Archive for October, 2010
Ann Coulter to Face Vote on Voter Fraud Charges in CT by State Elections Enforcement Commission
Will Ann Coulter finally be held accountable for having committed voter fraud? We may find out on October 14th when the matter will come up at a public hearing by Connecticut’s State Elections Commission after an extraordinarily long two-year delay since the complaints about her allegedly illegal absentee votes in 2002 and 2004 were filed.
As The BRAD BLOG spent years documenting beyond a shadow of a doubt concerning her voter registration fraud and voter fraud in a different state, Florida, Ann Coulter committed third degree felony voter registration fraud, along with a first degree voter fraud misdemeanor, when she lied about her residency and then knowingly voted at the wrong polling place in Palm Beach County, FL in 2005.
Years of lying to the media, as well as election and law enforcement officials, and a last minute inappropriate intervention by a former boyfriend in the FBI, helped run out the clock on those charges. Her offenses in the Sunshine State were eventually found to be beyond the statute of limitations by the Florida State Election Commission (FSEC). The stalling by other friendly Florida agencies took so long that the FSEC didn’t receive the case until years after it had been originally reported to law enforcement by the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections. So she got off the hook and was never held accountable for easily documented crimes in Florida. [After years of reporting that part of the story in pieces as it developed, we told the entire sordid tale in one fell swoop in Hustler magazine. That April 2008 exposé can be read in full here.]
Full Story: The BRAD BLOG : Ann Coulter to Face Vote on Voter Fraud Charges in CT by State Elections Enforcement Commission.
There’s class war, and rich are winning
A University of Chicago law professor created a firestorm of controversy last month when he blogged that he and his wife are barely making ends meet with their $250,000-plus combined salaries.
Professor Todd Henderson was protesting President Obama’s plan to let the George W. Bush tax cuts on income above $250,000 per couple expire at the end of the year while extending the cuts for everyone below that threshold.
Needless to say, the good professor didn’t get much sympathy. As well he shouldn’t.
The couple live in a nice house, send their kids to private schools, employ a nanny and a lawn caretaker plus have compiled a sizable retirement account. Lots of folks — 97 percent of American taxpayers, in fact — would love to be in that position and most probably wouldn’t mind paying the tax rate they were paying back in 2000 before the Supreme Court made George W. Bush the president.
Full Story: Plain Talk: There’s class war, and rich are winning.
Two-Thirds Of Americans Support Raising Minimum Wage: Poll
Two-thirds of Americans support raising the minimum wage to at least $10 an hour, according to a new poll. The federal minimum wage rose in 2009 to $7.25, which amounts to about $15,000 a year.
“This poll is yet another affirmation that maintaining a strong minimum wage is a core American value,” said National Employment Law Project director Christine Owens in a statement. “Americans overwhelmingly support a minimum wage rate that will help working families make ends meet and provide the boost the economy needs for full recovery.”
The survey, conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute to plumb American attitudes on religion, values, and politics, found that 67 percent of respondents favor hiking the minimum wage to $10 an hour. Even a majority of Republicans — 51 percent — favor the higher minimum wage. But among people who identified themselves as belonging to the Tea Party, 50 percent oppose raising the minimum wage and only 47 percent favor doing so.
Full Story: Two-Thirds Of Americans Support Raising Minimum Wage: Poll.
Banks Breaking Into Occupied Homes In Foreclosure To Change Locks
In their zeal to complete foreclosure proceedings, some banks send representatives to change the locks on properties in foreclosure, even as they remain occupied. The incidents of lock-changing pile further skepticism on a process recently plagued by scandal.
A contractor for JPMorgan Chase changed the front door lock on a woman’s home in Orange County, Florida, as she hid out of fear in her bathroom, Eyewitness News reports. The woman, Nancy Jacobini, was reportedly three months behind on her mortgage and her home was reportedly in foreclosure, but, according to Eyewitness News, the bank isn’t legally allowed to change the locks on an occupied home.
The lock-changing strategy is intended to protect a property’s value, since owners experiencing foreclosure often abandon their homes, leaving them vulnerable, notes Sarasota’s Herald Tribune. To Jacobini, the bank representative seemed like an intruder, and she called the police.
“I’m locked in my bathroom,” she said on a 911 call. “Somebody broke into my house!”
WATCH: Jacobini and attorney appear on Dylan Ratigan
Full Story: Banks Breaking Into Occupied Homes In Foreclosure To Change Locks.
Christian group pulls support for event challenging homosexuality
A national Christian organization will stop sponsoring an annual event that encourages school students to “counter the promotion of homosexual behavior” because the event has become too divisive and confrontational, the group’s president told CNN on Wednesday.
“All the recent attention to bullying helped us realize that we need to equip kids to live out biblical tolerance and grace while treating their neighbors as they’d like to be treated, whether they agree with them or not,” said Alan Chambers, President of Exodus International, the group that sponsored the event this year.
Called the Day of Truth, the annual April event has been pushed by influential conservative Christian groups as a way to counter to the annual Day of Silence, an event promoted by gay rights advocates to highlight threats against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students.
Full Story: Christian group pulls support for event challenging homosexuality – CNN Belief Blog – CNN.com Blogs.
FBI Director Pushes To Expand Telecom Wiretap Laws
FBI Director Robert Mueller on Wednesday called for changes in federal law to help his agents with surveillance of communications in anti-terrorism and other criminal investigations.
At a conference of intelligence experts, Mueller said that in some instances communications companies are unable to provide electronic communications the FBI seeks in response to court orders.
His comments came as the Obama administration considers proposals that would require service providers to make the plain text of encrypted conversations – over the phone, computer or e-mail – readily available to law enforcement.
Full Story: FBI Director Pushes To Expand Telecom Wiretap Laws.
Ohio Attorney General Sues Ally Financial Over Alleged Foreclosure Fraud, First In A Possible Wave Of Lawsuits
Ohio’s attorney general is suing Ally Financial Inc. and its GMAC Mortgage division, alleging the company violated state fraud laws in handling foreclosure cases.
The action could be the first in a wave of lawsuits by state regulators over what appear to be widespread problems in documents used by the nation’s largest mortgage lenders.
Attorney General Richard Cordray said Wednesday the alleged fraud could involve hundreds of foreclosures in the state. The lawsuit claims the company’s employees signed and filed false affidavits to mislead courts. Cordray called the alleged fraud the “tip of an iceberg of industrywide abuse of the foreclosure process.”
A message left at Ally was not immediately returned.
“It certainly seems likely that other states will follow,” said Diane Thompson, counsel at the National Consumer Law Center.
Full Story: Ohio Attorney General Sues Ally Financial Over Alleged Foreclosure Fraud, First In A Possible Wave Of Lawsuits.
Obama ally briefly claims White House traded away public option to insurers, hospitals
A close ally of President Barack Obama admitted Tuesday – before retracting the claim – that the White House negotiated away the public option to win over the support of insurers and hospitals early in last year’s health care debate.
“It was taken off the table as a result of the understanding that people had with the hospital association, with the insurance (AHIP), and others,” former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) told Igor Volsky of Think Progress.
Daschle, who nearly became the Obama administration’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, first alluded to the assertion in his new book “Getting It Done.” He wrote that the White House gave up the public option in July of 2009 out of a believed necessity to placate health industry groups and thus neutralize its opposition.
Full Story: Obama ally briefly claims White House traded away public option to insurers, hospitals | Raw Story.
Professor pulls off ‘epic hack’ of voting system
The District of Columbia’s plan to use a previously untried internet voting system for absentee ballots cast overseas has been raising red flags for a while. But now the ability of a team of computer experts to easily take over the system and reprogram it to play the University of Michigan fight song whenever a vote is cast has caused the whole scheme to be called off.
As blogger Brad Friedman reported on Monday, “The very short planned pre-election test phase, in which hackers were invited to try to manipulate the system, has been abruptly aborted in the wake of a, um, disturbing (if not wholly unpredictable) development,”
By the next day, Friedman had confirmed that “J. Alex Halderman, asst. professor of electronic engineering and computer science at the [University of Michigan], was, indeed, at the heart of the hack.”
Full Story: Professor pulls off ‘epic hack’ of voting system | Raw Story.
International firefighters group slams fee as ‘pay to play’ | Raw Story
Requiring residents outside of city limits to pay a $75 fee for fire protection is an ill-advised and unsafe policy, according to the International Association of Fire Fighters.
On September 29th, the South Fulton Fire Department in Tennessee refused to extinguish a fire ignited at the house of Gene Cranick. Because Cranick’s home is in a rural area outside of city limits, he is required to pay a fee to the city for protection, but claims he forgot to pay.
Although no members of the Cranick family were harmed during the fire, three dogs and a cat perished. The house was left to burn to the ground, but the fire department protected their neighbors, who had paid the fee.
Full Story: International firefighters group slams fee as ‘pay to play’ | Raw Story.
‘Largest ever’ FBI corruption probe nets 133 cops, officials
The suspects face charges relating to possessing and distributing cocaine, and using firearms during a drug trafficking offense, the US Department of Justice said in a statement.
The arrests “are the result of Operation Guard Shack, the largest police corruption investigation in the history of the FBI,” the statement read.
Full Story: ‘Largest ever’ FBI corruption probe nets 133 cops, officials | Raw Story.
Alito’s ‘Not True’ Retort Was Not True
When President Obama warned in last January’s State of the Union address that the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision “will open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our election,” right-wing Justice Samuel Alito infamously mouthed the words, “Not True.” Watch it:
Yet we now know that Alito’s remark was, well, “not true.” As Lee Fang reported yesterday on ThinkProgress, the Chamber of Commerce raises hundreds of thousands of dollars from foreign corporations every year, and then funnels that money into “the Chamber’s 501(c)(6) account which is the vehicle for the attack ads.”
The Chamber has issued a series of weak denials of Fang’s reporting, alleging that they “have a system” to ensure that money donated by BP or other foreign corporations does not directly fund attack ads, but they provide no details on this elusive system. Referencing ThinkProgress’ work, the New York Times points out in a well-written editorial today that the Chamber has lobbied hard to maintain the cloud of secrecy over it corporate electioneering:
Full Story: Think Progress » Alito’s ‘Not True’ Retort Was Not True.
OPS: Alito is either an idiot or a lying Fascist. You be the judge.
VIDEO: Asked About The Chamber’s Foreign Funding And Ad Campaign, Roy Blunt Cuts And Runs
Yesterday, ThinkProgress reported an exclusive story on how the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — the big business lobbying juggernaut running an unprecedented $75 million dollar attack campaign against Democrats in midterms this year — is actively fundraising from foreign corporations and foreign nationals, and depositing the money in the same 501(c)(6) account used to run its campaign advertisements. Dues from foreign corporations have flowed into the Chamber’s coffers, including from government-run companies like the State Bank of India and the Bahrain Petroleum Company. ThinkProgress has reported at least $300,000 in foreign money to the Chamber from Bahrain and India alone.
Following ThinkProgress’ report, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) wrote to the FEC — a federal agency that has ironically “been rendered toothless by its Republican members” — asking it to launch an investigation and to insist that foreign companies prove whether their funds had been used in campaign activities. Today, outside of a fundraiser for Nevada’s GOP U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle at the National Republican Campaign Committee, ThinkProgress asked Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO), a candidate for U.S. Senate in Missouri, if he would comment on the story. After hearing the question, Blunt quickly turned and began walking away briskly towards the Union Station building. He initially simply ignored the question, then took out his phone and pressed it against his face. Eventually, Blunt replied, “I have no idea what you’re talking about” and told ThinkProgress to “talk to the Chamber”:
Full Story: Think Progress » VIDEO: Asked About The Chamber’s Foreign Funding And Ad Campaign, Roy Blunt Cuts And Runs.
Conservative GOP Senator Johnny Isakson: Reducing The Deficit ‘Begins With The Department Of Defense’
Recently, Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA) — who had a 96 percent rating from the American Conservative Union in 2009 — sat down with Fox 5 Atlanta to talk about the upcoming election and a variety of policy issues, including his view that the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans should be extended.
At one point, Fox 5’s Paul Yates asked the senator about legislation he’s pushing that would “dramatically reduce the federal budget deficit in coming years.” Yates asked Isakson which “government programs would have to be cut to make that proposal work.” Isakson responded that “there’s not a government program that shouldn’t be under scrutiny. And that begins with the Department of Defense and goes all the way through:”
OPS: Holy Crap! A Republican shows us a moment of sanity?!
Inconvenient Facts That The Chamber Hasn’t Refuted
The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent reports that the Chamber of Commerce has issued yet another response to our story – at least the fifth different statement it has offered since we first reported yesterday morning on their foreign sources of funding. The Chamber’s latest effort is to engage in personal name-calling, referring to ThinkProgress as “a George Soros-funded, anti-business blog” that is “deceitful.” This smoke-and-mirrors response serves to obfuscate the basic facts which ThinkProgress revealed:
1) The Chamber acknowledges that it receives foreign sources of funding.
2) The foreign funds go directly into the Chamber’s general 501(c)(6) entity.
3) At least $300,000 has been channeled from foreign companies in India and Bahrain to the account.
4) The foreign sources include foreign state-owned companies, including the State Bank of India and the Bahrain Petroleum Company.
5) The Chamber’s 501(c)(6) entity is used to launch an unprecedented $75 million partisan attack ad campaign against Democrats.
Full Story: Think Progress » Inconvenient Facts That The Chamber Hasn’t Refuted.
Conservatives want to “take back” what was never theirs in the first place
Joseph Farah, the editor of the right wing news site, Worldnet Daily is organizing a conservative event in Miami called “Taking Back America”.
The very name of the event reveals the myopic, absurd, and un-American neo- fascistic mentality of backward thinking conservatives. They think America “belongs” to them. But even more absurd is their gross ignorance of American history and the founding of the country since these are people who want to “take back” something that was never theirs in the first place. In fact everything America is from 1776 to now had to overcome conservatives standing in the way, from the Tories of the Revolution to George Wallace standing in the schoolhouse door to prevent black children from going to “white” schools.
Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence ( for those conservatives going to school in Texas) called the United States at its inception, a “liberal Democracy”.
Not a “conservative Democracy” but liberal.
Full Story: Tom In Paine: Conservatives want to “take back” what was never theirs in the first place.
U.S. Military Orders Less Dependence on Fossil Fuels
With insurgents increasingly attacking the American fuel supply convoys that lumber across the Khyber Pass into Afghanistan, the military is pushing aggressively to develop, test and deploy renewable energy to decrease its need to transport fossil fuels.
Last week, a Marine company from California arrived in the rugged outback of Helmand Province bearing novel equipment: portable solar panels that fold up into boxes; energy-conserving lights; solar tent shields that provide shade and electricity; solar chargers for computers and communications equipment.
The 150 Marines of Company I, Third Battalion, Fifth Marines, will be the first to take renewable technology into a battle zone, where the new equipment will replace diesel and kerosene-based fuels that would ordinarily generate power to run their encampment.
Full Story: U.S. Military Orders Less Dependence on Fossil Fuels – NYTimes.com.
Jewish settlers replace Korans burnt in West Bank
Jewish settlers on Tuesday gave new copies of the Koran to Palestinians in a West Bank village whose mosque was burnt in an attack blamed by Palestinians on militants in the settler movement.
Several copies of Islam’s holy book were scorched in the arson attack and threats in Hebrew were scrawled on the wall of the mosque of Beit Fajjar early on Monday.
The village sits on the edge of the sprawling Jewish settlement bloc of Gush Etzion.
Suspicion immediately fell on settler militants opposed to a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, in which some settlements would be turned over to a Palestinian state.
Full Story: Jewish settlers replace Korans burnt in West Bank | Stuff.co.nz.
Poll: Nearly Half of Tea Baggers Are Christian Extremists
A year ago, the Republicans who astroturfed the tea party phenomenon were adamant that it was a secular “movement” focused on fiscal issues and not on the culture wars. At that point, there was disaffection between the party and its extremist base. The GOP brand had been damaged by the incessant bigotry and invective streaming from the religious right, while the evangelicals and others were disappointed that the GOP had made so little progress on its issues — restricting the right to abortion and the civil rights of gays, for example — during the 12 years it controlled Congress and the eight years of the Bush presidency.
Lately, however, the tea party candidates have been backing away from fiscal issues, the specifics of which are political nonstarters — and trotting out old “culture war” issues from the 1990s. Top Senate tea bagger Jim Demint of South Carolina recently revived his call for banning from the teaching profession women (but not men) who have premarital sex and gays. Five of the tea baggers running for Senate — Sharron Angle of Nevada, Ken Buck of Colorado, Joe Miller of Alaska, Christine O’Donnell of Delaware and Rand Paul of Kentucky — advocate using the government to force women to have babies, even when the father is the woman’s rapist or a family member.
It’s not surprising then that this new poll from the Public Religion Research Institute finds that nearly h
Full Story: Pensito Review » Poll: Nearly Half of Tea Baggers Are Christian Extremists.
Clean and Open American Elections
Editorial — NYTimes:
For at least 44 years, it has been illegal for foreign corporations, countries and individuals to make political contributions in the United States for any election, either directly or indirectly. It is even against the law to solicit such contributions. But in this Wild West year of political money, that longstanding ban is being set aside. The United States Chamber of Commerce — one of the biggest advertisers in midterm races around the country — is actively soliciting foreign money, and government enforcers seem to be doing nothing to stop it.
According to a report issued Tuesday by the Center for American Progress, a liberal policy group in Washington, the chamber is getting “dues” payments of tens of thousands of dollars from foreign companies in countries such as Bahrain, India and Egypt, and then mingling the money with its fund to advocate for or against candidates in the midterm races.
The chamber firmly denies the charge, saying its internal accounting rules prevent any foreign money from being used for political purposes. Money, however, is fungible, and it is impossible for an outsider to know whether the group is following its rules.
The chamber has vowed to spend more than $75 million before the November election, and it has already run 8,000 ads, most of which support Republican candidates. The ads do not urge a vote for or against a specific candidate, but when they accuse Senator Barbara Boxer of California of “destroying jobs,” or call Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut “the worst attorney general in the nation,” no one can mistake the intent. (The two candidates, both Democrats, are in tight Senate races.)
Full Story: Editorial – Clean and Open American Elections – NYTimes.com.
Credit for the Recovery
EVERY time the United States suffers a recession, trendspotters hasten to identify signs of frugality, extol the rediscovery of thrift and find evidence that Americans are finally (finally!) kicking their demon debt habit. We crack open history books to locate the anti-debt impulse in pre-revolutionary America and troll through quotation collections for ammunition. I’ve been around long enough to go through this exercise twice — first in the early 1990s and then in 2001 after the dot-com bust. Here we go again.
Since the comprehensive, economy-wide debt bubble of the aughts burst spectacularly in September 2008, Americans, we are told, have rediscovered their inner skinflint. Indeed, the savings rate, which fell into negative territory in 2005 at the height of the boom, bounced back strongly. Through 2009 and thus far in 2010, Americans have been setting aside 5 percent to 7 percent of disposable income as savings. Web sites like couponmom.com and Groupon have attracted millions of penny-pinching users.
Full Story: Op-Ed Contributor – Credit for the Recovery – NYTimes.com.
Exclusive: Foreign-Funded ‘U.S.’ Chamber Of Commerce Running Partisan Attack Ads
The largest attack campaign against Democrats this fall is being waged by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a trade association organized as a 501(c)(6) that can raise and spend unlimited funds without ever disclosing any of its donors. The Chamber has promised to spend an unprecedented $75 million to defeat candidates like Jack Conway, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Jerry Brown, Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA), and Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA). As of Sept. 15th, the Chamber had aired more than 8,000 ads on behalf of GOP Senate candidates alone, according to a study from the Wesleyan Media Project. The Chamber’s spending has dwarfed every other issue group and most political party candidate committee spending. A ThinkProgress investigation has found that the Chamber funds its political attack campaign out of its general account, which solicits foreign funding. And while the Chamber will likely assert it has internal controls, foreign money is fungible, permitting the Chamber to run its unprecedented attack campaign. According to legal experts consulted by ThinkProgress, the Chamber is likely skirting longstanding campaign finance law that bans the involvement of foreign corporations in American elections.
In recent years, the Chamber has become very aggressive with its fundraising, opening offices abroad and helping to found foreign chapters (known as Business Councils or “AmChams”). While many of these foreign operations include American businesses with interests overseas, the Chamber has also spearheaded an effort to raise money from foreign corporations, including ones controlled by foreign governments. These foreign members of the Chamber send money either directly to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, or the foreign members fund their local Chamber, which in turn, transfers dues payments back to the Chamber’s H Street office in Washington DC. These funds are commingled to the Chamber’s 501(c)(6) account which is the vehicle for the attack ads:
Full Story: Think Progress » Exclusive: Foreign-Funded ‘U.S.’ Chamber Of Commerce Running Partisan Attack Ads.
Wall Street’s Global Race to the Bottom
Robert Reich:
Wonder what’s happening with bank reform? Watch your wallets.
Having created giant loopholes in the Dodd-Frank law recently passed by Congress (keeping “customized” derivatives underground, for example), fighting off attempts to cap the size of the biggest banks, and keeping capital requirements relatively modest, Wall Street is now busily whittling back the rest through regulations.
Squadrons of lawyers and lobbyists are now pressing the Treasury, Comptroller of the Currency, SEC, and the Fed to go even easier on the Street.
Full Story: Robert Reich (Wall Street’s Global Race to the Bottom).
MoveOn Asks DoJ To Launch Criminal Investigation Of Chamber’s Funding
The Democratic Party’s infrastructure responded with noticeable alarm on Tuesday to a report that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce may be funding its political efforts with foreign donations.
The story, broken by the liberal blog Think Progress, contained all the elements of a compelling election story — a pro-business lobby, operating largely in the dark, supporting conservative, free-trade candidates with money that may be culled from international corporations. Somewhat lost in the discussion (though quite evident in the Think Progress report) was the possibility that the Chamber’s actions pushed the legal limits for acceptable electioneering.
On Tuesday afternoon, the progressive advocacy group MoveOn.org honed in on that element of the report, sending a letter to the Department of Justice’s Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, urging him and the criminal division to launch an investigation into the matter.
Full Story: MoveOn Asks DoJ To Launch Criminal Investigation Of Chamber’s Funding.
Poll: Majority Of Voters More Likely To Back Candidates Who Supported Health Care Reform
A new survey by the Public Religion Research Institute (PPRI) bucks the conventional wisdom that voters are overwhelmingly mad about health care reform and that candidates who embrace it on the campaign trail are putting themselves at risk.
Fifty-four percent of voters say they would be more likely to back a candidate who supported health care reform, according to the poll. That number includes 51 percent of independents and 79 percent of Democratic voters. Fifty-nine percent of Republican voters, however, say they would be less likely to vote for a candidate who supported the legislation.
“This isn’t a shock to anyone who’s actually been on the ground, in the 50 states, organizing,” said Arshad Hasan, executive director of Democracy for America, which provides grassroots support to progressive candidates. “We’ve been shouting this from the rooftops all year, and this data backs it up. Most people are tired of being ripped off by big insurance companies and were hungry for reform. That’s why President Obama ran on health care as an issue, and that’s why Democrats should stand by it now. If anything, people are upset that reform wasn’t stronger.”
A recent Kaiser Family Foundation Health Tracking poll also found that 49 percent of the public has a “generally favorable” view of the Affordable Care Act, and 40 percent have an unfavorable view.
Full Story: Poll: Majority Of Voters More Likely To Back Candidates Who Supported Health Care Reform.
‘Likely’ Voters: How Pollsters Define And Choose Them
We have seen the “likely voter” polling problem rear its head several times in recent weeks, but few examples have been as vivid as three national surveys released in the last 24 hours.
First, Rasmussen Reports released their latest weekly automated survey of likely voters, which shows Republicans leading by a narrow 3-point margin (45% to 42%) on the question of which party’s House candidate voters prefer in their own district. A few hours later, Gallup published two sets of results, each based on slightly different applications of its classic likely voter model. These showed Republicans winning the generic by huge margins of either 13 points (53% to 40%) or 18 points (56% to 38%), depending on the assumptions they made about the level of turnout. Meanwhile, a new survey out this morning from ABC News and The Washington Post put the Republican margin on the generic House ballot question at 6 points (49% to 43%).
Needless to say, those numbers can’t all be right. The enormous variation has left a lot of reporters and readers emailing to ask, just how do pollsters identify a likely voter? More important, does anyone know what the heck a likely voter is anymore?
That question is arguably the most important polling story of the year. The answer is not obvious, but the basic issue is simple. There were roughly 213 million eligible adults in 2008, but only about 68% of those adults told the U.S. Census that they were registered to vote and only 62% turned out to vote (up from 60% in 2004). More important, turnout is typically much lower in midterm elections. The turnout among eligible adults was 40% in both 2006 and 2002.
So conceptually, this is a simple problem: It doesn’t make sense to interview a sample that represents all registered voters, when somewhere between a third and half of those who say they are registered voters will not vote.
Full Story: ‘Likely’ Voters: How Pollsters Define And Choose Them.
Trumka: Primarying Lincoln Was ‘Priceless’, Dems Will Realize Their Timidity
Hoping to shape the narrative around the expected loss of Democratic congressional seats in the fall election, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka argued on Tuesday that the lesson learned from the past two years will be that Democrats were too timid with their legislative ambitions.
“Those battle-worn Democrats will understand that they faced tough races not because they did too much but because they did too little,” said Trumka.
Speaking to a small group of political reporters from the union federation’s offices overlooking the White House, Trumka argued that the president, up until recently, lacked a clear argument for his economic agenda. That, combined with pared-down reform on a host of policy fronts, has left the party in a precarious state — though one that, Trumka argued, is not as bad as the pundits are predicting. Democrats, he predicted, will hold on to both chambers of Congress.
Full Story: Trumka: Primarying Lincoln Was ‘Priceless’, Dems Will Realize Their Timidity.
Calif. anti-climate campaign got virtually all its money from three oil companies
With major contributions from the oil industry, supporters of a ballot initiative to suspend California’s landmark greenhouse gas emissions law reported a fundraising tally Tuesday of more than $5.2 million in the past three months.
The numbers disclosed by the Yes on 23 campaign revealed the continued backing of three out-of-state oil companies — Valero Corp. and Tesoro Corp. of Texas, and Flint Hills Resources, a Wichita, Kan.-based company owned by Koch Industries.
The companies contributed a combined $5 million during the period ending Sept. 30.
Full Story: Calif. anti-climate campaign got virtually all its money from three oil companies | Raw Story.
In Proclaiming Child Health Day, Jan Brewer Ignores Every Budget Cut She Made To Child Health Programs
Yesterday, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) held a press conference to announce that the first Monday in October will be recognized as Child Health Day. “This is at time when we all come together to rededicate ourselves to Arizona’s children,” she said during her speech at the Arizona Children’s Center in Maricopa, AZ. Children’s advocates, however, had one word for Brewer’s proclamation: “ironic.” In touting her devotion to “the health and well-being of our children,” it seems Brewer failed to mention that the agenda she “spearheaded” directly undermines their health and well-being:
During the past two fiscal years, however, Brewer has agreed to cut more than $72 million from government-funded children’s health services. The cuts were part of $2.1 billion in state budget reductions that were focused primarily on health care, education and human services.
Brewer also spearheaded legislation to eliminate the state Medicaid program known as KidsCare, though the federal health care law required the Legislature to reverse the decision. Yet Brewer imposed an enrollment freeze in January that has lowered the number of children receiving health care coverage to about 27,000 from 47,000.
Beck On Family’s Home Burning Down As Firefighters Watched: ‘We Are Going To Have To Have These Things’
As ThinkProgress reported yesterday, last week South Fulton Fire Department firefighters from Obion, Tennessee, stood by and watched as the Cranick family’s home burned down — which also led to the death of the family’s three dogs and a cat — because their fire-fighting services were available by subscription only, and the family had not paid the $75 fee. Immediately, right-wing writers at the conservative movement’s bulkhead magazine, The National Review, defended the county and argued that firefighting should not be a public service available to all, regardless of ability to pay.
Now, yet another major conservative has joined the defense. On his radio show this afternoon, leading right-wing talker Glenn Beck and his producer Pat Gray openly mocked the Cranick family. After playing a news clip explaining the situation, Gray adopted a southern drawl and began to mock Gene Cranick’s explanation of how the county’s firefighters refused to help his family.
Beck then went on to complain that “those who are just on raw feeling are not going to understand” that the county’s actions in refusing to assist the Cranicks were justified. He explained that America will be having the “argument” about the case of the Cranicks and that it will go “nowhere if you go onto ‘compassion, compassion, compassion, compassion’ or well, ‘they should’ve put it out, what is the fire department for?’” Beck then went on to say that the Cranicks would be “spongeing off their neighbors” if the fire department had helped them put out their fire. The radio host concluded his rant by saying “this is the kind of stuff that’s going to have to happen, we are going to have to have these kinds of things”:
Attention Veterans, Sharron Angle want to privatize the VA
In early 2007 at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center it was discovered that wounded soldiers were forced to live with cockroaches in rat infested quarters while they went through rehab and physical therapy, which for many lasted months and for some a lifetime.
The Walter Reed Army Hospital which had been known as the Army’s top rated hospital and rehab facility for decades was in shambles.
The cause was the privatization of Walter Reed in 2002 under President Bush’s “competitive sourcing initiative“,which awarded a $200 million contract to IAP Worldwide Services.
Full Story: Attention Veterans, Sharron Angle want to privatize the VA – Las Vegas Democrat | Examiner.com.
Here comes the sun: White House to go solar
Solar power is coming to President Barack Obama’s house.
The most famous residence in America, which has already boosted its green credentials by planting a garden, plans to install solar panels atop the White House’s living quarters. The solar panels are to be installed by spring 2011, and will heat water for the first family and supply some electricity.
The plans will be formally announced later Tuesday by White House Council on Environmental Quality Chairwoman Nancy Sutley and Energy Secretary Steven Chu.
Full Story: Here comes the sun: White House to go solar – The Globe and Mail.
Getting Some Rays: Forget Radar, Now the Government is X-Raying You as You Drive
Dave Lindorff:
If you have been feeling uneasy about having to be X-rayed by a Transportation Security Administration goon who can look under your clothes every time you fly, consider this: at least you can say no, and agree to be subjected to an old-fashioned full-body search.
No opt-out for the latest in anti-terror technology though, with reports just out in Forbes Magazine and the Christian Science Monitor that the Homeland Security Department has purchased 500 mobil X-ray vans called ZBVs that can scan cars, trucks and homes without the drivers or residents in a building even knowing that they’re being zapped.
These vans, made by a Massachusetts company called American Science & Engineering, are fitted out with what are called Z Backscatter X-ray devices, which aim a powrful X-ray beam that reportedly has the capability of penetrating 14 inches of steel.
Full Story: Getting Some Rays: Forget Radar, Now the Government is X-Raying You as You Drive | This Can’t Be Happening.
Surveillance, America’s Pastime
A Hall of Shame of State Snooping, Prying, and Informing Aimed at Destroying the Fabric of Civil Society
The dried blood on the concrete floor is there for all to see, a stain forever marking the spot on a Memphis motel balcony where Martin Luther King, Jr. lay mortally wounded by a sniper’s bullet.
It is a stark and ghostly image speaking to the sharp pain of absence. King is gone. His aides are gone. Only the stain remains. What now?
That image is, of course, a photograph taken by Ernest C. Withers, Memphis born and bred, and known as the photographer of the civil rights movement. He was there at the Lorraine Motel, as he had been at so many other critical places, recording iconic images of those tumultuous years.
In addition to photographing moments large and small in the struggle for black civil rights in the South, Withers had another job. He was an informer for the FBI, passing along information on the doings of King, Ralph Abernathy, Andrew Young, Ben Hooks, and other leaders of the movement. He reported on meetings he attended as a photographer, welcomed in by those he knew so intimately. He passed along photos of events and gatherings to his handler, Special Agent William H. Lawrence of the FBI’s Memphis office. He named names and sketched out plans.
Full Story: Surveillance, America’s Pastime | CommonDreams.org.
Shadowy, Outside Money Fuels Conservative Campaigns Nationwide
Interest groups are spending five times as much on the 2010 congressional elections as they did on the last midterms, and they are more secretive than ever about where that money is coming from.
The $80 million spent so far by groups outside the Democratic and Republican parties dwarfs the $16 million spent at this point for the 2006 midterms. In that election, the vast majority of money – more than 90 percent – was disclosed along with donors’ identities. This year, that figure has fallen to less than half of the total, according to data analyzed by The Washington Post.
The trends amount to a spending frenzy conducted largely in the shadows.
Full Story: Interest-group spending for midterm up fivefold from 2006; many sources secret.
AP Video: Nothing alive above 35 feet — Gets worse closer to shore
AP, October 3, 2010: Nothing alive above 35 feet
Census Of Marine Life: Decade-Long International Effort Completed, Shows Connectedness Of Oceanic Creatures Across The World (PHOTOS)
The world’s oceans may be vast and deep, but a decade-long count of marine animals finds sea life so interconnected that it seems to shrink the watery world.
An international effort to create a Census of Marine Life was completed Monday with maps and three books, increasing the number of counted and validated species to 201,206.
A decade ago the question of how many species are out there couldn’t be answered. It also could have led to a lot of arguments among scientists. Some species were counted several or even dozens of times, said Jesse Ausubel of the Alfred Sloan Foundation, the co-founder of the effort that involved 2,700 scientists.
The $650 million project got money and help from more than 600 groups, including various governments, private foundations, corporations, non-profits, universities, and even five high schools. The Sloan foundation is the founding sponsor, contributing $75 million.
Sex Study By National Survey Of Sexual Health And Behavior Is Biggest Since 1994
The male-female orgasm gap. The sex lives of 14-year-olds. An intriguing breakdown of condom usage rates, by age and ethnicity, with teens emerging as more safe-sex-conscious than boomers.
That’s just a tiny sampling of the data being unveiled Monday in what the researchers say is the largest, most comprehensive national survey of Americans’ sexual behavior since 1994.
Filling 130 pages of a special issue of the Journal of Sexual Medicine, the study offers detailed findings on how often Americans have sex, with whom, and how they respond. In all, 5,865 people, ranging in age from 14 to 94, participated in the survey.
Full Story: Sex Study By National Survey Of Sexual Health And Behavior Is Biggest Since 1994.
3 Largest Credit Card Companies Sued By Government For ‘Anticompetitive Rules’
The Justice Department on Monday sued the three largest U.S. credit card companies for anticompetitive practices and reached a proposed settlement with two of them, MasterCard and Visa.
“We want to put more money in consumers’ pockets, and by eliminating credit card companies’ anticompetitive rules, we will accomplish exactly that,” Attorney General Eric Holder told an afternoon news conference. “The companies put merchants and their customers in a no-win situation” and “consumers are being held hostage.”
American Express Co. said it is willing to wage a multiyear fight against the federal lawsuit, arguing that the Justice Department’s proposed remedy would promote steering customers from one payment network to another and “will do nothing to enhance competition.”
Full Story: 3 Largest Credit Card Companies Sued By Government For ‘Anticompetitive Rules’.
Pre-McNugget Meat Paste, AKA Mechanically Separated Chicken
The photo above has been extensively passed around today, and for good reason: it’s a peak into the rarely-seen world of mechanically separated meat, or Advanced Meat Recovery (AMR).
Fooducate writes:
Someone figured out in the 1960s that meat processors can eek out a few more percent of profit from chickens, turkeys, pigs, and cows by scraping the bones 100% clean of meat. This is done by machines, not humans, by passing bones leftover after the initial cutting through a high pressure sieve. The paste you see in the picture above is the result.
Michael Kindt continues:
Full Story: PHOTO: Pre-McNugget Meat Paste, AKA Mechanically Separated Chicken.
Barbour, Cornyn, Cantor Lower Expectations For GOP Congress
With the elections approaching and the conservative base getting drunk on the idea of retaking both chambers of Congress, top leaders in the Republican Party have begun the process of trying to temper expectations for the next legislative session.
The effort seemed more obvious than before last week, when National Republican Senatorial Committee Chair John Cornyn (R-Tex.) threw a bit of cold water on the idea that the new Congress would suddenly be able to rid the country of the president’s health care law.
“Even if we controlled the House, unless we controlled the Senate and got 60 votes, we wouldn’t be able to pass any corresponding legislation in the Senate,” said the Texas Republican. “So I think, we need to keep expectations, again, fairly modest as far as what we can do over the next two years.”
Full Story: Barbour, Cornyn, Cantor Lower Expectations For GOP Congress.
BP May Have Violated U.S. Sanctions On Trade With Iran, Says Government Audit
BP is one of 16 international companies that may have violated U.S. sanctions against selling gas to Iran, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office.
Under the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability and Divestment Act (CISADA) signed by President Obama in July 2010, companies or individuals that sell refined petroleum products to Iran in excess of $1 million during a year are subject to three or more out of a possible nine sanctions.
Investigators at the GAO claim that BP sold the petroleum between January 1, 2009 and June 30, 2010, based on open sources, which includes trade publications and company statements. Though the GAO examined sales before the signing of the updated sanctions in July 2010, the report “highlights open source information that, following further investigation by the State Department, could contribute to the identification of persons of firms whose activities may be sanctionable under ISA [Iran Sanctions Act of 1996], as amended by CISADA.”
Full Story: BP May Have Violated U.S. Sanctions On Trade With Iran, Says Government Audit.
Foreclosure Paperwork Scandal ‘Same Process’ That Fed The Housing Bubble
The paperwork scandal that has prompted several banks to halt evictions and review their foreclosure procedures is reminiscent of the predatory lending scheme that inflated the housing bubble.
“It’s the same process, falsifying documents to make them look acceptable to someone,” said Tom Domonoske, a lawyer and consumer advocate in Virginia. “They’re falsifying foreclosure documents so judges will look at them and say, ‘Here’s an affidavit. It’s signed.’”
Domonoske represents Virginia and Donald Naill, who unwittingly found themselves in an exploding mortgage after refinancing in 2006. “I figured they had my taxes, my Social Security number, that they knew everything,” Naill told HuffPost last year. She and her husband live on Ordinary Road in Mineral, Va.
Full Story: Foreclosure Paperwork Scandal ‘Same Process’ That Fed The Housing Bubble.
Is solar wind the next renewable energy resource? – Technology & science – Discovery.com – msnbc.com
Team hopes concept could generate more power than humanity needs
Solar and wind power have long been two of the main contenders in the race to find the next big renewable energy resource. Rather than choosing between the two, scientists at Washington State University have instead combined them.
Using a massive 8,400-kilometer-wide (5,220-mile-wide) solar sail to harvest the power in solar wind, the team hopes their concept could generate 1 billion billion gigawatts of power, far more power than humanity needs — if they can get that power back to Earth.
“It’s quite amazing how much power it can actually produce,” said Dirk Schulze-Makuch, a scientist at Washington State University and a co-author of the paper, which appears in the International Journal of Astrobiology. “In principle it should work quite well, but there are some practical issues.”
Full Story: Is solar wind the next renewable energy resource? – Technology & science – Discovery.com – msnbc.com.
Wall Street Sees World Economy Decoupling From U.S.
Wall Street economists are reviving a bet that the global economy will withstand the U.S. slowdown.
Just three years since America began dragging the world into its deepest recession in seven decades, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Credit Suisse Holdings USA Inc. and BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research are forecasting that this time will be different. Goldman Sachs predicts worldwide growth will slow 0.2 percentage point to 4.6 percent in 2011, even as expansion in the U.S. falls to 1.8 percent from 2.6 percent.
Underpinning their analysis is the view that international reliance on U.S. trade has diminished and is too small to spread the lingering effects of America’s housing bust. Providing the U.S. pain doesn’t roil financial markets as it did in the credit crisis, Goldman Sachs expects a weakening dollar, higher bond yields outside the U.S. and stronger emerging-market equities.
Full Story: Wall Street Sees World Economy Decoupling From U.S. – Bloomberg.
Officials: U.S. missiles kill Germans in Pakistan
Eight people were killed in a U.S. drone attack near the Afghanistan border on Monday evening, official sources told NBC News.
The unpiloted aircraft fired three missiles and struck a home built on a market at Mir Ali bazaar, the second largest town in North Waziristan, after Miramshah, which is the main town of the restive tribal region.
Some security officials in the area said five among the victims were German nationals.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a security official said that some German nationals, associated with foreign militants, were living in the house.
Full Story: Officials: U.S. missiles kill Germans in Pakistan – World news – South and Central Asia – Pakistan – msnbc.com.
Chamber of Commerce ‘takes both sides’ on economic stimulus
SPIN METER: Government austerity or bailouts? US Chamber of Commerce takes both sides
During the worst of the economic crisis, the nation’s most powerful business lobby pleaded with Congress to prop up financial institutions and stimulate the economy with hundreds of billions of dollars in borrowed money.
“Make no mistake: When the aftermath of congressional inaction becomes clear, Americans will not tolerate those who stood by and let the calamity happen,” wrote Bruce Josten, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s vice president in September 2008, who at the time pressed lawmakers before their vote on a $700 billion bailout for Wall Street.
Full Story: Chamber of Commerce ‘takes both sides’ on economic stimulus | Raw Story.
VIDEO: When Pressed, Republicans Can’t Name Any Spending They Want To Cut
For the past year and half, Republicans have done little else but urgently demand that the federal government drastically cut spending to reduce the deficit. However, like much of the rest of their agenda, Republicans have been remarkably vague on what they would actually cut.
In interview after interview, journalists have pushed, and even begged, GOP leaders for specifics, always to no avail. When pressed, they hem and haw, often appearing uncomfortable — and in the case of Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH), visibly angry — but can offer nothing more than cop-out answers like repealing unsent stimulus money or an “across the board” cut on all spending. ThinkProgress has compiled some of the more embarrassing of these moments:
Full Story: Think Progress » VIDEO: When Pressed, Republicans Can’t Name Any Spending They Want To Cut.
Health Insurers Funding Secretive Attack Group Run By A Prominent GOP Lobbyist
Health insurance companies, after funding tens of millions of dollars in attack ads aimed to kill health reform, are now funding Republican candidates promising to repeal or water-down the bill. A report today notes that insurance companies have massively shifted their campaign giving to Republicans, and that health professionals have “quietly become the biggest supporters of the nascent Tea Party Caucus” with donations of “more than $2.7 million to Tea Party Caucus members.” Additionally, a report today by the Center for Public Integrity republished by National Journal reveals that veteran Republican lobbyist Scott Reed has stepped up to create a $25 million dollar front group to run ads against Democrats, and that it will be funded partially by insurance companies:
Meanwhile, lobbyist Reed’s fledgling Commission on Hope, Growth and Opportunity, a 501 (c) (4) raised over half its $25 million goal to run ads in 20 House districts and a few Senate contests, Reed says. Where’s the dough coming from? “The big three stepping into the batter’s box are the financial services industry, the energy industry, and the health insurance industry,” Reed said.
Full Story: Think Progress » Health Insurers Funding Secretive Attack Group Run By A Prominent GOP Lobbyist.
Transgenic crops’ built-in pesticide found to be contaminating waterways
One of the main arguments offered in support of the wide use of genetically engineered crops is that they reduce overall pesticide use. This is particularly the case with Monsanto’s “Bt” line of corn, soy, and cotton seeds, which are able to produce their own pesticide, a “natural” toxin from genes of the bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis. Ironically, commercial pesticide derived from Bt also happens to be one of the only chemical pesticides approved for use in organic agriculture, because it’s produced through a biological process.
Biotechnology companies thus consider Bt seeds some of their most “eco-friendly” products. In theory, farmers don’t have to spray pesticide as much or as often on these crops, and therefore pesticide runoff into waterways is much less of a concern. Well, after years of denial, Monsanto finally admitted recently that superbugs, or pests that have evolved to be able to eat the Bt crops, are a real and growing concern. And now, researchers at the University of Notre Dame have shown that the Bt from genetically engineered maize is polluting waterways in Indiana (the study area). They found Bt toxin in almost 25 percent of streams they tested, and all the streams that tested positive were within 1,500 feet from a cornfield.
Bt gets into streams and rivers by leaching out of crop debris left on fields through the now-ubiquitous industrial “no-till” farming technique, in which fields aren’t plowed after harvest so as to prevent soil erosion. As a result, leaves and stalks get washed into streams through large-scale farms’ irrigation canals: the Notre Dame scientists found such debris in almost 90 percent of streams near cornfields. And while the Bt levels detected weren’t shockingly high, the tests were performed six months after harvest. The debris had been sitting in the streams and leaching Bt pesticide into the water for quite a while.
Full Story: Transgenic crops’ built-in pesticide found to be contaminating waterways | Grist.
An 11-year-old schools us on what’s wrong with the current food system [VIDEO]
At a TEDx “Next Generation” event recently, 11-year-old Birke Baehr got up on stage and announced his intention “to talk about what’s wrong with our food system.” He started off decrying “all the marketing and advertising on TV, at public schools and pretty much everywhere else you look,” that attempts “to get parents to buy stuff that isn’t good for us or the planet.”
In his brief talk, he also admits that, “a while back, I wanted to be an NFL football player. I decided I’d rather be an organic farmer instead. That way I could have a greater impact on the world.” Birke also covers the risks of genetically modified foods, CAFOs, synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, and food irradiation. He even addresses concerns over higher prices for organic produce. As he pithily puts it, “It seems to me that we can either pay the farmer or we can pay the hospital.”
” … And that, my friends, is how we can make a difference. One kid at a time.”
Full Story: An 11-year-old schools us on what’s wrong with the current food system [VIDEO] | Grist.
DC’s Rahm Emanuel Should be Running for Mayor of Wall Street—Not Chicago
The Nation:
He was the prime mover in the fight to enact the North American Free Trade Agreement, which shuttered whole industries and eliminated tens of thousands of jobs in cities such as Chicago.
He was the an architect of the scheme to provide China with permanent most-favored nation trading status, a shift that ushered in the era of outsourcing that continues to devastate urban neighborhoods.
He battled labor, environmental, economic justice and community groups on behalf of Wall Street, both as an investment banker and as political insider whose basic premise was that government should deliver for those in the suites rather than those on the streets of cities such as Chicago.
He counseled Bill Clinton to steer right on economic and social issues, serving as a key White House aide during the period that saw the former president sign the anti-gay and lesbian Defense of Marriage Act and a “welfare reform” law so draconian that responsible members of the former administration—such as Peter Edelman—quit rather than be associated with it. Both those laws battered urban communities while playing to the crude fears and fantasies of suburbanites and southern rightwingers.
Full Story: DC’s Rahm Emanuel Should be Running for Mayor of Wall Street—Not Chicago | The Nation.
Lab Study Establishes Glyphosate (RoundUp) Link to Birth Defects
Developmental biologists traced glyphosate birth defects to key morphogen and signaling genes
Four-fold increase in human birth defects prompted lab study
It started in 2002, two years after the large scale introduction of Roundup Ready soybeans to Argentina [1]. People were reporting birth defects from exposure to glyphosate sprays during pregnancy; and the problem got worse.
In regions where glyphosate-based herbicides are used, specific neural defects and craniofacial malformations were reported. This prompted Prof. Andrés Carrasco, director of the Laboratory of Molecular Embryology at the University of Buenos Aires Medical School into action. He and his colleagues carried out a laboratory study on the effects of glyphosate on the development of frog embryos. They found the same kinds of abnormalities in frog embryos incubated with a 5 000 fold diluted solution of the Roundup herbicide [2]. The findings were so serious that Carrasco decided to release the results before publication [3] (Glyphosate Herbicide Could Cause Birth Defects Glyphosate Herbicide Could Cause Birth Defects, SiS 43), and in May 2009, the Environmental Lawyers Association of Argentina initiated a lawsuit to ban the herbicide.
In April 2010, the first official report commissioned by the State Government of Chaco documented a four-fold increase in both cancer and birth defects in the ten years of 2000 – 2009 [4].
Full Story: Lab Study Establishes Glyphosate (RoundUp) Link to Birth Defects « Wake-up Call.
BP and NOAA Seek to Deceive Public School Students on Gulf Disaster
[Pro Publica's Marian Wang reports on the spin being provided to middle school students by BP and the NOAA regarding the safety of Gulf Seafood and the contamination of the Guf with 206 million gallons of crude oil and a million gallons of dispersants. Truthout gives a slightly different picture in Evidence Refutes BP's and Fed's Deceptions Bob Higgins]
By Marian Wang, ProPublica
Even as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency calls for more research into the long-term effects of the chemical dispersants BP used in the Gulf, representatives of BP and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have reached out to local schools to “dispel myths” about dispersants and subsurface oil, according to recent reports in the Houma Courier and the Tri-Parish Times. (We first noticed the Tri-Parish Times piece via TreeHugger.)
BP and NOAA appear to be doing demonstrations for local schools using a 10-gallon fish tank full of water, some cooking oil, and some dishwashing detergent to simulate the properties of oil and the effects of dispersants.
The Houma Courier quoted NOAA science support coordinator Gary Ott as telling the children, ” floats. See we’ve tested it.” (The oil-floats argument is also what then-BP CEO Tony Hayward said when first confronted with evidence of underwater oil plumes this summer.)
Full Story: In School Outreach, BP and NOAA “Dispel Myths” About Dispersants, Subsurface Oil « Bob Higgins.
FOX Business Host John Stossel: Young People Are Too Stupid to Vote
John Stossel, FOX Business talk show host, mustachioed curmudgeon, and author of books with ridiculously long titles, dedicated a whole portion of his show last night to arguing that young people are too stupid to vote. Getting into his argument too deeply isn’t even worth my time or yours, but the gist of it is, “Young people are uninformed, and uninformed people shouldn’t vote because voting is too important to mess up.” Watch the whole thing here:
Full Story: FOX Business Host John Stossel: Young People Are Too Stupid to Vote – Campus Progress.
Life without Socialism: Fee-Based Fire Dept. in Tenn. Lets House Burn to Ground Because Homeowner Hadn’t Paid Up
The right wing has gotten a lot of mileage out of scarifying the word “socialism” since Pres. Obama was elected. The president is actually a regulatory capitalist, just like George Bush, Ronald Reagan, Bill, Clinton, Jimmy Carter and every president going back to Teddy Roosevelt, at least.
Socialism is, nonetheless, as traditional in United States as mom and apple pie. Any time the taxpayers agree to band together to fund the operation of a public service, that is, by definition, socialism. The reality is, Americans have deployed socialism almost exclusively to operate public pensions (Social Security), health-care for the elderly (Medicare), school systems, libraries, hospitals, transportation systems and, most importantly, emergency systems like police, rescue, EMT and fire departments for more than a century.
Tea baggers advocate getting rid of these socialist systems and convert to an everyone-for-himself, private systems. This tragic story last week from Tennessee offers a vivid illustration if we uprooted American socialism and replaced it with an Ayn Randian free-market system:
Fear and Favor
Paul Krugman:
A note to Tea Party activists: This is not the movie you think it is. You probably imagine that you’re starring in “The Birth of a Nation,” but you’re actually just extras in a remake of “Citizen Kane.”
True, there have been some changes in the plot. In the original, Kane tried to buy high political office for himself. In the new version, he just puts politicians on his payroll.
I mean that literally. As Politico recently pointed out, every major contender for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination who isn’t currently holding office and isn’t named Mitt Romney is now a paid contributor to Fox News. Now, media moguls have often promoted the careers and campaigns of politicians they believe will serve their interests. But directly cutting checks to political favorites takes it to a whole new level of blatancy.
Full Story: Op-Ed Columnist – Fear and Favor – NYTimes.com.
Bernie Sanders: Republicans do not want America to succeed
Sen. Bernie Sanders told CBS’ Bob Schieffer Sunday that Republicans are more interested in gaining power than they are in helping the country.
“I think in his heart the president is a very, very decent guy,” said Sanders. “He wants to do what most Americans want him to do: to reach out, bring people together.
“But what has happened is the Republicans have said no, no, no. They have waged more filibusters than any time in the history of this country. They have been the party of no and obstructionism,” Sanders continued. “At some point, what the president has got to understand is they do not want America to succeed. They’re into politics.”
Full Story: Bernie Sanders: Republicans do not want America to succeed | Raw Story.
Hey Tea Party: Deficit Would Be ZERO Now If Bush, GOP Hadn’t Put Two Wars on Credit Cards, Crashed the Economy
What U.S. deficit would be today if George Bush, with blind obedience from his rubberstamp Republicans in the House and and Senate (including Rep. John Boehner, Sen. Mitch McConnnell and others who are still there today), had not drained the Treasury by waging two wars using unfunded supplementals while simultaneously giving tax cuts to his millionaire “base” — and then crashed the economy by defanging financial regulations, defunding financial regulators and mismanaging the country’s finances through fiscal irresponsibility and recklessness.
In 1932, Fox Helped Make Propaganda Films for Hitler
Observers of the current US election season have noted the prominent role of Rupert Murdoch’s reactionary Fox News Channel, which currently employs GOP and “Tea Party” partisans Sarah Palin, Glen Beck, Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Sean Hannity, and others. Some have alleged that a television network carrying so many potential political candidates and propagandists on its payroll is unprecedented. But there is a precedent for large-scale Fox intervention into a political campaign.
In 1932, the German newsreel subsidiary of Fox News Channel’s corporate ancestor, Fox Films, intervened in national elections in Germany.
The Candidate Fox Supported Was Nazi Leader Adolf Hitler
Full Story: In 1932, Fox Helped Make Propaganda Films for Hitler.
Fraud Factories: Rep. Alan Grayson Explains the Foreclosure Fraud Crisis
This is Rep. Alan Grayson explaining the crisis of foreclosure fraud and how it links to the entire securitization chain of Wall Street.
WATER AS COMMODITY OR COMMONS? ISSUES FROM THE 2009 WORLD WATER FORUM
Project Censored:
From March 16-22, 2009, the World Water Council (WWC) presented the fifth World Water Forum in Istanbul, Turkey. Boasting participation by over 33,000 people from around the globe, the WWC heralded the Forum as “the world’s biggest ever water-related event.” Nonetheless, as detailed in Chapter 1, the World Water Forum, and its competing Peoples’ Water Forum, ranks prominently among 2008-2009’s most under-reported news stories.
The dearth of US coverage should surprise even the most jaundiced critics of America’s corporate media. At least four episodes from the Forum not only fit conventional definitions of newsworthiness, but also contrasted sharply with the Forum’s declared theme, “Bridging Divides for Water.” Thus, most Americans probably do not know that:
- Turkish police forces shot water cannons to disperse protesters outside the forum. Water cannons, they subsequently explained, were more cost-effective than tear gas.
Full Story: WATER AS COMMODITY OR COMMONS? ISSUES FROM THE 2009 WORLD WATER FORUM | Project Censored.
Five Ways the Democrats Can Avoid a Catastrophe and Pull Off the Mother of All Upsets
by Michael Moore
Friends,
The election is one month from tomorrow and, yes, it looks hopeless. November 2nd — the day the Dems are expected to crash and burn.
Sadly, it’s a situation the Democrats have brought upon themselves — even though the majority of them didn’t create the mess we’re in. But they’ve had over a year and a half to start getting the job done to fix it. Instead, they’ve run scared ever since they took power. To many, the shellacking they’re about to receive is one they deserve.
But if you’re of a mindset that believes a return to 2001-2008 would be sheer insanity, then you probably agree we’ve got no choice but to save the Democrats from themselves.
Memo To: President Obama and the Democratic Party Leadership
From: Michael Moore
Subject: 5 Things Dems Can Do to Turn It Around by November 2nd
Full Story: OpEdNews – Article: Five Ways the Democrats Can Avoid a Catastrophe and Pull Off the Mother of All Upsets.
Net Neutrality Deal Collapses, Waxman Says
Sen. Harry Waxman (D-Calif.) says proposed legislation to regulate Internet service providers is dead.
Legislation aimed at regulating how Internet providers such as Comcast offer Internet service to their customers has collapsed, said House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman and Sen. Harry Waxman (D-Calif.), who also authored the proposed bill. A draft of the bill was leaked earlier this week, which would curb the FCC’s (Federal Communications Commission) ability to enforce the guidelines laid out in the bill after two years. The agency would also not be allowed to impose additional rules on Internet service providers, the draft mandated.
A lack of support from Republicans made it impossible for the legislation to pass before Congress’ mid-term elections, Waxman said. “With great regret, I must report that Ranking Member Barton has informed me that support for this legislation will not be forthcoming at this time,” he said in a prepared statement. “This development is a loss for consumers and a gain only for the extremes. We need to break the deadlock on net neutrality so that we can focus on building the most open and robust Internet possible.”
The proposed legislation was termed as a temporary fix to protect net neutrality while Congress considered a permanent solution. The bill would have prohibited wireless broadband providers from blocking Websites, as well as applications that compete with voice or video conferencing and restore for two years the FCC’s authority to prevent blocking of Internet content, applications and services. “If our efforts to find bipartisan consensus fail, the FCC should move forward under Title II,” Waxman said. “The bottom line is that we must protect the open Internet. If Congress can’t act, the FCC must.”
Full Story: Net Neutrality Deal Collapses, Waxman Says – Government IT from eWeek.
Shock Therapy for Wall Street: JPMorgan Suspends 56,000 Foreclosures; GMAC and BOA Many More
Ellen Brown :
“Maybe this is like shock therapy. Maybe this will actually get the lenders to the table and encourage them to work out deals that are to the benefit of everybody.”
–Economist Karl E. Case, quoted in The New York Times.
The hits are coming fast and furiously. It appears major Wall Street mortgage lenders could again be in serious trouble – and looking again for handouts.
On September 20th, Ally Financial Inc., which owns GMAC Mortgage, the nation’s 4th largest lender, halted evictions and the resale of repossessed homes in 23 states. This was after a document processor for the company admitted that he had signed off on 10,000 pieces of foreclosure paperwork a month without reading them. The 23 states were all those where foreclosures must be approved by a court, including New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Florida and Illinois.
Full Story: t r u t h o u t | Shock Therapy for Wall Street: JPMorgan Suspends 56,000 Foreclosures; GMAC and BOA Many More.
Local news stations training psychological ops soldiers: report
Two CBS affiliates have been helping train US Army psychological operations soldiers, says an investigative report at Yahoo! News.
According to documents obtained by John Cook through a freedom of information request, WRAL in Raleigh, North Carolina, and WTOC in Savannah, Georgia, have both hosted psyops soldiers as part of the Army’s Training With Industry program.
The soldiers “used WRAL and WTOC to learn broadcasting and communications expertise that they could apply in their mission, as the Army describes it, of ‘influenc[ing] the emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign audiences,’” the report states. The arrangement reaches back at least to 2001.
Full Story: Local news stations training psychological ops soldiers: report | Raw Story.
Face the Nation interviews with Bernie Sanders, Bill Richardson, Ed Rendell
President Obama found himself trying to rally the liberal base that propelled him into the presidency. Bob Schieffer spoke to Governor Ed Rendell (D-Penn.), Governor Bill Richardson (D-NM), and Senator Bernard Sanders (D-VT) on where and how deep that dissatisfaction runs.
Britain held war talks with US general Tommy Franks 11 months before Iraq invasion
America’s most senior general flew into Britain for top secret talks on the invasion of Iraq 11 months before the attack on Saddam Hussein’s regime.
Details of the classified meeting, held at RAF Brize Norton, Oxfordshire, suggest Tony Blair’s Government was involved in detailed discussions about toppling the Iraqi dictator earlier than previously disclosed.
American General Tommy Franks flew in to the base in April 2002 to attend a summit meeting called by the then Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon.
Full Story: Britain held war talks with US general Tommy Franks before Iraq invasion | Mail Online.
Tea & Crackers
How corporate interests and Republican insiders built the Tea Party monster
Matt Taibbi: | Rolling Stone
It’s taken three trips to Kentucky, but I’m finally getting my Tea Party epiphany exactly where you’d expect: at a Sarah Palin rally. The red-hot mama of American exceptionalism has flown in to speak at something called the National Quartet Convention in Louisville, a gospel-music hoedown in a giant convention center filled with thousands of elderly white Southerners. Palin — who earlier this morning held a closed-door fundraiser for Rand Paul, the Tea Party champion running for the U.S. Senate — is railing against a GOP establishment that has just seen Tea Partiers oust entrenched Republican hacks in Delaware and New York. The dingbat revolution, it seems, is nigh.
“We’re shaking up the good ol’ boys,” Palin chortles, to the best applause her aging crowd can muster. She then issues an oft-repeated warning (her speeches are usually a tired succession of half-coherent one-liners dumped on ravenous audiences like chum to sharks) to Republican insiders who underestimated the power of the Tea Party Death Star. “Buck up,” she says, “or stay in the truck.”
Stay in what truck? I wonder. What the hell does that even mean?
Full Story: Tea & Crackers | Rolling Stone Politics.
$5,000,000,000,000: The cost each year of vanishing rainforest
British researchers set out the economic impact of species destruction – and their findings are changing world’s approach to global warming
British scientific experts have made a major breakthrough in the fight to save the natural world from destruction, leading to an international effort to safeguard a global system worth at least $5 trillion a year to mankind.
Groundbreaking new research by a former banker, Pavan Sukhdev, to place a price tag on the worldwide network of environmental assets has triggered an international race to halt the destruction of rainforests, wetlands and coral reefs.
With experts warning that the battle to stem the loss of biodiversity is two decades behind the climate change agenda, the United Nations, the World Bank and ministers from almost every government insist no country can afford to believe it will be unaffected by the alarming rate at which species are disappearing. The Convention on Biological Diversity in Nagoya, Japan, later this month will shift from solely ecological concerns to a hard-headed assessment of the impact on global economic security.
Full Story: $5,000,000,000,000: The cost each year of vanishing rainforest – Climate Change, Environment – The Independent.
New Christine O’Donnell Clip Released: ‘I Would Have Become A Hare Krishna But… I Love Meatballs’ (VIDEO)
Delaware Republican Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell says with a laugh that she tried several religions but skipped becoming a Hare Krishna because she didn’t want to be vegetarian in a 1999 interview.
Bill Maher aired the clip of O’Donnell Friday night on his show “Real Time with Bill Maher.” The short clip was from an interview on the comedian’s former show “Politically Incorrect” from July 9, 1999.
O’Donnell tells Maher that she had dabbled in “every other kind of religion,” including witchcraft and Buddhism, before becoming a Christian.
With a laugh, she said: “I would have become a Hare Krishna, but I didn’t want to become a vegetarian. And that is honestly the reason why, because I’m Italian and I love meatballs.”
It’s the third clip of O’Donnell that Maher has shown since she won her state’s GOP primary last month.
Reached by phone, O’Donnell campaign spokesman Chris Merola had no immediate comment.
WATCH:
Full Story: New Christine O’Donnell Clip Released: ‘I Would Have Become A Hare Krishna But… I Love Meatballs’ (VIDEO).
TARP Is Done, but Count on Sequels
THE government is pulling a sheet over TARP, the Troubled Asset Relief Program created during the panic of 2008 to bail out the nation’s financial institutions. With the program’s expiration on Sunday, we can expect to hear lots of claims from the folks at the Treasury that it was a great success.
Such assertions would be no surprise from a political class justifiably concerned about possible taxpayer unhappiness, the continuing economic turmoil and the midterm elections. But if we have learned anything during this crisis, it is that the proclamations emanating from the Washington spin machine must be taken with an extra-hefty grain of salt.
Consider the claims made last summer that the Dodd-Frank financial reform act reduces the threats that large, interconnected banks pose to taxpayers and the economy when the banks are deemed too big to fail. Indeed, as regulators hammer out the rules governing derivatives transactions, it’s evident that the law has created a new set of institutions that will almost certainly be deemed too important to fail if they ever get into trouble. And that means there won’t really be an effective way to keep those firms from taking big, profitable, short-term risks that are dumped on the taxpayers when the bets fail.
Full Story: Fair Game – TARP Is Done, but Count on Sequels – NYTimes.com.
Inside the Senate’s battle over climate change
: The New Yorker
How the Senate and the White House missed their best chance to deal with climate change.
On April 20, 2010, Senators John Kerry, Lindsey Graham, and Joseph Lieberman, along with three aides, visited Rahm Emanuel, President Obama’s chief of staff, at the White House. The legislators had spent seven months writing a comprehensive bill that promised to transform the nation’s approach to energy and climate change, and they were planning a press conference in six days to unveil their work.
Kerry, of Massachusetts, Graham, of South Carolina, and Lieberman, of Connecticut, had become known on Capitol Hill as the Three Amigos, for the Steve Martin comedy in which three unemployed actors stumble their way into defending a Mexican village from an armed gang. All had powerful personal motivations to make the initiative work. Kerry, who has been a senator for twenty-five years and has a long record of launching major investigations, had never written a landmark law. Lieberman, an Independent who had endorsed John McCain for President, had deeply irritated his liberal colleagues by helping the Republicans weaken Obama’s health-care bill. Graham, a Republican, had a reputation as a Senate maverick—but not one who actually got things done. This bill offered the chance for all three men to transform their reputations.
Full Story: Inside the Senate’s battle over climate change : The New Yorker.
The Very Useful Idiocy of Christine O’Donnell
ALL it took was some 30,000 Republican primary voters in a tiny state to turn Christine O’Donnell into the brightest all-American media meteor since Balloon Boy. For embattled liberals, not to mention the axis of Comedy Central, “Saturday Night Live” and Bill Maher, she’s been pure comic gold for weeks: a bottomless trove of baldfaced lies, radical views and sheer wackiness. True, other American politicians have dismissed evolution as a myth. Some may even have denied joining a coven. But history will always remember her for taking a fearless stand against masturbation, the one national pastime with more fans than baseball.
Yet those laughing now may not have the last laugh in November. O’Donnell’s timely ascent in the election season’s final lap may well prove a godsend for the G.O.P.
At first some Republicans had trouble figuring this out. On primary eve, a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee badmouthed O’Donnell’s “disturbing pattern of dishonest behavior.” On election night, Karl Rove belittled her “nutty” pronouncements and “checkered background” on Fox News. But by the morning after, bygones were bygones. The senatorial committee’s chairman, John Cornyn, rewarded O’Donnell’s “dishonest behavior” with an enthusiastic endorsement and a big check. A sweaty Rove reversed himself so fast you’d think he’d been forced to stay up all night listening to Glenn Beck’s greatest hits at top volume in a Roger Ailes re-education camp.
Full Story: Op-Ed Columnist – The Very Useful Idiocy of Christine O’Donnell – NYTimes.com.
House Republicans Apathetic On Absence Of Earmark Ban In ‘Pledge To America’
After House Republicans unveiled their anticipated “Pledge to America” last week, it quickly fell under heavy criticism for failing to include a ban on earmarks. Even right-wing groups are attacking Republican congressmen for this key omission. Matt Kibbe, president of one of the leading tea party groups FreedomWorks, called it “disappointing,” while the right-wing group Club for Growth said that without an earmark ban, “the Pledge has no teeth.” The Center Against Government Waste piled on as well, declaring that “if the Republicans regain control of the House and go back to their old earmarking ways it could be a VERY short majority for the Republicans.”
ThinkProgress went to Capitol Hill this week to see why Republicans congressmen were against including an earmark ban in the Pledge. What we found was collective apathy on the issue. Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) told us tersely that “the pledge is a great beginning, and that’s all I have to say right now.” Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) said an earmark moratorium that expires before Republicans would even take power was sufficient and there was no need to go further. Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) refused to address the issue altogether.
Prospects for earmark reform aren’t much brighter among Senate Republicans either. In an interview with National Review Online, Tea Party Godfather Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) said earmark reform wasn’t included in the GOP Pledge because “there was some pushback from the Senate.” Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) echoed this view in an interview with Fox News yesterday, telling host Neil Cavuto that Republican leaders in the Senate would not eliminate earmarks until they were forced to do so by rank-and-file members:
Full Story: Think Progress » House Republicans Apathetic On Absence Of Earmark Ban In ‘Pledge To America’.
Maher’s 3rd Clip Features O’Donnell’s Spiritual Dabblings Beyond Witchcraft
For the third week in a row, HBO Real Time host Bill Maher released a previously-unaired clip of Delaware GOP Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell from one of her 22 appearances on Politically Incorrect, a show that Maher also once hosted.
Recall, two weeks ago, Maher introduced a clip of O’Donnell saying that she “dabbled into witchcraft” and “had a midnight picnic on a satanic altar.” He also pledged to show a fresh clip of O’Donnell every week on his show until she agrees to appear again on his show. Last week, Maher revealed a clip of O’Donnell calling evolution “a myth” and asking “why aren’t monkeys still evolving into humans?”
Tonight, Maher aired a July 19, 1999 clip that referenced O’Donnell’s dabbling into witchcraft, but offered more insight into O’Donnell’s other dabblings:
O’DONNELL: I was dabbling into every other kind of religion before I became a Christian.
MAHER: You were a witch.
O’DONNELL: I was. I was.
MAHER: You were.
O’DONNELL: I was dabbling in witchcraft. I’ve dabbled in Buddhism. I would have become a Hare Krishna but I didn’t want to become a vegetarian. And that is honestly the reason why — because I’m Italian, I love meatballs.
MAHER: Boy, are you spiritual.
Watch it:
Full Story: Think Progress » Maher’s 3rd Clip Features O’Donnell’s Spiritual Dabblings Beyond Witchcraft.
GM Salmon Postponed For Now.
Eleven US Senators have signed a letter to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg urging the agency to find another way to assess the safety of genetically engineered (GE) salmon.
Full Story: GM Salmon Postponed For Now. « The PPJ Gazette.
Sharron Angle: What she will do to you and Nevada’s Health Care if elected
Sharron Angle (R-NV) as you know is running for the US Senate against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and Senator Reid has accused Sharon Angle of being an extremist. To combat the extremist tag, Sharron Angle now says that she is a “moderate” and is part of mainstream America”.
Sharron Angle has said that she would repeal “Obamacare”, and just to be clear, what she is actually proposing to repeal is the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act”. And in that Act is a portion called the “Patients Bill of Rights”
*Health Care Reforms:
Full Story: Sharron Angle: What she will do to you and Nevada’s Health Care if elected – Las Vegas Democrat | Examiner.com.
Study – World’s ‘Peak Coal’ Moment Has Arrived
Is the world about to begin running out of coal?
Two researchers say so. In a peer-reviewed article published in the journal Energy, they write that the world will hit “peak coal” production next year or shortly thereafter, and then mining would begin a long, steep decline.
Bottom line, say the paper’s co-authors, Tadeusz Patzek, a University of Texas engineering professor, and Greg Croft, a St. Mary’s College of California earth science professor, is that the 7 billion tons of coal the world is now mining and burning each year is about the best it can do.
“Our ability to produce this resource at 8 billion tons per year, in my mind, is a dream,” Patzek said.
Full Story: Study – World’s ‘Peak Coal’ Moment Has Arrived – NYTimes.com.
CNN fires host Rick Sanchez over controversial remarks
CNN host Rick Sanchez came under fire Friday after making controversial remarks the previous day on a satellite radio show.
Sanchez called out Comedy Central host Jon Stewart as a “bigot” for mocking him, and complained that Jews — like Stewart — don’t face discrimination. He also suggested that CNN, and perhaps the media industry more broadly, is run by Jews and elitists who look down on Hispanics like himself.
Clearly, those comments didn’t sit well with the network, which put out a terse statement around 6 p.m. Friday.
Full Story: CNN fires host Rick Sanchez over controversial remarks | The Upshot Yahoo! News – Yahoo! News.
‘Slavery’ uncovered on trawlers fishing for Europe | Law | The Guardian
Exclusive: Violence and incarceration for months or even years found on ships off coast of west Africa
Shocking evidence of conditions akin to slavery on trawlers that provide fish for European dinner tables has been found in an investigation off the coast of west Africa.
Forced labour and human rights abuses involving African crews have been uncovered on trawlers fishing illegally for the European market by investigators for an environmental campaign group.
The Environmental Justice Foundation found conditions on board including incarceration, violence, withholding of pay, confiscation of documents, confinement on board for months or even years, and lack of clean water.
Full Story: ‘Slavery’ uncovered on trawlers fishing for Europe | Law | The Guardian.
What Will Become of Dick Cheney’s Vice Presidential Records?
JOHN W. DEAN : :
As the Bush/Cheney Administration headed toward its final days, with President George W. Bush busy planning his future presidential library, the story surfaced that Vice President Dick Cheney was not planning to send his Vice Presidential papers and records to the future Bush II archive. To the contrary, based on an Executive Order that Bush (or was it really Cheney?) had issued in November 2001, the Vice President was taking the position that his papers were largely his, not Bush’s, so that he did not plan to send most of his office files to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) which administers presidential libraries, where historians were sure to nose about in Cheney’s material.
Because historians find Cheney a fascinating and important historical figure, particularly given his outsized influence on the first five years of the Bush II presidency, and because archivists are serious about collecting and preserving the uncooked records of history, there was understandable alarm that these materials might disappear and never be available. Thus, Cheney’s proposed action, which was in clear violation of a federal statute, prompted a federal lawsuit in the final years of the Bush/Cheney presidency in an effort to force the Vice President to comply with the law. Unfortunately, the plaintiffs lost the lawsuit, and no one knows what Cheney will or will not do with his records.
This story has received only sporadic media attention, at best. Congress, at present, is considering amending the presidential records law. Inexplicably, however, Congress is ignoring the very shortcomings in the existing law that are highlighted by Cheney’s actions. In this column, I’ll explain the situation.
Full Story: What Will Become of Dick Cheney’s Vice Presidential Records?.
Door-to-door spies in Utah County?
Sales people working neighborhoods in Northern Utah County have been asking some odd questions that have nothing to do with making the sale. Folks are reporting that they’re asking about the new National Security Agency’s data center that is being built at Camp Williams.
The sales people say they’re Israeli art students and are selling their works to raise money for a gallery. Some have even produced what appear to be legitimate Israeli passports.
So, why would art students be interested in an NSA data center?
Full Story: Door-to-door spies in Utah County? – ABC 4.com – Salt Lake City, Utah News.
BP Oil: Gulf Sediment At Risk, Oceanographer Claims
Most oil may still remain in the environment–undegraded
Most of BP’s spilled oil remains in the Gulf — with little sign of degrading, according to Ian MacDonald of Florida State University. And much of this surviving oil could be in sediment or on its way there, the scientist reported at a September 27 meeting in Washington, D.C.
This sediment link is hardly idle speculation. In her recent month-long cruise in the Gulf of Mexico, University of Georgia oceanographer Samantha Joye identified areas of the seafloor hosting what looks to be substantial amounts of BP oil. Photos on her blog graphically depict the pollution.
MacDonald was one of a panel of scientists who testified before the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling. “In my scientific opinion,” he said, “the bulk of [the BP oil] was dispersed in surface layers, from which about one-third evaporated and 10 percent was removed by burning or skimming. An additional 10 percent was chemically dispersed.
Full Story: BP Oil: Gulf Sediment At Risk, Oceanographer Claims – Science News.
UN Fact-Finding Mission: Israeli Killing Of U.S. Citizen Was ‘Execution’
The report of the fact-finding mission of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on the Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla released last week shows conclusively, for the first time, that US citizen Furkan Dogan and five Turkish citizens were murdered execution-style by Israeli commandos.
The report reveals that Dogan, the 19-year-old US citizen of Turkish descent, was filming with a small video camera on the top deck of the Mavi Marmara when he was shot twice in the head, once in the back and in the left leg and foot and that he was shot in the face at point blank range while lying on the ground.
The report says Dogan had apparently been “lying on the deck in a conscious or semi-conscious, state for some time” before being shot in his face.
Full Story: UN Fact-Finding Mission: Israeli Killing Of U.S. Citizen Was ‘Execution’.
Peak phosphorus still a threat to food security, despite new report
Researchers investigating a coming peak in world phosphorous production have urged caution on the revising up of estimates of reserves in a new report.
The long-awaited estimates of World Phosphate Reserves & Resources, recently released by the International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC), suggests the availability of more mega tonnes of phosphate rock in the ground than previously thought.
However, researchers at the Institute for Sustainable Futures (ISF) at the University of Technology, Sydney, who last year published the controversial peak phosphorus estimate (between 2030 and 2040) in the journal Global Environmental Change, warned that the inflated IFDC figures should be interpreted with great caution.
Full Story: Peak phosphorus still a threat to food security, despite new report | Energy Bulletin.
Cyprus facing up to life after ‘peak water’
Cyprus is an island of one million people in the Mediterranean Sea and it’s facing a water crisis.
It is the first country in the European Union to face what is being described as “peak water” where the demand for water is greater than that which the natural resources can supply.
Traditionally water on the island came from aquifers; water stored beneath the Earth’s surface. But groundwater supplies have been depleted, and aquifers by the coast have started to take in seawater. This makes the freshwater salty, and means it can’t be used for drinking water.
Full Story: Cyprus facing up to life after ‘peak water’ – CNN.com.
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Republicans Don't Care about Voter Fraud....owa Republicans are trying to dismiss claims that the vote count in Tuesday's Iowa Caucus was wrong. An Iowa voter told a local TV station yesterday that he noticed a 20-vote discrepancy in the count - and that Rick Santorum was the real winner of the Caucuses. Republican Party officials, though, are sticking to their first count - showing Mitt Romney as the winner by 8-votes - and there will be no recount.The Republican Party has launched a war on voters around the nation this year with strict new laws that will disenfranchise over 5 million Americans. They claim these laws are necessary to combat so-called voter fraud. Yet in Iowa - where there are no such laws - and where a very, very close and questionable election was just held - Republicans don't seem to care at all about getting it right.Clearly - the war on voters isn't about making sure the people's voices are represented accurately - it's about making sure poor people, young people, and minorities who tend to vote for Democrats - can't vote at all.-Thom(Who do you think won? Tell us here.) -
LEGALIZE Democracy
" We the corporations" On January 21, 2010, with its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons, entitled by the U.S. Constitution to buy elections and run our government. __________
MOVE to AMEND
a project of the CAMPAIGN TO LEGALIZE Democracy
Help end Corporate personhood
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The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. 
