV” platform.

He went on to explain: “The only way this is going to change is if you start from scratch, tear up the box, redesign and get it to the consumer in a way that they want to buy it. But right now, there’s no way to do that.”

It’s hard to believe Jobs doesn’t have an iTV-something up his sleeve–and is content to let Google win this round with its new TV device–but since he won’t tell us what an Apple-designed television set would look like, we hope you will.

Full Story: Redesign Apple TV: Show Us What An Apple TV Set Would Look Like.

Crizotinib, Lung Cancer Drug, Shows Big Promise In Early Tests

It’s way too soon to declare success, but an experimental drug for lung cancer patients with a certain gene showed extraordinary promise in early testing, doctors reported at a cancer conference on Saturday.

More than 90 percent of the 82 patients in a study saw their tumors shrink after two months on the drug, Pfizer Inc.’s crizotinib, (crih-ZAH-tin-ib), researchers reported.

Doctors had expected only about 10 percent of these very sick patients to respond to the drug, according to one of the study’s leaders, Dr. Yung-Jue Bang of the Seoul National University College of Medicine in South Korea.

Full Story: Crizotinib, Lung Cancer Drug, Shows Big Promise In Early Tests.

Cap Placed Over Leak Collecting Only Fraction Of The Oil

The Coast Guard says a cap over the Gulf of Mexico oil leak has managed to collect about 252,000 gallons of oil in its first full 24 hours of use.

That’s still only a fraction of the oil being produced by the leak. But Adm. Thad Allen said Saturday that the goal is to gradually raise the amount being captured by the system.

The device’s capacity is 630,000 gallons a day.

The leak began after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded April 20 and killed 11 workers. Six weeks later the government estimates the well has leaked nearly 50 million gallons of oil.

Full Story: Gulf Oil Spill: Cap Placed Over Leak Collecting Only Fraction Of The Oil.