Archive for December, 2010

Health reform advocates have little to fear from judge’s ruling

U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson, a George W. Bush appointee (and part-owner of a Republican campaign-consulting firm that fought the health-care overhaul legislation), has, as expected, ruled the individual mandate unconstitutional. So why are reform advocates so unexpectedly pleased?

There are two reasons, but first, let’s put this into context. Hudson’s ruling is the third from a district court so far. Previously, Judge Norman Moon found the mandate constitutional, and so did Judge George Steeh. Steeh and Norman were Clinton appointees, which is to say that the rulings have been proceeding along predictably partisan lines.

Hudson ruled against the government, but he didn’t stop it. He refused the plaintiff’s request for an injunction against the legislation’s continued implementation.

Full Story Here: Health reform advocates have little to fear from judge’s ruling.

Many elderly in US will face poverty: study

Nearly half of elderly Americans will face a future with at least one year below or close to the poverty line, according to a new study that showed a huge racial divide in prospects for the elderly.

Mark R. Rank, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis, said the results of his research contradict popular beliefs about the economic stability of America’s elderly population.

“We have an image of the elderly as doing pretty well,” he said, adding that data spanning 35 years does not support that assumption.

Full Story Here: Many elderly in US will face poverty: study | Raw Story.

Why Progressives Should Run Against Obama and “Blue Dogs” in the 2012 Democratic Party Primaries

While making a deal to protect billionaires from $145 billion in taxes that they might otherwise have used to solve pressing domestic problems or to create over 3 million jobs at $30,000/yr., some Democrats and their advisors pointed out that the progressives who dissented from the deal Obama had worked out with the Republican leadership — and which, despite the non-binding vote in the Democratic caucus on Thursday to oppose the deal, is likely to retain most of its giveaways to the rich — had really no place to go in 2012 but to blindly support Obama, so why take seriously all their huffing and puffing about Obama’s list of betrayals?

Sure, they said, Obama had led peace and justice-oriented liberal and progressive movement people to believe he would end rather than escalate middle east wars, punish rather than ignore those who had lied us into the Iraq war and those who had ordered or carried out torture, end discrimination against gays in the military and elsewhere, secure rather than undermine domestic civil liberties and human rights, fight for rather than duck serious changes in immigration and in environmental protection, and insist on at least a public option in health care and lowered prices for pharmaceuticals. But, hey — those people who paid attention to these details were only a small minority, and they would rally around Obama no matter what, giving him no incentive to listen to them. After all, Obama was just being “realistic” about the limitations of his power.

Full Story Here: OpEdNews – Article: Why Progressives Should Run Against Obama and “Blue Dogs” in the 2012 Democratic Party Primaries.

U.S. Marshals Seize FDA-regulated Food Stored at Rodent-Infested Warehouse in New Mexico

U.S. Marshals, acting under a court order sought by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, today seized chili pods, ground chili, crushed chili, and other chili products located in the rodent-infested food warehouse owned by Duran and Sons L.L.C. in Derry, New Mexico. The New Mexico Environment Department had previously placed an embargo on all products in the company’s food warehouse on Nov. 17, 2010.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090824/FDALOGO)

The U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico issued a warrant for the seizure of all FDA-regulated food in the warehouse. The federal government’s complaint alleges that the products are adulterated under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act because they have been held under insanitary conditions and may have become contaminated with filth.

An FDA inspection of the company’s facility between Nov. 15 and 22, 2010, revealed “an active and widespread insect and rodent infestation in the food warehouse,” according to the complaint.

Full Story Here: U.S. Marshals Seize FDA-regulated Food Stored at Rodent-Infested Warehouse in New… — SILVER SPRING, Md., Dec. 13, 2010 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ –.

Social Security: The Coming Cave-in

If you think the Democratic base is mad at Obama now for making a craven deal with Republicans that continues tax breaks for the richest Americans and adds new ones for their heirs through a big cut in the estate tax, just wait a few weeks until Obama caves on Social Security.

How will this occur? The deficit commission appointed by the President has called for an increase in the retirement age, as well as other cuts in benefits over time. And the deal that Obama made with the Republicans just gave deficit hawks new ammunition by increasing the projected deficit by nearly $900 billion over a decade. Social Security will be in the cross-hairs.

The deficit commission has tried to camouflage these cuts by emphasizing that Social Security benefits for the very poor would not be reduced, and might even be increased. But in the commission’s proposal, the cuts would affect middle-class retirees. Larry Summers, who is stepping down as Obama’s economic chief, has refused to rule out cuts.

Full Story Here: Robert Kuttner: Social Security: The Coming Cave-in.

How Colors Affect What You Buy

Did you know that the color red has been proven to increase consumers heart rates? Or that purple is used to create a sense of calm in customers?

This infographic from KissMetrics (hat tip to PFSK) suggests the myth of the rational economic consumer is complete bunk. The next time you reach for a black or orange item, realize that you’ve fallen prey to the impulse shopper portion of the retail color wheel.

Check out the infographic below to see how retailers believe you’ll respond to the subtle art of color choice.

Full Story Here: How Colors Affect What You Buy (INFOGRAPHIC).

Judge Hudson’s Health Care Ruling Is First Step In Right-Wing Agenda To Combat Regulations: Scholar

The decision by a federal judge to strike down as unconstitutional the individual mandate, a key provision of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, is just the first chapter in what promises to be a long, drawn-out saga.

Judge Henry Hudson ruled that the requirement to purchase health care coverage violated the Constitution’s Commerce Clause, but he declined to issue an injunction to prevent enforcement of that provision. While the decision represents a victory for Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who brought suit to overturn the law, it remains a unique one — other federal judges have already dismissed 14 of the 20 cases brought against the landmark law.

The ruling, which will be appealed to the 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals and perhaps even the Supreme Court, sparked strong reactions in the legal world, with right-leaning legal scholars calling it “a good day for liberty.”

Full Story Here: Judge Hudson’s Health Care Ruling Is First Step In Right-Wing Agenda To Combat Regulations: Scholar.

Regulators exist to ‘serve the banks,’ next House finance chairman declares

Alabama Republican Spencer Bachus, the incoming chairman of the House banking committee, suggested Congress and federal regulators should play a subservient role with banks.

“In Washington, the view is that the banks are to be regulated, and my view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks,” Bachus told The Birmingham News in an interview.

The Republican leadership last week designated Bachus the next chairman of the powerful House Financial Services Committee, which is tasked with overseeing banks, financial markets, housing and consumer credit.

Full Story Here: Regulators exist to ‘serve the banks,’ next House finance chairman declares | Raw Story.

OPS: Fascism, SCREAMING in your face!

US southwest could see 60-year drought: Study

A worst-case scenario devised by US researchers shows that the American southwest could experience a 60-year stretch of heat and drought unseen since the 12th century.

Researchers at the University of Arizona examined studies of temperature changes and droughts in the region over the past 1,200 years and used them to project future climate models in the hope that water resource managers could use the information to plan ahead.

An examination of the past, through human-kept records but also via rings in the cores of trees that can show periods of wetness or drought, showed that dry spells of earlier centuries were much worse than any we have seen in modern times.

Full Story Here: US southwest could see 60-year drought: Study | Raw Story.

Tea Party Gov.-Elect Walker Compels Business To Leave State After He Kills High Speed Rail In Wisconsin

Even before taking office, Republican Govs.-elect John Kasich (OH) and Scott Walker (WI) swiftly delivered on their “promises to kill America’s future” by rebuking a total of $1.2 billion in stimulus funding for high-speed rail projects in their states. Shunning the $810 million for the long-planned Wisconsin rail project, Walker promised to kill the Milwaukee-Madison link if President Obama tried “to force this down the throats of the taxpayers.”

But campaign rhetoric has very real consequences. Last Thursday — on the same day the World Congress for High Speed Rail announced the next HSR Congress will be held in America for the first time — Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood pulled the funding from Ohio and Wisconsin, offering it instead to states more eager to spur economic development. What’s more, because of Walker’s narrow-minded politics, the Spanish train manufacturing company Talgo, which moved into Wisconsin for this project, is closing its Milwaukee plant and taking the much-needed jobs with it:

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » Tea Party Gov.-Elect Walker Compels Business To Leave State After He Kills High Speed Rail In Wisconsin.

Dishonorable Obama, Congress & Media Don’t Give a Serious God-Damn About Massive & Gratuitous Poverty and Violence

Meet the Press hosted apologists for Obama and corporatists everywhere. Defense of tax cuts for the rich the topic this time. Opportunities for disgust and disdain against those purist ideology-lefties, a/k/a more “hippie punching,” of course was enjoyed by all. All but one, Anthony Weiner, who was the token liberal-sounding one this week (to be piled on). Mikey Bloomberg was blunt that liberal complainers need to “suck it up!” And, oh yes, he wants a subway series. (Yeah, let’s talk about what’s important, boys.)

There was no mention of Bernie Sanders’ passionate proaction in the Senate. Of course not. A lightning fast mention at the end about the passing of Elizabeth Edwards. No mention of her ideals, however. The most compelling thing I heard was Anthony Weiner say his back of an envelope math calculations revealed that with the compromise (HAH!) tax cut plan, 38% of the cash would go to 3% of the people. Why would this matter to David Gregory or anyone else on the show?

In desperation I googled to find profound truth-telling to bottom-dwelling power and I did. Each quoted passage calls out the cravenness of Obama, Congress and/or the media.

Full Story Here: Dishonorable Obama, Congress & Media Don’t Give a Serious God-Damn About Massive & Gratuitous Poverty and Violence | Corrente.

A Secretive Banking Elite Rules Trading in Derivatives

On the third Wednesday of every month, the nine members of an elite Wall Street society gather in Midtown Manhattan.

The men share a common goal: to protect the interests of big banks in the vast market for derivatives, one of the most profitable — and controversial — fields in finance. They also share a common secret: The details of their meetings, even their identities, have been strictly confidential.

the bankers form a powerful committee that helps oversee trading in derivatives, instruments which, like insurance, are used to hedge risk.

In theory, this group exists to safeguard the integrity of the multitrillion-dollar market. In practice, it also defends the dominance of the big banks.

The banks in this group, which is affiliated with a new derivatives clearinghouse, have fought to block other banks from entering the market, and they are also trying to thwart efforts to make full information on prices and fees freely available.

Full Story Here: A Secretive Banking Elite Rules Trading in Derivatives – CNBC.

Tax Deal Being Sold on Fear

Dean Baker:

The establishment is telling us that if Congress doesn’t approve the package Obama negotiated with the GOP, it will be the end of the world!

The proponents of the tax deal that President Obama and the Republicans negotiated last week have gotten out their TARP and Iraq War hysterics. All the important people are now telling us that if Congress doesn’t approve the package it will be the end of the world!!!!!

To be an important person in Washington these days requires a solid record of failure. That is why we have 25 million people unemployed, underemployed or out of the labor force altogether. And, those who got us into this disaster are still overwhelmingly the ones calling the shots. So, people who want a realistic assessment of what the defeat of this tax package means for the economy may not want to rely on the usual suspects.

As I have noted before, the major risk of this deal is that it would undermine Social Security [http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/12/10/the_obama_tax_deal_giving_the_hostage_takers_more/]. The deal temporarily lowers the Social Security tax by 2 percentage points. In principle the tax rate will go back to its current rate after the end of next year.

Full Story Here: Tax Deal Being Sold on Fear | News & Politics | AlterNet.

Block Those Economic Metaphors

Paul Krugman:

Like it or not — and I don’t — the Obama-McConnell tax-cut deal, with its mixture of very bad stuff and sort-of-kind-of good stuff, is likely to pass Congress. Then what?

The deal will, without question, give the economy a short-term boost. The prevailing view, as far as I can tell — and that includes within the Obama administration — is that this short-term boost is all we need. The deal, we’re told, will jump-start the economy; it will give a fragile recovery time to strengthen.

I say, block those metaphors. America’s economy isn’t a stalled car, nor is it an invalid who will soon return to health if he gets a bit more rest. Our problems are longer-term than either metaphor implies.

Full Story Here: Block Those Economic Metaphors – NYTimes.com.

Dishonorable Obama, Congress & Media Don’t Give a Serious God-Damn About Massive & Gratuitous Poverty and Violence

Meet the Press hosted apologists for Obama and corporatists everywhere. Defense of tax cuts for the rich the topic this time. Opportunities for disgust and disdain against those purist ideology-lefties, a/k/a more “hippie punching,” of course was enjoyed by all. All but one, Anthony Weiner, who was the token liberal-sounding one this week (to be piled on). Mikey Bloomberg was blunt that liberal complainers need to “suck it up!” And, oh yes, he wants a subway series. (Yeah, let’s talk about what’s important, boys.)

There was no mention of Bernie Sanders’ passionate proaction in the Senate. Of course not. A lightning fast mention at the end about the passing of Elizabeth Edwards. No mention of her ideals, however. The most compelling thing I heard was Anthony Weiner say his back of an envelope math calculations revealed that with the compromise (HAH!) tax cut plan, 38% of the cash would go to 3% of the people. Why would this matter to David Gregory or anyone else on the show?

In desperation I googled to find profound truth-telling to bottom-dwelling power and I did. Each quoted passage calls out the cravenness of Obama, Congress and/or the media.

Full Story Here: Dishonorable Obama, Congress & Media Don’t Give a Serious God-Damn About Massive & Gratuitous Poverty and Violence | Corrente.

How Religious Fundamentalism Enables Sadists Like Elizabeth Smart’s Kidnapper

Extreme and patriarchal religions give people with violent or controlling tendencies a justification to let those tendencies loose.

This week, the testimony in the riveting Elizabeth Smart kidnapping case drew to a close and the jury prepared to deliberate. As Smart–who is currently living abroad on mission for the LDS church– took the stand nearly a decade after her infamous kidnappings, she revealed herself to be an incredibly strong, resilient young woman. She served as an uncompromising witness to her own brutal victimization at the hands of her captors: Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Barzee, a pair of breakaway fundamentalist Mormons who captured Smart to “seal” her to them in plural marriage.

Full Story Here: How Religious Fundamentalism Enables Sadists Like Elizabeth Smart’s Kidnapper | Belief | AlterNet.

An Informed and Educated Electorate

Thom Hartmann; Chapter 4

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.…Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that, whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them right. —Thomas Jefferson

Talk Radio News Service, based in Washington, D.C., is owned and run by my dear friend Ellen Ratner. Ellen is an experienced and accomplished journalist, and a large number of interns and young journalism school graduates get their feet wet in reporting by working for and with her.

In March 2010 I was in Washington for a meeting with a group of senators, and I needed a studio from which to do my radio and TV show. Ellen was gracious enough to offer me hers. I arrived as three of her interns were producing a panel-discussion type of TV show for Web distribution at www.talkradionews.com, in which they were discussing for their viewing audience their recent experiences on Capitol Hill.

Full Story Here: Thom Hartmann | An Informed and Educated Electorate.

Support Wikileaks; I am Yelling Fire in a Crowded Theater!

Len Hart:

The U.S. will try to prosecute Julian Assange under laws that violate the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, laws that were absurd when the U.S. entered World War I and more so now. These are laws that prohibit you from telling the truth about the U.S. government; these are laws that make it a crime to exercise your conscience.

Let’s put aside the myth that we are guaranteed ‘Freedom of Speech’ in the U.S. Certainly, the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution makes such a guarantee but, in practice, we are often denied that right, most notably when it is the government that is sure to be embarrassed or exposed by the mere exercise of free speech. That is the case today! The U.S. Government has threatened to prosecute Julian Assange for violating the U.S. Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918, the law that progressive labor champion Eugene Debs was accused of violating when he dared to oppose U.S. entry into World War I. The world’s biggest idiot –Sarah Palin –has irresponsibly called for the assassination of Assange.

The legislation enacted in 1918 is commonly called the Sedition Act, actually a set of amendments to the Espionage Act.

Full Story Here: The Existentialist Cowboy: Support Wikileaks; I am Yelling Fire in a Crowded Theater!.

Howard Dean On Tax Deal: ‘A Short-Term Washington Fix’ Filled With Easy Promises

One of the more noteworthy parts of the fallout over the debate on the Bush tax cuts is the opening it has given for progressives to grab the mantle of deficit hawkish-ness and fiscal responsibility.

Getting the nation’s budget in order has always been viewed by liberal-minded economists as a bit of political gimmickry — the type of feel-good line Republicans make with an eye on the ballot boxes, not job reports. But now, as a $900 billion agreement between the president and the GOP is set to be reached on expiring tax cuts, progressives have begun making a similar pitch.

“This is a short-term Washington fix,” former DNC header Howard Dean declared on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “It does nothing about this biggest long-term threat to America, which is the deficit. I don’t hear Republicans or Democrats talking about the deficit. There is no pain in this agreement. This is the easy way out for everybody, much as everybody is complaining, hooting and hollering, this is an inside-the-beltway fuss and somebody needs to do something about the long-term problems to this country. It is not in this bill.”

Full Story Here: Howard Dean On Tax Deal: ‘A Short-Term Washington Fix’ Filled With Easy Promises.

How the Right Shapes US ‘Reality’

By Lawrence Davidson:

Editor’s Note: In modern American politics, the Right and the neoconservatives have invested heavily in — and proven to be very adept at — shaping how large segments of the population understand reality, a concept sometimes called “perception management.”

This sophisticated propaganda now influences everything from why Americans distrust global-warming science to when they go to war, as professor Lawrence Davidson describes in this guest essay:

There is a postmodern position that states “reality is a social construct.” In other words, individuals and groups have their own realities and, according to the postmodernists, one reality is as true as another.

Certainly there is more than one way to interpret things. It is because individuals see the world differently and, at least in the American cultural milieu, have such trouble reconciling those views, that U.S. divorce rates run at about 50 percent.

Full Story Here: How the Right Shapes US ‘Reality’.

Biggest Scam In World History Exposed – Are The Federal Reserve’s Crimes Too Big To Comprehend?

What if the greatest scam ever perpetrated was blatantly exposed, and the US media didn’t cover it? Does that mean the scam could keep going? That’s what we are about to find out.

I understand the importance of the new WikiLeaks documents. However, we must not let them distract us from the new information the Federal Reserve was forced to release. Even if WikiLeaks reveals documents from inside a large American bank, as huge as that could be, it will most likely pale in comparison to what we just found out from the one-time peek we got into the inner-workings of the Federal Reserve. This is the Wall Street equivalent of the Pentagon Papers.

I’ve written many reports detailing the crimes of Wall Street during this crisis. The level of fraud, from top to bottom, has been staggering. The lack of accountability and the complete disregard for the rule of law have made me and many of my colleagues extremely cynical and jaded when it comes to new evidence to pile on top of the mountain that we have already gathered. But we must not let our cynicism cloud our vision on the details within this new information.

Full Story Here: The Wall Street Pentagon Papers: Biggest Scam In World History Exposed – Are The Federal Reserve’s Crimes Too Big To Comprehend? | Amped Status.

Delusional GOP Poses Serious Threat to America

Ring Of Fire: Video

Mike Papantonio and David Bender discuss the increasingly unstable mental state of the GOP in America.

Daniel Ellsberg on Wikileaks and Julian Assange

Video:  Countdown with Keith Olbermann — 12/10/10

WikiLeaks 2009 Cuba Cable Predicts Broke State In ’2-3 Years’

A newly released confidential U.S. diplomatic cable predicted Cuba’s economic situation could become “fatal” within two to three years, and detailed concerns from other countries’ diplomats – including China – that the communist-run country has been slow to adopt reforms.

The cable was written last February, months before Cuban President Raul Castro announced a major revamp of the island’s economy, laying out plans to fire a half-million state workers and open up the island to expanded forms of private enterprise.

The cable, sent by the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, which Washington maintains instead of an embassy, was released Friday by WikiLeaks. It was apparently written by America’s chief diplomat on the island, Jonathan Farrar.

Full Story Here: WikiLeaks 2009 Cuba Cable Predicts Broke State In ’2-3 Years’.

OPS: This will, of course, mean a massive ‘migration’  of Cubans to South Florida. As if we need more illegal invasion

Autism Research: Breakthrough Discovery on the Causes of Autism

Imagine being the parent of a young child who is not acting normally and being told by your doctor that your child has autism, that there is no known cause, and there is no known treatment except, perhaps, some behavioral therapy. That is exactly what Jackson’s parents were told as their 22-month-old son regressed into the non-verbal psychic prison of social withdrawal, disconnection, and repetitive behaviors typical of autism.

While we don’t have all the answers, and more research is needed to identify and validate the causes and treatment of autism, there are new signs of hope. A study just published in The Journal of the American Medical Association by researchers from the University of California, Davis called “Mitochondrial Dysfunction in Autism” (i) discovered a profound and serious biological underpinning of autism — an acquired loss of the ability to produce energy in the cells, damage to mitochondria (the energy factories in your cells), and an increase in oxidative stress (the same chemical reaction that causes cars to rust, apples to turn brown, fat to become rancid, and skin to wrinkle). These disturbances in energy metabolism were not due to genetic mutations, which is often seen in mitochondrial problems, but a condition the children studied acquired in utero or after birth.

Bottom line, if brain cells cannot produce enough energy, and there is too much oxidative stress, then neurons don’t fire, connections aren’t made and the lights don’t go on for these children. In fact, this problem of energy loss is found in most chronic disease and aging — from diabetes to heart disease to dementia. Brain function and neurodevelopment in particular are highly dependent on energy.

Full Story Here: Mark Hyman, MD: Autism Research: Breakthrough Discovery on the Causes of Autism.

Feds Dismiss Recall Of Lead-Laced Glasses Over Technicality

A federal agency reversed itself Friday and said lead-laced Wizard of Oz and superhero drinking glasses are, in fact, for adults – not children’s products subject to a previously announced recall.

The stunning about-face came after the Consumer Product Safety Commission said last month the glasses were children’s products and thus subject to strict federal lead limits.

Lab testing by The Associated Press found lead in the colored decorations up to 1,000 times the federal maximum for children’s products. The CPSC has no limits on lead content on the outside of adult drinking glasses

Full Story Here: Feds Dismiss Recall Of Lead-Laced Glasses Over Technicality.

Red Sea Shark Attacks: Killing Spree Puzzles Scientists

Hoping to protect the local tourism industry over July 4, the beach resort’s mayor initially downplays the danger of shark attacks – but is forced to bring in a marine biologist and a shark hunter when things turn really ugly. That was the story line in Jaws, Steven Spielberg’s 1975 blockbuster movie, and a similar scenario is currently being played out in real life at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

It began 10 days ago when the normally pristine tropical waters turned a murky red, after sharks mauled three Russians and a Ukrainian over a two-day period. With the world-renowned snorkel and dive center heading into the holiday high season, local governor Mohammed Shosha closed off the beaches for 48 hours, during which time the authorities killed two sharks. He then declared the all clear and reopened the beaches. But within 24 hours, in keeping with the Jaws story line, it became brutally clear that Shosha had been wrong: a German woman standing chest-deep in the water was killed by another shark. (Read “Humans and Sharks: Why Can’t We Be Friends?”)

“We did some efforts last week but I think we failed,” Salem Saleh, director of the town’s Tourism Authority told TIME on Monday. He acknowledged that the sharks responsible for the killings are probably still at large. The resort, which Egyptian authorities say draws some 4 million tourists every year, has become the site of an international biological murder mystery.

Full Story Here: Red Sea Shark Attacks: Killing Spree Puzzles Scientists – Yahoo! News.

How the Torah is Pro-Women

There is a common (and unfortunate) misconception in the world at large that the Torah is anti-women. The reality is that a simple examination of the actual text and a little research into some of the major commentaries reveal just the opposite. No modern apologetics are required to prove the truth — that Judaism is, and has always been, exceedingly pro-woman.

Let’s start at the beginning. A careful reading of the text of Genesis shows us that Adam was never alone: “So G-d created Man in His image, in the image of G-d He created him; male and female He created them.” The original Adam was a male and female composite that was only separated later. The 19th century German Torah giant Rabbi Sampson Raphael Hirsch expounded this verse unequivocally in support of the fundamental equality of men and women, “Although all living creatures were created in both sexes, this is only stressed at human beings to lay down the fact that both sexes were created equally, directly by G-d, and in equal likeness to Him.” He wrote this some 50 years before women’s suffrage.

Full Story Here: Rabbi Adam Jacobs: How the Torah is Pro-Women.

Election spending: Financial arms race underway in Washington

Posh fundraisers already are in full swing after record spending on midterms. Nobody wants to get ambushed again.

When it comes to money in politics, the new normal is already on vivid display.

It could be seen last week in posh restaurants and corporate townhouses on Capitol Hill, where politicians held fundraisers at a record pace. It was evident at Washington’s blue-chip law firms, where campaign finance lawyers began work setting up new political committees to collect unlimited donations. It was apparent in the halls of Congress, where lawmakers swapped strategies about how to contend with muscular interest groups looking to take them out.

The unusually intense December bustle is the product of this year’s elections, where spending surged to $4 billion in sharp-edged campaigns across the country — a record for a midterm.

Full Story Here: Election spending: Financial arms race underway in Washington, D.C. – latimes.com.

A Secretive Banking Elite Rules Trading in Derivatives

How A Secretive Group Of Bankers Ensures That The Deck Is Stacked In Their Favor

On the third Wednesday of every month, the nine members of an elite Wall Street society gather in Midtown Manhattan.

The men share a common goal: to protect the interests of big banks in the vast market for derivatives, one of the most profitable — and controversial — fields in finance. They also share a common secret: The details of their meetings, even their identities, have been strictly confidential.

Drawn from giants like JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, the bankers form a powerful committee that helps oversee trading in derivatives, instruments which, like insurance, are used to hedge risk.

In theory, this group exists to safeguard the integrity of the multitrillion-dollar market. In practice, it also defends the dominance of the big banks.

Full Story Here: Post-Meltdown, Banks Still Rule Derivatives Trade – NYTimes.com.

Marijuana-legalization push gets voice on Capitol Hill

The cannabis industry has flexed its muscles in 15 states where it’s legal to smoke marijuana for medical purposes. Now the industry is ready to go to work in Washington.

A new trade group, called the National Cannabis Industry Association, is an attempt to bring together sellers, growers and manufacturers and to promote pot on Capitol Hill.

“Our intent is to be the go-to organization in Washington for this industry,” said Aaron Smith, the group’s executive director.

Full Story Here: Marijuana-legalization push gets voice on Capitol Hill | McClatchy.

Orwellian Centrism

Paul Krugman:

I don’t usually bother looking at the Washington Post. But I’m inside the Beltway right now, so I spared a peek — and for my sins ended up reading Dana Milbank, who praises Obama for punching the hippies.

So far, so usual. But then I read this:

This is a hopeful sign that Obama has learned the lessons of the health-care debate, when he acceded too easily to the wishes of Hill Democrats, allowing them to slow the legislation and engage in a protracted debate on the public option. Months of delay gave Republicans time to make their case against “socialism” and prevented action on more pressing issues, such as job creation. Democrats paid for that with 63 seats.

Um, that’s not what happened — and I followed the health care process closely. The debate over the public option wasn’t what slowed the legislation. What did it was the many months Obama waited while Max Baucus tried to get bipartisan support, only to see the Republicans keep moving the goalposts; only when the White House finally concluded that Republican “moderates” weren’t negotiating in good faith did the thing finally get moving.

Full Story Here: Orwellian Centrism – NYTimes.com.

Key FBI whistleblower: Had WikiLeaks existed, 9/11, Iraq war ‘could have been prevented’

A Time Magazine ‘Person of the Year’ argues WikiLeaks serves the public good

A member of a group of former intelligence professionals that has rallied behind WikiLeaks suggested in a recent interview with Raw Story that the world would be a different and better place had the online secrets outlet come into existence years sooner.

“If there had been a mechanism like Wikileaks, 9/11 could have been prevented,” Coleen Rowley, a former special agent/legal counsel at the FBI’s Minneapolis division, told Raw Story in an exclusive interview.

Rowley and her colleague Bogdan Dzakovic, a special agent for the FAA’s security division, explained this position in an op-ed published in the Los Angeles Times in October. However, they admit no claim to the original idea of an established pro-whistle-blower infrastructure. It’s purely the US government’s, she said.

Full Story Here: Exclusive: Key FBI whistleblower: Had WikiLeaks existed, 9/11, Iraq war ‘could have been prevented’ | Raw Story.

NASA: 2010 Meteorological Year Warmest Ever

The 2010 meteorological year, which ended on 30 November, was the warmest in NASA’s 130-year record, data posted by the agency today shows. Over the oceans as well as on land, the average global temperature for the 12-month period that began last December was 14.65˚C. That’s 0.65˚C warmer than the average global temperature between 1951 and 1980, a period scientists use as a basis for comparison.

The 2010 meteorological year was slightly warmer than the previous warmest year, the 2005 calendar year, when the average temperature was 14.53˚C.

In 2010, temperatures measured over land alone were also the warmest ever, with instruments showing a December-November average of 14.85˚C. Combining this warming with above-average ocean temperatures led to the global average of 14.65˚C.

Full Story Here: NASA: 2010 Meteorological Year Warmest Ever – ScienceNOW.

Gasoline Prices Rise to 2-Year High

Gasoline prices have hit a two-year high heading into the Christmas holiday, producing a strain for shoppers trying to stretch their dollars.

Retail gas prices have been rising briskly over the last month, tracking crude oil prices, which rose on surging imports by China and a weakening of the dollar.

The average national price of gas rose over the last week to $2.98 a gallon, up from $2.90, according to AAA’s Daily Fuel Gauge Report. Although specialists say prices have probably peaked for the month, the price at the pump is now 35 cents a gallon higher than a year ago.

The Oil Price Information Service has estimated that consumers will pay $34 billion this month for gasoline, up from about $27.6 billion in December 2009 — money that might have been spent on holiday shopping.

Full Story Here: Gasoline Prices Rise to 2-Year High – NYTimes.com.

House seen as likely to pass tax cut bill with changes

According to a senior Democratic aide, the House of Representatives is likely to pass the Obama administration’s massive tax cut bill next week, provided the estate tax provision is tightened and other changes are made.

“Many House Democrats may still oppose the final bill,” the aide told Reuters, noting that the legislation will require the support of most Republicans to pass.

According to Reuters, a majority of Democrats were in favor of a $3.5 million exemption from the estate tax, with a 45% tax rate above that figure, and are “fuming” that the Obama administration gave in to Republican demands for $5 million and 35%.

Full Story Here: House seen as likely to pass tax cut bill with changes | Raw Story.

UN climate change talks in Cancun agree a deal

UN talks in Cancun have reached a deal to curb climate change, including a fund to help developing countries.

Nations endorsed compromise texts drawn up by the Mexican hosts, despite objections from Bolivia.

The draft documents say deeper cuts in carbon emissions are needed, but do not establish a mechanism for achieving the pledges countries have made.

Some countries’ resistance to the Kyoto Protocol had been a stumbling block during the final week of negotiations.

However, diplomats were able to find a compromise.

Full Story Here: BBC News – UN climate change talks in Cancun agree a deal.

Exclusive: ‘The Fourth Estate is dead,’ former CIA analyst declares

‘The Empire’ is ‘being threatened by a slingshot in the form of a computer’

RayMcGovern Exclusive: The Fourth Estate is dead, former CIA analyst declares Traditional lines of communication between the people and the press have fallen into such disrepair in America that a whole new approach is necessary to challenge the military-industrial-governmental complex, according to a former CIA analyst sympathetic to WikiLeaks.

“The Fourth Estate is dead,” Ray McGovern, of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, told Raw Story in an exclusive interview. “The Fourth Estate in his country has been captured by government and corporations, the military-industrial complex, the intelligence apparatus. Captive! So, there is no Fourth Estate.”

Full Story Here: Exclusive: ‘The Fourth Estate is dead,’ former CIA analyst declares | Raw Story.

Exclusive: Internet was never free or open and never will be, media studies prof. says

Author: If Americans want a truly free network, ‘we’ve got to build it from scratch’

DouglasRushkoff Exclusive: Internet was never free or open and never will be, media studies prof. saysSecrets outlet WikiLeaks’ continuing struggle to remain online in the face of corporate and government censorship is a striking example of something few truly realize: that the Internet is not and never has been democratically controlled, a media studies professor commented to Raw Story.

“[T]he stuff that goes on on the Internet does not go on because the authorties can’t stop it,” Douglas Rushkoff, author of Program or be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age and Life, Inc.: How Corporatism Conquered the World and How to Take it Back”, said. “It goes on because the authorities are choosing what to stop and what not to stop.”

Rushkoff told Raw Story that the authorities have the ability to quash cyber dissent due to the Internet’s original design, as a top-down, authoritarian device with a centralized indexing system.

Full Story Here: Exclusive: Internet was never free or open and never will be, media studies prof. says | Raw Story.

300 Show Up In The Rain To Counterprotest 5 Westboro Protesters At Elizabeth Edwards’ Funeral

Today, friends and families gathered in Raleigh, NC to mourn Elizabeth Edwards, who died this week after battling cancer. Outside, a small group of protesters from the extremist anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church picketed the event because they said Edwards “spent her life in defiance and disobedience to God.” The church regularly harasses the families of dead American soldiers by picketing homosexuality at their funerals with signs like “pray for more dead soldiers,” and “your sons are in hell.”

But at Edwards’ funeral today, the tiny group of hate mongers was confronted by more than300 counterprotesters, who turned out to stand against hate, despite the rain:

Members of the controversial Westboro Baptist Church picketed the funeral of Elizabeth Edwards in Raleigh, N.C. Saturday. But they were vastly outnumbered by a “human buffer” of people who quietly stood in the rain singing Christmas carols and carrying signs reading “God loves Elizabeth Edwards” or simply “Grace” and “Hope.” [...]

In a 2007 interview, Mrs. Edwards described herself as “completely comfortable with gay marriage,” hence the Westboro protesters at the funeral. But on Saturday just five church members (two of them children) showed up to picket, waving hateful signs about Mrs. Edwards and the United Methodist Church where the service was held.

Watch a report from the local ABC affiliate:

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » 300 Show Up In The Rain To Counterprotest 5 Westboro Protesters At Elizabeth Edwards’ Funeral.

Justice Department Prepares for Ominous Expansion of “Anti-Terrorism” Law Targeting Activists

In late September, the FBI carried out a series of raids of homes and antiwar offices of public activists in Minneapolis and Chicago. Following the raids, the Obama Justice Department subpoenaed 14 activists to a grand jury in Chicago and also subpoenaed the files of several antiwar and community organizations. In carrying out these repressive actions, the Justice Department was taking its lead from the Supreme Court’s 6-3 opinion last June in Holder v. the Humanitarian Law Project, which decided that nonviolent First Amendment speech and advocacy “coordinated with” or “under the direction of” a foreign group listed by the Secretary of State as “terrorist” was a crime.

The search warrants and grand jury subpoenas make it clear that the federal prosecutors are intent on accusing public nonviolent political organizers, many of whom are affiliated with Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), of providing “material support” through their public advocacy for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The Secretary of State has determined that both the PLFP and the FARC “threaten US national security, foreign policy or economic interests,” a finding not reviewable by the courts, and listed both groups as foreign terrorist organizations (FTO).

In 1996, Congress made it a crime – then punishable by 10 years, which was later increased to 15 years – to anyone in the US who provides “material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization or attempts or conspires to do so.” The present statute defines “material support or resources” as:

Full Story Here: Justice Department Prepares for Ominous Expansion of “Anti-Terrorism” Law Targeting Activists.

JESSE VENTURA RAISES THE QUESTION: DID BP, TRANSOCEAN, HALLIBURTON KNOW THE DEEPWATER HORIZON WOULD BLOW?

Did BP, Halliburton and Transocean Ltd conspire to let the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explode? Sound preposterous? You may not think so after watching ex-Governor Jesse Ventura interview a bevy of individuals, including investigative journalists Sherri Kane and Len Horowitz (their radio program website: The Insight Hour) in his latest episode, Season 2, No. 7 of Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura.

Sherri and Len, whose articles that I have read, I must point out, are highly ideologically conspiratorial and rhetorical, bluntly claim that the Gulf Oil Disaster was planned, and that much of the proof lies in buys, sells and puts on Wall Street. Why, for example, did then BP CEO Tony Hayward sell 1/3 of his stocks in his own company on March 17 (collaboration), just a little over a month before the Deepwater Horizon blew on April 20, 2010. Hayward purportedly made millions on the sell-off, while other BP stockholders lost heavily when stocks plummeted after the oil rig explosion. Was this mere coincidence, and Tony merely wanted to raise money to pay off a big mortgage? Maybe, but BP had already had a great deal of difficulty with exploratory drilling in the Macondo Prospect, so certainly the board of directors must have at least speculated that there was potential for disaster. Did they decide that such a negative event had another kind of potential, profit potential? Perhaps they even thought a disaster was inevitable, so why not take advantage of this, good old disaster capitalism at work.

And why did Transocean Ltd, the owner of the Deepwater Horizon, on the very morning, Horowitz states, of the blow-out and explosion which would occur later that night (9:45 pm CDT) open up a special “Put-Option” in the European stock exchanges on their stocks, available to inside players, an equity maneuver that had actually been put into motion on April 14th. A “Put”, to paraphrase Ventura, is like buying insurance on your stock price in case it plummets. When this plummet DID occur after the disaster, Len Horiwitz claims that Transocean made “billions”.

Full Story Here: OpEdNews – Article: JESSE VENTURA RAISES THE QUESTION: DID BP, TRANSOCEAN, HALLIBURTON KNOW THE DEEPWATER HORIZON WOULD BLOW?.

The Effort to Claim That Economists Support Obama’s Capitulation on Tax Cuts for the Wealthy

Michael Moore:

You know the administration is desperate when it creates a web page citing economists who support its capitulation on taxes.

The web page cites the support of five economists. Peter Cardillo, the Bank of America, Greg Mankiw, and Wells Fargo (are the second through fifth economists on Obama’s list). Who are these supporters and why is the administration proud of their support? Cardillo is an economist for an investment firm, Avalon Partners. Avalon’s web site states that it specializes in “wealth management” for “affluent investors…to meet the unique needs of high net worth individuals….” Yes, the wealthiest one-hundredth of one percent of Americans — the truly, uniquely needy.

The administration’s web site gives pride of placement to Avalon Partners’ support of Obama’s decision to support the extension of Bush’s dramatic reduction in the taxes its ultra-wealthy clients will pay. That tax reduction will make Cardillo and his senior colleagues at Avalon Partners, themselves among the wealthiest Americans. Obama’s capitulation on tax breaks for the richest one percent of Americans is worth tens of thousands of dollars personally to Cardillo and hundreds of millions of dollars to Avalon’s clients. Mr. Cardillo does not support Obama’s capitulation — he rejoices in it.

Full Story Here: The Effort to Claim That Economists Support Obama’s Capitulation on Tax Cuts for the Wealthy | MichaelMoore.com.

Why Bill Clinton’s Favorable View of Obama’s Tax Deal Should Be Disregarded

Robert Reich:

Bill Clinton seems the perfect validator for Barack Obama — which is why the President is utilizing the former president for selling his tax deal. After all, the economy boomed when Clinton was president and 22 million net new jobs were created. From a more narrow political perspective — and this is important to Democrats in Washington — Bill Clinton was reelected, even though he lost both houses of Congress in the 1994 midterms.

But the analogy falls apart as soon as you realize Clinton’s economy was vastly different from Obama’s. The recession Clinton inherited was relatively small, and caused by the Fed raising interest rates too high to ward off inflation. So it could be reversed by the Fed lowering interest rates — as the Fed did in 1994. By 1995, the so-called “jobless recovery” had morphed into a full-blown jobs recovery. By 1996, at pollster Dick Morris’s urging, Clinton could proclaim to the American people “you’ve never had it so good, and you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

The Great Recession has been far larger, caused not by the Fed raising interest rates but by the bursting of a giant housing bubble. In 2008, the biggest asset of most middle-class people, upon which they borrowed and that they assumed would be their nest eggs for retirmenet, collapsed. Housing prices continue to fall in most parts of the country. The Fed has lowered interest rates all it can, and unemployment remains sky high.

Full Story Here: Robert Reich (Why Bill Clinton’s Favorable View of Obama’s Tax Deal Should Be Disregarded).

American Job Loss Is Permanent

Paul Craig Roberts:

Now that a few Democrats and the remnants of the AFL-CIO are waking up to the destructive impact of jobs offshoring on the US economy and millions of American lives, globalism’s advocates have resurrected Dartmouth economist Matthew Slaughter’s discredited finding of several years ago that jobs offshoring by US corporations increases employment and wages in the US.

At the time I exposed Slaughter’s mistakes, but economists dependent on corporate largess understood that it was more profitable to drink Slaughter’s Kool-aid than to tell the truth. Recently the US Chamber of Commerce rolled out Slaughter’s false argument as a weapon against House Democrats Sandy Levin and Tim Ryan, and the Wall Street Journal had Bill Clinton’s Defense Secretary, William S. Cohen, regurgitate Slaughter’s claim on its op-ed page on October 12.

I sent a letter to the Wall Street Journal, but the editors were not interested in what a former associate editor and columnist for the paper and President Reagan’s Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy had to say. The facade of lies has to be maintained at all costs. There can be no questioning that globalism is good for us.

Full Story Here: OpEdNews – Article: American Job Loss Is Permanent.

Free Trade Doesn’t Work: Interview With Economist Ian Fletcher

Free trade doesn’t work, the global economy is a myth and the U.S. has been duped during trade negotiations for the past 40 years according to Ian Fletcher, an adjunct fellow with the U.S. Business and Industry Council and author of Free Trade Doesn’t Work: What Should Replace It and Why, who relayed these concepts to me in an exclusive interview.

During our exchange I discovered that Mr. Fletcher certainly is not opposed to capitalism, underlined by his experience working for hedge funds and private equity firms as an economist, but what he is opposed to are bad economic policies that have led to an ever-burgeoning U.S. trade deficit well on its way to hitting $500 billion this year.

You argue that protectionism is more “American” than free trade. How would you respond to libertarian types who might see this as an assault on America’s deeply-held capitalistic values?

Full Story Here: Michael Hughes: Free Trade Doesn’t Work: Interview With Economist Ian Fletcher.

Beware ‘Toxic Toys’ This Holiday Season

The Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group (MASSPIRG) has released its annual “Trouble in Toyland” report, which informs consumers about dangerous toys, most of which are produced in nations with less safety regulations than the U.S.

“Dangerous or toxic toys can still be found on America’s store shelves,” MASSPIRG spokesperson Rachel McCloskey said at the release of MASSPIRG’s report. The full report, found here, documents what toys are dangerous this year. Products include a plastic tiara made with lead paint and construction sets with unlabeled small parts.

As imported food continues to destroy the health of the American public, imported toys are hurting our children. Toy-related injuries sent more than a quarter of a million children to the hospital in 2009, according to the Consumer Protection Safety Council. A benefit of greater domestic production of goods, would not only be a reduction of our trade deficit and more jobs, but greater safety for all citizens.

Full Story Here: Beware ‘Toxic Toys’ This Holiday Season | Economy In Crisis.

As Companies Outsource, There Is No Need for Them to Hire In America

As the ‘jobless recovery’ continues, mounting evidence shows that companies have completely recovered from the economic downturn, while the average person certainly has not.

Bank of America CEO Brian Moniyhan said, “..companies have done very well. They’ve gotten very efficient in this cycle.” Bank of America is among numerous companies listed recently by CNN that are “Exporting America.” Moniyhan himself confirmed the point when he said, “And how does that happen? They import, they export. They build things overseas.”

They certainly do build things overseas. Notable companies such as Adobe and Safeway are alongside Bank of America in the list of companies compiled by CNN that opt to hire in other countries instead of hiring American workers during this tough time. Such behavior is disastrous for the American economy and government.

Full Story Here: As Companies Outsource, There Is No Need for Them to Hire In America | Economy In Crisis.

Without Shame

Unfathomable: Senate Republicans blocked a bill to provide up to $7.4 billion in health care to 9/11 rescue workers who ran into burning buildings because first they want tax breaks for rich people. It was the same day as a funeral for a cop who died of lung cancer from working at Ground Zero. That makes 30 deaths. These people are scum.

Not to be believed: Senate Republicans blocked a bill to provide up to $7.4 billion in health care benefits to 9/11 rescue workers who ran into burning buidlings because first they want their tax breaks for rich people. It happened the same day as a funeral for a cop who died of lung cancer from working at Ground Zero. That makes 30 deaths. These people are scum.

Full Story Here: Without Shame | CommonDreams.org.

Sanders ‘Filibusters’ Tax Deal for 8.5 Hours, Tells Senate: ‘We Can Come Up With a Better Proposal’

John Nichols, The Nation:

Sanders ‘Filibusters’ Tax Deal for 8.5 Hours, Tells Senate: ‘We Can Come Up With a Better Proposal’

Senator Bernie Sanders, who has promised to do “whatever it takes” to block the deal President Obama cut to extend tax breaks for billionaires and create a sweeping estate-tax exemption for millionaires, began to wage what he said could be called a “filibuster” on the floor of the Senate Friday.

After Sanders took the rostrum at 10:24 a.m. Friday, the Vermont Independent posted a message on his his twitter account that read: “You can call what I am doing today whatever you want, you [can] call it a filibuster, you can call it a very long speech…”

Sanders spoke for more than eight hours. His bold gesture grabbed the attention of the nation, as Senate video servers were overwhelmed when more than 12,000 people tried to watch the speech online.

Full Story Here: Sanders ‘Filibusters’ Tax Deal for 8.5 Hours, Tells Senate: ‘We Can Come Up With a Better Proposal’ | The Nation.

The Rise of the Wall Street Ruling Class

The Largest Welfare Check Ever Written

By THOMAS VOLSCHO:

Who rules America? Sociologists and political scientists have debated this question since C. Wright Mills published his 1956 book The Power Elite. Writing in the 1950s, Mills argued that the United States was ruled by a triangle of power between the federal government, large corporations, and the military industrial complex (with many people moving between these sectors). Robert McNamara went from CEO of Ford Motor Company to Secretary of Defense under the Kennedy-Johnson administrations (modern examples include Dick Cheney, Henry Paulson, Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, etc). Since the late 1960s, sociologist G. William Domhoff has revised, updated, and increased the sophistication of power elite theory. If we look at the composition of cabinet-level and other White House appoints since the Reagan administration, it is clear that there is a significant movement between Wall Street and the Federal Reserve Bank and Treasury Department. But why? The answers are found in the social and economic crises of the 1960s and 1970s.

The rate of profit in the non-financial sector fell after peaking in 1966 and continued its fall into the mid 1970s. At the same time, the Civil Rights, anti-war, feminist, brown power, black power, American Indian Movement, student revolts, prison riots, and other rebellions against the establishment were taking place. Regulatory victories by Ralph Nader and other challenges to the power of the capitalist establishment were increasingly seen as a threat in the 1970s. Lewis F. Powell (a corporate lawyer, board member, and future Supreme Court Justice) wrote a memo to the Chamber of Commerce in 1971 and opened the document by stating, “No thoughtful person can question that the American economic system is under broad attack.” But what was most alarming was that “ Although New Leftist spokesmen are succeeding in radicalizing thousands of the young, the greater cause for concern is the hostility of respectable liberals and social reformers.” The great fear was that mainstream liberals were becoming more radical. A further fear was that Yale’s graduating classes (composed of old and new money and elites-to-be) in the late 1960s and 1970s included those who were versed in the “politics of despair.”

Full Story Here: Thomas Volscho: The Rise of the Wall Street Ruling Class.

Petraeus Aide Marvin Hill: If Troops Can’t Deal With DADT Repeal, They Should Leave The Service

A senior aide to David Petraeus, commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, is out with a strong statement in support of repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT), saying that servicemembers who can’t adjust to the change should think about leaving the military.

“If there are people who cannot deal with the change, then they’re going to have to do what’s best for their troops and best for the organization and best for the military service and exit the military service, so that we can move forward — if that’s the way that we have to go,” said Command Sergeant Major Marvin Hill in an interview with Roland Martin on Washington Watch, set to air on Sunday.

Indeed, one of the arguments put forth by many critics of repeal is that integrating the forces will result in a loss of large number of servicemembers opposed to the change.

Full Story Here: Petraeus Aide Marvin Hill: If Troops Can’t Deal With DADT Repeal, They Should Leave The Service.

Joe Miller Suffers Major Blow As Judge Rules Against Alaska Senate Lawsuit

A judge on Friday ruled against Republican Joe Miller’s lawsuit challenging how Alaska counted write-in votes for rival Lisa Murkowski in their Senate race, delivering a crushing blow to the tea party-backed candidate’s longshot legal fight.

Judge William Carey’s ruling all but ends Miller’s hopes of getting relief in state court. Miller can appeal to the state Supreme Court, and his spokesman said he was mulling the option, but Carey cited past decisions by the high court in his ruling.

The judge said his decision to throw out Miller’s lawsuit wouldn’t take effect until Tuesday to allow time for an appeal.

Full Story Here: Joe Miller Suffers Major Blow As Judge Rules Against Alaska Senate Lawsuit.

Tea’d Off

Christopher Hitchens: ”I don’t remember ever seeing grown-ups behave less seriously.”

Forfeiting a both-houses Republican victory, rational conservatives ignored or excused the most hateful kind of populist claptrap (e.g., the fetid weirdness of Glenn Beck’s 9/12 Project). The poison they’ve helped disseminate will still be in the American bloodstream when the country needs it least.

It is often in the excuses and in the apologies that one finds the real offense. Looking back on the domestic political “surge” which the populist right has been celebrating since last month, I found myself most dispirited by the manner in which the more sophisticated conservatives attempted to conjure the nasty bits away.

Here, for example, was Ross Douthat, the voice of moderate conservatism on the New York Times op-ed page. He was replying to a number of critics who had pointed out that Glenn Beck, in his rallies and broadcasts, had been channeling the forgotten voice of the John Birch Society, megaphone of Strangelovian paranoia from the 1950s and 1960s. His soothing message:

Full Story Here: Tea’d Off | Politics | Vanity Fair.

Obama-Republican Deal Could Mean Tax Hike For One In Three Workers

The tax deal reached between President Obama and congressional Republicans could mean a higher tax bill for roughly one in three workers as a result of the Social Security tax cut Republicans pushed as a replacement for the current Making Work Pay tax credit.

The Making Work Pay credit gives workers up to $400, paid out at 8 percent of income, meaning that anybody making at least $5,000 gets the full amount — and gets as much as anybody else. Its replacement knocks two percentage points off the payroll tax cut, meaning a worker would need to make $20,000 to get a $400 break. Of the nation’s roughly 150 million workers, around 50 million make less than $20,000 and will see at least some increase as a result.

Additionally, roughly a quarter of 20 million state and local workers pay no payroll tax, because they have a separate pension system. Some of those workers with children will benefit from the extension of other tax credits, but overall will have less money in their pocket.

Full Story Here: Obama-Republican Deal Could Mean Tax Hike For One In Three Workers.

FAA loses track of 119,000 aircraft

FAA loses track of 119,000 aircraft; faulty paperwork sparks terror fears

The Federal Aviation Administration is missing key information on who owns one-third of the 357,000 private and commercial aircraft in the U.S. — a gap the agency fears could be exploited by terrorists and drug traffickers.

The records are in such disarray that the FAA says it is worried that criminals could buy planes without the government’s knowledge, or use the registration numbers of other aircraft to evade new computer systems designed to track suspicious flights. It has ordered all aircraft owners to re-register their planes in an effort to clean up its files.

Full Story Here: FAA loses track of 119,000 aircraft | Raw Story.

GOP Speaker-elect Boehner hires lobbyist as policy director

He ‘reflects the will of the people we serve’

House Republican leader John Boehner has tapped a top medical industry lobbyist to be his policy director when he takes the reins as speaker in January.

The lobbyist, Brett Loper, is the senior executive vice president of the Advanced Medical Technology Association, a pharmaceutical and health products industry, which lobbied in opposition to Democrats’ health care reform legislation.

“I’m very pleased Brett will be joining our team,” Boehner said Thursday in a statement, according to Politico. “There are few people who are better equipped to help our new majority change the way the House works and advance a new governing agenda that reflects the will of the people we serve.”

Full Story Here: GOP Speaker-elect Boehner hires lobbyist as policy director | Raw Story.

OPS: The basic definition of Fascism:

“He ‘reflects the will of the people we serve’” –

Well no shit! Ain’t THAT the truth. The Republican Party serving Corporations and the Oligarchy

Having ‘political objective’ disqualifies Assange ‘from being considered a journalist,’ State Dept. says | Raw Story

Who is and is not a journalist? In a hyper-connected age where anyone and everyone can become a publisher in seconds, the word’s definition seems increasingly intangible and ever-evolving.

The US State Department, however, appears to have crossed that very muddy line with its criticism of secrets outlet WikiLeaks.

Speaking to reporters recently, State Dept. Assistant Secretary Philip Rowley said that the United States does not consider WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to be a “journalist” or “whistleblower.” He insisted that, under US law, he’s to be considered a “political actor.”

Full Story Here: Having ‘political objective’ disqualifies Assange ‘from being considered a journalist,’ State Dept. says | Raw Story.

OPS: LOL So is the State Department going to revoke all of the FOX and other Reichwing  journalist credentials?

It’s official: Ron Paul to lead House Federal Reserve oversight | Raw Story

Iconoclastic Texas Republican defends WikiLeaks again, says US response ‘an example of killing the messenger’

ronpaulassociatedpress Its official: Ron Paul to lead House Federal Reserve oversightThe greatest critic of fiat currency perhaps anywhere in the world is about to take control of a congressional panel that would conduct oversight on the US Federal Reserve bank.

This could get interesting.

After November’s Republican electoral wave crashed a Democratic majority in the US House of Representatives, Representative Ron Paul (R-TX) was one of several ardent critics of status-quo thought that GOP leadership thought about empowering.

Full Story Here: It’s official: Ron Paul to lead House Federal Reserve oversight | Raw Story.

OPS: This will be interesting. Now we’ll see if Paul is for real or not.

Authorities move WikiLeaks’ founder to ‘isolation’ cell

Lawyer: Assange ‘does not get any recreation”

wikileaksfounderjulianassange Authorities move WikiLeaks founder to isolation cell WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange was in a segregation unit of a London jail Saturday for his safety, as new secret US diplomatic cables were made public, increasing the embarrassment to Washington.

The 39-year-old Australian has been transferred from the main section of Wandsworth prison to an isolation unit, Jennifer Robinson, one of his legal team, said Friday.

“The prison authorities are doing it for his own safety, presumably,” she told AFP.

Assange is due to appear in a London court for a second time Tuesday after being arrested on a warrant issued by Sweden, where prosecutors want to question him about allegations of rape and sexual molestation made by two women.

Full Story Here: Authorities move WikiLeaks’ founder to ‘isolation’ cell | Raw Story.

OPS:  no witnesses, where it will be easier to ‘suicide’ the guy

Calderon On Climate: ‘As We’re Squabbling, The Plane Is Going Down’

Video: -

In an impassioned speech, Felipe Calderon, the president of Mexico and the host of the international climate summit taking place in Cancun, called for the nations of the world to stop “squabbling” and to work as one to halt global warming. After a session featuring the heads of state from Norway to Nauru, he recalled the scene in Copenhagen, Denmark, when nearly all of the heads of state of the entire world came together last year, yet left with a sense of failure and recrimination. Calderon said they spent their moment of opportunity fighting behind closed doors for hours over who was to blame for the disastrous situation our civilization faces now — while the smallest nations, those least responsible for the pollution, are now on the “point of disappearance“:

Sometimes I think in this respect we fail to understand that we’re all passengers in the same vessel, in the same aircraft, or the same vehicle. Our aircraft has now seen the disappearance of the pilot. Something happened in the cabin. And all the passengers are responsible for the aircraft, and we’re squabbling about these matters. Whether the guilt lies with those in the tourist class or those sitting up front in first class and the plane continues to go down. It’s as if we were in a truck on a winding road and the driver has had a heart attack, and we’re all on the edge of hitting a tree, going over into a ravine, squabbling again. I think, friends, somebody has to take control of the aircraft or put on the brakes.

Watch it:

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » Calderon On Climate: ‘As We’re Squabbling, The Plane Is Going Down’.

Bachmann Repeatedly Insists That Tax Cut Deal Is Actually ‘A Tax Increase’

While much of the focus regarding President Obama’s tax deal has been on the discontent in the Democratic caucus, a slew of House Republicans have also voiced their opposition, on the grounds that the package includes too few tax breaks and too much help for the jobless. Today, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) appeared on CNN, and explained that she is against the tax deal because it not only extends unemployment benefits, which she has continually characterized as “massive new spending,” but because, in her mind, it increases taxes.

When a perplexed John King asked her what she was talking about, Bachmann replied that the estate tax cut Obama and the Republicans included is actually a tax increase, because a Bush-era budget gimmick set the estate tax at zero this year. Under current law, the estate tax will go to 55 percent next year, with a $1 million exemption, but under the tax deal, it will be set at 35 percent with a $5 million exemption.

This cut costs about $25 billion, and benefits only those in the wealthiest 0.25 percent of households in the country.

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » Bachmann Repeatedly Insists That Tax Cut Deal Is Actually ‘A Tax Increase’.

Health Insurers Taught Republicans How To Oppose The Public Option

Yesterday, Media Matters obtained internal Fox News correspondence, which reveal that Fox bosses instructed their journalists not to use the term “public option” during the health care fight. DC Managing Editor Bill Sammon wrote that Fox’s reporters should instead use “government option” and similar phrases. Polling by Frank Luntz showed that using “government option” language made the public option unpopular with the American public. Now, Ben Smith is reporting that the phrase first originated not with Fox or Luntz, but AHIP — the insurance lobby powerhouse that shaped much of the law to its liking:

A former Republican Hill staffer closely involved in the battle over the health care plan — and concerned that credit go where it’s due — e-mails that the case for the linguistic shift first emerged in February in research provided the GOP by the health insurance industry group America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP).

AHIP focus groups from late February (whose findings appear in this document, provided by the former aide) found that voters like the idea of a “public” plan, and that the most negative term is a “government-run health insurance plan.”

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » Health Insurers Taught Republicans How To Oppose The Public Option.

Rep. Rohrabacher Suggests White People Will ‘Lose Our Freedom’ If The DREAM Act Passes

In their efforts to bring down the DREAM Act, which would give children of undocumented immigrants who complete college or volunteer for the military a path to citizenship, conservatives have been smearing the bill as “backdoor amnesty” for undocumented immigrants and claiming it creates a loophole for terrorists. Unfortunately, many of their attacks have also taken on racial undertones. Yesterday, Fox News host Glenn Beck told a caller on his radio show that the bill would disenfranchise white people, saying, “if you’re white or you’re an American citizen or a white American citizen, you’re pretty much toast.” Beck suggested his caller steal a Mexican ID card in to receive the supposedly preferential treatment minorities will receive under DREAM.

While clearly bigoted, Beck’s comments appeared to have the joking tone of a self-described “rodeo clown.” But Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) was not joking when he took to the House floor Wednesday to warn that voting for “the Affirmative Action Amnesty Act,” as he dubbed DREAM, will “relegate the position of non-minority American citizens to behind those who are now in this country illegally.”

Appearing on Radio America with Greg Corombus yesterday, Rohrabacher expanded on the dangers to white people of DREAM, explaining that the “real zinger” is that it puts minorities “ahead of every American child who’s not a minority.” “[T]hey can get into college before our kids,” Rohrabacher said on behalf of white people everywhere, warning ominously at the end of the interview that “if Americans aren’t alerted to this, we’re going to lose our freedom”:

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » Rep. Rohrabacher Suggests White People Will ‘Lose Our Freedom’ If The DREAM Act Passes.

Pakistani Ambassador Hosted Fundraiser For Neocon Think Tank

At Foreign Policy’s Middle East Channel, Ali Gharib reports, “The Pakistani ambassador to the U.S. hosted a fundraiser at his residence for a neoconservative D.C. think-tank, which solicited donations of $5,000 for invitations to the event”:

But the think-tank, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), didn’t bother to tell the Pakistani embassy that the event was a fundraiser or that it was sandwiched in the middle of a two-and-a-half day conference on “Countering the Iranian Threat” put on by the group.

“We didn’t know at all that they have done this fundraising,” Imran Gardezi, a spokesperson for the Pakistani embassy, told the Middle East Channel. “And neither did they share with us that they would be doing this conference. Very frankly, we didn’t know about this conference.”

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » Pakistani Ambassador Hosted Fundraiser For Neocon Think Tank.

Bernie Sanders’ epic tax cut filibuster rant

The senator brings government to a glorious halt with an extraordinary diatribe against U.S. economic policy

On CSPAN, six hours after first taking the podium to filibuster against the tax cut deal at around 10:25 Friday morning, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.,  is still talking. The CSPAN subtitle is “U.S. Senate: Tax Cuts & Unemployment Benefits,” but for the last few minutes he has been blasting trade polices that disadvantage American workers.

But that’s fine. His epic rant — perhaps one of the most extraordinary critiques of how the American economy has been managed over the last several decades delivered in living memory — is an endless sequence of connecting the dots from one outrage to another. Even as I wrote this paragraph, he segued effortlessly from trade policy to Wall Street.

“But it is not just a disastrous trade policy that has brought us where we are today. The immediate cause of this crisis, and it gets me just sick talking about it … is what the crooks on Wall Street have done to the American people.”

Full Story Here: Bernie Sanders’ epic tax cut filibuster rant – How the World Works – Salon.com.

Galbraith: Whose Side Is Obama on?

The fate of the entire country is at stake — we must re-imagine our economy.

In a speech given on November 20, 2010 at the ADA Education Fund’s Post-election Conference at the Harvard Kennedy School, Galbraith asks who Obama is really working for, and demands that progressives seek leaders who will fight the good fight.

I want to raise a hard question — a question on which Americans are divided. It seems to me, though, we will get nowhere unless we realize where we are, what has actually happened, and what the future most likely holds.

Recovery begins with realism and there is nothing to be gained by kidding ourselves. On the topics that I know most about, the administration is beyond being a disappointment. It’s beyond inept, unprepared, weak, and ineffective. Four and again two years ago, the people demanded change. As a candidate, the President promised change. In foreign policy and the core economic policies, he delivered continuity instead. That was true on Afghanistan and it was and is true in economic policy, especially in respect to the banks. What we got was George W. Bush’s policies without Bush’s toughness, without his in-your-face refusal to compromise prematurely. Without what he himself calls his understanding that you do not negotiate with yourself.

Full Story Here: Galbraith: Whose Side Is Obama on? | Economy | AlterNet.

President NAFTA Backs President Shafta

It was a stunning spectacle yesterday when former President Clinton took the podium from President Obama in the White House briefing room to help shove the Obama-GOP tax deal down the throats of Democratic activists and Congress members.

It was a fitting spectacle too (carried live on CNN) — since Bill Clinton paved the way in teaching how a Democratic president can win battles through the votes NOT of his own party but the Republicans.

Remember NAFTA, the trade deal loved by big business and Republicans — and opposed by Democratic constituencies like unions, environmentalists and consumer advocates? President Clinton passed NAFTA in 1993 with the votes of nearly 80 percent of GOP senators and almost 70 percent of House Republicans. Meanwhile, House Democrats opposed NAFTA by more than 3 to 2.

Full Story Here: President NAFTA Backs President Shafta | CommonDreams.org.

“We have Learned who is For Real and who is Frontin’.”

Glen Ford:

“..I also like tag team  matches because tag teams matches are twice as phony and therefore twice as funny. They are hilariously phony. Today’s two party politics reminds me of nothing so much as tag team wrestling on the television.

Here’s how it goes. The entire show is owned by one company. All of the wrestlers work for the same company. The only real competition is about which wrestlers are going to be assigned to win their matches, and who will be assigned to lose.  A wrestler… who can engage the crowd and make them suspend their disbelief, and imagine that the gams is real, he is good for business and therefore he is going tor be allowed to win becaues that is good for the company. The Company always wins because the company owns not just the wrestlers, they own the whole game, and, the television rights to it.

At this juncture in history Wall Steet owns the whole major political party game.”

Obama’s Hostage Deal

Paul Krugman:

I’ve spent the past couple of days trying to make my peace with the Obama-McConnell tax-cut deal. President Obama did, after all, extract more concessions than most of us expected.

Yet I remain deeply uneasy — not because I’m one of those “purists” Mr. Obama denounced on Tuesday but because this isn’t the end of the story. Specifically: Mr. Obama has bought the release of some hostages only by providing the G.O.P. with new hostages.

About the deal: Republicans got what they wanted — an extension of all the Bush tax cuts, including those for the wealthy. This part of the deal was bad all around. Yes, some of those tax cuts would be spent, boosting the economy to some extent. But a large part of the tax cuts, especially those for the wealthy, would not be spent, so the tax-cut extension increases the budget deficit a lot while doing little to reduce unemployment.

Full Story Here: Obama’s Hostage Deal – NYTimes.com.

Republican Death Panels at Home and Abroad

During the health care debate a Republican meme spread from Fox and other disreputable sources, through the main stream media, all the way to the floor of the US House and Senate. Obamacare, they said, would employ death panels. Few if any realized at that point that this was the common Republican tactic of accusing Democrats of what they themselves were doing or planning to do. Republicans are now sponsoring death panels, both at home and abroad.

On the home front we have Arizona’s Republican Death Panel.

That’s not an answer, it’s a ploy. It’s a political chess move with dying people as pawns.

The governor’s death panel will save roughly $1.4 million this year by cutting transplant services. That’s $1.4 million in an overall budget of roughly $9 BILLION.

Full Story Here: Republican Death Panels at Home and Abroad » Politics Plus.

War Dominated Foreign Policy Is Destroying the Economy and National Security

The White House is in the midst of a strategic review of Afghanistan. This review is coming at a time when the reality is hard to ignore: Afghanistan cannot be won, the cost is escalating at a time when the U.S. economy is in collapse and the war is undermining U.S. national security and the rule of law. It is time to end the war-based foreign policy of the United States.

Opposition to war is growing. Sixty-one House members wrote president Obama last month calling for an end to the Afghan war. The letter was co-signed by 57 Democrats and 4 Republicans. They wrote: “This has become the longest war in US history. The rate of casualties is at an all-time high. And we have already spent $365 billion on this unwinnable war.” This reflects the views of Americans. A recent poll conducted by Quinnipiac University found that 50 percent of those surveyed said the United States should not be involved in Afghanistan, compared to 41 percent who opposed the war in September.

Antiwar advocates are standing behind the peace veterans who will be leading the largest veterans led civil resistance action against war in many years on December 16th at the White House. Veterans for Peace and other anti-war groups, including my organization Voters for Peace, will be protesting the wars in which the U.S. is engaged.

Full Story Here: War Dominated Foreign Policy Is Destroying the Economy and National Security | Dissident Voice.

Sanders launches filibuster against Obama tax deal

Independent Vermont senator plans lengthy speech today

WASHINGTON — Sen. Bernie Sanders was off and running at 10:24 a.m., launching his protest of President Barack Obama’s tax deal with Republicans.

The Vermont independent expects to spend several hours today making his case on the Senate floor.

“You can call what I am doing today whatever you want,” Sanders said. “You can call it a filibuster, you can call it a very long speech. I’m not here to set any great records or to make a spectacle.

“I am simply here today to take as long as I can to explain to the American people that we have got to do a lot better than this agreement provides.”

The measure calls for a two-year extension of Bush-era tax cuts for all income brackets, extending jobless benefits for 13 months, reinstating the estate tax and cutting payroll taxes for a year.

Sanders had lengthy prepared remarks and some books on hand – including Robert Frank’s “Richistan” – when he took the floor this morning.

He targeted the plan’s tax breaks for the wealthy and what he considers an overly generous proposal on the estate tax, which would be reinstated at 35 percent for inheritances worth $5 million for an individual and $10 million for a couple.

“This is not a tax on the rich,” he said. “This is a tax on the very, very, very rich.”

Sanders’ extended speech won’t block a vote on the measure. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Thursday night filed a cloture motion, setting the vote to end debate for Monday afternoon.

But Sanders said earlier he would speak at length because Americans want serious discussion about the deal.

Full Story Here: Sanders launches filibuster against Obama tax deal – Newsroom: U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (Vermont).

OPS: Support Bernie Sanders!

Homeland Security deploys video to Walmarts

Janet Napolitano tells shoppers to inform police or a manager if they see suspicious activity in the parking lot

After the Obama Administration last month decided to scrap the color-coded terrorism threat level chart, you knew another easily mockable Orwellian security warning system couldn’t be far off.

On cue, the Department of Homeland Security is rolling out a security video starring DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano that will be played on a constant loop at checkout counters at hundreds of Walmarts around the country.

Napolitano tells Walmart shoppers to inform the police or a Walmart manger if they see something suspicious “in the parking lot or in the store.” This does appear to be a real thing:

Full Story Here: Homeland Security deploys video to Walmarts – War Room – Salon.com.

OPS: Everyone Spying on Everyone.

Secret GOP plan: Push states to declare bankruptcy and smash unions

Congressional Republicans appear to be quietly but methodically executing a plan that would a) avoid a federal bailout of spendthrift states and b) cripple public employee unions by pushing cash-strapped states such as California and Illinois to declare bankruptcy. This may be the biggest political battle in Washington, my Capitol Hill sources tell me, of 2011.

That’s why the most intriguing aspect of President Barack Obama’s tax deal with Republicans is what the compromise fails to include — a provision to continue the Build America Bonds program. BABs now account for more than 20 percent of new debt sold by states and local governments thanks to a federal rebate equal to 35 percent of interest costs on the bonds. The subsidy program ends on Dec. 31. And my Reuters colleagues report that a GOP congressional aide said Republicans “have a very firm line on BABS — we are not going to allow them to be included.”

In short, the lack of a BAB program would make it harder for states to borrow to cover a $140 billion budgetary shortfall next year, as estimated by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. The long-term numbers are even scarier. Estimates of states’ unfunded liabilities to pay for retiree benefits range from $750 billion to more than $3 trillion.

Full Story Here: Secret GOP plan: Push states to declare bankruptcy and smash unions | Analysis & Opinion |.

U.S. home-value decline far worse than in 2009

U.S. home values are poised to drop by more than $1.7 trillion this year amid rising foreclosures and the expiration of home-buyer tax credits, said Zillow Inc., a closely held provider of home price data.

This year’s estimated decline, more than the $1.05 trillion drop in 2009, brings the loss since the June 2006 home-price peak to $9 trillion, the company said Thursday.

The drop pushed more buyers underwater, meaning they owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth, Zillow said. The percentage of homeowners with so-called negative equity reached 23.2 percent in the third quarter, up from 21.8 percent at the end of 2009.

Full Story Here: U.S. home-value decline far worse than in 2009.

With Boehner’s Pick of ‘Prince of Pork’ to Chair Appropriations, GOP’s Tea Party Base Is Starting to Get It – They’ve Been Had

In just the last two years, Rep. Rogers has requested $246 million in earmarks for his rural Kentucky district.

Speaker-Elect John Boehner and the incoming GOP House leadership (which, it should be noted, is the same as the leadership in the current Congress and practically the same as the old “borrow and spend, spend, spend” House leadership under Bush) announced its picks for committee chairmen this week — and one of these in particular — the choice of Kentucky Rep. Hal Rogers, the “Prince of Pork,” to lead the Appropriations committee — is not playing well within the party’s tea bagger base.

And rightly so. The general indictment of the tea parties — their political Achilles heel — is that the entire movement is predicated on rank hypocrisy about government spending.

From the elderly tea baggers who shouted “Get the government out of my Medicare!” at the town hall meetings in 2009 to the Republican pols who voted against the Stimulus but then rushed home to pose for photo ops handing out giant Stimulus checks to fund projects in their districts — and from the incoming tea bagger members of Congress who spewed spittle about the evils of “Obamacare” to get elected but who are now eagerly bellying up for their taxpayer-funded Cadillac health insurance plans to the tea parties’ current support for the GOP’s billionaires’ tax break even though it will blow a $700 billion hole in the deficit over the next ten years — tea baggers don’t have a lot of credibility left.

Full Story Here: Pensito Review » With Boehner’s Pick of ‘Prince of Pork’ to Chair Appropriations, GOP’s Tea Party Base Is Starting to Get It – They’ve Been Had.

UN rapporteur says Assange shouldn’t be prosecuted 09/12/2010

The United Nations representative for freedom of opinion and expression says he is now working on a new report on free speech and the internet.

Frank La Rue says he doesn’t think that the United States Government will be able to make a case against Julian Assange. But he warns it would set a very bad example for free speech if it did take action against him.

He spoke to me earlier today from his home in Guatemala City:

Full Story Here: The World Today – UN rapporteur says Assange shouldn’t be prosecuted 09/12/2010.

Why are wars not being reported honestly?

The public needs to know the truth about wars. So why have journalists colluded with governments to hoodwink us?

In the US Army manual on counterinsurgency, the American commander General David Petraeus describes Afghanistan as a “war of perception . . . conducted continuously using the news media”. What really matters is not so much the day-to-day battles against the Taliban as the way the adventure is sold in America where “the media directly influence the attitude of key audiences”. Reading this, I was reminded of the Venezuelan general who led a coup against the democratic government in 2002. “We had a secret weapon,” he boasted. “We had the media, especially TV. You got to have the media.”

Never has so much official energy been expended in ensuring journalists collude with the makers of rapacious wars which, say the media-friendly generals, are now “perpetual”. In echoing the west’s more verbose warlords, such as the waterboarding former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who predicated “50 years of war”, they plan a state of permanent conflict wholly dependent on keeping at bay an enemy whose name they dare not speak: the public.

At Chicksands in Bedfordshire, the Ministry of Defence’s psychological warfare (Psyops) establishment, media trainers devote themselves to the task, immersed in a jargon world of “information dominance”, “asymmetric threats” and “cyberthreats”. They share premises with those who teach the interrogation methods that have led to a public inquiry into British military torture in Iraq. Disinformation and the barbarity of colonial war have much in common.

Full Story Here: John Pilger: Why are wars not being reported honestly? | Media | The Guardian.

Espionage Act: How the Government Can Engage in Serious Aggression Against the People of the United States

This week, Senators Joe Lieberman and Dianne Feinstein engaged in acts of serious aggression against their own constituents, and the American people in general. They both invoked the 1917 Espionage Act and urged its use in going after Julian Assange. For good measure, Lieberman extended his invocation of the Espionage Act to include a call to use it to investigate the New York Times, which published WikiLeaks’ diplomatic cables. Reports yesterday suggest that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder may seek to invoke the Espionage Act against Assange.

These two Senators, and the rest of the Congressional and White House leadership who are coming forward in support of this appalling development, are cynically counting on Americans’ ignorance of their own history — an ignorance that is stoked and manipulated by those who wish to strip rights and freedoms from the American people. They are manipulatively counting on Americans to have no knowledge or memory of the dark history of the Espionage Act — a history that should alert us all at once to the fact that this Act has only ever been used — was designed deliberately to be used — specifically and viciously to silence people like you and me.

The Espionage Act was crafted in 1917 — because President Woodrow Wilson wanted a war and, faced with the troublesome First Amendment, wished to criminalize speech critical of his war. In the run-up to World War One, there were many ordinary citizens — educators, journalists, publishers, civil rights leaders, union activists — who were speaking out against US involvement in the war. The Espionage Act was used to round these citizens by the thousands for the newly minted ‘crime’ of their exercising their First Amendment Rights. A movie producer who showed British cruelty in a film about the Revolutionary War (since the British were our allies in World War I) got a ten-year sentence under the Espionage act in 1917, and the film was seized; poet E.E. Cummings spent three and a half months in a military detention camp under the Espionage Act for the ‘crime’ of saying that he did not hate Germans. Esteemed Judge Learned Hand wrote that the wording of the Espionage Act was so vague that it would threaten the American tradition of freedom itself. Many were held in prison for weeks in brutal conditions without due process; some, in Connecticut — Lieberman’s home state — were severely beaten while they were held in prison. The arrests and beatings were widely publicized and had a profound effect, terrorizing those who would otherwise speak out.

Full Story Here: Naomi Wolf: Espionage Act: How the Government Can Engage in Serious Aggression Against the People of the United States.

EMERGENCY PETITION

| Tell the House to vote NO on the tax deal

Enter your information to sign our rapid-response petition now: Tell the House to vote NO on the current tax deal — and deficit-busting tax cuts for the wealthy. Keep the middle-class tax cuts we’ve already passed.

If we stand up now and demand it, we can get a better deal.

EMERGENCY PETITION | Tell the House to vote NO on the tax deal.

Nationwide Title goes on attack against vocal critics

Nationwide Title Clearing, a Palm Harbor company at the center of the nation’s robo-signing controversy, is going on the offensive against its critics.

On Wednesday, the company sued a St. Petersburg foreclosure defense lawyer, Matthew Weidner, for alleged libel and slander.

And it recently obtained an injunction, ordering Sarasota lawyer Christopher Forrest to remove videotaped depositions he had posted of three Nationwide Title employees describing an assembly-line process of signing mortgage-related documents.

Full Story Here: Nationwide Title goes on attack against vocal critics – St. Petersburg Times.

Remember $4 gasoline? Oil speculators are back

Despite weak demand in the U.S. and Europe, oil prices climbed this week to near $90 a barrel and gasoline prices have passed $3 a gallon on the West Coast and parts of the Northeast.

Why? If demand is down and supplies are plentiful — and they are — why would prices be going up?

Because Wall Street speculators are driving up oil and gasoline prices again — just in time to dampen holiday cheer.

Full Story Here: Remember $4 gasoline? Oil speculators are back | McClatchy.

The President’s Last Stand Is No Stand At All: Why the Tax Deal is an Abomination

Robert Reich:

The deal the President struck with Republican leaders is an abomination.

It will cost $900 billion over the next two years — larger than the bailout of Wall Street, GM, and Chrysler put together, larger than the stimulus package, larger than anything that’s come out of Washington in years.

It makes a mockery of deficit reduction. Worse, the lion’s share of that $900 billion will go to the very rich. Families with incomes of over $1 million will reap an average of about $70,000, while middle-class families earning $50,000 a year will get an average of around $1,500. In addition, the deal just about eviscerates the estate tax — yanking the exemption up to $5 million per person and a maximum rate of 35 percent.

And for what?

Full Story Here: Robert Reich (The President’s Last Stand Is No Stand At All: Why the Tax Deal is an Abomination).

Why We Need A High Estate Tax

Until this week here is what we heard over and over (and over and over and over and over): Because of budget deficits (caused by tax cuts for the rich and huge increases in military spending) we have to cut spending, not invest in the American People, put off investing in the infrastructure that makes the country competitive, cut jobs programs, cut education, cut rail projects, freeze pay, cut hiring, lay off teachers, and generally cut back and cut back and cut back. We mustn’t stimulate the economy. We have to cut Social Security and Medicare. We have to cut and gut everything for the middle class.

That was so last week. This week it’s a different story. Now it’s tax cuts for the rich. The same old story: foreclosures, layoffs and cutbacks for us; bailouts, bonuses and tax cuts for them.

Not mentioned so much in the stories you are reading: the “tax deal” includes a big, big cut in the estate tax rate. The estate tax is a tax on the income of kids of millionaires and billionaires. (The millionaires and billionaires call it the “death tax” and say it taxes “small businesses and farms” to divert us from understanding that.)

Full Story Here: Why We Need A High Estate Tax | OurFuture.org.

Cheat Sheet: Where the Fed’s Trillions Went

A provision in the financial reform law forced the Federal Reserve to disclose the details of the trillions it lent out at the height of the recent financial crisis.

You can see the data from some of the Fed’s emergency lending programs in our interactive. In all, there were 11 programs—a mess of confusing acronyms like AMLF, TALF, PDCF, CPFF and so on—but generally speaking, they were designed to stabilize the economy by enabling financial firms to keep many forms of lending going at a time when credit was hard to come by. Here’s a rundown of what’s come to light from this data so far.

The big U.S. banks

Following the failure of Lehman Brothers the biggest U.S. banks had tabs with the Fed that ran in the tens of billions on any given day during the worst parts of the financial crisis. Big banks typically got funds through more than one program because they were eligible for different types of loans.

Full Story Here: On The Hill: Cheat Sheet: Where the Fed’s Trillions Went.

Seniors Take Note: House, Senate GOP Killed Payment to Replace Your Social Security Cost of Living Increase

How have Republicans used the “mandate” they received from the tea party and petulant swing voters last month? They have, as the president said, held the middle class hostage in order to extend the tax break for millionaires, despite the fact that the tax cut has not spurred job growth in the ten years it has been around, that it turned the Clinton surplus into deficits in the last decade, and that it will add another $700 billion to the deficit over the 10 years.

Meanwhile, while they have voted down bills that would benefit the middle class because they claim to be worried about, yeah, you guessed it, the deficit. On Friday, Republicans in the House voted against a tax break just for the middle class. Democrats were able to pass the bill in the House without Republican support, but Republicans killed it in the Senate. Yesterday, Republicans in both the Senate and the House voted down a payment to replace the Social Security COLA increase:

Full Story Here: Pensito Review » Seniors Take Note: House, Senate GOP Killed Payment to Replace Your Social Security Cost of Living Increase.

The Imperiled Presidency?

Katrina vanden Heuvel:

Ronald Reagan famously quipped that the Democratic Party left him before he left the party. Like many progressive supporters of Barack Obama, I’m beginning to have the same feeling about this president.

Consider what we’ve seen since the shellacking Democrats took in the fall elections.

On Afghanistan, the administration has intimated that the 2011 pullout date is “inoperable,” with the White House talking 2014 and Gen. David H. Petraeus suggesting decades of occupation. On bipartisanship, the president seems to think that cooperation requires self-abasement. He apologized to the obstructionist Republican leadership for not reaching out, a gesture reciprocated with another poke in the eye. He chose to meet with the hyper-partisan Chamber of Commerce after it ran one of the most dishonest independent campaigns in memory. He appears to be courting Roger Altman, a former investment banker, for his economic team, leavening the Goldman Sachs flavor of his administration with a salty Lehman Brothers veteran.

Full Story Here: The Imperiled Presidency? | The Nation.

Obama’s delusional, narcissistic,self defense of tax cuts for the wealthy.

After hearing Barrack Obama’s whiny tirade against Democrats and liberals who are taking a stand against his capitulation in extending the Bush tax cuts to those in the top 2% income bracket, essentially saying ” what are you complaining about, look what I’ve done for you”? when in fact he did nothing but mess up and squander the biggest congressional majority any president has had in more than 50 years, makes this guy a genuine head case.

It was mind boggling in its arrogance, its disconnection to reality and pathetic in how self serving it was. And to hear him defending it as being politically realistic. What he left out was that its politically realistic for him, someone with no political savvy, no courage and no convictions.

He actually had the nerve (or is it simply denial or disconnected to reality) to bring up his dropping of the public option when the votes were there to pass it as an example of Democrats not knowing what’s good for them. He characterized the reaction of Democrats to his spineless backroom deal with healthcare lobbyists to drop the public option as the reactions of a bunch of unrealistic liberal ingrates. Those unrealistic liberal ingrates include the majority of Democrats in the House in including Nancy Pelosi and just about every Democratic member of the senate.

Full Story Here: Tom In Paine: Obama’s delusional, narcissistic,self defense of tax cuts for the wealthy..

Olbermann Calls Obama A Sellout & Republicans Treasonous

Video:  Olbermann dead on target

Deficit Commission Proposal Could Encourage Outsourcing

Looking to stop the president’s deficit commission proposals dead in their tracks, labor leaders have come out swinging against a specific portion of the package that they claim would incentivize companies to outsource American jobs.

The plan calls for the U.S. to move toward a system of territorial taxation. That would allow companies to exempt foreign profits from domestic tax laws.

“There is no question that this incentivizes outsourcing, and that’s the opposite direction from the one we want to be going in,” AFL-CIO Deputy Chief of Staff Thea Lee told The Huffington Post. “It’s directly contrary to how we should change our tax system. We need to change our tax code to remove incentives for offshoring. This changes the tax code to greatly enhance the corporate tax incentive.”

Full Story Here: Deficit Commission Proposal Could Encourage Outsourcing | Economy In Crisis.

Ten Things Charter Schools Won’t Tell You, and All Ten You Never Expected to Read in the Wall Street Journal

How this piece by Sarah Morgan ever got past the corporate ed cheerleaders on the WSJ editorial board, we probably will never know. But somehow it did, and here it is presented, with only brief interruptions:

1. We’re no better than public schools.

For all the hype about a few standout schools, charter schools in general aren’t producing better results than traditional public schools. A national study by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford found that while 17% of charter schools produced better results than neighborhood public schools, 37% were significantly worse, and the rest were no different. (Not that public schools are perfect, as many parents know. See our earlier story, “10 Things Your School District Won’t Tell You,” for more.)

A host of other studies on charter school outcomes have come up with sometimes contradictory results. As with traditional public schools, there are great charters – and some that aren’t so great. “There’s a lot of varia

Full Story Here: Schools Matter: Ten Things Charter Schools Won’t Tell You, and All Ten You Never Expected to Read in the Wall Street Journal.

Dan Rather Says Obama Likely to Get Primary Opponent

Video:

U.S.: Israel Settlement Freeze Demand Dropped

President Barack Obama has abandoned attempts to persuade Israel to slow West Bank settlement activity, officials said Tuesday, dealing a major blow to the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and one of the president’s top foreign policy initiatives.

After months of trying to broker a formula under which Israel would impose a new, temporary settlement freeze in return for U.S. promises and incentives, two American officials said the administration has concluded that course won’t work. The decision was expected to be announced later Tuesday.

Talks stalled in September, barely a month after they started. The Palestinians refused to return to direct negotiations until a new freeze was in place following the expiration of an earlier, 10-month Israeli slowdown in settlement expansion.

Full Story Here: U.S.: Israel Settlement Freeze Demand Dropped.

House Democrats Rip Obama’s Tax Cut Deal

House Democrats gathered in the Capitol Tuesday evening to debate the tax-cut deal President Barack Obama struck with Republicans, but as it turned out, they were already in agreement to an extent rarely seen on the left side of the lower chamber.

Across the board, Democrats who attended the meeting said, Obama’s deal was deemed too costly, too tilted toward the rich and too much of a cave to Republicans.

“The wealthiest few in the country come out like gangbusters,” said Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-N.D.), a Blue Dog who said he would oppose the deal. Many other Blue Dogs, Pomeroy said, would also vote down the package, on the grounds that it adds heavily to the debt.

Full Story Here: House Democrats Rip Obama’s Tax Cut Deal.

Food Stamp Use Skyrocketing.

We already knew that food stamp use was growing because of the prolonged, sluggish recovery, but the Christian Science Monitor provides this handy chart to show exactly how dramatic the increase in need has been. More than 15 percent new recipients were added compared to last year. It’s amazing, and illogical, that, given this need, there isn’t more support for increasing food stamp benefits, which are uniquely stimulative. Of course, lawmakers are busy raiding any slight increases in food stamp funding instead.

Meanwhile, the conservative news site The Daily Caller is shocked, shocked, to learn that you can use food stamps to buy all manner of food. The government, apparently, doesn’t restrict you from purchasing an $18-per-pound swordfish steak from Whole Foods. But that kind of discovery, like almost everything else in the “debate” over food stamp use, is the sort of ridiculous one that comes from a person who’s never been hungry.

Full Story Here: TAPPED Archive | The American Prospect.

OECD warns West of losing global edge in education

The world’s richest countries risk losing the edge gained by better education as standards rise sharply in for example South Korea and the Chinese city of Shanghai, the OECD said Tuesday.

In a report based on surveys of half a million 15-year-old students in 65 countries, the Paris-based OECD noted a drop in reading skills in the United States and many western European countries in the past decade, most notably Ireland and Sweden.

In contrast, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development signaled marked improvement in reading proficiency in countries such as Peru, Chile, Brazil, Indonesia, Latvia and Poland, albeit from low starting points in most of those cases.

Full Story Here: OECD warns West of losing global edge in education | Reuters.

Facing Backlash From The U.S. Chamber’s Right-Wing Ads, More Local Chambers Plan To End Their Membership

This year, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ran one of the largest, most partisan, corporate-funded attack campaigns in its history. It worked closely with Karl Rove’s network of attack groups, while raising $75 million dollars to smear Democrats, including Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA), Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI), and others. The Chamber’s ads were particularly sleasy; many were patently untrue, while others criticized Democrats for supporting legislation that the Chamber actually asked them to support.

Part of the Chamber’s strategy has been to manipulate the press and the wider public by falsely portraying itself as a community of small businesses and local chambers of commerce. Meanwhile, local chambers are upset that they are being unfairly associated with the U.S. Chamber’s far right partisanship. Politico reported today reported on the growing rift:

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » Facing Backlash From The U.S. Chamber’s Right-Wing Ads, More Local Chambers Plan To End Their Membership.

Coburn Attacks Unpaid For Middle-Class Tax Cuts, Ignoring Unpaid For Bush Cuts For The Wealthy

Appearing on conservative radio host Laura Ingraham’s show yesterday, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) criticized the recently-announced White House tax cut deal with congressional Republicans for increasing the deficit. The deal extends the Bush tax cuts for the rich, which Democrats opposed, in exchange for continuing unemployment benefits and President Obama’s middle-class tax cuts, which Republicans opposed. Coburn attacked “spending” money on unemployment benefits and middle-class tax cuts, while ignoring the massive increase in the deficit caused by extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest two percent of Americans:

INGRAHAM: What do we know, as we speak now, about this so-called compromise on extending the Bush tax code, the Bush tax cuts?

COBURN: Well, what we know, from what I understand, is we’re going to borrow another $110 billion from our kids for Make Work Pay and for unemployment benefits. Which, we ought to cut the government. The problem is spending. And what it seems like the agreement is is extension of two year extension of the tax cuts, one year for the Make Work Pay, and one year for the unemployment benefits, all of it borrowed against our kids.

Listen here:

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » Coburn Attacks Unpaid For Middle-Class Tax Cuts, Ignoring Unpaid For Bush Cuts For The Wealthy.

Some Republicans Unhappy With Tax Cut Deal: Too Few Tax Cuts, Too Much Help For Jobless

After relentlessly pushing for an extension of the Bush tax cuts on everyone including top income earners, Republicans finally won a temporary victory yesterday when President Obama agreed to extend the cuts for two years in exchange for a 13-month extension of unemployment insurance, something that was uncontroversial in prior congresses. This was not enough to satisfy some of the more hardcore Republican lawmakers and interest groups. “Ensuring that people don’t receive a tax increase for the next two years is vitally important, but ultimately that’s not enough confidence, that’s not enough certainty,” said Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), a leading House Republican.

The conservative Club for Growth, too, rejects the deal because it didn’t make both the Bush tax cuts and the estate tax repeal permanent. Their plan: “Instead, Congress should pass a permanent extension of current rates, including a permanent repeal of the death tax, and drop all new spending.” The only “new spending” included in the plan, of course, is a desperately needed extension of lapsed unemployment benefits that will ultimately help at least 7 million jobless Americans and prevent the loss of another 600,000 jobs next year. The Heritage Foundation also opposes the plan and wants the tax cuts to be permanent: “By allowing for only a two-year extension of current tax rates, the President’s agreement provides no long-term certainty that is essential for economic recovery. Heritage, too, denounced the inclusion of jobless benefits, calling them a “permanent entitlement” while repeating the canard that they will discourage the unemployed from seeking work at a time when unemployment is at 9.8% and there are five job seekers for every one available job.

The Bush tax cuts, of course, are not paid for, and will add $120 billion to the deficit over the next two years. Republicans seem fine with that, but many also oppose the compromise because of extending unemployment insurance for 13 months, which will cost half as much.

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » Some Republicans Unhappy With Tax Cut Deal: Too Few Tax Cuts, Too Much Help For Jobless.