Archive for December, 2010

Glaciers melting fastest in South America

Glaciers are melting fastest in southern South America and Alaska and communities urgently need to adapt to the meltdown, according to a new UN report.

Many low-lying glaciers may disappear over the coming decades, with the northwest United States, southwest Canada and the Arctic also affected, according to the report compiled by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and scientists, presented at UN climate talks in Cancun, Mexico, on Tuesday.

Most glaciers — which are formed by accumulations of snow and ice — started shrinking around 150 years ago, but the rate of ice loss has increased significantly since the 1980s, the report said.

Full Story Here: Glaciers melting fastest in South America.

Senator Sanders: Tax Cut Deal is a moral outrage

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) issued the following statement today on the agreement announced Monday between the White House and congressional Republicans:

“In my view, it is a moral outrage that at a time when this country has a $13.8 trillion national debt, a collapsing middle class and a growing gap between the very rich and everybody else that the Republicans would deny extended unemployment benefits to 2 million workers who are desperately struggling to pay their bills and maintain their dignity. It is also beyond comprehension that the Republicans would hold hostage the entire middle class of this country so that millionaires and billionaires would receive huge tax breaks. In my view, that is not what this country is about and it is not what the American people want to see. Our job is to save the disappearing middle class, not lower taxes for people who are already extraordinarily wealthy and increase the national debt that our children and grandchildren would have to pay.

“The immediate political task in front of us is to rally the American people so that in the next several weeks we can find at least a few Republicans who will join us in saying no to increasing the deficit by giving tax breaks to the wealthy and no to holding the unemployed and the middle class hostage.

“I believe that we have the American people on our side on this issue. My office, and I come from a small state, has received more than 600 calls today, 99 percent of them in opposition to this so-called compromise that the president negotiated with the Republicans.

“I will do everything in my power to stand up for the American middle class and defeat this agreement.”

Full Story Here: Release: Sanders Statement on Tax Cut Deal – Newsroom: U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (Vermont).

BREAKING: Nigeria Files Charges Against Cheney in Halliburton Bribery Scheme

Dick Cheney is officially a wanted man.

The former vice president was charged by Nigerian officials Tuesday along with eight other individuals in a bribery and conspiracy scheme over the construction of a liquefied natural gas facility in the country that took place while Cheney was chief executive of Halliburton.

Halliburton and its one-time subsidiary, Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR), were also charged. KBR, which also has handled lucrative US government support contracts for US troops in Iraq and elsewhere, was spun off from Halliburton in 2007 into a separate company.

Full Story Here: BREAKING: Nigeria Files Charges Against Cheney in Halliburton Bribery Scheme.

Obama Caves on Tax Cuts, Endorses ‘Bush-McCain Philosophy’

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama said over and over that he was running to “put an end to the Bush-McCain philosophy.” Campaigning in Colorado just days before the election (see video below), Obama clearly stated his opposition to Bush-era economic policies and ridiculed the idea that “we should give more and more to millionaires and billionaires and hope that it trickles down on everybody else. It’s a philosophy that gives tax breaks to wealthy CEOs and to corporations that ship jobs overseas while hundreds of thousands of jobs are disappearing here at home.”

Now Obama, in a blatant reversal, is preparing to do just that, agreeing to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, which my colleague Chris Hayes accurately calls the “single defining domestic policy of W.”

In 2008, Obama presented himself as a clean break from the Bush and Clinton dynasties and a fresh face for the nation and the world. Yet once in office he packed his White House with holdovers from the Bush and Clinton administrations and continued or even accelerated key Bush-era policies, whether in the realm of counterterrorism, Afghanistan or offshore drilling. The latest “compromise” on the Bush tax cuts, extending the upper-income tax cuts for two years in exchange for the continuation of unemployment benefits, is simply the latest in a series of capitulations from the Obama White House.

Full Story Here: Obama Caves on Tax Cuts, Endorses ‘Bush-McCain Philosophy’ | The Nation.

The Deal

Paul Krugman:

So the tax deal is out. Obama extracted some concessions, with the big surprise being a payroll tax cut. How much better do these concessions make the thing?

Well, for starters we have the two-year extension of the Bush tax cuts. As I pointed out yesterday, the CBO estimated that such an extension would reduce unemployment relative to what it would have been otherwise by 0.1 to 0.3 percentage points in 2011, twice that in 2012.

To this, the deal added $120 billion in a payroll tax cut; $56 billion in extended unemployment benefits; about $40 billion in extension of other tax credit. Also, expensing of business investment.

Full Story Here: The Deal – NYTimes.com.

Don’t shoot messenger for revealing uncomfortable truths

IN 1958 a young Rupert Murdoch, then owner and editor of Adelaide’s The News, wrote: “In the race between secrecy and truth, it seems inevitable that truth will always win.”

His observation perhaps reflected his father Keith Murdoch’s expose that Australian troops were being needlessly sacrificed by incompetent British commanders on the shores of Gallipoli. The British tried to shut him up but Keith Murdoch would not be silenced and his efforts led to the termination of the disastrous Gallipoli campaign.

Nearly a century later, WikiLeaks is also fearlessly publishing facts that need to be made public.

I grew up in a Queensland country town where people spoke their minds bluntly. They distrusted big government as something that could be corrupted if not watched carefully. The dark days of corruption in the Queensland government before the Fitzgerald inquiry are testimony to what happens when the politicians gag the media from reporting the truth.

Full Story Here: Don’t shoot messenger for revealing uncomfortable truths | The Australian.

PETITION: Thank those fighting against the tax cut deal

Enough is enough. Sign the petition of support for those members of Congress who are still in the fight and join the rebellion against the deal.

We cannot support the deal to extend the Bush tax cuts for millionaires. Thank you, Senator Sanders and Representative Welch, for staying in the fight against any extension of the Bush tax cuts for millionaires. Keep it up!

Sign the Petition (at lhe link below)

Full Story Here: Daily Kos Action.

Poll: More Afghans support attacks on American troops

In a significant change from last year, citizens lose faith in the U.S. and NATO

More than a quarter of Afghans see insurgent attacks against American troops as justified, according to a poll released Monday, an increase that comes as the U.S.-led NATO coalition pushes to reduce civilian casualties in Afghanistan.

Twenty-seven percent of Afghans polled said the attacks can be justified. Last year, the number was just 8 percent, as former NATO commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal issued strict guidelines limiting the use of force in an effort to reduce civilian casualties.

This year’s sharp increase brings the number back to levels seen earlier in the nine-year war.

Full Story Here: Poll: More Afghans support attacks on American troops – Afghanistan – Salon.com.

U.S. Labeling Law Under Fire

Of the 21,000 transactions totaling $3.3 trillion made through the emergency lending programs set up by the Fed, foreign banks and their U.S. subsidiaries made up a large portion of those.

While a piece of legislation designed to better protect the nation’s food supply is lost in the legislative process and is in danger of not passing before the current Congressional session ends, another policy that requires certain food products to list where they originated from on the packaging is in danger of being struck down at the World Trade Organization.

Country-of-origin labeling, which went into effect in 2010, is being challenged at the WTO by both Canada and Mexico.

The second round of oral arguments concluded Thursday. A ruling is expected by July at the latest.

Full Story Here: U.S. Labeling Law Under Fire | Economy In Crisis.

FBI plant banned by mosque – because he was too extreme

T

he spying game wasn’t all it was cracked up to be for Craig Monteilh, a convicted criminal recruited by the FBI to investigate the march of radical Islam into Southern California. His endless talk of violent “jihad” so alarmed worshippers at the local mosque, that they took out a restraining order against him.

Monteilh spent 15 months pretending to be Farouk al-Aziz, a French Syrian in search of his religious roots. He prayed five times a day at the Islamic Centre in Irvine, Orange County, wearing white robes with a camera hidden in one of its buttons, and carried a set of car keys that contained a secret listening device.

The enthusiastic attempt to catch local Muslims discussing terror campaigns backfired, however, when community leaders went to the police with fears that the suddenly devout young man, who got up to pray at 4am, had become a radical in their midst.

Full Story Here: FBI plant banned by mosque – because he was too extreme – Americas, World – The Independent.

Sen. Sanders Threatens To Filibuster Obama Tax Deal

Video:

If Obama Will Not Fight for Fair Taxes and Fiscal Stability, What Will He Fight For?

John Nichols, The Nation

When Barack Obama walked out of last week’s meeting with Mitch McConnell and John Boehner and started talking about developing a “productive” working relationship with Republican Congressional leaders who have sworn the political equivalent of a blood oath to destroy his presidency, it was clear that the president planned to abandon his many years of advocacy for ending Bush-era tax breaks for millionaires.

Now, with the  lame-duck session of a Congress still entirely controlled by Democrats races toward a earlier-than-expected conclusion, the deal is being cut.

Obama’s representatives—Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and White House budget director Jack Lew—have reportedly entered the final stages of a negotiation with the Republican team of  Arizona Senator Jon Kyl and Michigan Congressman Dave Camp to extend all Bush tax cuts for for at least two years.

In return, federal unemployment benefits will be extended for up to one year.

Full Story Here: If Obama Will Not Fight for Fair Taxes and Fiscal Stability, What Will He Fight For? | The Nation.

Time to Think the Unthinkable: A Democratic Primary Challenge To Obama’s Reelection

Can’t tell you how it happened. All I know, it just happened.

Been thinking and reading a lot about President Barack Obama. Lots of news commentaries about his alleged lack of leadership on this or that issue. About his disappointing the Gay and Lesbian and Transgender Community on his election pledge to end the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in the armed services. And his disappointment by the anti-war coalition, who supported him because of his opposition to the war in Iraq, only to find that he has escalated the US’s involvement in Afghanistan. Now, after the midterm election victories of the Republicans, he seems willing to compromise on his pledge to end tax breaks for the rich.

In previous blogs, I have tried to contribute to a constructive analysis and dialogue about Obama’s presidential leadership. Several readers accused me of being an “apologist” for Obama. Perhaps, in artfully, but all I was trying to do was to present objectively those major issues confronting this administration, requiring decisive presidential leadership

Few news columnists can match the political erudition of Frank Rich of the New York Times. In the Sunday edition he wrote:

Full Story Here: Clarence B. Jones: Time to Think the Unthinkable: A Democratic Primary Challenge To Obama’s Reelection.

Tax Cuts For Rich Won’t Help Economy, Create Jobs, Analyses Indicate

In what has clearly become an uphill fight to prevent an extension of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, Senate Democrats have produced a raft of data to demonstrate that such tax cuts won’t boost the flagging economy, or create jobs.

Senate Republicans held firm on Saturday, blocking final votes on an extension of tax cuts only for the middle class, insisting that Bush-era breaks also continue beyond the end of the year for the richest 2 percent of taxpayers.

While Republicans claim they are pursuing an extension of all tax cuts to help the economy and create jobs, top Democrats argue that tax cuts for the rich won’t help.

Full Story Here: On The Hill: Tax Cuts For Rich Won’t Help Economy, Create Jobs, Analyses Indicate.

OPS: No shit.  They needed “analysis” for this?

Let’s Not Make a Deal

Paul Krugman:

Back in 2001, former President George W. Bush pulled a fast one. He wanted to enact an irresponsible tax cut, largely for the benefit of the wealthiest Americans. But there were Senate rules in place designed to prevent that kind of irresponsibility. So Mr. Bush evaded the rules by making the tax cut temporary, with the whole thing scheduled to expire on the last day of 2010.

The plan, of course, was to come back later and make the thing permanent, never mind the impact on the deficit. But that never happened. And so here we are, with 2010 almost over and nothing resolved.

Democrats have tried to push a compromise: let tax cuts for the wealthy expire, but extend tax cuts for the middle class. Republicans, however, are having none of it. They have been filibustering Democratic attempts to separate tax cuts that mainly benefit a tiny group of wealthy Americans from those that mainly help the middle class. It’s all or nothing, they say: all the Bush tax cuts must be extended. What should Democrats do?

Full Story Here: Let’s Not Make a Deal – NYTimes.com.

Supreme Court to Hear Wal-Mart Discrimination Case

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear an appeal in the biggest employment discrimination case in the nation’s history, one claiming that Wal-Mart Stores had discriminated against hundreds of thousands of women in pay and promotion. The lawsuit seeks back pay that could amount to billions of dollars.

The question before the court is not whether there was discrimination but rather whether the claims by the individual employees may be combined as a class action. The court’s decision on that issue will almost certainly affect all sorts of class-action suits, including ones asserting antitrust, securities and product liability.

If nothing else, many pending class actions will slow or stop while litigants and courts await the decision in the case. Arguments in the case are likely to be heard this spring, with a decision expected by the end of June.

Full Story Here: Supreme Court to Hear Wal-Mart Discrimination Case – NYTimes.com.

The Shameful Attacks on Julian Assange

The Atlantic:

Julian Assange and Pfc Bradley Manning have done a huge public service by making hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. government documents available on Wikileaks — and, predictably, no one is grateful. Manning, a former army intelligence analyst in Iraq, faces up to 52 years in prison. He is currently being held in solitary confinement at a military base in Quantico, Virginia, where he is not allowed to see his parents or other outside visitors.

Assange, the organizing brain of Wikileaks, enjoys a higher degree of freedom living as a hunted man in England under the close surveillance of domestic and foreign intelligence agencies — but probably not for long. Not since President Richard Nixon directed his minions to go after Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg and New York Times reporter Neil Sheehan – “a vicious antiwar type,” an enraged Nixon called him on the Watergate tapes — has a working journalist and his source been subjected to the kind of official intimidation and threats that have been directed at Assange and Manning by high-ranking members of the Obama Administration.

Published reports suggest that a joint Justice Department-Pentagon team of investigators is exploring the possibility of charging Assange under the Espionage Act, which could lead to decades in jail. “This is not saber-rattling,” said Attorney General Eric Holder, commenting on the possibility that Assange will be prosecuted by the government. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the Wikileaks disclosures “an attack on the international community” that endangered innocent people. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs suggested in somewhat Orwellian fashion that “such disclosures put at risk our diplomats, intelligence professionals, and people around the world who come to the United States for assistance in promoting democracy and open government.”

Full Story Here: The Shameful Attacks on Julian Assange – David Samuels – International – The Atlantic.

Tax Cut Lies: The Day The News Died

Thom Hartmann:

The New York Times today jumped on board with a classic Frank Luntz “Big Lie.”

Democrats in the House and Senate put forth a bill that would reduce taxes on the first quarter-million, and then, when that failed, the first million dollars of income for every single American.

Somebody earning $100,000 a year would get a tax cut on all of their income.

Somebody earning $250,000 a year would get a tax cut on all of their income with the Democrats first proposal.

Somebody earning $1,000,000 a year would get a tax cut on all of their income with the Democrats’ second proposal.

And a billionaire who pulls down $5 million or $50 million a year would get a tax cut on the first $250,000 or $1,000,000 of that income. They just wouldn’t get a tax cut on any income they earned OVER the first quarter-million or million (proposals one and two).

Now read the first paragraph of The New York Times’ reporting (by David M. Herzenhorn) on this:

Full Story Here: Tax Cut Lies: The Day The News Died | CommonDreams.org.

What Else Would $60 Billion Buy?

What We Could Do If Congress Let Tax Cuts Expire For The Wealthy

$60 Billion: The approximate amount that extending the Bush tax cuts on income above $250,000 a year — which Congress seems on the verge of doing — will cost a year, in inflation-adjusted terms. On average, the affluent households that benefit from these cuts will save $25,000 annually. What else might that $60 billion a year buy?

Full Story Here: What Else Would $60 Billion Buy? – NYTimes.com.

A Frightening Look At The Labor Market Recovery

After Friday’s grim jobs data, which showed that the U.S. added just 39,000 net jobs in November, it’s worth noting again just how severely the recession has impacted the job market.

This disturbing chart — repeatedly referred to as “the scariest job chart ever” by Henry Blodget — from Calculated Risk shows, in percentage terms, how the job market has failed to rebound at the rates seen after previous recessions. “This is by far the worst post-WWII employment recession,” Calculated Risk notes.

With 15 million officially unemployed, the job situation may actually be worse than the headline figures. As HuffPost’s Peter S. Goodman noted, some 17 percent of Americans couldn’t find enough work or had given up looking for work in November. Among black Americans the unemployment rate hit 16 percent, compared to 9.8 percent nationally.

All of which makes it even more troubling that 4 million Americans are set to lose unemployment benefits even if Congress passes an extension to the 99-week limit, as HuffPost’s Shahien Nasiripour reported last week. As millions of Americans lose a crucial source of income, the economy is sure to suffer as a result.

Full Story Here: A Frightening Look At The Labor Market Recovery (CHART).

Frontline: Extinction v. Climate

There’s a new frontline on the battlefield between the two baddest armies of environmental change—global warming and biodiversity loss. The question is whether or not to relocate endangered species to ecosystems they’ve never inhabited in order to save them from the real or predicted loss of their natural ecosystems from climate change.

The potential for problems is scary. There’s a term for what happens when species set up house in the wrong ecosystem: biological invasion. One of the primary causes of the current extinction crisis around the world is biological invasion. An exotic species comes in and wipe out a native species. I wrote about this in Listen to the Lionfish in MoJo a couple of years back.

Now a new paper in Ecological Applications by Ben Minteer and James Collins of Arizona State University assesses the pros and cons of managed relocation:

Full Story Here: Frontline: Extinction v. Climate | Mother Jones.

Tooth decay to be a thing of the past? Enzyme responsible for dental plaque sticking to teeth deciphered

The Groningen professors Bauke Dijkstra and Lubbert Dijkhuizen have deciphered the structure and functional mechanism of the glucansucrase enzyme that is responsible for dental plaque sticking to teeth. This knowledge will stimulate the identification of substances that inhibit the enzyme. Just add that substance to toothpaste, or even sweets, and caries will be a thing of the past.

The results of the research have been published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

The University of Groningen researchers analysed glucansucrase from the lactic acid bacterium Lactobacillus reuteri, which is present in the human mouth and digestive tract. The bacteria use the glucansucrase enzyme to convert sugar from food into long, sticky sugar chains. They use this glue to attach themselves to tooth enamel. The main cause of tooth decay, the bacterium Streptococcus mutans, also uses this enzyme. Once attached to tooth enamel, these bacteria ferment sugars releasing acids that dissolve the calcium in teeth. This is how caries develops.

Three dimensional structure

Full Story Here: Tooth decay to be a thing of the past? Enzyme responsible for dental plaque sticking to teeth deciphered.

If Democrats are the big spenders, why do Republican states get the money?

One of the co-chairmen of President Obama’s bipartisan debt reduction council recently got in trouble for telling a women’s advocacy group that Social Security had “reached a point now where it’s like a milk cow with 310 million tits!”

If you guessed it was the Republican co-chairman and not the Democrat who said it, you would be right—it was former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson—but therein hangs a tale.

Republicans have a near monopoly on complaints about government spending. Dozens of new Tea Party candidates were elected to Congress on a promise to clean house. But data going back two decades—to stick to Simpson’s crude metaphor—show the milk is mostly coming from Democratic states, and the sucking is being done by Republican states.

Full Story Here: If Democrats are the big spenders, why do Republican states get the money? – By Shankar Vedantam – Slate Magazine.

Health Care Premiums Could Reach $23,342 by 2020

The cost crisis in our health care system simply can’t be overstated. The rapid growth in cost is the driving force behind our projected long-term public debt and the growth in private health insurance premiums threaten to cripple private industry. The Commonwealth Fund is out with a new study showing just how quickly the situation is worsening.

National surveys have found that family premiums for employer-sponsored health coverages increased 52 percent from 2003 to 2009, while median family income rose 13 percent. Such a rapid increase in the cost of employer-sponsored health benefits has forced difficult choices at workplaces across the country. Studies indicate that slower growth in wages and lower savings for retirement (worker and employer contributions) have been part of the trade-off to preserve health benefits. Despite such trade-offs, the monthly cost of premiums paid by workers and their families is up, consuming an ever-greater share of any wage increases they might receive.

Health care premiums have grown roughly four times faster than income. This simply isn’t sustainable without crushing government and private budgets. And if the problem is not truly dealt with, that is what will happen:

Full Story Here: Health Care Premiums Could Reach $23,342 by 2020 | FDL Action.

Durbin Indicates Deal Is Near on Extending All Tax Cuts : Roll Call

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said Sunday that Democrats and Republicans are headed toward a deal to extend the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for all income tax brackets, possibly before the cuts expire at the year’s end.

Despite protests to the contrary from Congressional Democratic leaders, Durbin conceded Sunday that the Republicans will probably achieve what they have been seeking: an across-the-board extension of current tax rates. The day before, two Democratic plans to exclude higher income tax brackets from an extension were rejected in votes on the Senate floor. One would have excluded income above $250,000, while the other would have excluded income above $1 million.

Full Story Here: Durbin Indicates Deal Is Near on Extending All Tax Cuts : Roll Call.

OPS: Thanks for nuthin, Dick.

‘John McWeasel’ Tells 9/11 First Responder That ‘I Can’t Help You’

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has indicated that, this coming week, he will bring a 9/11 first responders bill up for a vote. The bill, which has been passed by the House, would provide $7.4 billion in medical treatment and lost wages for workers who were sickened and injured by their service at Ground Zero.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s (D-NY) office indicated that the chances for invoking cloture (ie, getting 60 votes to overcome a filibuster) hinge on getting more Republican support. “We still need one more Republican to come on board,” said a Gillibrand spokesman.

With that hurdle in mind, tow truck driver T.J. Gilmartin, “who hauled ruined FDNY vehicles away from Ground Zero and now suffers from breathing problems, headed to Washington this week to lobby” for the 9/11 health bill. Gilmartin described this rude and depressing encounter he had with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ):

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » ‘John McWeasel’ Tells 9/11 First Responder That ‘I Can’t Help You’.

Gingrich: Let Rich People Decide How Long Their Tax Cuts Last

Appearing on Fox News Sunday, disgraced former House Speaker Newt Gingrich proposed an odd method for determining how long to extend the Bush tax cuts for the very wealthy — ask the very wealthy how long they want them:

What Republicans ought to do is say to people who create jobs, how many years does the tax code need to be extended for you to make an investment decision? I mean, the goal’s not to have an annual extension of the current tax code, and then have every business in the country trapped saying, “I don’t know. I want to make a 20 year investment in a factory.” … There is a number, but I would have the business leadership of the country describe the number.

Yet, while Gingrich is perfectly happy to let the nation’s foxes decide what to do with the henhouse, he takes a very different view of how Congress should treat the most vulnerable Americans. In practically the same breath that he proposes giving a massive tax cut to Paris Hilton, he also suggests that “we change the entire [unemployment benefits] program into a worker training program and not give anybody money for doing nothing.” Watch it:

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » Gingrich: Let Rich People Decide How Long Their Tax Cuts Last.

WikiLeaks Ready to Release Giant ‘Insurance’ File if Shut Down

Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, has circulated across the internet an encrypted “poison pill” cache of uncensored documents suspected to include files on BP and Guantanamo Bay.

One of the files identified this weekend by The Sunday Times — called the “insurance” file — has been downloaded from the WikiLeaks website by tens of thousands of supporters, from America to Australia.

Assange warns that any government that tries to curtail his activities risks triggering a new deluge of state and commercial secrets.

Full Story Here: FoxNews.com – WikiLeaks Ready to Release Giant ‘Insurance’ File if Shut Down.

Stress & Worry: American Dream is ‘to pay my rent’

Video: : :

The U.S. has long enjoyed its title as the land of opportunity, but in the grip of economic uncertainty this reputation could soon be lost. Struck by poverty, and with unemployment just below 10 percent, many say the American dream is in serious trouble, as RT’s Anastasia Churkina reports.

RT on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/RTnews

RT on Twitter: http://twitter.com/RT_com

via YouTube – Stress & Worry: American Dream is ‘to pay my rent’.

State Department To Columbia University Students: DO NOT Discuss WikiLeaks On Facebook, Twitter

Talking about WikiLeaks on Facebook or Twitter could endanger your job prospects, a State Department official warned students at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs this week.

An email from SIPA’s Office of Career Services went out Tuesday afternoon with a caution from the official, an alumnus of the school. Students who will be applying for jobs in the federal government could jeopardize their prospects by posting links to WikiLeaks online, or even by discussing the leaked documents on social networking sites, the official was quoted as saying.

“[The alumnus] recommends that you DO NOT post links to these documents nor make comments on social media sites such as Facebook or through Twitter,” the Office of Career Services advised students. “Engaging in these activities would call into question your ability to deal with confidential information, which is part of most positions with the federal government.”

via State Department To Columbia University Students: DO NOT Discuss WikiLeaks On Facebook, Twitter.

Dem congressman: Afghanistan conflict ‘not a winnable war’

With President Obama on the ground in Afghanistan Friday, Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) declared the U.S.-led war in that country unwinnable.

In an appearance on MSNBC’s “Hardball” with Chris Matthews, the Democrat said the war is costing the U.S. far too much and the military effort is misdirected at best.

“The problem is this is not a winnable war, Chris,” Moran said. “Even our combatant commanders know that we can’t win this militarily.”

Moran warned that while a Republican-led Congress may continue to support the president’s current path in Afghanistan, Obama has “a political problem at home.”

via Dem congressman: Afghanistan conflict ‘not a winnable war’ – The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room.

Small Business Owner on GOP Taxes: ‘Tax Cuts Don’t Trickle Down’

I’ve run a small business for more than 30 years, and the claim that more tax cuts for the rich can generate jobs at small businesses is ridiculous. Expecting high-end tax cuts to trickle down as job creation is about as reasonable as pouring gasoline on your hood and expecting it to run your engine.

My company’s success or failure is tied to the economic health of our 24 employees, our customers, our community, our state and our country. The quick-buck artists who have increasingly dominated our financial system since the 1970s don’t care about the long-term growth of companies they temporarily “invest” in or the well-being of the people who work at them. Now they’re trying to sell us more tax cuts for the rich - cloaked in concern over small-business owners and jobs.

When tax cut lobbyists tell you that small-business owners will use the money saved from lower tax rates to hire someone, they’ve got it backward. Either they’ve never run a small business, or they’re trying to mislead you.

via Small Business Owner Retorts GOP Talking Point: ‘Tax Cuts Don’t Trickle Down’ | CommonDreams.org.

All the President’s Captors

THOSE desperate to decipher the baffling Obama presidency could do worse than consult an article titled “Understanding Stockholm Syndrome” in the online archive of The F.B.I. Law Enforcement Bulletin. It explains that hostage takers are most successful at winning a victim’s loyalty if they temper their brutality with a bogus show of kindness. Soon enough, the hostage will start concentrating on his captors’ “good side” and develop psychological characteristics to please them — “dependency; lack of initiative; and an inability to act, decide or think.”

This dynamic was acted out — yet again — in President Obama’s latest and perhaps most humiliating attempt to placate his Republican captors in Washington. No sooner did he invite the G.O.P.’s Congressional leaders to a post-election White House summit meeting than they countered his hospitality with a slap — postponing the date for two weeks because of “scheduling conflicts.” But they were kind enough to reschedule, and that was enough to get Obama to concentrate once more on his captors’ “good side.”

And so, as the big bipartisan event finally arrived last week, he handed them an unexpected gift, a freeze on federal salaries. Then he made a hostage video hailing the White House meeting as “a sincere effort on the part of everybody involved to actually commit to work together.” Hardly had this staged effusion of happy talk been disseminated than we learned of Mitch McConnell’s letter vowing to hold not just the president but the entire government hostage by blocking all legislation until the Bush-era tax cuts were extended for the top 2 percent of American households.

via All the President’s Captors – NYTimes.com.

Bill To Extend Only Middle-Class Tax Cuts Blocked In The Senate

Today, the Senate held two separate votes on the Bush tax cuts, but ultimately failed to extend any of the cuts that will be expiring at the end of the year. The first piece of legislation, which would have extended the Bush tax cuts for everyone making less than $250,000 per year, was defeated 53-36, falling seven votes shy of the 60 necessary to invoke cloture. Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV), Russ Feingold (D-WI), Ben Nelson (D-NE), Jim Webb (D-VA) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) joined all the Republicans in voting no. 11 senators, all Republicans, did not vote. The second bill, which would have extended the tax cuts for everyone making less than $1 million, was defeated 53-37. As CNN noted, “Despite the realization that neither would get the 60 votes to succeed, many Democrats said before the vote they wanted to get on-the-record in support of extending the lower rates to lower earners.” On Thursday, the House successfully passed a bill extending only the middle-class tax cuts.

Full Story: ThinkProgress » Bill To Extend Only Middle-Class Tax Cuts Blocked In The Senate.

Steelworkers Not Jumping On Board Obama’s South Korea Free Trade Deal

President Barack Obama announced Saturday the government has reached a trade agreement with South Korea that would strengthen economic ties between the two countries, the largest pact by the United States since the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement in 1994.

If ratified by Congress, the U.S.-South Korea Free Trade Agreement would eliminate 95 percent of tariffs on consumer and industrial goods within the next five years.

With the unemployment rate at 9.8 percent for November — a seven-month high — Obama is under heavy pressure to create and protect American jobs and critics of the deal insist that it will further erode the manufacturing base when cheaper South Korean cars and other products enter the market. United Stated and South Korean officials have been in negotiations on the agreement for several years, including a failed effort to reach a deal during the G-20 summit in November.

Full Story: Steelworkers Not Jumping On Board Obama’s South Korea Free Trade Deal.

Abbas: Last resort — I’ll ask Israel to take over

– Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has warned he may dissolve his self-rule government and ask Israel to resume full control of the West Bank if troubled peace talks fail.

Dismantling the Palestinian Authority would be a last resort, Abbas told Palestine TV in an interview broadcast late Friday. However, his comments marked the most explicit warning yet that he’s considering a step that could crush lingering hopes for a Mideast peace deal.

If Abbas were to take such a step, Israel, as a military occupier, would have to assume full responsibility again for 2.2 million Palestinians in the West Bank. Israel was relieved of that financial burden with the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1994, as part of interim peace deals.

Full Story: Abbas: Last resort — I’ll ask Israel to take over – Yahoo! News.

Papantonio: A Psychiatric Evaluation of Obama

Video:

Obama did not grow up wearing expensive tailored suits, playing golf, with a pass into every ultra-exclusive social club on the planet. There was a day when he walked around in tattered jeans without enough money to pay a cab fare. What most of us missed in our hopes about our Obama mirage was that once he made it into those exclusive clubs, he would close the door behind him and never look back.

A Real Jaw Dropper at the Federal Reserve

Sen. Bernie Sanders:

At a Senate Budget Committee hearing in 2009, I asked Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to tell the American people the names of the financial institutions that received an unprecedented backdoor bailout from the Federal Reserve, how much they received, and the exact terms of this assistance. He refused. A year and a half later, as a result of an amendment that I was able to include in the Wall Street reform bill, we have begun to lift the veil of secrecy at the Fed, and the American people now have this information.

It is unfortunate that it took this long, and it is a shame that the biggest banks in America and Mr. Bernanke fought to keep this secret from the American public every step of the way. But, the details on this bailout are now on the Federal Reserve’s website, and this is a major victory for the American taxpayer and for transparency in government.

Importantly, my amendment also required the Government Accountability Office to conduct a top-to-bottom audit of all of the emergency lending the Fed provided during the financial crisis to be completed on July 21, 2011, which will take a hard look at all of the potential conflicts of interest that took place with respect to this bailout. So, in many respects, details that the Fed was forced to divulge on Wednesday about the $3.3 trillion in emergency loans that until now were totally kept from public scrutiny, marked the beginning, not the end, of lifting the veil of secrecy at the Fed.

Full Story: Sen. Bernie Sanders: A Real Jaw Dropper at the Federal Reserve.

Don’t Let Deficit Panel Co-Chairs Hype a Bad Plan, Embrace the Progressive Alternative That Saves Social Security

by John Nichols, The Nation:

The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform failed to produce a mandate for assaulting Social Security, undermining Medicare and Medicaid and generally balancing the budget on the backs of working Americans.

But that hasn’t stopped its co-chairmen from claiming a sort of victory for their plan to make Main Street pay for Wall Street’s failures.

Their goal is obvious. Commission co-chairs Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles want to spin a win they did not achieve in order to foster the false impression that their ominously titled ” Moment of Truth” proposal is the only real alternative to fiscal ruin. That’s not the case. There are better proposals—such as the detailed alternative to austerity outlined by commission member Jan Schakowsky. But this is a critical juncture, and progressives need to be conscious that an effort will be made to narrow the range of options and impose key elements of a bad plan that failed to gain required support.

Let’s start by getting a few things straight:

Full Story: Don’t Let Deficit Panel Co-Chairs Hype a Bad Plan, Embrace the Progressive Alternative That Saves Social Security | The Nation.

Save Obama’s presidency by challenging him on the left

People who used to say, “Give President Obama more time” when the president was criticized for capitulating to the right, or who argued that Obama must have a plan to turn things around, are now largely depressed and angry. To many liberals and progressives, the president’s unwillingness to veto any measure that includes continued tax relief for billionaires is the last straw, building on a record of spinelessness that includes his escalation of the war in Afghanistan, abandonment of a public option for health-care reform, refusal to prosecute those who tortured in Iraq or lied us into that war, and unwillingness to tax carbon emissions.

With his base deeply disillusioned, many progressives are starting to believe that Obama has little chance of winning reelection unless he enthusiastically embraces a populist agenda and worldview – soon. Yet there is little chance that will happen without a massive public revolt by his constituency that goes beyond rallies, snide remarks from television personalities or indignant op-eds.

Full Story: Michael Lerner – Save Obama’s presidency by challenging him on the left.

WikiLeaks cables reveal how US manipulated climate accord

Embassy dispatches show America used spying, threats and promises of aid to get support for Copenhagen accord

Hidden behind the save-the-world rhetoric of the global climate change negotiations lies the mucky realpolitik: money and threats buy political support; spying and cyberwarfare are used to seek out leverage.

The US diplomatic cables reveal how the US seeks dirt on nations opposed to its approach to tackling global warming; how financial and other aid is used by countries to gain political backing; how distrust, broken promises and creative accounting dog negotiations; and how the US mounted a secret global diplomatic offensive to overwhelm opposition to the controversial “Copenhagen accord“, the unofficial document that emerged from the ruins of the Copenhagen climate change summit in 2009.

Negotiating a climate treaty is a high-stakes game, not just because of the danger warming poses to civilisation but also because re-engineering the global economy to a low-carbon model will see the flow of billions of dollars redirected.

Full Story: WikiLeaks cables reveal how US manipulated climate accord | Environment | The Guardian.

The Big Economic Story, and Why Obama Isn’t Telling It

Robert Reich:

Quiz: What’s responsible for the lousy economy most Americans continue to wallow in?

A. Big government, bureaucrats, and the cultural and intellectual elites who back them.

B. Big business, Wall Street, and the powerful and privileged who represent them.

These are the two competing stories Americans are telling one another.

Yes, I know: It’s more complicated than this. In reality, the lousy economy is due to insufficient demand – the result of the nation’s almost unprecedented concentration of income at the top. The very rich don’t spend as much of their income as the middle. And since the housing bubble burst, the middle class hasn’t had the buying power to keep the economy going. That concentration of income, in turn, is due to globalization and technological change – along with unprecedented campaign contributions and lobbying designed to make the rich even richer and do nothing to help average Americans, insider trading, and political bribery.

So B is closer to the truth.

Full Story: Robert Reich (The Big Economic Story, and Why Obama Isn’t Telling It).

“Today In America We Have The Most Unequal Distribution Of Wealth Since The Great Depression!”

Senator Bernis Sanders – Video

December 04, 2010 C-SPAN

‘What We Have Got To Say Is, NO’

Senator Bernie Sanders – Video

Employers Won’t Hire The Jobless Because Of The ‘Desperate Vibe’

Isang Inokon, a headhunter for Amherst Healthcare recruiting firm, posted a Craigslist job ad on November 18 for clinical pharmacists — but only the kind who already have jobs.

“Do yourself and favor and start looking now,” he wrote in the ad. “When you lose your job, you will interview from a position of weakness.”

With the U.S. unemployment rate still soaring at 9.8 percent and 6.3 million Americans having been unemployed for 27 weeks or longer, employers can now afford to be extremely picky about whom they hire. In addition to seeking very specific skills, degrees, and numbers of years of experience, many employers are specifying in job ads that candidates be “currently employed” elsewhere to be considered for the position.

Full Story: Employers Won’t Hire The Jobless Because Of The ‘Desperate Vibe’.

Mysterious U.S. Spacecraft Returns To Earth After 7-Month Trip

The U.S. military’s secretive X-37B unmanned spaceplane slipped out of orbit and landed itself in early morning darkness Friday at a California airbase after a successful maiden flight that lasted more than seven months, the Air Force said.

The stubby-winged, robotic craft fired its engine to begin re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere and autonomously landed at 1:16 a.m. PST at coastal Vandenberg Air Force Base, 130 miles northwest of Los Angeles

Range safety officers were on hand to track its descent over the Pacific and activate a destruct mechanism if the landing needed to be aborted. There were no immediate reports of any sonic booms being heard.

Full Story: X 37B Spacecraft Returns After 7-Month Trip.

4 Million Set To Lose Unemployment Benefits Even If Congress Passes Extension

Economist, CBO Advisor: ‘Nobody Is Proposing To Do Anything About It’

Even as Congress debates whether to extend emergency unemployment checks for more than 6 million Americans who are approaching the 99-week limit, some four million others are facing the certain end of their benefits over the next year, unless an entirely new program is crafted.

This is the sobering conclusion of a report released by the President’s Council of Economic Advisers on Thursday. The study forecast that the exhaustion of unemployment benefits for so many will curb spending power enough to significantly impede an already weak economic recovery.

The typical household now receiving emergency unemployment benefits would see their income fall by a third should they lose their checks, according to the report. Among the roughly 40 percent of households in which the person receiving a check is the sole breadwinner, income would fall by 90 percent.

Full Story: 4 Million Americans Set To Lose Unemployment Benefits Even If Congress Passes Extension (CHART).

Spain’s Air Traffic Controllers Placed Under Military Control After Striking

Spain placed striking air traffic controllers under military authority Saturday in an unprecedented emergency order and threatened jail terms for those who refuse to go back to work in a bid to get the country’s air space back to normal.

Civil aviation agency Aena said hours later that some strikers were back on the job. The wildcat stoppage that began Friday has largely closed the country’s air space and stranded hundreds of thousands of travelers on a busy holiday weekend.

Terminal buildings at Madrid’s Barajas airport were jammed with discouraged travelers, with some camping out and sleeping at gates. Others exhausted travelers slumped against luggage carts or found empty customer service desks to put their heads down on.

Full Story: Spain’s Air Traffic Controllers Placed Under Military Control After Striking.

FDA: We Should Expand Use Of Stomach Bands For Weight Loss

About 12 million more obese Americans could soon qualify for surgery to implant a small, flexible stomach band designed to help them lose weight by dramatically limiting their food intake. The Food and Drug Administration will make a final decision on the Lap-Band in the coming months.

The device from Allergan Inc. is currently implanted in roughly 100,000 people each year and usually helps patients lose 50 pounds or more. Under federal guidelines, it has been limited to patients who are morbidly obese.

On Friday, a panel of FDA advisers recommended expanding use of the device to include patients who are less obese. The panel voted 8-2 that the benefits of broader approval outweighed the risks.

Full Story: FDA: We Should Expand Use Of Stomach Bands For Weight Loss.

Tax Cut Myths: Fact Checking The Showdown

As debate rages on extending tax cuts set to expire at the end of the year, politicians are making misleading statements about who might be hurt or helped.

Before the midterm elections, President Barack Obama insisted that lower income-tax rates should be permanently extended only to those he called the “middle class.” People in the top two tax brackets would face higher rates. Now, with Republicans triumphant, the White House is trying to hash out a compromise so rates don’t automatically revert to their higher, pre-2001 levels for everyone in the new year.

One possible deal: extending all the lower rates for a yet-undetermined period of time, perhaps two or three years.

Time is running out, as is patience. In a purely symbolic vote, House Democrats on Thursday passed a bill extending lower rates for everyone but those in the top brackets. House Republican leader John Boehner said the vote ran counter to efforts to forge a deal, dubbing it “chicken crap” political maneuvering.

Full Story: Tax Cut Myths: Fact Checking The Showdown.

72 super PACs spent $83.7 million on election, financial disclosure reports show

The newly created independent political groups known as super PACs, which raised and spent millions of dollars on last month’s elections, drew much of their funding from private-equity partners and others in the financial industry, according to new financial disclosure reports.

The 72 super PACs, all formed this year, together spent $83.7 million on the election. The figures provide the best indication yet of the impact of recent Supreme Court decisions that opened the door for wealthy individuals and corporations to give unlimited contributions.

The financial disclosure reports also underscore the extent to which the flow of corporate money will be tied to political goals. Private-equity partners and hedge fund managers, for example, have a substantial stake in several issues before Congress, primarily the taxes they pay on their earnings.

Full Story: 72 super PACs spent $83.7 million on election, financial disclosure reports show.

SENATE REPUBLICANS KILL ECONOMIC AID FOR MIDDLE CLASS

Senate Republicans Defeat Reauthorization Of Jobless Aid, Tax Cuts

Senate Republicans and a handful of Democrats Saturday defeated a bill to reauthorize unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless and a plethora of tax provisions for the middle class not because of the bill’s trillion-dollar deficit impact, but because it did not include tax cuts for the rich.

“In economic times like these, 9.8 percent unemployment, you should not raise taxes on anyone,” Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) told HuffPost.

Two bills were defeated. By a vote of 53-63, the Senate rejected a bill by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) that would have preserved Bush era tax cuts for lower- and middle-income taxpayers, but would have allowed cuts for people earning more than $200,000 a year to expire. Four Democrats and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) joined Republicans in voting against the measure. The Senate also rejected a bill by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) that would have extended all the cuts, but not for anybody making more than $1 million.

Full Story: Senate Republicans Defeat Reauthorization Of Jobless Aid, Tax Cuts.

Why 80 Percent of Americans Don’t Believe the Official Theory of 911

Len Hart,

These days, Bush’s only defenders with respect to 911 are 1) paid liars and hard cases left over from his utterly criminal and illegitimate administration; and 2) idiots whose only source of ‘news’ is Fox. Fox ‘news’, however, is an oxymoron, appropriate I suppose for a network of morons in service to morons.

Bush, it is said, could not have pulled off 911 alone. Of course not! A total tool, it most certainly was not even his idea. He was the ‘titular’ head of a loosely organized gang of power brokers and the motley crew of wing nuts who support them. God knows why!

Bush was and probably still is a puppet but not a good one. When the real history is known, we may find ourselves eternally grateful to Bush whose utter incompetence, his palpable stupidity, his painful, hardly bearable inarticulateness revealed however inadvertently the truth about how our nation was usurped by an ever smaller ruling elite. Last time I checked this ‘elite’ was only 1 percent of the total population and most surely diminishing. One day, they will have put themselves out of business. In theory, at least!

Full Story: The Existentialist Cowboy: Why 80 Percent of Americans Don’t Believe the Official Theory of 911.

China passenger train hits 300 mph, breaks record

A Chinese passenger train hit a record speed of 302 miles per hour (486 kilometers per hour) Friday during a test run of a yet-to-be opened link between Beijing and Shanghai, state media said.

The Xinhua News Agency said it was the fastest speed recorded by an unmodified conventional commercial train. Other types of trains in other countries have traveled faster.

A specially modified French TGV train reached 357.2 mph (574.8 kph) during a 2007 test, while a Japanese magnetically levitated train sped to 361 mph (581 kph) in 2003.

Full Story: China passenger train hits 300 mph, breaks record – Yahoo! News.

OPS: and, due to Republicans, WE don’t even have one under construction yet

Judge cites ‘risk of environmental harm’ in order to destroy genetically modified crop

A federal judge in California has ordered the removal from the ground of plants grown to produce seeds for genetically modified sugar beets, citing the potential for environmental harm.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White has again raised questions about the use of genetically modified crops and what will happen if growers aren’t allowed to plant GMO seeds.

About 95 percent of the sugar beet crop has been genetically modified to resist the weed killer Roundup. The crop provides roughly half of the nation’s sugar supply.

In his decision, White cited, “a significant risk of environmental harm.”

Full Story: Judge cites ‘risk of environmental harm’ in order to destroy genetically modified crop | Raw Story.

Brazil recognizes Palestinian state

Brazil says it has recognized the state of Palestine based on borders at the time of Israel’s 1967 conquest of the West Bank.

The Foreign Ministry says the recognition is in response to a request made by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas last month to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Silva sent a letter to Abbas on Dec. 1, saying Brazil recognizes Palestine and hopes that the recognition will help lead to states of Israel and Palestine “that will coexist peacefully and in security.”

Full Story: Brazil recognizes Palestinian state – Americas AP – MiamiHerald.com.

Fox News accused of violating campaign finance laws

Fox News appears to be gearing up to defend themselves after being accused of illegally helping a Republican candidate raise money on the air.

The Democratic Governors Association (DGA) filed a lawsuit in August claiming that Fox News had violated campaign finance laws by allowing Republican candidate for Ohio governor John Kasich to raise money on the air.

Ohio Elections Commission filings obtained by The Huffington Post indicate that Fox News has retained Larry Noble, a nationally recognized campaign finance attorney at the firm Skadden Arps, to represent them.

Full Story: Fox News accused of violating campaign finance laws | Raw Story.

Bachmann Calls For An ‘Insurrection’ Against GOP Leaders If They ‘Cave’ On A Full Repeal Of Health Care

After Congress passed the historic health care law last year, the GOP unleashed a litany of hyperbolic derision towards “Obamacare,” seeing it as the coming of “socialism,” “martial law,” “death panels,” and a “gangster government.” In September, the GOP’s Cicero of extremism Rep. Steve King demanded a “blood oath” from GOP leadership to include repeal in every appropriations bill next year, even if it results in government shutdown.

Not to be outdone by her bosom buddy, Tea Party matron Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) one-upped King yesterday by warning GOP leaders of a rank-and-file mutiny over health care repeal. Suspicious of GOP leadership’s “repeal and replace” mantra, Bachmann told CNS News’s Terrence Jeffrey that there will need “to be an insurrection” against “our own leadership” if they “cave or go weak in the knees” and fail to deliver a “full scale repudiation” to the American people:

Full Story: ThinkProgress » Bachmann Calls For An ‘Insurrection’ Against GOP Leaders If They ‘Cave’ On A Full Repeal Of Health Care.

Durbin Once Opposed Raising Social Security Retirement Age will NOW vote FOR it

Today, President Obama’s Deficit Commission voted on the recommendations laid out in its deficit reduction report. Included among the report’s recommendations is gradually raising the Social Security retirement age to 69 by 2075. Although the commission failed to get the 14 votes it is required to get in order to pass the plan on to Congress, its recommendations are expected to be taken up in some form by legislators at some point.

Yesterday, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) announced that he will be voting in favor of the commission’s recommendations. The same day, he wrote an op-ed in the Chicago Tribune explaining why he was voting in favor of the plan. While explaining that he believes that Social Security “is the most important social program in America,” he explicitily endorsed raising the retirement age, citing the need to make “hard choices“:

Full Story: ThinkProgress » Durbin Once Opposed Raising Social Security Retirement Age: ‘It’s Tough To Say Just Stick Around’.

OPS: Durbin isn’t stupid.

He knows that Social Security has nothing to do with the Deficit.

He knows that Social Security is solvent – right now – for another 26+ years (and by then the baby boomers will be out of the picture).

He knows that Social Security could be solvent for ever – and the Retirement age could even be dropped to 55 (clearing the way for young people to get those jobs) by simply making his rich buddies pay into SS by removing the $106k cap

Who the phuck does this clown think he’s kidding?
Hey DICK!  YOUR constituents are NOT as stupid as Mark Kirk’s

With Democrats like this who needs enemas – like Republicans

He wins the Judas-Goat Award

Bush Officials Celebrate Tax Cut ‘Trap’ They Laid Nine Years Ago

As debate rages in Washington over the Bush tax cuts, set to expire at the end of this year, the Bush administration officials who initiated the steep tax cuts are celebrating what they see as an apparent victory, since signs point to a temporary extension of all the cuts. The Daily Beast’s Howard Kurtz interviewed Dan Bartlett, Bush’s former communications director, and Andy Card, Bush’s former chief of staff, among others, and they were pleased at how the expiration debate has played out:

“We knew that, politically, once you get it into law, it becomes almost impossible to remove it,” says Dan Bartlett, Bush’s former communications director. “That’s not a bad legacy. The fact that we were able to lay the trap does feel pretty good, to tell you the truth.” [...]

“[Democrats] are definitely on the defensive,” Card says. “The fact that the 10-year clock ran out now had a big impact on the election.”

Full Story: ThinkProgress » Bush Officials Celebrate Tax Cut ‘Trap’ They Laid Nine Years Ago.

Republicans Claim Lousy Jobs Report Means Bush Tax Cuts For The Rich Must Be Extended

Today’s jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics paints an ugly picture of lackluster job creation and increasing long-term unemployment. The Federal Reserve — which is taking its own steps to boost employment after dithering for months — has been reduced to pleading with Congress for further fiscal stimulus, in the hopes of averting an even longer jobs slog.

So, naturally, Congress is spending the day debating whether or not the richest two percent of Americans should receive a tax cut (in addition to the tax cut they will receive on their first $250,000 in income if, as everyone in Congress wants, tax rates are extended for the lower- and middle-classes). In fact, many House Republicans are claiming that the richest two percent of Americans desperately need a tax cut because of the bad jobs report:

Full Story: ThinkProgress » Republicans Claim Lousy Jobs Report Means Bush Tax Cuts For The Rich Must Be Extended.

Scalia Mocks Sotomayor’s Compassion For ‘People Sitting in Their Feces for Days in a Dazed State’

One California inmate dies every eight days from inadequate medical care. In one case, a prisoner who experienced “recurrent severe abdominal pain and vomiting over a five week period” received no treatment until they eventually died. Moreover, lawsuits stretch back twenty years seeking to remedy these unconstitutional conditions — until a federal court finally ordered the state to reduce its prison population. That order is now before the Supreme Court.

Against this backdrop, Justice Sonia Sotomayor confronted California’s attorney with some of the more horrific stories from California’s unconstitutional prison system, and received a mocking response from fellow Justice Antonin Scalia:

Full Story: ThinkProgress » Scalia Mocks Sotomayor’s Compassion For ‘People Sitting in Their Feces for Days in a Dazed State’.

Churches Launch Campaign For Jobless

Yesterday, a coalition of religious groups along with three U.S. Senators announced a grassroots push to help find jobs for the unemployed, in the absence of stronger action from Washington. The Faith Advocates for Jobs Campaign will organize 1,000 congregation-based unemployed worker support committees in 2011, in order to help the unemployed both find jobs but also deal with the sometimes crushing emotional and spiritual side-effects of long-term unemployment.

“As people of faith, we call for an economy that provides a job for everyone who wants and needs one,” the group’s mission statement reads. “We affirm that all jobs should be good jobs, paying living wages and benefits, allowing workers dignity and a voice at the workplace, ensuring workers’ health and safety, and guaranteeing their right to organize unions.”

In addition to helping shepherd people through the difficulties of unemployment, the group — along with Sens. Bob Casey (D-PA), Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) — also aims to organize political action around more job-friendly policies by bringing the voices of those they’re helping to Washington, In These Times reports:

Full Story: ThinkProgress » Churches Launch Campaign For Jobless.

Hundreds line up in the cold for help heating homes  | ajc.com

As metro Atlanta’s temperatures grow colder, the demand for heat is, well, heating up.

A day after hundreds of people queued up outside a Marietta community center to apply for assistance with heat and power bills, hopeful applicants began lining up again around midnight, waiting in the sub-freezing temperatures for the doors to open Thursday morning.

This time, however, officials let those in line come into the Mansour Center on Roswell Street an hour early at 7:30 and get relief from temperatures that dropped to 27 degrees.

“We’re freezing,” said Lecher Eady, a Marietta mother who arrived at midnight seeking help with her bills. “Our hands are cold, our feet are cold.”

Full Story: Hundreds line up in the cold for help heating homes  | ajc.com.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein: Millionaires Don’t Need Tax Cuts

I don’t know a single millionaire who needs a tax cut right now. But I know plenty of middle class Americans who desperately need every extra dollar in these tough economic times.

That’s why I strongly support the “Middle Class Tax Cuts Act” to give permanent tax relief to the struggling families that need it most. The economic turmoil of the last three years has left many Americans cash-strapped and struggling to stay afloat. And make no mistake, extending the current tax rates for the middle class is crucial to encourage economic growth.

By extending current tax rates for 98 percent of taxpayers, we provide certainty and security for hard-pressed, working-class Americans.

Here’s a basic truth: America is in trouble.

Full Story: Sen. Dianne Feinstein: Millionaires Don’t Need Tax Cuts.

The Redistribution Of America’s Wealth To The Few

Jim Hightower:

America’s unemployed and downsized workers are furious that corporate profits, stock prices, and CEO pay are up – while hiring and wages are held down. But wait – U.S. corporations actually are increasing their payrolls. Just not in America.

In a two year period, these corporate giants hiked hiring in foreign countries by 729,000 jobs, even as they cut 500,000 jobs here. Hilton hotels, for example, moved a U.S. call center to the Philippines, calling it a move for “maximizing efficiencies” – which is cold corporate jargon for “chasing cheap labor.”

Likewise, JPMorgan Chase, which hauled in $25 billion from the Wall Street bailout, is moving its telephone banking business from Troy, Michigan, to the Philippines. Dell, the computer peddler, has closed its last PC factory here, while creating tens of thousands of PC jobs in China. And get this: Hewlett-Packard has dumped its human resources staff in 10 states, moving the work to Panama. Hello, human resources is the corporate division that ostensibly helps resolve worker complaints and boost employee morale. So the message here is. “Hey, bud, got a problem? Take it to Panama.”

Full audio of this article available at link

Full Story: Jim Hightower | THE REDISTRIBUTION OF AMERICA’S WEALTH TO THE FEW.

Feds tracking credit cards, store purchases without warrant: report

Federal law enforcement routinely tracks individuals through their credit cards, cell phones, car rentals and even store customer loyalty programs without obtaining a warrant, an online privacy activist has discovered.

According to a document (PDF) obtained from the Department of Justice by online privacy activist Christopher Soghoian, federal agents working on a criminal investigation can draw up their own paperwork requesting that credit companies and retailers give the agents real-time access to purchases made by a particular person.

No court reviews these orders, and the only role courts play in the process is to issue a non-disclosure order to the retailer or credit card company involved, meaning the person being tracked will never be notified of the surveillance.

Full Story: Feds tracking credit cards, store purchases without warrant: report | Raw Story.

Only Half of Americans Rate Clergy as Ethical

What do nurses, soldiers, pharmacists, elementary school teachers, doctors, and police officers have in common?

Americans say they are all more ethical and honest than members of the clergy, according to a Gallup survey released on Friday (Dec. 3).

Slightly more than half of Americans (53 percent) rate the moral values of priests, ministers and other clerics as “very high” or “high.”

That percentage is a slight bump from 2009, when only 50 percent of Americans said men and women of the cloth are ethical paragons, the lowest number in Gallup’s 32 years of measuring professional reputations.

Full Story: Only Half of Americans Rate Clergy as Ethical.

Video –> THE MADNESS OF A LOST SOCIETY

The results of last months elections remain a sore subject with me.  If the only people who voted for them had been the ones that actually benefit from Republican rule they would have gotten about 2% of the votes.  That won’t win elections for anyone.  Every one else who voted for Republicans was voting against their own well being, and what could possess voters to be so foolish has puzzled me.  I’m not the only one.  The same question shows up in our comments section from readers day after day.  Then yesterday, a friend with whom I do volunteer work in prison sent me a video.  It’s not even about voting Republican per se.  I don’t even know the political persuasion of the people who made it, although I suspect they may be selling something.  Nevertheless, watching it was a light bulb moment of insight into many who voted Republican.

Full Story: http://www.politicsplus.org/blog/?p=3531

PayPal Suspends WikiLeaks Donations Account by Government Order

Online payment service PayPal said it has suspended the WikiLeaks’ account that the organization used to collect donations.

U.S.-based PayPal said in a statement that WikiLeaks, which this week released thousands of secret U.S. diplomatic cables, had violated its policy. A posting on WikiLeaks’ Twitter page said “PayPal bans WikiLeaks after US government pressure.”

A statement on the PayPal site said: “PayPal has permanently restricted the account used by WikiLeaks due to a violation of the PayPal Acceptable Use Policy, which states that our payment service cannot be used for any activities that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity. We’ve notified the account holder of this action.”

PayPal is one of several ways that WikiLeaks takes in donations to finance its operations.

Full Story: PayPal Suspends WikiLeaks Donations Account – NYTimes.com.

OPS: The Supreme Court has recently ruled that money = free speech.  So clearly this is

Mark Ruffalo ‘added to terrorism watchlist’ over Gasland

Actor reportedly put on US advisory list after organising screenings of documentary criticising natural gas drilling

Actor Mark Ruffalo has reportedly been placed on a US terror advisory list after campaigning in support of a documentary highlighting the alleged dangers of natural gas drilling.

Ruffalo attracted the attention of Pennsylvania’s Office of Homeland Security when he organised screenings for Gasland, which won the special jury prize at this year’s Sundance film festival, and said he was concerned about the impact of drilling on water supplies. The actor has addressed the subject in the latest edition of American GQ.

Gasland, directed by Josh Fox, follows the film-maker as he visits communities in Pennsylvania where natural gas has been drilled. Fox decided to document his trip after a natural gas company wrote to him in 2008 offering to lease his family’s land in Milanville, Pennsylvania for $100,000 (£64,000).

Full Story: Mark Ruffalo ‘added to terrorism watchlist’ over Gasland | Film | guardian.co.uk.

The American Jobs Emergency Requires Action

Robert Reich:

This is not a recovery. It’s a continuing jobs emergency and it demands action.

We learned this morning that unemployment rose to 9.8 percent in November and employers added only 39,000 jobs. Private employers added 50,000 — the smallest gain since January. Government employment continued to shrink.

We’re heading in the wrong direction. In October, the jobless rate was 9.6 percent, and employers added 172,000 jobs. Private-sector job growth totaled 160,000.

At this rate unemployment won’t return to its pre-recession level for more than a decade, if ever.

Full Story: Robert Reich (The American Jobs Emergency Requires Action).

Sarah Palin and The Dumbing Down of the American Presidency

John Dean:

Sarah Palin’s new book, America by Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith, and Flag , was written for two reasons: to make money for the author (and publisher) and as a paean to her loyal supporters (who will surely buy a copy for themselves and a copy to give as a Christmas gift). If you have not noticed, Mrs. Palin is on a sixteen-state book tour. Given her racially-tinged attacks on President Obama in the book — proving to her base that she will play the race card that other politicians will not — many believe this is Sarah’s opening salvo for a 2012 presidential run.

I disagree. So allow me a few preliminary thoughts about the coming presidential-election cycle, which is just now getting underway.

What Is Sarah Palin Doing?

I don’t believe that Sarah Palin has a clue what she is doing — other than making easy money, and more of it than she ever dreamed she might, by cashing in on her celebrity. She keeps those dollars coming her way by flirting with a presidential bid, for she is very savvy, and she knows that by playing this game, she keeps herself relevant, as well as in the news. I reached this conclusion just before the Thanksgiving holiday, when the New York Times Magazine did about as favorable a profile of Palin as she has received from any mainstream news outlet that is not owned by Rupert Murdoch.

Full Story: Sarah Palin and The Dumbing Down of the American Presidency.

Freezing Out Hope

Paul Krugman

After the Democratic “shellacking” in the midterm elections, everyone wondered how President Obama would respond. Would he show what he was made of? Would he stand firm for the values he believes in, even in the face of political adversity?

On Monday, we got the answer: he announced a pay freeze for federal workers. This was an announcement that had it all. It was transparently cynical; it was trivial in scale, but misguided in direction; and by making the announcement, Mr. Obama effectively conceded the policy argument to the very people who are seeking — successfully, it seems — to destroy him.

So I guess we are, in fact, seeing what Mr. Obama is made of.

About that pay freeze: the president likes to talk about “teachable moments.” Well, in this case he seems eager to teach Americans something false.

Full Story: Freezing Out Hope – NYTimes.com.

Country lowers retirement age to 58

Bucking a global trend, leftist-led Bolivia is lowering its retirement age and nationalizing its pension funds. Bolivia’s Congress approved legislation early Friday to make Bolivians eligible for full pensions at age 58. The country’s 70,000 miners will get to retire two years earlier.

The previous retirement age was 65 for men and 60 for women.

Bolivia’s decision to lower its retirement age runs counter to a global trend to raise retirement ages as life expectancies rise, birth rates drop and national treasuries come under strain from pension obligations. France raised its minimum retirement age to 62 last month — full benefits aren’t available now until 67 — while Greece is drastically cutting back early retirement opportunities.

President Evo Morales had pushed hard for the pension reform law, which also brings the landlocked Andean nation’s pension system under state control and extends pension protection to the 60 percent of Bolivians who work in the informal sector and currently lack pensions.

Full Story: Country lowers retirement age to 58 | Chicago Breaking Business.

Alan Grayson Explains Why Tax Cuts For The Rich Are SO IMPORTANT To Right-Wing Pundits

Video

Google Earth Engine Debuted At COP 16 Climate Summit In Cancun, Mexico

Google.org, the philanthropic arm of Google, debuted its shiny new tool at the COP 16 climate conference in Cancun today. It’s a database that will help scientists and conservationists track and analyze changes in Earth’s environment, and hopefully slow deforestation.

The satellite imagery tool, called Google Earth Engine, takes advantage of Google’s large-scale “cloud” computing infrastructure to build a powerful database out of the thousands of satellite photographs from the past 25 years, many of which have never been analyzed. It will be available online for use by scientists, independent researchers and nations.

This year’s United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Cancun was a fitting setting for the launch, as the platform can be used to monitor deforestation, natural disaster response, and water resources, among other things. As the U.N. works toward implementing the REDD framework (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries), Google hopes that the Google Earth Engine will make accountability and monitoring easier. For example, creating a detailed forest cover and water map of Mexico, a task that would have taken 3 years on one computer, was accomplished in less than a day.

Full Story: Google Earth Engine Debuted At COP 16 Climate Summit In Cancun, Mexico.

Bush Tax Cuts: Fears Mount Of White House Cave On Top Priority [UPDATED]

An informal deal to hold four “test votes” with Republicans was canceled late Thursday night, according to a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). Instead, Democrats planned to file cloture Thursday night and hold votes Saturday on two separate measures.

The first, by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), would extend the Bush tax cuts for families making less than $250,000 a year. The second, authored by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), would raise the tax cut threshold from $250,000 to $1 million a year.

Earlier, Democrats and Republicans had arranged to hold two additional votes on Republican-authored tax cut measures, but Reid was informed during an impromptu visit to the Capitol office of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) that one Republican member objected to such an arrangement. McConnell had just left for dinner, so Reid was forced to phone his opposite number from McConnell’s own office to get the news.

Full Story: Bush Tax Cuts: Fears Mount Of White House Cave On Top Priority [UPDATED].

CBS News Poll: Most Oppose GOP Tax Plan

Republicans have argued that the midterm elections have given them a mandate on what they are calling one of the most important issues facing America, the extension of the Bush-era tax cuts.

“The American people want us to stop all the looming tax hikes and to cut spending, and that should be the priority of the remaining days that we have in this Congress,” incoming House Speaker Rep. John Boehner said Thursday. Boehner added that a House vote Thursday to extend the cuts for all but the highest-earning Americans amounted to “chicken crap.”

According to a new CBS News poll, however, Boehner is off-base in his claim that Americans “want us to stop all the looming tax hikes.”

Full Story: CBS News Poll: Most Oppose GOP Tax Plan – Political Hotsheet – CBS News.

Republicans cool to do not track Web plan

Republicans, who will control the House of Representatives in January, greeted the idea of Internet “do not track” legislation coolly on Thursday, expressing concern that hindering advertiser access to consumers web browsing habits would slow innovation.

Their opposition bodes badly for the Federal Trade Commission as it promotes a plan to allow consumers to bar data and advertising companies from monitoring what websites they view and what content they download.

Representative Ed Whitfield, the ranking Republican on the House consumer protection subcommittee, expressed concern that the free services now financed by advertising would be hurt, and that consumers would lose access to ads they want to see.

Full Story: Republicans cool to do not track Web plan | Reuters.

US diplomats took marching orders from CIA on UN spying

US officials continue to insist that its diplomats to the United Nations are not intelligence assets and do not engage in any form of spying. Yet stolen diplomatic cables released by whistleblower website WikiLeaks show that America’s top spy agency drew up an “intelligence shopping list” for ambassadors and their staffs to collect, according to a published report.

“The intelligence gathering directives on the UN and other countries were sent from the intelligence operations office within the state department’s bureau of intelligence and research, which describes itself as ‘at the nexus of intelligence and foreign policy’,” The Guardian reported Thursday.

Leaked cables showed that diplomats were tasked to obtain “much of the biographical information collected worldwide” on foreign officials, which included credit card numbers, frequent flier accounts, IP addressed, Internet accounts and passwords, phone numbers, fax numbers, contact lists, social networks and even specific times calls were placed, along with other assorted contact information, the paper noted.

Full Story: US diplomats took marching orders from CIA on UN spying | Raw Story.

157 Republicans Vote Against Deficit-Reducing Bill That Gives Free, Healthy Meals To Hungry Kids

Well-versed in obstructing help to the hungry, House Republicans first blocked, then voted against the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act yesterday, a bill that “would give more needy children the opportunity to eat free lunches at school and make those lunches healthier.” The Senate passed this bill by unanimous consent in August — essentially a 100-0 vote in favor of providing school meals to the nation’s 17 million hungry kids.

But 157 House Republicans had a different message for hungry children: get in line. During the House’s first attempt to pass the bill yesterday, Republicans “used a procedural maneuver” to add an amendment requiring background checks for child care workers. Recognizing it as a poison pill, House Democrats delayed the final vote till today rather than allow an amendment to “kill the bill.” The main champion of this tactic Rep. John Kline (R-MN) decried the Hunger-Free Act as a Democratic ploy to increase government spending. On the House floor yesterday, Kline insisted the bill was massive “deficit spending,” dismissing the bill’s offsets as a “stalling tactic that obscures government expansion”:

Full Story: ThinkProgress » 157 Republicans Vote Against Deficit-Reducing Bill That Gives Free, Healthy Meals To Hungry Kids.

NASA reportedly discovers ‘completely alien’ life on Earth

This afternoon, NASA’s Astrobiology Institute revealed a fairly breathtaking finding: the discovery of what is essentially another form of life. Geobiologist Felisa Wolfe-Simon found bacteria in Mono Lake, California that can live without phosphorus, instead sometimes using arsenic. All life on earth is made of six components: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur, but these bacteria are instead made of arsenic, something previously thought impossible. It even has a DNA blueprint that can contain arsenic, instead of phosphorus, meaning they are essentially a different form of life than anything else that exists on earth.

This discovery not only changes our current definition of “life,” but also significantly expands the possibility that life exists elsewhere in the universe. NASA explains:

“The definition of life has just expanded,” said Ed Weiler, NASA’s associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s Headquarters in Washington. “As we pursue our efforts to seek signs of life in the solar system, we have to think more broadly, more diversely and consider life as we do not know it.”

Full Story: ThinkProgress » Flashback: NASA Agency That Discovered New Life Form Was Subject To Severe Budget Cuts Under Bush.

Unions Take Aim At Obama Deficit Panel

Organized labor, which traditionally has been a stalwart ally of President Obama’s, nevertheless is unloading on his deficit-reduction commission and the recommendations its leaders have put forward.

One union goes so far as to call into question the service of one of the commissioners on the panel.

The president established the commission earlier this year through executive order to provide Congress with a roadmap to stem the government’s rising tide of red ink. He named Democrat Erskine Bowles and Republican Alan Simpson to head the panel.

Full Story: On The Hill: Unions Take Aim At Obama Deficit Panel.

Fed wants to strip a key protection for homeowners

As Americans continue to lose their homes in record numbers, the Federal Reserve is considering making it much harder for homeowners to stop foreclosures and escape predatory home loans with onerous terms.

The Fed’s proposal to amend a 42-year-old provision of the federal Truth in Lending Act has angered labor, civil rights and consumer advocacy groups along with a slew of foreclosure defense attorneys.

They’re not only asking the Fed to withdraw the proposal, they also want any future changes to the law to be handled by the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which begins its work next year.

Full Story: Fed wants to strip a key protection for homeowners | McClatchy.

Why Are Republicans So Giddy about Tossing 2 Million Jobless Americans to the Wolves at Christmas?

Mike Barnicle’s debate with outgoing Arizona GOP-T Rep. John Shadegg on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” has gotten attention because of the outrageous new Grover Norquistian talking point about unemployment benefits that Shadegg trotted out:

SHADEGG: No, they’re not. Unemployed people hire people? Really? I didn’t know that.

BARNICLE: Unemployed people spend money, Congressman, because they have no money.

SHADEGG: Ah — ah — So your answer is it’s the spending of money that drives the economy. I don’t think that’s right. It’s the creation of jobs that drive the economy.

Full Story: Pensito Review » Why Are Republicans So Giddy about Tossing 2 Million Jobless Americans to the Wolves at Christmas?.

Howard Fineman: Obama’s Naivete on Bipartisanship Has Finally Caught Up to Him

There were some, including some in the media, who listened to President Obama’s account of this week’s meeting with Republicans and concluded that there was hope for a surprisingly bipartisan conclusion to the lame duck Congress.

My questions are: What planet do he and they think they are on? And have they paid any attention to Sen. Mitch McConnell?

The president emerged from the meeting yesterday to say, hopefully, that he had suggested that they work together not just on taxes and spending, but on the other issues pending, including an extension of unemployment insurance.

Full Story: Howard Fineman: Obama’s Naivete on Bipartisanship Has Finally Caught Up to Him.

Nigeria to charge Dick Cheney in $180 million bribery case, issue Interpol arrest warrant

The energy services company Dick Cheney ran prior to becoming Vice President of the United States was atop the tongue of liberals each time it was awarded a contract in Iraq.

Now the company’s name, Halliburton, is being spoken somewhere else: Nigeria.

According to a story filed late Wednesday, Cheney will be indicted in a Nigerian bribery case as part of an investigation into an alleged $180 million bribery scandal.

Full Story: Nigeria to charge Dick Cheney in $180 million bribery case, issue Interpol arrest warrant | Raw Story.

How the Oligarchs Took America

We already know that it’s party time for the financial elite who gave real meaning to the phrase “economic meltdown” in 2008, that bonuses are soaring, that corporate profits for the third quarter of 2010 are beyond the stratosphere, and that the corporate chieftains and Wall Street titans of our new gilded age have, as New York Times columnist Bob Herbert wrote recently, “waged economic warfare against everybody else and are winning big time.”

What we know far less about is the degree of the catastrophe they inflicted on the rest of us. Here’s just one story that should be front-paged in our major newspapers, but for which, at the moment, you have to turn to Dollars and Sense, a modest if intriguing economic publication. There, Jim Campen, professor emeritus of economics at the University of Massachusetts-Boston and an expert on racial discrimination in mortgage lending, has written a piece entitled, “Update on Mortgage Lending Discrimination: After a Disastrous Detour, We’re Back Where We Started.”

It may not sound like much, but what a horror story it tells. If you were black or Latino in the 1980s or early 1990s and wanted to buy a home, the odds were that the banks had “redlined” your neighborhood and were denying you mortgage applications at “disproportionately high rates” compared to whites in similar economic circumstances. In other words, you would have a tough time becoming a homeowner. Then came those high-cost subprime loans whose fine print ensured that you would never be able to pay them back. In a case of “reverse redlining,” they were aggressively targeted at black and Latino neighborhoods in numbers strikingly disproportionate to white neighborhoods. Not surprisingly, when the housing bubble burst, the financial world shuddered, the economy went south, and wave after wave of foreclosures began to sweep across the country, it was black and Latino homeowners suffered the most.

Full Story: Tomgram: Andy Kroll, How the Oligarchs Took America | TomDispatch.

Republicans Use Senate Backlog They Created To Extort Tax Cuts For The Super-Rich

Earlier this week, every single Senate Republican released a letter indicating that they would block all Senate business until the wealthiest Americans receive additional tax cuts:

[W]e write to inform you that we will not agree to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to any legislative item until the Senate has acted to fund the government and we have prevented the tax increase that is currently awaiting all American taxpayers. With little time left in this Congressional session, legislative scheduling should be focused on these critical priorities. While there are other items that might ultimately be worthy of the Senate’s attention, we cannot agree to prioritize any matters above the critical issues of funding the government and preventing a job-killing tax hike.

Almost immediately, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) responded to the GOP’s obstruction on the Senate floor. “With this letter, they have simply put in writing the political strategy that the Republicans pursued this entire Congress: Namely, obstruct, delay action on critical matters, and then blame the Democrats for not addressing the needs of American people,” he said. And Reid is right. The sole reason why the Senate does not have enough time to complete the many pressing matters it still faces is because Republicans spent the last two years slowing Senate business to a near standstill.

Full Story: ThinkProgress » Republicans Use Senate Backlog They Created To Extort Tax Cuts For The Super-Rich.

Warren Buffett Speaks Vital Patriotic Truth Again

The main political talk today is about extending the Bush tax cuts, with Republicans demanding that the wealthiest among us be included at a cost of $700 billion added to the national debt over the next ten years. Give the last word to Mr. Buffett, one of our wisest investors and business leaders. Presented this week with the GOP argument about the rich fueling the economy, he said:

“No !The rich are always going to say that, ‘Just give us more money, and we’ll go out and spend more, and then it will all trickle down to the rest of you.’ But that hasn’t worked in the last 10 years and I hope the American public isn’t buying it now!”

That’s a strong, patriotic stand at a time when Washington needs to hear it!

It’s also very timely to remember a bold warning by Mr. Buffett several years ago just as our worst economic recession in decades was looming:

Full Story: Warren Buffett Speaks Vital Patriotic Truth Again | Economy In Crisis.

Creating Jobs, Trimming Deficits: Progressive Budget Plans Challenge Dems

On their deadline—Wednesday, Dec. 1—the co-chairs of President Obama’s Fiscal Commission promise to present a plan to reduce annual federal budget deficits and accumulated debt, even though they are delaying a vote of the 18-member, bipartisan, fiscally conservative body until Friday.

But the nation would be better served if Erskine Bowles, former chief of staff to Bill Clinton, and former Wyoming Republican Sen. Alan Simpson shredded their proposal. Then they should submit instead either one of the two proposals from progressive groups that were unveiled on Monday and Tuesday (or the earlier, less fleshed-out proposal from Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a Commission member).

The progressive proposals—from Schakowsky; from a “Citizens’ Commission on Jobs, Deficits and America’s Economic Future” (convened by the Institute for America’s Future); and “Investing in America’s Economy” from Our Fiscal Security (a partnership of three leading think tanks—the Economic Policy Institute, Demos, and the Century Foundation)—all forge a similar path, and all head in a direction different from Bowles and Simpson.

Full Story: Creating Jobs, Trimming Deficits: Progressive Budget Plans Challenge Dems – Working In These Times.

Nigeria to Charge Dick Cheney in Pipeline Bribery Case

Nigeria will file charges against former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and officials from five foreign companies including Halliburton Co. over a $180 million bribery scandal, a prosecutor at the anti-graft agency said.

Indictments will be lodged in a Nigerian court “in the next three days,” Godwin Obla, prosecuting counsel at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, said in an interview today at his office in Abuja, the capital. An arrest warrant for Cheney “will be issued and transmitted through Interpol,” the world’s biggest international police organization, he said.

Peter Long, Cheney’s spokesman, said he couldn’t immediately comment when contacted today and said he would respond later to an e-mailed request for comment.

Full Story: Nigeria to Charge Dick Cheney in Pipeline Bribery Case – BusinessWeek.

There Is A WAR Being Waged Against The Working Families Of America!

Sen Bernie Sanders:

Deficit Commission Slashes Taxes For Wealthy, Corporations, While Raising Retirement Age And Cutting Spending

The president’s deficit-commission report, scheduled for a vote by the full panel on Friday, proposes to slash tax rates for corporations and for high earners.

The top tax rate is currently 35 percent and is scheduled to rise to 39.6 percent in 2011. The commission would cut that rate to between 23 and 28 percent, while shaving between seven and nine points off the corporate rate.

The commission does propose taxing capital gains and dividends as ordinary income, a move that would result in a higher liability for the wealthy. It also eliminates some corporate tax breaks. But those losses for top earners would be more than offset by their tax cuts.

Full Story: Deficit Commission Slashes Taxes For Wealthy, Corporations, While Raising Retirement Age And Cutting Spending.

NASA : Have They Made Breakthrough In Search For Extraterrestrial Life?

Has NASA made a breakthrough in the search extraterrestrial life? That’s what some are speculating after NASA sent out a curious press release announcing a news conference on Thursday, Dec. 2, to discuss an “astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life.”

Kottke has a rundown on the scientists involved in the conference, and PCWorld thinks that, based on the participating scientists, “this astrobiological discovery will have something to do with water, evolutionary biology, and aquatic bacteria.”

The full release from NASA is below. Watch the press conference live tomorrow here.

NASA Sets News Conference on Astrobiology Discovery; Science Journal Has Embargoed Details Until 2 p.m. EST On Dec. 2 WASHINGTON — NASA will hold a news conference at 2 p.m. EST on Thursday, Dec. 2, to discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life. Astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life in the universe.

The news conference will be held at the NASA Headquarters auditorium at 300 E St. SW, in Washington. It will be broadcast live on NASA Television and streamed on the agency’s website at http://www.nasa.gov.

Participants are:

Full Story: NASA Astrobiology Press Conference: Have They Made Breakthrough In Search For Extraterrestrial Life?.

House Republicans Scrap ‘Unnecessary’ Global Warming Committee

The new soon-to-be Republican Congress is so unconcerned with global warming that their leader, Speaker-in-waiting John Boehner, has announced that they’re throwing an entire House committee dedicated to the topic out the window.

The Select Committee on Global Warming, created by Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2007, was created as a forum to debate the latest developments on climate change issues and research, but Republican leaders claimed that it was an unnecessary congregation.

“We have pledged to save taxpayers’ money by reducing waste and duplication in Congress,” Michael Steel, a spokesman for Mr. Boehner, said in a statement. “The Select Committee on Global Warming was created by Democrats simply to provide political cover to pass their job-killing national energy tax. It is unnecessary, and taxpayers will not have to fund it in the 112th Congress.”

At a hearing Wednesday, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), the ranking GOP member on the committee who had argued against its disbanding, announced that it would be their final meeting.

Full Story: House Republicans Scrap ‘Unnecessary’ Global Warming Committee.

Unemployment Extension: What A Cutoff Letter Looks Like

Ken Watson of Batavia, Ohio said he learned via email Wednesday that he’d be cut off from his unemployment benefits this weekend.

“I thought I was good into January,” Watson told HuffPost. “I was so shocked today.”

Watson, 46, is one of 800,000 people facing an abrupt cutoff from the Extended Benefits program in the next week. Congress has failed to reauthorize two programs — Extended Benefits and Emergency Unemployment Compensation, which together provide up to 73 weeks of benefits on top of the six months handled by states. An additional 1.2 million people will be dropped from EUC by the end of December.

Full Story: Unemployment Extension: What A Cutoff Letter Looks Like.

Anderson Cooper Demolishes Birther Claims In Interview With Texas Rep. Leo Berman (VIDEO)

Anderson Cooper demolished the claims behind the “birther” movement in an interview with Texas State Representative Leo Berman on his Monday show.

Berman is sponsoring a bill to require that all presidential candidates produce a valid birth certificate to get on the presidential ballot in Texas — a clear reference to the claim that Barack Obama is not a natural-born citizen of the United States, and has falsified his birth records.

The two sparred for over 12 minutes, and Cooper methodically refuted each claim Berman made, from the validity of the birth certificate that the Hawaiian government released to the dates in which Obama traveled to Pakistan.

“I mean, you’re basing legislation on stuff that’s basically just rumors and — and stuff that’s been proven to be false,” Cooper told Berman,

WATCH:

Full Story: Anderson Cooper Demolishes Birther Claims In Interview With Texas Rep. Leo Berman (VIDEO).

Obama Administration: No Offshore Drilling In Eastern Gulf Of Mexico Or East Coast For Seven Years Because Of BP Oil Spill

Pointing to the BP blowout and risks of a new environmental disaster, the Obama administration reversed itself Wednesday and promised not to pursue offshore drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico or anywhere else along the nation’s East Coast.

The decision was hailed in Florida, which depends on tourists drawn by the state’s white beaches, but criticized by the oil industry, which said the administration was stifling crucial U.S. energy production and costing recession-battered jobseekers golden opportunities for new work.

The administration had backed a major expansion of offshore drilling earlier this year, in part to gain support for comprehensive climate legislation in Congress, one of President Barack Obama’s top legislative goals.

Full Story: Obama Administration: No Offshore Drilling In Eastern Gulf Of Mexico Or East Coast For Seven Years Because Of BP Oil Spill.