Archive for January, 2011

Flashback: Conservatives mocked DHS report warning of ‘antigovernment’ violence | Raw Story

Arizona shooter left trail of anti-government screeds on Internet

Conservatives derided and dismissed an April 2009 report by the Department of Homeland Security warning law enforcement officials of a spike in homegrown “rightwing extremism” fueled in part by “antigovernment” sentiments, which in retrospect appears to have been a chilling omen for the tragic Arizona shooting Saturday.

The report (PDF), which was coordinated with the FBI and titled, “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment,” warned of a rise in violence spurred by the economic downturn and the election of the nation’s first African-American president.

Full Story Here: Flashback: Conservatives mocked DHS report warning of ‘antigovernment’ violence | Raw Story.

Fox News abruptly cuts away from Tucson vigil after mourner mentions Sarah Palin

The Fox News Channel abruptly cut to commercial after a mourner attending a Tuscon, Arizona vigil for those killed in Saturday’s shootings mentioned Fox employee Sarah Palin as one of the culprits behind a rising tide of violent rhetoric in US politics and media.

As they awaited the beginning of a Pima County Sheriff’s Department press conference, Fox News host Shep Smith cued a live video from the vigil for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), who sustained a bullet wound to the head and was among a total of 19 shot in a sudden attack outside a grocery store.

At the vigil, which was carried live by some — including CNN’s website — a man stepped up to the microphone holding a candle and implored those in power to ask themselves why they actually want to be in such a position.

Full Story Here: Fox News abruptly cuts away from Tucson vigil after mourner mentions Sarah Palin | Raw Story.

Giffords warned in March of ‘consequences’ to Palin’s violent rhetoric

Fox News employee Sarah Palin’s violent rhetoric caused concern back in March 2010, when she released a map of the United States with gun crosshairs over 20 congressional districts, including Arizona’s eighth.

The representative for that district, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), now lays in a hospital after a gunman put a bullet in her head, shooting 18 others before his violent eruption ended.

And in an unsettlingly accurate premonition back when Palin “targeted” Democrats encouraged supporters to “reload” and “take aim” at them, Giffords predicted that there would be “consequences” for the escalation of violent rhetoric in the media.

Full Story Here: Giffords warned in March of ‘consequences’ to Palin’s violent rhetoric | Raw Story.

Alexander Refuses To Condemn Palin’s Cross-Hairs Map, Urges Media Not To Talk About It

Yesterday, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) was shot at a campaign event in Tuscon by a deranged gunman who also fired at twenty other people, killing six, including a federal judge and a nine year-old girl. Police have a suspect in custody — 22 year-old Jared Lee Loughner — who in one of his internet posting “suggested that the government was trying to trick him, or take advantage of him.”

Last year, Sarah Palin’s political action committee posted a map with gun cross-hairs over the districts of several Democrats who voted for health care reform, including that of Giffords. Last year, Giffords herself warned that such a depiction may have consequences. “For example, we’re on Sarah Palin’s targeted list, but the thing is, the way she has it depicted, we’re in the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district,” Giffords said. “When people do that, they’ve got to realize that there are consequences to that action.” The image appears to have been taken down yesterday.

Today, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) was asked by CNN’s Candy Crowley about Palin’s ad, and responded that it was actually those referencing the ad that are being “irresponsible”:

Watch it:

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » Alexander Refuses To Condemn Palin’s Cross-Hairs Map, Urges Media Not To Talk About It.

BP cleanup a ‘cover-up,’ La. says, pointing to oil

Federal and Louisiana officials got into a heated argument Friday over the cleanup of oiled marshes during a tour of an area that remains fouled 8½ months after the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico.

State and Plaquemines Parish officials took reporters on a boat tour of Barataria Bay, pointing out an area where oil continues to eat away at marshes and protective boom is either absent or has been gobbled up by the oil. The heavily saturated area that reporters saw was 30 feet to 100 feet wide in sections. No cleanup workers were there when reporters toured the area.

Full Story Here: BP cleanup a ‘cover-up,’ La. says, pointing to oil – U.S. news – Environment – msnbc.com.

Religion and Representation

Years ago, my oldest son told me that he thought those in our small Baptist church had all been brainwashed. How else could they believe in the unbelievable? At the time, I was shocked.

He later softened that position. Although he said that he couldn’t accept all things biblical, he explained, quite eloquently I thought, that he “wouldn’t want to live in a world where a God didn’t exist.” I was impressed.

Then, a few months ago, he told me that he was a deist. I was confused. This time I had to turn to the all-knowing and omnipresent — Google.

Through it all, I’ve been very sympathetic about my son’s spiritual quest, in part because my own religious beliefs are evolving. I have gone from the most devout born-again Christian to a more nebulous, nondoctrinal set of beliefs that do not necessarily align with organized religion. When people ask about my faith, I often reply, “unresolved.”

Full Story Here: Religion and Representation – NYTimes.com.

Will Our Economy Ever Recover From the “Greatest Recovery”?

In a January 2009 ABC interview with George Stephanopoulos, then President-elect Barack Obama said fixing the economy required shared sacrifice: “Everybody’s going to have to give. Everybody’s going to have to have some skin in the game.” [1]

For the past two years, American workers submitted to the president’s appeal – taking steep paycuts despite hectic productivity growth. By contrast, corporate executives have extracted record profits by sabotaging the recovery on every front – eliminating employees, repressing wages, withholding investment and shirking federal taxes.

The global recession increased unemployment in every country, but the American experience is unparalleled. According to a July Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report, the US accounted for half of all job losses among the 31 richest countries from 2007 to mid-2010.[2] The rise of US unemployment greatly exceeded the fall in economic output. Aside from Canada, US Gross Domestic Product (GDP) actually declined less than any other rich country from mid-2008 to mid-2010.[3]

Full Story Here: Will Our Economy Ever Recover From the “Greatest Recovery”?.

OPS: The answer to the title question is: No.

Now, start acting accordingly.

Rep. Giffords Tributes Pour In From Varied Friends, Supporters

A remarkable breadth of friends and well-wishers is reacting to Saturday’s attack on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, in which the Democrat was shot at close range at an event in her Tucson, Ariz., district.

The shooting prompted an outpouring not only from Democrats including the likes of President Obama and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, but also from others, as well, particularly those in the science and technology communities.

A gunman, reportedly identified as Jared Loughner, fired on Giffords and more than a dozen others during a planned outdoor event. Giffords survived surgery, but others died in the attack, including at least one child, and federal Judge John Roll.

Full Story Here: On The Hill: Rep. Giffords Tributes Pour In From Varied Friends, Supporters.

Rep. Giffords on so-called hit list of Dems ‘targeted’ by Sarah Palin

Telling voters to ‘reload’ and ‘aim for’ Democrats was perfectly fine, Sen. McCain argued in March

Rep. Giffords on so called hit list of Dems targeted by Sarah PalinRep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), who was shot Saturday during a public event in Tucson, was among 20 other members of Congress who were on a so-called hit list published by former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

Palin, who has never publicly advocated violence against fellow US politicians, has often employed rhetorical attacks that leverage imagery and terminology familiar to gun owners and evocative of firearms. She said in March that her supporters should “reload” and “aim for” Democrats, ostensibly with their votes.

Full Story Here: Rep. Giffords on so-called hit list of Dems ‘targeted’ by Sarah Palin | Raw Story.

The Economist’s “Happy” Ignorance

The Economist is undoubtedly the smartest weekly newsmagazine in the English language. I always look forward to its quirky year-end double issue. With articles ranging from the evolution of the suit to the dangers of medieval warfare, I was not disappointed with this year’s. The cover story, however, was perhaps the most interesting. It investigated recent research into happiness and discovered, encouragingly, that after one reaches the age of roughly 46, people tend to get happier as they get older.

“The notion that money can’t buy happiness is popular, especially among Europeans who believe that growth-oriented free-market economies have got it wrong,” the authors explain. But according to the magazine’s reading of the data, “four main factors” determine happiness: “gender, personality, external circumstances and age.”

Some of the research, however, proves puzzling. “Hong Kong and Denmark, for instance, have similar income per person, at purchasing-power parity; but Hong Kong’s average life satisfaction is 5.5 on a 10-point scale, and Denmark’s is 8. … the ex-Soviet Union [is] spectacularly miserable, and the saddest place in the world, relative to its income per person, is Bulgaria.”

Full Story Here: On The Hill: Think Again: The Economist’s “Happy” Ignorance.

How the Republican Assault on Health Care Could Backfire On Them

Robert Reich:

When it comes to health care, Republicans should be careful what they wish for.

Their upcoming vote to repeal the health-care law will be largely symbolic — they don’t have the votes to override President Obama’s certain veto. The real thing happens later, when they try to strip the Department of Health and Human Services of money needed to implement the law’s requirement that all Americans buy health insurance. This could easily precipitate a showdown with the White House—and a government shutdown later this year.

On its face it’s a smart strategy for the GOP. The individual mandate is the lynchpin of the heath-care law because it spreads the risks. Without the participation of younger or healthier people, private insurers won’t be able to take on older or sicker customers with pre-existing medical conditions, or maintain coverage indefinitely for people who become seriously ill. The result would be to unravel the health-care law, which presumably is what many Republicans seek.

Full Story Here: Robert Reich (How the Republican Assault on Health Care Could Backfire On Them).

The Shameful Attack on Public Employees

Robert Reich:

In 1968, 1,300 sanitation workers in Memphis went on strike. The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. came to support them. That was where he lost his life. Eventually Memphis heard the grievances of its sanitation workers. And in subsequent years millions of public employees across the nation have benefited from the job protections they’ve earned.

But now the right is going after public employees.

Public servants are convenient scapegoats. Republicans would rather deflect attention from corporate executive pay that continues to rise as corporate profits soar, even as corporations refuse to hire more workers. They don’t want stories about Wall Street bonuses, now higher than before taxpayers bailed out the Street. And they’d like to avoid a spotlight on the billions raked in by hedge-fund and private-equity managers whose income is treated as capital gains and subject to only a 15 percent tax, due to a loophole in the tax laws designed specifically for them.

Full Story Here: Robert Reich (The Shameful Attack on Public Employees).

1st GOP Vote Cuts Jobs, Union Chief Says

Although Republicans campaigned on putting Americans back to work, the first vote the new GOP-led House took will actually cut jobs, according to one labor leader.

Contained within the package of House rules Republicans adopted Wednesday right after voting in Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) as speaker was a provision that will “henceforth allow highway and transit funds that have already been raised to sit idle in a bank account, reducing investment in highways and transit, and subsequently destroying jobs,” says Mark Ayres, head of the the Building and Construction Trades Department, an alliance of 13 national and international unions that represent 2 million professionals in the United States and Canada.

“The 112th Congress convened this week and the first order of business by the Republican majority in the House of Representatives was, incredibly, to cut jobs and funding to highway and transit programs,” Ayres says. “Specifically, House Republicans changed a number of longstanding rules, including one that historically ensured that money raised solely for highway and transit projects through the federal gas tax be spent on those projects.”

Full Story Here: On The Hill: 1st GOP Vote Cuts Jobs, Union Chief Says.

Why Racism and White Supremacy Will Continue to Reign in 2011 | Civil Liberties | AlterNet

The U.S. is not a post-racial society, as the events of the past year attest — from a governor glorifying segregation to a Fox pundit calling for Michael Vick’s execution.

A new year has just begun, but there is nothing new about white supremacy and the ways in which it does terrible damage to the lives of black Americans. White “journalists” on national television advocate executing black people who have committed a crime, any crime at all. Women unjustly imprisoned for 16 years are freed on the condition that one give up a kidney, an obvious violation of the law. Black farmers caught in a cycle of discriminatory practices never attain true justice, no matter how often the courts or Congress say they have.

Time after time we see that even when black people appear to be victorious, they usually are not. National football league quarterback Michael Vick lost his job, his assets and his freedom after a felony conviction for animal cruelty, but he has still not suffered enough for the likes of many white Americans. His success in bringing the Philadelphia Eagles to the NFL playoffs has only engendered more hatred from the racists among us. That hatred went into overdrive when it was reported that President Obama expressed support for the Eagles organization in giving Vick an opportunity to return to his chosen career.

Full Story Here: Why Racism and White Supremacy Will Continue to Reign in 2011 | Civil Liberties | AlterNet.

Rudy Giuliani and John Bolton Are Terrorists Now

Did Rudy Giuliani, Tom Ridge, John Bolton, and a bunch of other neocons really attend a rally in support of a communist Saddam Hussein-loving terrorist organization last month? Yes! Is that really a crime? Yes!

In today’s New York Times, attorney David Cole points out that the Patriot Act makes it a (thought) crime to help, want to help, or in any way nod approvingly toward a group that has been designated a terrorist entity by the State Department. For instance: The U.S. has decided that the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which conducts attacks against our NATO ally Turkey, is a terrorist group. So anyone who, say, wants to train PKK members on how to petition the U.N. for redress of grievances against Turkey, is guilty of the crime of providing material support to a terrorist organization. Cole represented a group called the Humanitarian Law Project in a case before the Supreme Court last year arguing that the material support law is unconstitutional, and he lost. So it’s settled.

Which makes it very odd that Giuliani, Bolton, Ridge, Bush-era Attorney General Michael Mukasey, and Bush Homland Security adviser Frances Frago Townsend attended a rally last month in Paris to support the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), a terror group dedicated to overthrowing the Iranian regime. It’s odd because 1) The MEK are communists (that’s an MEK terrorist pictured along with the group’s logo, which features a sickle), 2) they helped Saddam Hussein carry out atrocities against Iraq’s Shiite population in the 1990s, and 3) they killed Americans in the 1980s and helped carry out the takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran. But it’s also odd because the MEK is currently on that State Department list of terror groups, so happy thoughts about them are illegal.

Full Story Here: Rudy Giuliani and John Bolton Are Terrorists Now.

The Crying Shame of John Boehner

He’s a lazy, double-talking shill for corporate interests. So how’s he going to fare with the Tea Party?

Matt Taibbi:
John Boehner is the ultimate Beltway hack, a man whose unmatched and self-serving skill at political survival has made him, after two decades in Washington, the hairy blue mold on the American congressional sandwich. The biographer who somewhere down the line tackles the question of Boehner’s legacy will do well to simply throw out any references to party affiliation, because the thing that has made Boehner who he is — the thing that has finally lifted him to the apex of legislative power in America — has almost nothing to do with his being a Republican.

The Truth About the Tea Party

The Democrats have plenty of creatures like Boehner. But in the new Speaker of the House, the Republicans own the perfect archetype — the quintessential example of the kind of glad-handing, double-talking, K Street toady who has dominated the politics of both parties for decades. In sports, we talk about athletes who are the “total package,” and that term comes close to describing Boehner’s talent for perpetuating our corrupt and debt-addled status quo: He’s a five-tool insider who can lie, cheat, steal, play golf, change his mind on command and do anything else his lobbyist buddies and campaign contributors require of him to get the job done.

Full Story Here: The Crying Shame of John Boehner.

Hoyer pushes to restore voting rights to delegates

Minority Whip Steny Hoyer introduced legislation Thursday to reinstate the limited voting rights of House delegates, who had those powers stripped by Republicans a day earlier.

The Maryland Democrat said the “unacceptable” change will leave millions of U.S. citizens without a voice in Congress.

“It is absolutely unacceptable to deny nearly 5 million Americans a voice in Congress,” Hoyer said in a statement. “Republicans continually declare they are focused on listening to the American people. With this rules change, they are ignoring the voices of 5 million American citizens.”

Full Story Here: Hoyer pushes to restore voting rights to delegates – The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room.

A Rocky Start

Sure, the handing over of power went smoothly and civilly. But Republicans are off to a tough first week and Dems are not letting them forget it – or so say the dozens of press releases in my inbox. Governing is always harder than being in the minority and there’s bound to be some period of transition – though it’s only been four years, Republican memories can’t be that short. Four reasons why the GOP’s first week in power hasn’t exactly been one of shock and awe:

New Minority Rights, Except on the First Bill

Republicans are getting hammered for breaking their own new rules with their bill to repeal health care reform: they’re bringing up a bill without any committee action, that increases the deficit and they’re not allowing any minority amendments.

Full Story Here: A Rocky Start – Swampland – TIME.com.

The Conservative Constitution of the United States

House members opened the 112th Congress on Thursday by reading aloud the Constitution, presumably as a first step toward fulfilling the tea party’s goal of “restoring” our nation’s founding document. However, an alternative text, obtained by this author, David Cole, via WikiLeaks, has reportedly begun circulating in secret among incoming GOP lawmakers, representing the Constitution they hope to read aloud when the 113th Congress begins. Here, revealed in public for the first time, is the Conservative Constitution of the United States of Real America:

We, the Real Americans, in order to form a more God-Fearing Union, establish Justice as we see it, Defeat Health-Care Reform, and Preserve and Protect our Property, our Guns and our Right Not to Pay Taxes, do ordain and establish this Conservative Constitution for the United States of Real America.

Article I. Congress shall have only the powers literally, specifically and expressly granted herein, and no others. That means definitely, without question, absolutely, no regulation of the Health Insurance or Financial Services industries.

The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected not directly by the People, but by other people whom the People have elected to better represent the People.

Full Story Here: The Conservative Constitution of the United States.

Top Five Ways to Protect Rainforests in 2011

Many of us live thousands of miles away from Brazil, Indonesia and the Congo Basin, where the last stands of tropical rainforests still exist. It’s easy to forget that each breath we take is connecting us to those remote ecosystems, and that we should care as much about their survival as our own.

Some of this you probably already know: Rainforests provide homes and habitats for more than 50 percent of the species on Earth as well as for millions of Indigenous communities. What’s more, rainforests also serve as one of our key defenses against global warming by storing massive amounts of carbon. Over 40 percent of the world’s oxygen is produced from the rainforests. It may sound clichéd, but the adage is true: Rainforests are the lungs of the planet. The root meaning of the word conspire is “to breathe together,” so it’s no exaggeration to say that we’re all in a vast conspiracy with the world’s rainforests.

Or, we should be.

Full Story Here: Rebecca Tarbotton: Top Five Ways to Protect Rainforests in 2011.

Egypt Muslims to act as “human shields” at Coptic Christmas Eve mass – Ahram Online

Coptic Churches around the country expect an influx of Egyptian Muslims to share with the country’s Christians their Christmas Eve mass

“Although 2011 started tragically, I feel it will be a year of eagerly anticipated change, where Egyptians will stand against sectarianism and unite as one,” Father Rafaeil Sarwat of the Mar-Mina church told Ahram Online. The Coptic priest was commenting on the now widespread call by Muslim intellectuals and activists upon Egyptian Muslims at large to flock to Coptic churches across the country to attend Coptic Christmas Eve mass, to show solidarity with the nation’s Coptic minority, but also to serve as “human shields” against possible attacks by Islamist militants.

Mohamed Abdel Moniem El-Sawy, founder of El-Sawy Culture Wheel was among the promiment Muslim cultural figures who first floated the bold initiative.

“This is it. It is time to change and unite,” asserted journalist Ekram Youssef, another notable sponsor of the intiative, in a telephone interview with Ahram Online. She added that although it is the government’s responsibility to act and find solutions to bring an end to such violations, “it is time for Egyptian citizens to act to revive the true meaning of national unity.”

Full Story Here: Egypt Muslims to act as “human shields” at Coptic Christmas Eve mass – Ahram Online.

Rep. Steve King Says Affordable Care Act Is Unconstitutional Because Of Babies In Trash Cans

Testifying that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional before an emergency Rules Committee meeting on the GOP’s repeal bill this morning, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) offered a very specific argument. “There’ve always been,” King said, “babies that were born, lived, and died within the jurisdictions of the individual states, who never cross a state line, access no health care, and therefore do not impact interstate commerce.”

When Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO) challenged King to “find the baby that was not born at a hospital or with a midwife, who did not receive inoculations,” King upped the ante. “I hate to tell you, but they show up in garbage cans around this country, sir.” Watch:

Full Story Here: Rep. Steve King Says Affordable Care Act Is Unconstitutional Because Of Babies In Trash Cans | Political Correction.

Army’s “Spiritual Fitness” Test Comes Under Fire

Test Was Designed by Psychologist Who Inspired CIA’s Torture Program

An experimental, Army mental-health, fitness initiative designed by the same psychologist whose work heavily influenced the psychological aspects of the Bush administration’s torture program is under fire by civil rights groups and hundreds of active-duty soldiers. They say it unconstitutionally requires enlistees to believe in God or a “higher power” in order to be deemed “spiritually fit” to serve in the Army.

Comprehensive Soldier Fitness (CSF) is a $125 million “holistic fitness program” unveiled in late 2009 and aimed at reducing the number of suicides and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) cases, which have reached epidemic proportions over the past year due to multiple deployments to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the substandard care soldiers have received when they return from combat. The Army states that it can accomplish its goal by teaching its service members how to be psychologically resilient and resist “catastrophizing” traumatic events. Defense Department documents obtained by Truthout state CSF is Army Chief of Staff George Casey’s “third highest priority.”

Full Story Here: Army’s “Spiritual Fitness” Test Comes Under Fire.

World food prices enter ‘danger territory’ to reach record high

UN food price index rises for sixth month in a row to highest since records began in 1990

Soaring prices of sugar, grain and oilseed drove world food prices to a record in December, surpassing the levels of 2008 when the cost of food sparked riots around the world, and prompting warnings of prices being in “danger territory”.

An index compiled monthly by the United Nations surpassed its previous monthly high – June 2008 – in December to reach the highest level since records began in 1990. Published by the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the index tracks the prices of a basket of cereals, oilseeds, dairy, meat and sugar, and has risen for six consecutive months.

Abdolreza Abbassian, FAO economist, told the Guardian: “We are entering a danger territory.” But he stressed that the situation was not yet as bad as 2008.

Full Story Here: World food prices enter ‘danger territory’ to reach record high | Business | guardian.co.uk.

Isn’t it a form of Terrorism to Repeal Healthcare?

Thom confronts Seton Motley www.LessGovernment.org – Are the Republicans engaged in a form of terrorism by attempting to repeal healthcare reform while 50 million are uninsured?

Did the Haley Barbour’s White Citizen Council pay for the murder of MLK?

Haley Barbour, the White Citizen’s Council and the murder of MLK with JFK Historian Lamar Waldron & co-author of Ultimate Sacrifice.

Liberals Wrote The U.S. Constitution!

Olbermann

Alan Grayson “There’s NOBODY Giving Obama Economic Or Military Advice You Can Call A Progressive”

Religious Makeup of the New Congress Looks LIke The Old

Many analysts described the November 2010 midterm elections as a sea change, with Republicans taking control of the U.S. House of Representatives and narrowing the Democratic majority in the Senate. But this political overhaul appears to have had little effect on the religious composition of Congress, which is similar to the religious makeup of the previous Congress and of the nation, according to an analysis by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life.

The 112th Congress, like the U.S. public, is majority Protestant and about a quarter Catholic. Baptists and Methodists are the largest Protestant denominations in the new Congress, just as they are in the country as a whole.

A few of the country’s religious groups, including Episcopalians, Presbyterians and Jews, have greater numerical representation in Congress than in the general population. Some others, such as Buddhists and Muslims, are represented in Congress in roughly equal proportion to their numbers in the adult U.S. population. And some small religious groups, such as Hindus and Jehovah’s Witnesses, are not represented at all in Congress.

Full Story Here: Faith On The Hill: Religious Makeup of the New Congress Looks LIke The Old.

Reporters Not Welcomed At Corporate-Sponsored Rick Scott Inaugural

Tuesday’s inauguration of Florida Gov. Rick Scott was a gift that kept on giving. Notable for its lack of austerity at a time where other newly-minted lawmakers are avoiding showy displays of pomp in deference to their constituents’ overall lack of economic health, the Scott inaugural “rivaled that of a presidential event, with the press having to cope with limited access,” according to Steve Bousquet, reporting for the Miami Herald:

Florida’s new governor was the star of the most security-conscious inauguration in recent memory, with elaborate Washington-style flourishes that amplified Scott’s unfamiliarity with the small informal capital city he now calls home.

For two days, Scott was trailed by a cadre of dark-suited men who resembled law enforcement agents, but were not. They wore red lapel buttons and silver ear pieces, checking visitors in search of proper credentials at a dozen events.

The festivities were funded by an array of business interests, perhaps as a way of saying, “Hey, thanks in advance for favoring our interests above the people of Florida.” As George Zornick from ThinkProgress noted:

Full Story Here: Reporters Not Welcomed At Corporate-Sponsored Rick Scott Inaugural.

The Shameful Attack on Public Employees

Robert Reich: :

In 1968, 1,300 sanitation workers in Memphis went on strike. The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. came to support them. That was where he lost his life. Eventually Memphis heard the grievances of its sanitation workers. And in subsequent years millions of public employees across the nation have benefited from the job protections they’ve earned.

But now the right is going after public employees.

Public servants are convenient scapegoats. Republicans would rather deflect attention from corporate executive pay that continues to rise as corporate profits soar, even as corporations refuse to hire more workers. They don’t want stories about Wall Street bonuses, now higher than before taxpayers bailed out the Street. And they’d like to avoid a spotlight on the billions raked in by hedge-fund and private-equity managers whose income is treated as capital gains and subject to only a 15 percent tax, due to a loophole in the tax laws designed specifically for them.

Full Story Here: Robert Reich: The Shameful Attack on Public Employees.

Schumer: Republicans should give up their government health care

One day after House Republicans scheduled a vote to repeal health reform, a leading Democrat challenged GOP lawmakers to stand on principle and refuse the government health care provided to them.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) argued Tuesday that Republicans seeking to prevent uninsured Americans from receiving government-subsidized health care shouldn’t accept federal benefits for themselves or their families.

“It seems unfair that house Republicans want to deprive middle-class Americans of the same health care as members of Congress but to keep it for themselves,” Schumer (D-NY) told Politico’s Ben Smith.

Full Story Here: Schumer: Republicans should give up their government health care | Raw Story.

Estimate: GOP’s symbolic reading of Constitution to cost taxpayers $1.1 million

It will cost taxpayers over $1 million dollars for Republicans to recite the entire United States Constitution on the House floor Thursday.

In a year when Republicans have promised to reduce wasteful spending, it is estimated that reciting the Constitution will cost $1,071,872.87 if it takes three hours to read the document.

“When one chamber of Congress is in session but not working, we the people still have to pay for members’ salaries and expenses, and for their police protection, and for keeping their lights and phones and coffee machines on,” Peter Keating explained to Vanity Fair.

Full Story Here: Estimate: GOP’s symbolic reading of Constitution to cost taxpayers $1.1 million | Raw Story.

OPS: The cost of insanity and pomposity

Playing With Economic Dynamite

by: Jim Hightower,

By gollies, America is still an exporting powerhouse. In fact, the good ol’ U.S.A. is No. 1 in the world in exports! Our corporate leaders, backed by Republicans and Democrats alike in Washington, are now routinely exporting America’s most precious goods — our jobs, factories, technologies and middle-class opportunities.

With unemployment and underemployment devastating millions of families in our country, perhaps you’ve assumed that U.S. corporations simply aren’t hiring these days. Nonsense. They added 1.4 million jobs last year alone — overseas.

For example, more than half of Caterpillar’s new hires in 2010 were in foreign countries. Many more of this giant’s jobs are headed offshore in the near future, for Caterpillar, which was once an iconic American brand, has recently invested in three new plants in China. It’ll not only manufacture tractors and bulldozers there, but it’ll also begin to ship its design work and technology development jobs to China.

Full Story Here: Jim Hightower | Playing With Economic Dynamite.

Mass bird and fish deaths becoming worldwide phenomenon

Update: 40,000 crabs have been found dead on England beaches.

The Star reported Wednesday that more than 40,000 dead Velvet swimming crabs have appeared on the Thanet shoreline in England. Dead starfish, lobsters, sponges and anemones were also found.

Tony Child, Thanet Coast Project manager, told the Star that the same thing happened two and five years ago. He suspects that the cold temperatures are to blame.

Original report continues below.

Full Story Here: Mass bird and fish deaths becoming worldwide phenomenon | Raw Story.

Pa. allows dumping of tainted waters from gas boom

Companies insist there’s little risk, but now recycle

The natural gas boom gripping parts of the United States has a nasty byproduct: wastewater so salty, and so polluted with metals like barium and strontium, that most states require drillers to get rid of the stuff by injecting it down shafts thousands of feet deep.

Full Story Here: Pa. allows dumping of tainted waters from gas boom.

The German magazine Spiegel says Wall Street banksters committed a monumental insider bank robbery

This mainstream German magazine Der Spiegel in their December 30th issue, tell us that Wall Street banksters committed nothing short of a monumental insider bank robbery, which is responsible for victims like Pam Brown who has become the face of America’s nouveau poor and hungry in the minds of the Spiegel’s vast readership within the European Union.

The Spiegel’s article also tells us that America’s has a short memory. Barely 2 years after the market crashed, Wall Street is in the process of creating a second crash by speculating just as shamelessly as they did before. The Spiegel article suggests this maybe happening because there were no criminal prosecutions ever brought. Therefore it looks like the Wall Street banksters are going to do this again.

To which this diary asks, how many more times do you want to bail out Wall Street? How much longer do the bread lines have to get, how many more millions have to lose their homes? Is 59 million without medical insurance eno

Full Story Here: Daily Kos: The German magazine Spiegel says Wall Street banksters committed a monumental insider bank robbery.

Census estimates suggest 1 in 6 Americans live in poverty,

millions more than previously known

The number of poor people in the U.S. is millions higher than previously known, with 1 in 6 Americans – many of them 65 and older – struggling in poverty due to rising medical care and other costs, according to preliminary census figures released Wednesday.

At the same time, government aid programs such as tax credits and food stamps kept many people out of poverty, helping to ensure the poverty rate did not balloon even higher during the recession in 2009, President Barack Obama’s first year in office.

Under a new revised census formula, overall poverty in 2009 stood at 15.7 percent, or 47.8 million people. That’s compared to the official 2009 rate of 14.3 percent, or 43.6 million, that was reported by the Census Bureau last September.

Full Story Here: WSAW Customwire News.

Race and Beyond: Gearing Up for the Health Care Showdown

This new year brings a return to old-school political fights.

If leaders of the 112th Congress are to be believed, among the first orders of business will be a ceremonial vote to repeal the health care overhaul. That sweeping piece of legislation was President Barack Obama’s major achievement in the previous Democratic-led Congress. With Wednesday’s swearing in of a Republican majority in the House of Representatives and a smaller Democratic majority in the Senate, more than a changed set of controlling leaders will quickly emerge—a doubling-down on partisan gamesmanship is just as likely to begin anew.

Sensitive to keeping the faith with the Tea Party legislators in their midst, the Republican House leaders have promised to bring a vote on repealing the health care law, which provides the framework to provide health insurance for nearly every American for the first time in the country’s history. While the president—along with strong support from former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)—eventually prevailed and the legislation was signed into law over nearly unanimous GOP opposition, the legislation proved to be a lightning rod for the antigovernment Tea Partiers, who won seats in the new Congress.

Full Story Here: Race and Beyond: Gearing Up for the Health Care Showdown.

GOP’s New Oversight Chair Asks Businesses Which Regulations Burden Them

We’ve noted that many of the incoming Republican chairs of powerful House committees have criticized the Obama administration’s “job-killing” regulation of the financial and energy sectors, among others.

One of these, Rep. Darrell Issa, has sent letters to more than 150 businesses, trade groups and think tanks calling for their input on which regulations are burdening them and hurting jobs, Politico reports. From the text of the letter, which NBC has posted:

The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is examining existing and proposed regulations that negatively impact the economy and jobs.

Full Story Here: On The Hill: GOP’s New Oversight Chair Asks Businesses Which Regulations Burden Them.

Justice Scalia’s ‘Originalist’ Hypocrisy

Robert Parry: :

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia unintentionally revealed the hypocrisy of the Right’s rhetoric about “originalist” interpretations of the U.S. Constitution with his comments about how the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of “equal protection under the law” doesn’t mean equal rights for women.

“In 1868, when the 39th Congress was debating and ultimately proposing the 14th Amendment, I don’t think anybody would have thought that equal protection applied to sex discrimination, or certainly not to sexual orientation,” Scalia said in a recent interview with the legal magazine California Lawyer.

“So does that mean that we’ve gone off in error by applying the 14th Amendment to both? Yes, yes. Sorry, to tell you that.”

However, if the “original intent” of the amendment’s drafters was so determinative – that the 14th Amendment supposedly was only meant to apply to black men at the end of slavery – it might be safe to assume that the drafters weren’t thinking about protecting a white man like George W. Bush from possibly losing an election in Florida in 2000.

Full Story Here: Justice Scalia’s ‘Originalist’ Hypocrisy.

Republicans Kill the CBO

House Republicans are setting up the biggest sham in the history of this nation. Faced with the prospect of breaking their own rules in their attempt to kill health care reform, they were ignoring that to do so will cost well over $100 billion in the first ten years and billions in the next ten. How were they going to pay for it? The method they are choosing is the most disingenuous I have seen. They are killing the CBO and replacing it with one proven liar.

Congressional Democrats, removed from their rhetorical shackles by the coming Republican control of the House, are accusing the GOP of resorting to “Enron-type accounting” in their efforts to push legislation in the next Congress.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), the incoming ranking member of the House Budget Committee, warned on Tuesday that Republican leadership is set to implement new rules that would effectively do away with the Congressional Budget Office. The CBO is often regarded as a nonpartisan, independent scorekeeper for Congress. And by taking away its input in legislative matters, Van Hollen said, Republicans were ushering in an era of make-your-own-reality-based budgeting.

Full Story Here: Republicans Kill the CBO » Politics Plus.

Homeowner Beats Bank Of America In Small Claims Court

A California homeowner sued Bank of America in small claims court and won $7,595 from the bank after it burned him on a mortgage modification.

“It was a good victory for me and I think for homeowners around the country,” Dave Graham told HuffPost.

Graham, who lives in Big Bear City, Calif., applied for a loan modification under the Obama administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program, which is supposed to give eligible borrowers a “permanent” five-year modification if they make reduced payments during a three-month trial period.

Graham said his trial dragged on for 18 months. He said he made every payment until Bank of America told him in May that he didn’t qualify for HAMP, and that he’d lose his home unless he paid about $7,000 to make up the difference between his normal monthly payments and the reduced payments he made during the trial period.

Full Story Here: Homeowner Beats Bank Of America In Small Claims Court.

Fed Moves To Gut Predatory Lending Regulation

The Federal Reserve is pushing a new mortgage regulation that would effectively eliminate the most powerful federal remedy for predatory lending.

The regulation would severely limit a practice called “rescission,” used to strike down demonstrably-illegal or fraudulent loan contracts and void a bank’s ill-gotten gains from such predatory lending practices. When a mortgage borrower wins a rescission case in court, the bank loses the right to foreclose, and has to give up all profits from interest and fees on the loan. The borrower still has to repay the principal — the original amount of money extended by the bank — but can’t be kicked out of the house.

Under the Fed’s new proposal, however, borrowers would be required to pay off the balance of the loan before the bank loses its right to foreclose — that means borrowers could still lose their homes, even in cases where banks have broken the law.

Full Story Here: Fed Moves To Gut Predatory Lending Regulation.

Fed Moves To Gut Predatory Lending Regulation

The Federal Reserve is pushing a new mortgage regulation that would effectively eliminate the most powerful federal remedy for predatory lending.

The regulation would severely limit a practice called “rescission,” used to strike down demonstrably-illegal or fraudulent loan contracts and void a bank’s ill-gotten gains from such predatory lending practices. When a mortgage borrower wins a rescission case in court, the bank loses the right to foreclose, and has to give up all profits from interest and fees on the loan. The borrower still has to repay the principal — the original amount of money extended by the bank — but can’t be kicked out of the house.

Under the Fed’s new proposal, however, borrowers would be required to pay off the balance of the loan before the bank loses its right to foreclose — that means borrowers could still lose their homes, even in cases where banks have broken the law.

Full Story Here: Fed Moves To Gut Predatory Lending Regulation.

The Big Lie

Robert Reich : :

Republicans are telling Americans a Big Lie, and Obama and the Democrats are letting them. The Big Lie is our economic problems are due to a government that’s too large, and therefore the solution is to shrink it.

The truth is our economic problems stem from the biggest concentration of income and wealth at the top since 1928, combined with stagnant incomes for most of the rest of us. The result: Americans no longer have the purchasing power to keep the economy going at full capacity. Since the debt bubble burst, most Americans have had to reduce their spending; they need to repay their debts, can’t borrow as before, and must save for retirement.

The short-term solution is for government to counteract this shortfall by spending more, not less. The long-term solution is to spread the benefits of economic growth more widely (for example, through a more progressive income tax, a larger EITC, an exemption on the first $20K of income from payroll taxes and application of payroll taxes to incomes over $250K, stronger unions, and more and better investments in education and infrastructure.)

Full Story Here: Robert Reich (The Big Lie).

The Retirement Age Is Too Damn High!

The D.C. elite insist that the retirement age should be raised even more than the current 67. They have jobs where they sit in nice chairs behind nice desks in nice offices in affluent areas. They don’t even know anyone who waits tables or cleans or lifts boxes all day. They don’t even know anyone without a fat 401K, or who is in their 50s who can’t find work. That’s not their problem; paying their share of taxes is what they are worried about.

But when you leave the affluent areas it becomes obvious that the retirement age is too high and Social Security pays too little. The Great Recession began with waves of layoffs that seemed to concentrate on people over 50 — because of health care costs and reasonable pay (and they just smell bad). Two years later these people are having a very hard time finding work — and don’t even mention health insurance. Their savings are gone, their unemployment checks are stopping (the “99ers”) and they are heAded for the streets. The DC elite solution is to keep them on the streets even longer.

Lowering the retirement age solves part of the unemployment problem. It solves part of the foreclosure problem by helping many people pay their mortgages. And this is a very out-of-date thing to say but it is humane. It helps people.

Full Story Here: The Retirement Age Is Too Damn High! | OurFuture.org.

An Answer to 2011′s Austerity Arguments: ‘We Won’t Pay For Their Crisis’

John Nichols:

First, Washington squandered our tax dollars enriching the corporate contractors that profiteer upon unnecessary and seemingly endless wars. The cost figure just for the Iraq imbroglio is now far in excess of $3 trillion, according to The Washington Post.

Next, Washington bailed out the big banks and the multinational corporations that got so greedy they wrecked themselves and the U.S. economy. How much dod that cost? In addition to the initial $800 billion shifted their way by President Bush and the Congress in 2008, there’s the little matter of the Federal Reserve’s “backdoor bailout”: low-interest loans and other deals doled out to the largest banks and corporatuions. According to data obtained by U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, the 21,000 transactions from December 2007 through July 2010 that totaled more than $3 trillion.

Three trillion here, three trillion there… sooner or later, we’re talking about real money.

And a real big hole in the federal budget.

Full Story Here: An Answer to 2011′s Austerity Arguments: ‘We Won’t Pay For Their Crisis’ | The Nation.

OPS: It should be “we won’t pay for their crimes”

Discovery Of Cretan Tools Points To Sea Travel 130,000 Years Ago

Archaeologists on the island of Crete have discovered what may be evidence of one of the world’s first sea voyages by human ancestors, the Greek Culture Ministry said Monday. A ministry statement said experts from Greece and the U.S. have found rough axes and other tools thought to be between 130,000 and 700,000 years old close to shelters on the island’s south coast.

Crete has been separated from the mainland for about five million years, so whoever made the tools must have traveled there by sea (a distance of at least 40 miles). That would upset the current view that human ancestors migrated to Europe from Africa by land alone.

“The results of the survey not only provide evidence of sea voyages in the Mediterranean tens of thousands of years earlier than we were aware of so far, but also change our understanding of early hominids’ cognitive abilities,” the ministry statement said.

The previous earliest evidence of open-sea travel in Greece dates back 11,000 years (worldwide, about 60,000 years – although considerably earlier dates have been proposed).

Full Story Here: Discovery Of Cretan Tools Points To Sea Travel 130,000 Years Ago.

Virginia Delegate David Englin Proposes Legislation To Fix School Textbooks

After one textbook’s inaccuracies garnered significant media attention in October, Virginia Delegate David Englin (D-Alexandria) is proposing legislation to get school primers properly proofed.

The Washington Post reported that Englin’s bill would hold publishers accountable and require them to prove review of textbooks by subject-area specialists. He said the state of public education is at stake.

“As a legislator and a parent, I was shocked and appalled to learn that Virginia social studies textbooks had such egregious factual inaccuracies. As parents, the bare minimum we expect from textbooks is that the facts are correct.”

Full Story Here: Virginia Delegate David Englin Proposes Legislation To Fix School Textbooks.

OPS:  So that by the following generation they will have the support for secession

Bumble Bees In U.S. Suffer Sharp Decline, Joining Countless Other Species Disappearing Worldwide

North American bees are disappearing at a rapid rate, signaling a dire threat to the production of countless food sources. The Guardian reports that four common species of U.S. bumble bees have declined 96 percent in recent decades, and scientists allege that disease and inbreeding are responsible.

Honey bees have long been known to be in decline, suffering from the enigmatic colony collapse disorder, and the latest research on U.S. bumble bees only exacerbates concerns over future food production, as bees are responsible for pollinating 90 percent of the world’s commercial plants, from fruits and vegetables to coffee and cotton.

While a correlation between the Nosema bombi fungus infection and the declining bumble bee populations was discovered, the culprit isn’t clearly defined. One of the study’s researchers told LiveScience that the data doesn’t necessarily verify that the disease is driving the decline, and other factors — like reduced adaptability to environmental changes as a result of inbreeding — are likely at play

Full Story Here: Bumble Bees In U.S. Suffer Sharp Decline, Joining Countless Other Species Disappearing Worldwide.

Pennsylvania allows gas drillers to dump pollution into drinking water supplies

The natural gas boom gripping parts of the U.S. has a nasty byproduct: wastewater so salty, and so polluted with metals like barium and strontium, that most states require drillers to get rid of the stuff by injecting it down shafts thousands of feet deep.

Not in Pennsylvania, one of the states at the center of the gas rush.

There, the liquid that gushes from gas wells is only partially treated for substances that could be environmentally harmful, then dumped into rivers and streams from which communities get their drinking water.

Full Story Here: Pennsylvania allows gas drillers to dump pollution into drinking water supplies | Raw Story.

Update: 100,000 dead fish join thousands of dead birds in Arkansas

As officials worked to figure out the cause of death of some 5,000 blackbirds that fell from the Arkansas sky this weekend, some 100 miles away another disaster was unfolding: The discovery of 100,000 dead drum fish in the Arkansas River.

According to news reports, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission found 20 miles of the river littered with dead fish on Thursday, and are conducting tests to determine what killed them.

Observers are wondering whether the two mass die-offs are related, given the timing, but so far officials have found no links between the two events. Fish experts suspect disease to be behind the fish deaths, because they are limited to one species.

Full Story Here: Update: 100,000 dead fish join thousands of dead birds in Arkansas | Raw Story.

61 percent say tax the rich to fix budget deficit

Americans of all income levels overwhelmingly favor raising taxes on the rich over any other method available to reduce the budget deficit, a new poll has found.

According to a survey conducted for Vanity Fair and CBS, 61 percent of Americans prefer increasing taxes on the wealthy as the first step to balancing the budget. By comparison, only 20 percent chose the second-most popular option — cutting defense spending.

Cutting Medicare and Social Security — the other two options — got four percent and three percent support, respectively.

Full Story Here: 61 percent say tax the rich to fix budget deficit | Raw Story.

Lindsey Graham Threatens To Hold Debt Ceiling Vote Hostage For Regressive Social Security Cuts

A handful of Republican Congressmen — including Sen.-elect Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) — have announced that they will oppose increasing the nation’s debt ceiling the next time it comes up for a vote, essentially saying that they are okay with a government shutdown or the myriad consequences of the U.S. defaulting on its debt obligations. RNC Chairman Michael Steele even drew a hard line in the sand, saying “we’re not going to compromise on raising the debt ceiling.”

Other Republicans, however, are planning to use the debt ceiling vote and imminent economic chaos as an opportunity to wring concessions from Senate Democrats and President Obama. On Meet the Press yesterday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said that he would not vote to increase the debt limit unless a plan is adopted to cut Social Security benefits via raising the retirement age:

GRAHAM: This is an opportunity to make sure the government is changing its spending ways. I will not vote for the debt ceiling increase until I see a plan in place that will deal with our long-term debt obligations starting with Social Security, a real bipartisan effort to make sure that Social Security stays solvent, adjusting the age, looking at means-tests for benefits. [...]

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » Lindsey Graham Threatens To Hold Debt Ceiling Vote Hostage For Regressive Social Security Cuts.

Preparing To Obstruct Health Law, WI Gov. Scott Walker Hires UnitedHealth Lobbyist As Deputy Chief Of Staff

Today, Republican Scott Walker was sworn in as the newly-elected governor of the state of Wisconsin. One of the major themes of Walker’s campaign was opposition to federal health care reform efforts. Back in March, Walker announced his support for Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen’s intention to sue the federal government to win the right for Wisconsin to opt-out of the recently passed health care law. It is widely expected that, now that Walker is governor, Wisconsin will join the multi-state lawsuit taking aim at the federal health care law.

Now, in a signal that Walker is serious about his intention to do the insurance companies’ bidding and deny Wisconsinites the coverage and protections in the new law, the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal is reporting that Walker has hired Eric Schutt, the vice president of state government affairs for insurer parent company UnitedHealth Group, as his new deputy chief of staff:

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » Preparing To Obstruct Health Law, WI Gov. Scott Walker Hires UnitedHealth Lobbyist As Deputy Chief Of Staff.

In Killing Ohio’s High-Speed Rail Project, Kasich Eliminated Private-Sector Jobs He Promised To Create

Rather than acknowledge the number of jobs created or kept afloat by Democratic policies like the Recovery Act, Republicans insist that Democrats have done nothing to help create private-sector jobs. Future House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has said, “Washington has kept the private sector in bust while manufacturing a boom for the public sector.”

Boehner’s bosom-buddy Gov. John Kasich (R-OH) beat a similar drum on the campaign trail. Touting his plan to help the private-sector “quickly help create jobs,” Kasich insisted he would help “improve the atmosphere in our state for real business development” by meeting “the needs of businesses to overcome” governmental “snafus.” But Kasich undermined his rhetoric by killing Ohio’s high-speed rail project. In doing so, he derailed many businesses’ economic development plans and effectively killed the private-sector jobs he promised to create, leaving one businessman to call his decision “unbelievable,” “mind-boggling,” and “naive”:

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » In Killing Ohio’s High-Speed Rail Project, Kasich Eliminated Private-Sector Jobs He Promised To Create.

Despite Demanding ‘Bipartisan Discussions’ On Health Reform, Republicans To Vote On Repeal Without Hearings

Politico reported this afternoon that House Republicans will hold a vote on January 12th to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Democrats quickly accused the new majority of bringing the measure to the floor without allowing time for adequate debate or bipartisan negotiation. During a joint appearance on MSNBC’s Hardball this afternoon with Rep. Dan Lungren (R-CA), Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) argued that Republicans will force the Congress to vote on repeal without first considering the consequences of completely eliminating the measure:

MORAN: We had 80 bipartisan hearings, we made this bill available for a month to consider before we brought it to the floor. They’re going to bring it right to the floor. This party supposedly of transparency and open government, right to the floor without any hearings.

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » Despite Demanding ‘Bipartisan Discussions’ On Health Reform, Republicans To Vote On Repeal Without Hearings.

Jane White: How About a New Year’s Resolution to Stop Outsourcing the American Dream?

Last month a new political group called No Labels announced their intention to loosen the grip of both parties on the political process. The group’s slogan is “Not left. Not right. Forward.”

Yawn. As Christopher Beam put it in a recent Slate post, “The group’s mission statement is so obvious… no one would ever disagree:” Beam offers an example: “`Americans are entitled to a government and a political system that works…’ Unlike all those groups that prefer a political system that doesn’t work?”

Why can’t we go one better and agree on critical issues that are facing everybody: our job market is shriveling and our political system has been hijacked — and it’s not the Republican takeover of Congress but K Street’s takeover of Capitol Hill.

When it comes to our economic malaise, as I’ve said before, neither party’s approach to economic stimulus is working, whether it’s Keynesian or libertarian. Let’s face it, if trickle-down tax cuts could kick-start the economy it would be humming by now. As for the government stimulus favored by the Democrats, while highway restructuring may put construction workers back on the job, it’s not going to replace the engineering jobs outsourced by Microsoft to China, where it now employs more people than it does in the U.S.

Full Story Here: Jane White: How About a New Year’s Resolution to Stop Outsourcing the American Dream?.

BP Disaster: New Report confirms Poisoned Gulf seafood

Scientists have released a new report on results of testing Louisiana seafood that further confirms the present dangerous human health situation, especially to children, not just in the Gulf region but throughout the nation, as reported by other doctors such as Dr. Rodney Soto.

The new report by Wilma Subra, the seasoned Louisiana environmentalist featured in Sophie McNeill’s special SBS TV program, Dateline, in Australia, is entitled, Results of sampling performed by the Lower Mississippi River Keeper from Atchafalaya Bay eastward to the Louisiana/Mississippi state line, in the Gulf of Mexico coastal areas of Louisiana.

Subra of Subra Company, Paul Orr of the Lower Mississippi Riverkeeper and Michael Orr of the Louisiana Environmental Action Network (LEAN) conducted the study in response to the Gulf of Mexico operation. The team has performed monitoring, sampling and analysis of the environment and seafood in the coastal estuaries and wetlands of Louisiana for health impacts.

Full Story Here: BP Disaster: New Report confirms Poisoned Gulf seafood.

Scalia: Women Don’t Have Constitutional Protection Against Discrimination

The equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does not protect against discrimination on the basis of gender or sexual orientation, according to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

In a newly-published interview with the legal magazine California Lawyer, Scalia said that while the Constitution does not disallow the passage of legislation outlawing such discrimination, it doesn’t itself outlaw that behavior:

In 1868, when the 39th Congress was debating and ultimately proposing the 14th Amendment, I don’t think anybody would have thought that equal protection applied to sex discrimination, or certainly not to sexual orientation. So does that mean that we’ve gone off in error by applying the 14th Amendment to both?

Full Story Here: Scalia: Women Don’t Have Constitutional Protection Against Discrimination.

Poll: Tax hikes on rich the first step toward balancing budget

Increased taxes on high earners should be the first step toward balancing the federal budget, a new poll suggested Monday.

Raising taxes on the rich beats out cuts to defense spending, Medicare and Social Security as U.S. adults’ top preference on how to close the deficit, according to a 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll.

Sixty-one percent of Americans said that increasing taxes to the wealthy should be the first step toward balancing the budget.

By contrast, 20 percent of respondents preferred cuts to defense spending as the first option, while 4 percent said that cutting Medicare would be the best way to start cutting the deficit. Three percent said they preferred cutting Social Security.

Full Story Here: Poll: Tax hikes on rich the first step toward balancing budget – The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room.

Deep Hole Economics

Paul Krugmann:

If there’s one piece of economic wisdom I hope people will grasp this year, it’s this: Even though we may finally have stopped digging, we’re still near the bottom of a very deep hole.

Why do I need to point this out? Because I’ve noticed many people overreacting to recent good economic news. What particularly concerns me is the risk of self-denying optimism — that is, I worry that policy makers will look at a few favorable economic indicators, decide that they no longer need to promote recovery, and take steps that send us sliding right back to the bottom.

So, about that good news: various economic indicators, ranging from relatively good holiday sales to new claims for unemployment insurance (which have finally fallen below 400,000 a week), suggest that the great post-bubble retrenchment may finally be ending.

Full Story Here: Deep Hole Economics – NYTimes.com.

The Rise of Charismatic Dominionism

Over two years ago I wrote, but never published, the following article. It was immediately following the 2008 election and the Religious Right was being eulogized by the press. The topic is the transition of large numbers of Charismatic evangelicals from Dispensational to Dominionist theology.

Why should you care? In plain English this is a shift from an originally passive theology in which believers are waiting to be Raptured from the earth prior and escape imminent apocalyptic horrors, to a politicized theology in which believers must take control over society and government. End times narratives provide a blueprint for activism much like a platform defines goals of a political party. The narratives provide a clear picture of what we can expect from this particular stream of evangelicalism as it gains both religious and political clout and molds tomorrow’s Religious Right.

The demise of the Religious Right is being announced with great fanfare in the media. It is an announcement that has been made repeatedly over the decades and, without fail, has been wrong every time.

Full Story Here: | The Rise of Charismatic Dominionism.

More Than 1,000 Dead Birds Fall From Sky In Arkansas

Environmental service workers finished picking up the carcasses on Sunday of about 2,000 red-winged blackbirds that fell dead from the sky in a central Arkansas town.

Mike Robertson, the mayor in Beebe, told The Associated Press the last dead bird was removed about 11 a.m. Sunday in the town about 40 miles northeast of Little Rock. He said 12 to 15 workers, hired by the city to do the cleanup, wore environmental-protection suits for the task.

The birds had fallen Friday night over a 1-mile area of Beebe, and an aerial survey indicated that no other dead birds were found outside of that area. The workers from U.S. Environmental Services started the cleanup Saturday.

Full Story Here: More Than 1,000 Dead Birds Fall From Sky In Arkansas.

An Extremely Long Metaphor to Explain Mortgage Chaos

The functional effect of MERS is to create an obfuscatory wall between the homeowner and the actual owner of his mortgage loan.

Matt Taibbi: :

Happy New Year, America…

Have multiple relatives en route to my home this morning, but wanted to post a few thoughts on an interesting story that came out this week before I disappear into a weekend of overeating and meaningless NFL games.

The piece, which came out Thursday, is the Washington Post’s feature on MERS, the electronic mortgage registration company that is at the center of the foreclosure/mortgage bubble mess. MERS is the brainchild of the mortgage-lending industry and is essentially an effort at systematically evading taxes (more on that in a moment) and hiding information from homeowners in ways that enabled the Countrywides of the world to defraud investors and avoid legal consequences for same.

The idea behind MERS was to wipe away centuries of legal tradition that mandated the physical transfer of loan notes and ownership information. Whereas lenders once were required to physically register with county clerk offices every time a mortgage loan was extended or re-sold, MERS provided an “electronic registry” of mortgage notes where all such transfers were recorded in the wiry brain of a giant computer instead of on paper.

Full Story Here: An Extremely Long Metaphor to Explain Mortgage Chaos | Rolling Stone Politics | Taibblog | Matt Taibbi on Politics and the Economy.

Lindsey Graham: Permanent U.S. Presence In Afghanistan Would Be ‘Enormously Beneficial’

There was, with really no notable exception, an absence of discussion of the Afghanistan war during the course of the 2010 campaign. But that may have been more a product of the electoral landscape (congressional races often don’t lend themselves to foreign policy debates) and strategic timelines (the start date for withdrawal begins in July 2011) than anything else.

And, indeed, during an interview Sunday morning, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) provided some indication that Republicans would push U.S. permanency in Afghanistan in the years ahead, insisting that it would be “enormously beneficial” to show that type of force “in perpetuity.”

“I think it would be enormously beneficial to the region as well as Afghanistan,” Graham said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “We have had air bases all over the world and a couple of air bases in Afghanistan would allow the Afghan security forces an edge against the Taliban in perpetuity. It would be a signal to Pakistan that the Taliban are never going to come back. In Afghanistan they could change their behavior. It would be a signal to the whole region that Afghanistan is going to be a different place.

Full Story Here: Lindsey Graham: Permanent U.S. Presence In Afghanistan Would Be ‘Enormously Beneficial’.

OPS: …for the military industrial complex and the politicians they own – yes

Hitting Debt Ceiling Would Be ‘First Default In History Caused Purely By Insanity’

There are, it seems, only two major issues that have a set time frame for political brinkmanship between the White House and Congressional Republicans. The Bush tax cuts will make for an interesting election-year dynamic when they expire in two years. Well before that, however, the president will have to persuade GOP leadership to ignore Tea Party insistence and allow for the country’s debt ceiling to be raised.

That issue is set to come to a head this spring. So far the administration has been (or perhaps just expressed a sense of being) self-assured that the ceiling will be raised, but on Sunday its rhetoric was noticeably sharper.

Appearing on ABC’s “This Week,” Austan Goolsbee, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, laid out the fairly alarming implications of the United States defaulting on its obligations while asking the question: What type of insanity would persuade us to do this?

Full Story Here: Austan Goolsbee: Hitting Debt Ceiling Would Be ‘First Default In History Caused Purely By Insanity’.

Health Care Restrictions Cost Thousands of Lives in US

Project Censored: :

Despite national legislative health reform, health care in the US will remain dismal for many Americans, resulting in continuing deaths and personal tragedies. A recent Harvard research team estimates that 2,266 US military veterans died in 2008 due to lack of health insurance. The figure is more than fourteen times the number of deaths suffered by US troops in Afghanistan in 2008, and more than twice as many as have died since the war began in 2001. Harvard researchers concluded that 1.46 million working-age vets lacked health coverage, increasing their death rate. The American Journal of Public Health published findings demonstrating that being uninsured raises an individual’s odds of dying by 40 percent.

Dr. David Himmelstein, coauthor of the analysis and associate professor of medicine at Harvard, commented, “These unnecessary deaths will continue under the new health care reform legislation. The bill would do virtually nothing for the uninsured until 2013, and leave at least 17 million uninsured over the long run.”

In a related story on health care inequalities, Stacie Ritter’s twin daughters were diagnosed with cancer at the age of four. They both needed stem cell transplants and other cancer treatments. The twins survived, but the glands controlling their growth were damaged beyond repair from the treatment. To continue growing, they needed doctor-recommended growth hormone injections regularly. Stacie’s husband’s company switched to CIGNA health insurance, and CIGNA refused to cover the hormone shots. Each time Stacie takes her daughters to the doctor for the shots, it costs her $440. The incident marked just the latest chapter in the family’s ongoing troubles with the health insurance industry. Between the cancer treatment and the denied care, Stacie and her husband had to file for bankruptcy due to their high medical expenses. Ed Hanway, CEO of CIGNA, made $12.2 million last year—$5,883 an hour.

Full Story Here: 6. Health Care Restrictions Cost Thousands of Lives in US | Project Censored.

Increased Tensions with Unresolved 9/11 Issues

Project Censored:

Several contentious issues still plague the US government and their version of the events of September 11, 2001. Those in political power along with media elites would like to see the ongoing grassroots debates surrounding unanswered 9/11 questions and discrepancies disappear, despite the mountains of evidence that suggest that American citizens were told little about the truth of the biggest single-day attack on their homeland in history. Nearly ten years after the events, many unanswered questions still exist: How did Building 7 fall? What caused the destruction of the twin towers? Where is Osama bin Laden? Are people that question the official story of 9/11 dangerous conspiracy theorists?

The academics and intellectuals who have tried to answer these questions have been ignored or derided by corporate mainstream (and even some progressive leftist) media, political pundits, and government officials who clearly intend to silence the so-called 9/11 Truth Movement, or anyone who questions the officially sanctioned government stance on the matter. However, the questions will not go away and increasingly beg for answers.

As of spring 2010, over 1,200 architects and engineers are calling for a new investigation into the events of 9/11. These building professionals and academics are motivated by the fact that the 9/11 Commission Report has been proven erroneous on multiple counts, scientific explanations have been flawed and contradictory, and the American people deserve a more fact-based explanation.

Full Story Here: 14. Increased Tensions with Unresolved 9/11 Issues | Project Censored.

Global Plans to Replace the Dollar

Project Censored:

Nations have reached their limit in subsidizing the United States’ military adventures. During meetings in June 2009 in Yekaterinburg, Russia, world leaders such as China’s President Hu Jintao, Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev, and other top officials of the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organisation took the first formal step to replace the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. The United States was denied admission to the meetings. If the world leaders succeed, the dollar will dramatically plummet in value; the cost of imports, including oil, will skyrocket; and interest rates will climb.

Foreigners see the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization (WTO) as Washington surrogates in a financial system backed by US military bases and aircraft carriers encircling the globe. But this military domination is a vestige of an American empire no longer able to rule by economic strength. US military power is muscle-bound, based more on atomic weaponry and long-distance air strikes than on ground operations, which have become too politically unpopular to mount on any large scale.

As Chris Hedges wrote in June 2009, “The architects of this new global exchange realize that if they break the dollar they also break America’s military domination. US military spending cannot be sustained without this cycle of heavy borrowing. The official US defense budget for fiscal year 2008 was $623 billion. The next closest national military budget was China’s, at $65 billion, according to the Central Intelligence Agency.”

Full Story Here: 1. Global Plans to Replace the Dollar | Project Censored.

Despite Record Profits, Corporation Creating Jobs Overseas

Thus far this year, American companies have created roughly 1.4 million jobs overseas, while creating less than 1 million in America.

American corporations may be sitting on record profits, but they are not hiring. Not in America, at least, according to The Associated Press.

Thus far this year, American companies have created roughly 1.4 million jobs overseas, while creating less than 1 million in America.

Those additional jobs would have pushed the national unemployment rate to 8.9 percent, according to the report.

“There’s a huge difference between what is good for American companies versus what is good for the American economy,” Robert Scott, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, said.

Full Story Here: Despite Record Profits, Corporation Creating Jobs Overseas | Economy In Crisis.

OPS: 235 years of progress, sacrifice, struggle and success is being sold out, destroyed by the greed and mentally deranged few. It is Treason, and We are letting them do it.  No amount of tax credits, deferments, holidays, or, happy talk, will change this.

Ivory Coast on ‘Brink of Genocide’, Says UN Envoy

Political unrest following Ivory Coast’s disputed presidential election has brought the west African country to the “brink of genocide”, its new ambassador to the United Nations has said.

World leaders have stepped up pressure on incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo to quit in favour of Alassane Ouattara, widely recognised as having won the election.

Youssoufou Bamba, appointed as ambassador to the United Nations by Mr Ouattara, described him as the rightful ruler of Ivory Coast.

“He has been elected in a free, fair . . . [election] the result has been proclaimed by the independent electoral commission, certified by the UN,” Mr Bamba said on Wednesday. “To me the debate is over, now you are talking about how and when Mr Gbagbo will leave office.”

Full Story Here: Ivory Coast on ‘Brink of Genocide’, Says UN Envoy | CommonDreams.org.

71 months and counting …

“You are not stuck in traffic,” says the advert for a satnav system, “You are traffic.”

The doors of perception often hang heavy on rusty hinges. Regardless of motivation, though, good advertising can work like good art. It issues an irresistible invitation to see the world differently. Here we leap from the familiar grumble about congestion, to the unsettling realisation that we are the thing we grumble about.

Behind the advert is a familiar irony, that the solution proffered merely relocates the problem, or creates a new one (such as taking a large family estate car full of screaming children up a track fit only for athletic goats – well, it looked good on the computer’s map). But, in well-crafted messages meaning can escape narrow motivation.

Full Story Here: 71 months and counting … | Andrew Simms | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

Billy Bragg: Are you ready for the revolution?

Billy Bragg and his guitar have been summoning us to the barricades for the past three decades, and today he’s more hopeful for real change than ever before

‘Look out the window, Jon,” says Billy Bragg, bounding from a low-slung taupe armchair in a swish hotel room that’s every shade of brown. He’s still fired up from playing to 3,000 people the night before in an old cinema on the Commercial Road in east London, hard by the hallowed anti-fascist ground of Cable Street, and also the house where his mum was born: the last date of a triumphant UK tour on which that characteristically gruff, tender, fervent call to arms of his has – rejoice! – rarely felt more relevant.

With love songs and folk anthems and an unshakeable commitment to democratic socialism, Bragg and his guitar have been preaching a modest, very English kind of revolution from stages up and down the land for more than three decades now, and seriously, he’s seldom felt more hopeful something might come of it.

We look out of the fifth-floor window over the frozen rooftops of central London. “Is it cold out there?” he asks. “Is it very cold? Are there clouds – heavy clouds? It looks to me like it’s going to snow, Jon. Course, you can never say for sure. But there are things happening now that I’ve never seen before. Something’s moving.”

Full Story Here: Billy Bragg: Are you ready for the revolution? | From the Guardian | The Guardian.

Detroit in ruins – A Photo Essay

Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre’s extraordinary photographs documenting the dramatic decline of a major American city

Full Story Here: Detroit in ruins | Art and design | The Observer.

OPS: The logical result of 30 years of Reagonomics. What happened in Detriot is happening in every American city.

2011: The year we’ll hit 7 billion

Sometime in the latter half of this year, the world population will hit a new milestone: 7 billion people. Already? Didn’t we just hit 6 billion? Yep, a mere dozen years ago — and that’s probably the last time you heard much about population. It takes a big, round number with lots of zeroes to get MSM attention.

So in 2011, expect to hear the P word a lot more than you did in 2010, and a lot more than you will in 2012. National Geographic is kicking off the action with a cover story and photo essay.

It’s projected to take us slightly longer to get to the next big, round number with lots of zeroes — 14 years instead of 12. While the total number of people on the planet is still growing fast, the nature and speed of that growth has been changing dramatically. This Economist video gives you great visual overview of the trends. (Is it just me or does that graphic look like a packet of birth-control pills?)

Full Story Here: 2011: The year we’ll hit 7 billion | Grist.

Two Kinds of Baptists, Same Kind of Problem

Southern Baptists share the same problem as independent Baptists. They lack any effective system for clergy accountability, Brown writes.

In Atlanta, law enforcement authorities are investigating a controversial mortgage scheme that allegedly preyed on financially troubled homeowners. Two Baptist mega-church pastors are linked to the scheme.

As reported by CBS Atlanta News, a company called Matrix Capital promised to lower people’s mortgages if they paid a $1,500 upfront fee. Police say “thousands of homeowners paid Matrix Capital the money,” but rather than getting their mortgages lowered, “most of them ended up in bankruptcy and losing their homes.” Just before Christmas, some started asking whether their own pastors were the ones who had let the wolf in the door.

Southern Baptist pastor Gary Hawkins was “the face of the company’s promotional video,” and he “vouched” for the man behind the company, Fred Lee, even though Lee already had a “questionable history.” Now Lee is “accused of stealing” from members of Hawkins’ Southern Baptist Convention-affiliated church, Voices of Faith in Stone Mountain, Ga. With 11,000 members, Voices of Faith is one of the Georgia Baptist Convention’s fastest growing churches.

Many of those who forked over $1,500 – and who eventually lost their homes – had attended a Matrix Capital seminar at Hawkins’ Voices of Faith church. People say they trusted Matrix Capital because they trusted Hawkins, and because the sales pitch was made “in the sanctity of their local church.”

Full Story Here: .

Vermont: Creating a singular health system

While Massachusetts grapples with its own health costs, the nation’s eyes will be on Vermont as it tries to do ObamaCare one better and switch to a single-payer health insurance system. The newly elected governor, Peter Shumlin, made single-payer a main campaign pledge. Now he has assembled a team of health officials grounded both in the realities of Vermont medical care and the pros and cons of comprehensive health reform. Shumlin’s special assistant for reform will be Anya Rader-Wallack, once an aide to former Vermont Governor Howard Dean and more recently deeply involved with the Massachusetts universal-coverage system.

Single payer, under which the government would take over all health insurance functions, has attracted many reform advocates because it simplifies health payments and reduces the overhead costs of a private insurance system that has to pay for marketing and, in some cases, shareholders’ dividends. Single-payer would also unlink insurance from employment, reducing a costly burden on companies and increasing workers’ flexibility in seeking new job opportunities. Hospitals and doctors have been wary of single-payer because two of the biggest payers in the current system — government-run Medicare and Medicaid — reimburse at rates that providers say are inadequate.

Full Story Here: Vermont: Creating a singular health system – The Boston Globe.

Wikipedia Raises $16M to Remain Ad-Free

A couple of weeks shy of its 10-year anniversary, the Wikimedia Foundation said it has raised $16 million in donations from more than half a million people around the world to sustain the Wikipedia website.

In his online appeal, the organization’s founder Jimmy Wales wrote that Wikipedia needed the funds to remain ad-free.

The foundation, which is the non-profit parent of Wikipedia, said that more than 500,000 donated in 2010, compared to the 230,000 people who contributed money in 2009.

The average donation was $22.

“This fundraiser had all the ingredients of what we love about Wikimedia projects: people come together, contribute what they have, and together we do something amazing … and the result is that we’re able to sustain and support this joint endeavor for another year,” Wales said in his post. “So now, we’ll celebrate.”

Full Story Here: Wikipedia Raises $16M to Remain Ad-Free – Tech Talk – CBS News.

Cool Our Fever

Chapter 7 from “Rebooting The American Dream” by Thom Hartmann

We live in a democracy and policies represent our collective will. We cannot blame others. If we allow the planet to pass tipping points…it will be hard to explain our role to our children. We cannot claim…that “we didn’t know.”

- Jim Hansen, Director, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies1

I have taken the four-hour train ride from the airport in Frankfurt, Germany, to the Bavarian town of Stadtsteinach in the Frankenwald often enough to know it by heart. I look out the window and see the familiar sights – the towns, the rivers, the houses.

I have visited Stadtsteinach many times over the past 30 years, working with Salem International, a relief organization headquartered in that town. The community for abused kids that Louise and I founded in New Hampshire is based on its family-oriented model, and we have helped start Salem programs in Australia, Colombia, India, Israel, Peru, Russia, and Uganda, among others. So at least once a year I’ve made it back to Germany, and we lived there for a year in the mid-1980s.

But during the past decade, as the train rolls along eastward from Frankfurt, I’ve seen a dramatic change in the scenery and the landscape. First there were just a few: purplish-blue reflections, almost like deep, still water, covering large parts of the south-facing roofs as I looked north out the window of the train. Solar panels.

Full Story Here: Thom Hartmann | Cool Our Fever.

What the Lame Street Media Doesn’t want you to Know

Thom Hartmann: :

Many stories of 2010 had not received attention they deserved from the main stream media. Most American people remain unaware of the events of 2010 that have been changing the global landscape. Thom Hartmann on failure of the US news media.

‘Huge’ demonstration over Government cuts planned

Unions are gearing up for a demonstration in the spring against the Government’s massive cuts in public spending, predicting it will be a “huge” national event.

The TUC is organising the protest in London on March 26 and said that by then, the impact of the austerity measures will have started to take hold, with an expected loss of tens of thousands of jobs.

Union members from across the UK are set to join the demonstration in London’s Hyde Park, which will follow a series of protests in recent weeks against increases in student tuition fees and cuts in public services.

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: “People have yet to feel the full impact of the Government’s cuts. When they do – as we saw with the cancellation of the schools building programme – they have been angry.

Full Story Here: The Press Association: ‘Huge’ demonstration over Government cuts planned.

Higher Taxes on Top 1% Equals Higher Productivity

Michael Hudson: History of US shows economy grows when top tier tax rates and workers wages are high

Public Employee Unions Face Rising Public Anger

Ever since Marie Corfield’s confrontation with Gov. Chris Christie this fall over the state’s education cuts became a YouTube classic, she has received a stream of vituperative e-mails and Facebook postings.

“People I don’t even know are calling me horrible names,” said Ms. Corfield, an art teacher who had pleaded the case of struggling teachers. “The mantra is that the problem is the unions, the unions, the unions.”

Across the nation, a rising irritation with public employee unions is palpable, as a wounded economy has blown gaping holes in state, city and town budgets, and revealed that some public pension funds dangle perilously close to bankruptcy. In California, New York, Michigan and New Jersey, states where public unions wield much power and the culture historically tends to be pro-labor, even longtime liberal political leaders have demanded concessions — wage freezes, benefit cuts and tougher work rules.

Full Story Here: Public Employee Unions Face Rising Public Anger – NYTimes.com.

CDC: Flu Season Picks Up, Widespread In 5 States

Flu season appears to be picking up.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says five states had widespread reports of flu last week, up from zero two weeks earlier.

A CDC report released Thursday says four of the states were in the South — Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and Virginia. The other was New York.

The report also says that tests of about 120 virus samples show the circulating flu strains seem to be well-matched to this season’s flu vaccine.

Health officials say an estimated 23,600 flu-related deaths occur each year.

Full Story Here: CDC: Flu Season Picks Up, Widespread In 5 States.

Tea Party Activists Angry at Actions of G.O.P. Leaders

As Tea Party politicians prepare to take their seats when the 112th Congress convenes this week, they are already taking issue with Republicans for failing to hold the line against the flurry of legislation enacted in the waning weeks of Democratic control of the House of Representatives and for not giving some candidates backed by Tea Party groups powerful leadership positions.

Just a month ago, Tea Party leaders were celebrating their movement’s victories in the midterm elections. But as Congress wrapped up an unusually productive lame-duck session last month, those same Tea Party leaders were lamenting that Washington behaved as if it barely noticed that American voters had repudiated the political establishment.

In their final days controlling the House, Democrats succeeded in passing legislation that Tea Party leaders opposed, including a bill to cover the cost of medical care for rescue workers at the site of the World Trade Center attacks, an arms-control treaty with Russia, a food safety bill and a repeal of the ban on gay men and lesbians serving openly in the military.

Full Story Here: Tea Party Activists Angry at Actions of G.O.P. Leaders – NYTimes.com.

New health-care rules to take effect

The new year will bring important changes to U.S. health-insurance rules, as new provisions related to last year’s massive health-care overhaul take effect.

The new rules are designed to help those caught in Medicare’s “doughnut hole,” offer seniors more preventative care, and limit how much of their customers’ money health-insurance companies can keep for overhead and profit.

They all go into effect on Saturday.

These provisions were not affected by a Dec. 13 federal court ruling in Virginia that declared another piece of the new health-care law – the requirement that all Americans buy health insurance – unconstitutional.

The judge allowed implementation of the overhaul to continue until a higher court rules on the issue.

The new rules include:

Full Story Here: New health-care rules to take effect.

NKorea’s New Year’s welcome: War would bring ‘nuclear holocaust’

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea welcomed the new year Saturday with a call for better ties with rival South Korea, warning that war “will bring nothing but a nuclear holocaust.”

Despite calls in its annual New Year’s message for a Korean peninsula free of nuclear weapons, the communist North, which has conducted two nuclear tests since 2006, also said its military is ready for “prompt, merciless and annihilatory action” against its enemies.

South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which handles relations with the North, said the editorial carried in the official Korean Central News Agency, even with its tough rhetoric, showed the North’s interest in resuming talks with the South.

Full Story Here: NKorea’s New Year’s welcome: War would bring ‘nuclear holocaust’ | Raw Story.

Chief Justice Roberts Calls for End to Senate Obstruction of Judges

Nearly one in nine federal judgeships are currently vacant, a vacancy rate that is leaving many courts barely able to function. Indeed, the problem has become so severe that Republican Chief Justice John Roberts used his annual year-end report on the federal judiciary to call upon the Senate to end this logjam:

Over many years, however, a persistent problem has developed in the process of filling judicial vacancies. Each political party has found it easy to turn on a dime from decrying to defending the blocking of judicial nominations, depending on their changing political fortunes. This has created acute difficulties for some judicial districts. Sitting judges in those districts have been burdened with extraordinary caseloads. I am heartened that the Senate recently filled a number of district and circuit court vacancies, including one in the Eastern District of California, one of the most severely burdened districts. There remains, however, an urgent need for the political branches to find a long-term solution to this recurring problem.

Roberts’ pox-on-both-your-houses comparison between the two political parties is unfortunate, because it obscures the very partisan explanation for the present vacancy crisis.

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » Chief Justice Roberts Calls for End to Senate Obstruction of Judges.

Obama War Budget Breaks All Records – But When Will Black America Break with Him?

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

“Forget about the Obama’s phony rhetoric; the proof is in the numbers.”

The Republican House majority hadn’t even taken their seats yet, but their presence wasn’t necessary to pass the biggest military budget since World War II. Not only can’t Obama blame his wars on George Bush, but the First Black President has dramatically outdone his predecessor in expenditures on the machinery of death. “Yet only 12 Black members of Congress can bring themselves to vote against Obama’s wars.”

On Capitol Hill, resistance to U.S. militarism has all but collapsed – and the Republican majority in the U.S. House has not even arrived, yet. With no opposition whatsoever in the Senate, and only 48 nay votes in the House, the Congress last week passed the biggest military budget since the end of World War Two. Only 42 Democrats, including just 12 members of the Congressional Black Caucus, dared to defy their warmongering president and compliant House leadership.

From the moment that Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination, we at Black Agenda Report have been predicting that he would become the most pro-war president in modern American history. Forget about the Obama’s phony rhetoric; the proof is in the numbers.

Full Story Here: Obama War Budget Breaks All Records – But When Will Black America Break with Him? | Black Agenda Report.

NEW Kindra Arnesen’s EXPLOSIVE New Revelations And Message to The World

BP Oil Disaster EXCLUSIVE – -

Activist, Mother, and Voice of the Gulf People, Kindra Arnesen sat down with the Project Gulf Impact team, Matt Smith, Heather Rally, and Gavin Garrison recently to reveal shocking new information about the BP oil disaster and why the whole world should be paying attention to the Gulf. A must watch for anyone wanting new information on the Gulf of Mexico, she reveals shocking new information sure to send waves through the country.

New Jersey Governor claims no responsibility for certain snowed-in citizens

The Republican governor of New Jersey claimed no responsibility those trapped by the snow not on state roads while he was away on vacation to Disneyworld with his family when his state suffered its fifth-largest blizzard on record.

“If someone is snowed into their house, that’s not our responsibility,” Gov. Chris Christie said during his first press conference upon returning from Florida Thursday.

Christie said that he would have repeated this trip and his limit to helping those only trapped on state roads had he the opportunity to do it over again.

“I wouldn’t change the decision even if I could do it right now,” he said. “I had a great five days with my children. I promised that.”

Full Story Here: New Jersey Governor claims no responsibility for certain snowed-in citizens | Raw Story.

OPS: When the sociopathic republicans are in control….

The Very Serious People Are At It Again, Blaming The Baby Boomers For The Very Dangerous Deficit

You have to watch this video to see how insidiously the Villagers are spreading the narrative: Those Baby Boomers are sucking all the money out of the Treasury because they’re just so damned selfish! And only some of them served in Viet Nam! Watch as Diane Sawyer puts on her Very Serious Face and says the deficit is a big problem. Pay attention to the lies scattered throughout. Dear God, it’s going to be another one of those years:

The first baby boomers will turn 65 Jan. 1, beginning a flood of applications for Medicare benefits that experts fear could drain the economy and hold political repercussions for President Obama.

The baby boomer generation marked a huge reproductive uptick between 1946 and 1964, when 76 million children were born, creating a higher demand across the nation for schools and consumer products, and an upheaval in popular culture.

But this post-World War II generation’s overwhelming demand on the Medicare system could possibly leave future generations with a bigger bill.

Full Story Here: The Very Serious People Are At It Again, Blaming The Baby Boomers For The Very Dangerous Deficit | Crooks and Liars.

OPS: Raising the retirement age to 70 will not “create a scarcity of jobs for younger workers” Look around you. Know anyone in their late 50′s through late 60′s? Are they working now? Are they working at their career jobs or were they successfully downsized to the street and now working menial jobs for 1/3 or less of what they use to make IF THEY ARE WORKING AT ALL?

Raising the retirement age to 70 will cut a huge swath of carnage through baby boomers who will continue to get pushed out of the decent paying jobs (while in their late 50′s) and THEN be forced to piece a life together from the scraps for another 10 or 20 years before they can expect any help from the government. Many won’t survive it. At that age maybe even most won’t survive it.

This is like Alan Grayson’s definition of Republican health care – Hurry up and die

Brazil’s first female president sworn in

From torture in a dictatorship-era jail cell to the helm of Latin America’s largest nation, it’s been an unlikely political rise for President Dilma Rousseff, a former Marxist rebel turned career technocrat who claimed Brazil’s seat of power Saturday.

In becoming the country’s 36th president, Ms. Rousseff pulled off a feat nearly unthinkable a year ago when the relative unknown was tapped by then-President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to be the ruling Workers Party candidate.

Full Story Here: Brazil’s first female president sworn in – The Globe and Mail.

2011: calling time on capitalism

Recent decades have seen a massive redistribution of wealth, imposing the cost of successive crises on the poorest. Enough!

The end of 2010 brought renewed Washington rhetoric, media hype and academic me-too declarations about the US economy “recovering”. We’ve heard them before since the crisis hit in 2007. They always proved wrong.

But recovery noises are useful for some. Republicans claim that government should do less since recovery is underway (of course, for them, government action is always counterproductive). Likewise, Republicans and many centrist Democrats claim that income redistribution policies are no longer needed because recovery means growth, which means everyone gets a bigger piece of an expanding economic pie. Recovery hype also helps the Obama administration to claim that its policies succeeded.

Yet, this is more fantasy than reality. After all, the nearly 20% of the US labour force that became unemployed or underemployed in 2009 remains so as we enter 2011. No recovery there. Worse still, a quarter of those who found work since the crisis began only got temp jobs without benefits. Second, foreclosure actions by banks – including those who got most of the government’s bailouts – continue to eject millions from their homes. No recovery there, either (except for the bigger banks).

Full Story Here: 2011: calling time on capitalism | Richard Wolff | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

A gloomy observation on Afghan training

In the nine months he worked as senior adviser to the chief of the Border Police, John Brewer relied on a local translator to navigate Afghan culture. Yet the Canadian Mountie spent as much time trying to interpret the actions of foreign forces to equally puzzled Afghans.

Why, they asked him, did Germany provide their training base with drug-sniffing police dogs but not dog food or kennels? Why would the Americans build a brand new border police headquarters on land with no water? And what should be done with the thousands of donated European radios that do not operate on the same frequency as the Afghan ones?

His polite response was to suggest that Afghans speak up for themselves and that NATO officers listen to them more. Still, the plain-spoken Superintendent Brewer will admit to some frustration with the waste of time and money through miscommunication. “A lesser man,” he says, “would say it’s pissing in the wind.”

Canada is pulling out combat troops from Afghanistan by July of this year, but announced in November that it would provide 750 trainers and 200 support staff who would stay in Afghanistan to assist the NATO mission. Mr. Brewer’s experience poses the question of whether the effort will accomplish its goal of creating a self-sustaining and effective Afghan security force.

Full Story Here: A gloomy observation on Afghan training – The Globe and Mail.

The next financial crisis is not far off

We were told the world economy was back on track, but festering problems threaten to hit developing countries hard

It’s been an difficult year globally. It began with much relief and congratulations all round, based on perceptions that the financial crisis had been handled effectively, that the Great Recession was over and that significant economies (especially in the developing world) were powering their way back to rapid growth. But it is ending on a much more tentative and even troubled note.

The rebounding of output barely touched unemployment, which remains at historically high levels in most countries. The sovereign debt problems in Europe are just an indication that the financial crisis is far from over, and will continue to reveal itself in new forms for quite some time to come. Meanwhile, the stingy and (so far, at least) visionless response of the stronger economies to the crises in peripheral Europe has condemned them to intensified contraction and ensured that the EU will generate little growth and much instability in the near future.

But those shaking their heads from a distance over difficulties in the eurozone should be considering the other financial problems that continue to fester and will raise their ugly heads soon enough: the persistent depression in housing and real estate markets in the US and other developed and some developing countries, which contributes to asset deflation; the many other bad debts that are piling up quietly, like student loans and consumer credit; the continued incentives for risky behaviour by banks that have benefited from large government support; renewed speculative activity in commodity markets, which has pushed up primary commodity prices to close to their peaks of 2008.

Full Story Here: The next financial crisis is not far off | Global development | guardian.co.uk.

Career Switch by the Jobless Can Lower Living Standards

Even the lucky ones are not so lucky, it seems.

A new study of American workers displaced by the recession sheds light on the sacrifices a large number have made to find work. Many, it turns out, had to switch careers and significantly reduce their living standards.

“In many cases, these people are not very happy,” said Cliff Zukin, professor of public policy and political science at Rutgers University and one of the authors of the study. “They’re the winners who got new jobs, but they’re not really what they want, and not where they want to be.”

The study, conducted by the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers, was based on a survey of Americans around the country who were unemployed as of August 2009 and re-interviewed about their job status twice over the next 15 months.

Full Story Here: Career Switch by the Jobless Can Lower Living Standards – NYTimes.com.

Air Travelers Will See New Consumer Protections in 2011

Some positive developments are on the horizon for America’s beleaguered air travelers in 2011. I wish I could say that the changes will mean less crowded planes, more legroom in coach, and an easier experience in clearing security, but that’s probably too much to wish for. Still, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood seems intent on raising the bar for the treatment of airline passengers.

Among the new rules likely to be finalized next April are mandates for greater transparency in airline pricing, higher reimbursements for bumped passengers and an expansion of the rule that requires U.S. airlines to let passengers off a plane if a tarmac delay exceeds three hours to cover foreign airlines as well

Other new rules would give customers the right to cancel their ticket within 24 hours of making their reservation without a penalty, reimburse them for luggage fees when checked bags are lost or delayed and require airlines to announce flight delays within 30 minutes of receiving the information.

Full Story Here: Air Travelers Will See New Consumer Protections in 2011 – DailyFinance.