Archive for October, 2011

CHART: Wall Street Salaries Rise 11 Percent Annually, While Other Workers’ Increase By Just 1.8 Percent

Mother Jones’ Kevin Drum re-engineered a chart from the New York State Comptroller’s office showing how, in the last three decades, salaries in New York City’s securities industry have far outstripped those in the city’s other sectors. “Wall Street salaries have risen 11.2% per year, while all other salaries have risen 1.8% per year,” Drum found. In 2010, the average salary for someone in the securities industry was $366,000 while the average private sector salary in another industry was $66,000.

Full Story Here: CHART: Wall Street Salaries Rise 11 Percent Annually, While Other Workers’ Increase By Just 1.8 Percent | ThinkProgress.

Sen. Mark Kirk: ‘It’s Okay To Take Food From The Mouths Of’ Innocent Iranians

Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL), one of Washington’s most reliably hawkish politicos on Iran, made clear yesterday that he wants to go over the heads of the Iranian regime and appeal to the Iranian people’s hearts and minds — and he’s willing to forsake their stomachs to do it.

Appearing on a local Chicago radio show, Kirk said the allegedly Iranian-backed assassination plot exposed by the Obama administration yesterday was the perfect excuse to impose broad-based economic sanctions. So broad-based are Kirk’s sanctions that they’re specifically designed to collapse Iran’s currency, the Rial, by targeting the Islamic Republic’s central bank. Kirk was one of a few Republicans to say in the past two days that the allegedly Iranian-backed assassination plot constituted an act of war.

One of the show’s hosts, Ron Majors, asked Kirk whether, as is often the case with sanctions, going after the Iranian economy with such a broad brush stands to hurt ordinary Iranians. Kirk, who acknowledges later in the interview that the current government was “only able to hold onto power by stealing [the] last election,” then made the stunning admission that he didn’t see anything wrong with literally denying food to ordinary Iranians.

Here’s the exchange:

Full Story Here: Sen. Mark Kirk: ‘It’s Okay To Take Food From The Mouths Of’ Innocent Iranians | ThinkProgress.

Wall Street Journal Executive Resigns Over Yet Another News Corp. Scandal

One of the top executives at the European branch of the Wall Street Journal, the flagship newspaper at Rupert Murdoch-owned News Corporation, has resigned amid a growing scandal that has called into question the paper’s journalistic ethics and jeopardized its reputation. Adding to the scandals News Corp. is already facing in Europe — alleged phone hacking, bribing of public officials — and a potential criminal investigation by the U.S. Justice Department, the Guardian reported today that Andrew Langhoff, the European director of Dow Jones and Co. (the subsidiary of News Corp. that owns the Journal), oversaw a massive scam that artificially inflated the circulation numbers in Europe in order to avoid losing investors, readers, and advertisers.

The scam was organized in London and focused on the paper’s European edition, and even when top executives in New York were alerted, they failed to do anything about it, the Guardian reports:

The Guardian found evidence that the Journal had been channelling money through European companies in order to secretly buy thousands of copies of its own paper at a knock-down rate, misleading readers and advertisers about the Journal’s true circulation.

Full Story Here: Wall Street Journal Executive Resigns Over Yet Another News Corp. Scandal | ThinkProgress.

Currency Bill is a Small Victory Against Currency Manipulation

 Ian Fletcher :-:

The Senate yesterday passed S.1619, the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act. (Click here for the bill’s text.)

Although this bill isn’t a slam-bang solution to the problem of foreign currency manipulation (especially by China), it’s a big step in the right direction.

This bill hasn’t been passed by the House of Representatives, and the House leadership says it won’t even be allowed a vote, so it’s not going to become law any time soon, but a similar bill did pass the House last year.

As I’ve noted before, currency manipulation is a problem that can only really happen if the victim refuses to stop it.  Eventually, my bet is, a bill like this one, or even stronger, will become law, and America will stop currency manipulation.

Because the legal mechanisms the U.S. government employs to deal with this problem is complex, this legislation is technically involved and leaves considerable wiggle room for our government to do either nothing or not enough. The bill enables a lot of discretionary policy, but it doesn’t mandate a whole lot. The good news is that it does mandate more than current law, and it shifts the balance of our laws from a bias in favor of doing nothing to a bias in favor of doing something.

Specifically, the bill does the following, all in ways carefully worded to be compliant with America’s WTO obligations:

It improves oversight of exchange rates by the Treasury Department.

Currently, the Treasury Department is required by law to identify nations that manipulate their currencies to gain an export advantage.  Unfortunately, although Treasury has accurately identified these nations, it has refused to officially cite them, due to a narrow and perverse interpretation of the concept of “manipulation.” The new law eliminates this wiggle room and replaces it with objective criteria for when a currency is manipulated.

As a result, Wall Street’s pet agency will no longer be able to protect currency manipulation, which Wall Street likes.

It makes clear that currency manipulation is sufficient grounds for the Commerce Department to impose a countervailing tariff.

The Commerce Department has long has the authority, together with the U.S. International Trade Commission, to impose countervailing duties when it finds that foreign subsidies of products are causing harm to American companies and workers. (WTO rules allow us to do this.) Unfortunately, the law has long been unclear whether currency manipulation counts as a subsidy. The new law says specifically that it es.

The bill also requires the Commerce Department to launch an investigation if an American industry files a properly-documented complaint, to forestall government foot-dragging in such cases.

The bill also eliminates the excuse that a subsidy applies to things other than exports. This has previously been used as an excuse to do nothing; the new law prohibits the Commerce Department from applying this standard.

It mandates consequences when nations are caught manipulating their currencies.

This is where the rubber really hits the road.

First, the Treasury Department will be required to ask foreign nations nicely to stop manipulating.  It must seek immediate consultation (Oooooh, I’m scared!) with them. For “priority” manipulators, it must also consult with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and America’s other big trading partners. (I’m slightly more scared.)

Treasury also oppose any changes in IMF rules that would benefit the manipulating country. (This has a bit more teeth.)

Being a currency manipulator will now count against a country for purposes of determining whether it counts as a market or non-market economy for purposes of anti-dumping law, that is, when goods are sold here for less than production cost or their price at home. (Translation: a bigger retaliatory tariff.)

Then, after 90 days, America’s responses will harden. Namely:

1. The manipulating country gets cut out of federal procurement. (Unless, that is, it is a member of the WTO Governmental Procurement Agreement, a provision added to keep the bill WTO-compliant.)

1. The U.S. Government’s Overseas Private Investment Corporation is forbidden to finance or insure projects in that country.

1. The U.S. government will oppose multilateral bank financing for projects in the country.

The president can waive the 90-day set of consequences on grounds of national security or economic interests.  But he must explain to Congress, in writing, why the costs exceed the benefits. Any member of Congress is permitted to introduce a joint resolution of disapproval.  The president can veto that resolution, but Congress can override the veto.

This should set up some much-needed Congressional firefights on this issue.

Then after 360 days, America’s responses will harden some more…

The U.S. Trade Representative must request that the WTO initiate dispute settlement consultations with the country. This will at least stop the WTO being used as a fig leaf to excuse currency manipulation.

The Treasury Department will be required to consult with the Federal Reserve Board and other central banks about possible remedial intervention in international currency markets.

Obviously, these provisions are “devil is in the details” actions and contain significant amounts of discretion, but there’s a new bias injected in favor of doing something rather than nothing.

Finally, the bill establishes a new consultative body on currency manipulation. My hope is that this body will become a center of resistance to currency manipulation.

Small steps like this bill are the hard, boring stuff out of which significant political progress is made.  It won’t be easy, but clearly the political momentum is in favor of doing something about this problem.

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.

Amy Goodman: A New Bush Era or a Push Era?

Amy Goodman

Back when Barack Obama was still just a U.S. senator running for president, he told a group of donors in a New Jersey suburb, “Make me do it.” He was borrowing from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who used the same phrase (according to Harry Belafonte, who heard the story directly from Eleanor Roosevelt) when responding to legendary union organizer A. Philip Randolph’s demand for civil rights for African-Americans.

While President Obama has made concession after concession to both the corporate-funded tea party and his Wall Street donors, now that he is again in campaign mode, his progressive critics are being warned not to attack him, as that might aid and abet the Republican bid for the White House.

Enter the 99 percenters. The Occupy Wall Street ranks continue to grow, inspiring more than 1,000 solidarity protests around the country and the globe. After weeks, and one of the largest mass arrests in U.S. history, Obama finally commented: “I think people are frustrated, and the protesters are giving voice to a more broad-based frustration about how our financial system works.” But neither he nor his advisers—or the Republicans—know what to do with this burgeoning mass movement.

Full Story Here: Amy Goodman: A New Bush Era or a Push Era? – Truthdig.

Six Demands to Make of Wall Street

 Bernie Sanders :-:

The Occupy Wall Street protests are shining a national spotlight on the most powerful, dangerous, and secretive economic and political force in America.

If this country is to break out of the horrendous recession and create the millions of jobs we desperately need, if we are going to create a modicum of financial stability for the future, there is no question but that the American people are going to have to take a very hard look at Wall Street and demand fundamental reforms.  I hope these protests are the beginning of that process.

Let us never forget that as a result of the greed, recklessness, and illegal behavior on Wall Street, this country was plunged into the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.  Millions of Americans lost their jobs, homes, and life savings as the middle class underwent an unprecedented collapse.  Sadly, despite all the suffering caused by Wall Street, there is no reason to believe that the major financial institutions have changed their ways, or that future financial disasters and bailouts will not happen again.

Full Story Here: Six Demands to Make of Wall Street | Common Dreams.

BP to risk worst ever oil spill in Shetlands drilling

BP is making contingency plans to fight the largest oil spill in history, as it prepares to drill more than 4,000 feet down in the Atlantic in wildlife-rich British waters off the Shetland Islands.

Internal company documents seen by The Independent show that the worst-case scenario for a spill from its North Uist exploratory well, to be sunk next year, would involve a leak of 75,000 barrels a day for 140 days – a total of 10.5 million barrels of oil, comfortably the world’s biggest pollution disaster.

BP is making contingency plans to fight the largest oil spill in history, as it prepares to drill more than 4,000 feet down in the Atlantic in wildlife-rich British waters off the Shetland Islands.

This would be more than double the amount of oil spilled from its Deepwater Horizon well in the Gulf of Mexico last year, which had a maximum leak rate of 62,000 barrels a day in an incident lasting 88 days – and triggered a social, economic and environmental catastrophe in the US which brought the giant multinational to the brink of collapse.

Full Story Here: Exclusive: BP to risk worst ever oil spill in Shetlands drilling – Green Living, Environment – The Independent.

Chris Hedges Slaps Down Kevin O’Leary on Occupy Wall Street

10/10/11 Disgusting, classless, conservative windbag O’Leary is put in his place after hurling a baseless insult.

Check out O’Leary’s mutual funds if you really want to see what a loser is. See this Time article from 2009: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1921635,00.html

Full Story Here: Chris Hedges Slaps Down Kevin O’Leary on Occupy Wall Street – YouTube.

Bill Maher “This Idea That We Can All Be Rich Is One Of The Stupidest Things!”

October 11, 2011 MSNBC

Full Story Here: Bill Maher “This Idea That We Can All Be Rich Is One Of The Stupidest Things!” – YouTube.

Protect Life Act: New Bill Would Allow Hospitals To Refuse To Perform Abortions

The House is scheduled to vote this week on a new bill that would allow federally-funded hospitals that oppose abortions to refuse to perform the procedure, even in cases where a woman would die without it.

Under current law, every hospital that receives Medicare or Medicaid money is legally required to provide emergency care to any patient in need, regardless of his or her financial situation. If a hospital is unable to provide what the patient needs — including a life-saving abortion — it has to transfer the patient to a hospital that can.

Under H.R. 358, dubbed the “Protect Life Act” and sponsored by Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.), hospitals that don’t want to provide abortions could refuse to do so, even for a pregnant woman with a life-threatening complication that requires a doctor terminate her pregnancy. This provision would apply to the more than 600 Catholic hospitals governed by the Catholic Health Association, which are regulated by bishops and prohibited from performing abortions.

Full Story Here: Protect Life Act: New Bill Would Allow Hospitals To Refuse To Perform Abortions.

Scientists ’95 Percent’ Certain They’ve Found Elusive Siberian Yeti

Has it finally happened? Did scientists find real evidence of the existence of a hairy bipedal creature known as the Siberian Snowman or Siberian Yeti?

Researchers are claiming they are 95 percent sure that the fabled Russian version of the Abominable Snowman or Bigfoot lives in the Kemerovo region of Siberia.

Last week, a group of international scientists met in Moscow and then set out to the remote mountainous area in search of the elusive creature (depicted below).

Full Story Here: Scientists ’95 Percent’ Certain They’ve Found Elusive Siberian Yeti.

NASA: It Rained So Hard the Oceans Fell

I spend hours a day researching what New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman calls “global weirding”: the destabilization of our weather system fueled by the three million tonnes of fossil fuel pollution we inject into it each hour. So it is a rare day when something shocks me as much as a recent U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) report on last year’s extreme rainfall.

As most locals know from soggy personal experience, our corner of planet Earth since last spring has been a bit wetter and greyer than normal. And next door, our Washington neighbours donned their gum boots and slogged through their fourth wettest year since 1895.

Still, we got off lucky. Very lucky it turns out.

According to this jaw-dropping NASA report, worldwide rainfall and snowfall were so extreme, in so many places last year, that sea levels fell dramatically.

Full Story Here: NASA: It Rained So Hard the Oceans Fell | ThinkProgress.

Police arrest scores of Occupy Boston protesters

Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino today defended the arrests of scores of Occupy Boston protesters in a section of the city’s Greenway park, saying he agrees with them on the issues but they couldn’t be allowed to “tie up the city.”

“I understand they have freedom of speech and freedom of expression, but we have a city to manage,” he said in a telephone interview. “I’m open to suggestions, but civil disobedience will not be tolerated.”

The early morning arrests of the protesters, who have gathered downtown in recent days to criticize the financial industry and social inequality, began at about 1:20 a.m. Police said late this afternoon that 141 people had been arrested.

“The message they are saying … is the middle class of America is having a difficult time. That’s the issue they are trying to get across,” Menino said.

Full Story Here: Boston mayor says he sympathizes with protesters, but they can’t tie up the city – Metro Desk – Local news updates from The Boston Globe.

Marine Vet at #OccupyWallStreet Tells Sean Hannity to “F**k Off”

Recently, Sean Hannity called the #OccupyWallStreet protesters un-American by saying they “hated liberty.”

(As seen in this video)

In response, WeAreTheOther99.com interviewed a few Marine vets at Zuccotti Park.

The Marines stated why they had come to protest and in direct response to Hannity’s statement: One said “F**k Off” and the other replied: “That’s the biggest load of shit I’ve ever heard”

Please continue to support “We Are The Other 99″. Consider a donation of $9.17 [Sept. 17] to keep our coverage on the air. We are funded 100% by small donors like you. Thanks for the generosity you’ve already shown us, whatever the amount..

Full Story Here: Marine Vet at #OccupyWallStreet Tells Sean Hannity to “F**k Off” – YouTube.

Watch: U.S. Marines tell Hannity to ‘f*ck off’

At “Occupy Wall Street” on Monday, two men in military colors who claimed to be Marines spoke to a cameraman with “The Other 99 Percent” and explained why they joined the protest.

Along the way, both men gave arch-conservative Fox News opinion host Sean Hannity a piece of their minds.

“These wars that are going on, I don’t believe in them,” one man said. “I want my brothers and sisters to come back home. The bailout was a farce. It robbed American people.”

Full Story Here: Watch: U.S. Marines tell Hannity to ‘f*ck off’ | The Raw Story.

Poll: Huge majority of Americans support taxing the rich

As the U.S. Senate prepares to vote down legislation that would raise tax rates on the wealthiest Americans to pay for a jobs plan that most economists believe would stop the recession, a new poll has surfaced showing just how out of touch those Senators are with mainstream America.

According to figures released by Bloomberg and The Washington Post on Tuesday, eight in 10 Americans, including a majority of Republicans, support raising taxes on households earning over $250,000 a year. A full 81 percent of Democrats were behind the plan, along with 67 percent of independents and 53 percent of Republicans.

That’s a huge leap in support from December 2010, when a Bloomberg poll found that just 59 percent favored extending the Bush-era tax cuts for wealthy Americans. President Obama has since vowed to normalize tax rates between the upper and middle classes, highlighting the dispairity in the percentage paid by lower income people as compared to the top earners.

Full Story Here: Poll: Huge majority of Americans support taxing the rich | The Raw Story.

Senate passes China currency manipulation bill

The Senate passed legislation Tuesday aimed at punishing China for alleged currency manipulation, which has been widely blamed for costing American jobs.

The bill would require the U.S. to impose tariffs on imports from China to counteract the country undervaluing its currency. China allegedly keeps the value of its currency low through artificial means to make its exports cheap and imports more expensive.

“Today’s strong bipartisan vote in the Senate to pass China currency legislation is a step forward for American workers, American manufacturers, and American competitiveness,” Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said after the bill passed. “This legislation has the potential to create more than one million jobs here at home.”

Full Story Here: Senate passes China currency manipulation bill | The Raw Story.

Of 400 Richest Americans, Only 8 Say They’re Willing to Pay More Taxes

The 400 wealthiest people in America were asked if they’d be willing to pay more taxes. How many said they would pay more taxes? That’s right: 2 percent

When Warren Buffett called on the U.S. government in August to “stop coddling the super-rich,” he pointed out that he pays less of of his income in taxes than his secretary does. He said the rich should pay higher taxes for the sake of “shared sacrifice,” and suggested that most of his wealthy friends “wouldn’t mind being told to pay more.”

To test that notion, Salon launched the  Patriotic Billionaire Challenge. We put the question to every member of the “Forbes 400″ list, all of them with a net worth of at least $1 billion: “Are you, like Warren Buffet, willing to pay higher taxes?”

The results are in. Of 400 billionaires, only eight (including Buffet) say they are willing to pay more.  Three others indicated opposition; one said maybe.

But most declined to comment at all. Oprah Winfrey, who endorsed Obama in 2008, did not respond. Nor did liberal media mogul Ted Turner. Prominent Democratic Party donors from Hollywood such as Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Barry Diller did not express a view. Philanthropists Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg — whom we queried repeatedly — refused to comment on Buffett’s argument, even as it became a central part of Washington’s political conversation.

Full Story Here: Of 400 Richest Americans, Only 8 Say They’re Willing to Pay More Taxes | Occupy Wall Street | AlterNet.

Bank of America, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley Could Be Headed Toward Collapse — Will Obama Have the Guts to Do the Right Thing This Time?

If events turn critical again and we face a repeat risk of the seizing up of financial markets as in the fall of 2008, the president will need to make a fateful decision.

Over the past few weeks, President Obama has at last “pivoted,” in the widely used term, from emphasizing deficit reduction to focusing on jobs and taxation of millionaires. Spontaneous protest has done what the organized left failed to do; it has made Wall Street the appropriate target of diffuse economic frustrations. The labor movement has added its weight and institutional skills to these protests, and even President Obama has had some kind words for them.

Fox News and the Republicans have been usefully flummoxed, since it is awfully hard to rise to the defense of the Wall Street banks that caused the financial collapse and to retain credibility with anyone, even the Tea Party base.

But here comes the next phase of the financial crisis, and it will test President Obama’s leadership like nothing else. It will also make or break the faltering credibility of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.

Full Story Here: Bank of America, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley Could Be Headed Toward Collapse — Will Obama Have the Guts to Do the Right Thing This Time? | Economy | AlterNet.

New Film Exposes Connection Between the Kochs and a Small Community Dying of Cancer

A new video from Brave New Foundation shows how people are paying the ultimate price for the Koch brothers’ politics and profiteering.

The many sins of the Koch brothers have been keeping Robert Greenwald and his crew at Brave New Foundation busy. Since January they’ve been working on their Koch Brothers Exposed video investigations, documenting the malfeasance of Koch Industries and the two-headed monster at the helm.

“What we’ve been doing with our ‘Koch Brothers Exposed’ project is connecting the dots: explaining the size and scope of what they’re doing, which is really nothing short of trying to buy democracy,” said Greenwald, the president of Brave New Foundation. (Full disclosure: Greenwald is on AlterNet’s board of directors.) ”What we’ve done with each of the Koch pieces is to use specific stories to depict people’s lives and show that ideology has consequences. What the Kochs are doing is not harmless, it is not victimless, and there are people who are paying a terrible price for the brothers’ politics and their profiteering.”

Full Story Here: New Film Exposes Connection Between the Kochs and a Small Community Dying of Cancer | Environment | AlterNet.

Why Danes Are So Much Happier Than Americans

Danish happiness has been attributed to their legendary income equality — but there’s more to it than that.

Americans may be deeply divided about what ails our country, but there’s no denying we’re a nation of unhappy campers.

Danes, on the other hand, consistently rank as some of the happiest people in the world, a fact attributed at least in part to Denmark’s legendary income equality and strong social safety net.

Forbes recently cited another possible factor; the Danes’ “high levels of trust.” They trust each other, they trust ‘outsiders,’ they even trust their government. 90% of Danes vote. Tea party types dismiss Denmark as a hotbed of socialism, but really, they’re just practicing a more enlightened kind of capitalism.

In fact, as Richard Wilkinson, a British professor of social epidemiology, recently stated on PBS NewsHour, “if you want to live the American dream, you should move to Finland or Denmark, which have much higher social mobility.”

Full Story Here: Why Danes Are So Much Happier Than Americans | Food | AlterNet.

5 Conservative Economic Myths Occupy Wall St. Is Helping Bust

For decades the corporate media has force-fed “conventional wisdom” free-market economic nonsense to the American public.

For decades the corporate media has force-fed “conventional wisdom” free-market economic nonsense to the American public. We have been told that it’s good to give more and more to the wealthy few, that it’s good to send jobs and money out of the country, and especially that the people who run the big corporations are better and more “efficient” at deciding what’s best for the rest of us. As those decades passed we watched as the wealthy few get wealthier and fewer, while the rest of us – the 99 percent – fall further and further behind. But we have had it explained to us that our lying eyes aren’t seeing what they are seeing, and that the obvious isn’t what it is. We have been seemingly powerless to change this.

Asleep

While time passed and these economic time-bombs messed up the economy, it seemed as if this fog of propaganda had lulled people to sleep. The uncontested repetition of free-market slogans led many to a bland acceptance that there was no alternative. Many of us even incorporated the concepts into our own thinking. Others seemed to accept the cutbacks, the fees, the scams, the disappointments and the obviously false statements as the way things are.

Full Story Here: 5 Conservative Economic Myths Occupy Wall St. Is Helping Bust | Occupy Wall Street | AlterNet.

Journalists Funded By ‘Vulture Capitalist’ Paul Singer Campaign To Smear Wall Street Protests

The campaign to marginalize and destroy the growing 99 Percent Movement is in full swing, with many in the media attempting to smear the people participating in the “occupation” protests across the country. However, several of the so-called journalists deriding, and in some cases sabotaging the movement, have paychecks thanks to a billionaire whose business practices have been scorned as among the worst of the financial elite.

As the New York Times has documented, Paul Singer, a Republican activist and hedge fund manager worth over $900 million, has emerged as one of the most important power brokers within the GOP. Now, it appears that the reporters financed by Singer are at the forefront of efforts to tarnish the reputation of 99 Percent Movement demonstrators:

Journalist Who Admitted To Infiltrating Protests To ‘Mock And Undermine’ The Movement Works For A Singer-Supported Right-Wing Magazine. In a column posted last night, reporter Patrick Howley admitted that he had surreptitiously joined an anti-war spin-off group from the OccupyDC protests that planned to demonstrate at a military drone exhibit at the Smithsonian’s Air and Space museum. Howley wrote that he “infiltrated” the action and sprinted into the police along with a few protesters in order to “mock and undermine” the movement. Singer is a major donor to the Spectator, a right-wing magazine known for its role in the “Arkansas Project,” a well-funded effort to invent stories with the goal of eventually impeaching President Clinton.

Full Story Here: Journalists Funded By ‘Vulture Capitalist’ Paul Singer Campaign To Smear Wall Street Protests | ThinkProgress.

GE CEO Immelt Admits Corporate Tax Holidays Don’t Create Jobs, But Says We Should Have One Anyway

A group of multinational corporations — operating under the banner of a campaign called “WinAmerica” — have been pushing for the enactment of a tax repatriation holiday. Such a holiday would allow companies to bring money they have stashed overseas back to the U.S. at a dramatically lower tax rate, rather than the 35 percent that they would usually pay.

The rationale for a repatriation holiday is that the corporations will use their tax-free dollars to invest in the U.S. and create jobs. But Congress tried a repatriation holiday in 2004, and the companies that benefited the most wound up cutting hundreds of thousands of jobs and moving even more dollars offshore, in anticipation of future holidays.

The failed history of repatriation is well known to General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt, who is the head of President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. Immelt said on CBS’ 60 Minutes last night that the 2004 holiday didn’t create jobs. However, he thinks that another repatriation holiday should be enacted anyway:

Full Story Here: GE CEO Immelt Admits Corporate Tax Holidays Don’t Create Jobs, But Says We Should Have One Anyway | ThinkProgress.

Topeka, Kansas City Council Considers Decriminalizing Domestic Violence To Save Money

Faced with their worst budget crises since the Great Depression, states and cities have resorted to increasingly desperate measures to cut costs. State and local governments have laid off teachers, slashed Medicaid funding, and even started unpaving roads and turning off streetlights.

But perhaps the most shocking idea to save money is being debated right now by the City Council of Topeka, Kansas. The city could repeal an ordinance banning domestic violence because some say the cost of prosecuting those cases is just too high:

Last night, in between approving city expenditures and other routine agenda items, the Topeka, Kansas City Council debated one rather controversial one: decriminalizing domestic violence.

Here’s what happened: Last month, the Shawnee County District Attorney’s office, facing a 10% budget cut, announced that the county would no longer be prosecuting misdemeanors, including domestic violence cases, at the county level. Finding those cases suddenly dumped on the city and lacking resources of their own, the Topeka City Council is now considering repealing the part of the city code that bans domestic battery. [...]

Full Story Here: Topeka, Kansas City Council Considers Decriminalizing Domestic Violence To Save Money | ThinkProgress.

Herman Cain: Tax Poor People’s Food To Finance Massive Tax Break For The Rich

The centerpiece of former pizza czar Herman Cain’s presidential campaign is his “999″ plan, which would slash taxes on the wealthy, drive up deficits to the worst point since World War II, and force low-income Americans to pay a massive nine times their current tax rate. In an interview this morning with CNN’s Candy Crowley, Cain even said food and clothing would not be exempt from the 9 percent national sales tax he would put in place if elected president. Indeed, he said it would be “fair” for a poor person to pay as much in sales taxes as Crowley does:

CROWLEY: Is there any exception, as you see it, in this consumption tax? Except for clothing, perhaps? Except for food? [...]

CAIN: Nope, you don’t have to do that. Nope, you don’t have to do that. [...]

CROWLEY: So a poor person is paying the same amount of taxes on groceries as I am? Does that sound fair to you, just in a vacuum?

CAIN: Yes, it does sound fair because of the other point I’m about to make. If they need to buy a car or a home or some hard goods that are used, they pay no taxes.

Full Story Here: Herman Cain: Tax Poor People’s Food To Finance Massive Tax Break For The Rich | ThinkProgress.

U.S. Incomes Declined More During Recovery Than In Recession: Study

The U.S. economy may technically be in a recovery, but it likely doesn’t feel that way for many Americans when grabbing for their wallets.

Median annual household income has fallen more during the recovery than it did during the recession, according to a new study from former Census Bureau officials Gordon Green and John Code. Between December 2007 and June 2009, when the U.S. economy was in recession, incomes declined 3.2 percent. While during the recovery between June 2009 and June 2011 incomes fell 6.7 percent, the study found.

The lack of income growth may explain why for most Americans the recovery still feels like a recession. Eight in 10 Americans believe the recession is an ongoing problem, according to a recent Gallup poll. And workers don’t anticipate things will pick up any time soon. Nine out of 10 Americans said they don’t expect to get a raise that will be enough to compensate for the rising costs of essentials like food a fuel, according an American Pulse survey released in June.

Full Story Here: U.S. Incomes Declined More During Recovery Than In Recession: Study.

South Beach Diet Author On Four Reasons Why America Is Still Getting Fatter And Sicker – And What to Do About It

Americans are fatter, and sicker, than ever. And we don’t have to be.

We are eating horrendously, moving and exercising less, and not getting enough sleep. This has made us fatigued, depressed, irritable, achy, and generally miserable. And if feeling terrible isn’t bad enough, these habits are also making us ill–with diseases like diabetes, heart disease, and many forms of cancer, to name just a few.

What many of us don’t realize is that these poor lifestyle habits are causing the cells, tissues, and organs in our bodies to “rust,” or age before their time, as many of us walk around in a state of constant inflammation.

Full Story Here: Dr Arthur Agatston: South Beach Diet Author On Four Reasons Why America Is Still Getting Fatter And Sicker – And What to Do About It.

Is Obama’s Drug Policy Worse Than Bush’s? The War on Medical Marijuana Escalates

U.S. Attorneys in California have announced a campaign to target medical marijuana, suggesting the beginning of the end for the medical marijuana industry.

Signaling an intensification of federal government targeting of medical marijuana providers, the four US Attorneys in California Friday announced a campaign of “coordinated enforcement actions targeting the illegal operations of the commercial marijuana industry in California.” The announcement came at a Sacramento news conference.

The federal prosecutors said their enforcement actions would rely on pursuing civil forfeiture lawsuits against properties where dispensaries are located, threatening letters to dispensary landlords, and criminal prosecutions. The prosecutors said recent dispensary busts in Fresno, Los Angeles, Sacramento and San Diego were part of the enforcement campaign.

The feds said that enforcement actions would vary across regions of the state and that they would be working with federal law enforcement and local officials to crack down. The Department of Justice in Washington made clear that this was not an instance of prosecutors going off the reservation.

Full Story Here: Is Obama’s Drug Policy Worse Than Bush’s? The War on Medical Marijuana Escalates | | AlterNet.

The Informants

How the FBI’s Network of Informants Actually Created Most of the Terrorist Plots “Foiled” in the US Since 9/11

The FBI has built a massive network of spies to prevent another domestic attack. But are they busting terrorist plots—or leading them?

James Cromitie was a man of bluster and bigotry. He made up wild stories about his supposed exploits, like the one about firing gas bombs into police precincts using a flare gun, and he ranted about Jews. “The worst brother in the whole Islamic world is better than 10 billion Yahudi,” he once said.

A 45-year-old Walmart stocker who’d adopted the name Abdul Rahman after converting to Islam during a prison stint for selling cocaine, Cromitie had lots of worries—convincing his wife he wasn’t sleeping around, keeping up with the rent, finding a decent job despite his felony record. But he dreamed of making his mark. He confided as much in a middle-aged Pakistani he knew as Maqsood.

“I’m gonna run into something real big,” he’d say. “I just feel it, I’m telling you. I feel it.”

Full Story Here: The Informants | Mother Jones.

Why the Elites Are in Trouble

Chris Hedges :-:

Ketchup, a petite 22-year-old from Chicago with wavy red hair and glasses with bright red frames, arrived in Zuccotti Park in New York on Sept. 17. She had a tent, a rolling suitcase, 40 dollars’ worth of food, the graphic version of Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States” and a sleeping bag. She had no return ticket, no idea what she was undertaking, and no acquaintances among the stragglers who joined her that afternoon to begin the Wall Street occupation. She decided to go to New York after reading the Canadian magazine Adbusters, which called for the occupation, although she noted that when she got to the park Adbusters had no discernable presence.

The lords of finance in the looming towers surrounding the park, who toy with money and lives, who make the political class, the press and the judiciary jump at their demands, who destroy the ecosystem for profit and drain the U.S. Treasury to gamble and speculate, took little notice of Ketchup or any of the other scruffy activists on the street below them. The elites consider everyone outside their sphere marginal or invisible. And what significance could an artist who paid her bills by working as a waitress have for the powerful? What could she and the others in Zuccotti Park do to them? What threat can the weak pose to the strong? Those who worship money believe their buckets of cash, like the $4.6 million JPMorgan Chase gave* to the New York City Police Foundation, can buy them perpetual power and security. Masters all, kneeling before the idols of the marketplace, blinded by their self-importance, impervious to human suffering, bloated from unchecked greed and privilege, they were about to be taught a lesson in the folly of hubris.

Full Story Here: Chris Hedges: Why the Elites Are in Trouble – Chris Hedges’ Columns – Truthdig.

Japan Courts the Money in Nuclear Reactors, Selling Them Abroad – NYTimes.com

Even as Japan plans to phase out nuclear power as too risky for domestic use, the government is supporting a new push by Japanese industry to sell nuclear power technology to other countries

Japanese industrial conglomerates, with the cooperation of the government in Tokyo, are renewing their pursuit of multibillion-dollar projects, particularly in smaller energy-hungry countries like Vietnam and Turkey. The effort comes despite criticism within Japan by environmental groups and opposition politicians.

It may seem a stretch for Japan to acclaim its nuclear technology overseas while struggling at home to contain the nuclear meltdowns that displaced more than 100,000 people. But Japan argues that its latest technology includes safeguards not present at the decades-old reactors at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi plant, which continues to leak radiation.

Full Story Here: Japan Courts the Money in Nuclear Reactors, Selling Them Abroad – NYTimes.com.

Japanese Study Nuclear Leaks Health Effects

In an effort to track the long-term health effects of the nuclear disaster at Fukushima, Japan has begun a survey of local children for thyroid abnormalities, a problem associated with exposure to radiation.

The study comes in response to concerns over the health consequences of the serious radiation leaks caused by multiple meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station in March. Japanese officials hope to study about 360,000 children who were under 18 at the time of the accident and track their health through their lifetimes, according to Fukushima Prefecture officials.

Children and pregnant women are particularly sensitive to radioactive iodine, which can harm the thyroid, studies after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986 have shown. According to research presented at a 2006 global conference, at least 4,000 cases of thyroid cancer among children have been linked to Chernobyl’s fallout.

Full Story Here: Japanese Study Nuclear Leaks Health Effects – NYTimes.com.

Wal-Mart stores closed in China after pork probe

Wal-Mart has had to close temporarily some of its Chinese stores after being accused of selling mislabelled pork.

The local government in Chongqing says the firm falsely advertised the meat as being organic.

China’s official Xinhua news agency said officials claimed a total of 63,547 kilogrammes of pork were involved, over two years.

Wal-Mart told the BBC a total of 13 stores have been closed for a 15-day period.

Full Story Here: BBC News – Wal-Mart stores closed in China after pork probe.

Campaign grows to oust Murdoch

Shareholder service advises ousting Rupert Murdoch, two sons and 10 other directors from NewsCorp board

The shareholder-led campaign for an overhaul of Rupert Murdoch‘s News Corporation is gathering momentum, with a call from the advisers Institutional Shareholder Services for 13 of the company’s 15 directors to be voted off the board.

ISS, whose 1,700 clients include pension funds, trade union funds and asset managers in the United States and around the world, issued a condemnation of the media conglomerate’s executive and independent directors on Monday.

It said the phone hacking scandal had “laid bare a striking lack of stewardship and failure of independence by a board whose inability to set a strong tone-at-the-top about unethical business practices has now resulted in enormous costs – financial, legal, regulatory, reputational and opportunity – for the shareholders the board ostensibly serves.”

Full Story Here: Campaign grows to oust Murdoch | Media | The Guardian.

Effort to recall Wis. Gov. Walker to start Nov. 15

An effort to recall Republican Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker over his contentious union rights law will begin Nov. 15, Democrats announced Monday, meaning an election could be held as early as next spring.

Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Mike Tate said on the party’s website that recall petitions will be circulated starting Nov. 15, giving supporters of the effort until Jan. 13 to collect 540,208 signatures.

Walker has become a national hero to many Republicans and conservatives and is a hot ticket on the fundraising and speaking circuit. But he is the top target for unions and Democrats as he became the face of the anti-union movement this year with his proposal that took away nearly all collective bargaining rights from most public workers.

Full Story Here: The Associated Press: Effort to recall Wis. Gov. Walker to start Nov. 15.

Think Occupy Wall St. is a Phase? You Don’t Get It

Douglas Rushkoff :-:

Like the spokesmen for Arab dictators feigning bewilderment over protesters’ demands, mainstream television news reporters finally training their attention on the growing Occupy Wall Street protest movement seem determined to cast it as the random, silly blather of an ungrateful and lazy generation of weirdos. They couldn’t be more wrong and, as time will tell, may eventually be forced to accept the inevitability of their own obsolescence.

Consider how CNN anchor Erin Burnett, covered the goings on at Zuccotti Park downtown, where the protesters are encamped, in a segment called “Seriously?!” “What are they protesting?” she asked, “nobody seems to know.” Like Jay Leno testing random mall patrons on American History, the main objective seemed to be to prove that the protesters didn’t, for example, know that the U.S. government has been reimbursed for the bank bailouts. It was condescending and reductionist.

More predictably perhaps, a Fox News reporter appears flummoxed in this outtake from “On the Record,” in which the respondent refuses to explain how he wants the protests to “end.” Transcending the shallow partisan politics of the moment, the protester explains “As far as seeing it end, I wouldn’t like to see it end. I would like to see the conversation continue.”

Full Story Here: Think Occupy Wall St. is a Phase? You Don’t Get It | Common Dreams.

The Wall Street Occupiers and the Democratic Party

Robert Reich :-:

Will the Wall Street Occupiers morph into a movement that has as much impact on the Democratic Party as the Tea Party has had on the GOP? Maybe. But there are reasons for doubting it.

Tea Partiers have been a mixed blessing for the GOP establishment – a source of new ground troops and energy but also a pain in the assets with regard to attracting independent voters. As Rick Perry and Mitt Romney square off, that pain will become more evident.

So far the Wall Street Occupiers have helped the Democratic Party. Their inchoate demand that the rich pay their fair share is tailor-made for the Democrats’ new plan for a 5.6 percent tax on millionaires, as well as the President’s push to end the Bush tax cut for people with incomes over $250,000 and to limit deductions at the top.

Full Story Here: The Wall Street Occupiers and the Democratic Party | Common Dreams.

Don’t Mistake Occupy Wall Street for Team Obama

Occupation Up, Obama Down

The mushrooming Occupy Wall Street protests, now on the verge of spreading to more than 1,000 cities and towns across the U.S. and beyond, may have come of age this week.

But the second most interesting number (apart from the anger-tracking figures updated at OccupyTogether.org) is 38 per cent — President Barack Obama’s approval rating, according to the latest Gallup survey.

Occupation up, Obama down. It’s an equation the White House is desperate to change, as the Democratic machine grapples with how best to harness the progressive populist uprising to generate electoral energy for November 2012.

Full Story Here: Don’t Mistake Occupy Wall Street for Team Obama | Common Dreams.

Is Herman Cain Any Good on Trade? You Try and Figure it Out

Ian Fletcher :-:

Maybe Herman Cain, the latest boomlet in the Republican presidential race, will be elected president. Or maybe his fifteen minutes of fame have just arrived.

Either way, it behooves us to see what he thinks about America’s trade mess.

There are some encouraging signs.  For a start, here’s what he wrote in his column about China earlier this year:

China’s economic dominance would represent a national security threat to the USA, and possibly to the rest of the world.

Look at the facts. China has a billion more people than we do. They aspire to have a greater military might than we do. They currently hold over 25 percent of our national debt. And they have a different view of human rights and how to maintain peace in the world.

It would be naïve to think that China would not be tempted to flex its worldly might if it were bigger than us economically and militarily. And it would be equally naïve to think we could influence their actions on currency or anything else with diplomacy or two verses of Kumbaya.

Appeasement is not a strategy. As Ronald Reagan proved, strength is the strategy. Both the Bush and Obama administrations have shown that appeasement just buys the Chinese more time to talk until they can equal us in size and might.

So far, so good.  He seems way beyond the “let’s all hold hands and do business together” nonsense that the Obama administration, and half his Republican rivals (notable exceptions being Mitt Romney, maybe, and Buddy Roemer, for sure) believe in.

But keep reading, because there’s a problem.  He goes on to say:

Our China strategy should be two simple words. Outgrow them!

There is no doubt that we can outgrow China, but right now we lack the leadership with the courage to propose and implement aggressive economic growth strategies.

Now with all due respect to Mr. Cain and our beloved U.S. economy, this is preposterous.

China has been averaging growth nearing 10 percent a year for three decades now. The U.S. has never grown that fast, ever, except for exceptional periods like 1941 to 1945, when we ramped our economy out of  Depression by the brute force of military spending. Even in our own glory days of the late 19^th century, when we were the new industrial big boy on the block, our economy didn’t grow that fast. We grew faster than the 1-3 percent we expect today, but not as fast as China is growing now.

The basic reality is that China grows as fast as it does mainly because it is a developing country that can grow simply by catching up to the technological standards of the already-developed nations. Every time someone in China moves from toiling in a medieval rice paddy to working in a modern factory, their output doubles. Every time someone in China is the first member of their family to go to college, their output goes up.

But 99% of the U.S. population is already living in the modern world economically, so these easy gains aren’t an option for us.

Every other developed nation is in the same boat. This is why Germany’s growth slowed after the Wirtschaftswunder (“economic miracle”) of the 1950s and 1960s, when the nation was recovering from the economic primitiveness imposed by the B-17. It’s why Japan’s growth slowed after about 1990. And it’s why even China’s growth will slow one day.

There’s absolutely no mystery here, and it’s dangerous nonsense to imagine that the U.S. could somehow match China’s growth rate if only we tuned our economic engine a bit better.  Sure, we can do better than we’re currently doing.  But matching Chinese growth is a fool’s errand.

So why does Herman Cain want to try?  Reading a little further in his column supplies a plausible answer:

We need to lower corporate tax rates, starting with dropping the top rate from 35 percent to 25 percent. We are the only nation on the planet that has not lowered its corporate tax rates in more than 15 years. And people wonder why so many jobs have left the USA. It’s not just cheaper labor in more business-friendly nations. It’s also taxes!

We must lower the capital gains tax rate to zero. Suspend taxes on repatriated foreign profits. Give every worker in America a 6.2 percent raise and every business a cost break by suspending the payroll tax for a year. Then! Make the tax rates permanent until they are lowered again in the future to remove this veil of uncertainty hanging over our economy.

Yes, these are aggressive proposals.  It’s going to take aggressive leadership in the White House to get it done. It won’t be easy. But I don’t avoid doing what’s right just because it’s going to be difficult to achieve. That’s not in my DNA.

We can outgrow China because the USA is not a loser nation. We just need a winner in the White House.

Aha!  So it’s all really a pitch for lower corporate and capital gains taxes!  Supposedly, if we cut taxes enough (and perhaps, to be fair, do a few other things he doesn’t mention here), we can outgrow China.

Sorry, but this is delusional.  If Cain really means it, we are in economic Dr. Strangelove territory here.

Granted, America needs reasonable tax rates to prosper.  Excessive taxation is an economic drag, and Republicans are entitled to embrace a Republican definition of what “excessive” is. But the idea that we can tax-cut our way to double-digit compound growth is absurd, and peddling this nonsense to push corporate tax cuts is either extremely cynical or an insult to the intelligence of the American voter.

Now let’s look at what Cain has said specifically about trade.  He has reportedly said:

Uncle Sam has got to stop being Uncle Sucker. We don’t need “free trade” where other countries get rich at our expense, but “fair trade” where everyone plays by the same rules and everyone benefits.

Hmm… This sounds good, but we’ve still got a number of problems here.

For a start, he says he’s against free trade. That’s good.  But “fair” trade where nations behave according to “the same rules” is a bit of a problem—for the simple reason that it’s extremely unlikely to happen with nations that view trade as adversarial and don’t share our conceptions of fairness.

Who’s going to decide what’s fair and enforce it on a nuclear power with three trillion dollars in its bank account?

The standard answer here is “the WTO.” But we tried that.  The whole history of the WTO since its founding in 1995 is one long object lesson in the impossibility of global free trade based on shared rules of fairness.

Far better to demand of our trading partners something like reciprocity, which is an arithmetical concept independent of political culture or shared values. Even the Soviets understood reciprocity when it was backed up with credible power.

Cain exhibited the same frustrating mix of sense and nonsense in an interview at the Conservative Political Action Conference:

Interviewer: On free trade, do you support NAFTA, do you support CAFTA, do you support these free trade agreements? Where do you stand on trade?

Herman Cain: There are parts of NAFTA and CAFTA that I support, but I am sure that there are parts that I don’t support, so I can’t give you a specific answer. Basically though, I do support free trade agreements that are done correctly, where we don’t give away more than we gain.

And the reason is because we truly are in a global economy. It doesn’…’’’… moret make sense to be protectionist in a global economy the way we have.

Secondly, the fact that we’ve lost so many jobs to other countries… One of the ways to help with jobs in our own economy is to have good free trade agreements with our friends. Not these one-sided ones, but good trade agreements with other countries around the world.

So, bottom line, where does Herman Cain stand?  I honestly can’t tell, because there’s enough wiggle room in the above statements to drive a container ship through.

If interpreted the right way, they constitute a formula for serious reform of NAFTA and our other trade agreements. Cain seems to understand, for one thing, that mutual gains from freer trade are not automatic, but depend on successful U.S. negotiating.

If interpreted the wrong way, they constitute an Obama-style formula for pretending to be serious about trade reform while not being so.

I’m especially worried about that line about we can’t be protectionist because we’re in a global economy.  The fact of a globalized economy doesn’t, on its own, settle anything about protectionism vs. free trade.

Mr. Cain, you’re showing a few signs of promise on this issue, but also a lot of signs that give pause.  Speak up, and let us all know where you really stand.

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.

Panama, Colombia, Korea: Obama Makes a Bad Trade Situation Worse

Ian Fletcher :-:

This Monday, Obama submitted the long-pending Colombia, Panama, and South Korea free trade agreements to Congress.  White House chief of staff William Daley has promised to pass them by the end of the month.

Guess the need for campaign cash finally caught up with the administration.

Honestly, I didn’t have my hopes up, but I did harbor the vague hope that somehow Obama was going to stall on these.  The Republicans have actually been accusing him of not really wanting to pass them, and one could certainly see why he wouldn’t want them hanging around his neck for the 2012 election.

Frankly, I hope one of the Republicans who has wised up about free trade, like Buddy Roemer, long-shot former governor of Louisiana, takes a stick to him about it. Even Mitt Romney, who supports these agreements but also says (repeat, says) he wants to get tough on China’s trade practices, might be better—if he means it.

You know a Democratic president is in trouble when he’s getting outflanked by Republicans on an issue where Democrats are the natural owners of the popular (and correct) position.

Granted, Obama now seems to have the thin fig leaf of the so-called Trade Adjustment Assistance program, a “painkiller” program designed to blunt the harm to laid-off workers, in the bag. (The Republicans don’t like TAA one bit, but accepted it as the price of the ticket.)

But these agreements are still bad news.  You’d think America would have learned its lesson from NAFTA, which the Labor Department has estimated cost us 525,000 jobs? Think again.

The Panama treaty, for example, might as well be known as the Money Laundering Protection Act. Panama is one of the worst countries in the Western Hemisphere for both money laundering and tax evasion, and it’s getting even worse now that Switzerland has gotten just a little more scrupulous about enabling foreign criminals.

These illicit transactions range from otherwise-honest business people ducking the IRS to outright drug-trafficking gangsters.  Colombia and its billions in drug money are right next door.

If there’s one thing we learned in the 2008 financial crisis, it’s that if you really want a debacle, you take bad policy plus ordinary greed and add a dollop of outright criminality. Make no mistake, this is a pro-financial-crisis bill.  And it makes matters even worse by committing us to foreswear basic measures of prudent finance like limiting the size of financial institutions. It prevents us from limiting what financial services they may offer. It bans regulation of derivatives. And it ban limits on capital flows designed to tame volatile “hot money.”

Question: can a drug cartel be “too big to fail?”

As for the Colombia agreement: quite apart from all its other problems, this is a country whose government is accused of being  in cahoots with right-wing death squads that hunt down and kill labor leaders. Something like 3,000 over the last 25 years. (Whatever one may think about labor unions, I think civilized people can agree this isn’t acceptable.)

To what degree the Colombian government actually approves of this, and to what degree it is simply running a chaotic country with a long heritage of political violence, is unclear. But either way, America should not be entering into the intimate economic embrace entailed by a free-trade agreement with a nation at such a troubled stage of its history.

The Korea agreement is in a class by itself.  Basically a NAFTA clone, it is the biggest trade agreement since NAFTA, measured by the size of the economy involved, and the first since NAFTA that includes an industrialized country.  Korea has serious automobile and electronics industries, among others, and aggressive industrial policies to target American industries for displacement.

The Economic Policy Institute has estimated it will cost America 159,000 jobs over the next five years. At a time when the president says that his number one economic priority is job creation, this is nothing short of perverse.

Even the official U.S. International Trade Commission has admitted that KORUS-FTA will cause significant job losses. And not just in the low-end industries we are told are the sole casualties of freer trade: the ITC foresees the electronic equipment manufacturing industry, with average wages of $30.38 in 2008, as a major victim.

Paradoxically, Obama provably knows all this. He campaigned against KORUS-FTA during the 2008 campaign. (It was originally negotiated, but not ratified, by Bush in 2007.) Among other things, Obama said:

I strongly support the inclusion of meaningful, enforceable labor and environmental standards in all trade agreements. As president, I will work to ensure that the U.S. again leads the world in ensuring that consumer products produced across the world are done in a manner that supports workers, not undermines them.

Nice words. Unfortunately, none of them are reflected in KORUS-FTA, which contains no serious new provisions on these issues.

This agreement, like NAFTA, is fundamentally an offshoring agreement. That is, it is about making it easier for U.S.-based multinationals to move production overseas with confidence in the security of their investments in overseas plants.  The provisions to protect workers and consumers are unenforceable window dressing. (That’s why they’re allowed to be in there.)

As an example of how one-sided the treaty is, consider that it will allow America to export 75,000 cars a year to Korea. This translates to about 800 jobs. Korea’s exports of cars to the U.S. in 2009, on the other hand?  Over 475,000.

Furthermore, even if the U.S. does get to sell more cars in Korea, American companies will mostly not be making the steel, tires, and other components that go into them, because the agreement allows cars with 65 percent foreign content to be considered American. Worse, it allows goods with as much as 65 percent non-South-Korean content to count as Korean, opening the door not only to North Korean slave labor but to the whole of China.

Even leaving aside trade-balance issues, this agreement is a legal disaster thanks to so-called “investor-state arbitration.” This subjects American democracy to having its laws overruled by foreign judges as interfering with trade. To date under NAFTA, over $326 million in damages has been paid out by governments as a result of challenges to natural resource policies, environmental protection, and health and safety measures.

There about 80 Korean corporations, with about 270 facilities around the U.S., that would thereby acquire the right to challenge our laws.

“Free trade agreement,” in American English, means “free trade agreement.” In other languages, it means “gentleman’s agreement for managed trade at a low tariff.” Europe invented this game—known as mercantilism—back when trade was conducted with sailing ships. South Korea learned it from Japan, which learned it from Germany.

Uncle Sam (and maybe John Bull and a few others) are the only naïfs who still don’t get it.

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.

Regulatory uncertainty: A phony explanation for our jobs problem

Job creation has finally returned as a front and center priority in Washington. The prescription for spurring job creation, however, depends on the diagnosis of the underlying problem. Policymakers are currently invoking two very different explanations for the jobs crisis. The more persuasive explanation is that the demand for goods and services is depressed because of the collapse of the housing and stock market bubbles—the financial crisis—that has led to both a deleveraging (paying off debts) of households and a cratering of the construction sector. The initial shock of the bubble’s burst then cascaded into non-construction business investment that dried up as customers disappeared. Finally, all of this led to state and local governments cutting back services and jobs as tax revenues plunged.

See also: More on why regulatory uncertainty is a phony explanation on the EPI blog.

There is a competing story, widely told by Republican politicians and business trade associations, which claims that business investment and hiring is being held back by uncertainty over future regulations and taxation. As Maine Senator Susan Collins said in introducing her bill to put a moratorium on all new regulations: “Businesses, our nation’s job creators and the engine of any lasting economic growth, have been saying for some time that the lack of jobs is largely due to a climate of uncertainty, most notably the uncertainty and cost created by new federal regulations” (Kasperowicz 2011). Her view has been repeated by others, including House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (2011) and the Chamber of Commerce (Donohue 2011).

Full Story Here: Regulatory uncertainty: A phony explanation for our jobs problem | Economic Policy Institute.

Personal Incomes Drop: Economy Needs an Intervention

We knew from the the Labor Department’s awful jobs report for August that today’s Bureau of Economic Analysis report on personal income would show a sharp decline. It does.

Even with a sharp decline in tax payments, total real disposable incomes fell 0.3% in August after falling 0.2% in July. With population growth, on a per-capita basis, “average” real after-tax income fell 0.4% in August after falling 0.3% in July.

Even with a slight decline in real consumer spending in August – the third such decline in the past five months – total personal savings in August plunged to 4.5% of total disposable incomes. This is the lowest savings rate since November 2009 and it comes despite a decline in both consumer spending and tax payments.

Full Story Here: Personal Incomes Drop: Economy Needs an Intervention | Truthout.

Bank On It: They’re Scared

William Rivers Pitt,:-:

Far be it from me to accuse Gandhi of missing a note, but in the case of the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protests, the Mahatma’s famous quote appears to be lacking a few essential words. “First they ignore you,” he said, “then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.”

That’s not quite correct.

Certainly, the OWS protests began with a great whistling silence from the “mainstream” news media. It is only because of the resources available to the average person in this marvelous technological age we live in that word of the protest ever reached beyond its original location.

Thanks to cell phones, video cameras, digital recorders, and of course, the internet – all wielded by patriot citizens – reports, images and video of the protest began to dribble out via Twitter, Facebook and a variety of blogs and alternative news media sites like Truthout. But from the “mainstream” news, there was nothing, and nothing, and nothing.

Full Story Here: Bank On It: They’re Scared | Truthout.

State for Sale: How the GOP practices politics

The New Yorker:-:

A conservative multimillionaire has taken control in North Carolina, one of 2012’s top battlegrounds.

n the spring of 2010, the conservative political strategist Ed Gillespie flew from Washington, D.C., to Raleigh, North Carolina, to spend a day laying the groundwork for REDMAP, a new project aimed at engineering a Republican takeover of state legislatures. Gillespie hoped to help his party get control of statehouses where congressional redistricting was pending, thereby leveraging victories in cheap local races into a means of shifting the balance of power in Washington. It was an ingenious plan, and Gillespie is a skilled tactician—he once ran the Republican National Committee—but REDMAP seemed like a long shot in North Carolina. Barack Obama carried the state in 2008 and remained popular. The Republicans hadn’t controlled both houses of the North Carolina General Assembly for more than a century. (“Not since General Sherman,” a state politico joked to me.) That day in Raleigh, though, Gillespie had lunch with an ideal ally: James Arthur (Art) Pope, the chairman and C.E.O. of Variety Wholesalers, a discount-store conglomerate. The Raleigh News and Observer had called Pope, a conservative multimillionaire, the Knight of the Right. The REDMAP project offered Pope a new way to spend his money.

That fall, in the remote western corner of the state, John Snow, a retired Democratic judge who had represented the district in the State Senate for three terms, found himself subjected to one political attack after another. Snow, who often voted with the Republicans, was considered one of the most conservative Democrats in the General Assembly, and his record reflected the views of his constituents. His Republican opponent, Jim Davis—an orthodontist loosely allied with the Tea Party—had minimal political experience, and Snow, a former college football star, was expected to be reëlected easily. Yet somehow Davis seemed to have almost unlimited money with which to assail Snow.

Full Story Here: Art Pope, Citizens United, and North Carolina Politics : The New Yorker.

Clergy Members March Alongside “Occupy Wall Street” Protesters

The “Occupy Wall Street” demonstrators who have been camping in Lower Manhattan for more than three weeks to protest the country’s economic inequality are once again marching to Washington Square Park today, and members of the clergy are joining them in solidarity.

The group is retracting the same path from Zuccotti Park to Greenwich Village that it took yesterday.

Police say there were no arrests yesterday, compared to the past two Saturdays, when hundreds of protesters were arrested.

While the demonstrators do not have a common set of goals, individual protesters say they have their own reasons for being part of the ongoing movement.

“Well, I’m down here because Wall Street’s been bailed out, and the American people have been sold out,” said one protester. “I’m a former United States Marine…. I love the country, I love the people, but the government is criminal.”

Full Story Here: Clergy Members March Alongside “Occupy Wall Street” Protesters – NY1.com.

4 generator failures hit US nuclear plants

Four generators that power emergency systems at nuclear plants have failed when needed since April, an unusual cluster that has attracted the attention of federal inspectors and could prompt the industry to re-examine its maintenance plans.

None of these failures has threatened the public. But the diesel generators serve the crucial function of supplying electricity to cooling systems that prevent a nuclear plant’s hot, radioactive fuel from overheating, melting and potentially releasing radiation into the environment. That worst-case scenario happened this year when the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in Japan lost all backup power for its cooling systems after an earthquake and tsunami.

Three diesel generators failed after tornadoes ripped across Alabama and knocked out electric lines serving the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Browns Ferry nuclear plant in April. Two failed because of mechanical problems and one was unavailable because of planned maintenance.

Full Story Here: 4 generator failures hit US nuclear plants.

Protesters Against Wall Street

NY Times Editorial :-:

As the Occupy Wall Street protests spread from Lower Manhattan to Washington and other cities, the chattering classes keep complaining that the marchers lack a clear message and specific policy prescriptions. The message — and the solutions — should be obvious to anyone who has been paying attention since the economy went into a recession that continues to sock the middle class while the rich have recovered and prospered. The problem is that no one in Washington has been listening.

At this point, protest is the message: income inequality is grinding down that middle class, increasing the ranks of the poor, and threatening to create a permanent underclass of able, willing but jobless people. On one level, the protesters, most of them young, are giving voice to a generation of lost opportunity.

The jobless rate for college graduates under age 25 has averaged 9.6 percent over the past year; for young high school graduates, the average is 21.6 percent. Those figures do not reflect graduates who are working but in low-paying jobs that do not even require diplomas. Such poor prospects in the early years of a career portend a lifetime of diminished prospects and lower earnings — the very definition of downward mobility.

Full Story Here: Protesters Against Wall Street – NYTimes.com.

Alan Grayson Gets Standing Ovation While Bill Maher Panel Mocks Occupy Wall Street ‘Hippies’

One would think that the anti-corporatist ideals of the Occupy Wall Street movement would receive some safe harbor on Real Time with Bill Maher, and one would be correct that their ideology gelled entirely with the audience. But before Alan Grayson passionately stood up as a spokesman for their cause, the panel spent a fair amount of time mocking the group ruthlessly, for their “bongo drums,” disorganization, and incoherence.

“The don’t really have a coherent message,” Maher noted, with P.J. O’Rourke laughing beside him through an Occupy Wall Street bashing session about how useless their bongo drums are and how they don’t have bathrooms (that latter complaint from panelist Nicolle Wallace, who noted that it was “the logistics of the protest that bother me”). Maher, on his end, was just dismayed at the lack of marketing ability– “the Teabaggers named themselves after a gay sex act,” he joked, “but at least that was catchy.”

Full Story Here: Bill Maher Occupy Wall Street | Alan Grayson Video | Mediaite.

Name That Socialist! – “I hope we crush the monied corporations!” – YouTube

You have 30 seconds contestants!

Full Story Here: Name That Socialist! – “I hope we crush the monied corporations!” – YouTube.

Protesters prepare to dig in for winter

The cold is coming — and they know it.

As the Occupy Wall Street protesters head into their fourth week, the camp is preparing to dig in for the long haul. Saturday, thoughts were turning to basic human needs and ways to plan and strategize for the challenges ahead.

At Saturday’s 9 a.m. coordination meeting, representatives on the numerous task forces dealt with the need for more donations of sleeping bags, ground pads and shoes. Right now there’s an oversupply of socks, T-shirts and thermal blankets.

“The cold is definitely a concern for all of us,” Olivia Nole-Malpezzi, 18, of Rochester said later. “We definitely need to prepare for the winter, mentally and physically. Donations are everything to us.”

Full Story Here: Protesters prepare to dig in for winter.

Ignoring Massive Industry Fraud, Bank Of America CEO Hypes Benefits Of Faster Foreclosures

Speaking at the Atlantic Idea Fest earlier this week, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan sat down for a televised interview with CNBC’s Larry Kudlow. Defending the bank’s new $5 per month debit card fee, Moynihan invented something he called the “right to make a profit.”

But another segment of the interview sheds a great deal of light on how Bank of America sees its role in the economy. A year ago, Bank of America was among the many banks caught in a sweeping “robo-signing” scandal, in which documents were allegedly fabricated in places all over the country in order to foreclose on more homes. Although Bank of America has continued using robo-signing tactics today, Moynihan and Kudlow dismissed the potentially massive fraud, and bantered about how faster foreclosures could be great for the country:

KUDLOW: Isn’t it fair to say the faster the foreclosure, the better off we’re going to be? And I know there’s pain. But of course, some people lose, other people win. Young families come in, they’re going going to get very low prices. But the point is, the faster we clear our the unsold inventory, the sooner this country might start creating jobs in a real economic growth situation. Is that fair?

Full Story Here: Ignoring Massive Industry Fraud, Bank Of America CEO Hypes Benefits Of Faster Foreclosures | ThinkProgress.

Occupy Wall Street: The Most Important Thing in the World Now

by Naomi Klein :-:

I was honored to be invited to speak at Occupy Wall Street on Thursday night. Since amplification is (disgracefully) banned, and everything I say will have to be repeated by hundreds of people so others can hear (a k a “the human microphone”), what I actually say at Liberty Plaza will have to be very short. With that in mind, here is the longer, uncut version of the speech.

I love you.

And I didn’t just say that so that hundreds of you would shout “I love you” back, though that is obviously a bonus feature of the human microphone. Say unto others what you would have them say unto you, only way louder.

Yesterday, one of the speakers at the labor rally said: “We found each other.” That sentiment captures the beauty of what is being created here. A wide-open space (as well as an idea so big it can’t be contained by any space) for all the people who want a better world to find each other. We are so grateful.

Full Story Here: Occupy Wall Street: The Most Important Thing in the World Now | Common Dreams.

Alabama Law Makes It A Felony For Undocumented Immigrants To Have Water At Their Homes

At least one utility company in Alabama posted a sign informing its customers that a section of Alabama’s extreme anti-immigrant law prohibits them from providing water service to undocumented immigrants. According to the sign at Allgood Water Works in Blount County, Alabama, customers must have “an Alabama driver’s license or an Alabama picture ID card on file” by the date that the immigration law went into effect; otherwise, they risked losing their water service.

Sadly, the picture for Alabama’s immigrants is even grimmer than this sign suggests. Indeed, under one provision of the state’s immigration law, HB 56, it is a felony for an undocumented immigrant to even attempt to do business with Alabama’s state-run water agencies:

An alien not lawfully present in the United States shall not enter into or attempt to enter into a business transaction with the state or a political subdivision of the state and no person shall enter into a business transaction or attempt to enter into a business transaction on behalf of an alien not lawfully present in the United States. [...]

A violation of this section is a Class C felony.

Full Story Here: Alabama Law Makes It A Felony For Undocumented Immigrants To Have Water At Their Homes | ThinkProgress.

Newt’s Awful Speech Part I: Newt vs. The Little Rock Nine

The following is the first in a multi-part series on former Speaker Newt Gingrich’s speech to the Values Voter Summit

Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich just completed one of the most radical speeches ever delivered by a presidential candidate on the judiciary. Gingrich’s speech calls for a radical reshaping of our constitutional democracy, eliminating the judiciary’s power to make binding constitutional decisions. He promises to openly defy Supreme Court decisions he disagrees with, and pledges to intimidate judges who dare to part ways with the Constitution According To Newt.

Newt begins his speech with a rant about an unspecified 1958 Supreme Court decision which, he claims, wrongly created a doctrine of “judiciary supremacy”:

Imagine that, by a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court decided that 2+2=5. Under the current theory, which the Warren Court promulgated in 1958, the only effective recourse would be either a) to get a future Supreme Court to reverse them, or b) to pass a constitutional amendment declaring 2+2=4. . . . This is an absurdity, foisted on us in 1958 by an historic lie. There is no judicial supremacy, it does not exist in the American Constitution.

Watch it:

Full Story Here: Newt’s Awful Speech Part I: Newt vs. The Little Rock Nine | ThinkProgress.

We, the 99 Percent, Demand the End of the Wars Now

After ten years of war, now is a perfect time to act to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Friends Committee on National Legislation has set up a toll-free number for us to call Congress: 1-877-429-0678. A Congressional “supercommittee” is charged with coming up with $1.5 trillion in reduced debt over ten years, and the wars and the bloated Pentagon budget dangle before the supercommittee like overripe fruit.

A recent CBS poll shows how far out of step with the 99 percent the Pentagon’s plans are. Sixty-two percent want US troops out within two years.

But the Pentagon wants to stay for at least 13 more years<.

totally unacceptable.” More protests and more phone calls will get more members of Congress talking like that.

Full Story Here: We, the 99 Percent, Demand the End of the Wars Now | Truthout.

The Top Five Reasons To Move Your Money From Bank Of America

As hundreds of people remain encamped on Wall Street in New York City, and thousands of people across the country are taking part in a 99 Percent Movement aimed at battling economic inequality spurred on by enormous income gains by the richest one percent of Americans.

One of the financial institutions being targeted by protesters is foreclosure mill and government bailout recipient Bank of America (BOA). In Boston, thousands of people marched against BOA’s greed and in Los Angeles, numerous people were arrested while staging a sit-in at a local branch.

While many Americans may feel powerless against this banking behemoth, the truth is that Americans have a simple way to protest its greed and corporate malfeasance: simply move your money out of the bank to one of its competitors, such as a local credit union. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) recently encouraged Americans to do just that.

Full Story Here: The Top Five Reasons To Move Your Money From Bank Of America | ThinkProgress.

Chicago’s Upcoming Winter Expected To Be The Nation’s Worst

If you thought winter in Chicago couldn’t possibly get more intense than last year’s blizzaster, get ready for this one: Long-range forecasters are expecting this winter’s snowfall and average temperatures to rank the city as home to the nation’s worst winter.

According AccuWeather.com’s forecast, the Chicago area will likely be clobbered by between 50 and 58 inches of snow this winter — approximately the same amount as the 56 inches that fell over the city last year. An average amount of snowfall is approximately half that. The Chicago Sun-Times further reports that average temperatures will be 2 to 3 degrees colder than normal — also on par with last winter’s temperatures, which were 2.4 degrees colder than normal.

“People in Chicago are going to want to move after this winter,” AccuWeather meteorologist John Nagelberg told NBC 5 of the predicted frigidness.

The brutal temperatures are expected to hit hard in December and January, before easing up slightly in February, according to the Chicago Tribune. Snow will be expected to be distributed more evenly throughout the season than last year, when the Groundhog’s Day blizzard crippled the city, trapped hundreds of cars on Lake Shore Drive and provided an endless bevy of dramatically wintry images.

(Scroll down to relive the storm.)

Full Story Here: Chicago’s Upcoming Winter Expected To Be The Nation’s Worst.

Uber-Vultures: The Billionaires Who Would Pick Our President

Greg Palast:

The untold story of the sources of the loot controlled by Paul “The Vulture” Singer, Ken Langone and the Kochs – and why they need to buy the White House.

Hedge fund magnate Paul Singer likes to breakfast on decayed carcasses. What he chews down is sickening, but just as nausea-inducing are his new tablemates: billionaires Ken Langone and the Koch Brothers, Charles and David.

Singer has called together the billionaire boys’ club for the purpose of picking our next president for us. The old-fashioned way of choosing presidents – democracy and counting ballots and all that – has never been a favorite of this pack. I can tell you that from my investigations of each of these gentlemen for The Guardian. When the Statue of Liberty has nightmares, she dreams that these guys will combine to seize America via a cash-and-carry coup d’état.

Full Story Here: Uber-Vultures: The Billionaires Who Would Pick Our President | Truthout.

Koch Brothers Destroyed By Bloomberg Report

The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur on an investigative piece in Bloomberg on the Koch Brothers.

Full Story Here: Koch Brothers Destroyed By Bloomberg Report – YouTube.

A 40-Year Scan of the Right-Wing Corporate Takeover of America

Author and public intellectual Colin Greer tells us how we got where we are today. It’s not a pretty picture, but hope is on the way.

At this moment, there are growing protests on Wall Street in Manhattan, in Boston at the Bank of America, and in cities around the country. These embryonic and creative efforts are targeting the greed of the banks, the collusion of the corporate class with their corrupt elected officials, the high level of unemployment, the huge burden of student loans in a time of diminished opportunities, the increasing numbers of poor and hungry people, and much more. These protests, along with those earlier in Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio, are signs of revival of a long tradition of popular revolt against excesses of wealth and the corporate class.

Full Story Here: The Big Picture: A 40-Year Scan of the Right-Wing Corporate Takeover of America | | AlterNet.

Conservatives Want America to be a “Christian Nation” — Here’s What That Would Actually Look Like

Let’s compare Rick Perry’s version of “Christian values” to what the Bible really dictates.

Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry, in an appeal to evangelical voters, said “Christian values” and not “a bunch of Washington politicians” should be the touchstone guiding how Americans conduct their lives. …

“America is going to be guided by some set of values,” Perry told a crowd of 13,000 students and faculty members yesterday at a sports arena on the school’s campus. “The question is going to be, ‘Whose values?’” He said it should be “those Christian values that this country was based upon.”

It’s worth calling attention to Perry’s obnoxious rhetorical ploy of using “Christian values” to refer only to his own very specific, right-wing set of beliefs — preemptive war, gay-bashing, tax cuts for the rich, creationism in schools, deregulating corporations, dismantling the social safety net, the standard Republican package — as if he owned or had the right to define all of Christianity. In reality, there’s such a huge diversity of opinion among self-professed Christians past and present that the term “Christian values” could mean almost anything.

Full Story Here: Conservatives Want America to be a “Christian Nation” — Here’s What That Would Actually Look Like | Belief | AlterNet.

Putting Pundits to Shame: Protesters Know Exactly What They’re Fighting For

Their style may not have been as mainstream as the retirees attending a Glenn Beck rally, but they knew precisely what they were there for.

It should come as a surprise to nobody that the corporate media’s early coverage of the Occupy Wall Street movement has featured an abundance of hippie-punching but very little about the substantive issues driving thousands of Americans to take over the streets of cities across the country.

As I approached the 30 or so activists who have been camped out for weeks in front of the Federal Reserve Building as part of OccupySF – a protest smaller than those in New York, Boston or Los Angeles – I’d been primed by news stories heaping scorn on these ostensibly confused, foul-smelling rebels-without-a-cause, but what I encountered was very different.

I discovered that while their style may not have been as mainstream as that of the retirees attending a Glenn Beck rally, they knew precisely what they were there for. They had specific demands and even a simple-to-understand “bumper-sticker” message. “We stand for the 99 percent who don’t have much of a voice in this system,” a young woman named Melissa told me. A recent graduate with “not much in the way of job prospects,” she said she’d never been involved in a protest before.

Full Story Here: Putting Pundits to Shame: Protesters Know Exactly What They’re Fighting For | Activism & Vision | AlterNet.

The Real Reason Why Police Cage Peaceful Protestors

With Occupy Wall Street protesters kettled on the Brooklyn Bridge this weekend, we look at how kettling was used on protesters during the London riots earlier this year.

On Saturday, the Occupy Wall St. movement marched on the Brooklyn bridge in New York. Police officers cut the demonstrators off from the exits, entrapping them on the bridge, in the rain, before carting off as many as 700 to jail. In the story below, British journalist Dan Hancox writes about how corralling peaceful protestors, or “kettling,” was used by Britain’s conservative government to steamroll resistance to their drastic austerity agenda. As the Occupy Wall St. movement spreads to cities all over America, we may see much more of this type of policing of public space to quell protests.

Across the western world, the public is losing a battle for territory. In the UK, publically owned health care, housing, welfare and education are being cut, broken up and sold off for private profit by David Cameron’s Conservative government with audacious speed. This has a very physical manifestation– in the suffocating of peaceful protest through a technique that has become known as “kettling,” in which protestors are contained for five, seven or 10 hours without food, water, toilets, or hope of release.

Kettling has become synonymous with the enforcement of the Conservative government’s radical austerity and privatization program. In November and December 2010 a student uprising in Britain larger than that of May 1968 saw over 40,000 students take to the streets of London on four separate occasions to protest against the government. They occupied countless university buildings during this period, and linked up with the anti-cuts movement UK Uncut (which I’ve written about for AlterNet).

Full Story Here: The Real Reason Why Police Cage Peaceful Protestors | Activism & Vision | AlterNet.

Occupy Wall Street ends capitalism’s alibi

| Richard Wolff |

This protest pinpoints how dysfunctional our economic system is: we must refashion it for human needs, not corporate aims

Occupy Wall Street has already weathered the usual early storms. The kept media ignored the protest, but that failed to end it. The partisans of inequality mocked it, but that failed to end it. The police servants of the status quo over-reacted and that failed to end it – indeed, it fueled the fire. And millions looking on said, “Wow!” And now, ever more people are organising local, parallel demonstrations – from Boston to San Francisco and many places between.

Let me urge the occupiers to ignore the usual carping that besets powerful social movements in their earliest phases. Yes, you could be better organised, your demands more focused, your priorities clearer. All true, but in this moment, mostly irrelevant. Here is the key: if we want a mass and deep-rooted social movement of the left to re-emerge and transform the United States, we must welcome the many different streams, needs, desires, goals, energies and enthusiasms that inspire and sustain social movements. Now is the time to invite, welcome and gather them, in all their profusion and confusion.

Full Story Here: Occupy Wall Street ends capitalism’s alibi | Richard Wolff | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

Protests Against Wall Street Spread Across US

Protests against Wall Street entered their 18th day Tuesday as demonstrators across the country show their anger over the wobbly economy and what they see as corporate greed by marching on Federal Reserve banks and camping out in parks from Los Angeles to Portland, Maine.

Demonstrations are expected to continue throughout the week as more groups hold organizational meetings and air their concerns on websites and through streaming video.

In Manhattan on Monday, hundreds of protesters dressed as corporate zombies in white face paint lurched past the New York Stock Exchange clutching fistfuls of fake money. In Chicago, demonstrators pounded drums in the city’s financial district. Others pitched tents or waved protest signs at passing cars in Boston, St. Louis, Kansas City, Mo., and Los Angeles.

Full Story Here: Protests Against Wall Street Spread Across US | Common Dreams.

Citi, BofA Cut Workers After US Tax Holiday-Report

Report singles out 10 companies for cutting jobs

Ten major U.S. corporations, including big banks Citigroup Inc and Bank of America Corp, laid off workers after enjoying a tax holiday in 2004-2005 that had been billed as a form of economic stimulus, said a report released on Tuesday.

With large multinational companies today pressing Congress for another tax holiday, the Institute for Policy Studies reported that the last one did not fulfill its rosy promises for hundreds of thousands of U.S. workers.

Fifty-eight corporations that accounted for 70 percent of overseas profits repatriated under the 2004-2005 tax break collectively saved $64 billion in taxes, then cut 600,000 jobs through layoffs, the report said.

Full Story Here: Citi, BofA Cut Workers After US Tax Holiday-Report | Common Dreams.

Obama’s Free Trade Sleight of Hand

President Obama has pulled another rabbit out of his hat. Yesterday, as part of his sputtering “jobs plan,” Obama submitted to Congress three pending Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama that were originally negotiated by President Bush in 2007. In doing so, Obama is ignoring growing opposition from his Democratic base and voters across the political spectrum to resurrect policies Congress has refused to approve for over four years. And to get his message across, he’s using every trick in the book.

First is the bait-and-switch, with jobs as the lure. Just like Bush, Clinton, and the Bush before him, Obama cited trumped-up data from corporate lobbyists claiming these deals create jobs. This despite decades of evidence that NAFTA and other such deals have cost hundreds of thousands, if not millions of them. But hey, if these FTAs are in the “jobs plan,” they must be about creating jobs, right?

Nope. Here comes the switch. Beyond the talking points of these FTAs are a broad swath of new rights to multinational corporations that make the idea of corporate personhood seem quaint. The deals allow corporations to challenge public interest laws in international tribunals,with domestic courts powerless to stop them. Anything from minimum wages and clean water regulations to anti-teen smoking initiatives and recycling rules are vulnerable.

Full Story Here: Tim Robertson: Obama’s Free Trade Sleight of Hand.

Buffett challenges Murdoch on tax returns

Warren Buffett has a message for Rupert Murdoch and the Wall Street Journal: Sure, I’ll release my tax returns, if you do too.

Last week, the Wall Street Journal published an editorial that asked Buffett to disclose his tax returns. The piece, “Mr. Buffett’s Tax Secrets,” took issue with Buffett’s plan to hike taxes on some of the super-rich.

The Journal’s conservative editorial board doesn’t think that’s a great idea, saying that Buffett should instead “educate the public” by letting “everyone else in on his secrets of tax avoidance by releasing his tax returns.”

Asked about the editorial on Tuesday at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit, Buffett said he was willing to release his tax returns, on one condition:

“I think it might be a terrific idea if they would just ask their boss, Rupert Murdoch, and he and I will meet at Fortune, and we’ll both give you our tax returns and you can publish them,” Buffett said.

Full Story Here: Buffett challenges Murdoch on tax returns – Oct. 4, 2011.

Anatomy of a $30 Billion Medicare Crime

Like all great capers, this $30 billion Medicare crime unfolded in plain sight. A drug rep sat in the doctor’s office, balancing folders on his knees and flipping through the patient files. He wore a starched shirt, navy slacks and a golf tan from that day he’d convinced the doctor-client to participate in his company’s “mini-trial.” The deal was this: if the oncologist would inject his patients with high doses of a poorly tested drug, he could pocket $1,500.

But the doctor was too busy to select patients for this “study.” So, the salesman, Dean McClellan, combed through the confidential patient files himself, searching for a few human guinea pigs to enroll. He found his subjects and, over the ensuing weeks, tracked their reactions to the high doses of the anti-anemia drug Procrit. “Cancer to the brain was worse,” the rep wrote in one patient chart. “But anemia was better.”

Let us count the ways in which this was illegal. First, the payments were bribesused to seduce doctors to pump Procrit doses to levels not approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Procrit helps cancer patients produce enough red blood cells so they can avoid blood transfusions and withstand chemotherapy. Yet, some patients in McClellan’s “trials” weren’t undergoing chemo. Many didn’t even know they were being used as guinea pigs. Worse, there was no investigative review board, control group or protocol as there’d be in a bona fide scientific study. If there had been, someone might have noticed that three out of five people were dying in McClellan’s jerry-rigged trials.

Full Story Here: Anatomy of a $30 Billion Medicare Crime | Truthout.

Democrat wins West Virginia governor’s race

Democrat Earl Ray Tomblin overcame weeks of Republican attack ads to win the West Virginia governor’s race Tuesday, successfully distancing himself from the Obama administration and the president’s health care plan.

Tomblin, who has been acting governor for the past year, will finish the final year of a term left vacant by Joe Manchin, a well-liked governor who stepped down after he won a U.S. Senate seat.

The race was fraught with negative ads from both sides and narrowed in the final weeks. The national parties spent millions of dollars on each campaign.

With 65 percent of precincts reporting, Tomblin had 50 percent of the vote compared with Maloney’s 46 percent, according to unofficial results.

Full Story Here: The Associated Press: Democrat wins West Virginia governor’s race.

Banks defend debit-card fees amid pressure from Washington

The banking industry on Tuesday defended a controversial new fee on debit cards as some Democrats called on consumers to abandon financial institutions that impose the charge.

Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.) introduced a bill that would make it easier for customers to close their accounts and prohibit banks from assessing fees for the process. Meanwhile, Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) sent a letter to community banks and credit unions in his home state urging them to “seize this competitive opportunity” to woo consumers away from larger institutions.

“Politicians may not have the highest approval ratings, but I don’t think Wall Street banks and credit cards do either,” Durbin said.

Full Story Here: Banks defend debit-card fees amid pressure from Washington – The Washington Post.

Nurses to Join March on Wall Street October 5;  Demand Wall Street Transaction Tax – an “FTT”

National Nurses United, the largest union and professional association of nurses in the US – with 170,000 members, will be represented at the Wall Street March on October 5 by contingents including from Maryland, Pennsylvania, California, Washington, D.C., Illinois and New York. NNU is joining other unions, organizations and community groups in support of Occupy Wall Street. The Wall Street March begins at 5p.

NNU is pressing for a financial transaction tax (FTT) which was in effect in the US from 1914 to 1966. Proponents, including NNU, say hundreds of billions of dollars could be raised annually through even a modest tax rate on financial market trades of stocks, bonds, derivatives, credit default swaps, and similar financial transactions and used to help rebuild America.

In June, NNU members, joined by labor and community activists, rallied in support of such a tax on Wall Street across from the New York Stock Exchange, and outside the U.S. headquarters of the Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C.

More than a dozen countries now collect revenue from financial transactions. Britain alone raises billions every year just with a tax on stock trades. The French and Brazilian parliaments this year endorsed such an FTT, as did the European Parliament, with the EU now considering adoption.

Full Story Here: Nurses to Join March on Wall Street October 5;  Demand Wall Street Transaction Tax – an “FTT” | National Nurses United.

Secular group: 27 secret atheists in Congress

The president of a secular group says that there are 28 members of Congress who do not believe in God, but only one of them feels comfortable revealing his lack of faith.

Secular Coalition of America (SCA) president Herb Silverman told The Guardian that his group was aware of many members of Congress who weren’t ready to make their non-beliefs known.

“Privately, we know that there are 27 other members of Congress that have no belief in God,” Silverman claimed. “But we don’t ‘out’ people.”

Full Story Here: Secular group: 27 secret atheists in Congress | The Raw Story.

Sen. Rand Paul Blocks $36 Million For Disabled And Elderly Refugees, Including Those Who Aided American Troops

Like his father, GOP contender Rep. Ron Paul (TX), freshman Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is well known for his beliefs that the government should not be in the business of helping the poor and downtrodden. Now Politico is reporting that Paul is single-handedly holding up $36 million in benefits for elderly and disabled refugees.

Funding for the refugees ran out on Friday, but Paul refuses to lift his hold out of a professed concern that the money could be used to aid terrorists:

In a statement to POLITICO on Tuesday, Paul confirmed he was blocking the bill over concerns the money could be used to aid domestic terrorists. Two alleged terrorists, who came to the U.S. through a refugee program and were receiving welfare benefits, were arrested this year in Paul’s hometown of Bowling Green, Ky.

Full Story Here: Sen. Rand Paul Blocks $36 Million For Disabled And Elderly Refugees, Including Those Who Aided American Troops | ThinkProgress.

Keystone XL construction permit expires

The National Energy Board has given Trans Canada Pipeline until October 14 to respond to the assertion of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union that its Canadian permit to build the Keystone XL pipeline has expired.

The NEB responded to a CEP application last week on the expiry of Order in Council 56 which required that construction of the pipeline commence prior to March 11, 2011. The NEB letter to TCPL can be found on the NEB web site’s regulatory documents section – receipt A31873.

“This is no technicality,” said CEP President Dave Coles. “TCPL missed its construction start deadlines because regulatory approval is more than a year late in the US, and there are still large doubts about whether there will be US federal and state approvals.

Full Story Here: Keystone XL construction permit expires | CEP.

Whatever happened to civics?

I’m a teacher. I don’t formally teach social studies, or political science, or history, or government. But in order for my students to understand what I do teach—cultural anthropology and women’s studies—they have to have a basic understanding of how political systems work—especially ours—and need to know the basics about legislation, politics, civil rights and social change and how they are affected by political and social systems.

They don’t.

I teach college students at a working class state university. My entry level classes have students who are fresh out of mostly public high schools. Last week, once again, as I do each semester, I faced the challenge of explaining not only why they should vote, but what that vote means to them, in real life terms, and how their activism, or lack of it, will affect their lives, now and in the future.

I’m in New York. Not one student could name both of our U.S. senators. Only one student could name their Congressperson. None had a clue about their state assembly persons or senators.

Full Story Here: Daily Kos: Whatever happened to civics?.

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory Provides X-Ray And Ultraviolet Images Of the Sun (PHOTOS)

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) has been providing some stunning images of the sun since early 2010, but recently it began releasing daily images of the sun that will blow your mind.

The $865 million project equipped the semi-autonomous SDO craft to orbit the sun for five years, sending back advanced data about the life-giving star. Among the data retrieved are these photos images, which picture the light thrown off by the star at wavelengths not typically visible to the human eye.

These x-ray and ultraviolet images give a unique perspective and help scientists understand the internal motion of the giant ball of burning gas.

NASA has begun releasing daily images of the sun, which you can check out in the slideshow below, or here on NASA’s website.

Full Story Here: NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory Provides X-Ray And Ultraviolet Images Of the Sun (PHOTOS).

Koch Brothers Flout Law Getting Richer With Secret Iran Sales

In May 2008, a unit of Koch Industries Inc., one of the world’s largest privately held companies, sent Ludmila Egorova-Farines, its newly hired compliance officer and ethics manager, to investigate the management of a subsidiary in Arles in southern France. In less than a week, she discovered that the company had paid bribes to win contracts.

“I uncovered the practices within a few days,” Egorova- Farines says. “They were not hidden at all.”

She immediately notified her supervisors in the U.S. A week later, Wichita, Kansas-based Koch Industries dispatched an investigative team to look into her findings, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its November issue.

Full Story Here: Koch Brothers Flout Law Getting Richer With Secret Iran Sales – Bloomberg.

Occupy Wall Street

The Atlantic |

In New York City’s Financial District, hundreds of activists have been converging on Lower Manhattan over the past two weeks, protesting as part of an “Occupy Wall Street” movement. The protests are largely rallies against the influence of corporate money in politics, but participants’ grievances also include frustrations with corporate greed, anger at financial and social inequality, and several other issues. Nearly 80 people were arrested last weekend in a series of incidents with the New York police as the protesters attempted to march uptown. Most are now camped out in nearby Zucotti Park. Demonstrations also took place yesterday in San Francisco, and an “Occupy Boston” protest is planned for tonight, September 30. Collected here are a handful of images of the protesters occupying Wall Street from the past two weeks. [35 photos]

Full Story Here: Occupy Wall Street – Alan Taylor – In Focus – The Atlantic.

Greece to miss deficit targets despite austerity

Greece will miss a deficit target set just months ago in a massive bailout package, according to government draft budget figures released on Sunday, showing that drastic steps taken to avert bankruptcy may not be enough.

The dire forecasts came while inspectors from the International Monetary Fund, EU and European Central Bank, known as the troika, were in Athens scouring the country’s books to decide whether to approve a loan tranche. Without that installment, Greece would run out of cash as soon as this month.

The 2012 draft budget approved by cabinet on Sunday predicts a deficit of 8.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) for 2011, well short of the 7.6 percent target.

Full Story Here: Greece to miss deficit targets despite austerity | Reuters.

Max Keiser: French banks and the European debt crisis

In this edition of the show Max interviews Pierre Jovanovic from Jovanovic.com.

He will talk about the run on French banks and how President Sarkozy’s administration is dealing with this and the European debt crisis.

Many analysts are saying that it may not be a Greek default that spurs the next big crisis, but a liquidity crunch at French banks.

France’s largest banks have lost almost half their value since August 1, leading to solvency concerns.

Without an injection of cash from the European Central Bank investors may continue to flee French finance, spreading panic along the way

Full Story Here: French banks and the European debt crisis-On the Edge with Max Keiser-09-30-2011 – YouTube.

Woodard: The Real U.S. Map, a Country of Regions

In 2008, with the U.S. divided between red states and blue states, then-candidate Barack Obama called for unity over division, a common shout-out among politicians and others determined to preserve America’s under- siege, allegedly shared values. Yet such calls ignore the fact that there are no shared “American values.” We’ve always been divided. And not truly along state lines.

America’s most essential and abiding divisions stem from the fact that the U.S. is a federation composed of the whole or parts of 11 disparate regional cultures — each exhibiting conflicting agendas and the characteristics of nationhood — and which respect neither state nor international boundaries, bleeding over the borders of Canada and Mexico as readily as they divide California, Texas, Illinois or Pennsylvania. The differences between them shaped the scope and nature of the American Revolution, the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution and, most tragically, the Civil War. Since 1960, the fault lines between these nations have been growing wider, fueling culture wars, constitutional struggles and those ever- present pleas for unity.

These “nations” have been with us all along.

Full Story Here: Woodard: The Real U.S. Map, a Country of Regions – Bloomberg.

Health care reform tops Supreme Court docket

Profanity on television, police use of GPS without a warrant, and the status of Jerusalem on passports are grist for the new US Supreme Court session opening Monday, but the main event will be President Barack Obama’s landmark health care reform.

The nine justices on the highest court in the land already have 50 cases on the table for the new session, which runs until the end of June 2012.

The court has dealt with up to 75 cases in past sessions, so the extra space could be interpreted as leaving extra room to tackle the sweeping health care reform that Obama championed and signed into law in early 2010.

Full Story Here: Health care reform tops Supreme Court docket | The Raw Story.

The Secret History of the Global Financial Collapse.2010. – YouTube

Meltdown – The Secret History of the Global Financial Collapse.2010.1of4.The Men Who Crashed The World.avi

pt 1/4 Meltdown -

Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqBlVBhv0ag

Part 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBhAvUTW5ZE

Part 4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZwMIIJLWOw

Full Story Here: pt 1/4 Meltdown – The Secret History of the Global Financial Collapse.2010. – YouTube.

Targeting Dissent: Domestic Spying Across America

Ten Years Later: Surveillance in the “Homeland” is a collaborative project with Truthout and ACLU Massachusetts.

How little – yet how much – has changed in the last 40 years. The COINTELPRO papers sound distinctly 21st century as they detail the monitoring of perceived threats to “national security” by the FBI, CIA, National Security Agency (NSA), Secret Service, and the military, as well as the intelligence bureaucracy’s war on First Amendment protest activity.

The Church Committee investigation concluded in 1976 that the “unexpressed major premise of the programs was that a law enforcement agency has the duty to do whatever is necessary to combat perceived threats to the existing social and political order.”

Full Story Here: Targeting Dissent | Truthout.

Bill Maher – The Word For Republicans These Days Is…

Bill Maher rips into the Republican Presidential “hopefuls” and even jokes about how Jesus Christ couldn’t even make it in the Republican party these days.

Copyright Disclaimer: Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.

Full Story Here: Bill Maher – The Word For Republicans These Days Is… – YouTube.

Rachel Maddow Questions Legality Of Anwar al-Awlaki Killing (VIDEO)

Rachel Maddow raised a series of questions about the legality of the killing of the U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki on her Friday show.

Al-Awlaki was killed by a U.S. airstrike on Friday morning. While many lawmakers and pundits celebrated the death, others were troubled by the precedent that might be set by killing an American citizen without any trial or evidence presented against him.

Maddow ran through the long list of operations that al-Awlaki was allegedly involved in. She noted that there were “a lot of ‘allegedlys’” in the list, and that “none of those allegations was ever made in court.” The only due process involved in al-Awlaki’s killing, she says, was that President Obama ordered him to be killed.

Full Story Here: Rachel Maddow Questions Legality Of Anwar al-Awlaki Killing (VIDEO).

Meet The 4 Democratic Senators Who Are Refusing To Raise Taxes On The Rich

Meet the four Democratic Senators who are so worried about their own reelection campaigns that they are refusing to raise taxes on the wealthy.

Yesterday, I wrote an article based on Sen. Dick Durbin telling a local Chicago radio station that some Democrats in the Senate are refusing to raise taxes on the wealthy in an election year. At the time of publication, I didn’t have the names of the Democrats who won’t raise taxes on the rich, but I do now.

Lots of commenters wanted the names and contact information for the Un-Fantastic Four, so here they are.

1). Sen. Bob Casey -Email Twitter

2). Sen. Mary Landrieu- Email

3). Sen. Kay Hagan- Email Twitter

4). Sen. Joe Manchin- Email Twitter

Full Story Here: Meet The 4 Democratic Senators Who Are Refusing To Raise Taxes On The Rich.

Christie Team Assessing How Fast a 2012 Campaign Could Be Mounted

Chris Christie’s political advisers are working to determine whether they could move fast enough to set up effective political operations in Iowa and New Hampshire in the wake of a relentless courtship aimed at persuading Mr. Christie, the governor of New Jersey, to plunge into the race for the Republican presidential nomination, according to operatives briefed on the preparations.

Mr. Christie has not yet decided whether to run and has not authorized the start of a full-fledged campaign operation. But with the governor now seriously considering getting in, his strategists — many of them veterans of Rudolph W. Giuliani’s 2008 campaign — are internally assessing the financial and logistical challenges of mounting a race with less than 100 days until voting is likely to begin.

Those challenges include not only raising money, but also spending it effectively in the crucial states with early primaries. That would mean meeting filing deadlines, hiring staff members, recruiting volunteers, putting together a travel schedule for Mr. Christie and his surrogates and devising a media campaign.

Full Story Here: Christie Team Assessing How Fast a 2012 Campaign Could Be Mounted – NYTimes.com.

OPS: And how pissed is Romney right now? LOL. And Jeb is still waiting in the wings……

Iowa District Pays $300K Over Strip Searches

The Atlantic school district has agreed to pay $300,000 to settle a lawsuit filed over student strip searches.

Settlement documents released by the district show the families of three girls will each get $100,000. Other details of the settlement were confidential.

Full Story Here: Iowa District Pays $300K Over Strip Searches | KCRG-TV9 | Cedar Rapids, Iowa News, Sports, and Weather | Local News.

Bill Maher with Van Jones About our “Occuby Wall Street”

Great comments from Van Jones saying about how proud we are of us on “Occupy Wall Street”… and that we all should support them..

Broadcast on 9-30-2011

We are anonymous

We are legion

We do not forgive

We do not forget

Expect us

Full Story Here: Real Time with.Bill Maher 2011.09.30 with Van Jones About our “Occuby Wall Street” – YouTube.

Something’s Happening on Wall Street

[video]

a glimpse into the growth and power of Occupy Wall Street.

Full Story Here: Something’s Happening on Wall Street – YouTube.

700 arrested at Brooklyn Bridge protest

More than 700 protesters demonstrating against corporate greed, global warming and social inequality, among other grievances, were arrested Saturday after they swarmed the Brooklyn Bridge and shut down a lane of traffic for several hours in a tense confrontation with police.

The group Occupy Wall Street has been camped out in a plaza in Manhattan’s Financial District for nearly two weeks staging various marches, and had orchestrated an impromptu trek to Brooklyn on Saturday afternoon. They walked in thick rows on the sidewalk up to the bridge, where some demonstrators spilled onto the roadway after being told to stay on the pedestrian pathway, police said.

The majority of those arrested were given citations for disorderly conduct and were released, police said.

Full Story Here: 700 arrested at Brooklyn Bridge protest – CBS News.

Occupy Wall Street movement receiving mail and supplies from supporters across the U.S.

Twice a day, the Occupy Wall Street movement gets mail – so much the protesters had to designate an official “mailman.”

Well-wishers and kindred spirits from across the country have been sending cardboard boxes bearing food, medical supplies, clothes and blankets to the masses who have camped out near Ground Zero since Sept. 14.

“I want to thank you for the many sacrifices you are making to better this nation,” read a note that Janet Bauer of Elk Grove Village, Ill., wrote to accompany her care package. She also threw in $30 in cash. “I’m a 51-year-old permanently disabled person who is unable to join you – but know my heart and hopes are with you.”

Full Story Here: Occupy Wall Street movement receiving mail and supplies from supporters across the U.S..

Unions Promise Support As #OccupyWallStreet Enters Third Week

There had been rumor on Friday that the band Radiohead would be dropping by the #OccupyWallStreet encampment.

They had just been on the Colbert Report, and their fan base is huge among the very demographic of younger people drawn to the protests now beginning their third week.

And so more people came than organizers expected. Loads of people!  Except, alas, for Radio Head. The band had reportedly called to express support that led some to conclude that they were on the way.

Full Story Here: Unions Promise Support As #OccupyWallStreet Enters Third Week | Common Dreams.

More Than 500 Arrested in Wall Street Protest

Police reopened the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday evening after more than 500 anti-Wall Street protesters were arrested for blocking traffic lanes and attempting an unauthorized march across the span.

The arrests took place when a large group of marchers, participating in a second week of protests by the Occupy Wall Street movement, broke off from others on the bridge’s pedestrian walkway and headed across the Brooklyn-bound lanes.

“More than 500 were arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge late this afternoon after multiple warnings by police were given to protesters to stay on the pedestrian walkway,” a police spokesman said.

Full Story Here: More Than 500 Arrested in Wall Street Protest | Common Dreams.

Judge Rules Florida Prison Privatization Unconstitutional

Tallahassee, Florida circuit court judge sided with a union today in ruling that a prison privatization scheme lawmakers included in the state budget violates Florida’s constitution. The Florida Police Benevolent Association, which represents correctional workers in the state, filed a lawsuit saying the method in the which lawmakers planned to privatize 29 prisons in southern Florida violated state law, arguing that it should have been done via a separate law, not through the budget. Tallahassee Judge Jackie Fulford agreed, adding that lawmakers rushed the process:

Full Story Here: Judge Rules Florida Prison Privatization Unconstitutional | ThinkProgress.

Rick Santorum’s Stump Speech Includes Nod To Fracking Company Directly Paying Him The Past Year

On the campaign trail, Rick Santorum says his career since the Senate has been a paid commentary role at Fox News and as a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. But a mandatory disclosure requirement for presidential candidates reveals something new: Santorum has maintained his lifestyle through a well-paid consulting gig with Consol Energy Inc and a lobbying firm called American Continental Group.

The disclosure, revealed earlier this week, comes as a surprise because Santorum has never mentioned the fact that he works for a lobbying firm, nor do any state and federal lobbying disclosures have him listed as a lobbyist or contractor to such a company.

Consol Energy is one of the country’s largest coal mining companies that also has substantial involvement in hydraulic fracking in Pennslyvania. According to the company’s website, it is “the leading eastern U.S. gas producer and our future growth is centered in the Marcellus Shale.” ThinkProgress has attended multiple Santorum campaign stops, and the former senator almost always spends a few minutes extolling the virtues of fracking in the Marcellus Shale region:

Full Story Here: Rick Santorum’s Stump Speech Includes Nod To Fracking Company Directly Paying Him The Past Year | ThinkProgress.

How Companies Plunder and Profit from the Nest Eggs of American Workers

What really happened to the retirement benefits of millions of Americans at thousands of companies.

In December 2010, General Electric held its Annual Outlook Investor Meeting at Rockefeller Center in New York City. At the meeting, chief executive Jeffrey Immelt stood on the Saturday Night Live stage and gave the gathered analysts and shareholders a rundown on the global conglomerate’s health. But in contrast to the iconic comedy show that is filmed at Rock Center each week, Immelt’s tone was solemn. Like many other CEOs at large companies, Immelt pointed out that his firm’s pension plan was an ongoing problem. The “pension has been a drag for a decade,” he said, and it would cause the company to lose 13 cents per share the next year. Regretfully, to rein in costs, GE was going to close the pension plan to new employees.

The audience had every reason to believe him. An escalating chorus of bloggers, pundits, talk show hosts, and media stories bemoan the burgeoning pension-and-retirement crisis in America, and GE was just the latest of hundreds of companies, from IBM to Verizon, that have slashed pensions and medical benefits for millions of American retirees. To justify these cuts, companies complain they’re victims of a “perfect storm” of uncontrollable economic forces—an aging workforce, entitled retirees, a stock market debacle, and an outmoded pension system that cripples their chances of competing against pensionless competitors and companies overseas.

Full Story Here: How Companies Plunder and Profit from the Nest Eggs of American Workers | Books | AlterNet.