Boss Fires Herself To Save Employees

When Lola Gonzalez, owner of Florida-based Accurate Background Check, realized that she had to begin layoffs to keep her company afloat, she couldn’t bear to let go of anyone.

So she fired herself instead.

Gonzalez told Central Florida News 13:

“My employees are the most trusted,” Gonzalez said. “They’ve been here for years. They’ve been loyal. They’ve been dedicated. It was just the right thing to do in my opinion.”

Gonzalez gained national attention when she left her company and asked her staff to run it in her stead while she took on a new, lower-paying job as a social worker. She has found a surprise passion for her new role, and calls the job “a blessing,” according to CBS News’ Early Show on Saturday Morning:

Full Story: Boss Fires Herself To Save Employees.

Billions Down The Drain In Afghanistan

The revelation that Afghanistan’s vice president was caught carrying $52 million in cash last year in a Persian Gulf tax haven (and was allowed to keep it) is only the latest bit of evidence that countless billions of U.S. taxpayer money have been wasted in Afghanistan due to mismanagement, fraud and endemic corruption.

The latest disclosure comes courtesy of the international whistleblower website WikiLeaks, which is in the process of releasing more than a quarter million State Department cables. As The New York Times reported:

When Afghanistan’s vice president visited the United Arab Emirates last year, local authorities working with the Drug Enforcement Administration discovered that he was carrying $52 million in cash. With wry understatement, a cable from the American Embassy in Kabul called the money “a significant amount” that the official, Ahmed Zia Massoud, “was ultimately allowed to keep without revealing the money’s origin or destination.” (Mr. Massoud denies taking any money out of Afghanistan.)

Full Story: Billions Down The Drain In Afghanistan.

The Showdown On Tax Cuts for the Rich

Robert Reich:

The President met with Republican leaders at the White House this morning to talk about whether the Bush tax cuts should be extended to top taxpayers, as Republicans want.

No decision has been reached, but this is the first test of the President’s resolve with the new Congress — and he should be tough as nails. The economics and politics both dictate it.

Taxpayers in the top 1 percent don’t need it (they are now getting almost a quarter of all national income, the highest percent since 1928).

Full Story: Robert Reich (The Showdown On Tax Cuts for the Rich).

How Can the U.S. Economy Recover Without Manufacturing Capacity?

“You can’t put people to work in American factories that don’t exist.”

The strength of the federal economic stimulus package is seriously diluted by the fact that many  of the manufactured goods that will be purchased for the attempted recovery must be imported from outside the United States. America simply doesn’t make lots of things, anymore. That means many billions of dollars that folks assumed would go towards fueling an American economic comeback, will instead provide work and paychecks to employees in other countries, that still have manufacturing bases. That’s fine with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is dominated by large multinational corporations – the same guys that began stripping the United States of manufacturing jobs decades ago.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce was one of the main lobbyists opposed to provisions that would have mandated that stimulus money go to U.S. companies. The Chamber is a U.S. organization in name only, like its finance capital comrades, the guys that gave the world such a bad case of the dreaded “American Disease,” much of the planet is praying that cash-rich China will eventually bail everybody out.

The United States’ lack of a manufacturing capacity makes it even less likely that anything resembling a lasting recovery can emerge from President Obama’s approach to the economic crisis. The infrastructure projects that are supposed to be central to the recovery scheme are only valued at $150 billion – which is not much of a jolt, especially when much of what will have to be bought is only available in other countries, made by foreign workers. Barack Obama has put a huge emphasis on building a green economy. However, according to the New York Times , most of the sources of solar panels and wind turbines are located in Europe and Asia. There can be no green economy without a mass transit makeover of the United States, but the U.S. hasn’t made subway and light rail cars in many years. They’d have to be imported.

Full Story: How Can the U.S. Economy Recover Without Manufacturing Capacity? :: The Market Oracle :: Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting Free Website.

OPS: Answer: It simply cannot. It’s impossible.

C-Span mic catches US Senator’s candor: The Senate ‘is all rigged’

Is the US Senate “rigged”?

It may be, at least according to one Democrat whose words of candor were picked up by a hot microphone on the Senate floor, the audio of which was broadcast live by C-Span 2 on Tuesday afternoon.

“Because — because … It’s all rigged,” Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) said, speaking to a female colleague as fellow Senators voted.

“I mean, the whole conversation is rigged,” he went on. “The fact that we don’t get to a discussion before the break about what we’re going to do in the lame duck, is just rigged. This stuff’s rigged.”

The Senator appears to have been commenting on how Democrats formulated their lame duck agenda, not the nature of the Senate itself.

Full Story: C-Span mic catches US Senator’s candor: The Senate ‘is all rigged’ | Raw Story.

Tea Party Nation President Says It ‘Makes A Lot Of Sense’ To Restrict Voting Only To Property Owners

Every week, the Tea Party Nation hosts a weekly radio program, calling itself a “home for conservatives.” Two weeks ago, Tea Party Nation President Judson Phillips hosted the program and discussed changes that he felt should be made to voting rights in the United States. He explained that the founders of the country originally put “certain restrictions on who gets the right to vote.” He continued, “One of those was you had to be a property owner. And that makes a lot of sense, because if you’re a property owner you actually have a vested stake in the community. If you’re not a property owner, you know, I’m sorry but property owners have a little bit more of a vested interest in the community than non-property owners”:

PHILLIPS: The Founding Fathers originally said, they put certain restrictions on who gets the right to vote. It wasn’t you were just a citizen and you got to vote. Some of the restrictions, you know, you obviously would not think about today. But one of those was you had to be a property owner. And that makes a lot of sense, because if you’re a property owner you actually have a vested stake in the community. If you’re not a property owner, you know, I’m sorry but property owners have a little bit more of a vested interest in the community than non-property owners.

Listen to it:

Full Story: ThinkProgress » Tea Party Nation President Says It ‘Makes A Lot Of Sense’ To Restrict Voting Only To Property Owners.

23 Top Conservative Leaders Urge GOP Leadership To Pursue Defense Budget Cuts

As ThinkProgress and The Progress Report have documented, there is a growing coalition of both Tea Party-backed conservatives and stalwart progressives who are coming together to demand cuts to the bloated defense budget. This coalition was given further momentum earlier this month, when the co-chairs of President Obama’s Deficit Reduction Commission released a report that calls for $100 billion in defense cuts.

Now, 23 major conservative leaders have sent a letter to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and House Speaker Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) asking them to “institute principled spending reform” that includes “proposing cuts” to the Pentagon budget. The conservative leaders, which include Americans for Tax Reform president Grover Norquist, Americans For Prosperity president Tim Phillips, and FreedomWorks CEO Matt Kibbe, note that “Department of Defense spending, in particular, has been provided protected status that has isolated it from serious scrutiny and allowed the Pentagon to waste billions in taxpayer money.”

The conservatives write that ignoring “the burden military spending places on the taxpayers” promotes an “ethos” of “reckless spending.” They conclude that “any such Department of Defense favoritism would signal that the new Congress is not serious about fiscal responsibility and not ready to lead.” They end their letter by writing, “We call on you to lead the crusade for a new era of responsibility – one that knows no sacred cows“:

Full Story: ThinkProgress » 23 Top Conservative Leaders Urge GOP Leadership To Pursue Defense Budget Cuts.

Netflix Partner Says Comcast Fee ‘Threatens’ Open Internet

Level 3 Communications, a central partner in the Netflix online movie service, accused Comcast on Monday of charging a new fee that puts Internet video companies at a competitive disadvantage.

Level 3, which helps to deliver Netflix’s streaming movies, said Comcast had effectively erected a tollbooth that “threatens the open Internet,” and indicated that it would seek government intervention. Comcast quickly denied that the clash had anything to do with network neutrality, instead calling it “a simple commercial dispute.”

The dispute highlighted the growing importance of Internet video delivery — an area that some people say needs to be monitored more closely by regulators. Net neutrality, which posits that Internet traffic should be free of any interference from network operators like Comcast, is thought to be on the December agenda of the Federal Communications Commission.

Full Story: Netflix Partner Says Comcast Fee ‘Threatens’ Open Internet – NYTimes.com.

The Stench of US Economic Decay Grows Stronger

When Will Oppressed Americans Take to the Streets

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

On Thanksgiving eve the English-language China Daily and People’s Daily Online reported that Russia and China have concluded an agreement to abandon the use of the US dollar in their bilateral trade and to use their own currencies in its place. The Russians and Chinese said that they had taken this step in order to insulate their economies from the risks that have undermined their confidence in the US dollar as world reserve currency.

This is big news, especially for the news-dead Thanksgiving holiday period, but I did not see it reported on Bloomberg, CNN, New York Times or anywhere in the US print or TV media. The ostrich’s head remains in the sand.

Previously, China concluded the same agreement with Brazil.

As China has a large and growing supply of dollars from trade surpluses with which to conduct trade, China is signaling that she prefers Russian rubles and Brazilian reais to more US dollars.

Full Story: Paul Craig Roberts: The Stench of US Economic Decay Grows Stronger.

Greenpeace takes ‘corporate spies’ to federal court

The American branch of an international environmental group is suing two chemical companies, their PR firms, and the private investigators they hired allegedly for spying and racketteering.

“The message of this lawsuit is: when companies engage in espionage, they will be discovered and exposed. These unacceptable and underhanded tactics interfered with valuable work we were undertaking to protect public health and expose environmental crimes,” Phil Radford, executive director of Greenpeace USA, said in an advisory.

Greenpeace USA’s federal lawsuit filed Monday alleges that Dow Chemical and Sasol hired a private spy firm Beckett Brown International (BBI) through public relations firms Dezenhall Resources and Ketchum to spy on the environmental group.

Full Story: Greenpeace takes ‘corporate spies’ to federal court | Raw Story.

An Emotional Letter From a 99er Who Gives Up Hope: The Tragic Consequences of Long-Term Unemployment

The following unedited letter from a desperate and hopeless unemployed 99er named Mark was brought to my attention by another hard-working 99er, Bud Meyers, of A Company of One. Mark’s contact information is not yet available, but a number of 99ers are trying to track his whereabouts.

Many 99ers, unemployed and financially vulnerable Americans, will be able to relate to Mark’s emotional letter. Hopefully Mark’s moving letter also breaks through to those who can change these tragic circumstances with the stroke of a pen or a small change of mindset that considers a person’s life over the constant pursuit of record profits and bonuses; the occupiers of corporate executive suites, Wall Street banking kingdoms and the Halls of Congress:

To the unemployed, sick, disabled and poor:

Hello,

Full Story: Michael Thornton: An Emotional Letter From a 99er Who Gives Up Hope: The Tragic Consequences of Long-Term Unemployment.

National Fiscal Hypocrisy Week

Robert Reich:

Welcome to National Fiscal Hypocrisy Week.

Today (Monday), Congress takes up a measure delaying by one month a scheduled 23% cut in federal reimbursements to doctors. The cut will automatically go into effect unless Congress acts. But of course Congress will act. Doctors threaten to drop Medicare patients if their rates are cut. Congress has delayed scheduled Medicare cuts for years.

The best outcome would be an agreement to contain future health-care costs by allowing Medicare to use its bargaining power with drug companies and medical suppliers to reduce rates; by allowing Americans to buy drugs from Canada; by applying the antitrust laws to health insurers; and by giving the public an option to buy their health care from a government-run public option.

Likelihood of any of this happening over Republican and DINO objections is zero.

Full Story: Robert Reich (National Fiscal Hypocrisy Week).

Will pay freeze strengthen Obama’s hand?

The White House this morning announced a two-year pay freeze for civilian Federal workers, a move designed to signal concern about the deficit, and judging by Obama’s remarks to reporters about the freeze, he seems to think it will strengthen his hand in coming negotiations with the GOP.

Indeed, it’s hard to miss the timing here: He announced it one day before heading into his first high-profile meeting with Republicans tomorrow, to discuss whether to let the Bush tax cuts for the rich expire. The two-year pay freeze would only make a tiny dent in the deficit, and as Peter Baker puts it, it’s mainly a “symbolic gesture.”

In remarks to reporters just now, Obama left little doubt that he views this move as a preemptive strike against Republicans in the war for the moral high ground over who really cares about the deficit. He called for the GOP to join him in “making sure that we’re not dragged down on long term debt.”

Full Story: The Plum Line – Will pay freeze strengthen Obama’s hand?.

State stops accepting/processing new unemployment claims | stops, mich, unemployment

There is developing news on unemployment this morning.

Michigan has stopped taking and processing new benefit claims.

Congress failed to pass legislation to extend jobless benefits beyond November 30th.

Governor Granholm urged lawmakers to reconsider their vote.

More than 330,000 people in Michigan rely on benefits to survive.

Full Story: State stops accepting/processing new unemployment claims | stops, mich, unemployment – Top Stories – WWMT NEWSCHANNEL 3.

Boat engine causes oil to rise from seafloor — “Just dead, everything’s dead”

Video:

Scientists Trick Cells Into Switching Identities

Scientists are reporting early success at transforming one kind of specialized cell into another, a feat of biological alchemy that doctors may someday perform inside a patient’s body to restore health.

So if a heart attack damages muscle tissue in the heart, for example, doctors may someday be able to get other cells in that organ to become muscle to help the heart pump.

That’s a futuristic idea, but researchers are enthusiastic about the potential for the new direct-conversion approach.

Full Story: Scientists Trick Cells Into Switching Identities.

US Government Refuses to Act on Cancer-Causing Zonolite Insulation

Americans living in millions of homes will soon crawl into their attics to collect their holiday decorations. With those colorful lights and ornaments could come invisible and deadly asbestos fibers that decades from now may destroy or end the lives of some of the celebrants.

For years the government has known that the attics and walls of as many as 35 million homes and businesses are insulated with Zonolite, which contains lethal asbestos-tainted vermiculite. Some medical authorities believe that people are still dying because of it.

“Based on my experience, and my understanding of the residential and worker exposures to the asbestos in this insulation, I believe firmly that individuals are being sickened and even dying from these exposures across the country on a continuing basis,” said Dr. Aubrey Miller, who was medical director for the EPA team that was sent to the remote town of Libby, Mont., in 1999 to investigate reports of hundreds of deaths and illnesses with asbestosis, mesothelioma and lung cancer.

Full Story: US Government Refuses to Act on Cancer-Causing Zonolite Insulation.

Supreme Court Takes Aim Yet Again At Campaign Finance Laws

The Supreme Court agreed to hear a free speech challenge to Arizona’s Clean Elections Law on Monday, a case that campaign finance reform advocates expect to be another blow in the court’s dismantling of the country’s elections system.

Arizona candidates running for statewide and legislative offices are eligible to receive public funds after raising a certain number of $5 donations, according to the measure adopted by voters in 1998. They also have to forgo private fundraising and accept expenditure limits. The controversial part of the law is the fact that candidates can receive additional funds if they are running against an opponent who is not part of the public system and spends an amount of money beyond a certain threshold — an attempt to level the playing field, at least in terms of funding.

In January, a U.S. district judge ruled on the side of the Goldwater Institute in Arizona, which is challenging the law. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, however, unanimously reversed that decision and upheld the Clean Elections Act in May.

Full Story: Supreme Court Takes Aim Yet Again At Campaign Finance Laws.

Senate Dems Plan Dramatic Tax Cut Vote, Followed By ‘Grab Bag’ Negotiations

With just weeks remaining before tax rates revert back to pre-Bush levels, Senate Democrats have come to the fragile conclusion that they should and will hold a solitary vote to extend rates for the middle class while letting those for the wealthy expire.

The line-in-the-sand stance was first hinted at weeks ago by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), and it was brought up during a meeting between congressional leaders and the White House in the days before Thanksgiving break. But in discussions with The Huffington Post on Monday, various top-ranking aides in the Senate say that such a path forward has increasingly emerged as a fait accompli.

Not that the party expects they can win such a vote. The idea is primarily to draw a contrast with Republicans who stand opposed to the measure, as well as to please the progressive members of the caucus who have long argued that — morally and fiscally — letting the rates for the wealthy expire is smart policy.

Full Story: Senate Dems Plan Dramatic Tax Cut Vote, Followed By ‘Grab Bag’ Negotiations.

Deficit commission plan would kill 4 million jobs, analysis finds

The preliminary deficit reduction plan recently released by the co-chairmen of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility would kill four million jobs over the next three years, according to a recently published analysis by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).

“Using the rule of thumb that a 1% increase in GDP increases payroll employment by 1 million jobs, we estimate that Co-Chairs’ Proposal would thus reduce payroll employment by roughly 723,000 jobs in 2012, 1.4 million jobs in 2013, and 1.9 million jobs in 2014,” economists Josh Bivens and Andrew Fieldhouse said in their report, “Fiscal commissioners’ proposal would cost millions of jobs.”

Bivens and Fieldhouse said in their report that the proposal drafted by former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wy.) and Erskine Bowles, President Bill Clinton’s former chief of staff, plays “lip service” to future economic conditions in America.

Full Story: Deficit commission plan would kill 4 million jobs, analysis finds | Raw Story.

Investing in America’s Economy:

Demos, EPI and The Century Foundation have produced a budget blueprint for economic recovery and fiscal responsibility. The blueprint prioritizes a strong economic recovery because widespread job creation and robust economic growth are essential to successful deficit reduction. Investing in America’s Future is a project of Demos, EPI and The Century Foundation.

Today, the United States faces grave economic problems. Some arose from the recession that began in 2007. Others are part of a long-term trend toward inequality and insecurity that pre-dated the immediate crisis. Currently, nearly one in 10 workers is unemployed. Millions of families that have jobs have exhausted their savings and are living paycheck to paycheck. Worried about job security and incomes, families have cut back on spending, putting further downward pressure on the economic recovery. Even very low interest rates have not induced banks to lend or businesses to invest because of a lack of overall demand.

In this context, the country is having a serious national debate about the best path to restore economic growth and shared prosperity – and the relationship of that core economic challenge to the need for better fiscal balance. The issues include the timing and composition of spending and taxing decisions. If we choose the right path, we can accelerate recovery. But the wrong approach could deepen the slump, inflict more economic pain on families, and make it more difficult to restore fiscal balance.

The federal budget is more than a bunch of numbers in a ledger in an office in Washington D.C. The federal budget represents one of the most concrete and measurable embodiments of the nation’s values and priorities. As a nation, the American people value hard work and responsibility. We know that we must all work hard to succeed, and we trust that our fellow citizens – our family and friends, our neighbors, and communities – will do so as well. We ask much of each other: that we be informed voters, that we are responsible consumers and business leaders, and that we pay our fair share of taxes. It is all part of the nation’s social compact. Budgetary decisions help to secure that social compact: they can offer solutions to national problems, create economic security for those in need, and expand opportunities for millions.

Full Story: Investing in America’s Economy: A Budget Blueprint for Economic Recovery and Fiscal Responsibility.

BP among companies Obama excluded from US environmental oversight

A number of the nation’s biggest polluters received exemptions from basic environmental oversight for federally funded stimulus projects, according to a published report.

While the stimulus bill was being debated in Congress in 2009, numerous companies lobbied for environmental exemptions, but their efforts were ultimately rebuffed by environmental advocates.

But while companies may have failed to pressure Congress into issuing legislative exemptions from environmental oversight, federal agencies granted exemptions to 96 percent of stimulus projects so far, according to documents obtained by the Center for Public Integrity.

Full Story: BP among companies Obama excluded from US environmental oversight | Raw Story.

Mark Kirk: Extending Jobless Benefits Is ‘Misguided,’ But Bush Tax Cuts Must Be Extended ‘No Matter What’

Unless Congress acts by tomorrow, 2.5 million Americans will lose their extended unemployment benefits, even though unemployment is still above nine percent and there are currently five unemployed workers for every job opening. In the last forty years, the U.S. has never allowed jobless benefits to expire with unemployment so high.

At the same time, Congress is also faced with the December 31st expiration of the Bush tax cuts. Today, in two separate interviews, Sen.-elect Mark Kirk (R-IL) tried to bolster his fiscal conservative credentials by saying that extending unemployment insurance without finding spending cuts to offset the extension would be “misguided” because of its effect on the deficit. However, Kirk also called for extending all of the Bush tax cuts, “no matter what” the effect on the nation’s budget:

KIRK: We should extend the Bush tax cuts and make sure we don’t have a double-dip recession. And I have the honor to be the first of ninety-five new Republicans, fiscal conservatives, to help right our ship of state. [...]

Q: The first thing you’re talking about is deficit reduction and spending. Does that mean that right now, as of today, you’d be against extending the unemployment insurance?

Full Story: ThinkProgress » Mark Kirk: Extending Jobless Benefits Is ‘Misguided,’ But Bush Tax Cuts Must Be Extended ‘No Matter What’.

Stop Them From Eating My Town

Unless you become more watchful in your states and check the spirit of monopoly and thirst for exclusive privileges you will in the end find that…the control over your dearest interests has passed into the hands of these corporations.

– Andrew Jackson

There is a huge difference between a mall full of chain stores or a big-box retailer, and a downtown area full of small, locally owned businesses. The transition from the latter to the former is what’s destroying local communities on the one hand and creating mind-boggling wealth for a very few very large corporations and multimillionaire CEOs on the other. Here’s how it works.

As I noted in my book Unequal Protection,1 when I shop in downtown Montpelier, Vermont, and buy a pair of pants, for example, at the Stevens Clothing Store on Main Street, at the end of the day the store’s owner, Jack Callahan, takes his proceeds down to the Northfield Savings Bank and deposits them. From Stevens, I walk next door to Bear Pond Books and buy today’s newspaper, a magazine, and a copy of Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man, a book that is as fascinating today as when it was first written in 1791.

Full Story: t r u t h o u t | Stop Them From Eating My Town.

Next Chapter in the “Republican War Against Women”

Republican women have become a not-so-subtle weapon for breaking apart the Democratic coalition, grounded in the women’s vote, that gave Democrats control of the House and Senate in 2006 and 2008 and made Nancy Pelosi Speaker of the House. This year for the first time since 1982, Democrats did not have a voting advantage with women. Men supported Republicans by a margin of 12 percent and women by one percent.

This month’s mid-term elections were a watershed for women’s electoral politics. The national GOP is no longer trying to win votes from the backlash to the women’s movement. Instead it has embraced the movement’s call for more women elected officials.

Full Story: t r u t h o u t | Next Chapter in the “Republican War Against Women”.

Final Election Results Give Dems a Clean Sweep in California – Post-Election Polls Suggest GOP Is Walking Wounded, Maybe Walking Dead

Here’s how George Skelton, the Los Angeles Times columnist who covers Sacramento, opened his piece last Monday on the November 2 election in California:

Go ahead: Accuse me of shooting the wounded. But it may be that the body already is dead.

I’m referring to the California Republican Party.

How alive could the state GOP be after suffering the pounding it took on Nov. 2, a day of historic party triumph elsewhere across America?

“It’s not just wounded, it’s in a coma,” says Republican Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado.

Full Story: Pensito Review » Final Election Results Give Dems a Clean Sweep in California – Post-Election Polls Suggest GOP Is Walking Wounded, Maybe Walking Dead.

The 10 most important WikiLeaks revelations

From Iran to Yemen to Israel to North Korea to the U.N. — what the leaked documents tell us about the world

The AP has concluded that there is nothing “particularly explosive” so far in the archive of State Department cables that has begun to be released by WikiLeaks. That assertion is debatable in itself. But anyone who takes time to browse through the documents will find both fascinating and solidly new and newsworthy information about U.S. foreign policy and international relations.

WikiLeaks says the documents will be released in stages “over the next few months,” so much of what we know now comes through the filter of the handful of media organizations who had access to the full archives. Only a few hundred cables have been released. Here are the top 10 revelations so far:

Full Story: The 10 most important WikiLeaks revelations – War Room – Salon.com.

Father Loses Custody of His Children for Being Agnostic

“Religion is nothing more than the shadow of the universe laid on human intelligence” Victor Hugo

The Great Lakes Are a Commons

A diverse group of activists from both sides of the border declares the lakes a common endowment

On the Commons and Council of Canadians (link) hosted a landmark gathering of activists from around the Great lakes in mid-November at Blue Mountain Center in the Adirondacks of upstate New York. Maude Barlow, President of the Council of Canadians, built momentum for the meeting with her rousing keynote address at the Environmental Grantmakers Association in October calling on environmental, global justice and other social movements to unite around protecting the water commons.

“The Great Lakes crisis is part of the global crisis, in which we are quickly running out of fresh water.,” Barlow told the group at Blue Mountain. “It’s not a closed hydrological cycle like we were taught— we are losing clean water through irrigation, bottled water, virtual water trade and more.

“Scientists say that the Great Lakes could be bone dry in 80 years,” Barlow added, citing the case of the Aral Sea, once one of the fourth largest lake in the world, but now just 10 percent of its former size. “The World Bank says that water demand is outstripping supply by 40%, producing great suffering.”

Full Story: The Great Lakes Are a Commons | On the Commons.

Water accessibility declines in Africa

The amount of water available per person in Africa is declining and only 26 of the continent’s 53 countries are currently on track to reduce by half the number of people without sustainable access to clean drinking water by 2015, according to a survey by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Furthermore, only five countries in Africa are expected to attain the target of reducing by half the proportion of the population without sustainable access to basic sanitation by 2015, the deadline of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a series of targets agreed to by all countries and leading development institutions to meet the needs of the world’s poorest.
The Africa Water Atlas, compiled by UNEP at the request of the African Ministers’ Council on Water, also maps out new solutions and success stories on water resources management from across the continent.
It contains the first detailed mapping of how rainwater conservation is improving food security in drought-prone regions. Images also reveal how irrigation projects in Kenya, Senegal and Sudan are helping to improve food security.

Full Story: AfricaNews – Water accessibility declines in Africa – UN – Articles.

Report: A billion people will lose their homes due to climate change

British scientists will warn Cancún summit that entire nations could be flooded

Devastating changes to sea levels, rainfall, water supplies, weather systems and crop yields are increasingly likely before the end of the century, scientists will warn tomorrow.

A special report, to be released at the start of climate negotiations in Cancún, Mexico, will reveal that up to a billion people face losing their homes in the next 90 years because of failures to agree curbs on carbon emissions.

Up to three billion people could lose access to clean water supplies because global temperatures cannot now be stopped from rising by 4C.

Full Story: A billion people will lose their homes due to climate change, says report | Environment | The Observer.

Robots, the Military’s Newest Forces

War would be a lot safer, the Army says, if only more of it were fought by robots.

And while smart machines are already very much a part of modern warfare, the Army and its contractors are eager to add more. New robots — none of them particularly human-looking — are being designed to handle a broader range of tasks, from picking off snipers to serving as indefatigable night sentries.

In a mock city here used by Army Rangers for urban combat training, a 15-inch robot with a video camera scuttles around a bomb factory on a spying mission. Overhead an almost silent drone aircraft with a four-foot wingspan transmits images of the buildings below. Onto the scene rolls a sinister-looking vehicle on tank treads, about the size of a riding lawn mower, equipped with a machine gun and a grenade launcher.

Full Story: Robots, the Military’s Newest Forces – NYTimes.com.

The Top 5 Ways to Live Longer, Stronger and Happier

Life in the 21st century can certainly derail our longevity plans! Lack of sleep, poor nutrition, too little physical activity, unhappiness and daily stress are five major rapid-aging culprits that wreak havoc on our health and shorten our lifespan. Follow these tips to boost your longevity and stop those crow’s feet from creeping up on you too soon:

1) Don’t Worry, Be Happy

A smile a day can zap those wrinkles away! Did you know that it takes more muscles to create a frown than it does a smile? When was the last time you laughed so hard that you hunched over from a bellyache? Watch a comedy, tell a joke or have a fun game night with your friends. Several studies demonstrate how laughter can reduce inflammation and blood pressure, boost immunity and even burn calories. A study conducted in Vanderbilt University measured the amount of 50 calories burned in just 10 to 15 minutes of laughter. Turn that frown upside down and smile your way to health!

Full Story: Dr. Maoshing Ni: The Top 5 Ways to Live Longer, Stronger and Happier.

Top 12 Most Vulnerable Apps Ranked By Bit9

Internet security company Bit9 has ranked the year’s most vulnerable apps, based on the vulnerability database developed by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology.

The applications found on this year’s list were ranked by the number of “high severity” vulnerabilities reported. The list includes some of the most popular Web browsers and desktop software applications. Apple and Adobe, for example, have the most products on this year’s list, according to Bit9.

Harry Sverdlove, CTO of Bit9, issued the following warning along with the company’s official report: “The reality is every enterprise, including our own, is likely using at least one of the applications, and unpatched vulnerabilities are often used as the access point for the targeted enterprise attacks making headlines these days.” Bit9 advises consumers that the best way to eliminate these vulnerabilities is by performing regular maintenance and patching exploits when necessary.

Full Story: Top 12 Most Vulnerable Apps Ranked By Bit9 (PICTURES).

Monterrey, Mexico’s Wealthiest City, Succumbs To Drug War

A 21-year-old university student lies dead from a gunshot to the head. Nearby, paramedics wrap the head of another woman in a blood-soaked shirt while her husband holds their cowering children.

They were shopping in a popular downtown promenade when gunmen chasing a security guard opened fire into the crowd. This wasn’t supposed to happen in Monterrey, Mexico’s modern northern city with gleaming glass towers that rise against the Sierra Madre, where students flock to world-class universities, including the country’s equivalent of MIT.

But drug violence has painted Monterrey with the look and feel of the gritty border 100 miles (160 kilometers) to the north as two former allies, the Gulf and Zetas gangs, fight for control of Mexico’s third-largest – and wealthiest – city.

Full Story: Monterrey, Mexico’s Wealthiest City, Succumbs To Drug War.

China Calls For Emergency Meeting As South Korea, U.S. Begin War Games

A U.S. supercarrier and South Korean destroyer took up position in the tense Yellow Sea on Sunday for joint military exercises that were a united show of force just days after a deadly North Korean artillery attack.

As tensions escalated across the region, with North Korea threatening another “merciless” attack, China belatedly jumped into the fray. Beijing’s top nuclear envoy, Wu Dawei, called for an emergency meeting in early December among regional powers involved in nuclear disarmament talks, including North Korea.

Seoul responded cautiously to the proposal from North Korea’s staunch ally, saying it should be “reviewed very carefully” in light of North Korea’s recent revelation of a new uranium-enrichment facility, even as protesters begged President Lee Myung-bak to find a way to resolve the tension and restore peace.

Full Story: China Calls For Emergency Meeting As South Korea, U.S. Begin War Games.

12 Detained in Halliburton bribery case

Nigeria’s anti-corruption police have raided the offices of the U.S. oilfield services group Halliburton and arrested 12 people in a bribery case involving the former Halliburton unit KBR Inc, a spokesman said on Saturday.

The U.S. firm said the detentions, carried out on Thursday, had no legal basis and that its employees had since been freed.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) said it had detained 10 Halliburton staff for questioning and one senior employee each from oil services firms Saipem Contracting Nigeria Ltd and Technip Offshore Nigeria Ltd.

Eni, Saipem’s parent company, declined to comment.

“We are still looking for the (local) managing director of Halliburton,” EFCC spokesman Femi Babafemi said.

Those detained in the raid, carried out with the assistance of armed police, included Giuseppe Surace, believed to be Saipem’s country manager, and Frank Pliya from Technip, as well as a mixture of expatriates and Nigerians, Babafemi said.

Full Story: Nigeria detains 12 in Halliburton bribery case | Reuters.

Hadron Collider detects ‘Big Bang’ matter

A phase of matter created moments after the Big Bang is thought to have been detected at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland.

“Striking” evidence of a quark-gluon plasma has been observed by a team of researchers, including Canadians, at the facility near Geneva, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) announced Friday.

FBI apparently set up US teen blamed for fake car bomb

Boy told undercover agents he could get a gun because he’s a “rapper”; authored article containing “jihad” workout tips

An Somali-born, American teenager was apparently set up by federal law enforcement officials who posed as radical Islamic fighters and lured the young man into a plot he believed would lead him to detonate a car bomb at an Oregon Christmas tree lighting ceremony.

The bomb, provided by FBI agents, was “inert” and did not pose a threat to public safety, according to the US Attorney’s Office in Oregon.

Oddly enough, Arthur Balizan, an FBI agent in Oregon, contradicted the US Attorney’s Office, suggesting that the threat posed by 19-year-old Mohamed Osman Mohamud “was very real.”

Full Story: FBI apparently set up US teen blamed for fake car bomb | Raw Story.

Scowcroft on START: ‘Partisan’ GOP Doesn’t Want To Give Obama ‘A Foreign Policy Victory’

Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) has been the leading Senate Republican urging the upper chamber of Congress to ratify the New START arms control treaty with Russia. However, the Republican obstructionism that has become so routine throughout the past two years of President Obama’s tenure is standing in the way. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) has been the face of the GOP hamstringing and despite the fact that this non-controversial treaty — one that closely mirrors the one President Reagan signed with the Soviet Union — has been thoroughly debated in the Senate for nearly a year, Kyl told the New York Times, “If they try to jam us [in the lame-duck session], if they try to bring this up the week before Christmas, it’ll be defeated.”

Lugar has been reluctant to criticize his colleagues’ obstruction. When asked last week if they were just playing politics, Lugar said, “I am not ascribing motivations to anybody.” But other Republicans don’t seem to be holding back. Brent Scowcroft served as national security adviser to two Republican presidents and has been pleading with Congress to ratify New START. Profiling Lugar’s awkward position vis-a-vis other Senate Republicans on this issue, Politico reports today that Scrowcroft isn’t being as diplomatic as Lugar on the GOP’s incentive for holding up START:

In an attempt to rally bipartisan support for the treaty, the White House

Full Story: ThinkProgress » Scowcroft on START: ‘Partisan’ GOP Doesn’t Want To Give Obama ‘A Foreign Policy Victory’.

OPS: Title should read: “GOP willing to destroy the nation to defeat Obama“.   Kind of reminds you of  Hitlers orders at the end of WWII to burn everything (Bridges, Crops, Factories, etc) so the Allies would have anything to work with to rebuild Germany after the war.   It also sounds like a  disturbed child who  breaks his toy rather than have to share it with his brother.

Economist Manfred Max-Neef on Barefoot Economics, Poverty and Why The U.S. is Becoming an “Underdeveloping Nation”

Video

We speak with the acclaimed Chilean economist, Manfred Max-Neef. He won the Right Livelihood Award in 1983, two years after the publication of his book Outside Looking In: Experiences in Barefoot Economics. “Economists study and analyze poverty in their nice offices, have all the statistics, make all the models, and are convinced that they know everything that you can know about poverty. But they don’t understand poverty,” Max-Neef says.

Real Video Stream – Real Audio Stream – MP3 Download – Printer-friendly version – Purchase DVD/CD

Full Story: Chilean Economist Manfred Max-Neef on Barefoot Economics, Poverty and Why The U.S. is Becoming an “Underdeveloping Nation”.

Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN): GOP “Beyond Redemption”

That the Republican Party is beyond redemption sounds like something I’d say. The party represents only fat cats and criminal corporations. They crave power so desperately, they don’t care where they get their support, so they goose-step in perfect lock step with racists, bigots, homophobes, and even revolutionary seditionists. They happily obstruct anything that mike make the current administration look good, even if an item was originally their own proposal, no matter how desperate the need for passage by Main Street Americans. However, “beyond redemption” did not come from me, but from one of their own.

In an age when far-right tea party activists have taken over the Republican Party and demanded lockstep allegiance, Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) has been one of the few GOP lawmakers to step out of line. In particular, Lugar, the ranking GOP member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has blasted his own party for relentlessly blocking ratification of the New START nuclear arms treaty with Russia, calling on his fellow GOP senators to “do your duty for your country” and complete the pact.

Full Story: GOP “Beyond Redemption” » Politics Plus.

More on this Story:
Former Republican Sen. Warns GOP May ‘Have Gone So Far Overboard That We Are Beyond Redemption’

Still the Best Congress Money Can Buy

Frank Rich:

SO America’s latest crisis — until it wasn’t — was airport screeners touching our junk. As this long year lurches toward its end, we all agree that something has gone wrong in America, and we’re desperately casting about for a coherent explanation for our discontent, if not a scapegoat. Alas, the national consensus that the T.S.A. and full-body scans might be the source of all evil fizzled in less than a week. Most everyone got to Grandma’s house for Thanksgiving without genital distress.

The previous transient scapegoat was the Democrats. They were punished in yet another “wave” election — our third in a row — where voters threw Washington’s bums out. But most of the public remains bummed out nonetheless. In late October, the NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll found that only 31 percent of respondents believed that America was on the right track. When the survey asked the same question after the shellacking, the percent of optimists jumped to … 32. Regardless of party or politics, there’s a sense a broken country can’t be fixed. Few have faith that even “wave” elections are game-changers anymore.

The larger explanations for this dysfunction are well-worn by now, from the impotence of the filibuster-bound United States Senate to the intractable polarization of an electorate divided more or less 50-50 since Bush v. Gore. Such is the bipartisanship of the funk that Jon Stewart and Glenn Beck each succeeded in bringing off well attended rallies in Washington to commiserate over the country’s political and governmental stagnation — with each rally offering its competing diagnosis.

Full Story: Still the Best Congress Money Can Buy – NYTimes.com.

On Korea, Here We Go Again!

If American journalism should have learned one thing over the years, it is to be cautious and skeptical during the first days of a foreign confrontation like the one now playing out on the Korean Peninsula. Often the initial accounts from the “U.S. side” don’t turn out to be entirely accurate.

While you can delve back through history for plenty of examples, today’s U.S. journalists might remember events like the Gulf of Tonkin clash that opened the door to the disastrous Vietnam War and the misplaced certainty about Iraq’s WMD that led to a bloody U.S. invasion and occupation.

In both cases, contrary claims from the “enemy side” were discounted and mocked as U.S. journalists puffed out their chests and waved the flag.

Today’s Korean crisis over an exchange of artillery fire between North Korea and South Korea is similar. Though the evidence is that South Korea fired first, you wouldn’t know that if you’ve been watching most U.S. news shows and reading the major newspapers, which have laid the blame squarely at the doorstep of North Korea.

Full Story: On Korea, Here We Go Again!.

Thousands protest against Irish bailout

More than 100,000 people gather in Dublin to demonstrate against four-year austerity plan to reduce debts

More than 100,000 Irish citizens took to the streets of Dublin today to protest against the international bailout and four years of austerity.

Despite overnight snow storms and freezing temperatures, huge crowds have gathered in O’Connell Street to demonstrate against the cuts aimed at driving down Ireland’s colossal national debt.

So far the march has passed off peacefully although there is a huge Garda presence with up to 700 officers on duty working alongside 250 security guards for the Irish Congress of Trade Unions.

Full Story: Thousands protest against Irish bailout | World news | guardian.co.uk.

USS George Washington Visit Poses A Dilemma For China

This weekend’s arrival of a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Yellow Sea poses a dilemma for Beijing: Should it protest angrily and aggravate ties with Washington, or quietly accept the presence of a key symbol of American military pre-eminence off Chinese shores?

The USS George Washington, accompanied by escort ships, is to take part in military drills with South Korea following North Korea’s shelling of a South Korean island Tuesday that was one of the most serious confrontations since the Korean War a half-century ago.

It’s a scenario China has sought to prevent. Only four months ago, Chinese officials and military officers shrilly warned Washington against sending a carrier into the Yellow Sea for an earlier set of exercises. Some said it would escalate tensions after the sinking of a South Korean navy ship blamed on North Korea. Others went further, calling the carrier deployment a threat to Chinese security.

Full Story: USS George Washington Visit Poses A Dilemma For China.

Head Injuries: Why Motorcycle and Bicycle Helmets Should Be Mandatory

“Grumpy” loved spending the weekend touring the Texas Hill Country with his pals — the Seven Dwarfs Motorcycle Club. His Harley was his pride and joy and nothing gave him a greater sense of freedom than riding on a crisp, cool, fall day with his ponytail flapping in the breeze behind him. He never had time to see the sheep on the road, as his bike slipped out from under him, his unprotected head first bounced on the pavement and then into a culvert next to the road. Comatose and severely brain injured, he was transported by helicopter to the trauma center.

Cheryl couldn’t wait to get home from school, feed her dog and hop onto her fluorescent pink bicycle. With her friends, they made a quick stop at the convenience store and decided to race to their favorite spot in the woods behind their neighborhood. For the first time she was in the lead as they careened down the big hill. Then, suddenly her front wheel struck a pothole in the road and she was headed over the handlebars. No helmet on her head, she suffered a terrible brain injury and lies motionless in her bed, staring as if awake, but in a deep coma.

Full Story: Richard C. Senelick, M.D.: Head Injuries: Why Motorcycle and Bicycle Helmets Should Be Mandatory.

Tony Blair, Christopher Hitchens Debate Religion

Former British prime minister Tony Blair said Friday his religious beliefs did not play a role in his decision to support the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq during a debate about the merits of religion in Toronto.

Blair attempted to persuade his verbal sparring opponent, writer Christopher Hitchens, that religion is a force for global good when he was asked by an audience member how religion influenced his decision to stand with the United States against Iraq.

“Religion doesn’t do policy. All my decisions were based on policy and so they should be, and you may disagree with those decisions but they were made because I genuinely believed them to be right,” said Blair before the audience of more than 2,600 at Toronto’s Roy Thompson Hall.

Full Story: Tony Blair, Christopher Hitchens Debate Religion.

Debt crisis escalates in Europe; fears grow about Spain

The debt crisis in Europe escalated sharply Friday as investors dumped Spanish and Portuguese bonds in panicked selling, substantially heightening the prospect that one or both countries may need to join troubled Ireland and Greece in soliciting international bailouts.

The draining confidence in Western Europe’s weakest economies threatened to upend bond markets, destabilize the euro and drag out the global economic recovery if it is not quickly contained. It also underscored the mounting problems facing countries that during the past decade have both over-borrowed and overspent, and are now in danger of losing investor faith in their ability to make good on their massive piles of debt.

Full Story: Debt crisis escalates in Europe; fears grow about Spain.

Health Care Law Faces Threat of Being Undercut by Courts

As the Obama administration presses ahead with the health care law, officials are bracing for the possibility that a federal judge in Virginia will soon reject its central provision as unconstitutional and, in the worst case for the White House, halt its enforcement until higher courts can rule.

The judge, Henry E. Hudson of Federal District Court in Richmond, has promised to rule by the end of the year on the constitutionality of the law’s requirement that most Americans obtain insurance, which takes effect in 2014.

Although administration officials remain confident that it is constitutionally valid to compel people to obtain health insurance, they also acknowledge that Judge Hudson’s preliminary opinions and comments could presage the first ruling against the law.

Full Story: Health Care Law Faces Threat of Being Undercut by Courts – NYTimes.com.

World Poll: Is religion a force for good?

The world is deeply divided on the question of whether religion is a force for good, a survey by Ipsos Reid suggests.

Full Story: CBC News – Canada – Poll underlines sharp divide on religion.

Russia recalls workers as North Korea prepares for war

A mass exodus of North Korean workers from the Far East of Russia is under way, according to reports coming out of the region. As the two Koreas edged towards the brink of war this week, it appears that the workers in Russia have been called back to aid potential military operations.

Vladnews agency, based in Vladivostok, reported that North Korean workers had left the town of Nakhodka en masse shortly after the escalation of tension on the Korean peninsula earlier this week. “Traders have left the kiosks and markets, workers have abandoned building sites, and North Korean secret service employees working in the region have joined them and left,” the agency reported.

Russia’s migration service said that there were over 20,000 North Koreans in Russia at the beginning of 2010, of which the vast majority worked in construction. The workers are usually chaperoned by agents from Kim Jong-il’s security services and have little contact with the world around them. Defectors have suggested that the labourers work 13-hour days and that most of their pay is sent back to the government in Pyongyang. Hundreds of workers have fled the harsh conditions and live in hiding in Russia, constantly in fear of being deported back to North Korea.

Full Story: Expats recalled as North Korea prepares for war – Asia, World – The Independent.

Man charged for covering head during police beating

A Miami man whose beating at the hands of police was captured on cell phone video has been charged with resisting arrest without violence, a charge his lawyer says came from nothing more than the man’s attempts to cover his head from the blows.

Gilberto Matamoros, a 21-year-old youth center worker, says he was doing nothing wrong when police arrested him during a brawl in Miami’s Coconut Grove neighborhood on Halloween. According to his lawyer, Ricardo Martinez-Cid, Matamoros was picked out of an unruly crowd and beaten unconscious by two Miami police officers. He had to be taken to a nearby hospital.

Cell phone footage of the incident shows a police officer hitting Matamoros five times on or near his head. Miami police launched an investigation into the two officers’ actions after the video appeared on local news stations last week.

Full Story: Man charged for covering head during police beating | Raw Story.

Deficit commission’s Simpson calls US seniors the ‘greediest generation’

Wyoming Republican Alan Simpson has a pretty low opinion of the people that have paid into Social Security all their lives and now need something back.

The co-chair of President Barack Obama’s bipartisan deficit commission lashed out at seniors Wednesday because they are unhappy with his ideas for reducing the deficit by cutting Social Security benefits while reducing corporate taxes.

“I’ve never had any nastier mail or [been in a] more difficult position in my life,” Simpson told Jeremy Pelzer at the Casper Star-Tribune. “Just vicious. People I’ve known, relatives [saying], ‘You son of a bitch. How could you do this?’

Full Story: Deficit commission’s Simpson calls US seniors the ‘greediest generation’ | Raw Story.

OPS: The miserable fascist bastard….

Willie Nelson arrested for pot possession

Willie Nelson charged with marijuana possession after 6 ounces found aboard tour bus in Texas

A U.S. Border Patrol spokesman says country singer Willie Nelson was charged with marijuana possession after 6 ounces was found aboard his tour bus in Texas.

Patrol spokesman Bill Brooks says the bus pulled into the Sierra Blanca, Texas, checkpoint about 9 a.m. Friday. Brooks says an officer smelled pot when a door was opened and a search turned up marijuana.

Brooks says the Hudspeth County sheriff was contacted and Nelson was among three people arrested.

Full Story: Willie Nelson arrested for pot possession | Raw Story.

CBO: Recovery Act Raised GDP And Lowered Unemployment But Effects Are ‘Expected To Wane’

ABC News reports that the Congressional Budget Office this week released its latest report on the effects of the Recovery Act and found that it “raised the GDP, lowered unemployment, and increased the number of people with jobs.” According to the report, CBO estimates that the Recovery Act’s policies in the third quarter of the calendar year 2010 had the following effects (emphasis added):

– They raised real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP) by between 1.4 percent and 4.1 percent,

– Lowered the unemployment rate by between 0.8 percentage points and 2.0 percentage points,

– Increased the number of people employed by between 1.4 million and 3.6 million, and,

– Increased the number of full-time-equivalent jobs by 2.0 million to 5.2 million compared with what would have occurred otherwise (see Table 1). (Increases in FTE jobs include shifts from part-time to full-time work or overtime and are thus generally larger than increases in the number of employed workers).

Full Story: ThinkProgress » CBO: Recovery Act Raised GDP And Lowered Unemployment But Effects Are ‘Expected To Wane’.

Rep. Inslee Attacks Anti-Innovation GOP: Move To Clean Energy ‘Or China Is Going To Eat Our Lunch’

In an interview that aired last night on Fox News, Sarah Palin pushed the GOP’s anti-innovation meme and attacked those in Congress who oppose drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Palin called them “extreme politicians over on the left who want to buy into” arguments against drilling from “extreme environmentalists.” The former GOP half-term Alaska governor argued that the U.S. needs “to drill and fill up the pipeline again.”

But in a separate interview later in the program, Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) noted that drilling in the Arctic refuge really won’t solve America’s energy problems, won’t have much impact on the price of gasoline, and most importantly, moves the United States away from the direction of moving to a clean energy economy. Then, appearing to borrow a phrase from his GOP colleague Rep. Bob Inglis (SC), Inslee noted that China will outpace the U.S. if it doesn’t focus more on a clean energy economy:

INSLEE: The fact of the matter is, if we’re going to grow our economy, if we are going to seize the jobs of the next century, we have to get busy focusing our national debate and our national investment on the new clean energy technologies, or China is going to eat our lunch.

Full Story: ThinkProgress » Rep. Inslee Attacks Anti-Innovation GOP: Move To Clean Energy ‘Or China Is Going To Eat Our Lunch’.

OPS: No Shit Sherlock.  Even some in the Reich are starting to wake up.  If it wasn’t for Republicans we would have had this by now.  Let’s not forget that Carter had us on the path over 30 years ago!  Reagan, and the Republican ‘revolution’ killed it.

Sarah Palin’s Presidential Strategy, and the Economy She Depends On

Robert Reich:

Monday night, Sarah Palin watched from the audience as daughter Bristol danced on ABC. Twenty-three million other Americans joined her from their homes. Tuesday, the former vice-presidential candidate started a 13-state book tour for her new book, “America By Heart,” which has a first printing of 1 million. Her reality show on TLC, “Sarah Palin’s Alaska,” is in its third week. Last Sunday she was the cover story in the New York Times magazine.

It’s all part of The Palin Strategy for becoming president in 2012 — or 2016 or 2020.

Republican leaders don’t believe it. “If she wanted the Republican nomination she’d be working on the inside,” one influential Republican told me a few days ago. “She’d be building relationships with Republican Senators and representatives, governors, and state party officials. She’d be smoothing the feathers she ruffled by backing Tea Party candidates. She’d be huddled with GOP kingmakers.” When I suggested she has a different strategy, the influential Republican smiled knowingly. “That’s how it’s done – how McCain, Bush, and everyone has done it. That’s the only way to do it. But all she really wants is celebrity.”

Full Story: Robert Reich (Sarah Palin’s Presidential Strategy, and the Economy She Depends On).

Napolitano Eyes Full Body Scans for Trains, Ships, Mass Transit

In the course of condemning public opposition to the full body scans and invasive “enhanced patdown” procedures and admonishing its opponents to “share responsibility” for security, Department of Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano suggested that the controversial methods may be coming to a myriad of new locations.

“I think the tighter we get on aviation, we have to also be thinking now about going on to mass transit or to trains or maritime,” Napolitano insisted. TSA officials have also hinted at using the scans for train travel.

Public opposition to the TSA’s airport screenings have led a number of people to consider travel by other means, including trains, to avoid the screenings. It is noteworthy that the new talk about adding the scans to trains have only cropped up since people began looking to them as a way to avoid air travel.

Full Story: Napolitano Eyes Full Body Scans for Trains, Ships, Mass Transit — News from Antiwar.com.

OPS:

You knew THIS was coming.

Better start practicing…. “Seig Heil”

WikiLeaks: U.S. warns of diplomatic shame

WikiLeaks is set to release diplomatic cables, American leaders are briefing to brace for embarrassment

U.S. allies around the world have been briefed by American diplomats about an expected release of classified U.S. files by the WikiLeaks website that is likely to cause international embarrassment and could damage some nations’ relations with the United States.

In Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron’s spokesman, Steve Field, said Friday that the government had been told of “the likely content of these leaks” by U.S. Ambassador Louis Susman. Field declined to say what Britain had been warned to expect.

“I don’t want to speculate about precisely what is going to be leaked before it is leaked,” Field said.

Full Story: WikiLeaks: U.S. warns of diplomatic shame – WikiLeaks – Salon.com.

WikiLeaks imminent document release has many squirming

Anticipating great damage to some of its diplomatic ties, people in the Obama administration have been calling allies in an attempt to blunt the impact of what might be revealed in the WikiLeaks documents.

I caught a two minute preview of General Petraeus talking with Fareed Zakaria, most probably a clip from this Sunday’s GPS program, wherein Petraeus is predicting the great damage this leak will inflict on our troops and our allies. He attempted to call on the ‘people in charge’ of WikiLeaks, but wouldn’t call Assange by name, to feel responsibility for the alleged harm he will have unleashed unto unsuspecting victims.

A most interesting JSS report has indicated that part of the WikiLeaks thunderbolt will include incriminating evidence against Turkish PM Erdogan. They have alleged that US copies of the documents prove, without a doubt, personal implication against Erdogan’s financial and logistical support of al-Qaida in Iraq and Afghanistan. Seriously? This is Turkey, one of our most important allies on the Eurasian continent. There is also a revelation that the US Pentagon is convinced that the creation of a democratic Kurdish state between Turkey and Iraq is not such a bad idea.

Oh?

Full Story: WikiLeaks imminent document release has many squirming – National Foreign Policy | Examiner.com.

Environmental Protection Agency Set to Lower Target for Cellulosic Biofuels

Union of Concerned Scientists:

:In the next few days, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) expects the Environmental Protection Agency to dramatically lower the amount of cellulosic biofuel companies are required to purchase under the federal renewable fuel standard.  x

This would be the second time the EPA reduced the required amount of cellulosic biofuel, which is derived from perennial grasses, waste and other sources. Cellulosic biofuel is cleaner than corn ethanol and is not made from food crops.

“This is a clear sign that current federal policies don’t work, and won’t deliver the environmental, economic and energy security benefits cellulosic biofuels could provide,” said Jeremy Martin, a senior scientist in UCS’s Clean Vehicles Program. “If we’re ever going to get the cellulosic biofuel industry off the ground, we’re going to have to reform biofuel policies.”

Full Story: Environmental Protection Agency Set to Lower Target for Cellulosic Biofuels | CommonDreams.org.

Firms See Long-Sought Goal in Sight: Major Pay Cuts Through Two Tiers

The outlines of a massive new structural downshift in wages are merging more and more clearly.

The largest wage-cutting wave since the Great Depression has already been sweeping the United States for the last couple years in response to the Great Recession. At small firms, many of these pay cuts have been viewed as a temporary means of reducing costs until the recession is fully ended.

The pervasiveness of this trend leads much of the public to assume large corporations are merely seeking the same temporary relief as small firms when they demand concessions in high-profile negotiations. The workers’ pay will surely rise back to previous levels when the situation improves for the company, as occurred during the 1980s, right?

Full Story: Firms See Long-Sought Goal in Sight: Major Pay Cuts Through Two Tiers – Working In These Times.

OPS:  We have allowed a sociopathic few to rise to the seats of power and it is destroying us.  These few appear to have serious mental disorders: Greed and megalomania. Their standard operating procedures demonstrate severe obsessive compulsive disorder focused on money and power.  These few are perfectly willing to destroy this Country and to enslave (at lest economically) the few people who might be able to survive the transition and their ideology.

There won’t be a bailout for the earth

Johann Hari:

Why are the world’s governments bothering? Why are they jetting to Cancun next week to discuss what to do now about global warming? The vogue has passed. The fad has faded. Global warming is yesterday’s apocalypse. Didn’t somebody leak an email that showed it was all made up? Doesn’t it sometimes snow in the winter? Didn’t Al Gore get fat, or something?

Alas, the biosphere doesn’t read Vogue. Nobody thought to tell it that global warming is so 2007. All it knows is three facts. 2010 is globally the hottest year since records began. 2010 is the year humanity’s emissions of planet-warming gases reached its highest level ever. And exactly as the climate scientists predicted, we are seeing a rapid increase in catastrophic weather events, from the choking of Moscow by gigantic unprecedented forest fires to the drowning of one quarter of Pakistan.

Before the Great Crash of 2008, the people who warned about the injection of huge destabilizing risk into our financial system seemed like arcane, anal bores. Now we all sit in the rubble and wish we had listened. The great ecological crash will be worse, because nature doesn’t do bailouts.

Full Story: Johann Hari: There won’t be a bailout for the earth – Johann Hari, Commentators – The Independent.

Economic Boom Worsened De-industrialisation of LDCs

Least developed countries (LDCs) in Africa did not use the commodity export boom of the mid-2000s to diversify their economies from commodity dependence to manufacturing value-added products. Significantly, the agricultural sector has also not benefited, with the result that LDC reliance on imported food has become even worse.

These are some of the findings of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), which released its 2010 report on least developed countries (LDCs), entitled “Towards a new international development architecture for LDCs”, on Nov 25.

Dr Supachai Panitchpakdi, UNCTAD secretary-general, referred at the launch of the report to the average growth rate of seven percent per year that least developed countries (LDCs) experienced during the boom period of 2002- 2007.

Full Story: DEVELOPMENT: Economic Boom Worsened De-industrialisation of LDCs – IPS ipsnews.net.

Talking to the Taliban about life after occupation

Special report: In the last of his series from Afghanistan, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad asks Taliban leaders past and present what kind of regime they would run – and whether there is a chance of negotiated peace

…snip…

The Americans had a right to know that Afghanistan would not be used as a base for attacks against them, he said, but that was all.

“The Americans have one right only, and that is their right to be assured that Afghanistan will not be used against them and that is something the Taliban should give.

“Apart from that they have no rights, they have no right to tell us about democracy and human rights. That’s an Afghan issue and it will be decided by the Afghans.

Full Story: Talking to the Taliban about life after occupation | World news | The Guardian.

Tax The Rich: A Deficit Plan That Doesn’t Hit We, the People

Here is MY deficit-reduction plan. This plan does not reflect the views of anyone but myself — and maybe half the population. Unlike deficit plans from the “serious people” in DC, this one doesn’t annihilate the poor and gut Social Security and the middle class while passing even more of the benefits of our society up to a few at the top.

1) Restore pre-Reagan top tax rates. We didn’t have massive deficits until we reduced the top tax rates.

2) Income is income. No more reduced capital gains tax rate. The incentive to invest should be to make a bunch of money from a good investment. The reason there is a low capital gains tax rate is that the wealthy get most of their income from capital gains. And the reason they get most of their income from capital gains is there is a low capital gains rate. The resulting income shifting schemes are a drag on the rest of us. (Also applies to dividends.)

Full Story: Tax The Rich: A Deficit Plan That Doesn’t Hit We, the People | OurFuture.org.

Homeland Security shuts down dozens of Web sites without court order

The Homeland Security Department’s customs enforcement division has gone on a Web site shutdown spree, closing down at least 76 domains this week, according to online reports.

While many of the web domains were sites that trafficked in counterfeit brand name goods, and some others linked to copyright-infringing file-sharing materials, at least one site was a Google-like search engine, causing alarm among web freedom advocates who worry the move steps over the line into censorship.

All the shut sites are now displaying a Homeland Security warning that copyright infringers can face up to five years in prison.

Full Story: Homeland Security shuts down dozens of Web sites without court order | Raw Story.

OPS:  Related Story an more information -

Homeland Security seizes domain names

Second-hand smoke kills 600,000 a year: WHO study

Around one in a hundred deaths worldwide is due to passive smoking, which kills an estimated 600,000 people a year, World Health Organization (WHO) researchers said on Friday.

In the first study to assess the global impact of second-hand smoke, WHO experts found that children are more heavily exposed to second-hand smoke than any other age-group, and around 165,000 of them a year die because of it.

“Two-thirds of these deaths occur in Africa and south Asia,” the researchers, led by Annette Pruss-Ustun of the WHO in Geneva, wrote in their study.

Children’s exposure to second-hand smoke is most likely to happen at home, and the double blow of infectious diseases and tobacco “seems to be a deadly combination for children in these regions,” they said.

Full Story: Second-hand smoke kills 600,000 a year: WHO study | Reuters.

Power and the Tiny Acts of Rebellion

By Chris Hedges:

There is no hope left for achieving significant reform or restoring our democracy through established mechanisms of power. The electoral process has been hijacked by corporations. The judiciary has been corrupted and bought. The press shuts out the most important voices in the country and feeds us the banal and the absurd. Universities prostitute themselves for corporate dollars. Labor unions are marginal and ineffectual forces. The economy is in the hands of corporate swindlers and speculators. And the public, enchanted by electronic hallucinations, remains passive and supine. We have no tools left within the power structure in our fight to halt unchecked corporate pillage.

The liberal class, which Barack Obama represents, was never endowed with much vision or courage, but it did occasionally respond when pressured by popular democratic movements. This was how we got the New Deal, civil rights legislation and the array of consumer legislation pushed through by Ralph Nader and his allies in the Democratic Party. The complete surrendering of power, however, to corporate interests means that those of us who seek nonviolent yet profound change have no one within the power elite we can trust for support. The corporate coup has ossified the structures of power. It has obliterated all checks on corporate malfeasance. It has left us stripped of the tools of mass organization that once nudged the system forward toward justice.

Full Story: Chris Hedges: Power and the Tiny Acts of Rebellion – Chris Hedges’ Columns – Truthdig.

Deficit Reduction and Balanced Trade Go Hand-In-Hand

Many of the lawmakers that will be arriving in Washington were fond of talking about the government burying the nation’s children and grandchild under a mountain of debt due to unnecessary spending. But America’s failed trade policies are responsible for more than half of the current national debt of $13 trillion.

Soon a large group of newly elected House and Senate members, many of whom were elected on promises of reducing the national debt, will descend on Washington to prove whether or not they were serious, or just merely spouting popular campaign rhetoric.

If they are indeed serious, they would be wise to focus on America’s failed trade policy, which sends billions of dollars a day overseas in the form of the nation‘s trade deficit.

“We need a change in trade policy, not more of the same NAFTA-style agreements that have undermined American manufacturing and economic development. More than ten years of NAFTA and free trade with China has brought a $2 billion per day trade deficit and the loss of millions of manufacturing jobs,” Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) said in a press release.

Full Story: Deficit Reduction and Balanced Trade Go Hand-In-Hand | Economy In Crisis.

Matt Taibbi’s ‘Griftopia’

Click image to buy now

Our leaders know we’re turning into a giant ghetto and they are taking every last hubcap they can get their hands on before the rest of us wake up and realize what’s happened.

Exclusive Excerpt:

Our cash-strapped country is auctioning off its highways, ports and even parking meters, finding eager buyers in the Middle East

In the summer of 2009 I got a call from an acquaintance who worked in the Middle East. He was a young American who worked for something called a sovereign wealth fund, a giant state-owned pile of money that swims around the world in search of things to buy.

Sovereign wealth funds, or SWFs, are huge in the Middle East. Most of the bigger oil-producing states have massive SWFs that act as cash repositories (with holdings often kept in dollars) for the revenues generated by, for instance, state-owned oil companies. Unlike the central banks of most Western countries, whose main function is to accumulate reserves in an attempt to stabilize the domestic currency, most SWFs have a mission to invest aggressively and generate huge long-term returns. Imagine the biggest and most aggressive hedge fund on Wall Street, then imagine that that same fund is fifty or sixty times bigger and outside the reach of the SEC or any other major regulatory authority, and you’ve got a pretty good idea of what an SWF is.

My buddy was a young guy who’d come up working on the derivatives desk of one of the more dastardly American investment banks. After a few years of that he decided to take a step up morally and flee to the Middle East to go to work advising a bunch of sheiks on how to spend their oil billions.

Full Story: Exclusive Excerpt: America on Sale, From Matt Taibbi’s ‘Griftopia’ | Rolling Stone Politics.

What Good Is Wall Street?

Wall Street, investment bankers, and social good

Much of what investment bankers do is socially worthless.

by John Cassidy

Full Story: Wall Street, investment bankers, and social good : The New Yorker.

BP Oil Disaster ~ Hell No It’s Not Over!

Video:

Gulf Coast residents gathered in Grand Isle LA on Nov. 20th to expose the lies of BP and tell their stories of Sickness, share what they’ve seen and been through AND TO WARN THE WORLD NOT TO EAT THE GULF SEAFOOD.

The commercial fishermen are fishing and sending the food to market because the government & FDA says it’s safe. But they won’t feed it to their own families.

1 corporate (local) news crew covered this event. ONE.

I live streamed the entire event and it is archived here
http://mobilebroadcastnews.com/MBN/st…

Eco-cars gear up

Video:

Andrew Napolitano, Fox Business Host, Reveals He Is A 9/11 Truther

Fox Business host Andrew Napolitano revealed on Tuesday that he does not believe the government’s account of the 9/11 attacks. Napolitano, who hosts “Freedom Watch” on Fox Business and is frequently seen on Fox News as a legal analyst, told radio host Alex Jones — who is a prominent 9/11 conspiracy theorist —that the attacks “couldn’t possibly have been done the way the government told us.”

The subject came about when Jones noted that Geraldo Rivera had recently raised questions about the collapse of World Trade Center 7 on Napolitano’s Fox Business Show. 9/11 conspiracy theorists have centered on that building’s collapse, contending that it was blown up by government forces. Jones asked Napolitano what his opinion about the issue was.

Napolitano replied:

Full Story: Andrew Napolitano, Fox Business Host, Reveals He Is A 9/11 Truther.

Ireland Unveils Harshest Cuts, Tax Hikes In History

Ireland unveiled the harshest budget measures in its history Wednesday, a four-year plan to slash deficits by euro15 billion ($20 billion) so it can receive a massive bailout from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.

The austerity plan axes thousands of state jobs, trims welfare benefits and pensions, and imposes new taxes on property and water. In all, it seeks to cut euro10 billion ($13.3 billion) from spending and raise euro5 billion ($6.7 billion) in extra taxes from 2011 to 2014.

Even Prime Minister Brian Cowen conceded the plan would hurt the living standard of everyone in the nation.

Full Story: Ireland Unveils Harshest Cuts, Tax Hikes In History.

Full-body scanners popping up at courthouses

Airports not the only place for full-body scanners; equipment popping up at courthouses

Taking a trip during the holidays isn’t the only time that people might get a full-body scan to pass through security. People heading to court to testify, get a restraining order, pay a ticket or answer criminal charges could also face a full-body scan at courthouses.

The U.S. Marshals Service, which is in charge of protecting federal judges nationwide, is exploring their use at federal courthouses. And two state courthouses in Douglas and El Paso counties in Colorado have already deployed full-body scanners that use radio waves to detect all objects on a person, including paper.

A guard in a separate room monitors the gray images with pixelated faces and genital areas, and the images aren’t stored on a computer. officials said. All visitors to the Douglas County Courthouse in Castle Rock, Colo., undergo full-body scans, while guards at the El Paso County Judicial Center in Colorado Springs use the scanners during peak hours.

Full Story: Full-body scanners popping up at courthouses | Raw Story.

DHS panel on chemical-plant attacks is stacked with industry lobbyists

When the Department of Homeland Security wants advice on how to guard against terrorist attacks at chemical plants, it relies heavily on a special agency panel focused on the topic.

There’s just one problem, critics say: The committee is stacked with more than a dozen chemical corporation lobbyists and other industry representatives, who have worked to water down agency standards and oppose tougher security requirements.

The Chemical Sector Committee, which also includes government officials, does most of its business in secret and is not covered by White House ethics rules aimed at curbing the influence of lobbyists in government.

Full Story: DHS panel on chemical-plant attacks is stacked with industry lobbyists.

Ireland Cuts Minimum Wage 11.5% to Protect 12.5% Corporate Tax Rate | Emptywheel

The Fianna Fail government in Ireland has released the austerity plan it promised in response for the big bank bailout the rest of Europe forced on it.

There’s a lot that’s awful in it: big cuts in pension, huge increases in tuition costs, and a ludicrous claim that this austerity plan will help Ireland’s economy grow.

But I think the most telling aspect of it is that it lowers minimum wage from 8.65 euro to 7.65, a cut of 11.5%. But it retains Ireland’s controversial 12.5% corporate tax.

Full Story: Ireland Cuts Minimum Wage 11.5% to Protect 12.5% Corporate Tax Rate | Emptywheel.

OPS: The Fascists are winning.

Is America on the path to ‘permanent war’?

Critics says U.S. troops, such as this patrol in Afghanistan, cannot afford to keep fighting perpetual wars around the globe

When the president decided to send more troops to a distant country during an unpopular war, one powerful senator had enough.

He warned that the U.S. military could not create stability in a country “where there is chaos … democracy where there is no tradition of it, and honest government where corruption is almost a way of life.”

“It’s unnatural and unhealthy for a nation to be engaged in global crusades for some principle or idea while neglecting the needs of its own people,” said Sen. J. William Fulbright, then chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in 1966 as the Vietnam War escalated.

Full Story: Is America on the path to ‘permanent war’? – CNN.com.

SKorea’s defense chief resigns over NKorea attack

South Korea’s defense minister resigned Thursday amid intense criticism two days after a North Korean artillery attack killed four people on a small island near the Koreas’ disputed frontier.

The move came as President Lee Myung-bak vowed to send more troops to the front-line South Korean island and as residents tried to salvage belongings from the blackened wreckage of their homes. Pyongyang warned of additional attacks if provoked.

Hours before Defense Minister Kim Tae-young’s resignation, lawmakers had lashed out at the government, claiming officials were unprepared for Tuesday’s attack and that the military response to the North’s barrage was too slow. Even those in Lee’s ruling party demanded Kim’s dismissal as well as those of military leaders and some presidential aides.

Lee accepted Kim’s resignation and a n

Full Story: SKorea’s defense chief resigns over NKorea attack – Yahoo! News.

Murdoch buys education tech provider, 3 million-student audience

Wireless Generation, a US education technology company, will become a subsidiary of News Corporation for about $360 million in cash as Rupert Murdoch seeks to expand his company into academia.

The company provides technology solutions for an audience of over 3 million students nation-wide.

On Monday, News Corporation, the parent company of the Fox News Channel, announced it signed an agreement to buy 90 percent of Wireless Generation. The remaining shares will be retained by general manager Larry Berger, who will remain in his post.

“We see a $500 billion [education] sector in the US alone that is waiting desperately to be transformed by big breakthroughs that extend the reach of great teaching,” Murdoch said in a statement.

Full Story: Murdoch buys education tech provider, 3 million-student audience | Raw Story.

OPS: This is beyond DANGEROUS. It must be prevented or there will be no hope of stopping Fascism in America.

GOP lawmaker handcuffed for lurking with gun near abortion clinic

A Minnesota Republican lawmaker who was handcuffed and questioned by police after loitering with a gun near a Planned Parenthood clinic has been stripped of his leadership roles in the Minnesota House.

Security cameras recorded State House Rep. Tom Hackbarth as he was stopped by police last week after a security guard at a Planned Parenthood location in St. Paul called to report a man loitering with a handgun visible at his side.

Hackbarth, who was not arrested and has a concealed-carry permit, says it was all a big misunderstanding. He told police he was looking for a woman he met online.

Full Story: GOP lawmaker handcuffed for lurking with gun near abortion clinic | Raw Story.

BP’s Inside Game

Famous Last Words -

By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR

By the morning of May 24, the tide had turned against President Barack Obama in the Gulf. Weeks of indecision at the White House and the Interior Department had shifted the balance of blame. BP was no longer seen as the lone culprit. Now, the Obama administration was viewed by many – including some senior members of their own party – as being fully culpable for the ongoing disaster off the coast of Louisiana. The political situation was so dire that Rahm Emmanuel called an emergency meeting in the Oval Office to regroup. Huddling with Obama and Rahm that bleak morning were Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen, climate czar Carol Browner and, most cynical of all, economic advisor Lawrence Summers, author of an infamous 1991 memo at World Bank calling “the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country […] impeccable and we should face up to that.”

The president was pissed. In a rare display of emotion, Obama ranted for 20 straight minutes. The target of his anger wasn’t BP but the press. He fumed that he was being unfairly portrayed as being remote and indifferent to the mounting crisis in the Gulf. “Hell, this isn’t our mess,” Obama railed. The president expressed particular contempt for Louisianan James Carville, whose nightly barbs on CNN seemed to have found their mark. After two hours of debate, Obama’s Gulf supposed dream team arrived at the dubious conclusion that the main problem was that there were simply too many public voices speaking for the administration. No one seemed to be in control. There were discordant accounts of the severity of the spill between the EPA and the Interior Department. Agencies were intruding on each other’s terrain.

Full Story: Jeffrey St. Clair: BP’s Inside Game.

What Tea Party mandate? Most Americans want to keep the health care law — and expand it

Here’s a poll you won’t hear a word about at Fox News:

A majority of Americans want the Congress to keep the new health care law or actually expand it, despite Republican claims that they have a mandate from the people to kill it, according to a new McClatchy-Marist poll.

The post-election survey showed that 51 percent of registered voters want to keep the law or change it to do more, while 44 percent want to change it to do less or repeal it altogether.

Driving support for the law: Voters by margins of 2-1 or greater want to keep some of its best-known benefits, such as barring insurers from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions. One thing they don’t like: the mandate that everyone must buy insurance.

At the same time, the survey showed that a majority of voters side with the Democrats on another hot-button issue, extending the Bush era tax cuts that are set to expire Dec. 31 only for those making less than $250,000.

The poll also showed the country split over ending the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy prohibiting gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military, with 47 percent favoring its repeal and 48 percent opposing it.

Full Story: What Tea Party mandate? Most Americans want to keep the health care law — and expand it | Crooks and Liars.

Dennis Kucinich: Fake Taliban Leader, Fake Elections, Fake Deadline, Real Trouble

Afghanistan War, Nightmare without End for Troops, Innocent Civilians and US Taxpayers

Washington D.C. (November 23, 2010) – Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich, a leading proponent of peace, today renewed his call to end the Afghan war after it was revealed that a self-proclaimed senior Taliban negotiator working with President Hamid Karzai and NATO officials was in an imposter.

“The war in Afghanistan is taking place in a netherworld where facts and common sense have no place. Elections are fake. Our deadline to withdraw is a fake. Now, we learn that a fake Taliban leader has been leading us to believe that NATO was facilitating high-level talks between Taliban leadership and the corrupt Afghan central government we’re propping up. It was truly amazing that our government said we were negotiating with high-level Taliban leadership while at the same time we were stepping up air strikes to wipe them out.

Full Story: t r u t h o u t | Dennis Kucinich: Fake Taliban Leader, Fake Elections, Fake Deadline, Real Trouble.

R.I.P., Chalmers Johnson, Truth to Power Super-Hero

Heroines and Heroes.  The Department of Don’t Say You Weren’t Warned – Chalmers Johnson

Chalmers Johnson passed away Saturday at the age of 79. He was a valuable messenger about the scope and danger of American hegemony. A chilling quote:

“The United States today is like a cruise ship on the Niagara River upstream of the most spectacular falls in North America,” Johnson warned. “A few people on board have begun to pick up a slight hiss in the background, to observe a faint haze of mist in the air on their glasses, to note that the river current seems to be running slightly faster. But no one yet seems to have realized that it is almost too late to head for shore. Like the Chinese, Ottoman, Hapsburg, imperial German, Nazi, imperial Japanese, British, French, Dutch, Portuguese, and Soviet empires in the last century, we are approaching the edge of a huge waterfall and are about to plunge over it.”

Here are some excerpts from a powerful and heartfelt tribute by Steve Clemons:

Full Story: R.I.P., Chalmers Johnson, Truth to Power Super-Hero | Corrente.

Obama & Congress Indifferent to Growth of Hunger (“Except Insatiable Hunger of Rich for More Wealth”)

Haves, Have Nots, and Have Mores.  Department of What is WRONG with These People?

In a society which took seriously the value of human life and the future of its children, the spectacle of 50 million people at risk of hunger, including 17 million children, would be a social emergency. Given that the United States once boasted of its ability to feed the planet, the indifference to the growth of hunger at home is a national scandal.

But in the America of 2010, the news about hunger was relegated to small items on the inside pages of newspapers (A21 in the Washington Post, nothing in the New York Times), and failed to make a splash on the evening news broadcasts, more concerned with the engagement of Britain’s Prince William.

Did you know that extension of unemployment benefits this year was partly funded by cutting the food stamp program? This is outrageous. This is generally not known.

According to Patrick Martin a new report from the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture reveals 50 million Americans exist under the poverty line and were too poor to buy adequate food last year. That is approximately 17.4 million families. More than a third of these households, with over one million children, were forced to skip meals

Full Story: Obama & Congress Indifferent to Growth of Hunger (“Except Insatiable Hunger of Rich for More Wealth”) | Corrente.

Elizabeth Warren Helped Shoot Down Bill That Would Have Sped Foreclosures, Calendar Shows

Elizabeth Warren was the first senior Obama administration official to recognize the potentially incendiary impact of a bill that would have made it significantly easier for mortgage companies to foreclose on homes, and her subsequent warnings played a crucial role in persuading the President to veto the measure, according to freshly released documents and people familiar with the deliberations.

The disclosure that Warren was instrumental in halting a bill that would have streamlined the foreclosure process comes as she confronts fierce criticism from Republicans on Capitol Hill for the way she was appointed to construct a new consumer financial protection bureau, and characterizations that she is inclined to take an overly punitive tack with Wall Street.

A long-time advocate for greater regulation of the financial system and a prominent critic of predatory lending, Warren now finds herself at the center of an intensifying debate over the relationship between the Obama administration and the business world.

Full Story: Elizabeth Warren Helped Shoot Down Bill That Would Have Sped Foreclosures, Calendar Shows.

Private Insurance Induced Stress Disorder (PIISD)

Pissed off?

Maybe it’s your insurance company.

A Maryland psychiatrist thinks it might be.

Writing in the current issue of Psychiatric Times, Dr. Carol Paris lays out the diagnostic criteria for something she calls Private Insurance Induced Stress Disorder (PIISD).

“Mental illness can sometimes be triggered by abnormalities of brain chemistry,” Dr. Paris said. “But in this case it’s triggered by outside forces – in particular, large corporations.”

Dr. Paris lays out four criteria for diagnosing PIISD.

Criteria A: The person has been exposed to a traumatic insurance-induced event in which both of the following have been present:

Full Story: Private Insurance Induced Stress Disorder (PIISD) | CommonDreams.org.

UN issues severe climate warning ahead of summit

The world is now firmly on the path for dangerous climate change in the coming century, a major new assessment reveals today on the eve of the forthcoming UN climate conference which opens next week in Mexico.

All the pledges of the nations which have agreed to cut or limit their emissions of greenhouse gases, when added together, still leave the world far short of what is needed to halt the coming rise in global average temperatures to 2C, generally regarded as the danger threshold, according to the study from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

The study sets a gloomy context for the international climate meeting opening on Monday in the Mexican resort of Cancun, which is the successor meeting to the abortive Copenhagen climate conference of last year.

Full Story: UN issues severe climate warning ahead of summit – Climate Change, Environment – The Independent.

Allergy Medicine: 8 Surprising Possible Side Effects (PHOTOS)

It’s no surprise that your over-the-counter antihistamine can make you snooze on the job, but sleepiness isn’t the only side effect of allergy medicine that you should be aware of. There are lesser-known effects that can range from annoying to dangerous that you may not even link to your dose of allergy relief. The intensity of side effects varies from person to person and with the help of your doctor you can weigh the severity of your allergy against the side effects of the medication used to treat it. Here, Javed Sheikh, M.D., Clinical Director of Allergy at Beth Israel Deaconess and full-time faculty at Harvard Medical School, outlines some of the lesser-known side effects of allergy medication.

Full Story: Allergy Medicine: 8 Surprising Possible Side Effects (PHOTOS).

Florida Woman Dies After Medicaid Program Outsourced To Private Insurers Denies Her Liver Transplant

One of the most destructive practices of private health insurance companies is the practice of denying care to customers for frivolous reasons. Earlier this year, the Department of Health and Human Services started including denial rates on its information section about health insurance companies on HealthCare.gov, in an effort to inform the public about this practice by the industry.

It was this practice of frivolous denials that ended up costing Jacksonville, Florida woman Alisa Wilson her life. For months, Wilson, her family, and the surrounding community had been pleading with her HMO to approve coverage for a liver transplant. Although Wilson was enrolled in the state’s Medicaid program, she was not guaranteed care because she was “forced to join a private plan as part of a Gov. Jeb Bush-era experimental overhaul of the program,” meaning she had to deal with a private, for-profit insurance company to get her care, not a government agency accountable to the public.

Bush’s overhaul made “Florida the first state to allow private companies, not the state, to decide the scope and extent of services to the elderly, the disabled and the poor, half of them children,” the New York Times reported in 2005, as the move was being considered. “[N]o one is proposing changes as far-reaching and fundamental as” Bush, the Times noted.

Full Story: ThinkProgress » Florida Woman Dies After Medicaid Program Outsourced To Private Insurers Denies Her Liver Transplant.

After He Promised Transparency, Ohio Newspapers Blast Kasich’s Refusal To Disclose Records As ‘Outrageous’

Ohio Governor-elect John Kasich (R) spent much of his campaign selling the “accountability” and “transparency” buzzwords to Ohio constituents this year. Touting a “new way” of doing politics, Kasich promised to “recharge Ohio” with a smaller, more open government that would require accountability within important sectors – like education – that weren’t up to par. This generic rhetoric, however, sounded enough like a revolution to win him the endorsements of several prominent state newspapers, including the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Columbus Dispatch, and the conservative Cincinnati Enquirer.

But just weeks after defeating Ohio’s incumbent Gov. Ted Strickland (D), Kasich’s incoming administration is turning on those previously-espoused principles and refusing to release the resumes of the job applicants for politically-appointed state government jobs. While Strickland “regularly” released the records of job applicants for the public, Kasich claims that because the resumes are solicited via www.fixohionow.com — a private site owned by the Kasich-Taylor New Day Committee, Inc. — those who desire to work for him have an expectation of privacy. Pointing out that Kasich won its endorsement based on his stated “bias towards openness,” the once-supportive Cincinnati Enquirer lambasted his rationale as “an outrageous nose-thumbing at well-established principles of openness”:

Full Story: ThinkProgress » After He Promised Transparency, Ohio Newspapers Blast Kasich’s Refusal To Disclose Records As ‘Outrageous’.

Sirota: To deter crime, get tough on Wall Street

Often, the most provocative ideas arise after swigs of whiskey. This is especially true when a Rolling Stone reporter is around — and, as I recently learned, it’s all but guaranteed when that Rolling Stoner is Matt Taibbi, aka the heir to the magazine’s gonzo throne.

I had the chance to hang with Taibbi last week after he spoke to a Denver audience about his new book, “Griftopia,” which argues that Wall Street’s bubble-bailout cycle has been one of the greatest — and least prosecuted — crimes in history. His presentation was serendipitously timed, coming the same week as a local Bonfire of the Vanities-esque scandal was underscoring the speculator class’s privilege. In Colorado’s own Bonfire of the Rockies, a local prosecutor had just reduced hit-and-run charges against a fund manager because the prosecutor said a felony would have “serious job implications” for the Sherman McCoy in question.

Over drinks in my living room, Taibbi and I pondered the financial Masters of the Universe and their maddening infallibility. I asked him why they never fear facing legal consequences. Do they believe they’re untouchable? Or do they know law enforcement won’t pursue them?

Full Story: Sirota: To deter crime, get tough on Wall Street | SummitDaily.com.

China, Russia quit dollar

St. Petersburg, Russia – China and Russia have decided to renounce the US dollar and resort to using their own currencies for bilateral trade, Premier Wen Jiabao and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin announced late on Tuesday.

Chinese experts said the move reflected closer relations between Beijing and Moscow and is not aimed at challenging the dollar, but to protect their domestic economies.

“About trade settlement, we have decided to use our own currencies,” Putin said at a joint news conference with Wen in St. Petersburg.

The two countries were accustomed to using other currencies, especially the dollar, for bilateral trade. Since the financial crisis, however, high-ranking officials on both sides began to explore other possibilities.

The yuan has now started trading against the Russian rouble in the Chinese interbank market, while the renminbi will soon be allowed to trade against the rouble in Russia, Putin said.

Full Story: China, Russia quit dollar.

OPS: The beginning of the End of US dominance

Laboratory Test Results Raise Concern Over Gulf Seafood

Inspectors initially tested gulf shrimp after the BP oil spill by smelling it, but local restaurant owners say customers did not trust the smell test and did not trust gulf seafood in general.

“People started asking us did we know where it came from, what part of the gulf it came from,” said Tony Lombardi, Lombardi’s Seafood owner.

WFTV put gulf shrimp to the test by ordering raw shrimp over the Internet and shipping it to a private lab. Scientists liquefied the shrimp and put it through the most sensitive testing possible, looking for any signs of petroleum residue.

Scientists found elevated levels of Anthracene, a toxic hydrocarbon and a by-product of petroleum. The Anthracene levels were double what the FDA finds to be acceptable.

Full Story: Laboratory Test Results Raise Concern Over Gulf Seafood – News Story – WFTV Orlando.

The Verdict on DeLay: Guilty [on ALL counts]

After hearing three weeks of testimony and deliberating for three days, 12 jurors delivered a verdict on Tom DeLay late Wednesday afternoon. They found the former majority leader guilty on both charges: money-laundering and conspiracy to launder money. He faces up to 99 years in prison.

The jury was considering questions larger than the man indicted by the Travis County district attorney five years earlier. On trial in Austin was the state’s ban on corporate contributions to political candidates, and the now-defunct fundraising operation that the D.C. press corps once referred to as “DeLay Inc.”

It was DeLay’s national fundraising combine that poured more than $1 million into the 2002 election, electing a Republican majority to the Texas House for the first time since Reconstruction. The election was a prelude to the 2003 redrawing of the state’s congressional lines—a second run at redistricting after the 2000 census

Full Story: The Verdict on DeLay: Guilty – The Texas Observer.

The great depression of 2010

It’s the end of the world. At least it feels that way.

Back in September I noted that 2010 was shaping up as the worst year ever. My marriage fell apart and a lot of terrible stuff happened to people close to me. For instance:

• A close friend who happens to be one of the brightest guys I know got fired from his job last year. He recently hit the one-year-on-the-beach mark without anything that looks like a realistic prospect. He has a special-needs child and you can imagine the financial and insurance implications associated with that here in the Land of Plenty^®. If this guy is having trouble finding a gig, I can’t even begin to imagine how hard it is on the 99% of unemployed Americans who aren’t as talented as he is.
• Another good friend has been out of work for awhile, too. Completely different field, but he’s hard-working and off-the-charts smart. Literally. Oh, yeah – he’s recently been battling a worsening case of diabetes.

Full Story: Scholars and Rogues » The great depression of 2010.