Archive for July, 2011
3rd Circuit Decides For People Over Corporations in FCC Case, Regulation of Public Airwaves
Attempt to ease media consolidation rules overturned by court…
The Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Philadelphia handed the public a huge victory on Thursday, and giant corporations a rare loss, in their decision [PDF] on a case that (ironically enough, given the subject matter) most of the public knew nothing about, but one which has the potential to benefit real people with better quality news and information for decades to come.
The case, Prometheus Radio Project v FCC, pitted “Citizen Petitioners” who seek more persons owning local media outlets to ensure diversity in viewpoints and news coverage, versus “Deregulatory Petitioners” who want fewer persons (spell that “corporations”) to own local media outlets, and the publicly-owned broadcast airwaves that go with them, in order to enhance their profits.
At stake were the rules determining how many local TV and radio stations one company can own in a single market; whether a newspaper owner can also own a TV or radio station in the same town; and how broadcast ownership by minorities and women should be handled.
Full Story Here: The BRAD BLOG : 3rd Circuit Decides For People Over Corporations in FCC Case, Regulation of Public Airwaves.
Bachmann signs vow that compares slave era, today
Iowa group’s pledge also calls for ban on pornography and on same-sex marriage.
Michele Bachmann famously called America under President Obama a “nation of slaves.”
Then she got into trouble for suggesting that the Founding Fathers “worked tirelessly to end slavery.” (She meant John Quincy Adams, the abolitionist president who was 8 years old when the Declaration of Independence was signed.)
Now the Minnesota Republican has signed an Iowa Christian group’s “Marriage Vow” that reads in part:
“Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA’s first African-American President.”
Full Story Here: Bachmann signs vow that compares slave era, today | StarTribune.com.
What Obama Wants
On Thursday, President Obama met with Republicans to discuss a debt deal. We don’t know exactly what was proposed, but news reports before the meeting suggested that Mr. Obama is offering huge spending cuts, possibly including cuts to Social Security and an end to Medicare’s status as a program available in full to all Americans, regardless of income.
Obviously, the details matter a lot, but progressives, and Democrats in general, are understandably very worried. Should they be? In a word, yes.
Now, this might just be theater: Mr. Obama may be pulling an anti-Corleone, making Republicans an offer they can’t accept. The reports say that the Obama plan also involves significant new revenues, a notion that remains anathema to the Republican base. So the goal may be to paint the G.O.P. into a corner, making Republicans look like intransigent extremists — which they are.
But let’s be frank. It’s getting harder and harder to trust Mr. Obama’s motives in the budget fight, given the way his economic rhetoric has veered to the right. In fact, if all you did was listen to his speeches, you might conclude that he basically shares the G.O.P.’s diagnosis of what ails our economy and what should be done to fix it. And maybe that’s not a false impression; maybe it’s the simple truth.
Full Story Here: What Obama Wants – NYTimes.com.
‘Trickle-Down’ Economics Has Long History Of Failure
Republicans have been trying the same set of conservative principles for decades, and they haven’t worked since President Herbert Hoover was in office, according to an op-ed article published Friday.
In an op-ed in the Miami Herald, Democratic strategist Robert Weiner and economic policy analyst John Horton cite a 5.4-percent growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) under Democratic presidents since 1930, “who have emphasized people programs and resisted rich tax breaks,” versus 1.4-percent growth under Republican presidents, who have enacted rich tax cuts, paralleling current Republicans.
Weiner and Horton say their analysis, titled “End Hoover-Style ‘Trickle Down Economics’ To Pay Off Nation’s Debt,” offers proof that “it is a myth that adding money to the wealthy though tax cuts stimulates jobs and grows the economy.”
Full Story Here: The Washington Current: ‘Trickle-Down’ Economics Has Long History Of Failure, Democrats Assert.
A Cult of ‘Uncommonly Angry Minds’
L
en Hart :-:
Not since the McCarthy era has the GOP been more delusional. It was always a characteristic of a group that is less a political party than it is a cult. Historian Richard Hofstadter call it the ‘The Paranoid Style in American Politics’! But who let the dogs out?
Not even McCarthy witch-hunts outdo various instances of flagrant hypocrisy which define the GOP. An example is instructive: the so-called McCarthy ‘era’ in which the GOP indulged, perhaps created, the very template upon which ‘outrageous conspiracy theories’ may be designed and/or derived. The ‘boogeyman’ du jour was the ‘World-Wide Communist Conspiracy’ during which the right wing found ‘commies’ in the media, under sofas, in the movies, and among the masses who were, in fact, merely longing to be free, most certainly free of harassment and bullying. This aspect of the right wing mentality, the tendency to find conspiracies were none exist, is referred to by historian Richard Hofstadter. Hofstadter called it: ‘…the paranoid style’ and, as such, it is still very much a defining characteristic of the American right wing.
Although American politcial life has rarely been touched by the most acute varieties of class confict, it has served again and again as an arena for uncommonly angry minds. Today this fact is most evident on the extreme right wing, which has shown, particularly in the Goldwater movement, how much politcial leverage can be got out of animosities and passions of a small minority. Behind such movements there is a style of mind, not always right-wing in its affiliations, that has a long and varied history. I call it the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the qualities of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind.
Full Story Here: The Existentialist Cowboy: A Cult of ‘Uncommonly Angry Minds’.
Hitting Debt Ceiling Could Erase Two Years Of 401(k) Gains: Economist
Testifying before a Congressional committee on Thursday, economist Heather Boushey said that reaching the debt ceiling could trigger a stock market plunge that would wipe out nearly two years of 401(k) gains, Think Progress reports.
“Reaching the debt ceiling will, in all likelihood, trigger a sharp fall in the stock market, which also
will likely reduce employment,” Boushey told the Congressional Democratic Policy and Steering Committee.
“The drop in stock prices will have an immediate effect on the economy, but also on families. Families with 401(k)s would likely lose all the gains they have made in 2010 and much of their gains in 2009, moving them further below where they were at the end of 2007 after the stock market fell sharply.”
Boushey, a senior economist with the Center for American Progress, also warned that if the debt ceiling is not lifted, the housing market is likely to experience “a severe double-dip contraction marked by much-lower home sales and depressed house prices.”
Full Story Here: Hitting Debt Ceiling Could Erase Two Years Of 401(k) Gains: Economist.
Using Cash Could Lead To Healthier Eating Habits: Study
Using debit and credit cards have become second nature to most people who don’t want to run to the bank every time they’re out of cash, but new research shows that cash could help your eating habits.
Over a six-month spread researchers looked at the register receipts of a random sample of 1,000 loyal shoppers at a Northeastern supermarket chain and analyzed what they bought and how they paid for it, reports MSNBC.
The study published in the Journal of Consumer Research found that shoppers were more likely to buy items considered “unhealthy” when they paid with credit or debit cards than if they paid with cash, and that weekend shoppers were more likely to stick to a list.
Full Story Here: Using Cash Could Lead To Healthier Eating Habits: Study.
Buffett: GOP Threatening To ‘Blow Your Brains Out’ Over Debt Ceiling
Republicans are playing a dangerous game by refusing to raise the debt ceiling, according to Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett.
“We raised the debt ceiling seven times during the Bush Administration,” Buffett told CNBC on Thursday. Now, the Republican-controlled Congress is “trying to use the incentive now that we’re going to blow your brains out, America, in terms of your debt worthiness over time.”
If Congress fails to raise the borrowing limit of the federal government by August 2, the date when the U.S. will reach the limit of its borrowing abilities, it will likely begin defaulting on its loans.
Full Story Here: Buffett: GOP Threatening To ‘Blow Your Brains Out’ Over Debt Ceiling.
Murdoch papers could have hacked U.S. phones | Raw Replay
Rupert Murdoch’s News International announced Thursday that the British tabloid News of the World was shutting down, but Vanity Fair contributor Michael Wolff says the phone hacking scandal may not end there.
“Hacking, listening to your voicemail messages was for a period, a rather long period, a tabloid tool,” Wolff told Current’s Keith Olbermann Wednesday. “It was like a typewriter. Everybody in the newsroom did it and they did it to everybody who the news touched.”
“Is there any reason to assume or that we are correct in assuming that nobody in the Murdoch companies would have done that [in the U.S.]?” Olbermann asked.
Full Story Here: Michael Wolff: Murdoch papers could have hacked U.S. phones | Raw Replay.
Landmark transplant uses stemcell-coated artificial windpipe
An international team of surgeons have successfully carried out the world’s first transplant of a synthetic windpipe, the Swedish hospital where the groundbreaking operation took place said Thursday.
On June 9, a 36-year-old man suffering from late stage tracheal cancer, received a new trachea, or windpipe, made from a synthetic scaffold and covered with his own stem cells, the Karolinska University Hospital in the Stockholm suburb of Huddinge said in a statement.
The so-called regenerative medical procedure could, according to the hospital, revolutionise the field of trachea transplants, making them far more accessible.
Full Story Here: Landmark transplant uses stemcell-coated artificial windpipe | The Raw Story.
Orrin Hatch Wants The Poor To Shoulder More Responsibility For Deficit Reduction
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) dusted off one of his favorite talking points on the Senate floor today, calling on the poor and the middle class to shoulder more of the pain of deficit reduction because they don’t pay enough in taxes. After the Senate considered a Sense of the Senate stating that “any agreement to reduce the budget deficit should require that those earning $1,000,000 or more per year make a more meaningful contribution to the deficit reduction effort,” Hatch took to the floor to defend rich taxpayers, whose tax rates are at modern lows thanks to the Bush tax cuts.
Hatch complained that 51 percent of Americans don’t pay income taxes and hinted that what the poor and middle class pay in payroll taxes doesn’t count as a contribution since it goes toward Social Security:
HATCH: I hear how they’re [Democrats] so caring for the poor and so forth. The poor need jobs! And they also need to share some of the responsibility. Now we don’t want the really poor people who are in poverty to pay income taxes. But 51 percent of all households? And that’s going up by the way because of our friend down in the White House and his allies.
Watch it:
Full Story Here: Orrin Hatch Wants The Poor To Shoulder More Responsibility For Deficit Reduction | ThinkProgress.
Bachmann’s Parable For The Poor: Have Faith In God And You Won’t Need Welfare
Bachmannia descended upon South Carolina last week as GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann stomped for votes at events across the state. Wearing a yellow dress to honor the yellow Tea Party flag, Bachmann roused a rally of supporters in Greenville on Wednesday before heading to Rock Hill for a town hall event at Winthrop University. Bachmann answered many audience questions with personal anecdotes from her past. When one woman asked her how we can “move people from dependence to independence” in this country, Bachmann responded by recounting how her own family made it through tough times when she was young by relying on God and forsaking government assistance:
BACHMANN: We went from middle class to overnight below poverty. And my mother had to leave the home and get a job…and I had to go out and get babysitting jobs…to help out. … We did not go on dependency programs. And I don’t begrudge anyone who does when I say that, but we didn’t do that. We had our faith in God, we depended on our neighbors, we depended on ourselves, and we just did without. We made do, we did without. [...] And we were just grateful for what we had. We knew that one day things would be better than they were. And God was faithful, and they were better.
Watch it:
Full Story Here: Bachmann’s Parable For The Poor: Have Faith In God And You Won’t Need Welfare | ThinkProgress.
Bush Raised Debt Ceiling Five Times – With Votes from GOP Leaders Boehner, Cantor and McConnell Every Time
Bush increased the debt to $9.815 trillion by the end of his term, with plenty of help from the four Republicans currently holding Congressional leadership positions.
As you listen to Republican rhetoric on raising the debt ceiling, keep these facts in mind about their record as stewards of the economy during the Bush years when they controlled the White House, Congress and the courts: They gave billions in tax breaks to wealthy Americans (which, the record shows, did not spur job growth), put two wars on the national credit card (it’s a pleasure doing business with you, Chinese commies!) and rammed through an unfunded Medicare benefit. Remember all that? Now read this excerpt from a report from Think Progress in April:
At the beginning of the Bush presidency, the United States debt limit was $5.95 trillion. Despite promises that he would pay off the debt in 10 years, Bush increased the debt to $9.815 trillion by the end of his term, with plenty of help from the four Republicans currently holding Congressional leadership positions: Speaker John Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl. ThinkProgress compiled a breakdown of the five debt limit increases that took place during the Bush presidency and how the four Republican leaders voted:
Full Story Here: Bush Raised Debt Ceiling Five Times – With Votes from GOP Leaders Boehner, Cantor and McConnell Every Time.
Study Identifies Benefits Of Wider Medicaid Use
Expanding low income adults’ access to Medicaid substantially increases health care use, reduces financial strain on covered individuals, and improves their self-reported health and well-being, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the National Bureau of Economic Research, and Providence Health & Services have found.
The researchers say theirs is the first study to evaluate the impact of insuring the uninsured in the United States using a randomized controlled trial, the gold standard in medical and scientific studies.
The study will be released on the website of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) on Thursday.
Full Story Here: The Washington Current: Study Identifies Benefits Of Wider Medicaid Use.
Rep. Ellison Questions Putting Social Security Into Debt Ceiling Deal: It Isn’t Adding To Deficit, It ‘Loans Us Money’
The political tsunami of the week is the news that President Obama is offering Republicans changes to Social Security and Medicare in exchange for an agreement to raise new tax revenue and raise the nation’s debt ceiling. While the White House has said it wants “to work with both parties to do so in a balanced way that preserves the promise of [Social Security] and doesn’t slash benefits,” some Democrats are questioning why the program is part of the debt ceiling negotiations at all.
In an interview today on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) defended Social Security against those on both sides of the aisle who say deep cuts to the program will reduce the deficit. While acknowledging that responsible reforms can be made to entitlement programs to save money, Ellison refocused the debate on the central problem that seniors and the poor are being asked to sacrifice greatly while the richest Americans are being protected by congressional Republicans:
ELLISON: Social Security actually is not contributing to the deficit. Social Security loans us money. So at the end of the day, all this discussion about how we’re going to cut Social Security is very distressing to me because Social Security isn’t the problem…This is inequitable and regressive…We’re asking the poorest Americans to sacrifice. When are the wealthiest Americans going to step up and do the patriotic thing, which is to contribute to deal with this budget deficit.
Watch it:
Full Story Here: Rep. Ellison Questions Putting Social Security Into Debt Ceiling Deal: It Isn’t Adding To Deficit, It ‘Loans Us Money’ | ThinkProgress.
In debt talks, Obama offers Social Security cuts
President Obama is pressing congressional leaders to consider a far-reaching debt-reduction plan that would force Democrats to accept major changes to Social Security and Medicare in exchange for Republican support for fresh tax revenue.
At a meeting with top House and Senate leaders set for Thursday morning, Obama plans to argue that a rare consensus has emerged about the size and scope of the nation’s budget problems and that policymakers should seize the moment to take dramatic action.
As part of his pitch, Obama is proposing significant reductions in Medicare spending and for the first time is offering to tackle the rising cost of Social Security, according to people in both parties with knowledge of the proposal. The move marks a major shift for the White House and could present a direct challenge to Democratic lawmakers who have vowed to protect health and retirement benefits from the assault on government spending.
Full Story Here: In debt talks, Obama offers Social Security cuts – The Washington Post.
The Obama-Keynes Mystery
I’m not alone in marveling at the extent to which Obama has thrown his rhetorical weight behind anti-Keynesian economics; Ryan Avent is equally amazed, as are many others. And now he’s endorsing the structural unemployment story too.
To those defending Obama on the grounds that he’s saying what he has to politically, I have two answers. First, words matter — as people who rallied around Obama in the first place because of his eloquence should know. Yes, he has to make compromises on policy grounds — but that doesn’t mean he has to adopt the right’s rhetoric and arguments. The effect of his intellectual capitulation is that we now have only one side in the national argument.
Second, since Obama keeps talking nonsense about economics, at what point do we stop giving him credit for actually knowing better? Maybe at some point we have to accept that he believes what he’s saying.
Full Story Here: The Obama-Keynes Mystery – NYTimes.com.
POLICE STATE 2011: Woman arrested for speaking at city council meeting
The Mayor is challenged under a recall election beginning next month. Accusations have been made. The city council is persecuting the Mayor for giving the people a voice. The Chief of Police is also involved in the scandal.
Jennifer Jones is given the floor at a city council meeting open to the public. While she is speaking the council realizes she’s about to air their dirty laundry and quickly beckons their henchman to cart her off.
The Mayor steps in and says Jones has been recognized to speak and has not violated the council’s rules, but the council ignores him and has the woman removed even as the Mayor continues to contest. The police officers ignore the Mayor of the city and remove the woman. It’s obvious who those cops work for, and it’s not the people.
Union Workers Replaced With Prison Labor Under Scott Walker’s Collective Bargaining Law
Wisconsin is a Slave State now
While Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) law dismantling collective bargaining rights has harmed teachers, nurses, and other civil servants, it’s helping a different group in Wisconsinites — inmates. Prisoners are now taking up jobs that used to be held by unionized workers in some parts of the state.
As the Madison Capital Times reports, “Besides losing their right to negotiate over the percentage of their paycheck that will go toward health care and retirement, unions also lost the ability to claim work as a ‘union-only’ job, opening the door for private workers and evidently even inmates to step in and take their place.” Inmates are not paid for their work, but may receive time off of their sentences.
The law went into effect last week, and Racine County is already using inmates to do landscaping, painting, and another basic maintenance around the county that was previously done by county workers. The union had successfully sued to stop the country from using prison labor for these jobs last year, but with Walker’s new law, they have no recourse. Watch a report from Fox6 in Green Bay:
Full Story Here: Union Workers Replaced With Prison Labor Under Scott Walker’s Collective Bargaining Law | ThinkProgress.
Sen. Conrad’s Budget Could Be Secret Weapon In Debt Debate
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad on Wednesday will brief Democratic leaders on a budget plan that would significantly raise government tax revenues in order to reduce the federal budget deficit.
Conrad’s proposal could be a powerful new weapon in the ongoing debate to push Republicans to allow a needed vote to raise the government’s debt limit, given the fact that he apparently has locked up support for the plan from all of the Democrat-aligned senators on the budget panel.
Conrad (D-N.D.) previewed his proposal last week in an interview on MSNBC, saying his plan would contain more deficit reduction than President Obama’s own bipartisan deficit-reduction commission and the House Republican plan, all while holding the support of all Budget Committee Democrats.
Full Story Here: The Washington Current: Sen. Conrad’s Budget Could Be Secret Weapon In Debt Debate.
The 60-Year Unemployment Scanda
Americans care about them more than any other issue, so every poll tells us. The presidential candidates are already crafting their stump speeches and talking points around them. President Obama has seen the writing on the wall and regularly tailors his message to emphasize how many of them he has created. I’m talking, of course, about jobs.
These days, politicians are falling all over themselves to explain why they’re the right candidates for the job of creating more jobs. Here was the president at an LED lighting manufacturing plant in North Carolina recently: “Today the single most serious economic problem we face is getting people back to work. I will not be satisfied ’till everyone who wants a good job that offers some security has a good job that offers some security.” And here was GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney, at the official unveiling of his presidential campaign at a farm in New Hampshire: “From my first day in office, my number-one job will be to see that America once again is number one in job creation.”
Such comments offer a preview of what, given dismally high unemployment figures, will surely be a job-centric 2012 presidential campaign. And TomDispatch can offer its own jobs guarantee for the coming campaign season: for all the verbiage about jobs that will be coming your way, there’s one part of the American jobs crisis deserving screaming headlines that the politicians won’t be talking about. And yet it’s a scandal that goes back decades, as TomDispatch associate editor Andy Kroll points out. It should be the shame of the nation. Instead it’s the jobs crisis we know nothing about. Tom
Full Story Here: Tomgram: Andy Kroll, The 60-Year Unemployment Scandal | TomDispatch.
Administration Offers Health Care Cuts as Part of Budget Negotiations
Medicare and Medicaid Could Lose Billions in Budget Talks
Obama administration officials are offering to cut tens of billions of dollars from Medicare and Medicaid in negotiations to reduce the federal budget deficit, but the depth of the cuts depends on whether Republicans are willing to accept any increases in tax revenues.
Administration officials and Republican negotiators say the money can be taken from health care providers like hospitals and nursing homes without directly imposing new costs on needy beneficiaries or radically restructuring either program.
Before the talks led by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. broke off 12 days ago, negotiators said, they had reached substantial agreement on many cuts in the growth of Medicare, which provides care to people 65 and older, and Medicaid, which covers lower-income people. Those proposals are still on the table when Congress reconvenes this week, aides said, and are serious options that Democrats could accept in exchange for Republican concessions that raise revenues.
“Congress smells blood,” said William L. Minnix Jr., the chief lobbyist for nonprofit nursing homes.
Full Story Here: Medicare and Medicaid Could Lose Billions in Budget Talks – NYTimes.com.
GRAPH: Contrary To GOP Claims, U.S. Has Second Lowest Corporate Taxes In The Developed World
During negotiations regarding raising the nation’s debt limit, congressional Republicans have defended tax loopholes for corporations, claiming that America has a high corporate tax rate that is stifling economic growth and job creation. But the Center for Tax Justice (CTJ) has crunched the most recent data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the Office of Management and Budget, and the Census Bureau, and finds that “the U.S. is already one of the least taxed countries for corporations in the developed world.”
As a share of GDP, the U.S. had the second lowest tax rate, behind only Iceland. This statistic flips on its head the often-repeated Republican charge that America has the second highest corporate tax rate in the world (which is only true on paper). In 2009, U.S. corporate taxes had fallen to only 1.3 percent of GDP, from 4 percent in 1965.
Full Story Here: GRAPH: Contrary To GOP Claims, U.S. Has Second Lowest Corporate Taxes In The Developed World | ThinkProgress.
Ohio GOP Weakens Election Law By Allowing Poll Workers To Refuse To Inform Voters Where They Can Vote
Last week, the GOP-led House passed an election law overhaul without the highly restrictive voter ID provision. However, the House tweaked the bill to weaken a law mandating poll workers to direct voters in the wrong precinct to their correct voting location. Under the new language, a poll worker need not direct a voter to where they are eligible, adding that “it is the duty of the individual casting the ballot to ensure that the individual is casting that ballot in the correct precinct.”
Allowing poll workers to refuse to help those who are legitimately confused about where they should vote opens the door for increased voter suppression. As state Sen. Nina Turner (D) pointed out, “Voting in the wrong precinct led to over 14,000 registered voters statewide to lose their vote in 2008.” Rating the statement “true,” Politifact reports:
Full Story Here: Ohio GOP Weakens Election Law By Allowing Poll Workers To Refuse To Inform Voters Where They Can Vote | ThinkProgress.
VIDEO COMPILATION: Boehner And GOP Reject Acting Like ‘Adults’ To Play Childish Games With Debt Ceiling
Back in November 2010, just after the Republicans had won their new majority in the House, newly christened House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) was asked at a press conference about the impending need to raise the country’s debt ceiling and whether new Republicans would have difficulty casting that vote. Boehner’s response was responsible:
BOEHNER: I’ve made it pretty clear to them that, as we get into next year, it’s pretty clear that Congress is going to have to deal with this. We’re going to have to deal with it as adults. Whether we like it or not the federal government has obligations, and we have obligations on our part.
Six months later, with the debt ceiling fight imminent, Boehner delivered a very different message in a speech to the Economic Club of New York:
video at link below:
Full Story Here: VIDEO COMPILATION: Boehner And GOP Reject Acting Like ‘Adults’ To Play Childish Games With Debt Ceiling | ThinkProgress.
Paul Ryan: We Won’t Cut Tax Loopholes To Reduce Deficit, Only To Finance More Tax Cuts
As the August debt ceiling deadline looms and Republicans continue refusing to consider revenue increases, conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks excoriated the GOP for its intransigence. Writing yesterday that it “may no longer be a normal party” but rather a movement of “fanatic[s]” with a “sacred fixation” on tax cuts, Brooks slammed the GOP for rejecting a “no-brainer” compromise with Democrats, which would include closing tax loopholes for things like corporate jet ownership:
On the contrary, Republicans are merely being asked to close loopholes and eliminate tax expenditures that are themselves distortionary.
This, as I say, is the mother of all no-brainers.
But we can have no confidence that the Republicans will seize this opportunity. That’s because the Republican Party may no longer be a normal party. Over the past few years, it has been infected by a faction that is more of a psychological protest than a practical, governing alternative.
Full Story Here: Paul Ryan Responds To David Brooks: We Won’t Cut Tax Loopholes To Reduce Deficit, Only To Finance More Tax Cuts | ThinkProgress.
Medicare and Medicaid Could Lose Billions in Budget Talks
Obama administration officials are offering to cut tens of billions of dollars from Medicare and Medicaid in negotiations to reduce the federal budget deficit, but the depth of the cuts depends on whether Republicans are willing to accept any increases in tax revenues.
Administration officials and Republican negotiators say the money can be taken from health care providers like hospitals and nursing homes without directly imposing new costs on needy beneficiaries or radically restructuring either program.
Before the talks led by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. broke off 12 days ago, negotiators said, they had reached substantial agreement on many cuts in the growth of Medicare, which provides care to people 65 and older, and Medicaid, which covers lower-income people. Those proposals are still on the table when Congress reconvenes this week, aides said, and are serious options that Democrats could accept in exchange for Republican concessions that raise revenues.
“Congress smells blood,” said William L. Minnix Jr., the chief lobbyist for nonprofit nursing homes.
Full Story Here: Medicare and Medicaid Could Lose Billions in Budget Talks – NYTimes.com.
OPS: Bend-over Obama strikes again
Resveratrol prevents the wasting disorders of mechanical unloading by acting as a physical exercise mimetic in the rat
Long-term spaceflight induces hypokinesia and hypodynamia, which, along microgravity per se, result in a number of significant physiological alterations, such as muscle atrophy, force reduction, insulin resistance, substrate use shift from fats to carbohydrates, and bone loss. Each of these adaptations could turn to serious health deterioration during the long-term spaceflight needed for planetary exploration. We hypothesized that resveratrol (RES), a natural polyphenol, could be used as a nutritional countermeasure to prevent muscle metabolic and bone adaptations to 15 d of rat hindlimb unloading. RES treatment maintained a net protein balance, soleus muscle mass, and soleus muscle maximal force contraction. RES also fully maintained soleus mitochondrial capacity to oxidize palmitoyl-carnitine and reversed the decrease of the glutathione vs. glutathione disulfide ratio, a biomarker of oxidative stress. At the molecular level, the protein content of Sirt-1 and COXIV in soleus muscle was also preserved. RES further protected whole-body insulin sensitivity and lipid trafficking and oxidation, and this was likely associated with the maintained expression of FAT/CD36, CPT-1, and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-γ coactivator-1α (PGC-1α) in muscle. Finally, chronic RES supplementation maintained the bone mineral density and strength of the femur. For the first time, we report a simple countermeasure that prevents the deleterious adaptations of the major physiological functions affected by mechanical unloading. RES could thus be envisaged as a nutritional countermeasure for spaceflight but remains to be tested in humans.—Momken, I., Stevens, L., Bergouignan, A., Desplanches, D., Rudwill, F., Chery, I., Zahariev, A., Zahn, S., Stein, T. P., Sebedio, J. L., Pujos-Guillot, E., Falempin, M., Simon, C., Coxam, V., Andrianjafiniony, T., Gauquelin-Koch, G., Picquet, F., Blanc, S. Resveratrol prevents the wasting disorders of mechanical unloading by acting as a physical exercise mimetic in the rat.
Full Story Here: Resveratrol prevents the wasting disorders of mechanical unloading by acting as a physical exercise mimetic in the rat.
Making Short Work of the Economy
A Full Employment Plan Too Simple for the Wonks
By DEAN BAKER :-:
Washington always does a superb job of focusing intently on problems that are of little importance. The current end-of-the-world debt/deficit negotiations are a great case in point. President Obama and the Republican congressional leadership are heatedly negotiating a deal on the deficit that has almost nothing to do with the country’s real economic problem: mass unemployment.
The whole effort is a ridiculous charade that is intended to fix a problem that does not exist. There is no story of run-away spending or deficits, as everyone who has ever looked at the budget numbers knows. The deficit exploded beginning in 2008 because the economy collapsed: end of story. Anyone who says otherwise either has never looked at the budget or is not being honest.
The longer term deficit story is equally clear; the United States has a broken health care system. Since more than half of health care costs are paid through government programs like Medicare and Medicaid, this translates into a budget problem. If we paid the same amount per person for our health care as any other wealthy country, then we would be looking at surpluses in the long-term, not deficits.
If the economy were otherwise fine, the rest of us could just kick back and enjoy the theatrics. However, things are about as far from fine as they could possibly be right now, with close to 25 million unemployed, underemployed or having given up looking for work altogether.
Full Story Here: Dean Baker: Making Short Work of the Economy.
The President’s Failure to Demand a Reckoning From the Moneyed Interests Who Brought the Economy Down
Frank Rich -:-
The president’s failure to demand a reckoning from the moneyed interests who brought the economy down has cursed his first term, and could prevent a second.
After 9/11, Rudy Giuliani went on Saturday Night Live to give New Yorkers permission to laugh again. But Mayor Bloomberg never did tell us when we could resume conspicuous consumption after the crash of 2008. And so, as we stumble through the second year of the official “recovery,” it’s been an improvisational return to high-end carousing in Manhattan.
A case in point was the late-May celebration of the centennial rededication of the New York Public Library. Surely no civic institution could be a more unimpeachable beard for a blowout. The dress code—no black tie—was egalitarian. The Abyssinian Baptist Church Gospel Choir, the New York City Gay Men’s Chorus, and that cute chorus from P.S. 22 in Staten Island—Glee diversity on steroids—were in the house along with some 900 invited guests, marquee names included (Toni Morrison, Jonathan Franzen). Bloomberg delivered a pre-dinner benediction from an altarlike perch on the main reading room’s balcony. “Free and open access to information may be the single most important component of any democratic society,” he said.
But it was impossible to banish toxic trace memories of the financial meltdown. Some two weeks earlier, the mayor had restricted the “free and open access” he now extolled. His fiscal 2012 budget called for slashing $40 million from the library system, a cut that would have mandated four-day weeks and the shutdown of a dozen branches.
Full Story Here: The Annotated Frank Rich – The President’s Failure to Demand a Reckoning From the Moneyed Interests Who Brought the Economy Down — New York Magazine.
Republicans Intentionally Undermine Economy, Country
The Republican Party has no interest in ending the trade gap, balancing the budget, ending the wars, or rebuilding the economy. The simply want to be ones in control when this ship finally goes under the waves forever.
Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), in a shocking and world-shaking allegation, has accused the Republican Party of malevolently attempting to undermine the United States in an attempt to hurt President Barack Obama in the 2012 general elections.
According to The Huffington Post, the Democratic Party has, in the last few weeks, begun hinting that their Republican opposition may be more politically motivated than ideological. Senator Schumer stated, “Now it is becoming clear that insisting on a slash-and-burn approach may be part of this plan — and it has a double-benefit for Republicans.” He went on to say that, “It is ideologically tidy and it undermines the economic recovery, which they think only helps them in 2012.”
How has it taken this long for the Democratic Party to come to this conclusion? EconomyinCrisis has published items on many occasions in the past three years outlining how our political process has regressed into nothing more than fighting over the last remnants of a sinking ship.
Full Story Here: Republicans Intentionally Undermine Economy, Country | Economy In Crisis.
How Can America Restore Its Industrial Self-sufficiency?
By doing nothing we are bound to be stampeded by other countries that have a strong plan to dismantle our industry and economy.
The wealth that the U.S. achieved in the early 20th century has been eroded as evidenced by 30 years of trade deficits – the U.S. simply does not produce what it needs to sustain itself.
U.S. consumers of many products including capital equipment now find that foreign imports or foreign-owned domestic producers provide a better value or quality than domestic counterparts. Without some incentives, current policies are simply failing to stimulate competitive domestic industry.
The U.S. needs limitations on the free market
Capitalism is motivated by profit, which can be affected by government tax or other policies and foreign competition. If the policy of the government and foreign competition does not allow for profitable returns on investment in critical domestic industries then it seems that there are two options:
Full Story Here: How Can America Restore Its Industrial Self-sufficiency? | Economy In Crisis.
Max Keiser: US worse than Greece?
- Video
This week Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, report on ‘no buyers’ at the firesale of Greek national income producing assets and on Ben Bernanke as the Taliban of finance. In the second half of the show, Max talks to economist Yanis Varoufakis about the bailout and austerity packages for Greece. KR on FB: www.facebook.com/KeiserReport
Huge rare earth deposits found in Pacific: Japan experts
Vast deposits of rare earth minerals, crucial in making high-tech electronics products, have been found on the floor of the Pacific Ocean and can be readily extracted, Japanese scientists said on Monday.
“The deposits have a heavy concentration of rare earths. Just one square kilometer (0.4 square mile) of deposits will be able to provide one-fifth of the current global annual consumption,” said Yasuhiro Kato, an associate professor of earth science at the University of Tokyo.
The discovery was made by a team led by Kato and including researchers from the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology.
They found the minerals in sea mud extracted from depths of 3,500 to 6,000 meters (11,500-20,000 ft) below the ocean surface at 78 locations. One-third of the sites yielded rich contents of rare earths and the metal yttrium, Kato said in a telephone interview.
Full Story Here: Huge rare earth deposits found in Pacific: Japan experts – Yahoo! News.
OPS: Are they radioactive yet? Now the destruction of the Pacific Ocean Floor can begin full speed ahead.
Max Keiser speaks to Athens Lawyers Association
This is an abridged version of talk Max gave to a group of lawyers suing derivatives dealers and government officials in Greece for financial fraud. There was much (very loud) translation and some audio problems that I cut out. The rest of the panel spoke in Greek. I will post those when I can for Greek speakers.
Other attendees: Mr. George Sourlas, Ex-President of Greek Parliament; Mr. Ioannis Adamopoulous, President of Athens Lawyers Association; Mr. Ioannis Sakas, Prosecutor General at Athens Court; Mr. Ioannis Athanasiou, President of Prosecutors and Judges Association; Mr. Nikos Xidiroglou Giournalist, Panel Coordinator
Keith Olbermann On Anti-Gay Comments By Michele Bachmann’s Husband
Keith talks with Ken Vogel (Politico.com) about Marcus Bachmann calling gays barbarians who need to be educated & disciplined.
Does President Obama’s have a secret weapon to force Republicans to come to the table?
Thom Hartmann -:-
A group of 248 economist, six of whom are Nobel Prize winners, sent a letter to Congressional leaders yesterday demanding a clean vote to raise the debt-ceiling – arguing that failure to do so could have, “a substantial negative impact on economic growth.” The IMF issued a similar warning too. But as President Obama drew a line in the sand yesterday in debt-limit negotiations demanding that tax loopholes for millionaires, billionaires, and transnational corporations be closed – and Republicans drew a line in the sand on behalf of those tax loopholes – a debt-limit deal looks more and more unlikely. And as Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner’s debt-deadline of August 2nd draws closer – some are looking at what a post-August 2nd America looks like if the debt-limit is not raised – and it’s not pretty.
While the United States may not actually default on it’s debts – it WILL have to cut off many day-to-day payments to critical programs around the country and prioritize its debts. On August 3rd – the day after the deadline – our nation will owe $32 billion – but will only have about $12 billion in revenue to pay up. That means about $20 billion will need to be cut out immediately – in just one day. But here’s the thing – figuring out which bills get paid and which ones get pushed off – is solely up to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and President Obama. So if the Republicans REALLY want to play hardball on the debt-limit – then President Obama should hold them accountable and put their states on the chopping block first
Full Story Here: Does President Obama’s have a secret weapon to force Republicans to come to the table? | Thom Hartmann – News & info from the #1 progressive radio show.
Rand Paul promises to filibuster everything over debt ceiling
A group of tea party Senators plans to filibuster over raising the debt ceiling, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) announced in an interview that aired on C-SPAN Sunday.
“I was part of a group this week that said, ‘No more,’” Paul explained. “We’re tired of talking about extraneous issues. We’ve had not one minute of debate about the debt ceiling in any committee. We haven’t had a budget in two years. We haven’t had an appropriations bill in two years.”
“So I’m part of the freshman group in the Senate that’s saying, ‘no more.’ We’re not going to let them go to any issue if we have a say in it. We will filibuster until we talk about the debt ceiling, until we talk about proposals, and many of us in the conservative wing are going to present our own proposal next week. And that is to raise the debt ceiling. We will actually vote in favor of raising the debt ceiling next week if we can but it will be contingent upon passing a balanced budget amendment.”
Full Story Here: Rand Paul promises to filibuster everything over debt ceiling | Raw Replay.
George Will: The Constitution is an ‘anti-evolutionary device’
Georgetown professor Michael Eric Dyson explained to conservative columnist George Will Sunday that the Constitution is not an “anti-evolutionary device.”
“There’s a retrospective cast naturally built into our politics, but what has happened today is a large number of Americans, this one included, believe that the somewhat promiscuous expansion of government power in recent years, raises questions about whether we still have a government of limited, delegated and enumerative powers,” Will told ABC’s Christiane Amanpour during a discussion about whether the Constitution was still valid.
“Wow, I think this retrospective cast that George Will refers to is absolutely right,” Dyson replied. “But there are some gaps, some holes, gulfs, abysses. You read the Constitution and the Congress but ‘Oops, I forgot the part about slavery.’ You talk about women and people of color who have been distorted, relegated to the margins and all together seen as marginalia. I think the Constitution is a powerful, living, vibrant document. I think it’s been hijacked by people with narrow, vicious and parochial visions.”
Full Story Here: George Will: The Constitution is an ‘anti-evolutionary device’ | Raw Replay.
Corporate Cash Con
Paul Krugman :-:
Watching the evolution of economic discussion in Washington over the past couple of years has been a disheartening experience. Month by month, the discourse has gotten more primitive; with stunning speed, the lessons of the 2008 financial crisis have been forgotten, and the very ideas that got us into the crisis — regulation is always bad, what’s good for the bankers is good for America, tax cuts are the universal elixir — have regained their hold.
On the face of it, this seems bizarre. Over the last two years profits have soared while employment has remained disastrously high. Why should anyone believe that handing even more money to corporations, no strings attached, would lead to faster job creation?
Nonetheless, trickle-down is clearly on the ascendant — and even some Democrats are buying into it. What am I talking about? Consider first the arguments Republicans are using to defend outrageous tax loopholes. How can people simultaneously demand savage cuts in Medicare and Medicaid and defend special tax breaks favoring hedge fund managers and owners of corporate jets?
Full Story Here: Corporate Cash Con – NYTimes.com.
OPS: ….because they are cowards….because they are paid, threatened and cajoled into pretending they believe it.
Road Trip to Ground Zero: Get on Board
Len Hart, :-:
Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, perhaps the most famous fictional detective of all time. Doyle, himself expert in the science of criminology, wrote: “When you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains however implausible must be the truth!” With respect to the crime of 911, it is past time to eliminate the impossible, i.,e the Bush ‘theory’ of 911, often called the ‘official conspiracy theory of 911′.
Following is my short list –not of mere improbabilities –but fatal impossibilities any one of which utterly destroys the Bush ‘official conspiracy theory of 911′! All the impossibilities listed may be verified against the always of physics, logic and empirical observation.
Some are obvious but somehow were ignored by the media. For example, Hani Hanjour is said to have boarded and high jacked Flight 77. But the Washington Post reported that Hani Hanjour could not have gotten on baord because he did not have a ticket. Nor is his name on the only admissible, official shred of evidence to have survived the Bush orders to destroy evidence –the official autopsy report released to Dr. Olmsted in response to his FOIA request. More recently, NTSB records revealed that the cockpit door on Flight 77 was never opened during the fight. Ergo: the Bush official conspiracy theory of 911 cannot even explain how it was possible to have hijacked a flight on which 1) there is no record, no evidence, no autopsy report than any alleged hijacker ever got on board to begin with.
Bushco cannot place the ‘suspects’ at the scene of the crime.
Full Story Here: The Existentialist Cowboy: Road Trip to Ground Zero: Get on Board.
ExxonMobil Oil Spill: Teams Work to Contain Rupture Under Yellowstone River
Teams are working to contain the damage from an oil spill in the Yellowstone River near Billings, Montana, caused by a ruptured ExxonMobil pipeline running under the river, officials said.
ExxonMobil is sending clean-up crews to Laurel, Mont. to mop up the thick band of oil on the banks of the Yellowstone River.
“We’ve shut down the pipeline and the segment where the release occurred has been isolated. And, obviously, we’ve been working in concert with all appropriate state and federal authorities on this,” ExxonMobil Pipeline spokesman Kevin Allexon said.
“Obviously we are very, very, regretful that this has happened and we are working hard, in collaboration with all the local authorities to make sure we mitigate the issue,” he said.
Full Story Here: ExxonMobil Oil Spill: Teams Work to Contain Rupture Under Yellowstone River – ABC News.
Executive Pay at Big Companies Rose 23% Last Year
It
turns out that the good times are even better than we thought for American chief executives.
A preliminary examination of executive pay in 2010, based on data available as of April 1, found that the paychecks for top American executives were growing again, after shrinking during the 2008-9 recession.
But that study, conducted for The New York Times by Equilar, an executive compensation data firm based in Redwood City, Calif., was just an early snapshot, and there were even more riches to come. Some big companies had not yet disclosed their executive compensation.
So Sunday Business asked Equilar to run the numbers again.
Full Story Here: Executive Pay at Big Companies Rose 23% Last Year – NYTimes.com.
14 Propaganda Techniques Fox “News” Uses to Brainwash Americans
There is nothing more sacred to the maintenance of democracy than a free press. Access to comprehensive, accurate and quality information is essential to the manifestation of Socratic citizenship – the society characterized by a civically engaged, well-informed and socially invested populace. Thus, to the degree that access to quality information is willfully or unintentionally obstructed, democracy itself is degraded.
It is ironic that in the era of 24-hour cable news networks and “reality” programming, the news-to-fluff ratio and overall veracity of information has declined precipitously. Take the fact Americans now spend on average about 50 hours a week using various forms of media, while at the same time cultural literacy levels hover just above the gutter. Not only does mainstream media now tolerate gross misrepresentations of fact and history by public figures (highlighted most recently by Sarah Palin’s ludicrous depiction of Paul Revere’s ride), but many media actually legitimize these displays. Pause for a moment and ask yourself what it means that the world’s largest, most profitable and most popular news channel passes off as fact every whim, impulse and outrageously incompetent analysis of its so-called reporters. How did we get here? Take the enormous amount of misinformation that is taken for truth by Fox audiences: the belief that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and that he was in on 9/11, the belief that climate change isn’t real and/or man-made, the belief that Barack Obama is Muslim and wasn’t born in the United States, the insistence that all Arabs are Muslim and all Muslims are terrorists, the inexplicable perceptions that immigrants are both too lazy to work and are about to steal your job. All of these claims are demonstrably false, yet Fox News viewers will maintain their veracity with incredible zeal. Why? Is it simply that we have lost our respect for knowledge?
Full Story Here: 14 Propaganda Techniques Fox “News” Uses to Brainwash Americans | Truthout.
Fresh claim over role the FBI played in suicide of Ernest Hemingway
Friend reveals regret for dismissing writer’s fear that he was being targeted by J Edgar Hoover
For five decades, literary journalists, psychologists and biographers have tried to unravel why Ernest Hemingway took his own life, shooting himself at his Idaho home while his wife Mary slept.
Some have blamed growing depression over the realisation that the best days of his writing career had come to an end. Others said he was suffering from a personality disorder.
Now, however, Hemingway’s friend and collaborator over the last 13 years of his life has suggested another contributing factor, previously dismissed as a paranoid delusion of the Nobel prize-winning writer. It is that Hemingway was aware of his long surveillance by J Edgar Hoover’s FBI, who were suspicious of his links with Cuba, and that this may have helped push him to the brink.
Full Story Here: Fresh claim over role the FBI played in suicide of Ernest Hemingway | Books | The Observer.
FDR Warning about Today’s Republicans
FDR tells the truth about the leaders of the modern Republican party. Somehow, in 1936, he foresaw what would be happening NOW.
Shutdown cost will bring sticker shock
In just a few days, Minnesota could be out millions of dollars.
Minnesota stands to lose millions of dollars in revenue and get saddled with millions more in new expenses for every week that the widespread shutdown of state government persists.
In both subtle and stark ways, the shutdown that began Friday will bring new financial pain to the state treasury. Closing many operations will save the state some money, but an array of revenue sources as diverse as the lottery and highway toll lanes have been cut off.
Significant new costs also are emerging, some of which the state will never recover.
“It’s not like money stops going out the door because of a shutdown,” said John Pollard, a spokesman with Minnesota Management and Budget.
Full Story Here: Shutdown cost will bring sticker shock | StarTribune.com.
OPS: Proving yet again that Republicans are suicidal. Ideology trumps everything; even survival.
U.S. State Department asks for $6.2 billion budget for Iraq
The US ambassador in Baghdad said on Saturday that the State Department has asked for a $6.2 billion budget for Iraq in 2012, underscoring that its oil and gas reserves were critical for the world’s future energy needs.
“This country is on a glide path to increase its oil exports,” James Jeffrey told reporters at the sprawling US embassy in Baghdad, the world’s largest.
The embassy plans to double in size next year to 16,000 personnel, when it takes over many military tasks after US troops pull out of Iraq at the end of this year, including military sales and training of Iraqi security forces.
Nearly 50,000 American troops still remain, down from a high of 170,000 after the 2003 US-led invasion.
Full Story Here: U.S. State Department asks for $6.2 billion budget for Iraq | The Raw Story.
Judge blocks Kansas anti-abortion law
A federal judge on Friday blocked a Kansas law that forced two clinics in the state to stop providing abortions because they could not comply with 36 pages of new regulations.
Judge Carlos Murguia granted a request from the two clinics for a preliminary injunction to block enforcement of the rules, which went into effect Friday morning.
At a hearing, lawyers for the clinics argued the rules are unreasonable and the state gave less then two weeks’ notice for them to be imposed.
The Kansas Department of Environment and Health said the two clinics — the Center for Women’s Health and Aid for Women — failed to meet the requirements and could not be licensed.
Full Story Here: Judge blocks Kansas anti-abortion law | The Raw Story.
Japan officials draw up Tepco breakup plan: report
A group of Japanese government heavyweights have written a secret proposal to break up Tokyo Electric Power Co and nationalize its nuclear operations, a newspaper said on Sunday.
The plan, drawn up by Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku, would force Tokyo Electric sell its power distribution business and bring its nuclear power operations under state control, leaving the company with power generation operations using thermal and hydraulic power plants.
It would leave Tokyo Electric, better known as Tepco, with only 1.6 trillion yen ($19.85 billion) in power business assets compared with 7 trillion yen at present, the Mainichi daily said, citing informed sources.
The proposal has been kept under wraps as the government focuses on a taxpayer bailout for the utility to soothe market worries.
Full Story Here: Japan officials draw up Tepco breakup plan: report | The Raw Story.
Oil spills into Yellowstone River after Exxon Mobil pipeline ruptures
An Exxon Mobil pipeline that runs under the Yellowstone River in Montana ruptured Friday night and leaked for about a half-hour.
The New York Times reported that the town of Lauren, downstream from the rupture, had to be evacuated because officials feared a possible explosion.
Exxon said it had no information on the cause of the incident, which originated from a 12-inch pipeline that runs from Silver Tip to refineries in Billings.
The amount of oil that leaked is still being determined. The Billings Gazette reported that the company had dispatched local cleanup teams with absorbent pads to leach up oil from the riverbanks. Exxon’s Global Response Team is being sent from Houston.
Full Story Here: Oil spills into Yellowstone River after Exxon Mobil pipeline ruptures | The Raw Story.
Fox commentator: Bachmann and Palin took history at ‘Fleabag U’ | Raw Replay
Liz Trotta, a commentator on Fox Saturday, remarked that two top conservative females, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, would inevitably be compared: “it’s almost preordained because it seems to be they both took the same American history course, and it may have been at Fleabag U.”
Trotta was playfully quoting Rolling Stone‘s Matt Taibbi and Ezra Klein, but she didn’t refute the fact that Palin and Bachmann have each had their share of flubs, between Palin’s Revere gaffe and Bachmann’s insistence that John Quincy Adams is a founding father, among others.
Watch the clip below, originally aired July 2, 2011, embedded via Miediaite.
Video at link below:
Full Story Here: Fox commentator: Bachmann and Palin took history at ‘Fleabag U’ | Raw Replay.
Bachmann Fails Economics 101: ‘A Dollar In 2011 Should Be The Same As A Dollar In 1911′
ThinkProgress filed this report from Rock Hill, South Carolina.
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) officially kicked off her presidential campaign this week with a three-state tour through Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. Her South Carolina swing culminated in a town hall event Wednesday evening at Winthrop University in Rock Hill. A thousand people came out to see the Congresswoman field softball questions like “Where do you stand on abortion?” from audience members and via Facebook, with 500 people spilling into an overflow room.
No one questions Bachmann’s conservative bona fides, but when she tried to appeal to goldbugs in the audience, she seemed more uncertain of her footing. In response to an audience question, Bachman proudly said she has signed on to Rep. Ron Paul’s (R-TX) plan to audit the Federal Reserve. In an apparent attempt to prove she’s on board with people who believe gold is a more stable and reliable form of currency than the dollar, she then made a series of laughably uninformed economic claims:
BACHMANN: The shorthand way of describing to you what quantitative easing is is a license to print money without any value behind it…In the last two years of the Obama administration, if you pull a dollar out of your pocket, you have lost 14 percent of the value of that dollar. That means the federal government has stolen that money from you… They’ve been printing essentially valueless money and flooding it into the money supply. I don’t stand for that. A dollar in 2011 should be the same as a dollar in 1911. A dollar should be worth a dollar.
Watch it:
Full Story Here: Bachmann Fails Economics 101: ‘A Dollar In 2011 Should Be The Same As A Dollar In 1911′ | ThinkProgress.
PA Gov. Corbett Slashes Education and Health Care, Refuses To Tax Natural Gas Drilling
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett (R) signed a disastrous state budget last night that favors the natural gas industry at the expense of the state’s children and least fortunate citizens. The $27.15 billion budget does not raise taxes, but cuts health care for more than 100,000 of the state’s poorest residents. It did this by slashing Medicaid contributions by $280 million, which will result in a $425 million loss in matching federal funds. State universities and community colleges have announced the largest tuition hikes in state history as education funding took a heavy, $863-million hit.
Yet, state Republicans and Corbett did not have to punish children and the neediest to plug a $4 billion budget deficit. Several variations of natural gas drilling taxes were proposed this year, and an extraction fee tacked onto the budget by the state Senate last week would have raised $310 million. However, Corbett threatened to veto any tax, and he strong-armed the state House into withdrawing a vote on the tax this week just hours before it was scheduled to be debated. Corbett’s obstinacy continues even though Pennsylvania is the only major gas producer that does not tax its use.
So why is Corbett very friendly to natural gas, despite its documented dangers? It may be because the governor owes part of his political career to the industry, having accepted almost $1.3 million in campaign contributions from drillers. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported this week on the cozy relationship between Corbett and Chesapeake Energy, the state’s largest natural gas driller, which began during Corbett’s first statewide campaign for attorney general.
Full Story Here: PA Gov. Corbett Slashes Education and Health Care, Refuses To Tax Natural Gas Drilling | ThinkProgress.
Pregnant Women Who Lose Babies Face Criminal Charges In Mississippi, Alabama
This year, the Georgia legislature considered a bill that would require women to prove their miscarriages “occurred naturally” and weren’t secret abortions. In a similar vein, the Guardian reports that states including Mississippi and Alabama are charging dozens of women with murder or other serious crimes who have miscarried or had stillbirths:
Across the US more and more prosecutions are being brought that seek to turn pregnant women into criminals.[...]
In Alabama at least 40 cases have been brought under the state’s “chemical endangerment” law. Introduced in 2006, the statute was designed to protect children whose parents were cooking methamphetamine in the home and thus putting their children at risk from inhaling the fumes. Amanda Kimbrough is one of the women who have been ensnared as a result of the law being applied in a wholly different way.[...]
The baby was delivered by caesarean section prematurely in April 2008 and died 19 minutes after birth. Six months later Kimbrough was arrested at home and charged with “chemical endangerment” of her unborn child on the grounds that she had taken drugs during the pregnancy – a claim she has denied.
“That shocked me, it really did,” Kimbrough said. “I had lost a child, that was enough.”
Full Story Here: Pregnant Women Who Lose Babies Face Criminal Charges In Mississippi, Alabama | ThinkProgress.
Psycho Talk: The 32 Craziest Things GOP Presidential Contender Michele Bachmann Has Said
Over the weekend, Fox News’ Chris Wallace asked Michele Bachmann if she was a flake. Below is a compendium of some of her more outlandish remarks. Judge for yourself.
Now in just her third term in Congress, Michele Bachmann, the leader of the House tea party caucus, has earned a reputation as one of the lower chamber’s leading bomb-throwers, lobbing overheated rhetoric at Democrats and needling establishment Republicans. Her Minnesota colleague, Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison once accused her of “psycho talk“; in an interview with Politico, a Pawlenty aide was just as blunt: “She’s a real pain in the ass.” Former state senator Dean Johnson, who was the Republican minority leader during Bachmann’s stint in St. Paul, has said, “I don’t think I ever served with anybody who I mistrusted more, from either side of the aisle.”
Ouch. Bachmann also has a tendency to stretch the truth, or simply sidestep it altogether. Bill Adair, editor of PolitiFact, recently told Minnesota Public Radio that he has never researched a Bachmann quote and found it to be true (the only major politician for which that’s the case).
Here’s an incomplete guide to Bachmann’s greatest hits:
Full Story Here: Psycho Talk: The 32 Craziest Things GOP Presidential Contender Michele Bachmann Has Said | Tea Party and the Right | AlterNet.
The Corrupt Corporate Incarceration Complex
Seventeen-year-old Hillary Transue did what lots of 17-year-olds do: Got into mischief. Hillary’s mischief was composing a MySpace page poking fun at the assistant principal of the high school she attended in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Hillary was an honor student who’d never had any trouble with the law before. And her MySpace page stated clearly that the page was a joke. But despite all that, Hilary found herself charged with harassment. She stood before a judge and heard him sentence her to three months in a juvenile detention facility.
What she expected was perhaps a stern lecture. What she got was a perp walk – being led away in handcuffs as her stunned parents stood by helplessly. Hillary told The New York Times, “I felt like I had been thrown into some surreal sort of nightmare. All I wanted to know was how this could be fair and why the judge would do such a thing.”
It wasn’t until two years later that she found out why. In Scranton, Pennsylvania, two judges pleaded guilty to operating a kickback scheme involving juvenile offenders. The judges, Mark Ciavarella Jr. and Michael Conahan, took more than $2.6 million in kickbacks from a private prison company to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers. Since 2003, Ciaverella had sentenced an estimated 5,000 juveniles. Conahan was accused of setting up the contracts. Many of the youngsters shipped off to the detention centers were first-time offenders.
Full Story Here: The Corrupt Corporate Incarceration Complex | Truthout.
$4 Trillion for War—and Counting
Joe Conason :-:
Anyone paying attention to the costs of U.S. military action in Iraq and Afghanistan must have known that the president badly underestimated those numbers on June 22, when he told the nation that we have spent “a trillion dollars” waging war over the past decade. For well over two years, we have known that the total monetary cost of those wars will eventually amount to well over $2 trillion, and might well rise higher, according to Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz and his associate Linda Bilmes.
What we didn’t know until this week is that the expense in constant dollars—leaving aside the horrific price paid by the dead, wounded, displaced and ruined in every country—will likely reach well over $4.4 trillion.
That is the conclusion of a study released by the Eisenhower Research Project, a group of scholars, diplomats and other experts based at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies. The Eisenhower study doesn’t scant the human damage, which its authors say has been underestimated as badly as the fiscal costs. According to them, “an extremely conservative estimate of the toll in direct war dead and wounded is about 225,000 dead and about 365,000 physically wounded in these wars so far”—including those in Pakistan, which is embroiled in war just as lethally as Afghanistan.
Full Story Here: Joe Conason: $4 Trillion for War—and Counting – Truthdig.
Climate Change May Pose Biggest Security Threat
As a budget battle rages on in the U.S. Congress and President Barack Obama’s military budget comes under increasingly harsh scrutiny, a report just released here by the Institute for Policy Studies suggests that reallocating defense spending towards tackling climate change might be the only solution to the administration’s woes.
“[The] president speaks beautifully on the need to change our relationship with the rest of the world but the budget itself hasn’t fulfilled the promise of that rhetoric,” Miriam Pemberton, co-author of “The United Security Budget for the United States, FY 2012” report and research fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, told IPS.
“The bottom line is that the current [desire] for deficit reduction provides a strong opening to really get serious about making military cuts. Moving money into non-military foreign engagement will do a lot to underwrite and make real the administration’s promises,” Pemberton added.
Full Story Here: Climate Change May Pose Biggest Security Threat | Common Dreams.
To the Limit
But this complacency misses two important facts about the situation: the extremism of the modern G.O.P., and the urgent need for President Obama to draw a line in the sand against further extortion.
Paul Krugman :-:
In about a month, if nothing is done, the federal government will hit its legal debt limit. There will be dire consequences if this limit isn’t raised. At best, we’ll suffer an economic slowdown; at worst we’ll plunge back into the depths of the 2008-9 financial crisis.
So is a failure to raise the debt ceiling unthinkable? Not at all.
Many commentators remain complacent about the debt ceiling; the very gravity of the consequences if the ceiling isn’t raised, they say, ensures that in the end politicians will do what must be done. But this complacency misses two important facts about the situation: the extremism of the modern G.O.P., and the urgent need for President Obama to draw a line in the sand against further extortion.
Let’s talk about how we got here.
Full Story Here: To the Limit – NYTimes.com.
Barack Herbert Hoover Obama
Paul Krugman:-:
From today’s radio address:
Government has to start living within its means, just like families do. We have to cut the spending we can’t afford so we can put the economy on sounder footing, and give our businesses the confidence they need to grow and create jobs.
Yep, the false government-family equivalence, the myth of expansionary austerity, and the confidence fairy, all in just two sentences.
Read this and this to see why he’s wrong. This is truly a tragedy: the great progressive hope (well, I did warn people) is falling all over himself to endorse right-wing economic fallacies.
Full Story Here: Barack Herbert Hoover Obama – NYTimes.com.
Barack Herbert Hoover Obama
Paul Krugman :-:
From today’s radio address:
Government has to start living within its means, just like families do. We have to cut the spending we can’t afford so we can put the economy on sounder footing, and give our businesses the confidence they need to grow and create jobs.
Yep, the false government-family equivalence, the myth of expansionary austerity, and the confidence fairy, all in just two sentences.
Read this and this to see why he’s wrong. This is truly a tragedy: the great progressive hope (well, I did warn people) is falling all over himself to endorse right-wing economic fallacies.
Full Story Here: Barack Herbert Hoover Obama – NYTimes.com.
Obama: We can’t afford to keep every tax break
President Obama used his weekly address to reiterate his demand for ending tax breaks for “millionaires and billionaires” in any budget deal to raise the nation’s debt limit.
“It would be nice if we could keep every tax break, but we can’t afford them,” Obama said. “Because if we choose to keep those tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, or for hedge fund managers and corporate jet owners, or for oil and gas companies pulling in huge profits without our help – then we’ll have to make even deeper cuts somewhere else.”
The president said that students, medical researchers and seniors would pay the price if those tax breaks were not taken away.
“That isn’t right, and it isn’t smart,” he said. “We’ve got to cut the deficit, but we can do that while making investments in education, research, and technology that actually create jobs.”
Full Story Here: Obama: We can’t afford to keep every tax break – The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room.
Israeli Official Does Not Deny Sabotage Allegations Against Gaza Flotilla * Reports of U.S. Green Light for Violence
The Jerusalem Post reports: “The Greek Coast Guard has now stopped the U.S. boat [The Audacity of Hope is attempting to go to Gaza in spite of an Israeli siege] and is demanding that they return to the Port of Athens.” Passengers on the boat are tweeting regular updates: “Captain explaining to Coast Guard it’s not safe for U.S. boat in Greek ports, as others were sabotaged & Netanyhau thanked Greek PM #flotilla2″ @usboattogaza
This morning on Democracy Now Ido Aharoni, consul general of Israel in New York, refused to deny Israel’s role in sabotage against the boats in the flotilla, which includes the U.S. boat.
ADAM SHAPIRO, adamsop at gmail.com
HUWAIDA ARRAF, huwaida.arraf at gmail.com
An organizer with the Free Gaza Movement, Shapiro said today: “The blockade against Gaza now apparently extends to Greece.” Arraf is chair of the Free Gaza Movement and member of the Freedom Flotilla Steering Committee.
The following are among those currently on The Audacity of Hope as it attempts to go from Greece to Gaza:
Full Story Here: Institute for Public Accuracy.
U.N. Report Shreds Military’s Claim of Afghanistan Progress
So this is what “fragile and reversible” progress looks like in Afghanistan: violence is up 51 percent since this time last year, thanks to a hurricane of insurgent suicide attacks, assassinations and bombs, undermining U.S. military claims that it’s breaking the momentum of the Taliban.
The closest thing the war has to a report card comes in the form of a new quarterly report from the United Nations. And the American troop surge appears to be dangerously close to flunking. According to the U.N., not only is violence on the rise, but so are civilian casualties. Compared to the spring of 2010, civilian deaths and injuries are up 20 percent, with 1,090 dead and 1,860 wounded. Over 435,000 Afghans are displaced by the war, a 4 percent rise.
The U.N. report directly contradicts an emerging talking point in the U.S. military. Lt. Gen. John Allen, the incoming war commander, told a Senate panel on Tuesday that “violence is five percent lower so far this year in comparison to last year,” (.pdf) a statistic that David Ignatius attributes to Gen. David Petraeus in his Wednesday column. Not only is violence not going down, if the U.N. is to believed, it’s going way up — far from a war effort that’s arresting Taliban momentum.
Full Story Here: U.N. Report Shreds Military’s Claim of Afghanistan Progress | Danger Room | Wired.com.
Mac Stores Tell Workers, Instead of Giving You Health Care, Working for Apple ‘Should Be Looked at As An Experience’
On the day Apple celebrated 10 years since opening its first Apple Store, employee Cory Moll announced a campaign to unionize the company’s 30,000-plus retail employees. Moll sent an e-mail to reporters declaring that “the people of Apple are coming together to “‘work different.’” “The core issues definitely involve compensation, pay, benefits,” Moll said.
A Reuters reporter echoed the response of many journalists in calling the union drive “unusual given Apple’s reputation for fierce employee loyalty.” But interviews with workers in three states help explain how and why some of Apple’s employees want to change the company. (All three employees interviewed for this article requested and were provided anonymity based on their fear of retaliation.)
A Bay Area employee described what happened last year when he and about a dozen co-workers realized employees with years of service were being paid less than new hires doing the same work. Agitated about the situation but concerned about retaliation, the workers committed to a plan: during the approaching round of annual one-on-one meetings between workers and managers, they would each ask about pay disparities
Full Story Here: Mac Stores Tell Workers, Instead of Giving You Health Care, Working for Apple ‘Should Be Looked at As An Experience’ | Economy | AlterNet.
235 Economists, Including Six Nobel Prize Winners, Call For Clean, Immediate Debt Ceiling Increase
Nobel Prize winners, wrote to congressional leaders today to call for a clean, immediate increase in the nation’s debt ceiling. “We, the undersigned economists, urge Congress to raise the federal debt limit immediately and without attaching drastic and potentially dangerous reductions in federal spending,” they wrote. “Not doing so promptly could have a substantial negative impact on economic growth at a time when the economy looks a bit shaky. In a worst case, it could push the United States back into recession.” Congressional Republicans blew up debt ceiling negotiations last week in order to protect tax breaks for the rich and corporations.
Full Story Here: 235 Economists, Including Six Nobel Prize Winners, Call For Clean, Immediate Debt Ceiling Increase | ThinkProgress.
Here’s The Legal Complaint WikiLeaks Is Threatening To File Against Visa, MasterCard
More than six months have passed since Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, and others cut WikiLeaks’ purse strings. And if that blockade lasts six more days, the secret-spilling group plans to take its financial fight to the courtroom.
If Visa Europe and MasterCard Europe haven’t re-opened payment WikiLeaks by next Thursday, the group and its payment provider DataCell plan to file a complaint with the E.U. Commission against the two companies as well as the Danish payment processor Teller, according to Sveinn Andri Sveinsson, the Icelandic lawyer for WikiLeaks and DataCell.
“They’re boycotting Datacell and Wikileaks without any objective justification,” says Sveinsson. “This is clearly an abuse of their market dominance.”
Full Story Here: Here’s The Legal Complaint WikiLeaks Is Threatening To File Against Visa, MasterCard – Andy Greenberg – The Firewall – Forbes.
New Jersey Lawmakers Send Christie Ban on Hydraulic Fracturing
The New Jersey Legislature sent Republican Governor Chris Christie a measure to ban drilling for natural gas using a process called hydraulic fracturing, which environmental groups say contaminates drinking water.
The measure passed the state Senate 32-1 and the Assembly 56-11 with 8 abstentions yesterday, according to the New Jersey Office of Legislative Services website. If Christie signs the bill, it will be the first statewide ban on fracking in the U.S. The governor won’t comment until state lawyers review the legislation, Michael Drewniak, his spokesman, said yesterday in an e-mail.
While New Jersey produces no natural gas, communities in the state’s northwest sits atop the Utica Shale, a largely unexplored formation stretching from Ontario, Canada, to Tennessee. Range Resources Corp. (RRC) said in February that its initial well in the Utica formation in Pennsylvania produced the equivalent of 4.4 million cubic feet of natural gas a day.
Full Story Here: New Jersey Lawmakers Send Christie Ban on Hydraulic Fracturing – Bloomberg.
Record 44.7 Million People Celebrate Geithner’s Departure And The End Of QE2 Through Foodstamps
The one and only clearest indication of just how effective the recovery and QE2 in general has been, comes courtesy of the USDA, whose just released update of April participation in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), better known as “foodstamps”, shows yet another record, this time 44.647 million people, an increase from May’s 44.587 million. And after rising modestly in the last month, the average monthly benefit per household dropped again to a post April 2009 revision low of $282.38/month.
Full Story Here: Record 44.7 Million People Celebrate Geithner’s Departure And The End Of QE2 Through Foodstamps | zero hedge.
Study: Majority of Americans Approve of Stem Cells for Curing Serious Diseases
While research using human embryonic stem cells has roused political controversy for almost two decades, little has been done to scientifically assess American attitudes on the subject. New research from the University of Nevada, Reno provides decision-makers with a much clearer picture of how their constituents truly feel about the subject.
The study, “U.S. attitudes toward human embryonic stem cell research,” published this month in the journal, Nature Biotechnology, was conducted by University of Nevada, Reno faculty members Mariah Evans and Jonathan Kelley, who surveyed a large, representative national sample of 2,295 respondents in 2009.
Their most significant findings include:
Full Story Here: The Washington Current: Study: Majority of Americans Approve of Stem Cells for Curing Serious Diseases.
WikiLeaks’ Brilliant MasterCard Commercial Parody
Video -
A spoof of the fact that major credit card and online payment companies have withheld over $15 Million in donations to WikiLeaks.
A Stunning Development in the Swipe Fee Debate
Earlier this month, we reported on the Senate battle over “swipe fees,” which banks charge merchants for processing credit or debit cards. It appeared the story was over, and an effort by banks to maintain high swipe fees was vanquished—but an eleventh-hour action by the Federal Reserve yesterday has given Wall Street yet another astonishing victory in Washington
The average swipe fee in America is 44 cents, the highest rate in the world. In December, the Federal Reserve released an analysis saying that banks could still make profit by charging 12 cents per transaction, and under the Dodd-Frank financial reform, planned to enforce this cap starting today.
Banks—which collect $20 billion every year from swipe fees—naturally did not want this revenue reduced by almost 75 percent. Early this year, they launched a massive lobbying campaign to pass a bill by Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) that would delay the Federal Reserve’s cap. Retailers, who claim high fees drive up prices and hurt the bottom line of small stores, had their own well-funded campaign to defeat the bill, and ultimately prevailed. On June 8, Tester’s bill failed to win a cloture vote.
Full Story Here: A Stunning Development in the Swipe Fee Debate | The Nation.
Will Democrats Embrace a Foul Deal?
We now have sorry news of the foul deal that the White House is pushing in the debt ceiling talks.
About $1.5 trillion in spending cuts — including $200-300 billion from Medicare and Medicaid — in exchange for $130 billion in loophole closings — corporate jets, race horses and the like.
Forget about one-to-one spending cuts to top end tax hikes. This is worse than 10 to 1. Programs vital to Americans get cut — Medicare, Medicaid, Pell grants, education, public health. Tax breaks not needed for the wealthy get extended.
Consider how we got here.
Instead of insisting on a clean lift of the debt ceiling with no extortion, the White House caved and agreed to negotiate with extortionists willing to threaten to blow up the economy if they don’t get their way.
Full Story Here: Will Democrats Embrace a Foul Deal? | OurFuture.org.
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Republicans Don't Care about Voter Fraud....owa Republicans are trying to dismiss claims that the vote count in Tuesday's Iowa Caucus was wrong. An Iowa voter told a local TV station yesterday that he noticed a 20-vote discrepancy in the count - and that Rick Santorum was the real winner of the Caucuses. Republican Party officials, though, are sticking to their first count - showing Mitt Romney as the winner by 8-votes - and there will be no recount.The Republican Party has launched a war on voters around the nation this year with strict new laws that will disenfranchise over 5 million Americans. They claim these laws are necessary to combat so-called voter fraud. Yet in Iowa - where there are no such laws - and where a very, very close and questionable election was just held - Republicans don't seem to care at all about getting it right.Clearly - the war on voters isn't about making sure the people's voices are represented accurately - it's about making sure poor people, young people, and minorities who tend to vote for Democrats - can't vote at all.-Thom(Who do you think won? Tell us here.) -
LEGALIZE Democracy
" We the corporations" On January 21, 2010, with its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons, entitled by the U.S. Constitution to buy elections and run our government. __________
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The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. 
