Archive for August, 2010

FBI’s racist shock jock Hal Turner convicted of threatening judges

A US Internet radio host was convicted Friday of threatening to assault and kill three judges who upheld a ban on handguns in Chicago, the US Justice Department said.

Hal Turner, 47, was arrested in June 2009 for an Internet posting that said of the three federal judges who had upheld Chicago’s handgun ban, “Let me be the first to say this plainly: These judges deserve to be killed.”

His post included photos of the three men, Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook and Judges Richard Posner and William Bauer, as well as their phone numbers and work addresses.

All three judges testified during his trial, which was held in New York after Chicago judges recused themselves.

Full Story: FBI’s racist shock jock Hal Turner convicted of threatening judges | Raw Story.

Deficit fraud Rubio plans to balance the budget with earmarks and pipe dreams.

Florida’s Republican Senate candidate Marco Rubio has already made it abundantly clear that he is not serious about addressing the country’s long-term structural deficit. He is in favor of permanently extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich — at a cost of $830 billion over ten years — while simultaneously proposing a slew of new budget busting tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. But just in case we needed some more evidence of Rubio’s deficit peacockery, he was happy to provide it during an interview last night with Fox Business’ David Asman. Rubio said that his plan for addressing the nation’s fiscal situation amounts to a constitutional amendment requiring a federal balanced budget, banning earmarks, unspecified entitlement reform, and putting “term limits” on federal agencies — excluding defense, of course:

RUBIO: The second thing we have to do is spending constraints. That means a constitutionally balanced budget, that means banning the practice of earmarks, and ultimately that means entitlement reform. [...]

Full Story: Think Progress » Deficit fraud Rubio plans to balance the budget with earmarks and pipe dreams..

Unemployed Man Reacts To Gingrich’s Accusation That ‘Welfare’ Is Making Him Lazy: I Paid Into It For 35 Years

Time and time again, conservatives have claimed that extending unemployment benefits for the unemployed is breeding laziness and lack of productivity. Newt Gingrich was the latest to adopt this meme. Writing in an e-mail to supporters, Gingrich cited a Wall Street Journal story where unemployed 52-year-old mechanic Michael Hatchell explained that he couldn’t afford to take jobs that wouldn’t pay enough to take care of his family. Gingrich claimed “welfare” was keeping Hatchell from working.

Last night, Hatchell and his wife Sarah appeared on MSNBC’s Countdown With Keith Olbermann to explain his family’s circumstances in his own words. The mechanic said “it’s really hard for someone like Mr. Gingrich” to understand the challenges his family faces. He explained that the jobs he was offered would not have paid enough to cover his home’s mortgage or support of his family, so he chose to stay on unemployment insurance. He also took offense at Gingrich’s use of the word “welfare” to slur his taking of unemployment insurance, pointing out that he worked for 35 years, paying into unemployment insurance, and that he was simply taking money out of a fund that he worked hard to pay into:

Full Story: Think Progress » Unemployed Man Reacts To Gingrich’s Accusation That ‘Welfare’ Is Making Him Lazy: I Paid Into It For 35 Years.

After Supporting Hearings On The 14th Amendment, McCain Backtracks: ‘I Certainly Don’t’ Support Repeal

Last week, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) joined the growing movement within the GOP to reassess the 14th Amendment and its mandate that anyone born in the U.S. automatically be granted citizenship. “I support the concept of holding hearings” on the issue, McCain told reporters last Wednesday.

But just over a week later, McCain changed his tune, telling the AP, “I’m not requesting hearings,” and that he “certainly” doesn’t support changing the 14th Amendment:

“When I was asked … I said ‘Look, if senators want to have hearings then senators have hearings, that’s how the Senate works, but I’m not requesting hearings,’” McCain said in an interview Thursday. “I’m devoting all my efforts to getting the borders secure, and if you get the border secure than the difficulties and challenges with this issue of people coming across our border illegally to have children is dramatically reduced.” [...]

When asked directly if would support such an amendment, McCain said: “No. I mean, first of all we’d have to have hearings, we’d have to find out what the argument would be, but I certainly don’t at this time.”

Full Story: Think Progress » After Supporting Hearings On The 14th Amendment, McCain Backtracks: ‘I Certainly Don’t’ Support Repeal.

OPS: Grampy is getting more and more confused as the days meander on….

Obama Speaks Out On Mosque Controversy: “Our Commitment To Religious Freedom Must Be Unshakeable”

Tonight, President Obama hosted an iftaar dinner at the White House — a feast marking the culmination of a day of fasting for practicing Muslims during the current Islamic calendar month of Ramadan. At remarks delivered at the dinner, Obama spoke out on the controversy surrounding the construction of a new Islamic center near the Ground Zero site, firmly siding in favor of the project:

Obama:
Let me be clear: as a citizen, and as President, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country. That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances. This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country, and will not be treated differently by their government, is essential to who we are. The writ of our Founders must endure.

From the moment he entered office, Obama has made a commitment to engaging in a more positive relationship with the Muslim world. During his inaugural address, Obama said, “To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.” And later, in a speech in Cairo, Egypt, Obama added, “I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.” But the right-wing antics against the construction of mosques, the disturbing instances of hate crimes against Muslims, and the rising tide of Islamophobia has served to frustrate the administration’s commitment to engage with the Muslim world.

Full Story: t r u t h o u t | Obama Speaks Out On Mosque Controversy: “Our Commitment To Religious Freedom Must Be Unshakeable”.

The Coming Tax War: How Letting the Bush Tax Cuts Expire Could End the Economic Crisis

The Democrats appear to be sitting on a golden ticket when it comes to ending the economic crisis. Furthermore, the solution to this country’s economic woes wouldn’t require them to do a thing, short of allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire (as required by law) and appropriating the money for renewed stimulus and in aiding states to cover their budget deficits. Whether the party has the courage to resist Republican and conservative dogmas framing tax cuts as the solution to the crisis remains to be seen.

The Urban Institute finds that Americans are waiting longer to retire in light of the increasingly dire conditions in the US and in light of the mass firings looming throughout the states and the continued high levels of national unemployment. While only 20 percent of those born between 1933 and 1937 failed to retire by 65 years of age, that number has doubled for those born between 1943 and 1947.(1) Many Americans are predictably worried about whether they will have enough in savings to retire in light of the massive deterioration of 401K accounts following the 2008 economic collapse, when coupled with Republican and Democratic officials’ suggestions that major sacrifices and/or cuts will be needed in the Social Security program.(2)

Full Story: t r u t h o u t | The Coming Tax War: How Letting the Bush Tax Cuts Expire Could End the Economic Crisis.

ACLU Scorecard: Obama Is Embracing Abusive Bush Policies

For disillusioned Obama supporters, the ACLU’s July report “Establishing the New Normal” is not a heartening read.

After being voted into office on promises that included undoing abuses carried out under the Bush administration – promises to protect privacy, to end government-sanctioned torture and rendition programs and to end the use of military commissions for non-enemy combatants – President Obama’s administration is proving it is far easier to tow the line than buck a trend.

According to a report by the ACLU, the current White House has not just failed to meaningfully follow through on its promises, but has also taken abusive policies, and, as shown in the case of targeted and interminable detentions, eroded civil rights to unprecedented levels.

Although the ACLU applauds the administration’s condemnation of the torture and rendition programs instituted under Bush, it says these positive steps are overwhelmed by what remains uncorrected and unaddressed. Using the CIA’s destruction of 92 interrogation tapes as an example, the ACLU says that an investigation into the incident – which was approved by a CIA official and is purported to have erased torturous interrogations carried about by Americans – has dragged on for three years with no resolution in sight The length of time is a minor issue compared with what the ACLU says such foot dragging signifies: “Sanctioning impunity for government officials who authorized torture.”

Full Story: t r u t h o u t | ACLU Scorecard: Obama Is Embracing Abusive Bush Policies.

Gas Is Really Costing Us About $15 a Gallon

Calculating the true cost of living in a country built on oil.

This might be an opportune time to make a disclosure: I am a BP shareholder. Admittedly, I’ve never attended the company’s annual meeting, and if I did, I would have very little weight to throw around.

I own two shares of BP stock. I received my stake in the company as a Christmas gift in 1989, when I was 14 years old. The previous June, I had taken a “summer enrichment” course in the Des Moines public schools, designed as an introduction to the world of business. The teacher gave each of us in the class a modest hypothetical budget to invest in the stock market.

Earnest young capitalists, we made our picks and then followed the quotes in the morning paper. I invested heavily in Amoco and finished the summer feeling that my portfolio had done quite well. As a result, my younger brother decided that I should receive a real piece of the enterprise that was once John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil. He conspired with my mom to get me an Amoco share for the holidays.

I’ve watched the oil industry as an interested party ever since. In 1998, my Amoco stock split, turning my one share into two. Then, a few months later, the company was acquired by BP. This “oil mega-merger,” as the BBC called it, gave me a stake in yet another energy titan. It also allowed the combined corporation to shed 6,000 jobs, prompting its new chief executive, Sir John Browne of BP, to confidently assure the press that “he hoped the merger will increase pre-tax profits of the two partners by ‘at least’ two billion dollars by the end of 2000.”

Full Story: Gas Is Really Costing Us About $15 a Gallon | Environment | AlterNet.

America’s biggest – and only major – jobs program is the U.S. military.

Robert Reich:

“National security is a cover for job security. This is nuts.”

Over 1,400,000 Americans are now on active duty; another 833,000 are in the reserves, many full time. Another 1,600,000 Americans work in companies that supply the military with everything from weapons to utensils. (I’m not even including all the foreign contractors employing non-US citizens.)

If we didn’t have this giant military jobs program, the U.S. unemployment rate would be over 11.5 percent today instead of 9.5 percent.

And without our military jobs program personal incomes would be dropping faster. The Commerce Department reported Monday the only major metro areas where both net earnings and personal incomes rose last year were San Antonio, Texas, Virginia Beach, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. — because all three have high concentrations of military and federal jobs.

Full Story: http://robertreich.org/post/938938180/americas-biggest-jobs-program-the-u-s-military

Meet Dylan Ratigan, That Guy on MSNBC Who Can Talk a Mean Streak About the Scam Artists on Wall St.

Dylan Ratigan is an unlikely champion of the common man, yet is emerging as one of the strongest voices for economic reform in the United States.

Financial markets had just opened on a Thursday morning in mid-November, but business journalist Dylan Ratigan was nowhere near his old stomping grounds on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange. He was wearing a huge, ridiculous black wig, gold-rimmed aviator sunglasses, and a white broad-collared jumpsuit while attempting to wrest a purse from a gray-haired grandmother. He looked like a homeless Elvis impersonator accosting a stranger on the subway. He was hosting a news program.

The sketch was theatrical and over-the-top, but on cable news, the subject of Ratigan’s dramatization was actually a farther-flung outlier than the rhinestones on his bellbottoms. Ratigan blasted the repeal of Glass-Steagall, a Depression-era law that banned risky securities trading from the banking business. The repeal, Ratigan demonstrates, allowed boring old bankers to become risk-driven casino gamblers, taking grandma’s deposits to the capital markets craps table. Today, few deny that the Glass-Steagall repeal was at the least a major contributing factor to the financial disaster of 2008. But in November 2009, this view was restricted to a handful of economists and reform advocates – Wall Street rejected it out of hand, and mainstream liberal publications were still defending the repeal and its architects.

Full Story: Meet Dylan Ratigan, That Guy on MSNBC Who Can Talk a Mean Streak About the Scam Artists on Wall St. | Economy | AlterNet.

Dead Fish Are Washing Up Everywhere . . . Is It Due to BP Oil Spill and Dispersants?

Dead fish are washing up everywhere.

For example, numerous dead fish washed ashore in Massachusetts a couple of days ago:

video at link

Dead fish had washed up in New Jersey yesterday.

Hundreds of thousands of dead fish washed up today in New Jersey, and even the birds wouldn’t eat them:

video at link

Full Story:  Washington’s Blog.

The Corpo-Obama-Geithner-Petraeus State

Barbara Ehrenreich:

So a black man finally wins the presidency, only to discover that it’s about as useful as a 32 cent stamp. According to Eric Alterman, the federal government, avatar of liberal hope for at least a century, has become hopelessly undemocratic, poisoned by corruption and structurally snarled by partisan divisions. Poor Barack Obama, who steps up to the plate and gets handed a foam bat!

The government, as Alterman convincingly describes it, is not only expensive, “bloated” and all the rest. It has become a handmaid to corporate power—a hiring hall from which compliant officials are selected for vastly more lucrative private-sector jobs, as well as an emergency cash reserve for companies that fall on hard times. No wonder so many Americans unthinkingly conflate “big government” and “big corporations.” This is not the kind of government that hires unemployed people to paint murals on post office walls. And, as everyone knows, when the bank decides to repossess your home, it’s a public employee who will kick in the door.

All that should be enough to sour liberals’ trust in government as a tool for progressive social change. But the situation is much worse than Alterman acknowledges. In the years since government—state and local as well as federal—has shed its role as a kindly change agent, it has assumed a new one as über-cop: building more penitentiaries, snapping up stoners, harassing blacks and Latino-looking people on the streets. Nonviolent protests have dwindled, not only because of activists’ lingering deference toward Obama but because the police response to any outdoor gathering so resembles the assault on Falluja.

Full Story: The Corpo-Obama-Geithner-Petraeus State | The Nation.

WHO posts list of pandemic flu advisors with industry ties

After months of criticism that threatened its credibility, the World Health Organisation has released a list of the 15 international members of the Emergency Committee that advised the WHO on last year’s H1N1 (swine flu) pandemic alerts. Five of the expert advisers had received financial support from the pharmaceuticals industry, including for flu vaccine research. The WHO posted the list on its website for the first time on Wednesday.

Among those listed were Nancy Cox, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control’s Influenza Division, who disclosed financial support from the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA), a pharmaceutical trade group. IFPMA funded flu vaccine and virus research in the Influenza Division, according to the disclosure list.

U.S. professor Arnold Monto declared current and past consultancies on pandemic or seasonal influenza research for GSK, Novartis, Roche, Baxter and Sanofi Pasteur. Monto’s research unit at the University of Michigan also declared a grant from Sanofi for a clinical trial comparing the efficacy of inactivated and live attenuated influenza vaccines.

Full Story: Flesh and Stone – WHO posts list of pandemic flu advisors with industry ties.

SEE NEWT RUN

Jim Hightower:

Oh, please, Santa Clause, please! Please give us the political gift that keeps giving: Newt Gingrich.

The Newt says he is planning to be the Republican nominee for president in 2012, and all I can say is: “YES!” The corrupt former-speaker of the U.S. House was forced out of office by his own Republican colleagues in 1999 for his pettiness, political ineptness, and plain old nutballism. Since then, he’s been a corporate front man and far-right-wing political yakker, and he’s recently become a favorite of Republican teabag howlers by screeching that Obama is running a “secular-socialist machine” that is a greater threat to America than foreign terrorists.

Now, though, he has his own machine to make a White House run – a corporate-funded machine that already has His Newtness ebbing toward the red zone of campaign corruption. He calls his political vehicle “American Solutions for Winning the Future,” and it’s drawn millions of dollars from such billionaires as casino kingpin Sheldon Adelson, Chiquita banana baron Carl Lindner, and anti-union textile tycoon Roger Milliken.

Full Story: Jim Hightower | SEE NEWT RUN.

China Springs The Trap

China has a national economic/industrial policy and we don’t. They create the conditions for key industries to thrive and we don’t. They make sure all of the infrastructure, finance, supply chain, educational, legal, technical and policy elements are in place for an industry to take hold and take off and we don’t.

If they don’t have an industry or a technology they want, they build it or get it. And they make sure that they get it. They invite a company in to their potentially huge market, they require that company share a technology with one of theirs, they make sure that their companies learn how to build what they need to build with the processes they need to do it, they make sure their designers know how to design what they need to design, they make sure that the parts are made there, the materials are made there, the people are trained there. The policy is called “indigenous innovation.”

And when everything is in place, they spring the trap: they don’t need the outside partners anymore. Thanks for the help, now go away. (But don’t try to do anything about it, that would be “protectionism.”)

Full Story: China Springs The Trap | OurFuture.org.

Drug firms hiding negative research are unfit to experiment on people

Another pharmaceutical giant has settled a big compensation claim. So why are they allowed to go on misleading the public?

This week the drug company AstraZeneca paid out £125m to settle a class action. More than 17,500 patients claim the company withheld information showing that schizophrenia drug quetiapine (tradename Seroquel) can cause diabetes. So why do companies pay out money before cases get to court?

An interesting feature of litigation is that various documents enter the public domain. This is how we know about the tobacco industry’s evil plans to target children, the fake academic journal that Elsevier created for Merck’s marketing department, and so on.

One of the most revealing documents ever to come out of a drug company emerged from an earlier quetiapine case: an email from John Tumas, publications manager at AstraZeneca. In it, he helpfully admits that they do everything I say drug companies do.

Full Story: Drug firms hiding negative research are unfit to experiment on people | Comment is free | The Guardian.

Just 15,000 families win ‘The American Dream’

Most Americans do not know it. When they hear it, many people do not believe it. Since the early 1980s, in the U.S., most income gains have gone to the top one per cent of income earners. From 2002-07, two-thirds of new income went to one per cent of Americans.

Going back further to measure the period from 1993 to 2008 and comparing, one-half of new income had gone to one per cent of Americans — with 99 per cent of U.S. residents getting the same increase in income as the top one per cent (defined as those earning over $308,000 in 2008).

Indeed, most new income has gone to the top one per cent within the one per cent (0.1 per cent, or about 150,000 families). Within that top 0.1 percent, the top one per cent (0.01 percent) of the U.S. population now gets one dollar for every US$17 earned by the entire population.

So 15,000 families are the real beneficiaries of American capitalism.

Full Story: Just 15,000 families win ‘The American Dream’ | rabble.ca.

This Was A REPUBLICAN Crash!!

One of the worst things happening all over the right-wing media right now is a continual blaming of President Obama for things that President Bush did while being enabled by a Republican Congress for six years. Yes, all over the country Republicans are going to extremes to paint Obama as the cause for a clearly Republican crash and several of the bailouts that followed. They even go as far as trying to say Obama has been in office for three years. However, as always with Republicans the facts just never bear out the crap they try to feed the American people.

Of course they have to hope you forget who really caused this mess and brainwash their “dittohead” masses that President Obama and the Democratic Congress have actually done the damage Republican policies for eight long years caused. The will even go as far as trying to overstate how long Obama has been in office so that his tenure will cover the time when Bush crashed the economy and doled bailout money out like M&Ms:

Fox Business’ MacDonald: “The president’s policies have clearly failed. For three years, we’ve been living with these policies.” While guest-hosting Fox Business’ Bulls & Bears, MacDonald suggested that Obama’s policies have “clearly failed” because we’ve been living with them for three years and we are still “seeing job losses.” However, as guest Erica Payne, founder and president of The Agenda Project, pointed out, Obama has only been in office for about a year and a half.

Full Story: Hillbilly Report:: This Was A REPUBLICAN Crash!!.

10 Republican Lies About the Bush Tax Cuts

So it’s come down to this. On Saturday, David Stockman, the legendary Reagan budget chief who presided over the Gipper’s supply-side tax cuts, announced that the “debt explosion has resulted not from big spending by the Democrats, but instead the Republican Party’s embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don’t matter if they result from tax cuts.” The next day, the former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan, who famously helped sell the 2001 Bush tax cuts to Congress, declared them simply “disastrous.”

Sadly, Stockman and Greenspan are just about the only voices in the Republican Party speaking the truth about the fiscal devastation wrought by the expiring Bush tax cuts. After all, the national debt tripled under Ronald Reagan, only to double again during the tenure of George W. Bush. And as it turns out, the Bush tax cut windfall for the wealthy accounted for almost half the budget deficits during his presidency and, if made permanent, would contribute more to the U.S. budget deficit than the Obama stimulus, the TARP program, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and revenue lost to the recession – combined. Of course, you’d never know it listening to the leaders of GOP.

And that’s just the beginning. Here, then, are 10 Republican Lies about the Bush tax cuts:

• Lie #1: Democrats Plan Across the Board Tax Hikes on January 1st
• Lie #2: Democrats Want a $3.8 Trillion Tax Increase
• Lie #3: Tax Cuts Pay for Themselves
• Lie #4: The Bush Tax Cuts Didn’t Add to the Deficit
• Lie #5: Expiring High Income Tax Cuts Will Hurt Small Business
• Lie #6: The Estate Tax Devastates Small Businesses and Family Farms
• Lie #7: The Bush Tax Cuts Helped All Americans
• Lie #8. Extending Bush Tax Cuts for the Wealthy is the Best Way to Stimulate the Economy
• Lie #9. Bush Tax Cuts Produced 52 Straight Months of Job Growth
• Lie #10: The Rich Pay Too Much in Taxes Already

For the details, data and charts for each, continue reading after the break.

Full Story: 10 Republican Lies About the Bush Tax Cuts | Crooks and Liars.

Paralysis at the Federal Reserve

Ten years ago, one of America’s leading economists delivered a stinging critique of the Bank of Japan, Japan’s equivalent of the Federal Reserve, titled “Japanese Monetary Policy: A Case of Self-Induced Paralysis?” With only a few changes in wording, the critique applies to the Fed today.

At the time, the Bank of Japan faced a situation broadly similar to that facing the Fed now. The economy was deeply depressed and showed few signs of improvement, and one might have expected the bank to take forceful action. But short-term interest rates — the usual tool of monetary policy — were near zero and could go no lower. And the Bank of Japan used that fact as an excuse to do no more.

That was malfeasance, declared the eminent U.S. economist: “Far from being powerless, the Bank of Japan could achieve a great deal if it were willing to abandon its excessive caution and its defensive response to criticism.” He rebuked officials hiding “behind minor institutional or technical difficulties in order to avoid taking action.”

Full Story: Op-Ed Columnist – Paralysis at the Federal Reserve – NYTimes.com.

More Americans Incorrectly think Obama, Not Bush, Enacted Bank Bailouts, Poll Shows

Nearly half of Americans incorrectly think President Obama started the the bank bailout program, otherwise known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), a new poll shows.

Just 34 percent of Americans surveyed by the Pew Research Center correctly said that TARP was enacted by the Bush administration. Almost half — 47 percent — think Mr. Obama started the bank bailout, according to the survey, conducted July 1-5. There was no partisan divide on the issue.

The TARP program was created in 2008 to stabilize the financial system. The Treasury Department has committed more than $500 billion to more than 800 firms through the program. While Mr. Obama did not enact TARP, his administration has largely been responsible for administering it.

Full Story: More Americans think Obama, Not Bush, Enacted Bank Bailouts, Poll Shows – Political Hotsheet – CBS News.

The Fine Print In $20 Billion Spill Relief Fund Gives BP An Upper Hand

Although President Obama has been criticized for “shaking down” BP over creation of a $20 billion relief fund, the actual terms of the agreement give the oil company important advantages over the government, according to an independent Washington watchdog group.

BP this week made an initial $3 billion deposit into that fund, from which the company will pay damage claims stemming from its monster Gulf Coast oil spill.

The company agreed to create the relief fund in June under pressure from top White House officials and congressional Democrats.

Full Story: On The Hill: Watchdog: The Fine Print In $20 Billion Spill Relief Fund Gives BP An Upper Hand.

Federal Nuclear Waste Panel Overlooks Public Mistrust, Experts Say

A renewed federal effort to fix the nation’s stalled nuclear waste program is focusing so much on technological issues that it fails to address the public mistrust hampering storage and disposal efforts, according to 16 social science researchers from across the country.

Writing in the latest issue of the journal Science, experts including Sharon Friedman of Lehigh University say that President Obama’s Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future is not focusing enough on the social and political acceptability of possible solutions.

“While scientific and technical analyses are essential, they will not and arguably should not carry the day unless they address, substantively and procedurally, the issues that concern the public,” the experts write.

Full Story: On The Hill: Federal Nuclear Waste Panel Overlooks Public Mistrust, Experts Say.

The Truth About Those Tax Cuts

The big fight brewing in Washington at the moment is whether or not and for whom to extend the Bush Tax cuts. The Obama plan calls for extending them for everyone except the top two percent. Republican plan include extending them for everyone, extending them for the top two percent only, and extending them for nobody, if the rich don’t get them too. The Obama plan is the best one. This is why.

This week, the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation released an analysis of what would happen to the tax code if the Republican proposal to extend all of the Bush tax cuts were adopted. The tax cuts are scheduled to expire at the end of the year, and the Obama administration has proposed renewing only those for the lower- and middle-class.

Full Story: The Truth About Those Tax Cuts » Politics Plus.

Happy 75th Birthday, Social Security

Katrina vanden Heuvel:

On its 75th anniversary Social Security is once again under attack and so are its defenders.

Those who would axe benefits are spreading myths designed to make you think there’s a looming crisis. Well, it’s just not true.

The stark reality is that it will be several decades before the program encounters any financial problems. The program’s trust fund will have a $4.3 trillion surplus by 2023, and can pay all its obligations for decades to come. And strengthening Social Security is easy—making the very rich pay their fair share by lifting the cap on contributions by the wealthy would allow the program to pay all its obligations indefinitely.

So on this 75th anniversary, rather than fighting these Social Security-busters, we should celebrate what has been one of the nation’s best anti-poverty programs—a lifeline for millions of Americans—and a reminder of what effective government can do. Indeed the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports that without Social Security benefits, over 45 percent of elderly Americans would have incomes below the poverty line. In contrast, with Social Security, only 9.7 percent are poor. (Still too many.)

Full Story: Happy 75th Birthday, Social Security | The Nation.

A campaign for war with Iran begins

Obama administration officials, as well as U.S. lawmakers and European diplomats, passionately made the argument this spring that tough sanctions on Iran were necessary to avoid war. But contrary to their predictions, the drumbeat for war — particularly from Israel – has only increased since the U.N. Security Council adopted a new resolution against Tehran in June.

The latest in this crescendo of voices is Jeffrey Goldberg’s article in the Atlantic, “Point of No Return.” As the title suggests, it essentially makes the case (though in an uncharacteristically subtle manner by neoconservative standards) that there are no choices left — war is a fait accompli, and the only question is whether it will be initiated by Israel or by the United States.

“If the Israelis reach the firm conclusion that Obama will not, under any circumstances, launch a strike on Iran, then the countdown will begin for a unilateral Israeli attack,” Goldberg writes.

Full Story: A campaign for war with Iran begins – Iran – Salon.com.

US Probes Corruption in Big Pharmaceuticals

GlaxoSmithKline [GSK-LN 1224.50 28.50 (+2.38%)], Pfizer [PFE 16.08 -0.12 (-0.74%) ], Bristol-Myers Squibb [BMY 26.32 -0.01 (-0.04%) ] and Eli Lilly [LLY 35.70 -0.90 (-2.46%) ], among others, have disclosed being contacted by the DoJ and Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with the investigation. Merck [MRK 35.00 -0.04 (-0.11%) ], the US drugs group, announced last week that it had also been contacted and was co-operating with investigators.

An industry attorney familiar with the probe said that the DoJ was looking at whether pharma companies had ignored a “systematic risk” inherent in the global drugs business and ignored obligations under local and US anti-bribery law.

The highly regulated nature of the business, combined with the fact that healthcare officials in many non-US markets were government funded, made the industry a natural target for such a probe, the person added.

The investigation is at a relatively early stage but is considered a priority for the DoJ.

Full Story: Drug Makers – US Probes Corruption in Big Pharmaceuticals – CNBC.

US: Firms must spell out workers’ benefit rights

Your company just denied your disability claim. What do you do now? How long do you have to file an appeal? And with whom?

The Obama administration is planning to upgrade consumer protections for tens of millions of workers and family members covered by health, disability and pension plans, ordering companies to clearly explain decisions on claims and how employees can dispute denials.

The basic idea is to require health and other plans to spell out what a worker needs to know to safeguard his rights.

“People need to have a clear roadmap to appeal claims,” Phyllis Borzi, assistant secretary for employee benefits at the Labor Department, said in an interview.

Department officials also want to make the appeals process more responsive. One of the changes under consideration would require health plans to decide appeals for urgent medical care in 24 hours, instead of up to 72 hours as currently allowed.

Full Story: US: Firms must spell out workers’ benefit rights – Yahoo! News.

Stewart Exposes GOP Hypocrisy: Extending Bush Tax Cuts Won’t Lower Deficit (VIDEO)

Last night on “The Daily Show” Jon Stewart took on Republicans for their dramatic words about the deficit and simultaneous defense of the Bush tax cuts. While conservative pundits refer to the deficit as “crushing” and dangerous to our “children and grandchildren,” Stewart worried that the GOP doesn’t understand what’s causing the deficit they fear so much in the first place. “Do they not realize that the tax cuts strengthen the deficit monster that’s going to eat our babies?”

According to Fareed Zakaria, letting the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of this year would reduce the deficit by 30%. Still, conservatives such as John McCain and John Boehner argue that we should extend the tax cuts and not raise taxes. Amazed at how two opposing ideas can exist on the same party platform, Stewart asked, “how exactly can you be for deficit reduction and extending tax cuts?” before airing a clip wherein Sarah Palin argues for both in the same sentence.

Other conservatives argued that the money the government earns in taxes isn’t the same as the money they spend, so the tax cuts will not affect the deficit. To this, Stewart responded with the famous “F**k you, pay me” scene from “Goodfellas.”

“The deficit doesn’t care where [the money] comes from,” Stewart said.

WATCH:

Full Story: Stewart Exposes GOP Hypocrisy: Extending Bush Tax Cuts Won’t Lower Deficit (VIDEO).

The Cholesterol Myth That Could Be Harming Your Health

Cholesterol could easily be described as the smoking gun of the last two decades.

It’s been responsible for demonizing entire categories of foods (like eggs and saturated fats) and blamed for just about every case of heart disease in the last 20 years.

Yet when I first opened my medical practice in the mid 80s, cholesterol, and the fear that yours was too high was rarely talked about.

Somewhere along the way however, cholesterol became a household word — something that you must keep as low as possible, or suffer the consequences.

Full Story: Dr. Joseph Mercola: The Cholesterol Myth That Could Be Harming Your Health.

‘Global Weirding’: Extreme Climate Events Dominate The Summer

A heatwave in Russia is sparking wildfires that are driving residents from Moscow and devastating the country’s wheat crop. A fifth of Pakistan is underwater and millions are deluged by floods in Asia. Another heatwave is torturing Mexico and the East Coast of the United States. An incomprehensibly large chunk of ice has broken off a glacier in Greenland, the most significant climate event there in 50 years.

Most scientists caution that no single event can be tied specifically to increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. But climate-change deniers quickly point to the first snowfall in winter as evidence against global warming. If that’s the standard, the extreme climate events all across the globe must say something about whether climate change is already upon us. Indeed, the regularity of the events is beginning to undermine the descriptor “extreme”. Extreme is the new normal.

“We’re setting climate records at a record-setting pace,” David Orr, a professor of environmental studies and politics at Oberlin College, told HuffPost. “More hottest hots, driest dries, wettest wets, windiest wind conditions. So it’s all part of a pattern. If you ask is this evidence of climate destabilization, the only scientific answer you can give is: It is consistent with what we can expect.” Orr is the author of “Down to the Wire: Confronting Climate Collapse” and five other books on politics and the environment.

Full Story: ‘Global Weirding’: Extreme Climate Events Dominate The Summer.

Brazil UFO Sightings To Be Documented, Made Public

Brazil has ordered its air force to document any UFO sightings and make the data available to researchers and the public.

A decree in the official gazette says the air force will register any sightings by military and commercial pilots, along with air traffic controllers.

A spokesman says the air force has UFO archives dating back decades, but there had been no official order on what to do with the material. The spokesman could not be named under air force rules.

All past and future data – whether written reports, photos or video – will be processed by the air force and then housed in the National Archives in Rio de Janeiro.

Full Story: Brazil UFO Sightings To Be Documented, Made Public.

Pat Tillman’s Father To Army Investigator: ‘F— You… And Yours’ (EXCLUSIVE)

There always was a dark cinematic thread to the story of Pat Tillman: the football star imbued with post-9/11 patriotism who was killed in a friendly-fire incident in the Afghan mountains and the allegations of a massive bureaucratic cover-up involving the highest levels of the U.S. Army in the wake of the tragedy.

So it wasn’t terribly shocking when word broke this past winter that “The Tillman Story,” a documentary film, was being purchased by the powerhouse Weinstein Company. The story, even without a director applying his artistic license to the script, obviously had many elements of a political thriller.

As the release date approaches — the film will premiere in Los Angeles and New York on August 20 — those elements are becoming a bit clearer and more intriguing. The Weinstein Company sent the Huffington Post two previously unseen letters written by Tillman’s father at the peak of frustration with the army’s investigation into his son’s death. The notes, penned to Brigadier General Gary M. Jones (the man spearheading the investigation) as well as the Senate Armed Services Committee (which oversaw Jones’s work), paint a picture of a man increasingly convinced that a massive conspiracy was emerging around the death of his son.

Full Story: Pat Tillman’s Father To Army Investigator: ‘F— You… And Yours’ (EXCLUSIVE).

Why The ‘Professional Left’ Continues To Hold Obama Accountable

From President Obama’s video message to bloggers and activists at the Netroots Nation conference, 7/24/10 (which, as DailyKos’ Laurence Lewis points out, “used professional leftist Rachel Maddow to emphasize the good that he has done”):

While we’ve got a long way to go, I’m confident America is once again moving forward. Still, change hasn’t come fast enough for too many Americans. I know that. It hasn’t come fast enough for me either. And I know it hasn’t come fast enough for many of you, who fought so hard during the election. In fact, it took years to get here; it’ll take time to get us out. We’ve known that since the beginning of our campaign. [...]

What I’m asking you is to keep making your voices heard. To keep holding me accountable. To keep up the fight. … Change is possible. It’s possible when folks like you remember the fundamental truth of our democracy, that change doesn’t come from the top down. It comes from the bottom up. It comes from the Netroots, the grassroots, from every American who loves their country and believes they can make a difference.

Watch it:

Full Story: Think Progress » Why The ‘Professional Left’ Continues To Hold Obama Accountable.

McCain Promises He Won’t Work With Democrats On Immigration If He Is Re-Elected

It has been well-documented that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has changed his position on various issues for political expediency — particularly on immigration. Once a champion of bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform, McCain drifted far right during his primary run for president in 2008 and then flipped back once he secured the nomination.

Now that he’s in a primary fight to save his U.S. Senate job, McCain is back courting the right wing in Arizona on immigration, for example, latching onto far right positions on border security that he previously shunned and embracing the radical call to repeal the 14th Amendment. Today on a local Arizona radio show, McCain went a bit further, promising a caller that he will never work with Democrats on immigration reform:

Full Story: Think Progress » McCain Promises He Won’t Work With Democrats On Immigration If He Is Re-Elected.

Health insurers are lobbying to weaken regulations, despite record profits.

With the economy in recession and a growing number of Americans going without health insurance coverage, the big health insurers are still posting impressive profits. Wellpoint, the nation’s largest insurer by membership, “reported a 4% increase in profit for the second quarter that helped generate earnings of $1.6 billion since the beginning of the year – a 26% increase over the same period in 2009,″ and Aetna said its “second-quarter profits rose 42 percent, with a net income of $491 million, compared with $346.6 million for the same quarter last year.” Earlier this week, Health Care for American Now! (HCAN) released a report which found that CEOs from the 10 largest for-profit health insurance companies “collected pay of $228.1 million, up from $85.5 million in 2008.” As a group, insurance CEOs saw a “167 percent raise,” while “Americans saw their averages wages increase by about 2 percent.” Insurers are spending less on health care and seeing higher profits:

Full Story: Think Progress » Health insurers are lobbying to weaken regulations, despite record profits..

Reagan insider: GOP destroyed the economy

MarketWatch:

“How my G.O.P. destroyed the U.S. economy.” Yes, that is exactly what David Stockman, President Ronald Reagan’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote in a recent New York Times op-ed piece, “Four Deformations of the Apocalypse.

Yes, Stockman is equally damning of the Democrats’ Keynesian policies. But what this indictment by a party insider — someone so close to the development of the Reaganomics ideology — says about America, helps all of us better understand how America’s toxic partisan-politics “holy war” is destroying not just the economy and capitalism, but the America dream. And unless this war stops soon, both parties will succeed in their collective death wish.

But why focus on Stockman’s message? It’s already lost in the 24/7 news cycle. Why? We need some introspection. Ask yourself: How did the great nation of America lose its moral compass and drift so far off course, to where our very survival is threatened?

We’ve arrived at a historic turning point as a nation that no longer needs outside enemies to destroy us, we are committing suicide. Democracy. Capitalism. The American dream. All dying. Why? Because of the economic decisions of the GOP the past 40 years, says this leading Reagan Republican.

Full Story: Reagan insider: GOP destroyed economy Paul B. Farrell – MarketWatch.

Survey: Americans of All Ages Plan to Rely on Social Security

With the 75th anniversary of Social Security approaching, AARP released a new survey report that shows that three in four (76 percent) adults age 18 and older rely on or plan to rely on Social Security for their retirement income, including a large majority (62 percent) of younger adults age 18-29.

The survey also shows a strong majority of those polled oppose reducing Social Security benefits for deficit reduction (85 percent), and a majority of those under age 50 support the infusion of additional revenues into the system to provide the same level of benefits in the future (57 percent).

The survey paid for by the powerful retirement lobby finds that regardless of age, 85 percent of adults oppose cutting Social Security to reduce the federal deficit, with more than seven out of 10 (72 percent) strongly opposing it.

Full Story: On The Hill: Survey: Americans of All Ages Plan to Rely on Social Security.

The Point of No Return: Israel Likely To Attack Iran

For the Obama administration, the prospect of a nuclearized Iran is dismal to contemplate— it would create major new national-security challenges and crush the president’s dream of ending nuclear proliferation. But the view from Jerusalem is still more

dire: a nuclearized Iran represents, among other things, a threat to Israel’s very existence. In the gap between Washington’s and Jerusalem’s views of Iran lies the question: who, if anyone, will stop Iran before it goes nuclear, and how? As Washington and Jerusalem study each other intensely, here’s an inside look at the strategic calculations on both sides—and at how, if things remain on the current course, an Israeli air strike will unfold.

It is possible that at some point in the next 12 months, the imposition of devastating economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic of Iran will persuade its leaders to cease their pursuit of nuclear weapons. It is also possible that Iran’s reform-minded Green Movement will somehow replace the mullah-led regime, or at least discover the means to temper the regime’s ideological extremism. It is possible, as well, that “foiling operations” conducted by the intelligence agencies of Israel, the United States, Great Britain, and other Western powers—programs designed to subvert the Iranian nuclear effort through sabotage and, on occasion, the carefully engineered disappearances of nuclear scientists—will have hindered Iran’s progress in some significant way. It is also possible that President Obama, who has said on more than a few occasions that he finds the prospect of a nuclear Iran “unacceptable,” will order a military strike against the country’s main weapons and uranium-enrichment facilities.

But none of these things—least of all the notion that Barack Obama, for whom initiating new wars in the Middle East is not a foreign-policy goal, will soon order the American military into action against Iran—seems, at this moment, terribly likely. What is more likely, then, is that one day next spring, the Israeli national-security adviser, Uzi Arad, and the Israeli defense minister, Ehud Barak, will simultaneously telephone their counterparts at the White House and the Pentagon, to inform them that their prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has just ordered roughly one hundred F-15Es, F-16Is, F-16Cs, and other aircraft of the Israeli air force to fly east toward Iran—possibly by crossing Saudi Arabia, possibly by threading the border between Syria and Turkey, and possibly by traveling directly through Iraq’s airspace, though it is crowded with American aircraft. (It’s so crowded, in fact, that the United States Central Command, whose area of responsibility is the greater Middle East, has already asked the Pentagon what to do should Israeli aircraft invade its airspace. According to multiple sources, the answer came back: do not shoot them down.)

Full Story: The Point of No Return – Magazine – The Atlantic.

NDM-1, Superbug Gene, Could Spread Worldwide, Doctors Warn

People traveling to India for medical procedures have brought back to Britain a new gene that allows any bacteria to become a superbug, and scientists are warning this type of drug resistance could soon appear worldwide.

Though already widespread in India, the new superbug gene is being increasingly spotted in Britain and elsewhere. Experts warn the booming medical tourism industries in India and Pakistan could fuel a surge in antibiotic resistance, as patients import dangerous bugs to their home countries.

The superbug gene, which can be swapped between different bacteria to make them resistant to most drugs, has so far been identified in 37 people who returned to the U.K. after undergoing surgery in India or Pakistan.

Full Story: NDM-1, Superbug Gene, Could Spread Worldwide, Doctors Warn.

BP Links Compensation With Continued Oil Production In The Gulf

BP has managed to link the fate of its $20 billion oil spill victims compensation fund with its continued ability to pump oil from the Gulf of Mexico.

The voluntary trust agreement negotiated with the Department of Justice is not with the British-based multinational, or even with BP America, but with a fairly remote subsidiary, BP Exploration & Production Inc. (BPEC) — a Delaware corporation that operates BP’s Gulf oil leases.

So if BP’s drilling revenues from the Gulf suddenly vanished, so, presumably, would the compensation fund, said Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program.

Full Story: BP Links Compensation With Continued Oil Production In The Gulf.

Tea Party Crushing Chamber Of Commerce In GOP Primaries

The Chamber of Commerce plans to spend at least $75 million on elections in 2010, but returns on its early investments this season have been disappointing. Jane Norton, who lost to a Tea Party backed candidate (Ken Buck) in Colorado Tuesday night, is just one in a string of Chamber-backed candidates to go down in defeat.

The Chamber’s biggest win of 2010 remains one of its only GOP success stories, when Scott Brown knocked off Martha Coakley to break the Democrats’ filibuster-proof majority. Since then, however, Chamber candidates have lost in Maine, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah and Kentucky.

The losing streak may say less about the Chamber’s political acumen than it does about the anger voters have at corporate influence on the political process. A new poll funded by MoveOn.org and performed by SurveyUSA found that opposition to unchecked corporate involvement in the election process cuts across party lines. Seventy-six percent of Republicans in the survey said that it is very important (44%) or somewhat important (28%) for a candidate to commit to reducing the influence corporations have over elections and 64 percent said they’d be more likely to vote for a candidate who backed a constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United, the 5-4 Supreme Court decision that upended a century of campaign law to allow unlimited corporate involvement.

Full Story: Tea Party Crushing Chamber Of Commerce In GOP Primaries.

Pentagon: Undisclosed Wikileak documents ‘potentially more explosive’

Pentagon officials believe they have identified the 15,000 classified Afghanistan war documents that the online site WikiLeaks has obtained and might disclose, and the military is now sifting through them for references that could harm troops or civilians.

The records at issue contain material that is “potentially more explosive, more sensitive,” Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said, than the information in the 77,000 Afghanistan field reports and assessments WikiLeaks put online last month in an effort to shed light on the U.S. military’s war in Afghanistan.

A task force of more than 100 intelligence analysts have been sifting “around the clock” through all 91,000 records, looking for hundreds of key words, including the names of Afghan citizens, mosques and allies, in an effort to evaluate the danger caused by exposure, Morrell said. “We have found many instances in which our allies or their forces are mentioned in these documents,” and the U.S. military has then notified them as the case warrants, he said.

Full Story: Checkpoint Washington – Pentagon: Undisclosed Wikileak documents ‘potentially more explosive’.

Wells Fargo Overdraft Lawsuit: Bank Ordered To Pay $203 MILLION In Fees Over ‘Unfair’ Charges

A federal judge in California ordered Wells Fargo & Co. to change what he called “unfair and deceptive business practices” that led customers into paying multiple overdraft fees, and to pay $203 million back to customers.

In a decision handed down late Tuesday, U.S. District Judge William Alsup accused Wells Fargo of “profiteering” by changing its policies to process checks, debit card transactions and bill payments from the highest dollar amount to the lowest, rather than in the order the transactions took place. That helped drain customer bank accounts faster and drive up overdraft fees, a policy Alsup referred to as “gouging and profiteering.”

The ruling detailed the experiences of two Wells Fargo customers who used their debit cards for multiple small purchases, and were then charged hundreds in overdraft fees because the order the purchases were cleared by the bank depended on the amounts. The judge found the customers, who were part of a class action, were not properly informed of the bank’s policies on processing payments and were unaware the bank would allow debit purchases to go through when their accounts were overdrawn.

Full Story: Wells Fargo Overdraft Lawsuit: Bank Ordered To Pay $203 MILLION In Fees Over ‘Unfair’ Charges.

Thousands Crowd Housing Authority For Section 8 WAITING LIST, Fights Break Out (VIDEO)

More than a thousand people gathered Wednesday outside a metro-Atlanta shopping mall in hopes of being placed on a waiting list for federal housing funds.

Fights broke out, children were reportedly trampled, and police had to stop the crowd from storming a cafe being used by the East Point Housing Authority in East Point, Ga, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Television station 11Alive reports that the line for Section 8 housing vouchers formed two days ago and grew into the hundreds Tuesday night. People even slept outside the cafe despite repeated assertions from the housing officials that the line was unnecessary and everyone would receive an application.

Full Story: Thousands Crowd Housing Authority For Section 8 WAITING LIST, Fights Break Out (VIDEO).

US heat wave just preview of future: study

The US East Coast is sweltering in a record-hot summer but it could endure twice as many sweaty days by mid-century without action on climate change, an environmental group said Wednesday.

The US capital, Washington, is on track for 50 days in 2010 in which the mercury crosses 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 Celsius), a number that could rise as high as 100 by 2050, the National Wildlife Federation said in a study.

The group, which supports action against climate change, said that the number of hot days in 2050 could be kept to 55 if polluters reduce carbon emissions.

Full Story: US heat wave just preview of future: study – Yahoo! News.

BP oil spill evidence to be collected byBP Contractors

Key evidence on one of the world’s worst oil spills could soon be in the hands of the leading suspects as BP and partner contractors are set to start salvaging the wreckage of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig.

The US government is leading what could become a criminal investigation into the disaster. But it does not have the technical expertise to gather evidence some 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico.

Transocean, which leased the rig to BP, is expected to take charge of the salvage operations.

A spokesman contacted by AFP declined to say when that will begin or who is likely to be involved now that work to kill the runaway well is nearly complete.

BP also declined to answer questions about the salvage operations or the probe.

Full Story: BP oil spill evidence to be collected by suspects | Raw Story.

Rep. Grayson Unleashes On Gibbs: “Bozo The Spokesman” (VIDEO)

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) was typically direct and unsparing in his criticism of White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on MSNBC this afternoon.

In response to Gibbs’s recent comments about “the professional left” and its dissatisfaction with the Obama administration, Grayson called Gibbs “Bozo the Spokesman” and declared he should be fired.

“I don’t think he should resign, I think he should be fired. He’s done a miserable job,” Grayson said. “He’s so far in over his head he’d have to reach up to touch his shoes.”

Grayson went on:

Full Story: Rep. Grayson Unleashes On Gibbs: “Bozo The Spokesman” (VIDEO).

DOJ gags scientists studying BP disaster.

In an explosive first-hand account, ecosystem biologist Linda Hooper-Bui describes how Obama administration and BP lawyers are making independent scientific analysis of the Gulf region an impossibility. Hooper-Bui has found that only scientists who are part of the Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) process to determine BP’s civil liability get full access to contaminated sites and research data. Pete Tuttle, USFWS environmental contaminant specialist and Department of Interior NRDA coordinator, admitted to The Scientist that “researchers wishing to formally participate in NRDA must sign a contract that includes a confidentiality agreement” that “prevents signees from releasing information from studies and findings until authorized by the Department of Justice at some later and unspecified date.” Hooper-Bui writes:

It’s not hazardous conditions associated with oil and dispersants that are hampering our scientific efforts. Rather, it’s the confidentiality agreements that come with signing up to work on large research projects shepherded by government entities and BP and the limited access to coastal areas if you’re not part of those projects that are stifling the public dissemination of data detailing the environmental impact of the catastrophe.

Full Story: Think Progress » DOJ gags scientists studying BP disaster..

Anti-Stimulus Crusader Mark Sanford Quietly Accepts Funds He Pledged To Reject

Last year, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R) led a group of governors in a high-profile war against President Obama’s stimulus package, claiming that accepting the $700 million for which his state was eligible would lead to “a thing called slavery” and was akin to “fiscal child abuse.” Sanford — who even went to court to resist taking the funds — and his cadre of governors “focused their ire, in particular, on provisions that pushed states to expand jobless benefits” to people who previously did not qualify for help, something Sanford “vow[ed] to reject.”

However, the New York Times reports that Sanford quietly broke this pledge and is now accepting stimulus funds to help his state’s out-of-work residents:

Two months ago, however, with the bright lights of political promise dimmed by a scandal involving an extramarital affair, Mr. Sanford quietly signed a bill passed by the Legislature that expanded eligibility for unemployment benefits. The move paved the way for the state to claim $97.5 million in stimulus money to bolster its financially ailing unemployment insurance trust fund.

Full Story: Think Progress » Anti-Stimulus Crusader Mark Sanford Quietly Accepts Funds He Pledged To Reject.

Gitmo Judge Admits Confession Extracted By Rape Threat

In the first full war crimes tribunal of the Obama administration, a military judge held that a detainee who confessed to killing an American solider after he was threatened with being gang-raped to death if he did not cooperate may nonetheless have that confession used against him at trial:

In May hearings, a man identified as Interrogator 1 said in testimony that he threatened Mr. Khadr with being gang-raped to death if he did not co-operate. That interrogator was later identified as former U.S. Army Sergeant Joshua Claus. He has also been convicted of abusing a different detainee and has left the military.

Mr. Khadr’s military-appointed lawyer, Lieutenant-Colonel Jon Jackson, argued this instance, as well as other alleged instances of torture and coercion, are enough to render any future confessions – even those in so-called “clean” interrogations – inadmissible in court.

“The well was poisoned: The government can’t cleanse the well by saying, ‘Well, someone else came in and was nice to him,’ ” Col. Jackson said.

Full Story: Think Progress » Gitmo Judge Admits Confession Extracted By Rape Threat.

Focus on the Family buys statewide TV ads during Denver Broncos games.

Earlier this year, CBS came under significant criticism for allowing the far-right Focus on the Family to run an advocacy ad featuring Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow during the Super Bowl. (It also banned a commercial for a gay dating site.) Focus on the Family is now trying to expand its appeal to sports fans even further. The Denver Post reports that the Colorado Springs-based group is buying TV ads to air when the Denver Broncos — Tebow’s new team — plays:

Schneeberger wouldn’t disclose the price of the new ads but said costs will be covered by donations made explicitly for this project.

The ads are a logical extension of the Focus campaign to raise brand awareness among a new generation of young families that began with the Tebow ad, Schneeberger said.

Full Story: Think Progress » Focus on the Family buys statewide TV ads during Denver Broncos games..

Bachmann Calls For Tea Party/GOP ‘Unity,’ Says Movement Is ‘Looking To The GOP’ For Leadership

Last month, House Republicans officially embraced the Tea Party movement when Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) won approval from House leaders to form a Tea Party Caucus. Bachmann, who is caucus chair, said the group “will serve as an informal group of Members dedicated to promote American’s call for fiscal responsibility, adherence to the Constitution, and limited government.”

Despite the fact that the movement is overwhelmingly conservative, many Tea Party leaders have boasted that they do not adhere to a particular political party. But last night on Fox News, Bachmann not only said that the movement needs GOP leadership, but went a step further and called on the Tea Party to unite with the Republican Party:

SEAN HANNITY: Are you confident the Republican Party is adopting the Tea Party, you know, coalition, platform that you and other conservatives are advocating? Or is there going to be a divide or split in any way?

Full Story: Think Progress » Bachmann Calls For Tea Party/GOP ‘Unity,’ Says Movement Is ‘Looking To The GOP’ For Leadership.

Tax Cuts for the Rich Are Pure Theft

The Reagan Revolution is stealing our future: a wealthy few are taking all of the benefits of our efforts for themselves.

Conservatives like to say that taxes are theft. In fact it is tax cuts that are theft because they break a long-standing contract.

The American Social Contract: We, the People built our democracy and the empowerment and protections it bestows. We built the infrastructure, schools and all of the public structures, laws, courts, monetary system, etc. that enable enterprise to prosper. That prosperity is the bounty of our democracy and by contract it is supposed to be shared and reinvested. That is the contract. Our system enables some people to become wealthy but all of us are supposed to benefit from this system. Why else would We, the People have set up this system, if not for the benefit of We, the People?

The American Social Contract is supposed to work like this:

Full Story: Tax Cuts for the Rich Are Pure Theft | Economy | AlterNet.

Americans are Dying to Eat

Despite evidence that they may cause cancer, food manufacturers continue to pour about 15 million pounds of eight synthetic dyes into the American food supply every year.

Try pronouncing disodium 6-hydroxy-5-((2-methoxy-5-methyl-4-sulfophenyl) azo)-2-naphthalene-sulfonate.

It’s not easy, right? That explains why this mouthful goes by its friendlier name, Red 40. It might sound innocent, but this ingredient and others like it are far from harmless. And they’re in our food.

For years, we at the Center for Science in the Public Interest and food-safety officials in Europe have highlighted studies linking food dyes to hyperactivity and other behavioral problems in children. The British government and the European Parliament even decided to phase out artificial dyes based on these concerns alone, but the same can’t be said for the United States. So why do food manufacturers continue to pour about 15 million pounds of eight synthetic dyes into the American food supply every year?

Full Story: OtherWords: Americans are Dying to Eat.

Is the News Coming From the Gulf Too Good To Be True? Unfortunately, Yes

Thad Allen may be struggling to find the oil, but that’s not because it’s all gone.

Over the past week, the headlines about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill have been good. After months of oil pouring into the Gulf, at last the well was capped. Even better, experts cited a recent document from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) showing that 75 percent of the oil is gone. As the good news flowed and the oil no longer did, government officials made optimistic remarks to the press about the situation. “The vast majority of the oil has been contained, it’s been burned, it’s been cleaned and that’s good news for the people of the Gulf,” White House Energy Adviser Carol Browner cheerfully reported recently. “Mother Nature will do her part, but we’ll continue to be vigilant.”

Disaster Response Chief Thad Allen added, “We’re finding less and less oil as we move forward.” In addition, the EPA has announced test results showing that a combination of dispersants and oil are no more toxic than the oil itself. To celebrate, President Obama himself dined on Gulf seafood for his birthday. Is the news too good to be true?

Full Story: Is the News Coming From the Gulf Too Good To Be True? Unfortunately, Yes | Environment | AlterNet.

The Right-Wing Hardliner Immigration Approach Would Create a Police State — Is That What Those Supposed Freedom Lovers Want?

Immigration in America would take a disastrous course if the ‘enforcement only’ crowd kept getting its way. And Americans would have to suffer for it.

Last year, the federal government filed more charges for immigration violations than all other crimes and misdemeanors combined — it charged more people for breaking our immigration laws than it charged drug traffickers, bank robbers, counterfeiters and everything else under the sun. Yet right-wing lawmakers and pundits who oppose a comprehensive re-think of our immigration system continue to insist the opposite is true: that the government is just sitting on its hands.

It’s really a lie of epic proportion, a distortion so great that it turns reality on its head. Yet immigration hardliners in the Congress and their lickspittles in the right-wing media have used it to convince a sizable chunk of the population that the federal government refuses, or at least has shown little zeal, to “enforce the law.” A Google search for “federal government won’t enforce immigration laws” returns 25 million hits; the narrative is often used to justify harsh local ordinances like Arizona’s draconian SB 1070.

The government’s preferred approach — which in the real world has been tried and proven to be a complete disaster — is to address the problem by demanding more and more law enforcement while otherwise maintaining an almost universally loathed status quo. The strategy is known as “enforcement-only.”

Full Story: The Right-Wing Hardliner Immigration Approach Would Create a Police State — Is That What Those Supposed Freedom Lovers Want? | Immigration | AlterNet.

How the Military Destroys the Lives of Soldiers Who Try to Tell the Truth

Bradley Manning is not the first military whistleblower to have his life ruined. The military is infamous for tring to silence soldiers who speak out against the war.

Last week, Representative Mike Rogers called for the execution of military whistleblower, Private Bradley Manning. His crime? Sharing the “Collateral Murder” video and the classified Afghanistan “war logs” with Wikileaks, which exposed the truth behind the failing war in Afghanistan, Pakistan’s cooperation with the Taliban, and potential war crimes. The 22-year-old Army intelligence analyst said he felt it was “important that it gets out…I feel, for some bizarre reason…it might actually change something.” He is currently in jail at Quantico, on suicide watch, and is facing up to 50 years in prison for exposing information the American public has the right to know.

“The government is engaging in selective prosecution to ensure that employees keep their mouths shut,” says Stephen Khon, a lawyer specializing in whistleblowing cases. “All of a sudden the whistleblower becomes public enemy number one. There is no proportionality.”

Full Story: How the Military Destroys the Lives of Soldiers Who Try to Tell the Truth | World | AlterNet.

Would Evidence for God Mean the End of Atheism and Christianity?

A complaint often voiced by scientific atheists is that there is simply no evidence for God and therefore belief in the old codger is thoroughly unjustified. Frightened witless by this snort, creationists (and I include intelligent design advocates here) scurry about frantically trying to provide just such evidence. But what would scientific evidence for God look like, and what implications would it hold?

The astronomer Fred Hoyle famously remarked that nothing shook his atheism quite like the apparent “fine tuning” of the cosmos for life. For Hoyle, the delicate balance of our universe’s physical constants vaguely approached what might be called evidence of God. Others have remained unimpressed by this “evidence.” They point out that if there are an infinite number of universes out there (as some cosmologists contend), then invariably some are going to have physical constants like ours — no divine fine tuning required. Of course, the faithful can always retort that God is the ultimate author of all these universes because God loves diversity. In the end, the physical constants might hint at something divine, but they are hardly convincing.

This little episode highlights the absurdity of treating God as a hypothesis. He’s impossible to pin down — as might be expected from someone whose job description includes being infinite and everywhere. But as a thought experiment, let’s set aside this little problem and assume that the scientific atheists and creationists are right and God can be treated as a hypothesis. If so, there ought to be conditions under which the hypothesis receives support, possibly even strong support. The ramifications of this are just too intriguing not to consider.

Full Story: Matt J. Rossano: Would Evidence for God Mean the End of Atheism and Christianity?.

Judge Who Owned Bonds In Gulf Oil Spill Companies, Will Handle Most Spill Lawsuits

A federal judge in New Orleans was picked Tuesday to preside over more than 300 lawsuits filed against BP PLC and other companies over the Gulf oil spill, in a move that should please many of the plaintiffs’ lawyers and their clients.

The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation’s order said 77 cases plus more than 200 potential “tag-along” actions will be transferred to U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier with his consent.

The judicial panel’s order says the federal court based in New Orleans is the best place for the litigation even though some attorneys had favored Houston, Miami, Gulfport, Miss., and other cities.

Full Story: Carl Barbier, Judge Who Owned Bonds In Gulf Oil Spill Companies, Will Handle Most Spill Lawsuits.

Prop. 23 Supporters Are Major Polluters

California’s Biggest Polluters Pushing To Repeal Global Warming Law

The Texas-based oil companies that are the primary backers of a November ballot effort to suspend California’s global warming law are among the state’s biggest polluters, according to a report issued Tuesday by two groups advocating for inner-city residents.

Valero Energy Corp. and Tesoro Corp. have contributed more than $4.5 million to Proposition 23, which seeks to suspend a 2006 law intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Their contributions represent nearly 75 percent of the funding for the initiative.

If voters approve the proposition, the global warming law would not take effect until unemployment falls to 5.5 percent and stays there for a year. That has happened just three times during the past three decades, according to California Employment Development Department statistics.

Full Story: Prop. 23 Supporters Are Major Polluters.

Newt Gingrich’s Ex-Wife Goes Public: Messy Relationship Life, Meltdowns, And 2012

A new Esquire profile of Newt Gingrich offers a rare glimpse into the personal life and political ambitions of the former House Speaker as he vies to make a comeback after resigning in disgrace over a decade ago.

Gingrich himself was interviewed for the feature story; however, some of the juiciest insight into the life of the prominent conservative voice comes from his ex-wife, Marianne Gingrich, whom he divorced in 2000.

“He asked me to marry him way too early,” she revealed. “And he wasn’t divorced yet [from his first wife Jackie Battley]. I should have known there was a problem.”

Full Story: Newt Gingrich’s Ex-Wife Goes Public: Messy Relationship Life, Meltdowns, And 2012.

Fairhaven, MA: Dead Fish Wash Ashore In Thousands, Lack Of Oxygen In Warm Waters To Blame (VIDEO)

On Monday, vacationing beach residents awoke to a foul smell when thousands of dead fish washed ashore on a small island on the east side of Fairhaven, Massachusetts, CNN reports.

Marine fisheries explained that the fish were killed due to a lack of oxygen caused by warm waters. All of the fish were Menhaden, which are especially sensitive to such changes, and they may have been dead for days prior to washing up on the beach.

WATCH:

Full Story: Fairhaven, MA: Dead Fish Wash Ashore In Thousands, Lack Of Oxygen In Warm Waters To Blame (VIDEO).

OPS: OR, was it the oil come up through the Loop Current?

Leslie Margolin, Former Blue Cross President, Speaks Out Against Insurance Giant’s Plan To Spike Rates

Leslie Margolin, who recently resigned as president of Anthem Blue Cross in California, is speaking out against a plan put forth by the health insurance company earlier this year to increase the cost of individual coverage plans by as much as 39 percent.

Margolin claims she urged the insurance giant to reconsider its intention to spike its rates and to explore alternative solutions to lower the cost of care, the Los Angeles Times reports.

“I thought the rates were too high,” explained the former Blue Cross president. “I thought the impact on our membership was too significant.”

Full Story: Leslie Margolin, Former Blue Cross President, Speaks Out Against Insurance Giant’s Plan To Spike Rates.

House Clears $26.1 Billion State-Aid Package, Dems Slam GOP Obstructionism

The House passed a bill Tuesday afternoon providing $26.1 billion to cash-strapped state governments, and preventing roughly 161,000 teachers and 158,000 public works employees from being laid off. The vote was 247-161.

President Obama has already signed the bill into law.

Democratic leadership has been under tremendous pressure to pass legislation before the start of the school year policy-wise, and before the November elections politics-wise.

“The frustration of course has been that the Republicans have a two-step strategy: First of all, obstruct anything from getting better, and then point out that things aren’t getting better,” said Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.). “I mean the bill that’s being passed today, if it were passed a month ago, we wouldn’t have had the job loss report last week and I think they’re fine with that.”

Technically, the bill provides $10 billion to fund education and $16 billion to fund Medicaid, but states have been expecting to get the federal assistance and a majority have already budgeted for it, meaning that if the funds were blocked, cuts would have to be made elsewhere — costing the jobs of firefighters, cops and other state employees. The House was already in recess last Thursday when the Senate passed the jobs bill. But lawmakers were more than willing to sacrifice a couple of days at home in their districts to get the bill passed, according to Frank who supports the bill.

Full Story: House Clears $26.1 Billion State-Aid Package, Dems Slam GOP Obstructionism.

Gingrich Reconciles Cheating On His Wife While Harping On Family Values: ‘It Doesn’t Matter What I Do’

In his recently published book and in speaking engagements, former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich repeatedly warns that President Obama’s “secular, socialist machine” is threatening to destroy America by undermining the Judeo-Christian “values” upon which the country was built. But while Gingrich chastises the supposed erosion of values on the left, his past is tainted by his own contemptible value judgments, including numerous extra-marital affairs, and pressuring a divorce from his first wife while she lay stricken with cancer in a hospital bed.

In a new Esquire profile, Gingrich’s second wife Marianne — whom he cheated on with his current wife, Callista — breaks her twelve year silence on her relationship with Gingrich to reveal a portrait of man who understood the deep hypocrisy of his actions, but simply didn’t care:

He asked her to just tolerate the affair, an offer she refused.

He’d just returned from Erie, Pennsylvania, where he’d given a speech full of high sentiments about compassion and family values.

The next night, they sat talking out on their back patio in Georgia. She said, “How do you give that speech and do what you’re doing?”

“It doesn’t matter what I do,” he answered. “People need to hear what I have to say. There’s no one els

Full Story: Think Progress » Gingrich Reconciles Cheating On His Wife While Harping On Family Values: ‘It Doesn’t Matter What I Do’.

When Asked How GOP Will Save Teacher Jobs, Pence Responds, ‘I Love Teachers!’

Moments ago, by a vote of 247-161, the House passed a bill to provide emergency funding for teachers and increased Medicaid payments to states that will also help prevent public sector layoffs. Even though the $26 billion bill is fully funded, most Republicans voted no. “Where do the bailouts end?” House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) said.

Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) picked up on that theme today on ABC’s Top Line, calling it a “massive state bailout.” When host Z. Byron Wolf asked what the GOP plan would be to help teachers who are about to lose their jobs — particularly the 3,600 in Indiana, Pence didn’t have much to offer:

PENCE: Well, look I’m married to a school teacher. My wife spent more than a decade in a public school classroom. So I love teachers! Teachers, firefighters, policemen are all Americans and they all know that the economic policies of bailouts and handouts have failed to create jobs.

Watch it:

Full Story: Think Progress » When Asked How GOP Will Save Teacher Jobs, Pence Responds, ‘I Love Teachers!’.

Fox analyst slams Republicans for forgetting their ‘oath to uphold the Constitution.’

Today, Fox News analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano slammed Republicans trying to change the 14th amendment to end birthright citizenship. When asked about the effort to change the amendment, Napolitano derided it as “nothing but political chatter.” He then went on to castigate the Republicans who are advocating for ending birthright citizenship, saying, “These people took an oath to uphold the Constitution whether they agree with it or not! All of it not part of it!”:

NAPOLITANO: The law has been upheld uniformly since 1868 and without exception. And we start with a couple of basics. The Congress cannot change the constitution of the 14th amendment on its own. It takes 2/3 of each house of Congress and 3/4 of the states to change the amendment. […] so this is nothing but political chatter by those who are concerned understandably by problems at the border. [...] I can’t imagine that there’d be a consensus to change the 14th amendment. [...]

HEMMER: But if the [Birthright Citizenship Act] were carried out, you had 100 co-sponsors about a year ago, it would require at least one parent to be a US citizen for a baby to become an american citizen at birth. If you were to enact the BCA as some refer to it, is that a way to get around the 14th amendment, and get done what people like John Cornyn, and John Kyl and John Mccain, and we heard John Boehner are trying to do.

Full Story: Think Progress » Fox analyst slams Republicans for forgetting their ‘oath to uphold the Constitution.’.

Just 25 Americans Died As A Result Of Terrorism Last Year — Less Than Traffic Accidents, The Flu, Or Dog Bites

One of the most common themes in post-9/11 politics is for public figures to campaign based on the public’s fear of terrorism. Candidates from across the political spectrum regularly point to “increased threats from terrorists at home and abroad” as the reason you should elect them so they can keep you safe.

While combating terrorism is important and a crucial part of the nation’s national security strategy, the State Department’s annual Country Reports On Terrorism, which was released late last week, shows that its importance as a leading topic of public concern may be overstated. McClatchy’s Warren P. Strobel notes that the State Department report finds that only 25 American civilians were killed by terrorism worldwide last year:

There were just 25 U.S. noncombatant fatalities from terrorism worldwide. (The US government definition of terrorism excludes attacks on U.S. military personnel). While we don’t have the figures at hand, undoubtedly more American citizens died overseas from traffic accidents or intestinal illnesses than from terrorism.

Full Story: Think Progress » Just 25 Americans Died As A Result Of Terrorism Last Year — Less Than Traffic Accidents, The Flu, Or Dog Bites.

OPS: so STOP the insanity

California Endures Another Summer of Pointless Marijuana Raids

For nearly 30 years, the Campaign Against Planting has waged a quixotic battle to eradicate California’s outdoor marijuana industry. It’s at it again this year.

For nearly 30 years, the Campaign Against Planting has waged a quixotic battle to eradicate California’s outdoor marijuana industry. It’s at it again this year.

It’s August in California, and that means the state’s multi-billion outdoor marijuana crop is ripening in the fields. It also means that the nearly 30-year-old effort to uproot those plants, the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting (CAMP), is once taking up its Sisyphean task of wiping out the crop. The choppers are flying, the SWAT teams are deploying, and the federal funds that largely feed CAMP are being burned through.

The raids are nearly a daily event in the Golden State at this time of year. CAMP spokesperson Michelle Gregory told the Chronicle Wednesday that the campaign had uprooted 2.27 million pot plants as of this week, slightly behind the 2.4 million uprooted by this time last year. Last year was a CAMP record, with 4.4 million plants seized by year’s end.

“It’s about the same this year,” said Gregory.

Full Story: California Endures Another Summer of Pointless Marijuana Raids | Drugs | AlterNet.

The U.S. Ploy to Promote Genetically Engineered Seeds and Pesticides to Poor Mexican Farmers Is Impoverishing Their Communities

The author takes a trip to Mexico to see the ‘green revolution’ firsthand — and what she finds is shocking.

The Obama administration’s Feed the Future initiative promises a second Green Revolution that will feed a planet of nine billion people by doubling crop yields by 2050. But considering that we produce enough food to feed the planet today and a billion people still go hungry, are yields really the problem? And if they are, are providing Green Revolution technologies like hybrid and genetically engineered seeds, chemical fertilizer and pesticides to subsistence farmers the best way to achieve them? I visited subsistence farmers in Mexico to find out.

The homes of campesinos, peasant farmers, in the rural areas surrounding Cuquio, Mexico (about an hour from Guadalajara) no longer have dirt floors. The Mexican government initiated a program to replace them with cement floors in 2008 and now most homes sport a plaque celebrating their new piso firmes. Electricity came about 20 years ago. For many, running water and bathroom facilities are modern conveniences they do not yet have. The government has recently distributed composting toilets to many, but not all, families.

Full Story: The U.S. Ploy to Promote Genetically Engineered Seeds and Pesticides to Poor Mexican Farmers Is Impoverishing Their Communities | Food | AlterNet.

US Navy Stunned: Deadly new Chinese Missiles can Sink Every US Supercarrier

A new ‘smart missile’ threatens to tip the balance of power towards China, US military analysts say.

The latest generation of the Dongfeng 21D (DF-21D) [Photo] is a supercarrier killer according to experts on China’s armaments. The missile can be launched from land and strike an aircraft carrier 900 miles away.

China has 11,200 miles of coastline. That fact coupled with the range and accuracy of the new missile could spell doom for any US or allied carrier fleet.

Patrick Cronin, a senior director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program that is part of the Washington, DC Center for a New American Security organization admits the DF 21D is designed to kill carriers–specifically US Naval carriers. “The Navy has long had to fear carrier–killing capabilities. The emerging Chinese anti-ship missile capability, and in particular the DF 21D, represents the first post–Cold War capability that is both potentially capable of stopping our naval power projection and deliberately designed for that purpose.”

The new Chinese military’s 96166 Unit will be outfitted with DF 21C medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBM) and possibly the DF-21D ASBM as well.

Full Story: OpEdNews – Article: US Navy Stunned: Deadly new Chinese Missiles can Sink Every US Supercarrier.

The Digital Surveillance State: Vast, Secret, and Dangerous

It is unsurprising that the 9/11 attack fostered a massive expansion of America’s already sprawling Surveillance State. But what is surprising, or at least far less understandable, is that this growth shows no signs of abating even as we approach almost a full decade of emotional and temporal distance from that event. The spate of knee-jerk legislative expansions in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 trauma — the USA-PATRIOT Act — has actually been exceeded by the expansions of the last several years — first secretly and lawlessly by the Bush administration, and then legislatively and out in the open once Democrats took over control of the Congress in 2006. Simply put, there is no surveillance power too intrusive or unaccountable for our political class provided the word “terrorism” is invoked to “justify” those powers.

The More-Surveillance-Is-Always-Better Mindset

Illustrating this More-Surveillance-is-Always-Better mindset is what happened after The New York Times revealed in December, 2005 that the Bush administration had ordered the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on American citizens without the warrants required by law and without any external oversight at all. Despite the fact that the 30-year-old FISA law made every such act of warrantless eavesdropping a felony, “punishable by a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more than five years, or both,” and despite the fact that all three federal judges who ruled on the program’s legality concluded that it was illegal, there was no accountability of any kind. The opposite is true: the telecom corporations which enabled and participated in this lawbreaking were immunized by a 2008 law supported by Barack Obama and enacted by the Democratic Congress. And that same Congress twice legalized the bulk of the warrantless eavesdropping powers which The New York Times had exposed: first with the 2007 Protect America Act, and then with the 2008 FISA Amendments Act, which, for good measure, even added new warrantless surveillance authorities.

Not even revelations of systematic abuse can retard the growth of the Surveillance State or even bring about some modest accountability. In 2007, the Justice Department’s own Inspector General issued a report documenting continuous abuses by the FBI of a variety of new surveillance powers vested by the Patriot Act, particularly the ability to obtain private, invasive records about Americans without the need for any judicial supervision (via so-called “National Security Letters” (NSLs). The following year, FBI Director Robert Mueller confirmed ongoing abuses subsequent to the time period covered by the initial IG report.

Full Story: Cato Unbound » Blog Archive » The Digital Surveillance State: Vast, Secret, and Dangerous.

More on Net Neutrality: Parsing Through Google and Verizon’s ‘Policy Announcement’

Last week, we touched upon the net neutrality issue to help explain and add context to the buzz around a forthcoming Google-Verizon deal. That “deal,” as you may have heard, was announced on Monday.

The first thing to note is that it’s not an actual deal. In much of last week’s reporting, the two companies’ talks were described as a nearing a “deal,” “an agreement,” or “an accord.”

Both Google and Verizon emphasized Monday that there is “no business arrangement” behind their announcement, according to The New York Times. Said Google CEO Eric Schmidt: “This is not a deal. This is a joint policy announcement.” (This perhaps explains why Schmidt also took a dig at the press, saying that “almost all” the reporting on the rumored deal was “completely wrong.” Of course, just because there’s not a deal now doesn’t mean there can’t or won’t be such deals down the line.)

Full Story: On The Hill: More on Net Neutrality: Parsing Through Google and Verizon’s ‘Policy Announcement’.

Rice yields falling under global warming

Global warming is cutting rice yields in many parts of Asia, according to research, with more declines to come.

Yields have fallen by 10-20% over the last 25 years in some locations.

The group of mainly US-based scientists studied records from 227 farms in six important rice-producing countries such as Thailand, Vietnam, India and China.

This is the latest in a line of studies to suggest that climate change will make it harder to feed the world’s growing population by cutting yields.

Full Story: BBC News – Rice yields falling under global warming.

Spinal-Fluid Test Is Found to Predict Alzheimer’s

Researchers report that a spinal fluid test can be 100 percent accurate in identifying patients with significant memory loss who are on their way to developing Alzheimer’s disease.

Although there has been increasing evidence of the value of this and other tests in finding signs of Alzheimer’s, the study, which will appear Tuesday in the Archives of Neurology, shows how accurate they can be. The new result is one of a number of remarkable recent findings about Alzheimer’s.

After decades when nothing much seemed to be happening, when this progressive brain disease seemed untreatable and when its diagnosis could be confirmed only at autopsy, the field has suddenly woken up.

Full Story: Spinal-Fluid Test Is Found to Predict Alzheimer’s – NYTimes.com.

Student Loan Debt Outpaces Credit Card Debt

Credit cards are no longer the largest source of debt for Americans — according to the Wall Street Journal, student loans have taken the crown.

The Journal reports:

Americans owe some $826.5 billion in revolving credit, according to June 2010 figures from the Federal Reserve. (Most of revolving credit is credit-card debt.) Student loans outstanding today — both federal and private — total some $829.785 billion, according to Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FinAid.org and FastWeb.com.

The change is due in part to Americans paying down credit card debt and increased credit card regulations, according to the Journal.

The Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, passed in March, promises to regulate the student loan industry by omitting private lenders in hopes of saving the government and the taxpayer money.

Still, many struggle under the weight of student loans — and there’s no easy out. As the San Francisco Chronicle reports, bankruptcy is not an automatic option:

Full Story: Student Loan Debt Outpaces Credit Card Debt.

GOP Demands 2-Month, Taxpayer-Funded Recess After Election

House Republicans are going forward with plans to introduce a resolution on Tuesday to prohibit the House of Representatives from assembling during the two-month period following the November elections.

A GOP leadership aide confirmed to the Huffington Post that the resolution, authored by Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) for the purposes of preventing Democrats from passing legislative items during the lame-duck session, would be introduced before the House passes additional Medicaid and teacher funding. The aide argued that comments on Sunday by Carol Browner, the White House’s top energy and environmental adviser, suggesting that energy legislation could be considered during the so-called lame duck period, proved that the resolution was pertinent.

And yet, Price’s resolution appears likely to produce nothing more than Kabuki theater — which that Democrats aren’t necessarily averse to enjoying. For starters, the procedural process by which the issue will play out appears pre-ordained. Because he is introducing a privileged resolution, Democrats can’t table Price’s gambit from the get-go. Rather, the chair is going to rule that it is “out of order.” Price will appeal the ruling, after which members will vote on the chair’s ruling (not the resolution itself).

The issue, at that point, will be resolved. The majority will side with the chair. The political drama around the lame-duck session will, undoubtedly, remain.

Full Story: GOP To Introduce Lame-Duck Prohibition Resolution, Citing Browner’s Remarks On Energy Bill.

Puberty Hits Girls As Young As 7

More girls are reaching puberty at a younger age, often as early as 7 or 8, according to a new study.

Published today in Pediatrics, the study links the alarming trend to rising levels of obesity and environmental chemicals found in everyday items– like water bottles and makeup– that mimic estrogen.

Dr. Frank Biro, lead author of the study and director of adolescent medicine at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, told the New York Times: “It’s certainly throwing up a warning flag… I think we need to think about the stuff we’re exposing our bodies to and the bodies of our kids.”

Full Story: Puberty Hits Girls As Young As 7.

FBI Lab’s Forensic Testing Backlog Traced To Controversial DNA Database

The pressure to feed results into a controversial, expansive DNA database has bogged down the FBI’s DNA lab so badly that there is now a two-year-and-growing backlog for forensic DNA testing needed to solve violent crimes and missing persons cases.

Civil libertarians call the database — which increasingly includes everyone convicted of every federal law, legally innocent people awaiting trial and non-citizens detained in the U.S. for any reason — unnecessary and unconstitutional.

And yet a review by the Department of Justice’s Inspector General released on Monday concludes that the need to analyze and upload some 96,973 or more DNA samples a year into that database is contributing to a backlog of forensic DNA cases that stood at 3,211 in March.

Full Story: FBI Lab’s Forensic Testing Backlog Traced To Controversial DNA Database.

8 Surprising Facts About The Shrinking Middle Class From ‘Third World America’

The American dream may in fact be slipping away. The white picket fence, Social Security, sending your children to college — what was once an attainable reality has become increasingly hard to achieve.

The harsh reality for today’s middle class is that many of them go to work just to get by. Arianna Huffington’s new book, “Third World America”, sheds light on many of the crucial ways in which it has been short-changed. From our failing education system to the runaway greed of the financial services sector, America’s middle class is facing on onslaught from all sides.

Below, we’ve compiled eight surprising and disturbing facts about America’s shrinking middle class from Arianna’s book

Full Story: 8 Surprising Facts About The Shrinking Middle Class From ‘Third World America’ (PHOTOS).

Google-Verizon Pact: It Gets Worse

Google-Verizon Announce Proposal To Create Tiered Internet

So Google and Verizon went public today with their “policy framework” — better known as the pact to end the Internet as we know it.

News of this deal broke this week, sparking a public outcry that’s seen hundreds of thousands of Internet users calling on Google to live up to its “Don’t Be Evil” pledge.

But cut through the platitudes the two companies (Googizon, anyone?) offered on today’s press call, and you’ll find this deal is even worse than advertised.

The proposal is one massive loophole that sets the stage for the corporate takeover of the Internet.

Real Net Neutrality means that Internet service providers can’t discriminate between different kinds of online content and applications. It guarantees a level playing field for all Web sites and Internet technologies. It’s what makes sure the next Google, out there in a garage somewhere, has just as good a chance as any giant corporate behemoth to find its audience and thrive online.

What Google and Verizon are proposing is fake Net Neutrality. You can read their framework for yourself here or go here to see Google twisting itself in knots about this suddenly “thorny issue.” But here are the basics of what the two companies are proposing:

Full Story: Craig Aaron: Google-Verizon Pact: It Gets Worse.

Angle Headlines Far-Right ‘Doctors Tea Party’ Event Attended By Fake Doctors

“The National Doctors Tea Party” drew several hundred protesters to a park in San Diego this Saturday, where activists clad in white lab coats protested the Affordable Care Act. As was the case at a recent tea party event in Philadelphia, turnout at the California event appeared to be lower than expected.

The protest was meant to showcase physicians’ opposition to “Obamacare,” and many activists present were “wearing white lab coats – implying that they were doctors.” But at least one man was not, telling the San Diego Union-Tribune that he borrowed a white lab coat for the protest, because the event’s website encouraged attendees to do so:

Craig Brown, a psychiatrist who lives in Del Mar, donned a white lab coat and wore a stethoscope around his neck as U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle of Nevada spoke against the health-care bill signed into law earlier this year.

Full Story: Think Progress » Angle Headlines Far-Right ‘Doctors Tea Party’ Event Attended By Fake Doctors.

Wealthy political newcomers spending tens of millions

From coast to coast, megawealthy candidates spend big to start political careers at the top

In the midst of one of the worst recessions in decades, a host of former corporate leaders are spending millions in their quest for elective office, using their personal wealth to push past the political machinery and their own lack of experience.

In California, billionaire former eBay chief executive Meg Whitman has bankrolled more than $91 million of the nearly $100 million her Republican quest for governor has cost so far. Her outsized spending has bought her some of the nation’s best-known GOP strategists and chartered planes offering “white glove service.” It’s also helped her target traditionally Democratic voters.

In Connecticut, footage of stage explosions and wrestlers flying through the air has filled the TV airwaves in ads for former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Linda McMahon, who has said she’s willing to spend up to $50 million of her own money in her bid to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd.

Full Story: Wealthy political newcomers are spending big | Raw Story.

Bush Treasury Secretary on allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire: ‘That’s okay.’

Bush Treasury Secretary on allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire: ‘That’s okay.’

Last month, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan — who was instrumental in advancing the Bush tax cuts — called for allowing the entire package of cuts to expire, saying “they should follow the law and let them lapse.” Yesterday, Paul O’Neill, who was Treasury Secretary when the Bush tax cuts were enacted, seemed to follow suit. On CNN’s GPS with Fareed Zakaria, O’Neill pointed out that “I was strongly opposed to the Bush tax cut that was enacted in 2003. It was one of the reasons I got fired.” He explained that he opposed the cuts because they were unaffordable, given the looming war with Iraq. When pushed by Zakaria about whether or not the cuts should expire, O’Neill said a full expiration is “okay,” while making the case that broader tax reform is really the issue:

I say let them — I don’t care, I honestly don’t care — but I do care whether the President takes the lead in saying ‘this is not the right issue, it’s off the table, they’re expired. You know, everybody is going to pay more in taxes.’ That’s okay…I don’t mind paying taxes.

Watch it: video at link

Full Story: Think Progress » Bush Treasury Secretary on allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire: ‘That’s okay.’.

The New Aristocrats of Finance Pose a Serious Threat to Our Democratic Way of Life

Across our political system, we have lost checks and balances. It’s time take back what’s ours.

Let’s face it, what a America needs is good clean fight. A fight that brings in everyone, redefines categories and alliances, cleanses our putrid politics, and establishes a healthy politics for the 21st century. At this point, there’s just no way around it. Our politics is so defiled, our economy so completely in the clutches of a rabidly greedy few, and our government wallows in incompetence to the point of criminality, that the only cure is for the American people in unison to stand up, take responsibility, and claim what is rightfully ours. History shows this is never done without a fight.

I’ve always hated the term “American exceptionalism”, more for how it was defined, than the concept itself. In the last decades, American exceptionalism has too often been defined as industrial capitalism, ribald consumerism, and militarism. But if we’ve learned anything in the last decades, these traits were easily transferred across the globe. However, what was not so easily transferred, and what historically is truly exceptional is this republic. In recorded history, the existence of republics, of self-government, has been the exception, and this republic with all its faults has indeed been exceptional. Here the masses of Europe, who for millenia tore each other apart, united under the banner of universal equality, intermixed, intermarried, and thrived. Over the centuries, fitfully and in small steps, and with still a ways to go, people from every other part of the world have slowly in some cases, and more rapidly in other, been brought into the mix.

Full Story: The New Aristocrats of Finance Pose a Serious Threat to Our Democratic Way of Life | Economy | AlterNet.

Religious Right Pushes Churches to Openly Defy the Law and Campaign for Tea Party and Other Conservative Candidates

As organizations that claim tax-exempt status, churches cannot directly intervene in elections. A religious right group is trying to change that.

When South Dakota gubernatorial hopeful Gordon Howie put out a call for pastors to endorse him from the pulpit, the Rev. H. Wayne Williams was quick to respond.

Williams, pastor of Liberty Baptist Tabernacle in Rapid City, endorsed the Republican candidate during a church service on May 16.

An ecstatic Howie, the self-professed “Tea Party” favorite, quickly issued a press release praising the action.

“Last week, Howie challenged South Dakota churches and their pastors to become more politically active in the stretch run to the June 8th primary election, urging pastors to endorse candidates and advocate specific issues from the pulpit,” read the Howie media statement. “Reverend H. Wayne Williams, Pastor of Liberty Baptist Tabernacle in Rapid City, became one of the first to accept the challenge, adding an official endorsement of Gordon Howie for Governor to a message delivered during his Sunday night services.”

Full Story: Religious Right Pushes Churches to Openly Defy the Law and Campaign for Tea Party and Other Conservative Candidates | Tea Party and the Right | AlterNet.

The Jobs Emergency

Robert Reich :

Washington’s latest answer to the worst jobs crisis since the Great Depression is $26 billion in aid to state and local governments. This still leaves the states and locales more than $62 billion in the hole this fiscal year. And because every state except Vermont has to balance its budget, the likely result is 600,000 to 700,000 more state and local jobs vanishing over the next 12 months (including private contractors and other businesses that depend on state and local governments) according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Say goodbye to even more of the teachers, firefighters, sanitary workers, and police officers we depend on.

In July alone, state and local employment dropped 48,000. Not counting temporary census workers, the federal government shed 11,000. So with private payrolls increasing a paltry 71,000, July’s overall increase in payrolls was just 12,000.

12,000 new jobs in July — when 125,000 are needed monthly just to keep up with population growth, when more than 15 million Americans are out of work, and when more than a half million more state and local jobs are on the chopping block.

Full Story: Robert Reich (The Jobs Emergency).

Solar panels and wind turbines to be installed on schools and hospitals

Solar panels could be fitted to the roof of every public building and wind turbines installed in hospital car parks under plans for local authorities to earn £100 million a year from generating green electricity.

Full Story: Solar panels and wind turbines to be installed on schools and hospitals – Telegraph.

NYT Uncovers ‘Hamburger’ Secret

Fatty slaughterhouse trimmings that previously could be used only for pet food or for making cooking oil are now being treated with an ammonia bath that produces a “pink slime” that is being used to make a treated product being sold as “hamburger” throughout the United States.

In a report that was difficult for some to read, the New York Times yesterday told the story of how a little known South Dakota company and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety & Inspection Service since 2001 have worked together to allow bacteria-killing ammonia to be used as a “processing agent” to make a mash that is allowed to be used in hamburger without labeling or public warnings.

Spokesmen for McDonald’s and Burger King told the Washington Post the fast food hamburger joints plan to keep using the “pink slime” sold by Dakota Dunes, SD-based Beef Products Inc.

Full Story: NYT Uncovers ‘Hamburger’ Secret.

Strip Unconstitutional Churches

More and more, Churches are violating the establishment clause in the First Amendment and the 501(c)(3) tax code, from which they derive their tax exempt status, by endorsing Republican candidates for public office. The Bush Regime simply ignored the complaints about this.

When South Dakota gubernatorial hopeful Gordon Howie put out a call for pastors to endorse him from the pulpit, the Rev. H. Wayne Williams was quick to respond.

Williams, pastor of Liberty Baptist Tabernacle in Rapid City, endorsed the Republican candidate during a church service on May 16.

An ecstatic Howie, the self-professed “Tea Party” favorite, quickly issued a press release praising the action.

“Last week, Howie challenged South Dakota churches and their pastors to become more politically active in the stretch run to the June 8th primary election, urging pastors to endorse candidates and advocate specific issues from the pulpit,” read the Howie media statement. “Reverend H. Wayne Williams, Pastor of Liberty Baptist Tabernacle in Rapid City, became one of the first to accept the challenge, adding an official endorsement of Gordon Howie for Governor to a message delivered during his Sunday night services.”

Full Story: Strip Unconstitutional Churches » Politics Plus.

America Goes Dark

Paul Krugman:

The lights are going out all over America — literally. Colorado Springs has made headlines with its desperate attempt to save money by turning off a third of its streetlights, but similar things are either happening or being contemplated across the nation, from Philadelphia to Fresno.

Meanwhile, a country that once amazed the world with its visionary investments in transportation, from the Erie Canal to the Interstate Highway System, is now in the process of unpaving itself: in a number of states, local governments are breaking up roads they can no longer afford to maintain, and returning them to gravel.

And a nation that once prized education — that was among the first to provide basic schooling to all its children — is now cutting back. Teachers are being laid off; programs are being canceled; in Hawaii, the school year itself is being drastically shortened. And all signs point to even more cuts ahead.

We’re told that we have no choice, that basic government functions — essential services that have been provided for generations — are no longer affordable. And it’s true that state and local governments, hit hard by the recession, are cash-strapped. But they wouldn’t be quite as cash-strapped if their politicians were willing to consider at least some tax increases.

Full Story: Op-Ed Columnist – America Goes Dark – NYTimes.com.

Deficit Frauds Boehner And Pence Can’t Answer How Tax Cuts For Wealthy Will Be Paid For

Today on NBC’s Meet the Press, House Republican leaders John Boehner (R-OH) and Mike Pence (R-IN) had a tough time answering host David Gregory’s questions about how they would pay for extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.

Gregory asked Boehner to respond to former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, who said last week that extending the tax cuts without offsets would be “disastrous” and that they do not pay for themselves. “The only way we’re going to get our economy going again…is to get the economy moving,” was all Boehner could muster in response. Gregory repeatedly pushed Boehner to answer how they would paid for, but the Minority Leader simply wouldn’t respond:

GREGORY: You’re not being responsive to a specific point which is how can you be for cutting the deficit and also cutting taxes as well when they’re not paid for?

BOEHNER: Listen, you can’t raise taxes in the middle of a weak economy. […]

GREGORY: But tax cuts are not paid for is that correct?

Full Story: Think Progress » Deficit Frauds Boehner And Pence Can’t Answer How Tax Cuts For Wealthy Will Be Paid For.

War on drugs: why the US and Latin America could be ready to end a fruitless 40-year struggle

Mexico’s president Felipe Caldéron is the latest Latin leader to call for a debate on drugs legalisation. And in the US, liberals and right-wing libertarians are pressing for an end to prohibition. Forty years after President Nixon launched the ‘war on drugs’ there is a growing momentum to abandon the fight

The birthday fiesta was in full swing at 1.30am when five SUVs pulled up outside the house. Figures spilled from the vehicles and ran towards the lights. They burst into the house and levelled AK-47s. “Kill them all!” A shouted instruction, only three words, and the slaughter began.

Gunfire and screams drowned the music. Some victims were cut down immediately, others were caught as they tried to escape. By the time the killers left there were 17 corpses, 18 wounded and 200 shell casings. Among the dead was the birthday guest of honour, a man local media named only as Mota, Mexican slang for marijuana.

The atrocity last month in Torreón, an industrial city in the northern state of Coahuila, came amid headlines shocking even by the standards of Mexico‘s drug war. A sophisticated car bomb of a type never before seen in the country; a popular gubernatorial candidate gunned down in the highest-level political murder; and then last week the release of official figures putting the number of drug war-related murders at 28,000.

Full Story: War on drugs: why the US and Latin America could be ready to end a fruitless 40-year struggle | World news | The Observer.

Meningitis Vaccine Hope After Genetics Breakthrough Identifies Genes Which Cause Infection | UK News | Sky News

Doctors have discovered a possible breakthrough in finding a vaccine for the deadliest strain of meningitis.

They have identified certain human genes which are behind the infection – and these could lead to vital clues on how best to treat it.

Genetic factors behind the deaths of children struck down by meningitis have been identified for the first time.

Currently there is no vaccine for the Group B strain which each year claims thousands of live around the world.

Scientists scoured the genetic codes of more than 6,000 people for clues to why certain individuals are more vulnerable to attacks by meningococcal meningitis than others.

Full Story: Meningitis Vaccine Hope After Genetics Breakthrough Identifies Genes Which Cause Infection | UK News | Sky News.

Nearly One Quarter Of Mortgage Borrowers Owe More Than Their Home Is Worth

The Worrying Numbers Behind Underwater Homeowners

By the end of the first quarter of 2010, the number of mortgaged residential properties with negative equity had declined slightly to 11.2 million, down from 11.3 million at the end of 2009, according to a report issued by real estate analytics firm CoreLogic.

The bad news: Those 11.2 million loans make up roughly 24% of all U.S. mortgages. Add the 2.3 million borrowers who are close to slipping underwater (those with less than 5% equity), and the numbers rise to 13.5 million — 28% of mortgages.

This aligns with other industry estimates. Earlier this year, Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com, estimated that roughly 15 million American homeowners owe the bank more than their home is worth

Full Story: Real Estate: The Worrying Numbers Behind Underwater Homeowners – DailyFinance.

Minerals Service Had a Mandate to Produce Results

On March 5, 1997, an obscure federal official with a puckish grin entered a hotel ballroom here and greeted 1,000 jittery oilmen on what would prove a landmark day.

For years, fading interest in the Gulf of Mexico had punished the local economy and left Louisiana to mourn its “Dead Sea.” Now, rising oil prices and new technology were setting off the deep-water version of a gold rush. Interest in drilling ran so high that the official, Chris Oynes, was heading into the annual lease auction with a record number of sealed bids.

In giddier times before the bust, his predecessor presided over the auction in a jaunty red blazer, but Mr. Oynes was far too conservative for that. Or so everyone thought — until he opened his briefcase and brought down the house with a size 46 scarlet jacket, an omen of the coming deep-water boom.

Full Story: Minerals Service Had a Mandate to Produce Results – NYTimes.com.

Kimmel: Uncle Frank points out that when Palin attacks Obama she’s projecting HER FAULTS onto him

Jimmy Kimmel Live – Uncle Frank Mad Libs Sarah Palin

SUBPRIME ‘MATING DANCE’: Fannie Mae And Freddie Mac’s Role In The Financial Crisis

Freddie, Fannie and the Third Rail of Housing Policy

WHILE Congress toiled on the financial overhaul last spring, precious little was said about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage finance companies that collapsed spectacularly two years ago.

Indeed, these wards of the state got just two mentions in the 1,500-page law known as Dodd-Frank: first, when it ordered the Treasury to produce a study on ending the taxpayer-owned status of the companies and, second, in a “sense of the Congress” passage stating that efforts to improve the nation’s mortgage credit system “would be incomplete without enactment of meaningful structural reforms” of Fannie and Freddie.

No kidding.

Full Story: Fair Game – Freddie, Fannie and the Third Rail of Housing Policy – NYTimes.com.

The End of Times: Do Scientists and Fundamentalists Concur?

You might think that scientists and Evangelicals have nothing in common. But you’d be wrong. Large numbers of both agree on one thing: the end is near.

A few years back, Sir Martin Rees, Britain’s Royal Astronomer, published a book titled Our Final Century, in which he put the odds of human survival through this century at no better than 50-50. Now, biologist Frank Fenner, who played a key role in ending the scourge of smallpox, says the end is certain.

Surveying the carnage humanity has inflicted on the ecosphere, the 95-year-old Australian scientist says nothing can change our fate now. “It’s an irreversible situation,” he’s quoted as telling the press. “I think it’s too late.”

Many of the best-informed scientists agree that we have left it too late to prevent anthropogenic climate change from bringing on a global catastrophe. Whether this results in actual extinction or merely the ruin of civilization is a matter they are still debating.

Full Story: Clay Farris Naff: The End of Times: Do Scientists and Fundamentalists Concur?.