Archive for May, 2011

Drinking six cups of coffee a day cuts prostate cancer risk

More is better when it comes to drinking coffee to ward off the risk of deadly prostate cancer, according to a major US study released Tuesday by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Men who drank six or more cups per day had a 60 percent lower risk of developing the most lethal type of prostate cancer and a 20 percent lower risk of forming any type of prostate cancer compared to men who did not drink coffee, it said.

Even just one to three cups per day was linked to a 30 percent lower risk of developing lethal prostate cancer.

Full Story Here: Drinking six cups of coffee a day cuts prostate cancer risk | The Raw Story.

San Francisco man becomes first in history to be ‘cured’ of AIDS

Timothy Ray Brown, a 45-year-old San Francisco man previously known to the medical community as “the Berlin patient,” has become the first person to ever be cured of AIDS.

After a stem cell bone marrow transplant, doctors say his HIV, the infection which causes AIDS, was eradicated.

His bone marrow donor was one of a very small percentage of people who are immune to HIV. He received a second bone marrow transplant after a resurgence of Leukemia, which he’s also since been cured of.

Full Story Here: San Francisco man becomes first in history to be ‘cured’ of AIDS | Raw Replay.

Constituents Laugh At GOP Rep. Quayle For Denying Existence Of Billions In Special Oil Subsidies

Last month, ThinkProgress took note of a strange new defense of oil subsidies: denying their existence. Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT), a top recipient of oil industry campaign contributions, defended billions in targeted oil subsidies by telling a constituent that they don’t exist, so Congress shouldn’t cut them. Now, it appars freshman Rep. Ben Quayle (R-AZ) is adopting Bishop’s novel defense.

At a town hall in Anthem last night, Quayle was asked by a constituent why he had pushed to cut services for the elderly and women while pushing massive tax cuts for the rich and tax subsidies for the oil industry. In a condescending manner, Quayle demanded that the constituent name the specific subsidies targeted towards oil companies. The constituent didn’t miss a beat, and reminded him that the Senate just last week held a hearing where oil industry CEOs defended billions in special taxpayer money. Quayle then went on to deny that any of the subsidies used by the oil industry are at all targeted:

CONSTITUENT: I’d like to know why you’d like to do this on the backs of seniors, and of women. All the cuts are going to hurt seniors, future seniors, and women! Your attacks on Planned Parenthood are hurting women who need healthcare. [...] And why are you are choosing that way rather than cutting oil subsidies [...]

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » Constituents Laugh At GOP Rep. Quayle For Denying Existence Of Billions In Special Oil Subsidies.

While Slashing Schools Funding, Christie Bails Out ‘American Dream’ Mall Boondoggle With $400 Million

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) has made a name for himself as a “strict fiscal conservative,” by slashing spending. The governor has championed budget cuts that eliminated hundreds of millons of dollars in education funding and is now taking aim at public workers, wanting to instate cutbacks that could almost quadruple health care costs for public workers.

Yet there appears to be one project that Christie does not mind subsidizing to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. For years, a group of developers have been building the Xanadu Meadowlands complex, a massive retail and entertainment complex — complete with indoor water park, skating rink, and 600-foot ski slope — that has been under construction for the past three governors. Yet despite $1.9 billion being spent on the project with little progress, Christie recently struck a deal with the company that built the Mall of America to rescue the project, at huge taxpayer expense.

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » While Slashing Schools Funding, Christie Bails Out ‘American Dream’ Mall Boondoggle With $400 Million.

GOP Congressman Suggests Staving Off Default By Selling Most Of Utah

To address the nation’s deficit as we reach our impending statutory debt limit, conservatives refuse to consider asking the wealthiest to pay their fair share. Instead, many want to place the burden on the backs of Main Street America. Florida Republican congressman Dennis Ross went a step further today, suggesting that the U.S. government could actually sell off part of America:

Dennis Ross, a House Republican and a member of the Tea Party caucus, told Reuters: “I don’t think Treasury has been up front with us. I am not convinced the sky will fall in on August 3.”

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » GOP Congressman Suggests Staving Off Default By Selling Most Of Utah.

Even Before NH Voter ID Bill Becomes Law, Illegal Signs Appear At Polling Stations To Disenfranchise Voters

New Hampshire House Speaker Bill O’Brien (R) took to the House floor this morning to defend Senate Bill 129, which would require voters to show photo identification in order to vote. But even before the bill became law, a sign was hanging on the door of a polling station in O’Brien’s own district, demanding that voters show ID before they could vote. The progressive blog Blue Hampshire first reported the placement of the signs, which were hanging outside polling places for the special election to replace state Rep. Robert Mead (R):

Signs posted at the New Boston Elementary School, one of the five polling locations in the district, this morning read, “Per pending legislation you will be required to produce a photo ID in order to receive a ballot.” They were removed at the request of the New Hampshire Attorney General, but not before voters on their way into the polls turned saw them and turned around.

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » Even Before NH Voter ID Bill Becomes Law, Illegal Signs Appear At Polling Stations To Disenfranchise Voters.

Filibuster To Protect Big Oil Welfare Fueled By Oil Money

Tonight, Republicans filibustered the majority’s attempt to repeal $21 billion in subsidies for the big five oil companies — the same companies that made over $30 billion in profits in just the first three months of 2011. While three out of four Americans believe Exxon Mobil and the other oil majors should pay their fair share, instead of receiving taxpayer welfare, the oil-friendly Senate split 52 to 48 to end the subsidies. Though the majority of the Senate voted to repeal these oil tax breaks, the procedural motion required a 60 vote threshold. An analysis of campaign contribution records shows the gusher of dirty cash that fueled the filibuster:

A Center for American Progress Action Fund analysis finds that the 48 senators who sided with Big Oil received over $21 million in career oil contributions, while 52 senators who sided with the American people received only $5.4 million in contributions. Each senator who voted for Big Oil received on average more than four times as much oil cash as those who voted to end the subsidies.

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » Filibuster To Protect Big Oil Welfare Fueled By Oil Money.

Study: $2 trillion needed for U.S. infrastructure

The United States is falling dramatically behind much of the world in rebuilding and expanding an overloaded and deteriorating transportation network it needs to remain competitive in the global marketplace, according to a new study by the Urban Land Institute.

Burdened with soaring deficits and with long-term transportation plans stalled in Congress, the United States has fallen behind three emerging economic competitors — Brazil, China and India, the institute said.

The report envisions a time when, like Detroit, U.S. cities may opt to abandon services in some districts and when lightly used blacktopped rural roads would be allowed to return to nature. Eventually, the report says, the federal gas tax will be increased; local governments will be allowed to toll interstate highways; water bills will rise to pay for pipe and sewer replacement; property and sales taxes will increase; and private, profit-seeking companies will play a much larger role in funding and maintaining public projects.

Full Story Here: Study: $2 trillion needed for U.S. infrastructure – The Washington Post.

Thom Hartmann: Stop the show & start the subpoenas for high crimes against America

Last week – a slew of big oil executives were paraded in front of the Senate Finance Committee to defend why they need tens of billions of dollars in oil subsidies courtesy of you and me the taxpayer. And let’s just say the Senators had a hard time understanding why this money is well spent. Based on that – you’d think that our lawmakers would get to work cutting off those subsidies immediately – wouldn’t you? But the truth is…you’re just watching a show.

Apparent Immunity Gene ‘Cures’ Bay Area Man Of AIDS

A 45-year-old man now living in the Bay Area may be the first person ever cured of the deadly disease AIDS, the result of the discovery of an apparent HIV immunity gene.

Timothy Ray Brown tested positive for HIV back in 1995, but has now entered scientific journals as the first man in world history to have that HIV virus completely eliminated from his body in what doctors call a “functional cure.”

Brown was living in Berlin, Germany back in 2007, dealing with HIV and leukemia, when scientists there gave him a bone marrow stem cell transplant that had astounding results.

Full Story Here: Apparent Immunity Gene ‘Cures’ Bay Area Man Of AIDS « CBS San Francisco.

Scientists find ‘master switch’ to controlling human fat

Scientists have found that a gene linked to diabetes and cholesterol is a “master switch” that controls other genes found in fat in the body, and say it should help in the search for treatments for obesity-related diseases.

In a study published in the journal Nature Genetics, the British researchers said that since fat plays an important role in peoples’ susceptibility to metabolic diseases like obesity, heart disease and diabetes, the regulating gene could be target for drugs to treat such illnesses.

“This is the first major study that shows how small changes in one master regulator gene can cause a cascade of other metabolic effects in other genes,” said Tim Spector of King’s College London, who led the study.

Full Story Here: Scientists find ‘master switch’ to controlling human fat | The Raw Story.

‘Sovereign citizen’ anti-government movement on the rise | Raw Replay

CBS correspondent Byron Pitts reported on a group of Americans calling themselves “sovereign citizens” who don’t pay taxes, carry a driver’s license or hold a Social Security card. There are an estimated 300,000 sovereign citizens in the United States and some in the movement have grown increasingly violent.

“What’s driving people to it is they’re beginning to understand that the government has moved away from fundamental principles that this nation was built on,” sovereign citizen Alfred Adask told 60 Minutes. “Where are the limits in limited government? The sovereignty movement is attempting to rediscover those limits and reassert them.”

Watch video, courtesy of CBS, below:

Full Story Here: ‘Sovereign citizen’ anti-government movement on the rise | Raw Replay.

‘Sovereign citizen’ anti-government movement on the rise | Raw Replay

CBS correspondent Byron Pitts reported on a group of Americans calling themselves “sovereign citizens” who don’t pay taxes, carry a driver’s license or hold a Social Security card. There are an estimated 300,000 sovereign citizens in the United States and some in the movement have grown increasingly violent.

“What’s driving people to it is they’re beginning to understand that the government has moved away from fundamental principles that this nation was built on,” sovereign citizen Alfred Adask told 60 Minutes. “Where are the limits in limited government? The sovereignty movement is attempting to rediscover those limits and reassert them.”

Watch video, courtesy of CBS, below:

Full Story Here: ‘Sovereign citizen’ anti-government movement on the rise | Raw Replay.

ACLU: National Defense Authorization Act permits ‘worldwide war without end’

A little noticed provision in the House Armed Services Committee’s National Defense Authorization Act would authorize the United States to use military force anywhere there are terrorism suspects, including within the U.S. itself, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

Section 1034 was added to the bill [PDF] by the committee’s chairman, Rep. Buck McKeon (R-CA).

“Congress may soon vote on a new declaration of worldwide war without end, and without clear enemies,” the ACLU warned in a statement. “A ‘sleeper provision’ deep inside defense bills pending before Congress could become the single biggest hand-over of unchecked war authority from Congress to the executive branch in modern American history.”

Full Story Here: ACLU: National Defense Authorization Act permits ‘worldwide war without end’ | The Raw Story.

Supreme Court upholds warrantless search of apartment based on marijuana smell

Police find illegal drugs after busting into wrong apartment complex

The smell of marijuana smoke and sound of evidence being destroyed is enough reason for police to knock down an apartment door and search the place without a warrant, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday.

In an 8-1 decision [PDF], the nation’s highest court said the warrantless search of an apartment in Lexington, Kentucky was legal because of “exigent circumstances,” which permits law enforcement officers to conduct a warrantless search if there is a strong likelihood of destruction of evidence.

In the case Kentucky v. King, uniformed Lexington police officers pursued a suspected drug dealer to an apartment complex. The officers approached an apartment door where they believed the suspect had entered, knocked loudly and announced their presence.

Full Story Here: Supreme Court upholds warrantless search of apartment based on marijuana smell | The Raw Story.

Poll: Michigan Voters Oppose Cutting Corporate Taxes, Support Constitutional Protection Of Labor Rights

Like other Republican governors, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) has aggressively pursued an agenda to curb labor rights, cut corporate taxes, and slash funding for education. As ThinkProgress reported, Snyder’s proposed budget would cut corporate taxes by 86 percent while making the state’s already regressive tax system even worse by disproportionately increasing taxes on lower-income earners, especially retirees. The tax plan passed both houses of the state legislature last week and awaits his signature.

“Many of us are going to have to sacrifice in the short term. But I can tell you with confidence, with conviction, by making these sacrifices, we can all win in the long term,” Snyder said of his budget.

Snyder’s constituents don’t seem to be buying it, with 70 percent of Michigan voters opposed to cutting business taxes at the expense of education and other social services, according to a new poll from Michigan firm EPIC/MRA:

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » Poll: Michigan Voters Oppose Cutting Corporate Taxes, Support Constitutional Protection Of Labor Rights.

Anti-Abortion Group Uses Google Ads To Misdirect Women Seeking Abortions

An anti-abortion group called Online for Life is buying up Google ad space as part of a campaign to deliberately mislead and misdirect women seeking information about abortions on the internet, the Washington Independent reported Friday. In order to “intercept” “abortion-determined” women who try to find service providers online, the Texas-based group has made their deceptive ads some of the first hits women see when they use Google to search for “abortion” in certain cities. Several of the ads trick women by appearing to offer full-service medical counseling, but instead re-route them to “crisis pregnancy centers” that perform ultrasounds and try to scare women out of having abortions by telling them false or misleading information about the risks of the procedure.

Online for Life explains the strategy on its website under the heading “Rescuing pre-born babies from abortion using the Internet”:

The pro-life search result connects the frightened, uncertain Mom with a website that Online for Life maintains for a pro-life pregnancy resource center in her hometown…that connection leads to a phone call, then a visit, then a sonogram, and…

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » Anti-Abortion Group Uses Google Ads To Misdirect Women Seeking Abortions.

After The Senate Votes To End Secret Holds, Anonymous GOP Senator Blocks Nominee With A Secret Hold

In a gesture to end its characteristic gridlock, the Senate began the 112th with a vote to end “secret holds” — a procedural move that allows lawmakers to anonymously block legislation or nominees. GOP Sens. Jim DeMint (SC), Mike Lee (UT), Rand Paul (KY), and John Ensign (NV) were the only four to vote against the measure. “No longer will senators be able to holdup legislation anonymously,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) at the time. “From now on, they’re going to have to own it.”

But anonymous obstruction dies hard in the Senate. After keeping up appearances for five months, a GOP senator placed a secret hold last Friday on the nomination of Heather Higginbottom as the deputy budget director at the Office of Management and Budget. Democratic aides suggest that Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) broke the pledge:

Heather Higginbottom’s nomination to be President Obama’s deputy budget director is in deep trouble after the GOP placed a hold on it, Democrat aides said Friday.[...]

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » After The Senate Votes To End Secret Holds, Anonymous GOP Senator Blocks Nominee With A Secret Hold.

Violent Arctic storm a climate-change ‘harbinger,’ study finds

The Inuvialuit living in the Mackenzie Delta of the Northwest Territories watched incredulously in September of 1999, as a particularly violent storm swept the Arctic Ocean 20 kilometres inland, killing all vegetation in its path and leaving lakes infused with salt water.

Local elders said nothing like it had ever happened in the known history of their people – and it turns out they were right.

Scientists from Carleton University in Ottawa and Queen’s University in Kingston, who attribute the surge to global warming, have looked at tree trunks and lake beds to determine that no comparable event has occurred in at least 1,000 years. 

Full Story Here: Violent Arctic storm a climate-change ‘harbinger,’ study finds – The Globe and Mail.

Senators Sanders, Paul on Healthcare as a ‘Right’

With the backing of the AFL-CIO, National Nurses United and the International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) simultaneously introduced the American Health Security Act of 2011, a Medicare-for-All single-payer system.

The move triggered a “provocative, interesting discussion,” as Sanders described it, during a Health, Education, Labor and Pensions subcommittee hearing in the Senate last week in which the Vermont Senator squared off with Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) (see video below). Sanders and a physician-witness agreed that treating healthcare as a “right” is consistent with the Hippocratic Oath. For his part, Paul, a self-certified physician, claimed that the establishment of healthcare as a right would turn physicians and their staffs into slaves, with the possibility of police barging into their houses at night to arrest them. Paul’s theory that medical care for all “enslaves” doctors and all of those who choose to work in their offices, would no doubt come as a surprise to many physicians who live comfortably in single-payer countries, like the wealthy UK physician interviewed by Michael Moore in Sicko!

Dr. Paul’s remarks underscore the extent to which ideology has obscured a basic reality that the core problem is not the ability of American physicians to deliver quality healthcare, but the absurdity of a society which places a greater value on accumulating obscene wealth in the hands of the privileged few above the health and very lives of its citizens…

Full Story Here: The BRAD BLOG : Senators Sanders, Paul on Healthcare as a ‘Right’.

Health Insurers Report Record Profit – But Leave 50 Mil Uninsured, Shift Uninsureds’ $49 Bil Unpaid Hospital Bill to Taxpayers

Four recent health-care related stories in the news, taken together, put the current state of the crisis into perspective:

Despite failing at its core mission of providing insurance to everyone, the insurance industry rakes in record profits:

The five largest insurers — WellPoint, Cigna, UnitedHealth Group, Aetna and Humana — which along with some other competitors boasted a 250 percent return over the past decade, earned over $15 billion in 2010. That’s 22 percent growth over their combined $12.2 billion earnings in 2009.

Full Story Here: Pensito Review » Health Insurers Report Record Profit – But Leave 50 Mil Uninsured, Shift Uninsureds’ $49 Bil Unpaid Hospital Bill to Taxpayers.

TEPCO Admits Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Reactor Unit 1 ‘In State of Meltdown’, Fuel Rods Exposed

Radiation said leaking from holes in bottom of container vessel..

The Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco), which operates the troubled Fukushima nuclear plant, on Thursday admitted that a nuclear meltdown occurred at the plant.

With the nuclear meltdown, Tepco said the nuclear fuel rods in the reactor are completely exposed, as large amounts of radiation is being released. The water level at the plant’s No. 1 reactor was much lower than thought – as much as 5 meters (16.4 feet) below the nuclear rods – and clearly not high enough to cover the nuclear fuel.

According to reports, several holes were found at the bottom of the nuclear reactor’s pressure vessel, where the melted nuclear fuel now threatens to leak out of.

On a daily basis, Tepco injects almost 200 tons of water into the pressure vessel, but it is highly likely that the water has been constantly leaking from the vessel and containment chamber, eventually flowing under the reactor building.

Full Story Here: The BRAD BLOG : TEPCO Admits Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Reactor Unit 1 ‘In State of Meltdown’, Fuel Rods Exposed.

OPS: “…a meltdown occured….”  BS! The meltdown IS OCCURING! it’s no where near past tense

The Remarkable, Lurid, and CRIMINAL Story of Now-Former Sen. John Ensign (& Sen. Tom Coburn)

And a word about Ensign’s scofflaw replacement Sen. Dean Heller…

We don’t usually offer much space here to sex scandals, unless, in some cases, they demonstrate, for example, blatantly offensive hypocrisy in regard to everyone else’s civil rights (talking to you, disgraced former Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID)) — or, as in the case of disgraced now-former Sen. John Ensign (R-NV), charges of blatant criminality.

The details out of the bi-partisan, unanimously approved 68-page report released late yesterday by the U.S. Senate Ethics Committee — which usually does absolutely nothing — referring the Ensign case to the Dept. of Justice and the FEC for criminal prosecution are stunning, and much worse than previously understood.

In their letter to the DoJ [PDF] the Committee’s Chair and Vice-Chair, Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA) respectively, refer the matter…

Full Story Here: The BRAD BLOG : The Remarkable, Lurid, and CRIMINAL Story of Now-Former Sen. John Ensign (& Sen. Tom Coburn).

The Renewable Future

Re­new­able en­er­gy tri­gg­ers sharp­ly polarized views. For some, it is a co­st­ly white elep­hant; for oth­ers, it is humanity’s savior, pro­mis­ing to em­an­cipate us (and our en­viron­ment) from the “folly” of fos­sil fuels. So a hardheaded, credib­le, and, above all, im­par­ti­al an­alysis, which would pro­vide a much-needed dose of prag­mat­ism and rea­l­ism to the de­bate, is long over­due.

The new re­port by the Uni­ted Na­tions In­ter­government­al Panel on Climate Chan­ge (IPCC), in­volv­ing more than 120 scient­ists, econom­ists, and tech­nology special­ists, pro­vides that long-overdue as­sess­ment. It adopts a glob­al per­spec­tive and re­con­ciles de­veloped and de­velop­ing co­unt­ries’ in­terests, while weigh­ing the broad­er economic, en­viron­ment­al, and soci­al is­sues at stake.

The sum­ma­ry, sig­ned by re­presen­tatives of the more than 190 co­unt­ries meet­ing this week in the Uni­ted Arab Em­irates, con­cludes that re­new­able en­er­gy is an in­creasing­ly pract­ical and high­ly pro­mis­ing opt­ion. Costs are fall­ing – and are li­ke­ly to fall even furth­er as in­nova­tion ac­celerates and glob­al en­er­gy de­mand con­tinues to rise.

Full Story Here: The Renewable Future | Truthout.

Food Safety for Whom? Corporate Wealth vs. People’s Health

The steady stream of scandals, outbreaks of disease and regulatory crack-downs that is part and parcel of the industrial food system has made food safety a major global issue. Our growing reliance on corporate food and farming concentrates and amplifies risk in new and unprecedented ways, at scales never seen before, making intervention more necessary than ever to ensure that food does not make people sick. But behind all of the talk and action lies another agenda.

“Food safety” may sound like it is about protecting people’s health or even the environment. The European Union boasts of a food safety system that runs “from farm to fork”, a language meant to make consumers feel assured that someone is watching out for them. But what happens these days in the name of “food safety” is not so much about consumers or safety as it is about getting everyone who is involved in food production, preparation, and delivery to conform to a number of “standards” set by supermarkets and the food service industry that are first and foremost about ensuring their profits.

Governments may set the frame for food safety through a number of policies and administrative measures (inspection services, and so on), but the private sector draws up and implements the actual standards. This public–private division (and collusion) creates a host of problems, because we end up with a situation where:

• the industrial food sector is essentially regulating itself, which reinforces the case that food safety is not primarily about public health, especially when it manifests itself in terrible food poisoning outbreaks; and,

Full Story Here: Food Safety for Whom? Corporate Wealth vs. People’s Health | Common Dreams.

Ian Fletcher : Should America Stiff China?

Ian Fletcher

I shall leave aside for now the strategic question of whether America should stiff China, i.e. repudiate our $3 trillion in obligations to them.  Strategically, repudiation of debt and other instruments on this scale is obviously something analogous to the atomic bomb in warfare: a very extreme option, with serious negative side effects, and not something to be taken lightly.

My question in this article is, rather, the ethical question: does America have the right to stiff China?  Frankly, we quite arguably do.

Any serious ethical argument on this question turns upon the fact that China has not honored obligations it has assumed towards us, so therefore we are not obliged to honor our obligations towards it.  This sounds like a technicality, but in fact, China’s failures to honor its obligations run into the trillions of dollars.

Let’s start with currency manipulation.  China engages in this practice to a massive degree, spending roughly a billion dollars a day to drive down the renminbi-dollar exchange rate.  And yet China has agreed, by becoming a signatory to the Articles of Agreement of the IMF, not to do so.  Article IV, section 1 of this document—which China voluntarily signed—reads:

Each member undertakes to collaborate with the Fund and other members to assure orderly exchange arrangements and to promote a stable system of exchange rates. In particular, each member shall:… (iii) avoid manipulating exchange rates or the international monetary system in order to prevent effective balance of payments adjustment or to gain an unfair competitive advantage over other members.

(See http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/aa/aa.pdf)

The next big area of unethical Chinese behavior is the theft of American intellectual property. The most obvious and superficial case of this is rampant Chinese copying of American DVDs and other entertainment materiel, together with fake designer handbags, watches and the like. But the more serious kind of intellectual property theft concerns industrial know-how.

Although China committed, when it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, to crack down on such theft and start to uphold the standards on the issue that developed nations uphold, it has not done so. Instead, with government acquiescence and best and proactive help (sometimes with the aid of Chinese intelligence agencies) at worst, it has continued to steal.   As reported by the Irish journalist Eamonn Fingleton in his book Jaws of the Dragon,

The story began as long ago as 1980 when Beijing agreed to join the World Intellectual Property Organization. Various laws were duly promulgated that ostensibly provided Western owners of trademarks, patents, and copyrights with extensive protection against theft.

After American corporations complained that these laws were mere window dressing, Beijing assured first Washington and then the World Trade Organization that it would tighten enforcement. Yet all the evidence is that the problem has just kept getting worse–so much so that China was recently reckoned to account for fully two-thirds of all the world’s output of pirated and counterfeit products.

Moreover, China’s counterfeiting style has in recent years developed in a way that poses a qualitatively different, much more devastating, threat than previously. Whereas in the 1990s China confined itself largely to producing rather obvious knockoffs of luxury items such as Rolex watches and Louis Vuitton handbags, these days it is heavily involved in producing fake versions of everything from General Motors spare parts to Otis elevators.

China also exports vast quantities of counterfeit pharmaceuticals, most notably drugs like Prozac Viagra, which sell particularly well on the Internet.  Not only does such counterfeiting damage American corporate interests but it raises major questions of consumer safety.  In recent years there have been many reports of deaths caused by Chinese counterfeiting activities. In Panama in 2006, more than 100 people died after taking cough medicine laced with a toxic Chinese-made ingredient.

As documented by the author Tim Phillips in 2005, whole cities in China are devoted to various counterfeiting specialties.  The city of Yiwu in eastern China even functions as a sort of “Wall Street” for the industry, providing a vast marketplace where, Phillips states, 100,000 counterfeit products are openly trade and 2,000 metric tons of fakes change hands daily.  Meanwhile, as Edmund Andrews of the New York Times has reported, in big cities like Shanghai, vendors still openly sell pirated goods even along major thoroughfares.

Not only has the Chinese government turned a blind eye to all of this, but large sections of the Chinese establishment, not least many sons and daughters of top leaders (know to China watchers as “princelings”), are heavily implicated in the racket.

The value of this stolen property must be accounted for in any calculation of what America owes China on net.  This is not a minor issue in a modern technology-based economy—which must, by definition, be a know-how based economy.  (According to a 2006 study by the Federal Reserve Board, America’s investment in this and related intangible assets like research and development , computer software, workforce training, and spending to build brands exceeds its investment in tangible assets.)

The cost to American industry is not only the licensing and other fees that should have been paid and were not.  The cost includes also the long-term contracting of America’s industrial base due to counterfeit competition and the destruction of our capacity to innovate and invent due to depriving inventors of their just reward.

Finally we come to the most fundamental Chinese violation of its obligations to the U.S. Despite having committed on paper to engage in free trade with us—a commitment that we have honored to a fault—China in reality closes its own markets to its trading partners.

China’s protectionism doesn’t only mean obvious policies like tariffs and quotas; it also includes local content laws, import licensing requirements, and subtler measures (some of them covert, hard to detect, or infinitely disputable) such as deliberately quirky national technical standards and discriminatory tax practices. And it includes outright skullduggery such as deliberate port delays, inflated customs valuations, selective enforcement of safety standards, and systematic demands for bribes.

The quantitative size of these Chinese repudiations of assumed obligations?  Well, if we take seriously the claim by neoclassical free-trade economists that trade naturally tends towards balance, then we must conclude that their size is equal to China’s gigantic accumulated trade surpluses with the United States.

Interestingly enough, the size of China’s accumulated American assets, because these derive from these accumulated trade surpluses, corresponds fairly closely to the size of China’s accumulated cheating.  Which suggests—not proves, suggests—a certain poetic justice if America were to repudiate these obligations.  Perhaps it’s not the prudent thing to do (at least at the present time), but we shouldn’t feel guilty about considering it, especially as it’s one of our strongest forms of leverage for negotiating a better solution.

Ian Fletcher is Senior Economist of the Coalition for a Prosperous America, a nationwide grass-roots organization dedicated to fixing America’s trade policies and comprising representatives from business, agriculture, and labor. He was previously Research Fellow at the U.S. Business and Industry Council, a Washington think tank, and before that, an economist in private practice serving mainly hedge funds and private equity firms. Educated at Columbia University and the University of Chicago, he lives in San Francisco. He is the author of Free Trade Doesn’t Work: What Should Replace It and Why.

A Chance to Change the World: Richard Heinberg’s Advice to College Grads Entering the Peak Oil World

For advice about life after graduation, students at Worcester Polytechnic wanted to hear from peak oil scholar Richard Heinberg instead of Exxon’s CEO. Here’s what he told them.

Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, MA invited Rex Tillerson, CEO of ExxonMobil, to give the commencement speech at its 2011 graduation ceremonies on May 14. When students heard this, many were surprised and upset. As Linnea Palmer Paton of Students for a Just and Stable Future put it in a letter to the college president, “[W]e, as conscientious members of the WPI community and proud members of the Class of 2011, will not give [the Exxon CEO] the honor of imparting … his well-wishes … for our futures … when he is largely responsible for undermining them.”

The students then invited Richard Heinberg, Senior Fellow of Post Carbon Institute, to give an alternative commencement speech. After a few days of negotiations, the college administration agreed to give Heinberg the podium immediately after the main ceremony. Many students chose to walk out during Tillerson’s address. This is what Richard Heinberg had to say.

ExxonMobil is inviting you to take your place in a fossil-fueled twenty-first century. But I would argue that Exxon’s vision of the future is actually just a forward projection from our collective rear-view mirror. Despite its high-tech gadgetry, the oil industry is a relic of the days of the Beverly Hillbillies. The fossil-fueled sitcom of a world that we all find ourselves still trapped within may, on the surface, appear to be characterized by smiley-faced happy motoring, but at its core it is monstrous and grotesque. It is a zombie energy economy.

Of course, we all use petroleum and natural gas in countless ways and on a daily basis. These are amazing substances—they are energy-dense and chemically useful, and they yield enormous economic benefit. America started out with vast reserves of oil and gas, and these fuels helped make our nation the richest and most powerful in the world.

Full Story Here: A Chance to Change the World: Richard Heinberg’s Advice to College Grads Entering the Peak Oil World.

Japan left with no choice but to widen nuke evacuation zone

JAPAN has started the first evacuations of homes outside a government exclusion zone after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami crippled one of the country’s nuclear power plants.

About 4000 residents of Iidate-mura village and 1100 people in Kawamata-cho town, in the quake-hit northeast, began the phased relocations to public housing, hotels and other facilities in nearby cities.

Their communities are outside the 20km radius from the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, officially designated as an area of forced evacuation due to health risks from the radiation seeping from the ageing and damaged plant.

Full Story Here: Japan left with no choice but to widen nuke evacuation zone | Herald Sun.

“This Is A Ticking Time Bomb!” Michio Kaku

May 13, 2011 CNN

IMF Head’s Arrest Casts Shadow On Greek Bailout Meeting

The arrest of IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn complicates a key European meeting on whether to give Greece billions more in aid – but experts insisted one man’s troubles won’t keep the 17 eurozone nations from trying to contain a debt crisis that threatens them all.

Eurozone financial leaders are to discuss Greece’s deteriorating economy Monday at a Brussels meeting where experts will brief them on the situation in Athens. Key questions include what conditions to put on more help to the debt-strapped nation, with European leaders unhappy at what they see as limited Greek efforts to raise money by selling government property.

Strauss-Kahn was arrested Sunday in New York on suspicion of sexual assault on a hotel maid.

Despite the arrest, the International Monetary Fund said in a statement it remains “fully functioning and operational.” The IMF Executive Board convened an informal session Sunday and made Strauss-Kahn’s deputy, John Lipsky, acting managing director while its chief was unavailable.

Full Story Here: IMF Head’s Arrest Casts Shadow On Greek Bailout Meeting.

Are humans reshaping Earth?

If alien geologists were to visit our planet 10 million years from now, would they discern a distinct human fingerprint in Earth’s accumulating layers of rock and sediment?

Will homo sapiens, in other words, define a geological period in the way dinosaurs — and their vanishing act — helped mark the Jurassic and the Cretaceous?

A growing number of scientists, some gathered at a one-day symposium this week at the British Geological Society in London, say “yes”.

One among them, chemistry Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen, has even suggested a new name: the Anthropocene.

Full Story Here: Are humans reshaping Earth? | The Raw Story.

United States to hit debt ceiling on Monday

The debt-laden US government’s credit card will hit its limit Monday, creating a cash crunch that puts the country’s credit standing at risk as politicians battle over its long-term deficit.

Reaching the $14.29 trillion ceiling set by Congress will not have an immediate impact on government finances, because the Treasury has found about ten weeks of wiggle-room in short-term adjustments and an unexpected April jump in tax revenues.

But with Republicans refusing to increase the ceiling without massive future spending cuts, the longer the fight over bridging the country’s deficit goes on, the higher the stakes will get.

Full Story Here: United States to hit debt ceiling on Monday | The Raw Story.

Mitch Daniels, Architect of US Debt Crisis

Exclusive: Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels is the new Republican darling of the Washington establishment, which hails him as a “fiscal conservative” who would be “serious” about addressing the nation’s staggering debt problem. But his many admirers forget to mention what Daniels did in creating the debt crisis as George W. Bush’s budget director, notes Robert Parry.

Robert Parry

To hear Official Washington tell it, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels is the new “serious” Republican presidential contender. He’s praised as a “fiscal conservative” who isn’t obsessed with the Right’s divisive social agenda nor marred by the crazy “birther” conspiracy theories.

Mentioned only in passing is a key fact that – in a saner world – would disqualify him from holding any government office: Mitch Daniels was President George W. Bush’s original budget director in 2001.

In other words, the “fiscal conservative” Daniels oversaw the federal budget as it was making its precipitous dive from a $236 billion surplus – then on a trajectory to eliminate the entire federal debt in a decade – to a $400 billion deficit by the time he left in June 2003.

Plus, because of proposals developed on Daniels’s watch – such as tax cuts favoring the rich an

Full Story Here: Mitch Daniels, Architect of US Debt Crisis | Consortiumnews.

Two Other Nuclear Reactors Suffer Serious Damage

Substantial damage to the fuel cores at two additional reactors of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex has taken place, operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Sunday, further complicating the already daunting task of bringing them to a safe shutdown while avoiding the release of high levels of radioactivity. The revelation followed an acknowledgment on Thursday that a similar meltdown of the core took place at unit No. 1.

Workers also found that the No. 1 unit’s reactor building is flooded in the basement, reinforcing the suspicion that the containment vessel is damaged and leaking highly radioactive water.

The revelations are likely to force an overhaul of the six- to nine-month blueprint for bringing the reactors to a safe shutdown stage and end the release of radioactive materials. The original plan, announced in mid-April, was due to be revised May 17.

Full Story Here: Two Other Nuclear Reactors Suffer Serious Damage – WSJ.com.

Speculation explains more about oil prices than anything else

Feel like you’re being robbed every time you fill the gas tank? Not sure who to blame? Try Wall Street.

That’s not the conventional explanation, but it’s the one the facts point to. Usually analysts say today’s high prices stem simply from “supply and demand.” They mean demand for oil and gas is rising and supplies aren’t keeping up, so people bid up their price. But global and U.S. supplies are plentiful and demand is stable, so that’s not it.

Then the analysts say it’s because the market’s afraid Middle East turmoil will interrupt oil supplies, so nervous buyers are bidding up prices to ensure they lock in a contract for oil now, just in case it’s scarce later. There’s probably some truth to that, but after five months of turmoil, there’s been no significant impact on Middle East oil supplies, even as prices have see-sawed, so that’s not credible either.

Full Story Here: Speculation explains more about oil prices than anything else | McClatchy.

Koch brothers under attack by leftwing film-maker

Robert Greenwald is taking the fight to billionaires David and Charles Koch, who fund much of the US’s rightwing politics

Even for the Lincoln Centre it was an unusual show, and an unscheduled one. Several hundred protesters turned up outside the arts complex on Manhattan’s Upper West Side last week for the guerrilla screening of a short film. From a hotel on the other side of the street, a video was projected on to the centre’s walls. The unwitting stars of the films were David and Charles Koch, the reclusive rightwing billionaire brothers whose secretive empire and network of influence and funding is emerging as a liberal rallying cause in America.

As bemused theatregoers watched the boisterous crowd, the videos depicted facts and figure showing Koch support for Tea Party groups, global warming sceptics and thinktanks seeking to strip away regulations on the environment, cut social security and oppose healthcare reform. On the David H Koch Theatre in the complex – renamed when one of the brothers donated $100m (£62m) in 2008 – activists climbed a ladder to post a giant sticker above the sign bearing Koch’s name. “I am the Tea Party’s wallet,” it read. When the police vans finally arrived, the activists had gone.

For Koch Industries, one of the largest private businesses in America, it was another attempt by liberal groups to drag it into the public eye over accusations that it is corrupting US politics in pursuit of its business interests. There have been lengthy magazine articles investigating its activities, growing protests and a legion of bloggers scouring the company’s every move.

Full Story Here: Koch brothers under attack by leftwing film-maker | World news | The Observer.

Blackwater Founder Forms Secret Army for Arab State

Late one night last November, a plane carrying dozens of Colombian men touched down in this glittering seaside capital. Whisked through customs by an Emirati intelligence officer, the group boarded an unmarked bus and drove roughly 20 miles to a windswept military complex in the desert sand.

The Colombians had entered the United Arab Emirates posing as construction workers. In fact, they were soldiers for a secret American-led mercenary army being built by Erik Prince, the billionaire founder of Blackwater Worldwide, with $529 million from the oil-soaked sheikdom.

Mr. Prince, who resettled here last year after his security business faced mounting legal problems in the United States, was hired by the crown prince of Abu Dhabi to put together an 800-member battalion of foreign troops for the U.A.E., according to former employees on the project, American officials and corporate documents obtained by The New York Times.

Full Story Here: Blackwater Founder Forms Secret Army for Arab State – NYTimes.com.

“The Rich” Don’t “Create Jobs,” We Do.

You hear it again and again, variation after variation on a core message: if you tax rich people it kills jobs. You hear about “job-killing tax hikes,” or that “taxing the rich hurts jobs,” “taxes kill jobs,” “taxes take money out of the economy, “if you tax the rich they won’t be able to provide jobs.” … on and on it goes. So do we really depend on “the rich” to “create” jobs? Or do jobs get created when they fill a need?

Here is a recent typical example, Obama Touts Job-Killing Tax Plan, written by a “senior fellow at the Cato Institute and chairman of the Institute for Global Economic Growth,”

Some people, in their pursuit of profit, benefit their fellow humans by creating new or better goods and services, and then by employing others. We call such people entrepreneurs and productive workers.

Others are parasites who suck the blood and energy away from the productive. Such people are most often found in government.

Perhaps the most vivid description of what happens to a society where the parasites become so numerous and powerful that they destroy their productive hosts is Ayn Rand’s classic novel “Atlas Shrugged.” …

Full Story Here: Actually, “The Rich” Don’t “Create Jobs,” We Do. | OurFuture.org.

Fired For Your Personal Life? A New Law Could Make It Possible

What if you could be fired for something that you do outside of your working hours? That could be possible now thanks to a new law passed in Florida that would allow employers to turn down an application for unemployment benefits if they believe you were fired for “misconduct” even if the alleged misconduct occurred outside the office during your free time.

Via the Orlando Sentinel:

“The Legislature has just given license for your employer to be Big Brother over your life,” said Howard Simon, executive director of the Florida American Civil Liberties Union. “Now they can monitor what you do off-hours and try to deny you unemployment for that behavior.”

The language is part of a rewrite of the state’s unemployment regulations approved by the Florida Legislature. The bill cuts total weeks of benefits, ties maximum weeks to the state jobless rate and makes it easier for businesses to challenge a worker’s benefits claim. Gov. Rick Scott has not yet signed the bill (HB 7005) but has expressed support for it.

According to the report, the prior law stated that employers had nearly any right to fire an employee but owed that employee unemployment benefits unless they could demonstrate willful misconduct at the place of employment.

Full Story Here: Fired For Your Personal Life? A New Law Could Make It Possible.

How Fox News Outfoxes Americans

To understand how so many average Americans can be duped into embracing right-wing positions that go against their own interests, you must look at how Fox News (and right-wing media outlets) use faux populism and phony outrage as propaganda techniques, a topic explored by Danny Schechter in this guest essay.

By Danny Schechter

May 13, 2011

Grrrrrrrr. You can almost hear the growling in the background as the masters of attack politics go into action, virtually every hour on the hour, on the Fox News Channel.

The issues they focus on are carefully selected by top executives and then broken down into highly politicized message points. Their dominant emotion is annoyance as expressed in sarcasm and scowling; contempt is the underlying attitude.

In the Fox view, the other side is usually not just wrong but plain stupid, almost unbelievable in its softheaded naiveté and distance from reality.

A “what do you expect” question invariably tops off the argument which always ends with the Fox host a winner and the Democrat or social critic a loser on every level.

Full Story Here: How Fox News Outfoxes Americans | Consortiumnews.

Republican Introduces Bill to Institute Tax Holiday for Multinational Corporations

Rep. Keven Brady (R-TX) has introduced a piece of legislation that would allow American multinational corporations to bring cash back to the U.S. they are hoarding offshore at a discounted tax rate.

Currently, American multinationals have up to $1 trillion sitting offshore. Normally, that cash would be taxed at a 35 percent rate when it is returned to America. Under the Brady bill, they could return their cash to America at a rate of just 5.25 percent.

“This is about creating jobs, expanding U.S. businesses and strengthening American companies,” Brady said in a statement today.

To ensure that the companies did use the money to create jobs, the legislation would add $25,000 to their taxable income each time they cut their workforce below the average number of employees prior to the institution of a tax holiday.

Full Story Here: Republican Introduces Bill to Institute Tax Holiday for Multinational Corporations | Economy In Crisis.

Comet Hits Sun: NASA Captures Stunning Event (VIDEO)

If you’ve ever wondered what happens when a comet hits the Sun, this might be your answer.

This stunning video shows the Sun’s “reaction” as a comet barrels towards its surface. What happens next is spectacular.

Though NASA states that you can’t actually see the comet hit the Sun (the impact is blocked out by the red occulting disk that allows the other structures in the Sun’s corona to be seen) the ensuing explosion gives a pretty good idea of what’s going on.

The Sun’s position is indicated by the white circle in the video.

However, scientists don’t directly associate these coronal ejections with comet impacts. From NASA Goddard’s Flickr page:

Full Story Here: Comet Hits Sun: NASA Captures Stunning Event (VIDEO).

Italy’s Great Nuclear Swindle

The Radioactive Dictatorship of Silvio Berlusconi

By MICHAEL LEONARDI

Naples.

Italy’s democracy is in tatters as Silvio Berlusconi and his ruling right-wing coalition work to block a citizen’s referendum that would repeal the decision of the Berlusconi government to return to nuclear energy production on the peninsula. Italy has not produced nuclear energy since 1990 and recent polls indicate that more than 75 % of Italians are opposed to nuclear energy production. The referendum in question is on the ballot for the 12th and 13th of June, although a recent call by the Berlusconi government for a one year moratorium on the relaunch of nuclear energy in Italy threatens to push the referendum off the ballot through a last minute legal ruling. The campaign to bring this referendum to a vote was spearheaded by opposition political party Italia Dei Valori (Italy of Values) which led a broad based coalition of citizen and environmental groups to gather the 500,000 signatures needed to get the referendum on the ballot.

Italy is the only G8 country that does not produce nuclear energy. It has been free of functioning nuclear power plants since 1990 but does receive around 10% of its electricity from nuclear energy generated in France and Germany. Citizens successfully passed a referendum in 1987, one year after the catastrophic Chernobyl accident, that called for the phasing out and suspension of nuclear energy production. In 1987 Italy had two operating nuclear plants and has had four operational reactors in its history. In 2007 while campaigning for his third election, Berlusconi announced his intentions to return to nuclear energy production in Italy as a strategic part of a national energy policy.

Full Story Here: Michael Leonardi: Italy’s Great Nuclear Swindle.

Toxic Chemicals in Seafood

How can our government allow this to happen? Why are we standing by doing nothing? We must demand tariffs on food imports.

NBC Nightly News reports on the presence of toxic chemicals present in seafood supplied to the United States – 80% of which is imported from other countries, fish raised in unsafe waters & with high-levels of antibiotics administered just for them to survive. What’s not mentioned? Seafood from the Gulf of Mexico can no longer be considered safe to eat, either…

The 5 Worst States to Get Busted With Pot

Even a minor pot bust can be life-altering for people unlucky enough to be arrested in one of these five states.

Police prosecute over 800,000 Americans annually for violating state marijuana laws. The penalties for those busted and convicted vary greatly, ranging from the imposition of small fines to license revocation to potential incarceration. But for the citizens arrested in these five states, the ramifications of even a minor pot bust are likely to be exceptionally severe.

Full Story Here: The 5 Worst States to Get Busted With Pot | Drugs | AlterNet.

Where is all that Fukushima radiation going, and why does it matter?

Fairewinds’ founder Maggie Gundersen interviews environmental scientist and professional engineer Marco Kaltofen about his ongoing analysis of radioactive fallout from Fukushima.

Where is all that Fukushima radiation going, and why does it matter? from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.

Full Story Here: Updates on Fukushima: | Fairewinds Associates, Inc.

Obama seeks more drilling in Alaska and Gulf of Mexico

President Barack Obama, under pressure from Republicans and the public to bring down gasoline prices, announced new measures on Saturday to expand domestic oil production in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico.

High fuel prices have dented Obama’s ratings in opinion polls and threaten to dampen the economic recovery that is critical to his re-election in 2012.

The president, a Democrat, has pushed for reducing U.S. oil consumption and expanding renewable energy sources while also focusing on domestic oil and gas production — an area Republicans want to expand dramatically.

In his weekly radio and Internet address, the president met some of those Republican demands, outlining ways to boost domestic drilling and better coordinate the process of issuing permits in Alaska.

Full Story Here: Obama seeks more drilling in Alaska and Gulf of Mexico | Reuters.

OPS: Drill Barry Drill

Thom Hartman: Senator Bernie Saunders

- “Brunch with Bernie” on 5/13/11

Huge Profits for Health Insurers as Americans Put Off Care

The nation’s major health insurers are barreling into a third year of record profits, enriched in recent months by a lingering recessionary mind-set among Americans who are postponing or forgoing medical care.

The UnitedHealth Group, one of the largest commercial insurers, told analysts that so far this year, insured hospital stays actually decreased in some instances. In reporting its earnings last week, Cigna, another insurer, talked about the “low level” of medical use.

Yet the companies continue to press for higher premiums, even though their reserve coffers are flush with profits and shareholders have been rewarded with new dividends. Many defend proposed double-digit increases in the rates they charge, citing a need for protection against any sudden uptick in demand once people have more money to spend on their health, as well as the rising price of care.

Full Story Here: Huge Profits for Health Insurers as Americans Put Off Care – NYTimes.com.

Fukushima – One Step Forward and Four Steps Back as Each Unit Challenged by New Problems

Gundersen says Fukushima’s gaseous and liquid releases continue unabated. With a meltdown at Unit 1, Unit 4 leaning and facing possible collapse, several units contaminating ground water, and area school children outside the exclusion zone receiving adult occupational radiation doses, the situation continues to worsen. TEPCO needs a cohesive plan and international support to protect against world-wide contamination.

10 States That Rely The Most On Food Stamps: USDA

Of all the disastrous consequences of the economic crisis, perhaps the most devastating is the idea of even more Americans struggling to feed their families.

Recent statistics from the USDA indicate that 14.2 percent of the U.S. population was using food stamps in February 2011, or around 44.2 million total, up from 33 million just two years before in 2009.

In 2006, the year before the financial crisis, 26.5 million people participated in the program, officially titled the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

The increased rate of food stamp participation has led, in turn, to a significant increase in the amount of money SNAP spends on food benefits. In 2010, the total cost of food stamp redemption in the U.S. rose 29 percent from the previous year, totaling around $64 billion, according to the USDA’s 2010 annual report.

Full Story Here: 10 States That Rely The Most On Food Stamps: USDA.

Keith Olbermann Defends Michael Moore, Calls Out Ed Schultz

Keith Olbermann defended Michael Moore’s comments about the killing of Osama bin Laden–and criticized former MSNBC colleague Ed Schultz–in an online “Special Comment” posted to Olbermann’s website on Thursday.

Moore has received a boatload of criticism for his comments on CNN’s “Piers Morgan Tonight” about bin Laden’s death. He said that the killing showed that “we’ve lost something of our soul here in this country…something that separates us from other parts, other countries where we say everybody has their day in court.”

One of Moore’s critics was MSNBC’s Ed Schultz, who earlier this week devoted a segment to the filmmaker’s comments, and said, “the intellectual liberal hand-wringing needs to stop in this country.”

Full Story Here: Keith Olbermann Defends Michael Moore, Calls Out Ed Schultz (VIDEO).

Rick Santorum Caught Up In John Ensign Affair: Senate Ethics Report

With the click of a forwarded email, Rick Santorum let Sen. John Ensign know that the cuckolded husband of Ensign’s mistress was going public.

Santorum, formerly a Pennsylvania senator and now a presidential candidate touting family values, is only one of many political and spiritual figures drawn into the tale of Ensign’s sexual misconduct, political dealings and personal ruin that led to the senator’s resignation May 3 and a scathing Senate ethics committee report this week.

Many of those named in the report are only incidentally connected to the case. Others tried to help hush up Ensign’s unpleasantness with cash, advice or both. The list is a long one. It includes Ensign’s parents; Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Tim Coe, Ensign’s longtime spiritual advisor connected to the National Prayer Breakfast and the C Street townhouse where Ensign and other lawmakers lived while in Washington.

Full Story Here: Rick Santorum Caught Up In John Ensign Affair: Senate Ethics Report.

Morganza Spillway To Open, Flooding Thousands Of Homes To Avert Greater Disaster From Mississippi River

Army engineers prepared Saturday to slowly open the gates of an emergency spillway along the rising Mississippi River, diverting floodwaters from Baton Rouge and New Orleans, yet inundating homes and farms in parts of Louisiana’s populated Cajun country.

About 25,000 people and 11,000 structures could be in harm’s way when the Morganza spillway is unlocked for the first time in 38 years. Sheriffs and National Guardsmen were warning people in a door-to-door sweep through the area, and shelters were ready to accept up to 4,800 evacuees, Gov. Bobby Jindal said.

(CLICK HERE for live updates of the Mississippi River flooding)

Some people living in the threatened stretch of countryside – an area known for small farms, fish camps and a drawling French dialect – have already started fleeing for higher ground.

“Now’s the time to evacuate,” Jindal said. “Now’s the time for our people to execute their plans. That water’s coming.”

Full Story Here: Morganza Spillway To Open, Flooding Thousands Of Homes To Avert Greater Disaster From Mississippi River.

Astronomers start search for alien signals from 86 planets

A massive radio telescope in rural West Virginia has begun listening for signs of alien life on 86 possible Earth-like planets, US astronomers said Friday.

The giant dish began this week pointing toward each of the 86 planets — culled from a list of 1,235 possible planets identified by NASA’s Kepler space telescope — and will gather 24 hours of data on each one.

“It’s not absolutely certain that all of these stars have habitable planetary systems, but they’re very good places to look for ET,” said University of California, Berkeley, graduate student Andrew Siemion.

The mission is part of the SETI project, which stands for Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence, launched in the mid 1980s.

Full Story Here: Astronomers start search for alien signals from 86 planets | The Raw Story.

Ron Paul suggests basic freedoms depend on property rights

Property rights are more important than civil rights

On the same day that he announced his candidacy for the presidency, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) made waves by telling MSNBC’s Chris Matthews that he would not have voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act if he had been in Congress at the time.

Paul dismissed claims that he is a racist as “outlandish” and said he would have voted to desegregate public facilities. He insisted, however, that private business owners have an absolute right to decide what to do with their own property.

“I believe that property rights should be protected,” Paul stated. “Your right to be on tv is protected by property rights because somebody owns that station. I can’t walk into your station. so right of freedom of speech is protected by property. The right of your church is protected by property.”

Full Story Here: Ron Paul suggests basic freedoms depend on property rights | Raw Replay.

Nuclear Crisis in Japan

UCS coverage of the March 2011 disaster at Fukushima Daiichi

Within hours of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that killed tens of thousands along the eastern coast of Japan on March 11, 2011, the world learned of another casualty of the disaster: the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

The Fukushima crisis brought nuclear power safety issues into the spotlight in a way unknown since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. The press and public needed clear, accurate explanations of what was going on in Japan and how it might affect the rest of the world. In the weeks following the disaster, UCS experts responded to this need by sharing their analysis of the crisis with the media, policymakers, fellow scientists and the public through a variety of channels:

Full Story Here: Nuclear Crisis in Japan | Union of Concerned Scientists.

DOMA Defense: Lawmakers Puzzled Where House GOP Is Getting The Money To Pay Paul Clement

The House of Representatives has signed a contract to pay a law firm up to $500,000 (and possibly more) to defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in federal court. But there’s a problem with this arrangement: No one seems to know where that money is going to come from, and at least one lawmaker believes House Republicans may be violating federal law.

In March, the House Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG) voted along party lines to defend DOMA, the federal law that defines marriage as between one man and one woman. Its decision came after Attorney General Eric Holder announced the administration would no longer argue in support of the law after it concluded that the law is unconstitutional.

At the behest of Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), the House General Counsel has signed a contract with former solicitor general Paul Clement to pay his firm, Bancroft PLLC, at a rate of $520 per hour for the case. If expenses go above the cap of $500,000, there is the opportunity to raise it.

But where is this money coming from?

Full Story Here: DOMA Defense: Lawmakers Puzzled Where House GOP Is Getting The Money To Pay Paul Clement.

Sen. Bernie Sanders humiliates Rand Paul

EXCLUSIVE: NY-26 GOP Nominee Jane Corwin Invests Millions In Companies That Ship American Jobs Overseas

This week, Karl Rove’s 527 group American Crossroads released an ad in the upcoming New York 26th congressional district special election hitting Tea Party candidate Jack Davis for investing in dozens of companies that shipped U.S. jobs overseas.

However, a ThinkProgress investigation has found that American Crossroads’ preferred candidate, Republican nominee Jane Corwin, is also investing heavily in corporations that outsource U.S. jobs and has reaped massive dividends from these holdings.

The American Crossroads ad, which will likely run through Election Day on May 24th, knocks Davis for having “invested his millions in companies that ship jobs overseas.” Yet, an analysis of Corwin’s personal financial disclosure shows that the uber-wealthy New Yorker has invested millions in even more companies that outsource than Davis. Between 2001 and 2007, New York state saw 127,000 jobs shipped overseas.

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » EXCLUSIVE: NY-26 GOP Nominee Jane Corwin Invests Millions In Companies That Ship American Jobs Overseas.

Microsoft Structured Acquisition Of Skype To Avoid U.S. Taxes

On Tuesday, tech giant Microsoft announced to the world that it would be purchasing Internet communication service Skype in an all-cash, $8.5 billion acquisition deal.

One fact that has gone underreported about the deal is how Microsoft structured it to keep its taxes as low as possible. As the Wall Street Journal’s Ronald Barusch notes, Microsoft and Skype saved billions of dollars in taxes because Microsoft used its foreign profits to purchase Skype, which also happens to base its corporate headquarters in a major tax haven itself, Luxembourg.

Doing so allowed Microsoft to avoid paying taxes on its profits at the U.S. corporate tax rate of 35 percent. So how much does Microsoft pay on the profits it makes overseas in tax havens based in places like Ireland, Bermuda, and Singapore? To find the answer, we can turn to the University of Southern California’s Edward D. Kleinbard. In a paper titled “Stateless Income,” Kleinbard analyzed Microsoft’s overseas earnings. Kleinbard noted that in 2010, Microsoft has $29.5 billion in earnings overseas, and that the tax cost of these earnings if they were brought back to the U.S. would be $9.2 billion:

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » Microsoft Structured Acquisition Of Skype To Avoid U.S. Taxes.

Hedge Funder John Paulson Earns More Hourly Than Most Americans Do In A Lifetime And Pays A Lower Tax Rate

As ThinkProgress has previously noted, necessary services and public investments in Main Street America are being gutted as some of the wealthiest Americans are getting away with paying less in taxes than they have in a generation.

Progressive activist and former Texas agricultural commissioner Jim Hightower notes one particularly egregious exammple of this unfair economic arrangement: the case of hedge fund billionaire John Paulson. Hightower writes that an American who earned $50,000 a year for 47 years would earn $2.4 million, which would be a healthy sum. Yet Paulson earns that much in an hour:

If your job paid $50,000 a year and you stayed at it for 47 years, your tally for a lifetime of work would be $2.4 million. Not bad — but hedge fund hustler John Paulson pulled down that much last year.

Most of us would consider an annual income of $2.4 million to be a windfall, but it didn’t take Paulson a full 12 months of work to pocket his windfall — or one month, a week, or even a day. That’s how much he made an hour. Yes, Paulson could’ve worked one single hour in 2010 and hauled off a paycheck equal to what a typical household gets for a lifetime of work.

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » Hedge Funder John Paulson Earns More Hourly Than Most Americans Do In A Lifetime And Pays A Lower Tax Rate.

Sixth Circuit Gives The Thumbs Up To Federal Judge Who Belongs To Whites-Only Country Club

The Code of Conduct for United States Judges unambiguously states that “[a] judge should not hold membership in any organization that practices invidious discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, or national origin.” Nevertheless, a sharply divided Judicial Council of the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 10-8 to permit a federal bankruptcy judge to remain a member of a country club that has no women or African Americans as full-fledged members:

The Judicial Council, made up of circuit and district judges in the four-state 6th District, voted 10-8 last month to dismiss the complaint. The memorandum written by Chief Judge Alice Batchelder spends little time discussing the merits of the contention that the Belle Meade County Club discriminates, instead focusing on Paine’s unsuccessful campaign to diversify the club.

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » Sixth Circuit Gives The Thumbs Up To Federal Judge Who Belongs To Whites-Only Country Club.

Ron Paul: ‘Why Not?’ Abolish FEMA, Government Should Not ‘Take Care Of Us When We Do Dumb Things’

This morning, Libertarian hero Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) announced that he will join the motley GOP presidential field, marking his third run for the office. Offering further insight into his presidential sensibility, Paul told CNN host Wolf Blitzer today that he would do away with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), even at a time of unprecedented need.

Viewing the agency as unconstitutional, Paul questioned why federal funds should pay to protect citizens from natural disasters and concluded, “It’s a moral hazard to say that government is always going to take care of us when we do dumb things“:

BLITZER: On the whole issue of FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, do you want to see that agency ended?

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » Blog Archive » Ron Paul: ‘Why Not?’ Abolish FEMA, Government Should Not ‘Take Care Of Us When We Do Dumb Things’.

Corporations, Federal ‘Reform’ Keep Shifting Healthcare Costs to Workers

Despite its $14.2 billion in profits last year untouched by federal income taxes, General Electric is now demanding that its unionized workers accept a new high-deductible “Health Choice” health savings account plan.

GE’s demands are particularly obscene because it is sitting on $25 billion in savings and is threatening to close more U.S. plants, i.e. move more jobs to Mexico, China and elsewhere. And they’re particularly dangerous because GE is modeling bad behavior for other corporations to emulate.

As UE-GE Conference Secretary Steve Tormey has said, “Nobody is more symbolic of the assault on workers than General Electric.” The United Electrical workers union, one of a handful of unions now negotiating with GE, warned its members:

Full Story Here: Corporations, Federal ‘Reform’ Keep Shifting Healthcare Costs to Workers – Working In These Times.

The 30-Year Growth of Income Inequality

Over the last 30 years, the top income tax rate has averaged about 40%. It’s now at 35%, one-half of the 70% rate in effect throughout the 1970s. It was even higher, at 90% in the 1950s and early 1960s, before being reduced to 70% in 1965. As we discuss (Stable Income Inequality), these lower-than maximum income tax rates were an instrumental factor, together with the other two pillars of Reaganomics [1], in greatly increasing income and wealth inequality, with disastrous consequences for the economy and for the bottom 99%.

Income Inequality levels track the top tax rate.

Here again is the graph showing the top tax rate over time:

Full Story Here: The 30-Year Growth of Income Inequality |.

Seniors, Guns and Money

Paul Krugman :-:

This has to be one of the funniest political stories of recent weeks: On Tuesday, 42 freshmen Republican members of Congress sent a letter urging President Obama to stop Democrats from engaging in “Mediscare” tactics — that is, to stop saying that the Republican budget plan released early last month, which would end Medicare as we know it, is a plan to end Medicare as we know it.

Now, you may recall that the people who signed that letter got their current jobs largely by engaging in “Mediscare” tactics of their own. And bear in mind that what Democrats are saying now is entirely true, while what Republicans were saying last year was completely false. Death panels!

Well, it’s time, said the signatories, to “wipe the slate clean.” How very convenient — and how very pathetic.

Full Story Here: Seniors, Guns and Money – NYTimes.com.

A Problem for the Future

A nuclear power plant requires a vast investment of money and resources, it has to be decommissioned after a few decades of useful life– a process so expensive and politically unprofitable that we let plants run beyond their original expiration date, as in Vermont.

Nuclear plants produce radioactive waste, some of which is deadly for thousands of years. A commission set up by the Department of Energy will be offering recommendations, and a close reading of the following article suggests that temporary storage is the most likely outcome…

The quest for a national repository for spent fuel has been a festering issue for decades but gained higher visibility after a March 11 earthquake and tsunami hit the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan. The disaster not only damaged reactors but led to the loss of cooling water in at least one pool of spent radioactive fuel, raising the risk of the release of radioactive materials.

At nuclear plants in the United States, pools of spent fuel are far more heavily loaded. The National Academy of Sciences warned in a study in 2005 that the presence of vast stores of radioactive fuel could make the plants an attractive target for terrorists.

Full Story Here: A Problem for the Future | Kmareka.com.

Japan fukushima update- total meltdown at reactor n#1 confirmed-

it took 2 month to specialists to admitt what we said since 2 month??

Breakthrough study finds drug therapy curbs HIV transmission

People with HIV who take antiretroviral drugs before their health declines have a 96 percent lower risk of transmitting the virus to their partners, a breakthrough global study released Thursday said.

The large study that covered mainly heterosexual couples in Africa, India and the Americas was hailed by AIDS experts as a game-changer that will transform how the incurable disease is managed.

Until now, antiretroviral therapy was known to improve the health of HIV-infected patients, but this is the first study of its kind to show a solid impact on preventing transmission to an HIV-negative partner.

Full Story Here: Breakthrough study finds drug therapy curbs HIV transmission | The Raw Story.

Mystery of hot planets’ ‘backwards’ orbit unravelled

Scientists on Wednesday said they could explain why heat-seared giant planets in other solar systems can mysteriously orbit their star the “wrong” way.

These space oddities belong to a class of planets known as hot Jupiters — gassy giants that are the size of our own Jupiter but encircle their sun at sometimes scorchingly close distances.

What has bedevilled astronomers is the discovery that in some star systems, the host star spins one way while a hot Jupiter can orbit in the opposite direction.

This throws down a challenge to the yardstick of celestial mechanics, which is our solar system.

Full Story Here: Mystery of hot planets’ ‘backwards’ orbit unravelled | The Raw Story.

Former Colin Powell Chief of Staff: Bush didn’t want to get bin Laden

Former Colin Powell Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson told MSNBC’s Ed Schultz Wednesday that President George W. Bush wasn’t interested in bringing Osama bin Laden to justice.

“I don’t think they really wanted to get bin Laden,” Wilkerson said.

“You could be very cynical and say he didn’t want to get him because once they got him the war was over and that left all the political advantage gone,” he added. “Or you could say that they knew that it was almost an impossibility to get him given what they had done to the intelligence and other aspects of the government that you needed to get him. They just about ruined it.”

Watch this video from MSNBC’s The Ed Show, broadcast May 11, 2011.

Full Story Here: Former Colin Powell Chief of Staff: Bush didn’t want to get bin Laden | Raw Replay.

Unprecedented: Obama admin. claims right to censor ‘unclassified’ materials

In the case of former National Security Agency (NSA) executive Thomas A. Drake — indicted last April and accused of funneling documents to an unnamed reporter at an unnamed newspaper, for stories that have not been identified — the president’s lawyers have made a unique and potentially unprecedented claim.

With less than a month before Drake’s trial begins, the Obama administration has filed a memo with the court claim the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA) gives courts the right to censor and withhold material that is “unclassified.”

“It is simply incorrect to argue that CIPA is a rigid set of procedures that precludes this Court from simultaneously considering the admissibility of classified information as well as other information, whether protected or unclassified,” they wrote (PDF).

The argument effectively hinges on earlier court cases which interpreted CIPA as less of a rulebook for judges and more of an advisory. The president’s lawyers took that a bit further, suggesting it actually just “provides the tools” needed for the judiciary to decide what information should be protected from the prying eyes of defense attorneys. They also claim the National Security Agency Act of 1959 (NSAA) allows courts to redact any and all information pertaining to the NSA’s activities.

Full Story Here: Unprecedented: Obama admin. claims right to censor ‘unclassified’ materials | The Raw Story.

GOP Bill Shifts Oil Drilling Cases To Court Dominated By Judges With Oil Investments

Yesterday, the House passed the so-called “Putting the Gulf Back to Work Act,” which is intended to make it easier for the oil industry to drill in the Gulf of Mexico. Sadly, this bill also continues the GOP’s longstanding practice of rigging the court system to favor wealthy and influential interest groups. Tucked within the bill is a provision that consigns many lawsuits involving oil drilling into a federal court that is dominated by judges with close ties to the oil industry:

SEC. 202. EXCLUSIVE VENUE FOR CERTAIN CIVIL ACTIONS RELATING TO COVERED ENERGY PROJECTS IN THE GULF OF MEXICO.

Venue for any covered civil action shall not lie in any district court not within the 5th circuit unless there is no proper venue in any court within that circuit.

It should come as no surprise that the oil industries’ allies in Congress want to make sure that only Fifth Circuit judges get to hear the industry’s appeals. When it is not busy ordering high school cheerleaders to pay $45,000 because they sued the school district that required them to cheer for their alleged rapist, the Fifth Circuit’s judges have cozied up tightly with the oil industry.

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » GOP Bill Shifts Oil Drilling Cases To Court Dominated By Judges With Oil Investments.

REPORT: Sen. Tom Coburn Actively Negotiated Multi-Million Dollar Hush Money Package For Ensign’s Mistress

After a 22-month investigation, the Senate Ethics Committee released a report on the conduct of Sen. John Ensign (R-NV), who resigned early this month. The report contains voluminous evidence suggesting Ensign may have violated several laws in an effort to cover up an affair with a member of his staff. The committee has referred the matter to the Department of Justice.

Contained in the 67-page report, however, is troubling evidence of the central role that current Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) played in trying to keep Ensign’s mistress and her husband quiet — evidence that contradicts Coburn’s previous public statements on the matter.

In July 2009, Coburn said he was consulting with Ensign “as a physician and as an ordained deacon” and he considered it a “privileged communication that I will never reveal to anybody.” Asked about the claim from Doug Hampton, the husband of Ensign’s mistress, that he “urged Ensign to pay the Hamptons millions of dollars,” Coburn said, “I categorically deny everything he said.”

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » REPORT: Sen. Tom Coburn Actively Negotiated Multi-Million Dollar Hush Money Package For Ensign’s Mistress.

Single-Payer Health Care Rises Again

Ever so slow­ly, our nation­al di­alogue is turn­ing away from dead ter­ror­ists and Pakis­tani col­lus­ion to the is­sues fac­ing the American peo­ple right here at home. Mr. Obama has put im­mig­ra­tion re­form back on the table, and many are watch­ing with slow dread the ris­ing wat­ers of the Mis­sis­sippi River, wait­ing to see if our punch-drunk co­unt­ry is about to ab­sorb an­oth­er past­ing from Moth­er Na­ture. Peek­ing around the cor­n­er, as well, is a re­turn to the dis­cuss­ion of health care re­form and the fu­ture of Medicare and the soci­al contra­ct.

The Paul Ryan plan to evi­scerated Medicare is, at least at pre­sent, a dead lett­er. The GOP’s con­gres­sion­al leadership ap­parent­ly read the polit­ical tea leaves after end­ur­ing a storm of pro­test from con­stituents over their pro­pos­al to do away with the wild­ly popular pro­gram and de­cided to back off…which makes for some in­terest­ing math, see­ing as how their whole balan­ced bud­get plan falls apart with­out the money they’d have after the end of Medicare. Part of their motiva­tion to drop the whole scheme also stems from the sim­ple fact that their plan stood lit­tle chan­ce of sur­viv­ing a Sen­ate vote, and zero chan­ce of ever being sig­ned into law by Mr. Obama.

Full Story Here: Single-Payer Health Care Rises Again | Truthout.

Fukushima reactor has a hole, leading to leakage

One of the reactors at Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant has a hole in its main vessel following a meltdown of fuel rods, leading to a leakage of radioactive water, its operator said on Thursday.

The disclosure by Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) is the latest indication that the disaster was worse than previously disclosed, making it more difficult to stabilize the plant.

The discovery of the leak provides new insight into the sequence of events that triggered a partial meltdown of the uranium fuel in the No. 1 reactor at Fukushima after the plant was struck by a massive earthquake and tsunami on March 11, officials said.

The battle to bring Fukushima under control has been complicated by repeated leaks of radioactive water, threatening both the Pacific Ocean and nearby groundwater.

Full Story Here: Fukushima reactor has a hole, leading to leakage | Reuters.

NHK Reports Fukushima Reactor 1 Is Melting Down

Following up on earlier reports that the fuel rods in reactor 1 were truly exposed, NHK now reports another speculation from long ago, finally confirmed by official sources, namely that the reactor is now melting down. NHK reports that “Tokyo Electric Power Company says the No.1 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is believed to be in a state of “meltdown”. The utility company said on Thursday that most of the fuel rods are likely to have melted and fallen to the bottom of the reactor. Earlier in the day, it found that the coolant water in the reactor is at a level which would completely expose nuclear fuel rods if they were in their normal position.” And from Reuters: “The finding makes it likely that at one point in the immediate wake of the disaster the 4-meter-high stack of uranium-rich rods at the core of the reactor had been entirely exposed to the air.” Had been, or are? At this rate of admissions (we claimed precisely this happened in March) the next thing we might get a confirmation of from official sources is that there is actual recriticality going on. Which, of course, will be used by the market as another excuse to BTFD, as under central planning everyone lives happily ever after. Oh, and in the meantime, if we recall correctly, the cores of reactors 2 and 3 have also melted down. But Bernanke will just kiss them and make them better.

Full Story Here: NHK Reports Fukushima Reactor 1 Is Melting Down | zero hedge.

Ethics Committee: Sen. Ensign violated federal, civil and criminal laws

Former Senator John Ensign (R-NV) who recently resigned on May 2, 2011 just hours before the United States Senate Select Committee on Ethics (SSCE) was to proceed with public hearings, today referred the case along with their findings to the Department of Justice (DoJ) and the Federal Elections Commission (FEC).

Both agencies had previously given Ensign a pass on his ethics problems, payoffs to Cindy and Doug Hampton, and Ensign’s involvement in the breaking of Federal Lobby Laws.

Ensign in June 2009 had admitted (video on left) to having an affair with Cindy Hampton who worked for the Senator along with her husband Doug Hampton. John Ensign and Doug Hampton were best of friends for more than 20 years.

Full Story Here: Ethics Committee: Sen. Ensign violated federal, civil and criminal laws – Las Vegas Clark County Elections 2010 | Examiner.com.

Why did George Bush reject Taliban’s offer to deliver bin Laden?

Following the assassination of Osama bin Laden May 1, 2011, the media has been inundated with articles about the attack, the secrecy of the attack, the tension between Pakistan and the US following the attack, visits to Ground Zero, playbacks of the 9/11 catastrophe which brought down the World Center Twin Towers, denunciation by bin Laden’s son that his father’s murder violated international law, and there’s something new every day.

Adding insult to injury, we have also had the displeasure of seeing former Bush administration officials give us their opinion and expect us to thank them for introducing torture programs, illegal prisons like Guantanamo and Bagram, not to mention Abu Ghraib, extraordinary renditions, and why George W. Bush should get more credit for the killing of bin Laden than he’s received.

Which begs the question as to why is it that former President George W. Bush did not jump at the Taliban’s offer to deliver Osama bin Laden to him, or a third party, as the United States was barely two weeks into the bombing campaign of Afghanistan.

Full Story Here: Why did George Bush reject Taliban’s offer to deliver bin Laden? – National Foreign Policy | Examiner.com.

Ex-Blackwater Types To Work ‘Political Intelligence’ For Corporate Chiefs

Staff who once worked for the notorious private-security firm once known as Blackwater are joining a new effort to provide corporate bosses with private intelligence.

Jellyfish Intelligence is a private sector initiative created by a team of former civilian and military intelligence operatives, business executives and corporate strategists to provide sophisticated intelligence operations services to Fortune 500 chief executive officers who wish to “execute their business strategies with complete awareness of the international business environment,” according to a statement from the new company.

The announcement boasts that “several members have been involved with either Blackwater Worldwide through its Total Intelligence Solutions division or with the military intelligence program known as ‘Operation Able Danger.’”

Full Story Here: The Washington Current: Ex-Blackwater Types To Work ‘Political Intelligence’ For Corporate Chiefs.

Fukushima Update – May 11

The big mess at the Fukushima Daiichi plant continues as the damaged reactors there are still releasing radioactive substances into the environment. A new leak through a cable shaft and to the cooling water intake of the no 3 reactor to the sea was found only today. UPDATE: It was briefed today (Thursday) that reactor no 1 had a full core meltdown (see below).

At the no 1 plant the reactor vessel continues to be fed with cooling water but can not be filled up above the level of the exposed nuclear fuel likely because of leaking pipe connections at a certain height. UPDATE: As was learned today (Thursday) a welded pipe failure near the bottom of reactor vessel has been leaking large amounts of water, likely since the quake/tsunami incident. This caused all the cooling water in reactor 1 to leak into the primary containment vessel. The fuel elements in the core were totally exposed with little cooling and have melted. They and the also melted structures holding them now form a Corium mass at the bottom of the reactor vessel and it seems likely that some Corium dropped further from there into the primary containment vessel. This would probably through the control rod tubes as the control rods in this particular reactor type are actuated from the below the reactor vessel. END-UPDATE

Now the primary containment vessel around the reactor vessel will get filled with water. This creates a “water sarcophagus” to cool the reactor vessel from the outside. So far over 9,900 tons of water have been pumped into it. Eventually water will be filled high enough to submerge the reactor vessel and thereby refill it through the leaking pipe connection.

Full Story Here: M of A – Fukushima Update – May 11.

At Senate Hearing, Oil Executives: We don’t have to pay Taxes

Executives of five of the largest oil companies on Thursday defended the $2.1 billion they receive each year in tax breaks, but said they would be willing to give them up as part of a comprehensive reform of the tax code.

At a three-hour Senate Finance Committee hearing that was largely political theater interrupted occasionally by a serious tax policy discussion, the oil industry executives said their current tax breaks were not subsidies but legitimate tax deductions, shared in some cases with other industries.

Rex W. Tillerson, chief executive of Exxon Mobil, said that the provisions, such as a tax deduction for certain types of manufacturing, were not “special incentives, preferences or subsidies for oil and gas, but rather standard deductions applied across all businesses in the United States.”

He said that eliminating the provision just for the oil industry would be “misinformed and discriminatory.”

Full Story Here: At Senate Hearing, Oil Executives Defend Tax Breaks – NYTimes.com.

Newt Gingrich Running For President: Welcome to the Freak Show

| Matt Taibbi :-:

Purely from a political-theater standpoint, Gingrich brings several really outstanding qualities to this race. For one thing, he’s a legit threat to win the nomination. He wouldn’t be in any normal year, but when the field is Donald Trump, Michelle Bachman and Rick Santorum, anyone who can successfully lick a postage stamp without an instruction booklet is going to be a contender. With Gingrich in the race, Republican voters will now be faced with a terrible, Sophie’s Choice-choice: they can either go the safe/uncontroversial route and pick a Tim Pawlenty or a human advertorial like Mitt Romney, or else they can gamble on a candidate with the “charisma” and “wow factor” to match up with Barack Obama.

The only problem with the latter strategy is that that the leading “charisma” candidate is Gingrich, a relentless mirror-gazer and attention-seeker with a wandering pee-pee and a talent for pseudo-intellectualism. Gingrich, hilariously, is the right’s idea of a “thinker,” which is to say he’s a pompous mispronouncer and Thesaurus-raider who lards up same-old/same-old right-wing rhetoric with quotations from obscure academic texts and inane historical references, so that friendly pundits can later describe the resultant utterances as “fresh new ideas.”

You will hear a lot about these “ideas” of Gingrich’s in the next 18 months or so. In fact, Paul Bedard at U.S. News is already buttering up the candidate in a piece called 11 Reasons Newt Gingrich Will be the 2012 GOP Nominee for President. It turns out that two of Bedard’s 12 reasons are sort of similar. Reason #1:

Full Story Here: Newt Gingrich Running For President: Welcome to the Freak Show | Rolling Stone Politics | Taibblog | Matt Taibbi on Politics and the Economy.

Comcast-NBC hires FCC commissioner who voted for NBC merger

Meredith Attwell Baker, one of the two Republican Commissioners at the Federal Communications Commission, is planning to resign and become a lobbyist for the cable giant Comcast-NBC Universal.

Just four months after voting to approve the the controversial merger of Comcast and NBC, Baker announced Wednesday she will become senior vice president of government affairs for NBC Universal. She had argued that the merger had “the potential to bring exciting benefits to consumers that outweigh potential harms.”

“I’ve been privileged to serve in government for the past seven years under President Obama at the FCC and President Bush at NTIA, I’m excited to embark on a new phase of my career with Comcast and NBCUniversal,” Baker said in a statement.

Full Story Here: Comcast-NBC hires FCC commissioner who voted for NBC merger | The Raw Story.

Comcast-NBC hires FCC commissioner who voted for NBC merger

Meredith Attwell Baker, one of the two Republican Commissioners at the Federal Communications Commission, is planning to resign and become a lobbyist for the cable giant Comcast-NBC Universal.

Just four months after voting to approve the the controversial merger of Comcast and NBC, Baker announced Wednesday she will become senior vice president of government affairs for NBC Universal. She had argued that the merger had “the potential to bring exciting benefits to consumers that outweigh potential harms.”

“I’ve been privileged to serve in government for the past seven years under President Obama at the FCC and President Bush at NTIA, I’m excited to embark on a new phase of my career with Comcast and NBCUniversal,” Baker said in a statement.

Full Story Here: Comcast-NBC hires FCC commissioner who voted for NBC merger | The Raw Story.

Hillary Blasts China on “Human Rights”

Now That’s Chutzpah!

By MIKE WHITNEY

Is there anything more irritating than listening to US officials blabber about “human rights”?

Here’s Hillary Clinton bashing China for their “deplorable” human rights record, and meanwhile Bradley Manning sits naked and freezing in a 6′ by 8′ cinderblock cell in some far-flung American gulag waiting to get fingernails yanked out.

And that’s just for starters. What about Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, Bagram and the myriad other dungeons, concentration camps and black sites the US has scattered across the planet. The United States is the biggest human rights abuser in the world today. Clinton’s in no position to be giving other people lectures.

Just look at Falluja; a city of 300,000 that had about 40,000 of its people wiped out by US bombs, 80 per cent of its buildings and infrastructure reduced to rubble, and a legacy of cancers and birth defects until the end of time. Now that’s how you kill people!

Full Story Here: Mike Whitney: Hillary Blasts China on “Human Rights”.

Must America Confront China?

Appeasers or Cold Warriors:

Ian Fletcher

My last article, a review of Eamonn Fingleton’s provocative (but hard to dismiss) book In the Jaws of the Dragon: America’s Fate Under Chinese Hegemony, has drawn enough comment that I feel I should respond.

There have been basically two schools of response:

1)      Yes, China is eating our lunch, but it’s our own fault and when will we stop being such fools that we let them do it?  By the way, can at least a few token traitors from corporate America go in front of a firing squad at Ft. Leavenworth?  It’s 1930s-style appeasement all over again.

2)      Lay off the warmongering. China isn’t a threat now, won’t be in future, and you’re either a yellow-peril racist or a neocon pining for a new Cold War. And did I mention Bush lied last time, and right-wingers are trying to lie us into another war? Oh and yes, the economic interests of all nations are in harmony.

To be sure, I can’t be certain of the sincerity of all of the latter responses, as Beijing is known to employ an army of amateur Internet propagandists, known as the “50 cent party” after the per-post fee they receive, whose job it is to spread commentary favorable to the regime’s interests on the web.  But at least some of the above responses appear to be genuine, and even if they are not, they still represent a possible interpretation of the facts and some corresponding policy choices for the U.S.  So we’d better take them seriously.

Let’s begin by remembering that America’s past political mistakes don’t, on their own, prove anything about the present. For example, there is no doubt that the U.S. was at one time seriously prejudiced against Asian peoples.  But dismissing American fears of China today as mere racial prejudice is silly: we’re not imagining China’s nuclear warheads, its dictatorial government, or its predatory mercantilism. Even if racism is a part of the motivation of some of China’s critics—it may be; I can’t read people’s minds—this doesn’t make their criticisms false, just dishonorably motivated.

Similarly, have a care with the Cold War analogy and the ghost of McCarthy.  Granted, there are people in the U.S. who are spoiling for an enemy. I recall attending a conference in Washington—it was in 1997 or  1998—in which there was literally a panel discussion entitled “Should We Make China the New Soviet Union?”  Hmm… I recall thinking at the time that China either is or isn’t whatever it is, and Americans don’t have much option to “make” it anything otherwise.  I still think so.  Even if vested interests in the U.S. want to ramp up defense spending and some people just can’t face the day without an enemy to crusade against, again this doesn’t make them wrong, just dishonorably motivated.

I also can’t resist noting at this juncture that, perverse though it sounds, having an enemy is not always entirely a bad thing. It’s painfully obvious, in retrospect, that the vast surge of broadly-shared middle class prosperity, not just here in the U.S. but in Western Europe, at mid-century was in large part a riposte to Communism engineered by America’s ruling elite. Minus the competition with Stalin, I’m not entirely sure they would have built Levittown. You think it’s an accident that inequality surged as the credibility of the Soviet threat receded?  And that’s not to mention the fact that the Pentagon created most of the effective industrial policy the U.S. had during this era.

Might a drawn-out competition with China similarly force America to get its act together and deliver decent economic performance for its own citizens and the foreign peoples in its sphere of influence?  It just possibly might, especially as the success of the East Asian model of planned-economy capitalism is intellectually killing the mythology of laissez faire that is strangling this country right now.  Sometimes it takes rivalry to bring out the best in people—even the USA.

Another theme that often came up about China was that “authoritarianism, no matter how strong it looks at the moment, can’t last.  Freedom is on the march, and there is a mile-long list of dead tyrants to testify to that.”  Sounds inspiring, and it’s an easy idea to drape in red, white, and blue. But this analysis is misleading in the case of China, barring some extremely unexpected events. The authoritarian societies of the past have tended to fail for specific reasons—problems which the regime in Beijing is very carefully avoiding:

1)   They were personalist dictatorships that depended upon the vigor of a single despot whose luck eventually ran out.

2)   They were stuck in the past, and did not adapt to modern technology.  In this category go traditional societies from Spain to Zululand.

3)   They went broke because they didn’t understand economics and thought they could create wealth by political fiat.  In this category goes the USSR and all its imitators.

4)   They got arrogant and blundered into wars they couldn’t win.  In this category go Hitler, Mussolini, and Saddam Hussein.

In China’s case, we can rule out #1 and #2 above with ease.  Problem #4, of course, refers, from our present vantage point, to the future, as we cannot be absolutely sure they won’t do something stupid militarily.  But the evidence appears to weigh against it.  Beijing for now appears to be a disciplined player of the game which, while certainly willing to use force (ask Tibet!), isn’t going to romp into strategic catastrophe from sheer excess testosterone.

War? Personally, my suspicion is that a corrupt deal will be struck by the rulers (I mean the real rulers, not necessarily the elected government in our case) of China and the U.S., and there will no violent clash between the two nations.  Too unprofitable.  I can certainly gin up scenarios for the opposite, but these get tendentious. Much easier for two elites to unite on their true common ground: aggrandize their own money and power, and the populations they rule take the hindmost.  Behind closed doors, I think they already realize how much they have in common.

Ian Fletcher is Senior Economist of the Coalition for a Prosperous America, a nationwide grass-roots organization dedicated to fixing America’s trade policies and comprising representatives from business, agriculture, and labor. He was previously Research Fellow at the U.S. Business and Industry Council, a Washington think tank, and before that, an economist in private practice serving mainly hedge funds and private equity firms. Educated at Columbia University and the University of Chicago, he lives in San Francisco. He is the author of Free Trade Doesn’t Work: What Should Replace It and Why.

Made in the USA Could Make a Comeback

Made in the U.S. could soon make a comeback, according to a new study released by the Boston Consulting Group.

According to the report, rising wages and a strengthened currency in China will lead more and more multinational corporations to reinvest in the U.S. in the coming years.

“If you work the math out using today’s numbers, you’d still say it’s a good idea to go to China,” Hal Sirkin, a senior BCG partner and lead author of the study, told Reuters. “(But) around 2015, you get to a point of indifference between producing in the U.S. and producing in China.”

Full Story Here: Made in the USA Could Make a Comeback | Economy In Crisis.

The Grand Delusion: Higher Taxes “Soak” the Rich

Squeezing, gouging, soaking, it’s all the same, and it’s all wrong. The richest Americans, we hear it said, pay most of the federal income taxes. That’s true. But since 1980 their AFTER-TAX SHARE of America’s income has TRIPLED. That’s a trillion dollars a year in extra income for the wealthiest 1%.

A trillion dollars is seven times more than the budget deficits of all 50 states combined.

A trillion dollars, if it hadn’t been redistributed to the rich, would provide an extra $10,000 a year for every family that has contributed to American productivity since 1980.

The defenders of unlimited wealth insist that the very rich have earned their money. But what does EARN mean? Does it mean that the million richest families worked harder than the other 99 million families for thirty years? Does it mean that one man can bet against the mortgage industry and make enough money to pay the salaries of 100,000 health care workers? Does it mean using American research and infrastructure and national security to build a corporation that pays zero federal income taxes?

Full Story Here: The Grand Delusion: Higher Taxes “Soak” the Rich | Common Dreams.

Cut Medicare? No Way! Make It ‘Medicare for All’!

John Nichols :-:

House Budget Committee chair Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, proposes to undermine the integrity of the Medicare and Medicaid programs, with an eye toward enriching the insurance companies that so generously fund his campaigns.

The American people are not amused. They have sent a clear signal that they want to maintain Medicare and Medicaid.

And rightly so. despite the battering they have taken from misguided and malignant policy makers, the Medicare and Medicaid programs still provide the rough outlines for a single-payer health care program that keep costs down while expanding access to prevention and treatment for millions of Americans.

So, instead of gutting Medicare, as Ryan proposes, why not expand on what works.

Full Story Here: Cut Medicare? No Way! Make It ‘Medicare for All’! | The Nation.

Report: GOP overhaul could cut Medicaid enrollment by up to 44 million

Almost 44 million fewer Americans would be eligible for Medicaid in 2021 if House Republicans’ budget blueprint becomes law under the most dire scenario projected by the non-partisan Kaiser Family Foundation.

A new report tallies the deep cuts that states would make if the program was replaced with block grants and the number of people projected to become eligible for Medicaid under the healthcare reform law, which Republicans want to repeal. The worst scenario would leave 32.1 million people eligible for Medicaid, versus 75.9 million under current law.

The report concludes that the Republican proposal would strain state budgets while leaving millions uninsured.

Full Story Here: Report: GOP overhaul could cut Medicaid enrollment by up to 44 million – The Hill’s Healthwatch.

MSNBCs Rachel Maddow: Sunday shows belie alleged Liberal Bias in wake of bin Laden raid

Maddow notes the 3-1 imbalance of former Bush admin officials and torture supporters, to Democrats, on popular Sunday morning show the same week Obama gets bin Laden. The entire segment can be seen here:

Leading Mortgage Firms May Be Forced To Reduce Loan Balances For Distressed Homeowners

The nation’s five largest mortgage firms may be forced to reduce loan balances for distressed homeowners as part of an agreement with state attorneys general and the Obama administration to settle claims of faulty mortgage practices, a top state official involved in the negotiations said Tuesday.

The proposal is part of a set of remedies banks would have to agree to in order to settle the state and federal probes launched last autumn, which found that the largest mortgage firms illegally seized the homes of at least dozens of borrowers and engaged in shoddy practices that short-changed troubled borrowers.

Mortgage principal reductions would comprise part of a larger fine levied on Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Ally Financial. Penalties could reach $30 billion, officials said.

Full Story Here: Leading Mortgage Firms May Be Forced To Reduce Loan Balances For Distressed Homeowners.

U.S. Copyright Group targets 23,000 downloaders of ‘The Expendables’

More than 23,000 U.S. Internet users could soon be notified by their internet service providers (ISPs) that their personal information is being turned over to the U.S. Copyright Group in the largest file sharing lawsuit in U.S. history.

Wired reported that a federal judge has agreed to allow the copyright enforcement agency to subpoena ISPs to obtain the identity behind the 23,000 Internet protocol (IP) addresses that allegedly downloaded the 2010 film The Expendables using the file sharing software BitTorrent.

BitTorrent is a popular peer-to-peer (P2P) communications protocol for file sharing that excels at transferring large amounts of data. It is used for both legal and illegal file transfers.

Full Story Here: U.S. Copyright Group targets 23,000 downloaders of ‘The Expendables’ | The Raw Story.

TIMELINE: The Hunt For Bin Laden

Much of the debate in the aftermath of Osama bin Laden’s death has focused on the very narrow question of whether any information obtained from waterboarding or other “enhanced” interrogation tactics played a significant role in tracking him down. (The answer, incidentally, is no.)

But this debate has obscured a larger and more important point: The Bush administration, both before and after 9/11, subordinated the hunt for Bin Laden to wage war on Iraq. President Obama was successful by reviving an aggressive and focused effort to capture the leader of Al Qaeda.

ThinkProgress has produced a new a detailed timeline of The Hunt for Bin Laden, covering the years 1993 to present day. You can check out the whole thing HERE.

Highlights from the Clinton administration:

EARLY 1996: The CIA’s Counter Terrorism Center creates a special unit focusing specifically on bin Laden. [Washington Post, 10/3/01]

LATE 1998: Clinton authorizes covert action against Bin Laden and al Qaeda. “In addition to a secret ‘finding’ to authorize covert action…Clinton signed three highly classified Memoranda of Notification expanding the available tools. In succession, the president authorized killing instead of capturing bin Laden, then added several of al Qaeda’s senior lieutenants, and finally approved the shooting down of private civilian aircraft on which they flew.” [Washington Post, 12/19/01]

Highlights from the Bush administration:

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » TIMELINE: The Hunt For Bin Laden.

FSU Accepts Funds From Charles Koch In Return For Control Over Its Academic Freedom

Charles Koch, the billionaire libertarian who has funded front-groups and lobbying efforts to expand his anti-tax, anti-regulatory agenda under the guise of “free enterprise,” has now widened his reach into another key public policy area: academics. The Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation entered into an agreement with Florida State University in 2008 in which the foundation would provide millions of dollars in funds for the school’s economics department.

The funds were marked to add multiple faculty positions in the economics department. But the money came with multiple strings attached, including a demand that Koch have the ability to directly approve who ultimately filled the positions. As the St. Petersburg Times reports, the agreement is now raising questions across the board about academic freedom and integrity at public colleges and universities:

Under the agreement with the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, however, faculty only retain the illusion of control. The contract specifies that an advisory committee appointed by Koch decides which candidates should be considered. The foundation can also withdraw its funding if it’s not happy with the faculty’s choice or if the hires don’t meet “objectives” set by Koch during annual evaluations.

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » FSU Accepts Funds From Charles Koch In Return For Control Over Its Academic Freedom.

OPS: The first openly Fascist College?

Meet The Workers Who Make Your iPad: 100 Hours Of Overtime, No-Suicide Pacts, Standing For 14 Hours A Day

Back in March, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) astoundingly claimed that the iPad and iPhone are “built in the United States of America.” This news must have been a great surprise to the Chinese workers who work for Taiwanese-based manufacturing giant Foxconn, which is notorious for the poor conditions at its factories and the wave of suicides at its plants.

After much of the international media covered the abuses at Foxconn’s factories, the company, along with the major American corporations it supplies — like Apple and HP — announced that it would be reforming its practices.

Yet a new report from Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (SACOM), a Hong Kong-based advocacy and research group, finds that many of the practices that led more than a dozen workers committ suicide continue to live on. SACOM conducted a comprehensive study of practices at several Foxconn factories over the months of March and April and found that a number of shocking policies are in place. Here are some of the highlights of their study:

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » Meet The Workers Who Make Your iPad: 100 Hours Of Overtime, No-Suicide Pacts, Standing For 14 Hours A Day.

Florida City Paying $2,500 A Day To Radical Union-Busting Firm To Stop Workers From Organizing

All over the country, right-wing lawmakers are waging a war on Main Street America’s labor rights, purporting to do so out of a desire for fiscal restraint (while also backing budget-busting tax breaks for the wealthiest among us).

Now, the city of Winter Park, Florida, is going to new lengths to stop nearly 150 city workers from joining a union. Apparently more concerned with stopping the union than saving money, Winter Park hired consultants at Kulture LLC, “a firm specializing in labor relations” at the rate of $2,500 a day to persuade workers to vote against organizing this summer:

Winter Park is paying a consultant $2,500 a day to help the city’s staff dissuade about 150 city workers from joining a union. [...] Employees in the public works, parks, fleet maintenance and water departments are likely to vote in June or July on whether to join the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, known as AFSCME. In the past few years, the city has done away with longevity bonuses and pay increases because of the economy. [...] Members of AFSCME have criticized the use of tax money to pay a group that they say has a politically right-leaning agenda.

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » Florida City Paying $2,500 A Day To Radical Union-Busting Firm To Stop Workers From Organizing.

Judge rules against Koch Industries in media hoax

A federal judge on Monday sided with environmental pranksters behind a media hoax targeting Koch Industries Inc., upholding First Amendment protections for anonymous political speech on the Internet.

U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball in Utah tossed out a lawsuit filed by Koch Industries stemming from a bogus website and fake news release issued in December that falsely announced that the Wichita-based company was changing its financial commitments on climate change to fund more environmentally friendly groups. Koch’s lawsuit had sought monetary damages as well as the identities of the pranksters.

Kimball also issued an order prohibiting Koch — one of the nation’s largest privately held companies — from using any identifying information it may have already obtained from an earlier subpoena on the company that had unwittingly hosted the fake website for a few hours before it was taken down.

Full Story Here: Judge rules against Koch Industries in media hoax – KansasCity.com.