Archive for August, 2011

Court case lifts lid on secret post 9/11 flights

A hidden network of U.S. companies, coordinated by a prominent defense contractor, played a key role in the covert airlift that transported terrorism suspects and their American minders, according to newly disclosed documents in a New York business dispute between two aviation companies.

The court files of more than 1,700 pages shed new light on the U.S. government’s reliance on private contractors for flights between Washington, foreign capitals, the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and, at times, landing points near once-secret, CIA-run overseas prisons. The companies included DynCorp, a leading government contractor that secretly oversaw a fleet of luxury jets, and caterers that unwittingly stocked the planes with fruit platters and bottles of wine for the transoceanic routes, according to the court files and testimony.

Story: Petraeus retires, warns against budget cuts

The business dispute stems from an obscure four-year fight between a New York-based charter company, Richmor Aviation Inc., which supplied corporate jets and crews to the government, and a private aviation broker, SportsFlight Air, which organized flights for DynCorp. Both sides cited the government’s program of forced transport of detainees, or “extraordinary rendition,” in testimony, evidence and legal arguments. The companies are fighting over $874,000 awarded to Richmor by a New York state appeals court to cover unpaid costs for the secret flights.

Full Story Here: Court case lifts lid on secret post 9/11 flights – US news – Security – msnbc.com.

Bush-Era Warrantless Wiretapping Program on Trial Tomorrow in Seattle – Seattle News – The Daily Weekly

​Big Brother really is watching you. And reading your e-mails. And tracking which websites you visit. According to the court testimony of a former AT&T technician, there is a secret room–the “SG-3 Room”–in the company’s San Francisco offices that is occupied by the National Security Agency. All Internet traffic AT&T receives is filtered through high-powered NSA computers there, and the machines sort through the communications of “millions of ordinary Americans” searching for . . . something. Perhaps a terror plot, perhaps which library books you’re checking out. No one is quite sure what they’re after, but the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the ACLU are fighting an ongoing legal battle with the government and AT&T in attempt to establish some sort of accountability for the domestic spy program.

Two key appeals cases will be heard in Seattle federal court tomorrow. The first, Jewel v. NSA, was filed by the EFF in 2006, “on behalf of AT&T customers to stop the illegal, unconstitutional, and ongoing dragnet surveillance of their communications and communications records.” The case also targets former President George W. Bush, former Vice President Dick Cheney, Cheney’s former chief of staff David Addington, and former Attorney General and White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales–the officials who authorized the NSA wiretapping.

Full Story Here: Bush-Era Warrantless Wiretapping Program on Trial Tomorrow in Seattle – Seattle News – The Daily Weekly.

Highest-Paid CEOs Often Earn More Than Company Pays In Income Taxes, Study Finds

Twenty-five of the 100 highest paid U.S. CEOs earned more last year than their companies paid in federal income tax, a pay study said on Wednesday.

It also found many of the companies spent more on lobbying than they did on taxes.

At a time when lawmakers are facing tough choices in a quest to slash the national debt, the report from the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), a left-leaning Washington think tank, quickly hit a nerve.

After reading it, Democratic Representative Elijah Cummings, ranking member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, called for hearings on executive compensation.

Full Story Here: Highest-Paid CEOs Often Earn More Than Company Pays In Income Taxes, Study Finds.

President Obama’s job creation mirage

Dean Baker :-:

We’ve heard plenty about Obama’s post Labor Day job creation speech, but will it contain anything that might actually work?

President Obama has discovered how serious the recession is. That’s what he told an audience in Chicago last week. To be fair, he was referring to revised data from the commerce department showing that the falloff in GDP was larger than originally reported.

But ridicule is appropriate. He and we knew all along how many people were out of work. The employment numbers told us the size of the hole and the desperate need for government action.

This sort of ridiculous comment, and President Obama’s weak response to the recession over the first two and a half years of his presidency, explains the tidal wave of scepticism facing his widely hyped upcoming speech on jobs after the Labor Day weekend. The list of remedies leaked ahead of time does little to inspire hope.

Full Story Here: President Obama’s job creation mirage | Dean Baker | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

Oh, The Pain of The Believer: Barack’s Betrayals Offer Lessons We Can’t Deny

Danny Schechter :-:

Journalists are not supposed to have political opinions, and yet we all do. Our “biases” are usually disguised, not blatant or overtly partisan, and can be divined in what stories we cover and how we cover them,

Even ‘just the facts, ma’am,’ journos for big Media have to decide which facts to include and which to ignore.

Our outlooks are always shaped by our worldviews, values and experience, not to mention the outlets we work for.

Which brings me to the challenge of seeking truth and recognizing it when you see it.

I have to admit that I was seduced by the idea of Barack Obama.

The idea of a black President, the idea of a young President, the idea of an articulate President, and the idea of a man married to such a stand up woman from a working class family was hard to resist.

Full Story Here: Oh, The Pain of The Believer: Barack’s Betrayals Offer Lessons We Can’t Deny | Common Dreams.

Sun and Sanity

Ralph Nader :-:

This is the second week of protests, led by Bill McKibben, in front of the White House demanding that President Barack Obama reject a proposed 1700 mile pipeline transporting the dirtiest oil from Alberta, Canada through fragile ecologies down to the Gulf Coast refineries. One thousand people will be arrested there from all fifty states before their demonstration is over. The vast majority voted for Obama and they are plenty angry with his brittleness on environmental issues in general.

Following the large BP discharge in the Gulf of Mexico, Obama gave the OK to expand drilling over 20 million acres in the Gulf and soon probably in the Arctic Ocean. He delayed clean air rules over at EPA. Following the worsening Fukishima nuclear disaster last March in Japan, he reaffirmed his support for more taxpayer guaranteed nuclear plants in the U.S. adding his Administration’s hopes to learn from the mistakes there.

Full Story Here: Sun and Sanity | Common Dreams.

Let’s Make It Official: Obama Is Not Serious About a Real Recovery

A bold jobs plan will have to be pushed from the grassroots

Just over one year ago, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner wrote a New York Times op-ed titled “Welcome to the Recovery,” in which he proudly announced that “a review of recent data on the American economy shows that we are on a path back to growth.”

It was the domestic equivalent of George W. Bush’s infamous “Mission Accomplished” banner trumpeting the end of the Iraq War.

Yes, “the devastation wrought by the great recession is still all too real for millions of Americans,” Geithner conceded. But despite the fact “we suffered a terrible blow,” America was “coming back.”

But a variety of recent data show precisely how delusional Geithner—and his boss in the White House—have been.

Full Story Here: Let’s Make It Official: Obama Is Not Serious About a Real Recovery – Working In These Times.

GOP Hearts End-Times Insanity

Matt Taibbi:-:

I’m submitting a memo to my bosses at Rolling Stone this morning, asking for permission to skip all coverage of the Republican primary season from this point forward. Why? Because Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann have just summed up the entire Republican storyline with perfect precision, through their respective responses to Hurricane Irene. There’s really not much left for any pundit to add, after this weekend’s quips.

Michele Bachmann says Hurricane Irene is God’s way of telling Washington that it is spending too much.

For his part, Ron Paul says hurricane relief isn’t the responsibility of the state and we should stop using tax dollars to rescue people. Apparently we should go back to our year-1900 disaster policies, which included watching 6,000 people die in a hurricane that hit Galveston, Texas.

What else does anyone need to hear? There are two powerful wings of the Republican Party heading into 2012, and these two comments sum them up perfectly.

The Ron Paul camp believes government has no role at all.

Full Story Here: GOP Hearts End-Times Insanity | Common Dreams.

Military Spending Waste: Up To $60B In Iraq, Afghanistan War Funds Lost To Poor Planning, Oversight, Fraud

As much as $60 billion in U.S. funds has been lost to waste and fraud in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade through lax oversight of contractors, poor planning and payoffs to warlords and insurgents, an independent panel investigating U.S. wartime spending estimates.

In its final report to Congress, the Commission on Wartime Contracting said the figure could grow as U.S. support for reconstruction projects and programs wanes, leaving both countries to bear the long-term costs of sustaining the schools, medical clinics, barracks, roads and power plants already built with American tax dollars.

Much of the waste and fraud could have been avoided with better planning and more aggressive oversight, the commission said. To avoid repeating the mistakes in Iraq and Afghanistan, government agencies should overhaul the way they award and manage contracts in war zones, the commission recommended.

The Associated Press obtained a copy of the commission’s 240-page report in advance of its scheduled public release on Wednesday.

Full Story Here: Military Spending Waste: Up To $60B In Iraq, Afghanistan War Funds Lost To Poor Planning, Oversight, Fraud.

House Republican Bill Cuts Hurricane Monitoring Funds That Help Save Millions Of Dollars

In the wake of Hurricane Irene, which caused billions of dollars in damages up and down the U.S.’s eastern seaboard, House Republicans are callously claiming that any aid to victims of the disaster needs to be offset by budget cuts elsewhere. The savings favored by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) would come from cuts to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and first responders.

However, if House Republicans get their way, not only will recovering from the effects of Hurricane Irene be more difficult, but so will monitoring incoming hurricanes in general. As the Associated Press noted, the House Appropriations Committee has approved cuts to funding for “hurricane hunters” — military planes that fly into hurricanes in order to measure and track them:

Hurricane hunters – which are flying into Irene’s eye to feed forecasters vital information about the storm – could face big funding cuts under a budget proposal moving through the U.S. House.

Rep. Kathy Castor, a Democrat from Florida, wrote House Speaker John Boehner on Friday asking for a reversal of proposed cuts to the program under a bill that passed the Appropriations Committee. She said if the cuts go through, it would amount to a 40 percent drop in funding for hurricane hunter flights out of MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa. [...]

Full Story Here: House Republican Bill Cuts Hurricane Monitoring Funds That Help Save Millions Of Dollars | ThinkProgress.

First Federal Reserve Audit Reveals Trillions in Secret Bailouts

The first-ever audit of the U.S. Federal Reserve has revealed 16 trillion dollars in secret bank bailouts and has raised more questions about the quasi-private agency’s opaque operations.

“This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you’re-on-your-own individualism for everyone else,” U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, an Independent from Vermont, said in a statement.

The majority of loans were issues by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY).

“From late 2007 through mid-2010, Reserve Banks provided more than a trillion dollars… in emergency loans to the financial sector to address strains in credit markets and to avert failures of individual institutions believed to be a threat to the stability of the financial system,” the audit report states.

“The scale and nature of this assistance amounted to an unprecedented expansion of the Federal Reserve System’s traditional role as lender-of-last-resort to depository institutions,” according to the report.

Full Story Here: First Federal Reserve Audit Reveals Trillions in Secret Bailouts – IPS ipsnews.net.

Ex-Bush Official Col. Lawrence Wilkerson: “I am Willing to Testify” If Dick Cheney is Put on Trial

As former Vice President Dick Cheney publishes his long-awaited memoir, we speak to Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell. “This is a book written out of fear, fear that one day someone will ‘Pinochet’ Dick Cheney,” says Wilkerson, alluding to the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, who was arrested for war crimes. Wilkerson also calls for George W. Bush and Cheney to be held accountable for their crimes in office. “I’d be willing to testify, and I’d be willing to take any punishment I’m due,” Wilkerson said. We also speak to Salon.com political and legal blogger Glenn Greenwald about his recent article on Cheney, “The Fruits of Elite Immunity.” “Dick Cheney goes around the country profiting off of this sleazy, sensationalistic, self-serving book, basically profiting from his crimes, and at the same time normalizing the idea that these kind of policies…are perfectly legitimate choices to make. And I think that’s the really damaging legacy from all of this,” says Greenwald.

Full Story Here: Ex-Bush Official Col. Lawrence Wilkerson: “I am Willing to Testify” If Dick Cheney is Put on Trial | AlterNet.

National Geographic Trashes Its Brand with Bush ‘Infomercial’ on 9/11

On “Countdown” last night, Keith Olbermann and Markos Moulistsas rightly savaged the National Geographic Channel for producing a Fox News style interview with George Bush on the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Olbermann noted that while Bush refers to 9/11 as a “monumental” and “significant” event but he never uses word like “tragic” or “sad.” Moulitsas suggested that the reason Bush did not describe the attacks as “tragic” is because he and his party did not view the attack as a tragedy but rather as an opportunity to install a more authoritarian regime inside the government.

The Bush interview and the release of Dick Cheney’s memoir were strategically timed to come out around the tenth anniversary of the terror attacks next month.

Full Story Here: National Geographic Trashes Its Brand with Bush ‘Infomercial’ on 9/11.

How Rick Perry became a millionaire

The Texas governor’s history of “lucky” investments< Rick Perry is a millionaire. Nothing odd about that -- lots of people who run for president are millionaires! -- but he's never really had a job outside of government and he didn't inherit his fortune. Where did his millions of dollars come from? The Fort Worth Star-Telegram answers that question: He's very good at making investments that look remarkably like examples of blatant corruption.

There was the time Perry bought some random undeveloped land in 1993, and then it turned out that rich businessman Michael Dell needed that land to connect his new house to the sewer lines. Perry made $342,994 selling it to him. And he's made decent sums trading in stock in companies founded by Perry donors. And there was this bit:

Perry purchased the land from state Sen. Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay, in 2001 for $314,770. Six years later, Perry sold it for $1.1 million, pulling a profit of $823,776. Perry has attributed the gain to a favorable market for Hill Country land.

Full Story Here: How Rick Perry became a millionaire – War Room – Salon.com.

Omitted facts from the 9/11 commemoration

The Obama administration has issued formal guidelines identifying the messages government agencies are to communicate as part of the commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attack. The New York Times obtained a copy of these guidelines and notes one significant omission:

The guidelines say the absence of Al Qaeda playing any significant role in the “Arab Spring” uprisings against longtime autocrats in the Middle East and North Africa should be cited as evidence that Bin Laden’s organization “represents the past,” while peaceful street protesters in Egypt and Tunisia “represent the future.” Left unsaid was that many of the deposed leaders were close American allies and partners in counterterrorism operations.

That little fact is not only “left unsaid” in the administration’s 9/11 messaging guidelines but in almost all media and political discussions of the Arab Spring (kudos to the NYT for its rare inclusion here). That is why, at the risk of invoking an Internet cliche, I literally laughed aloud when I read Roger Cohen’s giddy self-celebration in this morning’s NYT over the glorious American “victory” in Libya. Leaving aside how obviously premature and information-deprived his victory dance is, Cohen’s concluding passage struck me as so delusional as to be darkly humorous:

Full Story Here: Omitted facts from the 9/11 commemoration – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.

Wisconsin union council bans Republicans from Labor Day parade

Over the years, the meaning of Labor Day has been lost on many.

Now a generation removed from the predominance of abusive working conditions, many Americans today fail to understand the importance of celebrating the fight to win vacation hours, overtime pay, lunch breaks, weekends, restrictions on child labor, maternity leave and employer-sponsored health care.

But the symbolism of Labor Day is not lost on the people of Wausau, Wisconsin: Amid an unprecedented fight with Republicans over labor rights in their state, organizers of this year’s Labor Day parade have decided to exclude the state’s conservatives from participating.

“Usually they’ve been in the parade, but it seems like they only want to stand with us one day a year, and the other 364 days they don’t really care,” Randy Radtke, president of the Marathon County Central Labor Council, told The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

Full Story Here: Wisconsin union council bans Republicans from Labor Day parade | The Raw Story.

Thune: Top Message I Got From Town Halls Is ‘Don’t Cut My Social Security And Medicare’

As Republican lawmakers held constituent meetings in their home districts over the August recess, they were often confronted for taking hard-right positions on everything from taxes to entitlement reform, sending a message that at least Sen. John Thune (R-SD) seems to have noticed. Thune said the main things he heard from constitutes was frustration over Congress’ inability to work together and opposition to cuts to social safety net programs, the Argus Leader reports:

“Do something,” Thune said Wednesday after a town hall meeting at the Brandon Municipal Golf Course. “Why can’t you work together? There’s a high level of frustration with the inaction, and there’s a lack of confidence in the country and the economy. They want to see us get something done.”

That’s one of the major insights he’ll take back to Washington, D.C. after the August recess, he said.

It ranks behind “don’t cut my Social Security and Medicare. I’ve heard that quite a bit,” Thune said.

Full Story Here: Thune: Top Message I Got From Town Halls Is ‘Don’t Cut My Social Security And Medicare’ | ThinkProgress.

The fruits of elite immunity

Less than three years ago, Dick Cheney was presiding over policies that left hundreds of thousands of innocent people dead from a war of aggression, constructed a worldwide torture regime, and spied on thousands of Americans without the warrants required by law, all of which resulted in his leaving office as one of the most reviled political figures in decades. But thanks to the decision to block all legal investigations into his chronic criminality, those matters have been relegated to mere pedestrian partisan disputes, and Cheney is thus now preparing to be feted — and further enriched — as a Wise and Serious Statesman with the release of his memoirs this week: one in which he proudly boasts (yet again) of the very crimes for which he was immunized. As he embarks on his massive publicity-generating media tour of interviews, Cheney faces no indictments or criminal juries, but rather reverent, rehabilitative tributes, illustrated by this, from Politico today:

Full Story Here: The fruits of elite immunity – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.

Not Druggies After All: 96 Percent of Florida Welfare Applicants Pass Tea Party Gov’s Drug Test

A while back, we reported about the mandatory drug tests being implemented in Florida for all welfare recipients. The state’s Governor Rick Scott, an avid Tea Party supporter, claimed that the state needed to wean off those pesky low-income people who were sucking the state’s funds dry by taking advantage of the welfare system. Like most states, Florida was in fiscal trouble and Scott would be damned if those welfare recipients, who he claimed used drugs more than the rest of the general population, wasted more of the states’ money.

Well, the drug tests are in and it’s a good news bad new scenario for Scott. Bad news first: 96 percent of welfare applicants who took the drug test passed it so as it turned out welfare recipients aren’t the druggies Scott thought. But two percent did fail and another two percent refused to take it- so technically speaking it wasn’t a complete statement, just a blindingly overwhelming one. And the good news: even though Scott’s hypothesis in his little social experiment was wrong, the program has net some savings from the two percent who failed. And just how much of a dent will the druggies make in Florida’s deficit?

Full Story Here: Not Druggies After All: 96 Percent of Florida Welfare Applicants Pass Tea Party Gov’s Drug Test « Clutch Magazine.

Tea Party Congressman Joe Walsh Owes 9 Years Of Child Support

Remember when Joe Walsh said this from the comfort of his office after President Obama finished his State Of The Union Address? “President Obama, quit lying. Have you no shame, sir? In three short years, you’ve bankrupted this country.”

Or how about this one? ⁠“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!”

Well, it turns out that the Tea Party Congressman who got elected preaching fiscal responsibility is fiscally irresponsible AND morally bankrupt. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Walsh owes 9 years worth of child support which comes out to an astonishing $117,000. While Walsh claims that he won’t place one more dollar of debt of our kids, he has placed $117,000 worth of debt on his own kids.

Full Story Here: Tea Party Congressman Joe Walsh Owes 9 Years Of Child Support | Addicting Info.

Republicans Against Science

Paul Krugman :-:

Jon Huntsman Jr., a former Utah governor and ambassador to China, isn’t a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination. And that’s too bad, because Mr. Hunstman has been willing to say the unsayable about the G.O.P. — namely, that it is becoming the “anti-science party.” This is an enormously important development. And it should terrify us.

To see what Mr. Huntsman means, consider recent statements by the two men who actually are serious contenders for the G.O.P. nomination: Rick Perry and Mitt Romney.

Mr. Perry, the governor of Texas, recently made headlines by dismissing evolution as “just a theory,” one that has “got some gaps in it” — an observation that will come as news to the vast majority of biologists. But what really got peoples’ attention was what he said about climate change: “I think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects. And I think we are seeing almost weekly, or even daily, scientists are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change.”

Full Story Here: Republicans Against Science – NYTimes.com.

Court says public has right to video police in public places

A Boston lawyer suing the city and police officers who arrested him for using his cell phone to record a drug arrest on the Common won a victory today when a federal appeals court said the officers could not claim “qualified immunity” because they were performing their job when they arrested him under a state law that bars audio recordings without the consent of both parties.

In its ruling, which lets Simon Glik continue his lawsuit, the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston said the way Glik was arrested and his phone seized under a state wiretapping law violated his First and Fourth Amendment rights:

Full Story Here: Court says public has right to video police in public places | Universal Hub.

Nurses To Converge on 60 Congressional Offices Sept. 1, Calling for Wall St. Tax

From Maine to California, nurses, joined by others angry over the ongoing economic crisis, will call on members of Congress in their local district offices on September 1 to support a tax on Wall Street financial speculation to pay to, in their words, “heal the nation.”

The nurses — members of the National Nurses United (NNU) labor union — will visit the home offices of Republicans and Democrats, with a common message: Everyday Americans are hurting, and they need jobs, healthcare, housing, quality education, nutrition, and a secure retirement, not more cuts, as has been the recent obsession of Congress.

Among the lawmakers nurses want to meet with are members of the leadership of Capitol Hill, including House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California, and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).

Full Story Here: The Washington Current: Nurses To Converge on 60 Congressional Offices Sept. 1, Calling for Wall St. Tax.

The ‘Free Market’ Myth and the Suicide of Capitalism

In a capitalist society such as ours the wealth will be redistributed to the richest people unless there are some regulations to prevent that.

We hear a lot today about free trade and free enterprise. Those are today’s code words for unregulated capitalism — the idea that capitalism can work for the benefit of everyone in a society as long as it is not hindered by government regulations. The proponents of this idea say that the more money the capitalists make, the more jobs they will create and the better off everyone in the society will be.

You may recognize this as the Republican “trickle-down” theory.

These modern Republicans may be surprised to learn that their boogeyman, Karl Marx was in favor of “free trade.” Look at this quote from Marx:

Full Story Here: The Rag Blog: Ted McLaughlin : The ‘Free Market’ Myth and the Suicide of Capitalism.

Republicans Complain About Cuts to FEMA Hurricane Relief…You Know the Cuts They Wanted

After sleeping through the worst part of the hurricane last night, I woke this morning to the Washington Post reporting that disaster relief will have to be pulled from the Midwest to handle the East Coast hurricane problems.

“With less than $1 billion currently available for federal disaster assistance, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is temporarily suspending payments to rebuild roads, schools and other structures destroyed during spring tornadoes in Joplin, Mo. and southern states in order to pay for damage caused by Hurricane Irene.”

In the most recent budget negotiations the White House and lawmakers agreed on roughly $38 billion in cuts to federal spending to departments and agencies.

The Republican Chair of the House Appropriations Committee blames the need for moving funding around from Joplin and the Midwest to the east cost on the President’s cuts in FEMA.

“On Saturday, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) urged the Senate to quickly approve the House GOP version of the annual Homeland Security spending measure that includes $1 billion for additional disaster funding this year and $2.65 billion for fiscal 2012.

“Time and time again, the [Obama] administration has ignored the obvious funding needs of the Disaster Relief Fund, purposefully and irresponsibly underfunding the account and putting families and communities who have suffered from terrible disasters on the back burner,” Rogers said. “Now the administration has let the fund reach critically low levels, putting continued recovery at risk, without a plan for the future or a clear method for dealing with new disasters.”

Full Story Here: Republicans Complain About Cuts to FEMA Hurricane Relief…You Know the Cuts They Wanted | Crooks and Liars.

Avoid Trade War? We’re Already in One!

Ian Fletcher :-:

Whenever protectionists like myself demand that the U.S. government do something to stand up for America in global trade, we are shouted down with the stern admonition, “You’ll start a trade war.”

I wish.

The reality is that nobody in America is going to start a trade war, for the simple reason that we are already in one.  Foreign governments understand, as ours does not, that international trade is an arena of national rivalry, and they play the game in their own national interests.  Our government is hostage to an outdated 19^th-century economic theory of global harmony, and on this basis conducts our trade relations with blissful naiveté.

Am I saying that our policy is determined by a theory?  No.  It’s quite obviously determined by the campaign contributions of the multinational (aka “who cares about America?”) corporations who profit from it.  But it is this theory that makes their demands respectable.  All the money in the world couldn’t bribe Congress to pass a law requiring everyone to roller-skate to work; policy always requires some non-laughable justification.

Thanks for nothing, David Ricardo.  You’ve made a fine mess.

The curious thing about the concept of trade war is that, unlike actual shooting war, it has no historical precedent. In fact, there has never been a significant trade war, “significant” in the sense of having done serious economic damage. All history records are minor skirmishes at best.

Go ahead.  Try and name a trade war.  The Great Trade War of 1834?  Nope.  The Great Trade War of 1921?  Nope Again.  There isn’t one.

The standard example free traders give is that America’s Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930 either caused the Great Depression or made it spread around the world. But this canard does not survive serious examination, and has actually been denied by almost every economist who has actually researched the question in depth–a group ranging from Paul Krugman on the left to Milton Friedman on the right.

The Depression’s cause was monetary. The Fed allowed the money supply to balloon during the late 1920s, piling up in the stock market as a bubble. It then panicked, miscalculated, and let it collapse by a third by 1933, depriving the economy of the liquidity it needed to breathe. Trade had nothing to do with it.

As for the charge that Smoot caused the Depression to spread worldwide: it was too small a change to have plausibly so large an effect. For a start, it only applied to about one-third of America’s trade: about 1.3 percent of our GDP. Our average tariff on dutiable goods went from 44.6 to 53.2 percent–not a terribly big jump. Tariffs were higher in almost every year from 1821 to 1914. Our tariff went up in 1861, 1864, 1890, and 1922 without producing global depressions, and the recessions of 1873 and 1893 managed to spread worldwide without tariff increases.

As the economic historian (and free trader!) William Bernstein puts it in his book A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World,

Between 1929 and 1932, real GDP fell 17 percent worldwide, and by 26 percent in the United States, but most economic historians now believe that only a miniscule part of that huge loss of both world GDP and the United States’ GDP can be ascribed to the tariff wars. .. At the time of Smoot-Hawley’s passage, trade volume accounted for only about 9 percent of world economic output. Had all international trade been eliminated, and had no domestic use for the previously exported goods been found, world GDP would have fallen by the same amount — 9 percent. Between 1930 and 1933, worldwide trade volume fell off by one-third to one-half. Depending on how the falloff is measured, this computes to 3 to 5 percent of world GDP, and these losses were partially made up by more expensive domestic goods. Thus, the damage done could not possibly have exceeded 1 or 2 percent of world GDP — nowhere near the 17 percent falloff seen during the Great Depression… The inescapable conclusion: contrary to public perception, Smoot-Hawley did not cause, or even significantly deepen, the Great Depression.

The oft-bandied idea that Smoot-Hawley started a global trade war of endless cycles of tit-for-tat retaliation is also mythical. According to the official State Department report on this very question in 1931:

With the exception of discriminations in France, the extent of discrimination against American commerce is very slight…By far the largest number of countries do not discriminate against the commerce of the United States in any way.

That is to say, foreign nations did indeed raise their tariffs after the passage of Smoot, but this was a broad-brush response to the Depression itself, aimed at all other foreign nations without distinction, not a retaliation against the U.S. for its own tariff. The doom-loop of spiraling tit-for-tat retaliation between trading partners that paralyses free traders with fear today simply did not happen.

“Notorious” Smoot-Hawley is a deliberately fabricated myth, plain and simple.  We should not allow this myth to paralyze our policy-making in the present day.

There is a basic unresolved paradox at the bottom of the very concept of trade war. If, as free traders insist, free trade is beneficial whether or not one’s trading partners reciprocate, then why would any rational nation start one, no matter how provoked? The only way to explain this is to assume that major national governments like the Chinese and the U.S.—governments which, whatever bad things they may have done, have managed to hold nuclear weapons for decades without nuking each other over trivial spats—are not players of realpolitik, but schoolchildren.

When the moneymen in Beijing, Tokyo, Berlin, and the other nations currently running trade surpluses against the U.S. start to ponder the financial realpolitik of exaggerated retaliation against the U.S. for any measures we may employ to bring our trade back into balance, they will discover the advantage is with us, not them. Because they are the ones with trade surpluses to lose, not us.

So our present position of weakness is, paradoxically, actually a position of strength.

Similarly, China can supposedly suddenly stop buying our Treasury Debt if we rock the boat. But this would immediately reduce the value of the trillion or so they already hold—not to mention destroying, by making their hostility overt, the fragile (and desperately-tended) delusion in the U.S. that America and China are still benign economic “partners” in a win-win economic relationship.

At the end of the day, China cannot force us to do anything economically that we don’t choose to. America is still a nuclear power. We can—an irresponsible but not impossible scenario—

repudiate our debt to them (or stop paying the interest) as the ultimate countermove to anything they might contemplate. More plausibly, we might simply restore the tax on the interest on foreign-held bonds that was repealed in 1984 thanks to Treasury Secretary Donald Regan.

Thus a certain amount of back-and-forth token retaliation (and loud squealing) is indeed likely if America starts defending its interests in trade as diligently as our trading partners have been defending theirs, but that’s it. The rest of the world engages in these struggles all the time without doing much harm; it will be no different if we join the party.

Until we do, America’s trade pacifism will simply continue to invite foreign economic aggression.

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

AFL-CIO president: Obama is aligned with tea party, not fixing jobs

Richard Trumka, president of union giant AFL-CIO, delivered a scathing review of President Barack Obama at a press breakfast Thursday morning. He accused him of abandoning Democratic ideals and aligning himself with the conservative tea party.

“This is a moment that working people and quite frankly history will judge President Obama on his presidency; will he commit all his energy and focus on bold solutions on the job crisis or will he continue to work with the Tea Party to offer cuts to middle class programs like Social Security all the while pretending the deficit is where our economic problems really lie,” Trumka said, Talking Points Memo’s Brian Beutler reported.

Trumka sits on the president’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, which “was created to provide non-partisan advice to the president on continuing to strengthen the nation’s economy and ensure the competitiveness of the United States,” according to its website.

Full Story Here: AFL-CIO president: Obama is aligned with tea party, not fixing jobs | The Raw Story.

Weather Satellites And Storm Warnings Threatened By Federal Budget Cuts

Detailed images taken by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellites over the last several days enabled weather forecasters to provide a fairly precise picture of just when and where Hurricane Irene was headed and how strong she would be. The satellites also relayed this critical information early enough so that people along the storm’s path had days to stock up on food and water and, if necessary, move to higher ground.

“A difference of five or 10 miles per hour in a hurricane can make a difference in as much as a foot of flooding,” said Dan Satterfield, a weatherman in Huntsville, Ala. “And every mile of accuracy you can get makes the forecast that much more accurate, allowing you to tell people where to evacuate.”

But with the recent decision by Congress to allocate less than half of the billion dollars of funding needed to maintain and upgrade the fleet, officials warn of an upcoming gap in the service relied upon by weather forecasters, as well as the armed forces, search-and-rescue teams, energy companies and climate modelers.

Full Story Here: Weather Satellites And Storm Warnings Threatened By Federal Budget Cuts.

Timebomb in Euroland: The Eurozone is Heading for a Crash.

Mike Whitney :-:

Bank funding costs are rising, liquidity is being choked off, and interbank lending has started to stall. A full-blown crisis can still be averted, but leaders will have to knuckle down and resolve the political issues fast. Otherwise the 17-member monetary union will fracture and the euro will be kaput. Here’s a clip from the Wall Street Journal:

“Commercial banks boosted their reliance on the European Central Bank, borrowing €2.82 billion ($4.07 billion) from an emergency lending facility on Tuesday … While the amount of borrowing is tiny … the increase from €555 million a day earlier, nonetheless suggest that some lenders are struggling to borrow from traditional funding sources.”(“Europe Banks Lean More on Emergency Funding”, Wall Street Journal)

Sure, it’s a pittance compared to the trillions floating around in the EU banking system, but the pattern is the same as it was in 2007 when the troubles began at French bank PNB Paribas. Back then, the problems seemed small, too, but things got out of hand quick. Over the following year, trillions in mortgage-backed securities (MBS) were downgraded forcing bigger and bigger losses on the bondholders, many of which were the nation’s largest banks. The bloodletting dragged on until September 2008, when Lehman blew up and the whole financial system went into cardiac arrest. The Fed had to rush to Wall Street’s rescue with $12 trillion in loans and other guarantees in hand just to keep the patient from croaking on the Emergency Room floor. Now it looks like history is repeating itself.

As the collateral the banks hold (mainly foreign sovereign bonds) continues to lose value, the banks will come under greater pressure making funding more costly and harder to get. In fact, the mad-scramble for short-term funding has already begun. Banks are hoarding capital just as they did after the Crash of ’08, depositing larger and larger amounts in overnight accounts with the ECB in order to avoid lending to the other banks. All of this is taking a toll on consumer and household lending which will inevitably push eurozone GDP further into the red. The negative feedback loop into the real economy will send unemployment higher while further crimping business investment. This is from Businessweek:

Full Story Here: Timebomb in Euroland: The Eurozone is Heading for a Crash..

The fruits of elite immunity

Less than three years ago, Dick Cheney was presiding over policies that left hundreds of thousands of innocent people dead from a war of aggression, constructed a worldwide torture regime, and spied on thousands of Americans without the warrants required by law, all of which resulted in his leaving office as one of the most reviled political figures in decades. But thanks to the decision to block all legal investigations into his chronic criminality, those matters have been relegated to mere pedestrian partisan disputes, and Cheney is thus now preparing to be feted — and further enriched — as a Wise and Serious Statesman with the release of his memoirs this week: one in which he proudly boasts (yet again) of the very crimes for which he was immunized. As he embarks on his massive publicity-generating media tour of interviews, Cheney faces no indictments or criminal juries, but rather reverent, rehabilitative tributes, illustrated by this, from Politico today:

Full Story Here: The fruits of elite immunity – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.

The U.S. Passed Mandatory Health Insurance In 1798 Under President And Founding Father, John Adams

Many people who oppose the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act”, also known as ‘Obamacare’, say the Founding Fathers wouldn’t have wanted the Government to make health insurance mandatory for private employees.

This is simply not true. In 1798, under 2nd President and Founding Father John Adams, the United States passed a law requiring mandatory health insurance for any private employees working on Maritime vessels. The bill was called “An Act for The Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen”

It’s safe to assume that John Adams, who was the first Vice President of this country, the 2nd President of this Country, one of the Founding Fathers, and was a key negotiator in the peace treaty between the United States and Britain, had a pretty clear idea of what the Founding Fathers would have been alright with.

Full Story Here: The U.S. Passed Mandatory Health Insurance In 1798 Under President And Founding Father, John Adams | Addicting Info.

It’s Time For A National Institute of People’s Medicine.

Pharmaceutical corporations are failing seriously. No, I don’t mean financially. Each of big pharma’s top five have annual revenues topping forty billion dollars. Instead the drug industry is floundering in its ability to provide the public with many of the basic medicines that are absolutely required for the treatment of a host of diseases.

First, there is an ongoing critical shortage of specific well-established medicines. The tragic result is that some patients may not receive life-saving, life-extending, or palliative therapies. This dearth of medications includes vinblastine and vincristine, two chemicals found in Madagascar’s Rosy Periwinkle. These two drugs revolutionized the therapy of childhood leukemia, changing the prognosis from almost certain death to nearly certain cure. Also increasingly scarce is Taxol (Paclitaxel), a gift from the Pacific Yew Tree and discovered through research financed by the National Cancer Institute. Since it’s launch in 1992, Taxol has been an essential component in the chemotherapy of breast and ovarian cancers as well as AIDS-associated Kaposi’s sarcoma. The global giant Bristol-Myers-Squibb generated well over ten billion dollars in revenues from this taxpayer-financed discovery. Another shortfall involves the cancer chemotherapy mainstay Cytarabine, employed in the therapy of leukemia and lymphoma. There is also a sparsity of the drug thyrogen, used in protocols to test for or treat thyroid cancer. Presently there are at least 14 generic cancer drugs in short supply. And the shortages don’t stop there.

Full Story Here: OpEdNews – Article: It’s Time For A National Institute of People’s Medicine..

The Fed’s Rescue Missed Main Street

FOR the last three years we have been told repeatedly by government officials that funneling hundreds of billions of dollars to large and teetering banks during the credit crisis was necessary to save the financial system, and beneficial to Main Street.

But this has been a hard sell to an increasingly skeptical public. As Henry M. Paulson Jr., the former Treasury secretary, told the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission back in May 2010, “I was never able to explain to the American people in a way in which they understood it why these rescues were for them and for their benefit, not for Wall Street.”

The American people were right to question Mr. Paulson’s pitch, as it turns out. And that became clearer than ever last week when Bloomberg News published fresh and disturbing details about the crisis-era bailouts.

Full Story Here: The Fed’s Rescue Missed Main Street – NYTimes.com.

Bill Moyers returning to weekly TV in January

Journalist Bill Moyers retired from weekly TV a year ago but now says he plans to return.

He said Monday he’ll be back in January with an hourlong interview show called Moyers & Company.

He says the new weekly show will not be carried by PBS, the home for much of his past programming. It will be distributed to public TV stations by American Public Television.

He recently hosted PBS’ Bill Moyers Journal. That concluded in April 2010.

The 77-year-old Moyers said his upcoming show will feature interviews with diverse voices and the goal of contributing “to the conversation of democracy.”

Moyers once worked in the administration of President Lyndon Johnson. He was also a commentator for CBS News and NBC News.

Full Story Here: Bill Moyers returning to weekly TV in January – USATODAY.com.

OPS; Great news for America. Great news for Democracy

Mosque Arson Suspect To Cops: ‘Christians Can Jihad Too’

A federal grand jury in Oregon indicted 24-year-old Cody Crawford on federal hate crime and arson charges for allegedly setting fire to a mosque. The fire followed the arrest of a Muslim man for allegedly plotting a terrorist attack on a Christmas tree lighting ceremony.

Federal officials said that Crawford set fire to the Salman Alfarisi Islamic Center in Corvallis, Oregon, near his home in the early morning hours of Nov. 28, less than two days after authorities arrested a Somali-American man after an FBI sting operation.

Court documents obtained by the Associated Press show that Crawford ranted against Muslims in his conversations with police and said that Christians were also capable of jihad.

Full Story Here: Mosque Arson Suspect To Cops: ‘Christians Can Jihad Too’ | TPMMuckraker.

Transforming the Liberal Checklist

Eric Schneiderman :-:  The Nation

Check off the boxes, copy the paragraph from two years ago, mail it in. As an election year approaches, I again face the piles of questionnaires that progressive organizations use to evaluate public officials. Environmentalists, feminists, campaign finance reformers, housing advocates and labor unions have all come to rely on these lists of our positions–often on issues that never even come up for a vote. It should come as no surprise that, for the most part, all we get out of this cumbersome process is a long line of “checklist liberals” who answer correctly but do little to advance the progressive causes that underlie the questionnaires.

I respectfully suggest that if we want to move beyond short- term efforts to slow down the bone-crushing machinery of the contemporary conservative movement and begin to build a meaningful movement of our own, we need to expand the job descriptions of our elected officials. To do this, we must consider the two distinct aspects of our work: transactional politics and transformational politics.

Transactional politics is pretty straightforward. What’s the best deal I can get on a gun-control or immigration-reform bill during this year’s legislative session? What do I have to do to elect a good progressive ally in November? Transactional politics requires us to be pragmatic about current realities and the state of public opinion. It’s all about getting the best result possible given the circumstances here and now.

Full Story Here: Transforming the Liberal Checklist | The Nation.

Free Trade – the Kiss of Death for Our Economy

If an enemy was seeking to hire someone to destroy America he might have hired the political leaders who created the foreign, undemocratic World Trade Organization (WTO), job killing North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the pending disastrous Korean-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA).

In 1994 there was NAFTA; an agreement that set out to reduce trade barriers and promote “free trade” between Mexico, Canada, and the United States (which turned out to be a disaster for Canada and the U.S.) Ross Perot’s comments “a giant sucking sound” turned out to be true.

In 2005 the US ratified CAFTA. Similar to NAFTA, this agreement attempted to eliminate trade barriers and widen the trade community. CAFTA included the Central American countries of Costa Rica, El Salvador Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and later the Dominican Republic.

Full Story Here: Free Trade – the Kiss of Death for Our Economy | Economy In Crisis.

Lines Blurring Between PACs and Candidates

One night last month, Mitt Romney strode into a dining room above Central Park that was packed with dozens of his wealthiest supporters, gathered there by a group of former campaign aides, to talk about his bid for the White House.

The event was not a fund-raiser for Mr. Romney’s campaign, however, but for Restore Our Future, a political action committee founded by his allies. And only when Mr. Romney left the room did one of the group’s officials stand up to brief the donors on their plans: to raise and spend millions of dollars in unrestricted campaign donations — something presidential candidates are forbidden to do themselves — to help elect Mr. Romney president.

Mr. Romney’s appearance underscored the increasingly blurry line between presidential candidates and the so-called Super PACs that have proliferated since a 2010 Supreme Court ruling allowed independent groups to raise unlimited amounts to promote candidates.

Full Story Here: Lines Blurring Between PACs and Candidates – NYTimes.com.

New IMF chief says urgent action needed to protect recovery

The new head of the IMF on Saturday urged global policymakers to pursue urgent action, including forcing European banks to bulk up their capital, to prevent a descent into a renewed world recession.

“Developments this summer have indicated we are in a dangerous new phase,” International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde said on Saturday at an annual conference hosted by the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank.

“The stakes are clear; we risk seeing the fragile recovery derailed. So we must act now,” she said.

Two years after the end of the worst of the financial crisis, growth in the United States and Europe is sputtering as debt burdens rise. Volatility in financial markets has intensified strains on banks, further undercutting the meager global recovery.

Full Story Here: New IMF chief says urgent action needed to protect recovery | The Raw Story.

Fresh oil slicks forming over Deepwater Horizon spill site 

Despite assurances from British oil company BP that no oil was present at the Deepwater Horizon site in the Gulf of Mexico, two Louisiana State University men have returned with video evidence of large blooms of crude oil swelling up to the water’s surface where the doomed oil rig once hovered.

Tests on the oil were inconclusive as far as linking it to the now-plugged oil well, but if it is from the Deepwater Horizon spill it could indicate the formation of fissures on the seabed, seeping oil into the ecosystem anew.

If so, that would mean the worst accidental release of oil in human history — a spill so bad, it took five months just to stop crude from flowing — isn’t quite over.

Full Story Here: Fresh oil slicks forming over Deepwater Horizon spill site | Raw Replay.

Poll suggests Americans starting to blame GOP for gridlock

A new AP-GfK poll contains some bad news for the Republican Party. Americans may be thoroughly disgusted with Congress — whose approval is down to an all-time low of 12% — but they increasingly blame the Republicans more than the Democrats for the legislative body’s failures.

According to Justin Sink at The Hill, “While 68 percent disapprove of congressional Democrats, 75 percent disapprove of congressional Republicans. And 50 percent of the country strongly disapproves of Republicans in Congress, up from just 39 percent in June.”

Sink further notes that “the Republican strategy of holding the line on tax increases might prove a tough sell, as well. Sixty-nine percent of those polled believed that some taxes will have to be increased for the government to balance the budget.”

The Associated Press pointed to the prolonged battle over raising the debt ceiling as a primary source of disillusionment, noting, “In interviews, some people said the debt standoff itself, which caused a crisis of confidence to ripple through world markets, made them wonder whether lawmakers are able to govern at all.”

Full Story Here: Poll suggests Americans starting to blame GOP for gridlock | The Raw Story.

Anti-gay Puerto Rican (R-PR) senator accused of posting naked pics on gay social app

A Puerto Rico senator has become the latest politician placed into controversy after allegedly posting sexual photos of himself online.

Senator Robert Arango, who was the Vice Chairman of George W.Bush and Dick Cheney’s Puerto Rico re-election committee in 2004, has been supposedly identified by the Puerto Rican TV show Dando Candela for placing naked pictures of himself on the popular gay social network application Grindr.

When asked about the pictures, Arango reportedly did not deny or confirm that it was him. The Latin news site Gunabee reports that the senator told the Dando Candela show, “You know I’ve been losing weight. As I shed that weight, I’ve been taking pictures. I don’t remember taking this particular picture but I’m not gonna say I didn’t take it. I’d tell you if I remembered taking the picture but I don’t.”

Full Story Here: Anti-gay Puerto Rican senator accused of posting naked pics on gay social app | The Raw Story.

Perry Says He Hasn’t ‘Backed Off Anything’ In His Book, Still Thinks Social Security Is Unconstitutional

During a campaign stop in Des Moines, Iowa today, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) reaffirmed all the views expressed in his book Fed Up!, including that Social Security is unconstitutional, despite previous attempts by his campaign staff to walk back the candidate’s words.

In Perry’s book, released just nine months ago, he writes on page 48 that Social Security is “by far the best example” of a program “violently tossing aside any respect for our founding principles.” On page 50, he goes on to say that we have Social Security “at the expense of respect for the Constitution and limited government.”

Last week, Communications Director Ray Sullivan tried to limit the damage from Perry’s book by saying that its contents were, as the Wall Street Journal writes, “not meant to reflect the governor’s current views on how to fix” Social Security.

Full Story Here: BREAKING: Perry Says He Hasn’t ‘Backed Off Anything’ In His Book, Still Thinks Social Security Is Unconstitutional | ThinkProgress.

How Disney Instills Greed and Consumerism in Babies as Young as Three Months Old

Few people have considered the hold that the Disney Corporation has not only on their own lives, but on the world as a whole.

In American culture, Disney has become synonymous with childhood. Present-day grandparents grew up watching the animated films, wearing Mickey Mouse pajamas and begging to go to Disneyland. But while it all seems innocent, few people have considered the hold that the Disney Corporation has not only on their own lives, but on the world as a whole.

Henry Giroux and Grace Pollock explore this relationship between consumer and industry in their book “The Mouse that Roared: Disney and the End of Innocence.” [Full disclosure: Henry Giroux is a member of Truthout's Board of Directors.]

Cuddly cartoon animals and whimsical fairy-tale stories are merely Disney’s public face. The expansive conglomerate is not limited to Disney film and theme parks. It also owns six motion picture studios, ABC television network and its 226 affiliated stations, multiple cable television networks, 227 radio stations, four music companies, three cruise lines, theatrical production companies, publishing houses, 15 magazine titles and five video game development studios. This media and culture monopoly goes unnoticed by most Americans, who just want to indulge their childhood fantasies as Disney so deftly enables with its movies, theme parks and merchandise.

Full Story Here: How Disney Instills Greed and Consumerism in Babies as Young as Three Months Old | Media | AlterNet.

Believers Think We Need Religion to Behave Like Good, Moral People — Here’s Why They’re Wrong

Morality is real, objective, and perfectly compatible with a worldview that includes nothing spooky, mystical or supernatural.

The most common stereotype about atheists, the most common reason why religious people fear and distrust us, is the belief that people who don’t believe in God have no reason to behave morally. In the view of the planet’s major religions, the way we know what’s right and what’s wrong is that God tells us so, and the reason we follow the rules is because we fear divine retribution if we break them. This worldview is simple and emotionally satisfying and to those who believe it, it’s a natural implication that a person who no longer believes in God has no reason not to indulge their every selfish desire.

Now, I’ve never claimed to speak for every atheist. Because nonbelievers are a diverse and quarrelsome lot, there may in fact be a few who think this way. But if there are, they’re staying well hidden. The vast majority of atheists, like the majority of human beings in general, are perfectly good and decent people. This should be no surprise, as the evidence shows that human beings all tend to have similar moral intuitions, regardless of whether we profess a religion. But that doesn’t address how an atheist justifies acting morally. When we’re wrestling with an ethical dilemma, how do we make up our minds? What can nonbelievers appeal to as a reason for their action?

Again, atheists are a diverse bunch. There are some who would argue that morality is just an opinion, a mere matter of taste, like preferring vanilla ice cream to chocolate. But I reject this view, just as I reject the view that morality can only come from obeying what people believe to be God’s will. I believe that morality is real, that it’s objective, and that it’s a thoroughly natural phenomenon that’s perfectly compatible with a worldview that includes nothing spooky, mystical, or supernatural.

Full Story Here: Believers Think We Need Religion to Behave Like Good, Moral People — Here’s Why They’re Wrong | Belief | AlterNet.

Is Thom Hartmann the Progressive Answer to Conservative Dominance of Talk-Radio?

Now in its fourth year, “The Thom Hartmann Show” ranked eighth on a talk-radio publication list, making him the most influential progressive voice on radio.

Thom Hartmann now hosts one of the most successful talk-shows — of any political stripe — in the United States.

For the fourth consecutive year, his internationally syndicated “The Thom Hartmann Show” is on the “Heavy Hundred” list in Talkers, a talk-radio industry publication. This year, though, it ranked eighth, which makes Hartmann the most influential progressive voice on the radio, ahead of such personalities as Stephanie Miller, Neal Boortz and Ed Schultz, who is now host of an MSNBC show.

No surprise, since Hartmann reaches close to three million listeners each week on radio alone. A TV version of his radio show reaches another 55 million homes worldwide. Not bad for a show that started at the Hartmanns’ dining room table in Montpelier, Vermont.

“We launched the show because we thought it was possible,” Hartmann told “Fair Game” recently, crediting his wife, Louise Hartmann, for the program’s success. The couple co-owns the show, which is a rarity in talk radio these days. Big-time talkers such as Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are hired guns for syndicated radio networks such as Premiere and Clear Channel. They don’t have to sell ads, or worry about the day-to-day finances; their sole job is to attract listeners.

Full Story Here: Is Thom Hartmann the Progressive Answer to Conservative Dominance of Talk-Radio? | | AlterNet.

5 Reasons Progressives Should Treat Ron Paul with Extreme Caution — ‘Cuddly’ Libertarian Has Some Very Dark Politics

He’s anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-black, anti-senior-citizen, anti-equality and anti-education, and that’s just the start.

There are few things as maddening in a maddening political season as the warm and fuzzy feelings some progressives evince for Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, the Republican presidential candidate. “The anti-war Republican,” people say, as if that’s good enough.

But Ron Paul is much, much more than that. He’s the anti-Civil-Rights-Act Republican. He’s an anti-reproductive-rights Republican. He’s a gay-demonizing Republican. He’s an anti-public education Republican and an anti-Social Security Republican. He’s the John Birch Society’s favorite congressman. And he’s a booster of the Constitution Party, which has a Christian Reconstructionist platform. So, if you’re a member of the anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-black, anti-senior-citizen, anti-equality, anti-education, pro-communist-witch-hunt wing of the progressive movement, I can see how he’d be your guy.

Paul first drew the attention of progressives with his vocal opposition to the invasion of Iraq. Coupled with the Texan’s famous call to end the Federal Reserve, that somehow rendered him, in the eyes of the single-minded, the GOP’s very own Dennis Kucinich. Throw in Paul’s opposition to the drug war and his belief that marriage rights should be determined by the states, and Paul seemed suitable enough to an emotionally immature segment of the progressive movement, a wing populated by people with privilege adequate enough to insulate them from the nasty bits of the Paul agenda. (Tough on you blacks! And you, women! And you, queers! And you, old people without money.)

Full Story Here: 5 Reasons Progressives Should Treat Ron Paul with Extreme Caution — ‘Cuddly’ Libertarian Has Some Very Dark Politics | Tea Party and the Right | AlterNet.

Prosecutor Declines Criminal Charges Against WI’s Justice Prosser for ‘Choke-hold’ on Fellow Justice

Prosser says hands on Bradley’s neck just ‘total reflex’…

The Republican special prosecutor recently appointed to investigate allegations by WI Supreme Court Justice Ann Walsh Bradley that her fellow anger-management challenged Justice David Prosser had placed her in a “choke-hold” during recent deliberations over the anti-union legislation of Prosser’s former colleague Gov. Scott Walker.

See Milwaukee’s Journal-Sentinel coverage of this news yesterday for the complete, insane details.

In a terse announcement from the prosecutor, Sauk County District Attorney Patricia Barrett would say only that she had “determined that no criminal charges will be filed against either Justice Bradley or Justice Prosser for the incident on June 13, 2011.”

Full Story Here: The BRAD BLOG : Prosecutor Declines Criminal Charges Against WI’s Justice Prosser for ‘Choke-hold’ on Fellow Justice.

Cesium leak equal to 168 ’45 A-bombs

NISA compares contamination to Hiroshima blast

The amount of radioactive cesium ejected by the Fukushima reactor meltdowns is about 168 times higher than that emitted in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, the government’s nuclear watchdog said Friday.

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency provided the estimate at the request of a Diet panel but noted that making a simple comparison between an instantaneous bomb blast and a long-term accidental leak is problematic and could lead to “irrelevant” results.

The report said the crippled Fukushima No. 1 plant has released 15,000 terabecquerels of cesium-137, which lingers for decades and can cause cancer, compared with the 89 terabecquerels released by the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

The report estimated each of the 16 isotopes released by the “Little Boy” bomb and 31 of those detected at the Fukushima plant. NISA has said the radiation released at Fukushima was about one-sixth of that released during the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

Full Story Here: Cesium leak equal to 168 ’45 A-bombs | The Japan Times Online.

Attention Governor Perry: Evolution is a fact

Richard Dawkins:-:

Q. Texas governor and GOP candidate Rick Perry, at a campaign event this week, told a boy that evolution is ”just a theory” with “gaps” and that in Texas they teach “both creationism and evolution.” Perry later added “God is how we got here.” According to a 2009 Gallup study , only 38 percent of Americans say they believe in evolution. If a majority of Americans are skeptical or unsure about evolution, should schools teach it as a mere “theory”? Why is evolution so threatening to religion?

A. There is nothing unusual about Governor Rick Perry. Uneducated fools can be found in every country and every period of history, and they are not unknown in high office. What is unusual about today’s Republican party (I disavow the ridiculous ‘GOP’ nickname, because the party of Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt has lately forfeited all claim to be considered ‘grand’) is this: In any other party and in any other country, an individual may occasionally rise to the top in spite of being an uneducated ignoramus. In today’s Republican Party ‘in spite of’ is not the phrase we need. Ignorance and lack of education are positive qualifications, bordering on obligatory. Intellect, knowledge and linguistic mastery are mistrusted by Republican voters, who, when choosing a president, would apparently prefer someone like themselves over someone actually qualified for the job.

Any other organization — a big corporation, say, or a university, or a learned society – -when seeking a new leader, will go to immense trouble over the choice. The CVs of candidates and their portfolios of relevant experience are meticulously scrutinized, their publications are read by a learned committee, references are taken up and scrupulously discussed, the candidates are subjected to rigorous interviews and vetting procedures. Mistakes are still made, but not through lack of serious effort.

Full Story Here: Attention Governor Perry: Evolution is a fact – On Faith – The Washington Post.

Prosser admits touching Bradley’s neck; she says she suffered no harm

Supreme Court Justice David Prosser acknowledged to detectives touching Justice Ann Walsh Bradley’s neck – even feeling its warmth – and Bradley acknowledged getting “face to face to confront him” but suffering no physical harm from the contact.

The justices’ statements in separate interviews with law enforcement were released Friday by the Dane County Sheriff’s Department. The 117 pages of investigation records provide intimate details about the physical altercation on June 13 between the two justices and the increasing dysfunction on the state’s highest court.

The interviews include cross-claims of justices accusing one another of shouting, slamming doors, being physically threatening and locking their doors at night because of safety concerns. At least a couple of statements appeared to be contradicted by those of other justices.

Full Story Here: Prosser admits touching Bradley’s neck; she says she suffered no harm – JSOnline.

Britain enacts blanket ban on protests

The British government has applied a blanket ban on all kind of marches and protest gatherings in London amid fears of violence and disorder.

The Home Office announced the blanket ban on all marches in five London boroughs for 30 days starting from September 2, the Independent reported.

Home Secretary Theresa May banned all marches in Tower Hamlets, east London, and four neighbouring boroughs in the capital for a 30-day period following a request from Scotland Yard Acting Commissioner Tim Godwin.

The move comes amid fears of violence and disorder if the marches were allowed to go ahead.

“Having carefully considered the legal tests in the Public Order Act and balanced rights to protest against the need to ensure local communities and property are protected, I have given my consent to a ban on all marches in Tower Hamlets and four neighbouring boroughs for a 30-day period”, said the Home Secretary.

“I know that the Metropolitan Police are committed to using their powers to ensure communities and properties are protected”, added Theresa May.

Full Story Here: PressTV – Britain enacts blanket ban on protests.

How Dangerous is This Moment?

Jeff Madrick, author of the Age of Greed, says with wages flat austerity measures and the domination of finance we face a very dangerous decade

Max Keiser Report: U.S. Economic Model is a CRIMINAL Model

In the second half of the show Max talks to Catherine Austin Fitts about exponential fraud and the financial coup d’etat.

U.S. Economic Model is a CRIMINAL Model : Keiser Report

In the second half of the show Max talks to Catherine Austin Fitts about exponential fraud and the financial coup d’etat.

World is witnessing financial WWIII

Max Keiser – “…Switzerland has NEGATIVE interest rates right now….” They are charging people to keep money in the bank..  Max Predicts it will happen in the US and Europe also.

Nuclear Plant Under ‘Unusual Event’

Aluminum Siding Hits Calvert Cliffs

Calvert Cliffs, a Southern Maryland nuclear power plant, automatically went offline overnight. An “unusual event” status remained in effect Sunday morning.

Full Story Here: Nuclear Plant Under ‘Unusual Event’ – Baltimore News Story – WBAL Baltimore.

Republican Terrorist Arrested in Oregon

Yesterday I saw on television that family foundations of the super rich are financing the Republican meme of hatred toward Muslims to the tune of $42 million. Sadly their violent rhetoric has not fallen on deaf ears, as we have seen example after example of Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christians, showing their “love” through violence. Ever here in progressive Oregon, we are not immune.

A 24-year-old Oregon man — who told police that he was a “Christian warrior” — has been charged with a hate crime for allegedly firebombing a mosque last November.

Cody Crawford faces 10 to 30 years if convicted of firebombing the Salman Alfarisi Islamic Center, which is about 200 feet from his house. Although his DNA has been connected to the crime scene, Crawford has maintained that he’s “100 percent innocent.”

In an unrelated incident, Crawford had ranted to police about Muslims, according to court documents.

“You look like Obama,” he said to a McMinnville officer in December. “You are a Muslim like him. Jihad goes both ways. Christians can jihad too.”

Full Story Here: Republican Terrorist Arrested in Oregon » Politics Plus.

9/11 After A Decade: Have We Learned Anything?

In a few days it will be the tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001. How well has the US government’s official account of the event held up over the decade?

Not very well. The chairman, vice chairman, and senior legal counsel of the 9/11 Commission wrote books partially disassociating themselves from the commission’s report. They said that the Bush administration put obstacles in their path, that information was withheld from them, that President Bush agreed to testify only if he was chaperoned by Vice President Cheney and neither were put under oath, that Pentagon and FAA officials lied to the commission and that the commission considered referring the false testimony for investigation for obstruction of justice.

In their book, the chairman and vice chairman, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, wrote that the 9/11 Commission was “set up to fail.” Senior counsel John Farmer, Jr., wrote that the US government made “a decision not to tell the truth about what happened,” and that the NORAD “tapes told a radically different story from what had been told to us and the public.” Kean said, “We to this day don’t know why NORAD told us what they told us, it was just so far from the truth.”

Most of the questions from the 9/11 families were not answered. Important witnesses were not called. The commission only heard from those who supported the government’s account. The commission was a controlled political operation, not an investigation of events and evidence. Its membership consisted of former politicians. No knowledgeable experts were appointed to the commission.

Full Story Here: 9/11 After A Decade: Have We Learned Anything?.

Why are we letting corporate Supremists steal our democracy?

Jim Hightower :-:

Bill Watterson is Mark Twain–with a drawing pen. He is a master cartoonist, but also a sharp-witted observer of the absurd, with an impish sense of humor. From 1985-1995, Watterson penned “Calvin and Hobbes,” the truly marvelous comic strip that featured six-year-old Calvin and his stuffed tiger Hobbes. In Calvin’s inventive and iconoclastic mind, Hobbes was a genuine tiger (and his best friend) and they shared boundless adventures that challenged conventional thinking and defied authority, often crashing right through the prescribed social order of the ‘real’ world.

A recurring theme in the strip was a two-player baseball competition in which both the kid and the tiger simply made up the rules as they went. In one strip, Calvin has hit the ball thrown by Hobbes, and he’s scampering toward home plate:

Full Story Here: Hightower Lowdown | Why are we letting corporate Supremists steal our democracy from us?.

Women Age Better If They Have Active Sex Lives: Study

Remember what great sex lives some of the fabulously post-60 “Golden Girls” seemed to have? Turns out that wasn’t unrealistic, according to a new study out of the University of California, San Diego.

The research examined the sex lives of women between the ages of 60 and 89 and found those who enjoyed an active sex life had a better quality of life and were happier, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.

Though sexual activity was lower in older woman — “seventy per cent of women in their sixties reported some sexual activity in the previous six months, a figure which dropped to 57 per cent among women in their seventies and 31 per cent among those in their eighties,” according to the report — and the women studied were less likely than younger women to become aroused or climax, the results showed a majority of the women ranked their sex lives between moderately satisfied and very satisfied, according to the Telegraph.

Full Story Here: Women Age Better If They Have Active Sex Lives: Study.

UFO Sightings Increase 67 Percent In 3 Years, History Channel Investigates Unexplained Aerial Phenomena

Unemployment, gas prices, and fear over global warming aren’t the only things skyrocketing — so are mysterious objects rocketing through the sky.

The Mutual UFO Network — the largest privately funded UFO research organization in the world — tells The Huffington Post that more people than ever are reporting unidentified flying objects, mostly in the United States and Canada.

“Over the past year, we’ve been averaging 500 sighting reports a month, compared to about 300 three years ago [67 percent],” MUFON international director Clifford Clift said.

“And I get one or two production companies contacting me every week, wanting to do stories on UFOs.”

Full Story Here: UFO Sightings Increase 67 Percent In 3 Years, History Channel Investigates Unexplained Aerial Phenomena.

The Real Obama

ALEXANDER COCKBURN :-:

The White House that shook in last Tuesday’s earthquake has been home to its present incumbent for 32 months. Obama wasn’t around to watch the furniture shake. He’s up on Martha’s Vineyard for the third year in a row, with Michelle and their two daughters, bunkered down in a $25,000-a-week holiday rental of a lush 28-acre estate in the little town of Chilmark.

He’s keeping a low profile. Words like “standoffish” roll petulantly off the tongues of the island’s liberal elites. They were spoiled by Bill Clinton who spent six presidential vacations on the Vineyard. No renter he. Bill free-loaded on rich pals and party donors, mostly synonymous. No one could ever accuse Bill of being standoffish, though he confided to Vernon Jordan that he preferred Jackson Hole, Wyoming, to Martha’s Vineyard as a vacation spot since it was impossible to get “pussy” in the stuffy Massachusetts resort.

Obama’s standoffishness includes – I am informed by one knowledgeable Martha’s Vineyard local – failure to show at an exclusive fundraiser, also to a party of his friend Henry Louis Gates, the Harvard prof whose July 2009 spat with the Cambridge police prompted the normally hyper-prudent Obama to say the cops had acted “stupidly” – probably the most vivid off-the-cuff judgment of his entire presidency. Perhaps the hyper-prudence accounted for failure to appear chez Gates last week

Full Story Here: The Real Obama » Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names.

How Do We Stop the Relentless Expansion of the American Empire? First, Uncover the Truth About It

AlterNet has dedicated some serious editorial muscle to do investigative reporting on US military operations around the globe — can you help?

A few weeks ago, in a conversation with U.S. Special Operations Command spokesman Colonel Tim Nye, Nick Turse — one of the great investigative reporters on military power and national security — learned something truly shocking. He found out that, on any given day, American commandos are carrying out secret missions in 70 countries. And here is some startling news — by the end of the year, that number is likely to reach 120.

That’s right. You read that correctly. America’s secret commandos are carrying out operations in 120 countries around the world. What Nick learned provides striking new evidence of a rising clandestine Pentagon power elite, waging a secret war in about 60% of the world’s nations — a far larger number than was previously acknowledged.This represents a huge expansion by the Obama administration over that of George W. Bush, who deployed “Special Ops” troops in 60 countries.

As Turse points out: Without the knowledge of the American public, a secret unit within the U.S. military — U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) — has grown into a combined force of startling proportions. Made up of the Army’s “Green Berets” and Rangers, Navy SEALs, Air Force Air Commandos, and Marine Corps Special Operations teams, in addition to specialized helicopter crews, boat teams, civil affairs personnel, para-rescuemen, and even battlefield air-traffic controllers and special operations weathermen, SOCOM carries out the United States’ most specialized and shadowy missions. These include assassinations, counterterrorist raids, long-range reconnaissance, intelligence analysis, foreign troop training, and weapons of mass destruction counter-proliferation operations.

Full Story Here: How Do We Stop the Relentless Expansion of the American Empire? First, Uncover the Truth About It | Activism & Vision | AlterNet.

Free Trade – Destined to Lead to America’s Collapse

Too many Americans are blissfully or blatantly unaware of the true nature of America’s economic condition. Americans can see the U.S. is hurting, but few know the root causes of our pain.

Americans are saddled with debt, both personal and national. However, many Americans do not feel the pain and economic destruction this debt is causing to its full extent. Our lifestyle is being temporarily supported by debt and imports. When the money from our creditor nations stops, so will the imports – we will become a bankrupt nation.

We have sold 16,613 of our best companies in just 30 years.

This means our wealth, our technology and our jobs have been moving to other nations, replacing high paying jobs with service sector jobs. With the absence of these companies we no longer have the means to provide for ourselves – we have sold off our self-sufficiency.

Full Story Here: Free Trade – Destined to Lead to America’s Collapse | Economy In Crisis.

A Cooperative Economy: The Time is Now

I am impressed by the amount of knowledge in our communities. There are countless skills among those who are currently unemployed and underemployed and those who have been laid off during this recession.

In more and more businesses, the tasks and responsibilities are being piled up on smaller staffs and overworked employees, many of whom find themselves increasingly fed up with top-down management that doesn’t appreciate them.

In fact, much of our recession can be attributed to the lack of input from workers and small businesses. Our economy has been at the mercy of too few hands over the last several decades. Now many folks are using whatever skill they have to get by in a world with fewer local jobs and many, many underemployed people.

Why should so much talent go to waste?

Full Story Here: A Cooperative Economy: The Time is Now — Green For All.

Michael Spence, Nobel Prize-Winning Economist: 50 Percent Chance Of Global Recession

Michael Spence, professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business and winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in economics, told Bloomberg Television Wednesday that there’s “probably a 50 percent” chance of the global economy slipping into recession.

The possibility of the U.S. dipping back into recession has been of particular concern to economists. And Spence says any significant downturn at home would likely spread throughout the globe.

“I’m quite worried,” Spence told Bloomberg Television in an interview in Hong Kong. “A combined downward dip in Europe and America, which is a good chunk of the industrialized economies, I’m quite sure will take down growth in China particularly, and that will then immediately spread to the rest of the emerging economies.”

Full Story Here: Michael Spence, Nobel Prize-Winning Economist: 50 Percent Chance Of Global Recession.

“Worst Persons”- Countdown with Keith Olbermann

Countdown with Keith Olbermann 08-26-2011 5 – Worst Persons

Glenn Mulcaire names News of the World staff behind phone hacking

Private investigator passes names on to Steve Coogan’s lawyers, in accordance with court order

Private investigator Glenn Mulcaire has revealed the names of the News of the World staff who instructed him to carry out phone hacking, his solicitor has confirmed.

The information was passed in a letter to Steve Coogan‘s lawyers in accordance with a court order.

Mulcaire had applied for permission to appeal against the order, which was made in February, but this was denied and he was compelled to pass over the details by Friday.

Full Story Here: Glenn Mulcaire names News of the World staff behind phone hacking | Media | guardian.co.uk.

Scientists discover massive underground river 13,000 feet beneath the Amazon

Researchers at Brazil’s National Observatory have discovered evidence of a massive underground river flowing deep beneath the Amazon River, reports the AFP.

Presenting this week at the 12th International Congress of the Brazilian Geophysical Society in Rio de Janeiro, Elizabeth Tavares Pimentel reported the existence of a 6,000-kilometer-long (3,700-mile) river flowing some 4,000 meters (13,000 feet) under the Amazon.

Full Story Here: Sustainable Ecosystems and Community News: Scientists discover massive underground river 13,000 feet beneath the Amazon.

Bernanke Tells The Nation He’ll Deliver High Unemployment For Years

As I urged below, I think the most important part of Ben Bernanke’s speech today is what it does to shape expectations. The news isn’t good. Ben Bernanke is telling people not only that the Fed won’t offer any new stimulus to demand, but that if a demand surge happens through some other means, he’s likely to step in to strangle the economy:

Consequently, although we expect a moderate recovery to continue and indeed to strengthen over time, the Committee has marked down its outlook for the likely pace of growth over coming quarters. With commodity prices and other import prices moderating and with longer-term inflation expectations remaining stable, we expect inflation to settle, over coming quarters, at levels at or below the rate of 2 percent, or a bit less, that most Committee participants view as being consistent with our dual mandate.

In light of its current outlook, the Committee recently decided to provide more specific forward guidance about its expectations for the future path of the federal funds rate. In particular, in the statement following our meeting earlier this month, we indicated that economic conditions–including low rates of resource utilization and a subdued outlook for inflation over the medium run–are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels for the federal funds rate at least through mid-2013. That is, in what the Committee judges to be the most likely scenarios for resource utilization and inflation in the medium term, the target for the federal funds rate would be held at its current low levels for at least two more years.

Full Story Here: At Jackson Hole, Bernanke Tells The Nation He’ll Deliver High Unemployment For Years | ThinkProgress.

Rick Perry Conspired With Multinational Bank To Raise Revenues Off The Deaths Of Texas Teachers

Writing for the Huffington Post, reporters Jason Cherkis and Zach Carter published a jaw-dropping story yesterday about a scheme by Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) to “set up a business of teacher death speculation.” Perry and his officials entered negotiations in 2003 with the Switzerland-based multinational bank UBS to allow the firm to buy life insurance policies on public teachers, then package the policies into securities that could be sold to speculators across the world. As teachers died, the securities would become profitable, and the money from the plans would be split between UBS and the Texas government.

According to sources and notes provided to the Huffington Post, the Perry administration solicited support for the idea from teacher associations, and pressed a deal where teachers would receive between $50 and $100 to sign a contract granting UBS the right to bet on their death using life insurance policies. Perry’s budget director Mike Morrissey said it would take up to 12 years for Texas to “earn” money from the scheme, but eventually the state would gain a $700 million windfall if the system could recruit 40,000 retired teachers.

An intriguing twist to the story is former Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX), who joined UBS as a top executive after he left the Senate and has served as a political mentor to Perry since the late ’80s. Gramm, an architect of Wall Street deregulation while in Congress, aggressively lobbied the “gruesome” deal:

Full Story Here: Rick Perry Conspired With Multinational Bank To Raise Revenues Off The Deaths Of Texas Teachers | ThinkProgress.

Constituent Slams GOP Rep. Over Anti-Tax Pledge: ‘We Are Your Consituents, Not Grover Norquist’

The litany of Republican politicians willingly tethered to the demands and direction of anti-tax activist Grover Norquist is no longer sitting well with Americans who overwhelmingly support raising taxes on the wealthy to address the deficit. GOP freshman Rep. Chris Gibson (NY) faced a crowd of his constituents at a town hall in Millerton, New York Tuesday who demanded to know why he signed Norquist’s pledge barring any and all tax increases without consulting those he represents. “You didn’t sign this on my behalf. You didn’t ask me,” noted one constituent. “You didn’t ask me. We are your constituents, not Grover Norquist,” she added to resounding applause. Later quoting former GOP Sen. Alan Simpson who asked “Who is Grover Norquist the slave of,” the constituent asked Gibson, “By association, I would like to know who are you the slave of?” Watch it:

Full Story Here: Constituent Slams GOP Rep. Over Anti-Tax Pledge: ‘We Are Your Consituents, Not Grover Norquist’ | ThinkProgress.

Michele Bachmann Would Consider Lowering Minimum Wage To Match Cost Of Overseas Labor

During a campaign stop in Florida, the Associated Press reports that Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) said she would consider lowering the minimum wage. Her comments came in response to a question from a journalist regarding whether changes to the minimum wage should be considered to balance the cost of labor here and overseas. “I’m not married to anything. I’m not saying that’s where I’m going to go,” she replied. Although Bachmann’s comments were reportedly given in the context of creating jobs, a post by the Economy Policy Institute explains why such a policy would mostly just stimulate poverty.

Full Story Here: Michele Bachmann Would Consider Lowering Minimum Wage To Match Cost Of Overseas Labor | ThinkProgress.

OPS: Republicans are desperate to ‘win’ the race to the bottom and complete their 30 year mission to make the US a 3rd world nation

GOP Congressmen Put Constituents Who Asked Tough Questions On A ‘Watch List’

In recent weeks GOP congressmen have resorted to all sorts of underhanded schemes to avoid interacting with their angry constituents back home over August recess. Now two Republican freshmen, Reps. Daniel Webster (R-FL) and Tim Griffin (R-AZ), are taking this trend one step further, using disturbing intimidation tactics and “watch lists” to discourage constituents from asking them questions:

Rep. Webster’s Winter Garden, Florida district office gave out a “Watch List” of six Floridians who had asked questions at Webster’s previous town halls. The list, with the header “For the Media,” included names, photographs, and questions that members of the media should ask them.

The Watch List itself doesn’t contain any information on who wrote it or where it comes from.The memos surfaced in Arkansas in connection to the office of Rep. Tim Griffin, and were traced back to Rep. Webster’s office.

Full Story Here: GOP Congressmen Put Constituents Who Asked Tough Questions On A ‘Watch List’ | ThinkProgress.

Unions Take the Lead

For a long time, I have said that Democrats need to take a more grass roots approach to politics, putting quality progressives in office locally, at the state level, and federally, effectively taking control of the entire party away from corporate DINOs. While in national elections, even the worst Democrats are an improvement over the best Republicans, most of our work and dollars need to be directed at those Democrats who will best represent us. The AFL-CIO is taking the lead to do these very things.

Faced with hostility from Democrats and Republicans alike, as well as scant hope that his organizational objectives can be accomplished, one of the most powerful union officials in the country is pledging to fundamentally revamp the way his outfit conducts political business.

In an interview with The Huffington Post, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka called the current climate “absolutely” the worst he has seen during the course of his 40-year career in organized labor. His 11-million-plus federation has been forced to adjust, he said, and is making a concerted push to expand their campaign operation so the organization can better pressure lawmakers while in office, and not just on the campaign trail.

Full Story Here: Unions Take the Lead » Politics Plus.

Study: Tea Party Is Least Popular Group

Over the past week or so, there has been considerable coverage of the results of new study on the tea party that tracked the rise of the “movement” from 2006.

The first news that came out the study, which was introduced by its authors — David E. Campbell, an associate professor of political science at Notre Dame, and Robert D. Putnam, a professor of public policy at Harvard, who are also the co-authors of the book, “American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us” — in a New York Times’ piece titled, “Crashing the Tea Party,” was that they found yet more evidence that the most durable myth about the phenomenon — that it is a grassroots uprising of what Profs. Campbell and Putnam called “nonpartisan political neophytes” — is patently false.

To the contrary, their research underscored what many observers have long-suspected — that the tea party is really nothing more than the same racist social conservatives who have been seeking dominion over American politics since the Reagan era.

Full Story Here: Study: Tea Party Is Least Popular Group.

3 Things That Must Happen for Us To Rise Up and Defeat the Corporatocracy

Most Americans oppose rule by the corporatocracy but don’t have the tools to fight back. Here are three things we need to create a real people’s movement.

Transforming the United States into something closer to a democracy requires: 1) knowledge of how we are getting screwed; 2) pragmatic tactics, strategies, and solutions; and 3) the “energy to do battle.”

The majority of Americans oppose the corporatocracy (rule by giant corporations, the extremely wealthy elite, and corporate-collaborator government officials); however, many of us have given up hope that this tyranny can be defeated. Among those of us who continue to be politically engaged, many focus on only one of the requirements—knowledge of how we are getting screwed. And this singular focus can result in helplessness. It is the two other requirements that can empower, energize, and activate Team Democracy— a team that is currently at the bottom of the standings in the American Political League.

1. Knowledge of How We are Getting Screwed

Full Story Here: 3 Things That Must Happen for Us To Rise Up and Defeat the Corporatocracy | | AlterNet.

Bernanke’s Perry Problem

Paul Krugman :-:

As I write this, investors around the world are anxiously awaiting Ben Bernanke’s speech at the annual Fed gathering at Jackson Hole, Wyo. They want to know whether Mr. Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, will unveil new policies that might lift the U.S. economy out of what is looking more and more like a quasi-permanent state of depressed demand and high unemployment.

But I’ll be shocked if Mr. Bernanke proposes anything significant — that is, anything likely to make any serious dent in unemployment or offer any serious boost to growth.

Why don’t I expect much from Mr. Bernanke? In two words: Rick Perry.

O.K., I don’t mean that Mr. Perry, the governor of Texas, is personally standing in the way of effective monetary policy. Not yet, anyway. Instead, I’m using Mr. Perry — who has famously threatened Mr. Bernanke with dire personal consequences if he pursues expansionary monetary policy before the 2012 election — as a symbol of the political intimidation that is killing our last remaining hope for economic recovery.

Full Story Here: Bernanke’s Perry Problem – NYTimes.com.

Congressmen use intimidation tactics at town halls

More Buyer’s Remorse:

At least two GOP House freshmen, U.S. Reps. Daniel Webster (R-FL) and Tim Griffin (R-AR) are using tactics out of the McCarthy playbook to supposedly keep order at their town halls.

Rep. Webster’s Winter Garden, Florida district office gave out a “Watch List” of six Floridians who had asked questions at Webster’s previous town halls. The list, with the header “For the Media,” included names, photographs, and questions that members of the media should ask them.

The Watch List itself doesn’t contain any information on who wrote it or where it comes from. The memos surfaced in Arkansas in connection to the office of Rep. Tim Griffin, and were traced back to Rep. Webster’s office.

With black and white photos that resemble police surveillance, some of them pulled from the individuals’ Facebook profiles, the memo is clearly meant to intimidate these six people and anyone else who might stand up and ask a question of their elected representative. At a Griffin town hall, staffers were handing out the Watch List to attendees, calling it their “homework.” Griffin staffers were also spotted taking photos and shooting video of attendees, creating an extra layer of intimidation.

More Buyer’s Remorse: Congressmen use intimidation tactics at town halls.

U.S. Offers Key Support to Canadian Pipeline

The State Department gave a crucial green light on Friday to a proposed 1,711-mile pipeline that would carry heavy oil from oil sands in Canada across the Great Plains to terminals in Oklahoma and the Gulf Coast.

The project, which would be the longest oil pipeline outside of Russia and China, has become a potent symbol in a growing fight that pits energy security against environmental risk, a struggle highlighted by last year’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

By concluding that the $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline would have minimal effect on the environment, President Obama would risk alienating environmental activists, who gave him important support in the 2008 election and were already upset by his recent decisions to expand domestic oil drilling and delay clean air rules. Pipeline opponents have protested in front of the White House for a week, resulting in nearly 400 arrests.

Full Story Here: U.S. Offers Key Support to Canadian Pipeline – NYTimes.com.

A Spiritually Transformed Military with Ambassadors for Christ in Uniform

Throughout the U.S. military, with chapters on virtually every military installation worldwide, lurks an organization of over 15,500 fundamentalist Christian military officers who think their real duty is not to protect and defend the Constitution, but to raise up “a spiritually transformed military, with ambassadors for Christ in uniform, empowered by the Holy Spirit.” These officers belong to an organization called the Officers’ Christian Fellowship (OCF), and range in rank from future officers in ROTC and at the U.S. military’s service academies to generals and admirals.

Unlike the other fundamentalist Christian para-church military ministries, which employ retired military personnel to be their “insiders,” about 80 percent of OCF members are true insiders. They are current military officers, many of them commanders with authority over large numbers of service members and even entire bases and larger commands.

When people ask why our service members don’t just complain through military channels about religious issues, and instead come to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) for help, our answer is usually just to say that these service members are afraid to go to their military superiors. Most people, however, probably don’t understand why so many service members have this fear of going to their superiors and filing formal complaints, so I thought a little more of an explanation might be helpful, and explaining a bit about OCF is a good place to start.

Full Story Here: | A Spiritually Transformed Military with Ambassadors for Christ in Uniform.

Quotes on Dominionism From the Apostles and Prophets of the New Apostolic Reformation

Right Wing Watch has a post today about the Religious Right’s collective amnesia about Dominionism. Following the national attention given to the issue, there have been claims that Dominionism is almost nonexistent among the Religious Right, and simply a paranoid fantasy of liberal journalists. In response, Right Wing Watch had another post titled “If Dominionism Doesn’t Exist, Someone Forgot to Tell the Dominionists.” Peter Montgomery also had an excellent rebuttal to the denials at Religion Dispatches. Following is a collection of quotes about Dominionism and the “Seven Mountains Mandate” from various apostles and prophets of the New Apostolic Reformation.

Chip Berlet and Frederick Clarkson have written extensively about Dominionism and Dominion Theology and point out subtle but significant differences that should be taken into consideration when using the terminology. Berlet has written about the difference between Soft Dominionism or Christian Nationalism and Hard Dominionism, which is theocratic.

Because the New Apostolic Reformation is evolving, it is difficult to know where to place its leadership in the spectrum of Dominionist ideologies. There have been significant trends among some of the leadership toward a more aggressive and political application of their Dominionist beliefs in the last few years, and some are more forthright about their intentions than others.

Full Story Here: | Quotes on Dominionism From the Apostles and Prophets of the New Apostolic Reformation.

GOPer Complains About $174,000 Salary, Says His Job doesn’t Mean Much to Him

Rep. Steve Southerland (R-FL) doesn’t seem pleased with his $174,00 per year salary we as taxpayers pay him. In fact, he thinks it’s a lean salary. The benefits package that comes with serving his constituents in the House is worthy of envy, but not to him. No, really.

Southerland doesn’t merely complain about his salary, he went full out drama queen on his constituents.

Florida Capital News reports:

“And by the way, did I mention? They’re shooting at us. There is law-enforcement security in this room right now, and why is that?” Southerland told about 125 people in an auditorium at the Westminster Oaks retirement community. “If you think this job pays too much, with those kinds of risks and cutting me off from my family business, I’ll just tell you: This job don’t mean that much to me. I had a good life in Panama City.”

Full Story Here: FreakOutNation » GOPer Complains About $174,000 Salary, Says His Job doesn’t Mean Much to Him.

‘Secret’ Fed Loans Reveal Divide Between ‘Wall Street Aristocracy’ And Ordinary Americans

If you’ve not yet read the recent piece by Bradley Keoun and Phil Kuntz of Bloomberg News, “Wall Street Aristocracy Got $1.2 Trillion in Fed’s Secret Loans,” please go read the whole thing. The report hits many of my favorite sweet-spots. By far the most important is the fact that, for all the reporting on the Troubled Asset Relief Program and the way every picayune repayment is worthy of an excited press release from the Department of the Treasury, the underreported story of the bailout remains the trillions of taxpayer dollars that the Federal Reserve has disbursed to major financial institutions in an attempt to make them whole, making the TARP just an overhyped sliver of the entire bailout.

Of secondary interest is that Bloomberg takes home this story thanks to the efforts of the late, great Mark Pittman. This week’s disclosures are the fruits of a lengthy legal battle that Bloomberg has waged with the Federal Reserve, which began with Pittman’s 2008 FOIA requests. Pittman, who passed away in November of 2009, produced some of the bailout era’s most important pieces of reporting — including this one, in which he described in detail the terrible deal that American taxpayers got in the whole process.

Speaking of, you definitely are going to want to scroll down in the Keoun/Kuntz piece to see for yourselves what sort of collateral your major financial institutions are permitted to put up in return for $1.2 trillion of your money:

Full Story Here: ‘Secret’ Fed Loans Reveal Divide Between ‘Wall Street Aristocracy’ And Ordinary Americans.

Rick Perry Sought State Profits From Teacher Life Insurance Scheme

Two weeks before Thanksgiving in 2003, top officials from Texas Governor Rick Perry’s office pitched an unusual offer to the state’s retired teachers: Let’s get into the death business.

Perry’s budget director, Mike Morrissey, laid out a pitch that was both ambitious and risky, according to notes summarizing the meeting provided to The Huffington Post.

According to the notes, which were authenticated by a meeting participant, the Perry administration wanted to help Wall Street investors gamble on how long retired Texas teachers would live. Perry was promising the state big money in exchange for helping Swiss banking giant UBS set up a business of teacher death speculation.

All they had to do was convince retirees to let UBS buy life insurance policies on them. When the retirees died, those policies would pay out benefits to Wall Street speculators, and the state, supposedly, would get paid for arranging the bets. The families of the deceased former teachers would get nothing.

Full Story Here: Rick Perry Sought State Profits From Teacher Life Insurance Scheme.

Fallout from the Fed’s secret $1.2 trillion bank bailout

Did you know the Federal Reserve secretly loaned up to as much as $1.2 trillion to U.S. and foreign banks? This information has now been released and we even know the institutions that got the bulk of the funds. Can you say, Morgan Stanley (MS), Citigroup (C), Bank of America (BAC). Due to the inflammatory nature of this information, the Fed has been reluctant to share it with Americans, but now it has now come out due to a lengthy Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) investigation by Bloomberg.

This blog post by Barry Ritholtz gives details about a secretive $1.2 trillion bailout program by the Federal Reserve [emphasis added]:

…We knew that Citigroup (C), who borrowed $99.5 billion, and Bank of America (BAC), who took loans of $91.4 billion, were in trouble. I’ve been saying for the better part of 3 years now that they were, and likely still are mostly insolvent. But the surprise data point was Morgan Stanley (MS), got as much as $107.3 billion in loans, with no strings attached.

…Imagine if the government and the Federal Reserve were run not by knaves and fools and Wall Street sycophants, but instead, were run honestly for the benefit of the taxpaying voter. Imagine the goal was saving the banking system (not the banks), and the financial rescue was for the benefit of the taxpayers, not the bondholders…

Full Story Here: Fallout from the Fed’s secret $1.2 trillion bank bailout – Fundmastery Blog – MarketWatch.

Approaching the Collapse: Don’t Panic, Go Organic

So-called “business as usual” is neither sustainable, nor even possible, for much longer. Out-of-control energy corporations, Wall Street, the Pentagon, agribusiness/biotech corporations, and indentured politicians have driven us to the brink. They tell us: don’t worry; trust the experts, things will soon return to “normal.” But reality and common sense tell a different story.

Extreme weather, crop failures, commodities speculation, land grabs, escalating prices, soil degradation, depleted aquifers, routine contamination, food-related disease, and mass hunger represent the “new norm” for food and farming. The global agricultural system, with the exception of the rapidly growing organic sector, rests upon a shaky foundation. Patented seeds, genetically engineered crops, expensive and destructive chemical and energy-intensive inputs, factory farms, monoculture production, eroding soils, unsustainable water use, taxpayer subsidies, and long-distance hauling and distribution, including massive imports that amount to 15% of the U.S. food supply amount to a recipe for disaster.

A “perfect storm” or “ultimate recession” as described by Lester Brown in his new book, World on the Edge, could develop at any time, precipitated by extreme weather and crop failures on a massive scale. A growing number of nations, including the oil giants and China, are now scrambling to secure overseas farmland to feed their domestic populations. World grocers and supermarkets, including the U.S., have, on the average, only a four-day supply of food on hand. An oil shock, global disease pandemic, prolonged drought in the American heartland, or nuclear meltdown could set off a global food panic. Supermarket shelves and grain silos would be stripped bare within a short period of time. Have you thought about this? Are you and those in your local community ready for this?

Full Story Here: Approaching the Collapse: Don’t Panic, Go Organic | Common Dreams.

Updates on Fukushima Fairewinds Associates

“Newly released neutron data from three University of California San Diego scientists confirms Fairewinds’ April analysis that the nuclear core at Fukushima Daiichi turned on and off after TEPCO claimed its reactors had been shutdown. This periodic nuclear chain reaction (inadvertent criticality) continued to contaminate the surrounding environment and upper atmosphere with large doses of radioactivity.

In a second area of concern, Fairewinds disagrees the NRC’s latest report claiming that all Fukushima spent fuel pools had no problems following the earthquake. In a new revelation, the NRC claims that the plutonium found more than 1 mile offsite actually came from inside the nuclear reactors. If such a statement were true, it indicates that the nuclear power plant containments failed and were breached with debris landing far from the power plants themselves. Such a failure of the containment system certainly necessitates a complete review of all US reactor containment design and industry assurances that containments will hold in radioactivity in the event of a nuclear accident. The evidence Fairewinds reviewed to date continues to support its April analysis that the detonation in the Unit 3 Spent Fuel pool was the cause of plutonium found off site.

more….

Full Story Here: Updates on Fukushima Fairewinds Associates – Arnie Gundersen – August 21, 2011 – YouTube.

Obama Admin Protecting Criminal Banks

Efforts by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman have motivated AG’s in other states to investigate banks for questionable mortgage practices. Why is the Obama Administration interfering? The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur explains.

Bernie Sanders Introduces Bill To Lift The Payroll Tax Cap, Ensuring Full Social Security Funding For Nearly 75 Years

Last week, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) was a featured speaker at the United Steel Workers 2011 conference in Las Vegas.

Sanders focused much of his speech on the Social Security system, blasting suggestions by Democrats and Republicans alike that, for example, we should adjust the cost of living adjustment to cut Social Security payments to working class Americans or raise the retirement age. “When [Social Security] was developed, 50 percent of seniors lived in poverty. Today, poverty among seniors is too high, but that number is ten percent. Social Security has done exactly what it was designed to do!” he thundered, defending the program. Watch it:

video at link

Today, Sanders announced that he will introduce legislation that would strengthen Social Security without cutting benefits to any of its beneficiaries. Sanders’ legislation would eliminate the income cap that currently exists in the payroll tax that does not tax income above $106,800:

Full Story Here: Bernie Sanders Introduces Bill To Lift The Payroll Tax Cap, Ensuring Full Social Security Funding For Nearly 75 Years | ThinkProgress.

Psychological Considerations for the Betrayal by Obama

There seems serious pathology with Obama.

Obama’s campaign “act” is discordant with most of his behavior after the election. It reveals profound pathology. (Although, let’s not forget at the same time to acknowledge the profound pathology of Obama apologists who refuse to grasp he has not been and is not an ally to the base that elected him.) Also, most likely with Obama, his choices are not inadvertently made out of incompetence or inexperience, but to a serious degree from wilfull intention. There have been so many non-empathetic choices from him at an unrelenting rate. He seems to function as a conservative, Republican president rather than a Democratic one, though both war/money legacy parties have become more and more corrupt, alike and anti-citizen. Obama’s heavy protectiveness and generosity to the corporate, political, media ruling classes awe much of his base, despite the crazymaking accusations from the right of his “socialism” (with the media allowing that disinformation to ricochet through its vast echo chamber).

What motivates Obama’s disturbingly amoral intentions? What self-lies could he be employing to rationalize decisions that are so destructive to so many? The very people he made all those eloquent promises to not very long ago.

I’d consider that Obama’s ego drove him to get elected, that brass-ring, grandiose payoff. In a way, Obama reminds me of a bride who overfocuses on her wedding — with Obama it was the election — rather than maturely fathoming the commitment of the marriage — the responsible commitment to running the country. A very damaged country thanks to George W. Bush.

Full Story Here: Psychological Considerations for the Betrayal by Obama – libbyliberalnyc – Open Salon.

OPS: We need a third Party on the Left

The Washington Current: Our Guide to the Best Coverage on Rep. Michele Bachmann and Her Record

This is the latest installment in a series of reading guides on 2012 presidential candidates. We’ve also covered Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Congressman Ron Paul.

The basics:

Though she certainly has a challenger in Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann has held the title of Tea Party favorite thus far in the presidential race, touting her opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage, support of “intelligent design,” and rejection of the scientific consensus that human activity is a leading cause of global warming.

A detailed profile in The New Yorker tracks both her career steps and her deeply religious background. Bachmann’s first job after law school was working for the IRS, an agency she once called “the most heartless organization that anyone knows of.” As both The New Yorker and the Star Tribune note, she mostly worked on cases that settled and rarely litigated. (The Star Tribune says two minor cases; The New Yorker says one.) She recently said on a campaign stop that she went to work at the IRS “because the first rule of war is ‘Know your enemy.’ ”

Full Story Here: The Washington Current: Our Guide to the Best Coverage on Rep. Michele Bachmann and Her Record.

Taxpayers Should Stop Subsidizing Walmart

Walmart is the biggest retailer in the world. It boasts of having 1.2 million Americans on their payroll. Its reported annual profits are around $13 billion. So it’s safe to say since it is so big – and so ubiquitous – and so obviously successful – the government can now stop subsidizing it.

Let me explain: I was covering the first stop for the Progressive Caucus’ “Speak Out for Good Jobs Now” listening tour held in Minneapolis attended by Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) among others. The first audience member to speak was one Girsheila Green, a young mother from Compton, California, who has worked at Walmart for three years. Ms. Green told the crowded church how in her tenure with Walmart, she’s received two raises and is now a manager. She makes nine dollars an hour (one dollar above the laughably-low California minimum wage). She pulled from her pocket three cards she claimed most Walmart employees at her store have: a 10 percent Walmart employee discount card, her employee ID and her EBT card (what used to be called food stamps).

She relayed that 80 percent of her store is on food stamps. I’d argue one is too many.

Full Story Here: Taxpayers Should Stop Subsidizing Walmart | Crooks and Liars.

This Labor Day We Need Protest Marches Rather than Parades

Robert Reich :-:

Labor Day is traditionally a time for picnics and parades. But this year is no picnic for American workers, and a protest march would be more appropriate than a parade.

Not only are 25 million unemployed or underemployed, but American companies continue to cut wages and benefits. The median wage is still dropping, adjusted for inflation. High unemployment has given employers extra bargaining leverage to wring out wage concessions.

All told, it’s been the worst decade for American workers in a century. According to Commerce Department data, private-sector wage gains over the last decade have even lagged behind wage gains during the decade of the Great Depression (4 percent over the last ten years, adjusted for inflation, versus 5 percent from 1929 to 1939).

Big American corporations are making more money, and creating more jobs, outside the United States than in it. If corporations are people, as the Supreme Court’s twisted logic now insists, most of the big ones headquartered here are rapidly losing their American identity.

Full Story Here: Robert Reich (This Labor Day We Need Protest Marches Rather than Parades).

Obama Goes All Out For Dirty Banker Deal

A power play is underway in the foreclosure arena, according to the New York Times.

On the one side is Eric Schneiderman, the New York Attorney General, who is conducting his own investigation into the era of securitizations – the practice of chopping up assets like mortgages and converting them into saleable securities – that led up to the financial crisis of 2007-2008.

On the other side is the Obama administration, the banks, and all the other state attorneys general.

This second camp has cooked up a deal that would allow the banks to walk away with just a seriously discounted fine from a generation of fraud that led to millions of people losing their homes.

Full Story Here: Obama Goes All Out For Dirty Banker Deal | Rolling Stone Politics | Taibblog | Matt Taibbi on Politics and the Economy.

VIDEO: The Mess In Texas — Debunking Rick Perry’s ‘Texas Miracle’

Having only entered the race last week, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) has already jumped to the top of the GOP presidential field. Fueling his momentum is the so-called “Texas miracle” — the myth that Perry’s governorship has led Texas to weather the recession better than other states, maintaining a healthy economy and brisk job creation. Unfortunately for Perry, these claims are often built on incomplete analysis, or by cherry picking statistics while overlooking other relevant factors that fill in the full picture, which is a much more mixed and middling economic performance than he and his supporters would like you to believe.

ThinkProgress produced a video report. Watch it:

Full Story Here: VIDEO: The Mess In Texas — Debunking Rick Perry’s ‘Texas Miracle’ | ThinkProgress.

VIDEO: The Mess In Texas — Debunking Rick Perry’s ‘Texas Miracle’

Having only entered the race last week, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) has already jumped to the top of the GOP presidential field. Fueling his momentum is the so-called “Texas miracle” — the myth that Perry’s governorship has led Texas to weather the recession better than other states, maintaining a healthy economy and brisk job creation. Unfortunately for Perry, these claims are often built on incomplete analysis, or by cherry picking statistics while overlooking other relevant factors that fill in the full picture, which is a much more mixed and middling economic performance than he and his supporters would like you to believe.

ThinkProgress produced a video report. Watch it:

Full Story Here: VIDEO: The Mess In Texas — Debunking Rick Perry’s ‘Texas Miracle’ | ThinkProgress.

Senator Sanders: I’ll be damned if they’re going to cut Social Security

During a United Steelworkers convention in Las Vegas, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) lashed out at those who had proposed rolling back Social Security benefits.

“There has been too much discussion in this country — not just from Republicans, but from Democrats alike — that we should be making cuts in Social Security,” he said. That is wrong.”

“When Social Security was developed in the 1930s, its goal was to cut down on senior poverty. And when it was developed, 50 percent of seniors lived in poverty. Today, poverty amongst seniors is too high, but that number is 10 percent. Social Security has done exactly what it was designed to do.”

“I will be damned if they’re going to cut Social Security,” Sanders added.

Watch video, uploaded to YouTube on August 24, 2011:

Full Story Here: Senator Sanders: I’ll be damned if they’re going to cut Social Security | Raw Replay.

Leaked cable: Sen. McCain promised to help Gaddafi obtain U.S. military hardware

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) promised to help former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi obtain U.S. military hardware as one of the United States’ partners in the war on terror, according to a U.S. diplomatic cable released Wednesday by anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.

The meeting, which took place just over a year ago on Aug. 14, 2009, included other influential Americans, such as Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Sen. Susan Collins (R-SC) and Senate Armed Services Committee staffer Richard Fontaine, the document explains.

McCain opened the meeting by characterizing Libya’s relationship with the U.S. as “excellent,” to which Liebermann added: “We never would have guessed ten years ago that we would be sitting in Tripoli, being welcomed by a son of Muammar al-Qadhafi.”

Full Story Here: Leaked cable: Sen. McCain promised to help Gaddafi obtain U.S. military hardware | The Raw Story.