Archive for July, 2011

Liberal Dem lawmaker vows to reject GOP, White House debt deal

One of the most liberal members of Congress vowed Sunday to reject an emerging debt-ceiling compromise among lawmakers and the White House, calling it a “cure as bad as the disease.”

Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said in a statement that progressive lawmakers and working families “were thrown under the bus” by a deal that “trades peoples’ livelihoods for the votes of a few unappeasable right-wing radicals.” The result, he said, is as bad for the Democratic Party as it is for the country.

“We have given much and received nothing in return,” Grijalva said. “The lesson today is that Republicans can hold their breath long enough to get what they want. While I believe the country will not reward them for this in the long run, the damage has already been done.”

Full Story Here: Liberal Dem lawmaker vows to reject GOP, White House debt deal – TheHill.com.

Japan’s Food-Chain Threat Multiplies as Fukushima Radiation Spreads

Radiation fallout from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant poses a growing threat to Japan’s food chain as unsafe levels of cesium found in beef on supermarket shelves were also detected in more vegetables and the ocean.

More than 2,600 cattle have been contaminated, Kyodo News reported July 23, after the Miyagi local government said 1,183 cattle at 58 farms were fed hay containing radioactive cesium before being shipped to meat markets.

Agriculture Minister Michihiko Kano has said officials didn’t foresee that farmers might ship contaminated hay to cattle ranchers. That highlights the government’s inability to think ahead and to act, said Mariko Sano, secretary general for Shufuren, a housewives organization in Tokyo.

“The government is so slow to move,” Sano said. “They’ve done little to ensure food safety.”

Full Story Here: Japan’s Food-Chain Threat Multiplies as Fukushima Radiation Spreads – Bloomberg.

The GOP Lies: 97% of Small Businesses Would Not be Affected by Increasing Taxes on the Wealthy

Recently, BuzzFlash at Truthout talked about how Republican Congressional “deficit reduction” and tax cuts for the rich and corporations don’t help and even hurt small businesses in America, because the actual policies facilitate large companies in crushing small business competitors. But another reason the GOP claim to tax cuts for the wealthy is dishonest in that most small businesses bring home less that $250,000 a year. That means if the US reinstated the taxes for the rich from the Bush administration, small businesses would not be affected, but our national defiicit would decrease — and perhaps some funds could be allocated to really help small businesses. That is because President Obama wants to keep the tax cuts for those households making less than $250,000 a year, but raise them for wealthier households.

The New York Review of Books recently noted, “But relatively few small business owners earn $250,000—in fact, fewer than 3 percent of the 20 million people who file business income on their personal tax forms (the 1040s) earn that much.”

Full Story Here: The GOP Lies: 97% of Small Businesses Would Not be Affected by Increasing Taxes on the Wealthy | BuzzFlash.org.

Lakoff: How to Rescue the American Dream from the GOP Nightmare

The Republicans are redefining “democracy”–but it’s time to remember what the real dream of democracy meant.

Democracy, in the American tradition, has been defined by a simple morality: We Americans care about our fellow citizens, we act on that care and build trust, and we do our best not just for ourselves, our families, our friends and our neighbors, but for our country, for each other, for people we have never met and never will meet.

American democracy has, over our history, called upon citizens to share an equal responsibility to work together to secure a safe and prosperous future for their families and nation. This is the central work of our democracy and it is a public enterprise. This, the American Dream, is the dream of a functioning democracy.

Public refers to people, acting together to provide what we all depend on: roads and bridges, public buildings and parks, a system of education, a strong economic system, a system of law and order with a fair and effective judiciary, dams, sewers, and a power grid, agencies to monitor disease, weather, food safety, clean air and water, and on and on. That is what we, as a people who care about each other, have given to each other.

Only a free people can take up the necessary tasks, and only a people who trust and care for one another can get the job done. The American Dream is built upon mutual care and trust.

Full Story Here: Lakoff: How to Rescue the American Dream from the GOP’s Nightmare | | AlterNet.

The 6 Biggest Lies About the U.S. Debt

As Congress nears a vote on the various debt ceiling deals, let’s look at the lies and misinformation that got us into this mess.

There is one simple truth about the discussion of the looming U.S. debt crisis: it is largely a compendium of half-truths, distortions, myths and outright lies.

For example, is it true that the U.S. debt is unsustainable, which is spurring the budget-cutting fever? Far from it. While U.S. debt is at one of its highest levels ever in terms of gross domestic product, the estimated interest payments for all of 2011 on the  $14.3 trillion public debt will be a mere $430 billion. This is only 18 percent more than the $364 billion paid way back in 1998, while the U.S. economy has grown nearly 30 percent since then. Rock-bottom interest rates on U.S. government debt account for the low payments today, but the practical effect is that servicing the debt as a percentage of GDP is near the lowest it’s been in decades.

Or what about hysterical headlines like “U.S. Debt Default Looms” (courtesy of NPR) unless Democrats and Republicans agree to raise the debt ceiling? They are completely untrue. Richard Wolff, professor of economics emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, says, if there is no agreement by Aug. 2 to allow the U.S. Treasury to borrow more funds, then “the government instead would choose among cutbacks on various expenditures such as state and local aid, medical aid, for war, for infrastructure. It would extraordinarily unusual for a government in such a situation to attack its creditors.”

Full Story Here: The 6 Biggest Lies About the U.S. Debt | | AlterNet.

The Santa Delusion: Why ‘Religion Is Useful’ Is a Terrible Argument For Religion

The argument from utility — the defense of religion, not because it’s true, but because it’s psychologically or socially useful — is freakishly common.

“But religion is useful. It makes people happy. It comforts people in hard times. It makes people better-behaved. And losing religious faith can be traumatic. So what difference does it make if it isn’t true? Shouldn’t we be perpetuating it anyway — or at least leaving it alone? Why do you want to persuade people out of it?”

Atheists hear this a lot. The argument from utility — the defense of religion, not because it’s true, but because it’s psychologically or socially useful — is freakishly common. If you spend any time reading debates in atheist blogs or forums, you’re bound to see it come up.

Now, when atheists hear this “But religion is so useful!” argument, our most common response is to say, “Is not!” We eagerly point out that countries with high rates of atheism are also countries with high rates of happiness, ethics, and social functioning. (This doesn’t prove that atheism causes high social functioning, of course — in fact, it’s probably the other way around — but it does show that high social functioning doesn’t need religion.) We’ll point out the many, many examples of religious believers who cheat, steal, murder, and generally behave very badly indeed… entirely undercutting the notion that religion provides an unshakable foundation for good moral behavior. And we’ll point to ourselves, and to other atheists we know — people who clearly don’t need religion, who are living happy, ethical lives without religion, who in some cases are even happier and better without religion — as the most obvious counter-arguments we can think of to this argument.

Full Story Here: The Santa Delusion: Why ‘Religion Is Useful’ Is a Terrible Argument For Religion | Belief | AlterNet.

Recovery, what recovery?

Recovery for Wall Street and Wealthy, Austerity for Workers and Poor

Richard Wolff :-:

The plain fact is that corporate profits are the only area of the US economy to recover since 2009. Any other claim is a lie

The so-called economic “recovery” since mid-2009 was chiefly hype, a veneer of good news to disguise and minimise the awful underlying economic realities. The few (large corporations and the rich) who bear much of the responsibility for the crisis made sure that the government they finance used massive amounts of public money to support a recovery for them. The mass of the population was excluded from the government-financed recovery for the few. We now have the summary official statistics to expose this grotesque injustice.

In economics, as in other fields, pictures and graphs are sometimes worth more than a thousand words. So it is with a summary graph prepared recently by a group of economists at Northeastern University in Boston. Their short report (pdf) exposes the basic lie in claims by politicians, media spokespersons, business leaders and others that the US economy has been in an economic “recovery” since early 2009.

What did recover in the US, partly or wholly, were only corporate profits (especially those of banks) and the stock markets. The report’s chart 14 shows three vertical bars indicating the size of profit and stock recoveries from the second quarter of 2009 through the first quarter of 2011.

Full Story Here: Recovery, what recovery? | Richard Wolff | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

Obama’s whistleblower war suffers two defeats

Glenn Greenwald – : -

The Obama administration’s unprecedented war on whistleblowers suffered two serious and well-deserved defeats. The first occurred in the prosecution of NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake, who was accused of multiple acts of espionage, only for the DOJ to drop virtually all of the charges right before the trial was to begin and enter into a plea agreement for one minor misdemeanor. Today, The Washington Post — under the headline “Judge blasts prosecution of alleged NSA leaker” — reports that the federal judge presiding over the case “harshly criticized U.S. prosecutors’ treatment of a former spy agency official accused of leaking classified material.”

As the transcript of Drake’s sentencing hearing published by Secrecy News reflects, Judge Richard Bennett of the U.S. District Court for Maryland was infuriated by two aspects of the DOJ’s conduct: (1) after the Bush DOJ executed a search warrant of Drake’s home in 2007, the Obama DOJ — 2 1/2 years later — finally indicted him, meaning he had to live with that cloud of criminal uncertainty over his head for that outrageously lengthy period of time; and (2) despite dropping all of the serious charges right before the trial was about to begin, the DOJ demanded that Drake be forced to pay a $50,000 fine as “a deterrent” (on top of the tens of thousands of dollars he spent in legal fees until he had no money left and had to use public defenders, as well as the fact that he was five years away from earning a federal pension when he was fired and ended up working at an Apple Computer store to support his family); to justify the requested fine, the prosecutor cited a $10,000 whistleblowing prize Drake was awarded earlier this year.

Full Story Here: Obama’s whistleblower war suffers two defeats – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.

Author: U.S. may be on the verge of another revolution

On last night’s The Big Picture with progressive talk show host Thom Hartmann, author Neil Howe discussed how he and William Strauss came to accurately predict today’s political crisis in their 1997 book “The Fourth Turning,” and offered speculation as to what might happen next.

The two essentially agreed that the United States may be in for a series of events on the magnitude of the revolution, civil war or great depression.

Speaking of the generational differences between today’s new guard and the retiring baby boomers, Howe said that cultural forces have essentially forced this crisis, with “culture warriors” and “values voters” in direct contention with “gen x” for control of the national budget.

“Are we on the verge of another ‘fourth turning’ — another major crash leading to a world war and a world-wide depression?” Hartmann asked.

Full Story Here: Author: U.S. may be on the verge of another revolution | Raw Replay.

Maher debuts GOP’s frightening new motivational message 

After House Republicans showed a clip from the movie “The Town” to try to convince tea party freshman to support House Speaker John Boehner’s debt ceiling bill, HBO’s Bill Maher predicted that the next “GOP motivational reel” would consist primarily of a series of horrific clips from movies like “Deliverance” and “Misery.”

Watch this video from HBO’s Real Time, broadcast July 29, 2011.

Full Story Here: Maher debuts GOP’s frightening new motivational message | Raw Replay.

Largest US credit union readies for possible budget crisis

The largest US credit union, which serves the military, is preparing for a possible US government budget crisis by offering to advance pay for members with direct deposit accounts, in the event that federal funds are cut off.

The move comes as US lawmakers on Saturday engaged in a frantic effort to raise the US government debt ceiling and avert a debt default that could plunge the world economy back into recession before an August 2 deadline.

The Navy Federal Credit Union, which serves the US armed forces and also civilians linked to the military, has some $44 billion in assets and 3.7 million members.

Full Story Here: Largest US credit union readies for possible budget crisis | The Raw Story.

Tiny Tea Party Rally vs. Large Progressive Rally: Which Gets More Beltway Ink?

Yesterday, an American Dream Movement rally demanding a debt deal that “protects seniors and makes corporations and the rich pay [their] fair share” drew a significantly larger crowd than a Tea Party rally a day earlier that essentially demanded the opposite. Both were held on Capitol Hill, both focused on the same ginned-up debt ceiling “crisis,” but you’d be hard-pressed to find the Beltway media noting the difference in crowd size—or even reporting on the progressive rally at all.

Wednesday’s conservative rally, organized by the Tea Party Express, was a bust: only about fifty people showed up to see presidential candidate Herman Cain and hear Senators Jim DeMint, Rand Paul and Mike Lee speak. “It had all the makings of a big time Tea Party rally,” Politico wrote. But “by the time the senators had spoken there were still fewer than 50 tea partiers in attendance.”

But then, Thursday’s American Dream rally—organized by MoveOn, Rebuild the Dream, AFSCME and AFGE, and featuring speakers like Van Jones and Representatives Keith Ellison and Jan Schakowsky—clocked in an estimated 450–500 people, according to the coalition. Oddly, though, as of twenty-four hours later, Politico didn’t mention it. CNN.com, meanwhile, talked up the Tea Party rally both the day before it took place and afterward—when it spun the measly crowd (and its own pre-event notice) by writing: “Don’t be fooled by the tiny turnout at the Tea Party rally on Capitol Hill Wednesday. The conservative movement doesn’t much need rallies anymore. November 2010 changed all of that.”

Full Story Here: Tiny Tea Party Rally vs. Large Progressive Rally: Which Gets More Beltway Ink? | The Nation.

The Empty Bully Pulpit

Robert Reich:-:

How did we get into this mess?

I thought I’d seen Washington at its worst. I was there just after Watergate. I was there when Jimmy Carter imploded. I was there during the government shut-down of 1995.

But I hadn’t seen the worst. This is the worst.

How can it be that with over 9 percent unemployment, essentially no job growth, widening inequality, falling real wages, and an economy that’s almost dead in the water — we’re locked in a battle over how to cut the budget deficit?

Part of the answer is a Republican Party that’s the most irresponsible and rigidly ideological I’ve ever witnessed.

Part of the answer is the continuing gravitational pull of the Great Recession.

Full Story Here: Robert Reich: The Empty Bully Pulpit.

Both Sides – Are NOT – To Blame for Debt Ceiling Crisis

 There are many times when “Washington” falls down on the job, when “Congress” can’t do its job, and when “both sides” are to blame for whatever the failure of the moment is. Blaming both sides is easier than thinking, but it also has the virtue of sometimes being true. This is not one of those times. Let’s be very clear: The current debt ceiling crisis is the deliberate creation of the Republican Party, especially its Tea Party wing of fanatics.

[See editorial cartoons about the Tea Party.]

Let’s start from the beginning. Raising the debt ceiling is a routine legislative matter. The debt ceiling was raised 18 times under Ronald Reagan; nine times under George H. W. Bush; six times under Bill Clinton; and seven times under George W. Bush. Sometimes the opposition party will use the occasion to score some political points (as when then-Sen. Barack Obama voted against raising the ceiling in 2006). But that was just political theatre because heretofore everyone understood that the United States could not default on its legal obligations, be they money owed to owners of maturing bonds or to Social Security check recipients, military personnel serving around the world, or border security guards expecting to get paid, or any other of dozens of functions of government that have been legally authorized.

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It’s worth underscoring this point: The debt ceiling isn’t about new spending. It’s not about a “blank check” as GOP talking points would have you believe. It’s about paying bills that are coming due for goods and services that Congress and the president have already acquired. It’s as if you called your credit card and utility companies and told them that you were very sorry but in the name of fiscal responsibility you just wouldn’t be paying your bills. That’s neither fiscally conservative nor fiscally responsible. I can actually remember a time when conservatives stood for things like fiscal and individual responsibility. [See a collection of political cartoons on the budget and deficit.]

But powered by an angry base that, frankly, doesn’t understand the issue and actively opposes the very notion of legislative compromise, the GOP decided to deliberately manufacture a crisis around raising the debt ceiling. It was, in the memorable words of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, a “leverage moment,” to extract policy concessions from President Obama. But the GOP’s hostage wasn’t some esoteric or super liberal Obama initiative. It was a routine measure necessary for the continued healthy functioning of the economy.

Full Story Here: Both Sides Aren’t To Blame for Debt Ceiling Crisis – Robert Schlesinger (usnews.com).

OPS: Wall Street is getting nervous! Dr. Frankenstein is finally trying to kill the monster that he created.

AT&T To Throttle Data Speeds For ‘Unlimited’ Hogs

AT&T Inc. said Friday that it’s going to start limiting speeds for the 5 percent of its customers with “unlimited” data smartphone plans who clog the airwaves the most.

The measure will take effect Oct. 1, AT&T said, and is intended to alleviate congestion on the network.

T-Mobile USA already throttles users who go over certain limits for data consumption.

AT&T stopped signing up new customers for “unlimited” plans last year. Instead, it now lets heavy users pay extra when they go over a certain data allotment.

Full Story Here: AT&T To Throttle Data Speeds For ‘Unlimited’ Hogs.

Japan Earthquake: 6.4 Quake Reportedly Hits Japan

The U.S. Geological Survey is reporting that another strong earthquake has jolted northeastern Japan, the same region struck by March’s massive quake and tsunami. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage, and no tsunami warning is in effect.

The U.S.G.S. says the earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.4 struck at 3:53 a.m. Sunday in the Pacific Ocean, about 11 miles (18 kilometers) east-southeast of Iwaki on Honshu Island. Its depth was 27 miles (43.5 kilometers).

Full Story Here: Japan Earthquake: 6.4 Quake Reportedly Hits Japan.

OPS: Fine. Now, WHAT is happening at Fukushima? How bad has it gotten?

Biodiversity On Earth Plummets, Despite Growth in Protected Habitats

Despite rapid and substantial growth in the amount of land and sea designated as protected habitat over the last four decades, the diversity of species the world over is plummeting, a new study has found.

Over 100,000 so-called “protected areas” representing some 7 million square miles of land and nearly 1 million square miles of ocean have been established since the 1960′s, noted the analysis, published Thursday in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series.

And yet, according to a widely cited index used to track planetary biodiversity, the wealth of terrestrial and marine species has seen steady decline over roughly the same period, suggesting that simply protecting swaths of land and sea — a common conservation strategy worldwide — is inadequate for preventing the steady disappearance of earth’s creatures.

Full Story Here: Biodiversity On Earth Plummets, Despite Growth in Protected Habitats.

Glenn Beck Flip-Flops By Promoting And Criticizing Youth Political Camps

Radio talk show host Glenn Beck criticized the notion of summer political camps for kids like the one in Norway where 68 people were killed last week, even though he has promoted similar camps in the U.S. where children are taught tea party principles.

Beck’s criticism earlier this week was directed at Norway’s Utoya Island summer camp for the youth wing of Norway’s ruling Labor party. On his radio show Monday, the former Fox News Channel host said the Utoya camp “sounds a little like the Hitler Youth or whatever.”

“Who does a camp for kids that’s all about politics? Disturbing,” he said.

Full Story Here: Glenn Beck Flip-Flops By Promoting And Criticizing Youth Political Camps.

Pelosi ‘Clearly’ Backs 14th Amendment Option In Debt Standoff, Congressman Reports

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) may not be pushing the issue publicly, but in private she “clearly” supports President Barack Obama using the Constitution to raise the debt ceiling as a last resort, according to one Democratic member of Congress.

“Nancy clearly wants it,” said the lawmaker, who requested anonymity. “Publicly? No. Privately? She thinks the president should do it. Period.”

Several top Democrats have endorsed the idea in recent days as an eleventh hour solution: House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) backed the option on Wednesday, and House Democratic Caucus chairman John Larson (D-Conn.) and Assistant Minority Leader James Clyburn (D-S.C.) emerged from a Monday Caucus meeting announcing their support for the idea as well.

But Pelosi, the highest-ranking House Democrat, has been mum. One possible reason is that she has to preserve the image that Congress will reach a deal before the situation even gets to that point.

Full Story Here: Pelosi ‘Clearly’ Backs 14th Amendment Option In Debt Standoff, Congressman Reports.

Fire Destroys We Are Wisconsin PAC Offices in La Crosse; Recall Efforts Subdued

We Are Wisconsin’s La Crosse headquarters a ‘total loss’ after Saturday morning blaze.

Fire officials in La Crosse are continuing to investigate a Saturday blaze that destroyed the regional offices of We Are Wisconsin, a union political action committee (PAC) that has pumped millions of dollars into supporting Democratic candidates in the upcoming recall elections.

The La Crosse Tribune reports that the cause of the fire, which started at about 9:30 a.m., remains unknown. Firefighters thought they had the blaze under control in the afternoon, however, that wasn’t the case and it continued into the evening, the newspaper reported.

We Are Wisconsin used the building at 432 Jay St. to oversee its efforts in the 32nd Senate District recall election, which will be held Aug. 9. Incumbent Republican state Sen. Dan Kapanke is being challenged by Democratic state Rep. Jennifer Shilling in that district.

Full Story Here: Fire Destroys We Are Wisconsin PAC Offices in La Crosse; Recall Efforts Subdued – Fox Point-Bayside, WI Patch.

House panel approves bill forcing ISPs to log users’ web history

The House Judiciary Committee approved legislation on Thursday that would require Internet service providers (ISPs) to collect and retain records about Internet users’ activity.

CNET reported the bill would require ISPs to retain customers’ names, addresses, phone numbers, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and temporarily-assigned IP addresses for 12 months.

The bill passed by a vote of 19 to 10, and is aimed at helping law enforcement track down pedophiles.

“The bill is mislabeled,” Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), a senior member of the panel told CNET. “This is not protecting children from Internet pornography. It’s creating a database for everybody in this country for a lot of other purposes.”

Full Story Here: House panel approves bill forcing ISPs to log users’ web history | The Raw Story.

Air Force Pulls Christian-Themed Ethics Training for Nuclear Missile Officers After Publication of Truthout Report

The Air Force, in response to an exclusive report published by Truthout earlier this week, has pulled a Christian-themed training session that used a quote from an ex-Nazi SS officer and numerous passages from the New and Old Testament to teach missile officers about the morals and ethics of launching nuclear weapons.

The Nuclear Ethics and Nuclear Warfare training session “has been taken out of the curriculum and is being reviewed,” said David Smith, chief of public affairs of Air Education and Training Command at Randolph Air Force Base in Texas. “The commander reviewed it and decided we needed to have a good hard look at it and make sure it reflected views of modern society.”

Full Story Here: Air Force Pulls Christian-Themed Ethics Training for Nuclear Missile Officers After Publication of Truthout Report | Truthout.

The Platinum Coin Option

I keep hesitating to write about this because it sounds insane, but Jack Balkin’s a professor at Yale Law School so I’ll let him say it:

Sovereign governments such as the United States can print new money. However, there’s a statutory limit to the amount of paper currency that can be in circulation at any one time. Ironically, there’s no similar limit on the amount of coinage. A little-known statute gives the secretary of the Treasury the authority to issue platinum coins in any denomination. So some commentators have suggested that the Treasury create two $1 trillion coins, deposit them in its account in the Federal Reserve and write checks on the proceeds.

It’s right here in 31 USC § 5112 “Denominations, specifications, and design of coins.” It’s super-prescriptive about all kinds of things until you get to section (k):

(k) The Secretary may mint and issue platinum bullion coins and proof platinum coins in accordance with such specifications, designs, varieties, quantities, denominations, and inscriptions as the Secretary, in the Secretary’s discretion, may prescribe from time to time.

Full Story Here: The Platinum Coin Option | ThinkProgress.

Ford to Invest Nearly $1 Billion in India

Ford Motor Company plans to nearly double its investment in India in an effort to capture a larger market share of the world’s third fastest growing location for automobile sales.

The company will spend $900 million to complete a new facility by 2014 that will employ about 5,000 people.

“Ford has very aggressive expansion plans in India and in Asia Pacific and Africa,” Joe Hinrichs, president of Ford Asia Pacific and Africa, told reporters in a conference call.

“This is an investment in the future of Ford globally.”

The new facilities will basically double the company’s investment in India to $2 billion. The move is also part of a larger strategy to grow sales in the Asian market. To achieve that goal, Ford will open seven facilities in the Asian market in the coming years.

Full Story Here: Ford to Invest Nearly $1 Billion in India | Economy In Crisis.

American Manufacturing Just Can’t Compete

Our “free trade” policies have allowed other countries to use unfair tactics to put our industries out of business. Theoretically these nations are committed to opening their markets to our goods – but they are not as foolish as we are to allow that to happen in an uncontrolled way.

Our trade treaties should protect our country from predatory foreign countries seeking to weaken or destroy American industry. To that end, tariffs should be erected where needed and where practical, as was our policy and procedures in the past. Experience has shown that it is futile to expect other countries to adopt our policies on, for instance, fair and free competition.

What we can do is control the impact of their policies on our economy. The most obvious tool we have is placing tariffs on their exports to us, as they do with our exports to them. No doubt our tariffs would unjustifiably upset them. We would also have to accept the possibility that our loans from them might suffer. However, in the long run, these negatives would be offset by positives and allow us to manufacture competitively and profitably for the first time in the last ten years.

Full Story Here: American Manufacturing Just Can’t Compete | Economy In Crisis.

Globalism Fails to Benefit Average Americans

The idea of globalism has been pervasive in our national discourse in recent decades. Corporations now have global strategies and have little or no loyalty to the country where they got their start.

The culture of globalism dictates that companies will seek profits wherever they can be found in the world. This often means pulling up manufacturing operations in the U.S. that have been in place for decades and putting thousands out of work. But corporations benefit from globalization in a way that workers do not. Workers cannot often pull up roots and go looking for better jobs anywhere in the world. Workers have a connection to their country, but our country’s policies seem to continuously reward corporations with no ties to their country instead.

By opening our borders through free trade, our labor force has merged with that of Mexico, China, and many other countries where the pay rate is much lower than what constitutes a living wage in the United States. This has both driven down wages in our country for the jobs that remain here, and encouraged companies to ship many jobs to these countries where they can exploit the cheap labor. Does it really constitute a level playing field when the wage that can support a family in one country cannot support a single person in the United States? Because of globalism, and more specifically our free trade policies, these are the terms Americans are being asked to compete under.

Full Story Here: Globalism Fails to Benefit Average Americans | Economy In Crisis.

Who Put McDonald’s in Charge of Kids’ Health?Appetite for Profit

When McDonald’s sneezes, the media jumps. Such was the case yesterday when the company announced it was giving the Happy Meal a makeover. Well not really, but that’s how it got reported, because the media loves simple stories. But when it comes to marketing and PR by multinational corporations, nothing is ever that simple.

While my colleagues have done a great job of explaining why nutritionally, this move is little more than PR (see Marion Nestle and Andy Bellatti), missing from the analysis so far is this: what McDonald’s really wants is to remain in charge.

The fast food giant’s motivation beyond the obvious positive PR spin is to stave off more laws like the one passed in San Francisco to set nutrition standards for Happy Meals, not to mention lawsuits like the one filed by the Center for Science in the Public Interest based on deceptive marketing.

Full Story Here: Who Put McDonald’s in Charge of Kids’ Health?Appetite for Profit | Appetite for Profit.

‪The American People are Angry‬‏

‪Senator Bernie Sanders nails it – again!

When the Super-Rich Cry, “Class Warfare!”

Michael Winship:=:

I ran into my friend Jeff Madrick a few weeks ago. Like a rabbit out of a hat, or so it seemed, he whipped from his coat a copy of his new book, Age of Greed.

He gave the book to me and I’m grateful. It’s a compelling and worthy read. Jeff’s an able journalist; an excellent and cogent storyteller in a field that often defies the straightforward plot or easy explanation — economics.

The book’s subtitle says it all: “The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present;” an ongoing saga of avarice told through profiles of the men who confidently strode forth and marched us smack into the middle of our current fiscal nightmare.

Full Story Here: When the Super-Rich Cry, “Class Warfare!” | Common Dreams.

‪Keiser Report: Ghettofication of America

This week Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, look at gold’s standing ovation for the Obama-Boehner debt ceiling theater. In the second half of the show, Max talks to Stefan Molyneux about the Fed audit and the debt ceiling.
KR on FB: www.facebook.com/KeiserReport

The meat of this clip begins at about 6:40

‪Unbelievable! Tea Party Congressman looses his mind!‬‏

O’Donnell Destroys “Deadbeat Dad”  and Teabagger Joe Walsh

‪Corporate CEO’s…job makers or job movers?‬‏

Thom Hartmann: – :

So raise the damn debt-ceiling – and get on with addressing the real crisis in America – the crisis created by our insane so-called Free Trade policies and treaties, and greedy corporate CEOs with too much power.

Bernie Sanders Blasts Democrats, Boehner Debt Ceiling Plan

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) blasted the deficit-cutting frenzy sparked by the need to raise the nation’s borrowing limit by Aug. 2 in a fiery Wall Street Journal op-ed on Friday.

Congressional Republicans “have been fanatically determined to protect the interests of the wealthy and large multinational corporations so that they do not contribute a single penny toward deficit reduction,” wrote Sanders.

While he’s harsh on Republicans, Sanders didn’t spare Democrats, either.

“President Obama and the Democrats have been extremely weak in opposing these right wing extremist proposals,” wrote Sanders, admonishing Democratic leaders for being too willing to compromise on progressive issues such as entitlement programs and the Bush-era tax cuts.

Full Story Here: Bernie Sanders Blasts Democrats, Boehner Debt Ceiling Plan.

Don’t Fall for the GOP Lie: There is No Budget Crisis. There’s a Job and Growth Crisis.

Robert Reich :-:

A friend who’s been watching the absurd machinations in Congress asked me “what happens if we don’t solve the budget crisis and we run out of money to pay the nation’s bills?”

It was only then I realized how effective Republicans lies have been. That we’re calling it a “budget crisis” and worrying that if we don’t “solve” it we can’t pay our nation’s bills is testament to how successful Republicans have been distorting the truth.

The federal budget deficit has no economic relationship to the debt limit. Republicans have linked the two, and the Administration has played along, but they are entirely separate. Republicans are using what would otherwise be a routine, legally technical vote to raise the debt limit as a means of holding the nation hostage to their own political goal of shrinking the size of the federal government.

Full Story Here: Robert Reich (Don’t Fall for the GOP Lie: There is No Budget Crisis. There’s a Job and Growth Crisis.).

Huge Labor Victory: After IKEA Outsourced Swedish Jobs To Virginia To Thwart Unions, Virginia Workers Vote To Unionize

As ThinkProgress reported last April, home furniture giant IKEA has set up shop at a manufacturing plant in Danville, Virginia for the past three years in order to gain access to a non-unionized pool of labor and avoid Swedish unions. Workers at the Danville plant allegedly faced mandatory overtime, frantic hours, and even racial discrimination.

Yesterday, following an intense union organizing drive by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, the employees at this Virginia plant voted overwhelmingly to unionize:

Workers at Ikea’s U.S. furniture factory voted to form a union, a victory for the labor movement seeking to rebound from record-low membership at private companies. Employees at the plant in Danville, Virginia, voted 221-69 today to join the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, the National Labor Relations Board said. The factory, operated by a subsidiary called Swedwood, makes low- cost bookcases and coffee tables for sale in Ikea’s 37 blue and yellow U.S. big-box stores.

Full Story Here: Huge Labor Victory: After IKEA Outsourced Swedish Jobs To Virginia To Thwart Unions, Virginia Workers Vote To Unionize | ThinkProgress.

Another GOP Big Lie: Only the Rich – Not Middle Class and Poor – Pay Taxes

In their desperation to ensure that taxes are not raised on their corporate sponsors, Republicans have been successful in convincing their followers, as well as their poodles in the corporate media, that only the rich — not the poor and middle class — pay taxes.

That is not just a lie — it is a big lie. Via Andrew Sullivan:

Rick Warren tweeted earlier this week that “HALF of America pays NO taxes. ZERO. So they’re happy for tax rates to be raised on the other half that DOES.” Joan Walsh fisks him. Kevin Drum dug up this chart from a Tax Foundation report (pdf), which reveals the truth:

The blue bars don’t cherry pick just the federal income tax to make a dumb partisan talking point, they show how much each group actually pays in total taxes. Bottom line: Poor people pay less in taxes than rich people, as they should, but it’s very far from zero. The midpoint of that first quintile is about $11,000, and even a household earning that little pays about $1,400 in taxes. The household in the second quintile, earning a munificent $30,000 per year, pays $7,000 in taxes. I know we live in a post-fact environment, but those are the facts.

Full Story Here: Another GOP Big Lie: Only the Rich – Not Middle Class and Poor – Pay Taxes.

A Madman and His Manifesto

It passed with only scant notice, as with so many of the rude extremes of American life in a kinetic media age. The bodies of those Norwegian children slaughtered by a terrorist had yet to be fully recovered, let alone buried, when Glenn Beck compared the victims to Nazis.

The summer camp where children of the Norwegian Labor Party went for soccer, swimming, political debates and lectures “sounds a little like, you know, the Hitler Youth,” Beck said in his national radio broadcast.

No, Beck wasn’t justifying the killing of 68 people on Utoya Island. He was merely muddying the humanity of those young people executed by Anders Behring Breivik, the self-professed “Christian Knight” who has confessed to the attacks. But Beck’s Web site, The Blaze, was full of justifications for the mass murder of innocents, and provided a sampling of the troubled audience he caters to in this country.

Full Story Here: A Madman and His Manifesto – NYTimes.com.

Charting the American Debt Crisis

America has a long history of raising the debt limit to accommodate spending. Below, a look at some of the issues in the debate over the nation’s debt.

Interactive

Estimates of When the U.S. Will Run Out of Money

If Congress does not raise the debt ceiling, the U.S. Treasury will run out of cash reserves to pay for obligations like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and defense contracts. The chart below shows the amount of the nation’s cash reserves and estimates for when it will run out if the debt ceiling is not raised.

Full Story Here: Charting the American Debt Crisis – Interactive – NYTimes.com.

The Centrist Cop-Out

Paul Krugman:-:

The facts of the crisis over the debt ceiling aren’t complicated. Republicans have, in effect, taken America hostage, threatening to undermine the economy and disrupt the essential business of government unless they get policy concessions they would never have been able to enact through legislation. And Democrats — who would have been justified in rejecting this extortion altogether — have, in fact, gone a long way toward meeting those Republican demands.

As I said, it’s not complicated. Yet many people in the news media apparently can’t bring themselves to acknowledge this simple reality. News reports portray the parties as equally intransigent; pundits fantasize about some kind of “centrist” uprising, as if the problem was too much partisanship on both sides.

Some of us have long complained about the cult of “balance,” the insistence on portraying both parties as equally wrong and equally at fault on any issue, never mind the facts. I joked long ago that if one party declared that the earth was flat, the headlines would read “Views Differ on Shape of Planet.” But would that cult still rule in a situation as stark as the one we now face, in which one party is clearly engaged in blackmail and the other is dickering over the size of the ransom?

Full Story Here: The Centrist Cop-Out – NYTimes.com.

The 400 Richest Americans Pay An 18% Tax Rate

Forbes:

The 400 richest Americans used to pay 30% of their income on the average to Uncle Sam. Today, they pay 18% on the average, according to Steve Rattner, a Wall Street financier, who just presented these figures on Mornings With Joe,MSNBC.

The main reason for the drop in their tax rate of some 40% is the tax cuts by George Bush in 2003, taking the rate paid on dividends and capital gains down to 15%. This reduction in the investment class’s taxes powered the bull market in stocks from the fall of 2003 until the fall of 2007.

Full Story Here: The 400 Richest Americans Pay An 18% Tax Rate – Robert Lenzner – StreetTalk – Forbes.

Wisconsin’s Widening War on Renewable Energy

What started out as an opening salvo from the Walker Administration to shackle large-scale wind projects has in six months turned into a systematic campaign to dismantle the state policies that support renewable energy development. Joining the executive and legislative branches in pursuing policy rollbacks and/or funding cutbacks against renewables are various utilities and, surprisingly, Focus on Energy, Wisconsin’s ratepayer-funded energy efficiency and renewable programs.

Since January 1st, Wisconsin has seen a series of assaults against utility-scale projects and smaller renewable systems serving both residences and businesses. These include the following actions:

The Legislature suspended PSC 128, the statewide rule developed by the Public Service Commission last year in response to a law passed by the Legislature in 2009 ordering the agency to establish uniform standards for permitting wind energy systems. Since the March 1 suspension vote, wind development in Wisconsin has slowed to a standstill.

The Legislature adopted SB 81, a bill that RENEW Wisconsin describes as the “Outsource Renewable Energy to Canada Act.” SB 81 allows Wisconsin utilities to meet their renewable energy requirements beginning in 2015 with electricity generated from large hydro power plants in other states and Canada. By allowing Wisconsin utilities to become even more dependent on energy imports than they are today, SB 81 turns Wisconsin’s Renewable Energy Standard on its head. Importing large-scale hydro power exports the very dollars that could have been used to harness Wisconsin’s renewable energy resources.

We Energies, the state’s largest electric utility, abruptly decided in May to walk away from an agreement with RENEW to dedicate $60 million over a 10-year period in support of renewable energy development in its territory. The decision came in the sixth year of this program. We Energies plans to reallocate the unspent dollars (totaling about $27 million) to general operations.

Full Story Here: Wisconsin’s Widening War on Renewable Energy : Greenenergycafe.com.

Tea Party Rep. Joe Walsh sued for $100,000 in child support

Freshman U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh, a tax-bashing Tea Party champion who sharply lectures President Barack Obama and other Democrats on fiscal responsibility, owes more than $100,000 in child support to his ex-wife and three children, according to documents his ex-wife filed in their divorce case in December.

“I won’t place one more dollar of debt upon the backs of my kids and grandkids unless we structurally reform the way this town spends money!” Walsh says directly into the camera in his viral video lecturing Obama on the need to get the nation’s finances in order.

Walsh starts the video by saying, “President Obama, quit lying. Have you no shame, sir? In three short years, you’ve bankrupted this country.”

Full Story Here: Tea Party Rep. Joe Walsh sued for $100,000 in child support – Chicago Sun-Times.

Murdochs were given secret defence briefings

Ministers held meetings with media mogul’s people more than 60 times

The extraordinary access that Cabinet ministers granted Rupert Murdoch and his children was revealed for the first time yesterday, with more than two dozen private meetings between the family and senior members of the Government in the 15 months since David Cameron entered Downing Street.

In total, Cabinet ministers have had private meetings with Murdoch executives more than 60 times and, if social events such as receptions at party conferences are included, the figure is at least 107.

On two occasions, James Murdoch and former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks were given confidential defence briefings on Afghanistan and Britain’s strategic defence review by the Defence Secretary, Liam Fox. A further briefing was held with Ms Brooks, Rupert Murdoch and the Sunday Times editor John Witherow.

Full Story Here: Murdochs were given secret defence briefings – UK Politics, UK – The Independent.

Gaddafi can’t be left in Libya, says international criminal court

ICC contradicts William Hague’s suggestion that Muammar Gaddafi could be allowed to remain in Libya under peace plan

The international criminal court has dismissed suggestions by Britain and France that Colonel Muammar Gaddafi could be allowed to remain in Libya as part of negotiated deal to remove him from power, insisting that a new government would be obliged to arrest the dictator under warrants issued by the court.

The ICC, which Britain and France have signed up to, said that Gaddafi could not be allowed to escape justice. “He has to be arrested,” said Florence Olara, spokeswoman for the court’s chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo.

On Monday the foreign secretary, William Hague, said Britain was prepared to agree to a political settlement in Libya that would see Gaddafi remain in the country after relinquishing his hold on power.

Full Story Here: Gaddafi can’t be left in Libya, says international criminal court | World news | The Guardian.

Elizabeth Warren to leave consumer financial agency

Elizabeth Warren, the law professor who persuaded the Obama administration to create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, will step down on August 1 from her role setting up the controversial new regulator, the Treasury said on Tuesday.

Warren will return to Harvard Law School and will be succeeded by a close aide and former banker, Rajeev Date.

The agency officially opened its doors for business on July 21 but still does not have a confirmed leader.

Last week, President Barack Obama nominated Ohio’s former attorney general, Richard Cordray, to be the bureau’s first director.

Full Story Here: Elizabeth Warren to leave consumer financial agency | Reuters.

Boehner’s Debt Ceiling Plan Found Insufficient By Wall Street: Bank Of America Report

There has been a quick and concerted effort on the part of Democrats to paint House Speaker John Boehner’s final debt ceiling proposal as insufficient to avoid the possibility of a downgrade of the United States’ AAA rating.

When CNN’s Erin Burnett reported Monday evening that the raters at Standard & Poor’s would not be satisfied with a plan that neither lifted the debt ceiling through the 2012 elections nor reformed entitlement programs, party leadership jumped on the news.

If the sequence seemed a touch too political, it shouldn’t have. Even before Boehner (R-Ohio) offered his plan, which would force $1.2 trillion in cuts over 10 years while creating a powerful congressional commission to find $1.8 trillion more, Wall Street was warning that a short-term increase in the debt ceiling would be insufficient.

Full Story Here: Boehner’s Debt Ceiling Plan Found Insufficient By Wall Street: Bank Of America Report.

The long-term legacy of 9/11

David Sirota -

Nearly 10 years later, new studies point to lasting effects on the nation’s mental, physical and political health

Like most Americans, I can still remember it as if it were yesterday: The images of the burning building on the screen, the murmurings of bewildered morning TV anchors, the burst of “holy shit!” subject lines in my email box and then, shattering the slow-mo dreamlike quality of it all, the bark of a police officer telling me to get out of the Capitol complex as quickly as possible because a plane-turned-missile was headed our way.

This was my particular 9/11 experience — a Washington of complete chaos where chest-thumping tough-on-terror congresspeople were instantly transformed into cowering child-trampling George Costanzas as they fled for the door. I’m sure everyone fortunate enough to survive that day has their own unique flashback — it was, after all, a generation’s “where were you when” moment a la the JFK assassination. Only now, approaching the 10-year anniversary of 9/11, a trio of new studies show the post-traumatic stress of the attacks resulted in deep cultural shifts that go way beyond mere haunting mental images and bouts of insomnia.

As probably the single most politicized event in modern American history, 9/11′s most obvious long-term impact can be seen in the electoral arena — and not merely in individual election cycles or races.

Full Story Here: The long-term legacy of 9/11 – David Sirota – Salon.com.

GOP lawmaker admits he’s extorting Congress to rewrite Constitution 

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews Monday that he is giving Congress ten days to pass a constitutional amendment that would make raising taxes nearly impossible. And if he doesn’t get what he wants, he will do everything in his power to force the U.S. to default on its debts.

“Okay, in ten days you want to change the United States Constitution by two-thirds vote in both houses?” Matthews asked. “That’s what you’re demanding.”

“Yes,” Lee admitted. “If possible we can’t change the Constitution just in Congress but we can submit it to the states. Let the states fight it out.”

“You want the Democratic Senate, by a two-thirds vote, to pass a constitutional amendment or you want the house to come down?” Matthews pressed.

“Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying and I’ve been saying this for six months,” Lee said.

Full Story Here: GOP lawmaker admits he’s extorting Congress to rewrite Constitution | Raw Replay.

After Enthusiastically Using Filibuster, GOP Begs Democrats Not To Filibuster Cut, Cap, And Balance Plan

Since 2009, Senate Republicans have forced virtually every bill to pass the 60-vote cloture threshold before it could come to the floor for actual debate. This unprecedented obstruction forced Senate Democrats to find 60 supporting votes — as opposed to a simple majority of 51 — to pass health care reform, financial regulatory reform, the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the economic stimulus package, and nearly every other bill they considered, and killed critical legislation like a climate change bill, immigration reform, and the DREAM Act. In addition, Republicans have successfully filibustered an unheard-of number of judicial and cabinet-level nominees, hindering the efficacy of both branches.

But after they failed to get 60 votes for their Cut, Cap, and Balance plan last week, a group of Senate Republicans is urging Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to bring it to the floor for debate, thus allowing it to pass with only 51 votes. The senators sent Reid a letter today, obtained by Slate’s Dave Weigel:

We urge Senate Majority Leader Reid to reconsider the tabled bill and let the Senate debate it fully, in full view of the American people — so that it may garner the four or five votes that it needs to pass — and to agree that it should pass without invoking the 60 vote cloture threshold in recognition of the urgency of the matter.

Full Story Here: After Enthusiastically Using Filibuster, GOP Begs Democrats Not To Filibuster Cut, Cap, And Balance Plan | ThinkProgress.

FLASHBACK: Republicans Never Voted On A Balanced Budget Amendment When They Controlled Congress Under Bush | ThinkProgress

House Republicans last week insisted on passing their radical “cut, cap, and balance” plan, which would allow the federal debt ceiling to be raised only if a balanced budget amendment (complete with a federal spending cap and a supermajority requirement for tax increases) is approved by Congress and sent to the states. The Senate tabled the bill by a vote of 51-46.

Despite their plan failing to receive even a majority in the Senate — far less than the two-thirds required for a constitutional amendment — Republicans have continued to demand, as they have for months, that a balanced budget amendment be a part of any deal to raise the debt ceiling. And the GOP is framing its BBA push as some kind of favor for the next generation. For instance, Rep. Jeb Hensarling, who chairs the House Republican Conference, said today that the balanced budget amendment is “not about the next election. It’s about the next generation.” Watch it:

Full Story Here: FLASHBACK: Republicans Never Voted On A Balanced Budget Amendment When They Controlled Congress Under Bush | ThinkProgress.

Japan’s Food-Chain Threat Multiplies as Fukushima Radiation Spreads

Radiation fallout from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant poses a growing threat to Japan’s food chain as unsafe levels of cesium found in beef on supermarket shelves were also detected in more vegetables and the ocean.

More than 2,600 cattle have been contaminated, Kyodo News reported July 23, after the Miyagi local government said 1,183 cattle at 58 farms were fed hay containing radioactive cesium before being shipped to meat markets.

Agriculture Minister Michihiko Kano has said officials didn’t foresee that farmers might ship contaminated hay to cattle ranchers. That highlights the government’s inability to think ahead and to act, said Mariko Sano, secretary general for Shufuren, a housewives organization in Tokyo.

“The government is so slow to move,” Sano said. “They’ve done little to ensure food safety.”

Full Story Here: Japan’s Food-Chain Threat Multiplies as Fukushima Radiation Spreads – Bloomberg.

A ‘Form Of Class Warfare,’ Boehner Plan Would Likely Still Result in Downgrade

Republican House Speaker John Boehner’s new budget proposal would require deep cuts in the years immediately ahead in Social Security and Medicare benefits for current retirees, the repeal of health reform’s coverage expansions, or wholesale evisceration of basic assistance programs for vulnerable Americans, according to a top Washington budget analyst.

Boehner’s plan also would still reportedly probably result in a downgrade of the the federal government’s AAA credit rating.

With just a week left before the federal government is expected, for the first time, fail to pay all of its bills, Boehner and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid continue to craft separate budget plans.

Full Story Here: The Washington Current: A ‘Form Of Class Warfare,’ Boehner Plan Would Likely Still Result in Downgrade.

Republican Leaders Voted for U.S. Debt Drivers

House Speaker John Boehner often attacks the spendthrift ways of Washington.

“In Washington, more spending and more debt is business as usual,” the Republican leader from Ohio said in a televised address yesterday amid debate over the U.S. debt. “I’ve got news for Washington – those days are over.”

Yet the speaker, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell all voted for major drivers of the nation’s debt during the past decade: Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts and Medicare prescription drug benefits. They also voted for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, that rescued financial institutions and the auto industry.

Full Story Here: Republican Leaders Voted for U.S. Debt Drivers – Bloomberg.

Hungary Destroys All Monsanto GMO Maize Fields

In an effort to rid the country of Monsanto’s GMO products, Hungary has stepped up the pace. This looks like its going to be another slap in the face for Monsanto. A new regulation was introduced this March which stipulates that seeds are supposed to be checked for GMO before they are introduced to the market. Unfortunately, some GMO seeds made it to the farmers without them knowing it.

Almost 1000 acres of maize found to have been grown with genetically modified seeds have been destroyed throughout Hungary deputy state secretary of the Ministry of Rural Development Lajos Bognar said. The GMO maize has been ploughed under, said Lajos Bognar, but pollen has not spread from the maize, he added.

Unlike several EU members, GMO seeds are banned in Hungary. The checks will continue despite the fact that seed traders are obliged to make sure that their products are GMO free, Bognar said.

During their investigation, controllers have found Pioneer and Monsanto products among the seeds planted.

Full Story Here: Hungary Destroys All Monsanto GMO Maize Fields.

James Murdoch’s News of the World Scandal Defense Crumbles

Rupert Murdoch’s heir apparent looks like the scandal’s next victim after claiming ignorance about phone hacking—only to be reversed by two ex-employees. Brian Cathcart on how News Corp.’s tight band is splintering.

Whatever happens to News Corp. now, it will surely happen without James Murdoch. A single meeting the 38-year-old had in London one day in June 2008 now haunts him to the point where, having been the clever, dashing heir apparent to his buccaneer father, Rupert, he has become a liability with little hope of survival.

Click here to find out more!

Three people were at that meeting, called to discuss a critical problem that had arisen in the company’s defense of the first lawsuit brought by a phone-hacking victim. The other two were seasoned British tabloid operators who have now turned against James. They are Colin Myler, 59, editor of the shuttered News of the World and before that editor of its rival the Sunday Mirror, and Tom Crone, legal manager of that paper and its sister tabloid, The Sun, who worked for Rupert Murdoch for 26 years. Both have now lost their jobs.

James told members of Parliament this week that when he approved a payment of £725,000 (about $1.1 million) at that meeting to settle the lawsuit, he was not shown an email that suggested phone hacking was more widespread at the News of the World, and not limited to one “rogue” reporter.

Full Story Here: James Murdoch’s News of the World Scandal Defense Crumbles – The Daily Beast.

Taxing The Poor: The Only Tax Increase Republicans Support

Throughout the debate about raising the federal debt ceiling, Republicans have denied deal after deal because Democrats insist on adding new revenues to trillions of dollars in spending cuts. Republicans have opposed repealing oil and gas subsidies, removing a tax loophole for corporate jet owners, letting the Bush tax cuts expire, and all other forms of revenue Democrats have suggested. Raising taxes in a weak economy, they argue, is unthinkable — even if conservative patriarch Ronald Reagan did just that.

But there is one tax increase some Republicans seem to favor: raising taxes on the working poor, senior citizens, and other low-income Americans.

While they fight the expiration of the budget-busting Bush tax cuts, Republicans have continually cited a report that shows that 51 percent of Americans don’t pay income taxes, even admitting that middle- and lower-class Americans need to shoulder a larger burden in deficit reduction efforts. Here is a sample of Republicans who have made that argument:

Full Story Here: Taxing The Poor: The Only Tax Increase Republicans Support | ThinkProgress.

America Doesn’t Need a Tax-Dodging Industry

If the companies that offshore their profits and design tax scams paid their fair share, we might not have a budget crisis.

Like a pack of men in suits mud wrestling, Washington’s budget battle would be entertaining to watch if we the people weren’t about to get hurt.

The zeal of Republican lawmakers and their compliant counterparts in the Democratic Party to slash spending on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and other essential programs will lower the quality of life in our communities and take a toll on public health.

Off to the side of the mud pit, however, is a $1 trillion dollar idea that would support patriotic U.S. businesses, discourage job exports, and restore fairness to our tax system. It’s an idea that already commands widespread public support. It deserves broad bipartisan political support too.

In the last two weeks, congressional leaders, led by Democrats Carl Levin of Michigan in the Senate and Lloyd Doggett of Texas in the House, have introduced an updated version of the “Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act.” Their proposal would shut down the offshore tax loopholes that encourage corporate tax dodging.

Full Story Here: America Doesn’t Need a Tax-Dodging Industry – IPS.

If Corporations And The Rich Paid Taxes At The Same Level As The 1960s, The Debt Would Disappear

As congressional negotiators continue to debate the contents of a deficit reduction package, discussions are reportedly tilting toward a deal that will include spending cuts but no revenue increases.

Over at the Campaign for America’s Future, the Institute for Policy Studies’ (IPS) Sam Pizzigati notes that one way to very easily tackle U.S. debt going forward would be to increase taxes on corporations and the wealthy to levels more closely matching mid-20th century rates. Pizzigati cites an IPS paper from last spring to make the argument that if corporations and households making more than $1 million paid the same rates as they did in 1961, our debt would virtually disappear in a decade:

Some numbers — from an Institute for Policy Studies report released this past spring — can help us better visualize just how monumental this political failure has been. If corporations and households taking in $1 million or more in income each year were now paying taxes at the same annual rates as they did back in 1961, the IPS researchers found, the federal treasury would be collecting an additional $716 billion a year. In other words, if the federal government started taxing the wealthy and their corporations at the same rates in effect a half-century ago, the federal debt to investors would almost totally vanish over the next decade.

Full Story Here: If Corporations And The Rich Paid Taxes At The Same Level As The 1960s, The Debt Would Disappear | ThinkProgress.

White Christian Fundamentalist Terrorism in Norway

That the horrible terrorist attacks in Oslo on Friday that left some 90 persons or more dead– a bombing of the prime minister’s office and shootings at a Labor Party youth camp– were allegedly committed by a blonde, far right wing Norwegian fundamentalist Christian rather than by a radical Muslim group is being treated as a matter of surprise in some quarters. But if those journalists and analysts had been paying attention, they would not be surprised at all.

And in fact, kudos to Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store (a Labor Party member), who refused to speculate about who was behind the attacks before some evidence was gathered: “We’ve seen in Europe in recent years that politicians have been jumping to conclusions about suspects before investigations have been conducted, and we will not commit that error.” Give that man a medal!

Europol reports have long made it clear that the biggest threat of terrorism in Europe comes from separatist movements, then from the fringe left, then from the far right. In 2008, only one terrorist attack out of hundreds in Europe was committed by radical Muslims. In 2010, according to Europol [pdf], 7 persons were killed in terrorist attacks. Some 160 of these attacks that year were carried out by separatists. The number launched by people of Muslim heritage? 3. It would be silly to maintain that Muslim radicals do not pose a threat of terrorism; indeed, many plots were broken up by European police. But as an actually-existing phenomenon, terrorism in Europe is mainly the work of Christian-heritage people. For more on the Norwegian far right, see Firstpost.com.

Full Story Here: White Christian Fundamentalist Terrorism in Norway | Informed Comment.

Messing With Medicare

Paul Krugman: – :

At the time of writing, President Obama’s hoped-for “Grand Bargain” with Republicans is apparently dead. And I say good riddance. I’m no more eager than other rational people (a category that fails to include many Congressional Republicans) to see what happens if the debt limit isn’t raised. But what the president was offering to the G.O.P., especially on Medicare, was a very bad deal for America.

Specifically, according to many reports, the president offered both means-testing of Medicare benefits and a rise in the age of Medicare eligibility. The first would be bad policy; the second would be terrible policy. And it would almost surely be terrible politics, too.

The crucial thing to remember, when we talk about Medicare, is that our goal isn’t, or at least shouldn’t be, defined in terms of some arbitrary number. Our goal should be, instead, to give Americans the health care they need at a price the country can afford. And throwing Americans in their mid-60s off Medicare moves us away from that goal, not toward it.

Full Story Here: Messing With Medicare – NYTimes.com.

Vicious Cycles: Why Washington is About to Make the Jobs Crisis Worse

Robert Reich:-:

We now live in parallel universes.

One universe is the one in which most Americans live. In it, almost 15 million people are unemployed, wages are declining (adjusted for inflation), and home values are still falling. The unsurprising result is consumers aren’t buying — which is causing employers to slow down their hiring and in many cases lay off more of their workers. In this universe, we’re locked in a vicious economic cycle that’s getting worse.

The other universe is the one in which Washington politicians live. They are now engaged in a bitter partisan battle over how, and by how much, to reduce the federal budget deficit in order to buy enough votes to lift the debt ceiling.

The two universes have nothing whatever to do with one another — except for one thing. If consumers can’t and won’t buy, and employers won’t hire without customers, the spender of last resort must be government. We’ve understood this since government spending on World War II catapulted America out of the Great Depression — reversing the most vicious of vicious cycles. We’ve understood it in every economic downturn since then.

Until now.

Full Story Here: Robert Reich (Vicious Cycles: Why Washington is About to Make the Jobs Crisis Worse).

Walker cuts DMV in Dem districts now that voter ID is passed

Brazen power grab. That’s the only way to describe Koch whore Gov. Scott Walker’s latest attack on working families in Wisconsin.

The Wisconsin legislature is finalizing a bill to close ten Department of Motor Vehicle centers located in Democratic districts within the state. The money saved will be used to extend operating hours at DMV centers in Republican districts. These cuts come on the heels of new voter ID laws that require voters to present a state-issued photo identification card at the poll booths.

The law is so restrictive that student IDs, even if they have a picture on them, can’t be used to vote.

The Associated Press reports at least one Democratic lawmaker was angered by the move.
Rep. Andy Jorgensen, D-Fort Atkinson, called on the DOT to reconsider its plans to close the Fort Atkinson DMV center…

Full Story Here: Teamster Nation: Walker cuts DMV in Dem districts now that voter ID is passed.

Melting Arctic ice releasing banned toxins, warn scientists

Unknown amount of trapped persistent organics pollutants poses threat to marine life and humans as temperatures rise

The warming of the Arctic is releasing toxic chemicals that had been trapped in the ice and cold water, scientists have discovered.

The researchers warn that the amount of the poisons in the polar region is unknown and their release could “undermine global efforts to reduce environmental and human exposure to them”.

The chemicals seeping out as temperatures rise include the pesticides DDT, lindane and chlordane as well as the industrial chemicals PCBs and the fungicide hexachlorobenzene (HCB). All of these are know as persistent organics pollutants (Pops), and are banned under the 2004 Stockholm convention.

Full Story Here: Melting Arctic ice releasing banned toxins, warn scientists | Environment | The Guardian.

Mass Psychosis in the US

How Big Pharma got Americans hooked on anti-psychotic drugs

Drug companies like Pfizer are accused of pressuring doctors into over-prescribing medications to patients in order to increase profits [GALLO/GETTY]

Has America become a nation of psychotics? You would certainly think so, based on the explosion in the use of antipsychotic medications. In 2008, with over $14 billion in sales, antipsychotics became the single top-selling therapeutic class of prescription drugs in the United States, surpassing drugs used to treat high cholesterol and acid reflux.

Once upon a time, antipsychotics were reserved for a relatively small number of patients with hard-core psychiatric diagnoses – primarily schizophrenia and bipolar disorder – to treat such symptoms as delusions, hallucinations, or formal thought disorder. Today, it seems, everyone is taking antipsychotics. Parents are told that their unruly kids are in fact bipolar, and in need of anti-psychotics, while old people with dementia are dosed, in large numbers, with drugs once reserved largely for schizophrenics. Americans with symptoms ranging from chronic depression to anxiety to insomnia are now being prescribed anti-psychotics at rates that seem to indicate a national mass psychosis.

It is anything but a coincidence that the explosion in antipsychotic use coincides with the pharmaceutical industry’s development of a new class of medications known as “atypical antipsychotics.” Beginning with Zyprexa, Risperdal, and Seroquel in the 1990s, followed by Abilify in the early 2000s, these drugs were touted as being more effective than older antipsychotics like Haldol and Thorazine. More importantly, they lacked the most noxious side effects of the older drugs – in particular, the tremors and other motor control problems.

Full Story Here: Mass Psychosis in the US.

Walter Reed to close after more than a century

Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the Army’s flagship hospital where privates to presidents have gone for care, is closing its doors after more than a century.

Hundreds of thousands of the nation’s war wounded from World War I to today have received treatment at Walter Reed, including 18,000 troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

President Dwight Eisenhower died there. So did Gens. John J. Pershing and Douglas MacArthur.

It’s where countless celebrities, from Bob Hope to quarterback Tom Brady, have stopped to show their respect to the wounded. Through the use of medical diplomacy, the center also has tended to foreign leaders.

The storied hospital, which opened in 1909, was scarred by a 2007 scandal about substandard living conditions on its grounds for wounded troops in outpatient care and the red tape they faced. It led to improved care for the wounded, at Walter Reed and throughout the military. By then, however, plans were moving forward to close Walter Reed’s campus.

Two years earlier, a government commission, noting that Walter Reed was showing its age, voted to close the facility and consolidate its operations with the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., and a hospital at Fort Belvoir, Va., to save money.

Former and current patients and staff members will say goodbye at a ceremony Wednesday on the parade grounds in front of the main concrete and glass hospital complex. Most of the moving will occur in August. On Sept. 15, the Army hands over the campus to the new tenants: the State Department and the District of Columbia. The buildings on campus deemed national historic landmarks will be preserved; others probably will be torn down. The city is expected to develop its section for retail and other uses.

“For many of the staff members, even though they know that this is the future of the military health system, in a way, it’s still like losing your favorite uncle, and so there is a certain amount of mourning that is going on and it is an emotional time,” said Col. Norvell Coots, commander of the Walter Reed Health Care System.

Full Story Here: Associated Press.

Audit: Fed gave $16 trillion in emergency loans – to Wall Street

The U.S. Federal Reserve gave out $16.1 trillion in emergency loans to U.S. and foreign financial institutions between Dec. 1, 2007 and July 21, 2010, according to figures produced by the government’s first-ever audit of the central bank.

Last year, the gross domestic product of the entire U.S. economy was $14.5 trillion.

Of the $16.1 trillion loaned out, $3.08 trillion went to financial institutions in the U.K., Germany, Switzerland, France and Belgium, the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) analysis shows.

Additionally, asset swap arrangements were opened with banks in the U.K., Canada, Brazil, Japan, South Korea, Norway, Mexico, Singapore and Switzerland. Twelve of those arrangements are still ongoing, having been extended through August 2012.

Full Story Here: Audit: Fed gave $16 trillion in emergency loans | The Raw Story.

OPS:  Interesting number.  Which means that the Reich was so intent on “starving the beast” that they gave EVERYTHING away.

What Obama Was Willing to Give Away

Paul Krugman:-:

Jonathan Cohn summarizes what seems to have been in the deal that Boehner walked away from; it’s horrifying. Above all, the proposed rise in the age of Medicare eligibility was a real betrayal of both Democratic principles and good government.

Let’s recall how the health care debate went. Progressive reformers, myself included, would very much have preferred a simple single-payer system — Medicare for all. And there’s a reason: Medicare has lower costs than private insurance, and it’s also a much better vehicle for cost control. Also, the simplicity — if you’re a citizen, you’re covered — makes it much less likely that people will fall through the cracks.

Most of us were willing, however, to accept the Rube Goldberg scheme actually passed — in which community rating, a mandate, and subsidies are combined to more or less simulate the effects of single-payer — as much better than nothing. If political reality dictated that health care be directed through private insurance companies, even though this made no sense in policy terms, well, that was a price we were willing to pay.

Full Story Here: What Obama Was Willing to Give Away – NYTimes.com.

‪If You Don’t Understand Peak Oil Or Think It Is Not For Real – See This Video‬‏

‪Peak oil is the point in time when the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction is reached, after which the rate of production enters terminal decline.

‪Senator Bernie Sanders on Disastrous Debt Ceiling Proposals‬‏

Cenk Uygur discusses the debt ceiling proposals with Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

Further Confirmation of a Kerry Landslide

“To believe that Bush won in 2004 you must also believe that…”

OPS: this is a highly detailed and extensively linked bit of research with lots of charts and analysis. 

Full Story Here: Further Confirmation of a Kerry Landslide: The Linked Set.

Phone hacking inquiry judge attended parties at home of Rupert Murdoch’s son-in-law

The judge in charge of the phone hacking inquiry has attended parties at the home of Rupert Murdoch’s son-in-law.

Full Story Here: Phone hacking inquiry judge attended parties at home of Rupert Murdoch’s son-in-law – Telegraph.

Norway Shooting Suspect is Islamophobe Using Antisemitic “Cultural Marxism” Model

Based on online posts apparently by Anders Behring Breivik circulated in Norway, the alleged terrorist opposed multiculturalism and Muslim immigrants in Norway. Breivik championed opposition to “Cultural Marxism,” a right-wing antisemitic conspiracy theory developed primarily by William Lind of the US-based Free Congress Foundation, but also by the Lyndon LaRouche network. The idea is that a small group of Marxist Jews who formed the Frankfurt School set out to destroy Western Culture through a conspiracy to promote multiculturalism and collectivist economic theories.

Breivik described himself as a cultural conservative and a Christian conservative who felt that Protestantism had lost its way and that Christianity should recombine under the banner of a reconstituted and traditionalist Catholic Church. These views are almost identical to the views of the late Paul Wyrich, founder of the Christian Right epicenter in the United States, the Free Congress Foundation. Weyrich and Lind developed an aggressive theory of Cultural Conservatism as a way to save Western Culture.

In 1987, Weyrich commissioned a study, “Cultural Conservatism: Toward A New National Agenda”, which argued that cultural issues provided antiliberalism with a more unifying concept than economic conservatism. “Cultural Conservatism: Theory and Practice” followed in 1991. William “Bill” Lind spent years building the Center for Cultural Conservatism at Weyrich’s Free Congress Foundation.

Full Story Here: | Updated: Norway Shooting Suspect is Islamophobe Using Antisemitic “Cultural Marxism” Model.

The Great Evil

The current political environment and the debt-crisis debate remind me of the 1997 science-fiction film “The Fifth Element.”

Stick with me. It’s complicated.

In the film, the Great Evil, a giant ball of fire, hurtles toward Earth, intent on destroying it. This thing shows up every so often. It’s annoying.

Anyway, a group of gentle aliens have a weapon that can stop it. It has been used before, and it’s really simple: It uses four stones that represent the four classical elements but a fifth element, the Supreme Being, must activate them.

The gentle aliens promise to return to Earth with their weapon the next time the Great Evil threatens. Sounds good. But on their way back, another group of aliens — simple-minded, warriors called Mangalores who work for an evil, wealthy industrialist — shoot down their ship.

Full Story Here: The Great Evil – NYTimes.com.

New court filing: how the 2004 Ohio presidential election was hacked

A new filing in the King Lincoln Bronzeville v. Blackwell case includes a copy of the Ohio Secretary of State election production system configuration that was in use in Ohio’s 2004 presidential election when there was a sudden and unexpected shift in votes for George W. Bush.

The filing also includes the revealing deposition of the late Michael Connell. Connell served as the IT guru for the Bush family and Karl Rove. Connell ran the private IT firm GovTech that created the controversial system that transferred Ohio’s vote count late on election night 2004 to a partisan Republican server site in Chattanooga, Tennessee owned by SmarTech. That is when the vote shift happened, not predicted by the exit polls, that led to Bush’s unexpected victory. Connell died a month and a half after giving this deposition in a suspicious small plane crash.

Additionally, the filing contains the contract signed between then-Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell and Connell’s company, GovTech Solutions. Also included that contract a graphic architectural map of the Secretary of State’s election night server layout system.

Full Story Here: The Free Press — Independent News Media from Columbus, Ohio.

Exclusive: U.S. Blocks Oversight of Its Mercenary Army in Iraq

By January 2012, the State Department will do something it’s never done before: command a mercenary army the size of a heavy combat brigade. That’s the plan to provide security for its diplomats in Iraq once the U.S. military withdraws. And no one outside State knows anything more, as the department has gone to war with its independent government watchdog to keep its plan a secret.

Stuart Bowen, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), is essentially in the dark about one of the most complex and dangerous endeavors the State Department has ever undertaken, one with huge implications for the future of the United States in Iraq. “Our audit of the program is making no progress,” Bowen tells Danger Room.

For months, Bowen’s team has tried to get basic information out of the State Department about how it will command its assembled army of about 5,500 private security contractors. How many State contracting officials will oversee how many hired guns? What are the rules of engagement for the guards? What’s the system for reporting a security danger, and for directing the guards’ response?

Full Story Here: Exclusive: U.S. Blocks Oversight of Its Mercenary Army in Iraq | Danger Room | Wired.com.

Cenk Uygur Says No Thank You to Insider Cronyism and MSNBC’s ‘Manufacture of Consent’

As far as I am concerned, it is a time for celebration.

Cenk Uygur escaped this week with his soul and his scalp from MSNBC. One way of celebrating may be to take a sledge hammer to your television. Just a thought.

I so wanted to dig into an angry blog about MSNBC, its false-left propagandizing of the Trojan Horse for oligarchs, Obama, its demonizing of only half of the Congressional rabid rat bastard criminal political class in Washington, and its attempt to neuter Cenk of his search for and assertion of truth to power.

But, alas, I had totally stopped watching MSNBC when Rachel Maddow so heartbreakingly jumped the shark a serious while ago by becoming head cheerleader, part time sycophant, for Obama.

Full Story Here: Cenk Uygur Says No Thank You to Insider Cronyism and MSNBC’s ‘Manufacture of Consent’ | Corrente.

Rachel Maddow, There is Much, Much More to the Story of Rick Perry’s Apostles

This past week, Rachel Maddow featured a series of video clips from Right Wing Watch of the “apostles” endorsing Rick Perry’s upcoming The Response prayer event. Included was a shortened version of the clip posted at Talk2action in 2009 of C. Peter Wagner claiming that Japan’s economic decline was due to the emperor having sex with a sun goddess. Later in the week the Texas Observer published an excellent and insightful article on the apostles by Forrest Wilder. Below the fold is my plea, originally posted at Alternet, for journalists to resist the temptation to dismiss the apostles as fringe or crazy, and to seriously investigate the phenomenon of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) including: the NAR’s impact charismatic evangelicalism across the nation; their introduction of Strategic Level Spiritual Warfare or SLSW, techniques for evangelizing that were unknown prior to this movement; and their 50-state communications network, which is mobilizing “prayer warriors” for political activism.

On Tuesday, Rachel Maddow did the world a favor by airing a series of short video clips of the endorsers of Rick Perry’s upcoming prayer event. The clips were posted by Right Wing Watch, with some originating from Talk2action.org. These video clips should receive much more national exposure, but they need to be viewed in context of the movement they represent. Rachel Maddow, keep at it! Perry’s endorsers are not just a random group of radical evangelists making outrageous statements.

These are the apostles and prophets of the New Apostolic Reformation, the biggest international religious movement you never heard of.

Full Story Here: | Rachel Maddow, There is Much, Much More to the Story of Rick Perry’s Apostles.

$12 Trillion Republican National Debt

Complete Proof of the $12 Trillion Republican Debt

Just below you can see the calculation and the documentation links for the Reagan-Bushes $12 Trillion ($12,049 Billion) national debt as of September 30, 2010. You can download this as an excel spreadsheet by clicking: Download as XLS.

Their debt has 4 parts, but the bulk of it is calculated from 4 inputs (yellow and tan) that you can check with the color coded links to the treasury at the bottom. This will verify the $3.4 Trillion Reagan-Bush debt and the $6.1 Trillion G.W. Bush debt. Together that’s $9.5 Trillion. Now some of G.W. Bush’s debt is really interest on the Reagan-Bush debt, so he is not as bad as he looks, and Reagan-Bush are lot worse because of all their interest. You can see that in the graph above.

Interest is calculated on the second sheet (tab at bottom). But you know that 17 years of compound interest on 3.4 Trillion is going to add a lot. So a $12 Trillion total is very believable, and if you want to spend 10 minutes you can check it easily.

And if you think Congress did it, you better have a look here. Under Reagan and Bush-I, Congress actually made the debt a tiny bit smaller than what both presidents asked for. And G.W. Bush passed his supply-side tax cuts with a Republican Congress. There is just no wiggle room. The Republicans did it.

Full Story Here: $12 Trillion Republican National Debt.

The debt went up during Clinton’s years only because of $2.2 Trillion interest on the Reagan-Bush debt. Otherwise Clinton would have paid off most the remaining WWII debt.

Europe Headed for Water Crisis

- Future glacier retreat in the Alps could affect the hydrology of large streams more strongly than previously assumed, a new study shows. Water shortages in summer could become more frequent.

Even though their ice is called ‘eternal’, many alpine glaciers’ lives may come to an end within this century. For 150 years, most of them have been more or less constantly retreating, and since the eighties, their shrinkage has visibly increased.

The Furka Pass in central Switzerland has long been awaiting its visitors with a special attraction. Just below the highest point of the pass, tourists may enter an ice grotto dug into the Rhone glacier to discover glacier life from the inside. Each year however, the grotto’s entry can be found a few metres further downhill. Long-term measurements reveal that from 1879 to 2010, the Rhone glacier has lost 1266 metres of its original length.

Full Story Here: Europe Headed for Water Crisis – IPS ipsnews.net.

Boehner and the GOP Breaks a ‘Contract’ with the American People

Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy :-:

Look up some basic contract law! Social Security is a contract between the government and the people! The GOP wants to BREAK that contract; the GOP wants to ‘award’ BIG BANKSTERS with your monies!

Boehner’s actions –walking out of budget negotiations, debt-ceiling talks — are a breach of a contract that exists between the American people and the government in Washington. The GOP whom Boehner represents had been on my list for quite some time now.

The GOP is not a poltical party; it is a crime syndiate, a kooky cult. Now it may not be a stretch to call them traitors to the nation and most obviously the the millions of Americans who have paid into Social Security in good fatih. Now –Boehner will force the government to break its contract with the people.

Full Story Here: The Existentialist Cowboy: Boehner and the GOP Breaks a ‘Contract’ with the American People.

Germany discovers that boosting unions reduces unemployment

Germany, with a 6% unemployment rate, relatively low by economic measures both in Europe and USA, has found that strengthening unions is an important way for reducing unemployment. It is also an important policy for reducing economic inequality.

The New York Times on June 8, reporting on the German economy, stated, “Germany, with its 6% unemployment rate against the US 14 % unemployment rate,” enacted policies based on strengthening and building unions as a way of increasing consumer spending through higher wages paid to union workers. Thus this policy reduces unemployment by increasing workers’ purchasing power. In addition, German policies encouraging union building and negotiation power found that it was able to reduce economic inequality. Proof of this is the fact that the top 1% of German households earns 11% of all income, virtually unchanged since 1970. However, in the US the top 1% makes more than 20% of all income, up from 9% in 1970. It should be noted that Germany has the tightest market regulation of banks in Europe.

Germany does not have a smaller deficit than the US because it spends less; it has a smaller deficit because its tax policies take a heavier toll from huge corporations. Thus, this reduces the total amount of governmental deficits that it carries. Unlike the US, the German government believes that fairness demands that its huge corporations pay a heavier share of taxes which increases their general government revenue stream. It is the obverse of US tax policies as illustrated by the Bush tax cuts.

Full Story Here: Germany discovers that boosting unions reduces unemployment | Union Review.

Why Medicare Is the Solution — Not the Problem

Robert Reich :-:

Not only is Social Security on the chopping block in order to respond to Republican extortion. So is Medicare.

But Medicare isn’t the nation’s budgetary problems. It’s the solution. The real problem is the soaring costs of health care that lie beneath Medicare. They’re costs all of us are bearing in the form of soaring premiums, co-payments, and deductibles.

Medicare offers a means of reducing these costs — if Washington would let it.

Let me explain.

Full Story Here: Robert Reich (Why Medicare Is the Solution — Not the Problem).

Chart of the Day: The Shortcut From K Street to Capitol Hill

How lobbyists become congressional aides and former members of Congress become lobbyists

It’s like the Capitol Hill version of the circle of life: As a new Congress is seated, incoming members hire lobbyists to work in their offices, while outgoing members consider their next career move—which often means becoming a lobbyist.

This pattern has played out for years, but as a recent report from the Center For Responsive Politcs details, the revolving door between K Street and the Hill is spinning faster than ever. In the 2009-2010 session of Congress, 60 former lobbyists were hired to fill key staff positions; in the current session, more than twice the number ex-lobbyists have been hired.

Full Story Here: Chart of the Day: The Shortcut From K Street to Capitol Hill | Mother Jones.

Koch And Exxon Pay To Write State Legislation Repealing Climate Change Laws

According to tax records and other materials acquired by Bloomberg News, Koch Industries, Exxon Mobil, and numerous other corporations paid tens of thousands of dollars to write legislation for lawmakers that would repeal carbon pollution reduction programs in various states around the U.S.

These companies working to dismantle environmental programs are members of the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, which allows private-sector parties to “pay-to-play” – charging thousands of dollars to sit at the table with legislators and craft bills.

According to Bloomberg News, Exxon Mobil donated $39,000 to ALEC last year and the Koch Charitable Foundation donated $75,858 in 2009, the final year in which tax documents were available. Both companies, along with BP, the American Petroleum Institute and the American Coalition for Clean Coal Energy helped draft legislation that has been introduced in Oregon, New Hampshire, Washington State and New Mexico designed to take those states out of regional cap and trade programs:

Full Story Here: Koch And Exxon Pay To Write State Legislation Repealing Climate Change Laws | ThinkProgress.

Exclusive: Top Staffer for Rep. Issa’s Committee Maintains Financial Relationship With Lobbying Group

When he became chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) hired a large new staff to assist him with investigations. As reporters from the Watchdog Institute noted, many of Issa’s recruits came from industry or with lobbying backgrounds. However, a ThinkProgress investigation has found that at least one of Issa’s hires still maintains a financial relationship with the lobbying group he left to become a federal employee under Issa.

Last year, as Issa began recruiting for his committee, he selected Peter Warren, a lobbyist for the student loan industry. Warren had been president and executive vice president of government affairs of the Education Finance Council (EFC), a trade association for student loan companies and nonprofits, since 2004. He left EFC for the Karl Rove front group American Action Forum for a brief stint in 2010 before joining Issa as the policy director of the House Oversight Committee.

Many lobbyists burrow into government to write laws or regulations, then leave to take even higher paid positions back in the private sector. This phenomenon — the so-called “revolving door,” or reverse revolving door in this case — has plagued government for years. While examples of such corruption are boundless on both sides of the aisle, Warren is particularly interesting given his continued relationship with his lobbying group. According to disclosures filed with the House clerk, Warren signed a severance agreement with EFC before leaving to work in government. Congressional personnel are expected to disclose when they maintain benefits packages, promises of bonuses when they return to work for an outside organization, or other financial ties. Take a look at a screenshot of Warren’s disclosure below (click to enlarge):

Full Story Here: Exclusive: Top Staffer for Rep. Issa’s Committee Maintains Financial Relationship With Lobbying Group | ThinkProgress.

The 400 Wealthiest Americans Could Pay Off Everyone’s Student Loans

As the government moves into the final days of negotiations over the debt ceiling — negotiations most likely to be concluded by a budget deal that will do significant harm to the poor, the working class and middle class Americans throughout the country — it seemed worthwhile to revisit the bizarreness of the Republicans’ refusal to consider tax hikes on the wealthy of any sort, while the accumulation of wealth at the very top of America’s economic ladder continues to reach staggering levels.

Forbes Magazine’s annual listing of the 400 richest Americans, as well as the news that student loans in this country are likely to total $1 trillion this year, gave ThinkProgress a practical example on which to base an animated infographic. Watch it:

Full Story Here: ANIMATION: The 400 Wealthiest Americans Could Pay Off Everyone’s Student Loans | ThinkProgress.

‪The Cancer of Infotainment & Murdoch Pseudo-news‬‏ – YouTube

Thom Hartmann: -:

Perhaps the most dangerous monopoly there is…is a media monopoly. Today – the UK is finding that lesson out the hard way. And it’s a lesson we here in America need to take note of – because we’re headed down the same road. Let’s start with Italy though – a place where the power of a media monopoly is on display for the entire world to see with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Berlusconi started out as a cruise boat lounge singer and small-time hustler. But then he bought a newspaper, then a small television station – and then a radio station – then another TV station – then a newspaper – then another radio station – then another TV station – then another newspaper – then a radio network – then a TV network – and suddenly Berlusconi ended up owning about 95 percent of the media seen in Italy. And with control of the information in Italy – Berlusconi jumped into politics and wouldn’t you know it – he ended up being the Prime Minister of Italy. And despite the fact that Berlusconi has since been accused of everything from tax fraud – to false accounting – to corruption – to bribery – to perjury – to mafia collusion – to aiding terrorist organization – and most recently to participating in sex parties with underage prostitutes – Berlusconi is still in power as Prime Minister. He’s the one of the most corrupt politicians in the world – and has overseen Italy’s freedom of the press downgraded from “free” like the rest of Europe and the developed world – to only “partly-free.” Italy is only one of two nations in the Western world that doesn’t have a free press.

But Berlusconi is still in power…why? Because he owns the media. And the main difference between Silvio Berlusconi and Rupert Murdoch – is Murdoch isn’t interested in being a politician.

Full Story Here: ‪Thom Hartmann: The Cancer of Infotainment & Murdoch Pseudo-news‬‏ – YouTube.

Poll: Only 52% of Americans approve of God’s performance

Dissatisfaction and anger with the federal government is nothing new, but now even Almighty God is having a tough time getting support from the public.

A recently released survey (PDF) by Public Policy Polling (PPP) found that only 52 percent of American voters approve of God’s performance, while nine percent disapprove and 40 percent are just not sure.

Among “very liberal” respondents, 19 percent disapproved. Only four percent of “very conservative” voters had a problem with the deity.

At 71 percent, God got His highest marks for creating the universe. His handling of animals was approved by 56 percent, and 50 percent even approved of His handling of natural disasters.

Full Story Here: Poll: Only 52% of Americans approve of God’s performance | The Raw Story.

Cornel West: Obama ‘an extension of the corporate state’ 

It is absurd to call President Barack Obama a “socialist” when he is “very much an extension of the corporate state that has been squeezing out the juices of our democracy,” according to Princeton professor and famed black intellectual Cornel West.

West, who had been a supporter of Obama, called the president “another black mascot” of “Wall Street oligarchs” on an MSNBC panel in April. He stood by and clarified by those remarks Wednesday on CNN’s Piers Morgan Tonight.

“I supported by dear brother Barack Obama because I wanted to bring an end to the age of Reagan, greed running amok, indifference to poor people, and highly polarized body politic,” he said. “When he moves into office, who do we get? We get his economic team coming right out of Wall Street.”

West refused to say that he would vote for Obama again.

Watch video, courtesy of MoxNews.com, below:

Full Story Here: Cornel West: Obama ‘an extension of the corporate state’ | Raw Replay.

Group takes DEA to court over claim ‘marijuana has no medicinal value’

The medical marijuana advocacy group Americans for Safe Access (ASA) and the Coalition for Rescheduling Cannabis (CRC) on Thursday appealed the federal government’s decision to keep marijuana classified as a dangerous drug with no medicinal value.

The Drug Enforcement Administration denied a nine-year-old petition to initiate proceedings to reschedule marijuana in late June, claiming that, “marijuana has a high potential for abuse, has no accepted medical use in the United States, and lacks an acceptable level of safety for use even under medical supervision.” The decision (PDF) was announced two weeks ago.

The petition sought to have marijuana removed from schedule I of the federal Controlled Substances Act and rescheduled in schedule III, IV or V. Currently, the DEA classifies marijuana as a schedule I drug: the most restrictive classification reserved for street drugs like heroin with a high potential for abuse and no real medicinal value.

Full Story Here: Group takes DEA to court over claim ‘marijuana has no medicinal value’ | The Raw Story.

SIGN THE PETITION – join Bernie Sanders and Daily Kos in saying no to any cuts to Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid.

Sign the form below to join Bernie Sanders and Daily Kos in saying no to any cuts to Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid.

Dear Friend,

In the midst of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, it is imperative that we vigorously defend the American social safety net that is making life bearable for tens of millions of vulnerable Americans.

We must make it absolutely clear to President Obama and the Democratic and Republican Leadership in Congress that there must not be cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. At a time when the richest people in our country are becoming richer while the middle class is disappearing and poverty is increasing, we must not balance the budget on the backs of the elderly, the sick and the children.

Wealthy individuals, whose effective personal income tax rate is now the lowest in 50 years, must begin paying their fair share of taxes. Large corporations that make billions in profits and pay nothing in taxes must finally be denied the outrageous tax loop-holes they currently enjoy. We must also make significant cuts at the Department of Defense, whose budget has tripled since 1997.

This is a pivotal moment in the history of our country. Decisions being made now will impact not only our lives, but the lives of our kids and grandchildren. This is a time to stand tall and fight back against the reactionary right-wing agenda.

Please join me in opposing any deficit reduction agreement that cuts Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid – programs that are of vital importance to millions of our fellow citizens. Please sign the enclosed petition and I will convey your concern to the White House and congressional leaders.

Thank you,

Bernie

Senator Bernie Sanders

Full Story Here: SIGN THE PETITION – Sign the form below and join Bernie Sanders and Daily Kos in saying no to any cuts to Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid..

A Right-wing Jobs Program for America

by Jim Hightower:-:

Here’s the core economic problem we’re facing today: Unemployment and underemployment are rampant and entrenched throughout America, stifling any hope for real recovery and threatening the very survival of the essential middle class that holds our society together.

The solution? Our ideologically pure, laissez-fairyland leaders in Washington and various state capitals, along with corporate funded think tank geniuses and Wall Street gurus, are pushing a massive jobs program across America. Great, just what we need! Uh … no. Unfortunately, theirs is not a program to create jobs, but a coordinated effort to add to America’s jobless hordes by eliminating hundreds of thousands of public-service jobs. If ignorance is bliss, they must be ecstatic!

They’re wallowing in the ecstatic right-wing mythology that prosperity will magically arise if only government budgets can be gutted, mainly by eliminating public employees. Yet, by going on a firing rampage that is targeting everyone from school librarians to NASA engineers, these political and economic elites are shoving the entire U.S. economy back into the Great Recession, or worse.

Full Story Here: A Right-wing Jobs Program for America by Jim Hightower on Creators.com – A Syndicate Of Talent.

Heritage Foundation Guy: You Don’t Count As ‘Poor’ If You Own A TV

Over 40 million Americans live below the federal poverty line, defined in 2011 as $22,058 a year for a family of four, which is sort of an embarrassingly large percentage of dirty hobo children to have running around in God’s favorite country. How do we fix that, besides editing the numbers on the Wikipedia page? Right-wing think tank the Heritage Foundation has this idea, because they have been noticing lately that lots of “supposedly poor people” out there also still have cheap television sets and refrigerators full of frozen chicken nuggets, which means they are not starving to death. Hey, that doesn’t actually sound so poor?

Poor people occasionally still have a few things left to them as a result of the last six decades of relentless corporate marketing designed to push cheap consumer appliances and electronics into every corner of American life, things which many people purchased with credit, i.e. fake money that ironically also helped make them poor. But strangely, those non-biodegradable objects are still hanging around even since the jobs, income, savings, food security and education have all disappeared. So what if we just started counting everyone who has any of these leftover plastic waste products as “not poor?” POLICY GENIUS.

From the Heritage Foundation paper “Conclusion”:

Full Story Here: Heritage Foundation Guy: You Don’t Count As ‘Poor’ If You Own A TV.

Tea Party’s Misguided Love of the Rich

The Tea Party crowd idolizes the America’s Founders along with today’s corporate titans, whose taxes must be kept low so they can be the great “job creators.” But the contrast is striking, since the Founders risked everything for the country while today’s rich won’t even take the chance of hiring some extra workers, Michael Winship writes.

By Michael Winship:-:

We went to Mount Vernon in Virginia a few weeks ago. It was the first time I’d been to George Washington’s family estate since a whirlwind day tour of Washington, DC, when I was a high school freshman.

Our guide then was a fast-talking cabdriver who interlaced his rapid-fire wisecracks with an impressive command of facts and figures, many of which may even have been correct.

Today, the Washington plantation, once in sorry shape, has been beautifully restored, from mansion to slave quarters.

At two, state-of-the-art visitor and education centers, sightseers can learn all about the great man’s life and times, including a sound and light presentation on battles of the American Revolution that features howling wind and falling “snowflakes” — tiny bits of soapsuds pumped into the theater — when Washington crosses the Delaware.

Full Story Here: Tea Party’s Misguided Love of the Rich | Consortiumnews.

Barack Obama is gutting the core principles of the Democratic party

The president’s attacks on America’s social safety net are destroying the soul of the Democratic party’s platform

In 2005, American liberals achieved one of their most significant political victories of the last decade. It occurred with the resounding rejection of George W Bush’s campaign to privatise social security.

Bush’s scheme would have gutted the crux of that entitlement programme by converting it from what it has been since the 1940s – a universal guarantor of minimally decent living conditions for America’s elderly – into a Wall Street casino and bonanza.

Progressive activists and bloggers relentlessly attacked both the plan and underlying premises (the myth that social security faces a “crisis”), spawning nationwide opposition. Only a few months after he unveiled his scheme to great fanfare, Bush was forced to sheepishly withdraw it, a defeat he described as his biggest failure.

Full Story Here: Barack Obama is gutting the core principles of the Democratic party | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

Growing Water Deficit Threatening Grain Harvests

Many countries are facing dangerous water shortages. As world demand for food has soared, millions of farmers have drilled too many irrigation wells in efforts to expand their harvests. As a result, water tables are falling and wells are going dry in some 20 countries containing half the world’s people.

The overpumping of aquifers for irrigation temporarily inflates food production, creating a food production bubble that bursts when the aquifer is depleted.

The shrinkage of irrigation water supplies in the big three grain- producing countries – the United States, India, and China – is of particular concern. Thus far, these countries have managed to avoid falling harvests at the national level, but continued overexploitation of aquifers could soon catch up with them.

In most of the leading U.S. irrigation states, the irrigated area has peaked and begun to decline. In California, historically the irrigation leader, a combination of aquifer depletion and the diversion of irrigation water to fast-growing cities has reduced irrigated area from nearly nine million acres in 1997 to an estimated 7.5 million acres in 2010. (One acre equals 0.4 hectares.)

Full Story Here: Growing Water Deficit Threatening Grain Harvests – IPS ipsnews.net.

‘Gang of Six’ Plan? ‘Not So Fast,’ Says Bernie Sanders

John Nichols:-:

With a blessing from President Obama and support even from some deficit-hawk Republicans, momentum is building for the ten-year deficit reduction plan announced Tuesday by the “Gang of Six” Democratic and Republican senators. “Can’t We All Just Get Along” commentators like the proposal, while headlines declare: “Bipartisan Support Builds for Gang of Six $3.7 Trillion Deficit-Reduction Plan.”

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, is typically grumbly, and Senate Democrats are complaining that they may not have enough time to pull everything together before the August 2 debt ceiling deadline. But the cheerleading for the “Gang of Six” plan is considerable and enthusiastic.

“This is a serious, bipartisan proposal that will help stop Washington from spending money that we don’t have, and I support it,” Tennessee Republican Lamar Alexander says of the proposal to reduce the deficit by $3.7 trillion over the next ten years with deep spending cuts while increasing revenues by closing tax loopholes.

Full Story Here: ‘Gang of Six’ Plan? ‘Not So Fast,’ Says Bernie Sanders | The Nation.

Tom Harkin: House Republicans Have Morphed Into ‘A Cult’

Senate Democrats attacked the “Cut, Cap and Balance” measure on Wednesday, calling the House-passed bill “devoid of substance” and “dead on arrival” in the Senate, where it will receive a vote later this week.

Senate Democrats contended the bill is evidence that Republicans, especially those in the House, are intent on changing Medicare and preserving tax breaks for the wealthy.

“The sad thing is America no longer has a two-party system,” Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) said at a press conference Wednesday. “One of our two parties has morphed into kind of a cult driven by a singular fixation and obsession: preserving tax breaks for the wealthy at all costs.”

Full Story Here: Tom Harkin: House Republicans Have Morphed Into ‘A Cult’.

OPS: Just figure this out there Tommy?

An unprecedented 1 in 66 Americans is a diagnosed psychotic

Outselling even common drugs to treat high blood pressure and acid reflux, antipsychotic medications are the single top-selling prescription drug in the United States.

Once reserved for hard-core, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest type of mental illnesses to treat hallucinations, delusions or major thought disorders; today, the drugs are handed out to unruly kids and absent minded elderly.

A recent story in Al Jazeera by James Ridgeway of Mother Jones illuminates the efforts by major pharmaceutical companies to get doctors prescribing medicines like Zyprexa, Seroquel, and Abilify to patients for whom the drugs were never intended.

Full Story Here: An unprecedented 1 in 66 Americans is a diagnosed psychotic | The Raw Story.

Court: Appeal to assassinate Obama is protected speech

A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that calling for someone to kill the President of the United States cannot be classified as a threat because standing law does not prohibit “predictions or exhortations” to violence.

In a 2-1 decision, judges on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that California resident Walter E. Bagdasarian was engaging in free speech when he wrote that Obama “will have a 50 cal in the head soon,” then called on someone to “shoot the nig.”

Bagdasarian published his comments on a Yahoo finance website in the weeks leading up to the 2008 presidential election. He was arrested weeks later, after one of the other commenters reported a potential threat to the Secret Service. During a search of his residence, authorities discovered that he did indeed possess a .50 caliber rifle.

Full Story Here: Court: Appeal to assassinate Obama is protected speech | The Raw Story.