Archive for November, 2011

Why Is the Oakland Police Department Hiding the Truth About Its Violent Crackdown on the Occupy Protests?

Oakland police appear to have violated their own guidelines, and now they’re refusing to release documents to civil rights attorneys as required by law.

After three notably violent crackdowns on protesters in as many weeks, Oakland Police Department officials have refused a request by the ACLU of Northern California to release police reports documenting their use of force as required by law.

“We saw events that we found extremely troubling, and which violated provisions of Oakland’s own crowd control policy,” Linda Lye, a staff attorney with ACLU of Northern California told AlterNet.

After recent police actions in Oakland gained national attention, “there was a lot of lip service paid to transparency and accountability and the public’s interest in monitoring the situation,” she said. “But then OPD proceeded to say that it was invoking one of the statutory exceptions to the Public Records Act for the vast majority of our requests.”

Full Story Here: Why Is the Oakland Police Department Hiding the Truth About Its Violent Crackdown on the Occupy Protests? | Occupy Wall Street | AlterNet.

Beating Babies in the Name of Jesus? The Shady World of Right-Wing “Discipline” Guides

There is a brutal movement in America that legitimizes child abuse in the name of God.

There is a brutal movement in America that legitimizes child abuse in the name of God. Two stories recently converged to make us pay attention. Last week, a video went viral of a Texas judge brutally whipping his disabled daughter. And on Monday, the New York Times published a story about child deaths in homes that have embraced the teachings of To Train Up a Child, a book by Christian preacher Michael Pearl that advocates using a switch on children as young as six months old.

What many people may not realize is that in the evangelical alternative universe of the home school movement, tightly knit church communities and the following of a number of big-time leaders and authors, physical punishment of children has been glorified for years.

Full Story Here: Beating Babies in the Name of Jesus? The Shady World of Right-Wing “Discipline” Guides | Truthout.

California Refuses to Accept Obama’s Banking Sellout

There is no three-strikes law for crooked bankers, not even a law for a fifth strike, as The New York Times reported in the case of Citigroup, cited last month in a $1 billion fraud case. Unlike the California third-striker I once wrote about whom a district attorney wanted banished forever to state prison for stealing a piece of pizza from the plate of a person dining outdoors, Citigroup executives get off with a fine and by offering a promise not to do it again, and again and again.

As the Times reported when Citigroup agreed to settle SEC charges last month: “Citigroup’s main brokerage subsidiary, its predecessors or its parent company agreed to not violate the very same antifraud statue in July 2010. And in May 2006. Also as far back as March 2005 and April 2000.”

Not that the bankers face prison time, since the Justice Department has refused to act in these cases, and the Securities and Exchange Commission is bringing only civil charges, which the banks find quite tolerable. This time, the fine against Citigroup was $285 million, which may sound like a lot except that the bank raked off as much as $700 million on this particular toxic securities deal. As the Bloomberg news service editorialized, “… there should be only one answer from Jed S. Rakoff, the federal judge in New York assigned to weigh the merits of the agreement: You’ve got to be kidding.”

Full Story Here: California Refuses to Accept Obama’s Banking Sellout | Truthout.

Want more evidence conservatives are TRYING to crash the economy?

| Thom Hartmann  :-:

Want more evidence conservatives are TRYING to crash the economy – consider this. The Republican-controlled House of Representative will once again vote on – and likely pass – a so-called “balanced budget amendment” in the next week. The BBA as they call it – will immediately cut trillions of dollars out of the budget – and then make it nearly impossible to ever raise taxes again. And – it will crash our economy.

According to a new report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities – the Republican BBA would, “throw about 15 million more people out of work, double the unemployment rate from 9 percent to approximately 18 percent, and cause the economy to shrink by about 17 percent instead of growing by an expected 2 percent.” We can add those horrific economic numbers to the 370,000 jobs that have already been lost this year thanks to Republican budget cuts. And as we saw in last night’s debate – with the global economy headed into full meltdown mode – not one candidate said they’d lift a finger to stop it – aside from Herman Cain who thinks his 9-9-9 plan can stop anything.

Luckily- as Tuesday’s election showed – the American people are waking up to just how bad the conservative agenda is for the nation.

Full Story Here: Want more evidence conservatives are TRYING to crash the economy? | Thom Hartmann – News & info from the #1 progressive radio show.

Most Americans Support Raising Minimum Wage To Ten Dollars Per Hour, Survey Finds

The majority of Americans say they support raising the minimum wage — by a lot.

More than two-thirds of Americans say lawmakers should raise the national minimum wage to $10 per hour from its current $7.25, a survey from the Public Religion Research Institute finds. While Democrats were more likely to support a minimum wage boost, more than half of Republican respondents said they would like to see the minimum wage go up, according to the survey.

Support for a minimum wage boost has held at stable levels for more than a year. An October 2010 by the National Employment Law Project found that at the time, two-thirds of Americans supported a hike in the minimum wage.

If the current findings hold true come election day, some Republican candidates for president may have to change their tune. Herman Cain’s campaign has floated the idea of scaling back minimum wage laws in impoverished areas and Michele Bachmann has said she would consider lowering it. Ron Paul has said that the minimum wage should be scrapped completely.

Full Story Here: Most Americans Support Raising Minimum Wage To Ten Dollars Per Hour, Survey Finds.

Imported Honey May Not Technically Be Honey

America’s lax food safety regulations are allowing many products to be labeled as something they are not. One of the most egregious violations comes in the form of imported honey. Calling the imports “honey” may be a misnomer, however, as approximately ¾ of all honey sold on U.S. shelves is not what is traditionally considered honey.

For a product to be considered honey by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), it must contain pollen. But the FDA does not check honey to see if it contains pollen. Checking for pollen is an important step because pollen can be used to trace the origin of the honey to make sure it comes from a safe, reputable source.

Chinese firms have been known to strip the pollen out of their honey using a process called ultra filtering. With the pollen stripped out, the honey can then be sold to the U.S. by funneling it through other countries, often India. This allows the Chinese firms to circumvent U.S. restrictions, to the detriment of the U.S. consumer.

Full Story Here: Imported Honey May Not Technically Be Honey | Economy In Crisis.

Greg Palast Tracks the Vultures of the 1 Percent: A Truthout Interview

Near the front of his new book, “Vultures’ Picnic,” Greg Palast quotes BuzzFlash at Truthout as calling him “a cross between Seymour Hersh and Jack Kerouac.” He also quotes a White House spokesman as saying about him, “We hate that sonovabitch.”

During its first several years, Palast was the most interviewed resource on BuzzFlash. That was and is because he drives the global elite crazy, not to mention the mainstream corporate media.

He’s a one-person investigative junk yard dog, who chomps down and doesn’t let go. He’s indefatigable, as the subtitle of his book indicates, “in pursuit of petroleum pigs, power pirates, and high-finance carnivores.”

Full Story Here: Greg Palast Tracks the Vultures of the 1 Percent: A Truthout Interview | Truthout.

Asteroid Passes By Earth

An asteroid as big as an aircraft carrier zipped by Earth on Tuesday in the closest encounter by such a massive space rock in more than three decades. Scientists ruled out any chance of a collision but turned their telescopes skyward to learn more about the object known as 2005 YU55.

Its closest approach to Earth was pegged at a distance of 202,000 miles at 6:28 p.m. EST. That’s just inside the moon’s orbit; the average distance between Earth and the moon is 239,000 miles.

The last time a large cosmic interloper came that close to Earth was in 1976, and experts say it won’t happen again until 2028.

Scientists at NASA’s Deep Space Network in the California desert have tracked the quarter-mile-wide asteroid since last week as it approached from the direction of the sun at 29,000 mph.

Full Story Here: Asteroid Passes By Earth.

Obama Health Care Reform Ruling: Appeals Court Upholds Law

A conservative-leaning appeals court panel on Tuesday upheld the constitutionality of President Barack Obama’s health care law, as the Supreme Court prepares to consider this week whether to resolve conflicting rulings over the law’s requirement that all Americans buy health care insurance.

A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued a split opinion upholding the lower court’s ruling that found Congress did not overstep its authority in requiring people to have insurance or pay a penalty on their taxes, beginning in 2014. The requirement is the most controversial requirement of Obama’s signature domestic legislative achievement and the focus of conflicting opinions from judges across the country. The Supreme Court could decide as early as Thursday during a closed meeting of the justices whether to accept appeals from some of those earlier rulings.

The suit in Washington was brought by the American Center for Law and Justice, a legal group founded by evangelist Pat Robertson. It claimed that the insurance mandate is unconstitutional because it forces Americans to buy a product for the rest of their lives and that it violates the religious freedom of those who choose not to have insurance because they rely on God to protect them from harm. But the court ruled that Congress had the power to pass the requirement to ensure that all Americans can have health care coverage, even if it infringes on individual liberty.

Full Story Here: Obama Health Care Reform Ruling: Appeals Court Upholds Law.

Time to Take Your Civics Aptitude Test

If you have a high school junior or senior in the house, you know the drill.

SAT, ACT, testing, testing, testing.

Test for math, test for English, test for science.

Go to visit colleges.

Apply. Wait for the call. Dish out the cash.

But here’s something that’s missing from the routine – civics education.

Education about our shared civics culture, about the activists who are seeking to make our country a better place to live, about the laws and institutions that keep this country from spinning into the abyss.

Are there any universities that specialize in civics education?

Haven’t found one yet.

Are there any universities that emphasize it?

Haven’t found one yet.

Full Story Here: Time to Take Your Civics Aptitude Test | Common Dreams.

The 1% are the very best destroyers of wealth the world has ever seen

Our common treasury in the last 30 years has been captured by industrial psychopaths. That’s why we’re nearly bankrupt

If wealth was the inevitable result of hard work and enterprise, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire. The claims that the ultra-rich 1% make for themselves – that they are possessed of unique intelligence or creativity or drive – are examples of the self-attribution fallacy. This means crediting yourself with outcomes for which you weren’t responsible. Many of those who are rich today got there because they were able to capture certain jobs. This capture owes less to talent and intelligence than to a combination of the ruthless exploitation of others and accidents of birth, as such jobs are taken disproportionately by people born in certain places and into certain classes.

The findings of the psychologist Daniel Kahneman, winner of a Nobel economics prize, are devastating to the beliefs that financial high-fliers entertain about themselves. He discovered that their apparent success is a cognitive illusion. For example, he studied the results achieved by 25 wealth advisers across eight years. He found that the consistency of their performance was zero. “The results resembled what you would expect from a dice-rolling contest, not a game of skill.” Those who received the biggest bonuses had simply got lucky.

Full Story Here: The 1% are the very best destroyers of wealth the world has ever seen | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian.

Why Mitt Romney’s Entitlement-Privatization Plan Is Crazy

| Matt Taibbi |

David Brooks, the [gratuitous insult deleted], wrote this this morning entitled “Mitt Romney, the Serious One.” In it, he explained how Romney’s recent decision to unveil a plan for reforming the entitlement system “demonstrates his awareness of the issues that need to define the 2012 presidential election.”

Romney grasped the toughest issue – how to reform entitlements to avoid a fiscal catastrophe – and he sketched out a sophisticated way to address it.

So we had a giant financial crash in 2008 that necessitated a bailout costing a minimum of nearly $5 trillion and perhaps ultimately costing $10 trillion more, we have foreclosure crisis with more than million people a year losing their homes, and we have a burgeoning European debt disaster that threatens to devastate the global financial system – and the chief issue facing the country, according to Brooks and the Times, is reforming the entitlement system?

Full Story Here: Why Mitt Romney’s Entitlement-Privatization Plan Is Crazy | Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone.

Obama’s Offshore Oil Plan a Disaster for Wildlife, Climate

Statement from Center for Biological Diversity

WASHINGTON— The Obama administration announced plans today to expand offshore oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and offer additional lease sales in the sensitive waters off Alaska. Ramping up offshore drilling raises the risk of disastrous spills, puts wildlife in harm’s way and deepens U.S. dependence on the fossil fuels driving the global climate crisis.

“Last year’s disaster in the Gulf of Mexico was supposed to be a wake-up call about the dangers of offshore drilling, but it looks like President Obama hit the snooze button and slept right through it,” said Miyoko Sakashita, oceans director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “We just can’t keep expanding offshore drilling and not expect to have more disastrous spills.”

The five-year plan announced today will set the stage for 15 lease sales in six offshore areas, including the Arctic’s Beaufort and Chukchi seas and portions of the Gulf of Mexico near areas where development has so far been off-limits.

Full Story Here: Obama’s Offshore Oil Plan a Disaster for Wildlife, Climate | Common Dreams.

Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) melts down, yells hysterically “don’t blame banks!”

Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) melts down, yells hysterically “don’t blame banks!”

Full Story Here: Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) melts down, yells hysterically “don’t blame banks!” – YouTube.

Deputy tells Occupy Fresno that Penal code trumps 1st Amendment

Joseph Hunter, speaking as a mediator between the protesters and the authorities goes off and tells it how it is.

Full Story Here: We are Radicals – YouTube.

Inspector General Will Investigate Keystone XL Decision

The State Department’s inspector general will investigate potential conflicts of interest within the Department’s approval process for TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline that would pump oil from the Alberta tar sands in Canada to the Gulf Coast, according to a letter released on Monday.

The investigation could delay the White House’s final decision on the project, which is currently due by the end of the year.

Environmental groups and 14 members of Congress recently requested an investigation into potential conflicts of interest such as TransCanada’s successful recommendation that Cardno Entrix, a massive contracting firm and major client of TransCanada, conduct much of the federally mandated environmental review of the pipeline project.

Full Story Here: Inspector General Will Investigate Keystone XL Decision | Truthout.

Here Comes Solar Energy

Paul Krugman :-:

For decades the story of technology has been dominated, in the popular mind and to a large extent in reality, by computing and the things you can do with it. Moore’s Law — in which the price of computing power falls roughly 50 percent every 18 months — has powered an ever-expanding range of applications, from faxes to Facebook.

Our mastery of the material world, on the other hand, has advanced much more slowly. The sources of energy, the way we move stuff around, are much the same as they were a generation ago.

But that may be about to change. We are, or at least we should be, on the cusp of an energy transformation, driven by the rapidly falling cost of solar power. That’s right, solar power.

Full Story Here: Here Comes Solar Energy – NYTimes.com.

The Globalization of Protest

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Joseph E. Stiglitz :-:

The protest movement that began in Tunisia in January, subsequently spreading to Egypt, and then to Spain, has now become global, with the protests engulfing Wall Street and cities across America. Globalization and modern technology now enables social movements to transcend borders as rapidly as ideas can. And social protest has found fertile ground everywhere: a sense that the “system” has failed, and the conviction that even in a democracy, the electoral process will not set things right – at least not without strong pressure from the street.

In May, I went to the site of the Tunisian protests; in July, I talked to Spain’s indignados; from there, I went to meet the young Egyptian revolutionaries in Cairo’s Tahrir Square; and, a few weeks ago, I talked with Occupy Wall Street protesters in New York. There is a common theme, expressed by the OWS movement in a simple phrase: “We are the 99%.”

That slogan echoes the title of an article that I recently published, entitled “Of the 1%, for the 1%, and by the 1%,” describing the enormous increase in inequality in the United States: 1% of the population controls more than 40% of the wealth and receives more than 20% of the income. And those in this rarefied stratum often are rewarded so richly not because they have contributed more to society – bonuses and bailouts neatly gutted that justification for inequality – but because they are, to put it bluntly, successful (and sometimes corrupt) rent-seekers.

Full Story Here: The Globalization of Protest – Joseph E. Stiglitz – Project Syndicate.

Koch brothers: secretive billionaires to launch vast database with 2012 in mind

David and Charles Koch, oil tycoons with strong right-wing views and connections, look set to tighten their grip on US politics

The secretive oil billionaires the Koch brothers are close to launching a nationwide database connecting millions of Americans who share their anti-government and libertarian views, a move that will further enhance the tycoons’ political influence and that could prove significant in next year’s presidential election.

The database will give concrete form to the vast network of alliances that David and Charles Koch have cultivated over the past 20 years on the right of US politics. The brothers, whose personal wealth has been put at $25bn each, were a major force behind the creation of the tea party movement and enjoy close ties to leading conservative politicians, financiers, business people, media figures and US supreme court judges.

The voter file was set up by the Kochs 18 months ago with $2.5m of their seed money, and is being developed by a hand-picked team of the brothers’ advisers. It has been given the name Themis, after the Greek goddess who imposes divine order on human affairs.

Full Story Here: Koch brothers: secretive billionaires to launch vast database with 2012 in mind | World news | guardian.co.uk.

White House: Aliens, Extraterrestrials Haven’t Contacted Or Visited Earth

Alien lifeforms have not contacted Earth yet, the White House claimed over the weekend in response to petitions asking for information on supposed human interactions with extraterrestrials.

“The U.S. government has no evidence that any life exists outside our planet, or that an extraterrestrial presence has contacted or engaged any member of the human race,” Phil Larson of the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy wrote in a blog post responding to the inquiries. “In addition, there is no credible information to suggest that any evidence is being hidden from the public’s eye.”

While Larson maintained that there was no irrefutable proof of supposed alien life, he continued to tick off programs that were being used to further our “understanding if life can or does exist off Earth.”

Two separate petitions submitted to the White House’s “We the People” program received the requisite 5,000 signatures, ensuring a response from the Obama administration.

Full Story Here: White House: Aliens, Extraterrestrials Haven’t Contacted Or Visited Earth.

A Small Wall Street Transaction Tax Would Raise $350 Billion

A minuscule tax on financial transactions proposed by congressional Democrats would raise more than $350 billion over the next nine years, according to an analysis by the Joint Tax Committee, a nonpartisan congressional scorekeeping panel.

The analysis was sent Monday to the offices of Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), the lawmakers who proposed the tax, and provided to The Huffington Post.

The Wall Street Trading and Speculators Tax Act would impose a tax of 0.03 percent on financial transactions, meaning that longterm investors would barely notice it, but traders who move rapidly in and out of positions would feel its sting and, the authors hope, reduce the volume of their speculation in response.

Full Story Here: Wall Street Transaction Tax Would Raise $350 Billion.

Smuggled Honey Makes It To American Stores Under Cover Of ‘Ultra-Filtration’

The next time you find yourself in the honey aisle of your grocery store, debating between a pricy premium, artisanal honey and the store-brand nectar contained in a plastic bear, you might want to think twice before choosing based on price.

That’s because a searing investigation of the honey market by Food Safety News found that 76% of all honey bought at grocery stores were treated with a process called “ultra-filtration,” which removes not only impurities like wax, but also all traces of pollen. And of the types of brands at grocery stores, the ones that were far-and-away the most likely to be ultra-filtered were generic brands.

There are issues with ultra-filtration in general — many believe that pollen, and other so-called “impurities,” are actually beneficial to human health, and make honey a better choice than rival sweeteners like sugar. And there doesn’t seem to be any serious benefit to the process; it’s expensive and doesn’t significantly improve shelf-life, even though some manufacturers claim it does.

Full Story Here: Smuggled Honey Makes It To American Stores Under Cover Of ‘Ultra-Filtration’.

Climate Change’s Health Costs Projected To Be Enormous

A tally of lost lives and health care expenditures arising from just six recent weather-related or epidemiological events suggests that the economic toll of future climate change is likely to be even more staggering than previously thought, according to a study published Monday in the journal Health Affairs.

The analysis, conducted by a team of researchers from the Natural Resources Defense Council, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of California, San Francisco, represents one of the most ambitious attempts to establish a uniform method for putting a price tag on the health impacts of climate change. Most previous estimates have only looked at costs associated with property losses, damage to infrastructure and other resource forfeitures.

“This is a problem with a human face,” said Kim Knowlton, a senior scientist in the Health and Environment Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council and the lead author of the study. “Our prior notions about climate change damage without these costs included have been vastly underestimated.”

Full Story Here: Climate Change’s Health Costs Projected To Be Enormous.

Michigan AG sues to shut down 2 abortion clinics

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette has filed a lawsuit to close two women’s clinics that provide abortions in Saginaw and the Lansing area.

Schuette’s office filed a complaint Monday in Eaton County Circuit Court seeking to dissolve Health Care Clinic Inc. in Delta Township and Women’s Choice Clinic Inc. in Saginaw. The attorney general’s office says an investigation included evidence of improper medical records disposal at the clinics owned by Richard Remund.

Full Story Here: Metro and State | Michigan AG sues to shut down 2 abortion clinics | The Detroit News.

Archdiocese of Detroit sells downtown warming center, soup kitchen

The Archdiocese of Detroit has sold a downtown Detroit building that housed a warming center, soup kitchen and retail shop operated by St. Aloysius Catholic Church to AKNO Enterprises.

No sale price or development plans for the 1209 Washington Boulevard building were disclosed. But the move has shut St. Al’s Community Center, also called Canticle Café, and caused a Franciscan friar, a priest and volunteers from St. Aloysius — located across the street from the now-sold structure — now to use bicycles to feed and clothe the downtown needy.

“St. Francis of Assisi walked among the people where they lived in order to preach the Gospel and to be of service to the poor,” said Brother Al Mascia, who spearheaded the idea of using street vendor bikes equipped with food and clothing. “We are seeking to do that same thing by going out to the people in our downtown Detroit neighborhood.”

Full Story Here: Business | Archdiocese of Detroit sells downtown warming center, soup kitchen | The Detroit News.

OPS: Jesus would have sold the Vatican and fed the World’s hungry.  If you don’t grasp THAT, you are not a Christian, you are a Cult member.

Papantonio: Voting Machines Still Dangerously Vulnerable to Hackers

After dropping off the front pages of progressive news publications and websites a few years ago, a lot of progressives believed that the problems with electronic voting machines had gone away. Nothing could be further from the truth. And as new investigations have shown, the new supply of voting machines that next year’s presidential election will be using are more flawed than any of the machines we’ve seen in the last decade. Mike Papantonio talks about the latest round of problems with electronic voting with Brad Friedman, founder of The Brad Blog.

Full Story Here: Papantonio: Voting Machines Still Dangerously Vulnerable to Hackers – YouTube.

One Last Note on Mike Bloomberg

| Matt Taibbi |

I’m getting a number of letters, mainly from conservatives and libertarians, who seem to think that my response to Mike Bloomberg’s “It’s not the banks’ fault” rant means I “don’t believe in personal responsibility.”

Apparently, people feel that by explaining how the banks profited from tfhe explosion of subprime home loans, I’m somehow letting the ordinary homeowner who over-borrowed off the hook.

But the question was never, Do ordinary homeowners share any blame for the crisis? The question, as implicitly posed by Bloomberg, was, Is it true that the banks had NO blame for the crisis?

Full Story Here: One Last Note on Mike Bloomberg | Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone.

Keiser Report – JPMiracle: $2.2 billion immaculate deception

Watch the full Keiser Report E207 on Tuesday. This week Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, discuss the Fed, the Treasury and the Holy Troika and whether or not the Pope should beautify Jon Corzine, the CEO of MF Global who ‘lost’ hundreds of millions of client funds. In the second half of the show, Max Keiser interviews economist and professor, Constantin Gurdgiev, about Anglo Irish unsecured bondholders and the global debt crisis.

Full Story Here: JPMiracle: $2.2 billion immaculate deception – YouTube.

Seniors Join Occupy Chicago, Protest Cuts To Medicare, Social Security

More than 1,000 senior citizens and their supporters marched from Chicago’s Federal Plaza to the intersection of Jackson and Clark Street Monday morning to protest proposed cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and Housing and Urban Development (HUD). At the intersection, more than 40 protesters, 15 of them seniors affiliated with the Jane Addams Senior Caucus, stood or sat in the street, arms linked, blocking traffic.

Amid chants demanding that the cuts be forestalled — with suggestions for alternatives, including tax hikes — 43 demonstrators were escorted from the intersection (see video, above) by police and issued citations for pedestrian failure to “exercise due care,” or for blocking traffic. Those cited included four protesters using assisted mobility devices and at least one centenarian.

Judy Moses said she was glad to receive the citation–her second in her quest to maintain funding for programs that benefit seniors, following an arrest for blocking traffic in December at a similar protest.

“When I was younger, I never did protests,” she said. “I was a silent majority. Now, I’m ready to make noise.”

Full Story Here: Seniors Join Occupy Chicago, Protest Cuts To Medicare, Social Security (VIDEO, PHOTOS).

Multiple missteps led to drone killing U.S. troops in Afghanistan

Though no dereliction of duty was found, a Pentagon investigation raised troubling questions: Among them: Was the Predator missile fired too quickly?

On the evening of April 5, a pilot settled into a leather captain’s chair at Creech Air Force Base in southern Nevada and took the controls of a Predator drone flying over one of the most violent areas of southwestern Afghanistan. Minutes later, his radio crackled.

A firefight had broken out. Taliban insurgents had ambushed about two dozen Marines patrolling a bitterly contested road.

The Air Force captain angled his joystick and the drone veered toward the fighting taking place half a world away, where it was already morning. He powered up two Hellfire missiles under its wings and ordered a crew member responsible for operating the drone’s cameras to search for enemy fighters.

Full Story Here: Multiple missteps led to drone killing U.S. troops in Afghanistan – latimes.com.

The Conservative-Created Jobs Crisis

Latest Employment Numbers Highlight Culpability

The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ new employment numbers for October alongside revised jobs data for August and September show that job creation is not gaining enough traction. Last month 80,000 jobs were added to our economy, and revisions to the data from the two previous months added another 102,000 jobs. But that is not the kind of sustained job creation our economy needs to leave the Great Recession of 2007-2009 behind us. (see chart)

What explains the slow job creation? Well, the L-shaped recovery is due in large part to conservatives in Congress refusing to support President Barack Obama’s American Jobs Act. The connection is explained in my column at MarketWatch.

Full Story Here: The Conservative-Created Jobs Crisis.

Daylight Saving 2011: How Time Change Affects Our Health

At 2 a.m. Sunday morning, we finally recaptured that lost hour of sleep from last March as we marked the end of daylight saving time. And for the 47 million Americans who are sleep deprived, that extra hour is a chance to literally make up for lost time.

“This is one of those weekends we should really relish,” said HuffPost blogger Russell Rosenberg, Ph.D., CEO of the Atlanta School of Sleep Medicine and chairman of the board of the National Sleep Foundation. “The fact that Americans are so sleep deprived, it’s a nice reprieve from the busy lifestyles that we all lead.”

Rosenberg said this is the “good news story” of daylight saving time — the welcome counterpart to the hour of sleep we lose at the beginning of spring, which can take up to a week to adjust to and send those who are already sleep deprived over the threshold of “crashing and burning.” In fact, some studies have found a link between the spring-forward clock change and an increase in accidents and heart attacks.

Full Story Here: Daylight Saving 2011: How Time Change Affects Our Health.

Understanding the Banking Crisis : “Too Big to Fail”

Ed McCartin, a former governor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, shares his experience of the financial services industry. This series of short lectures examines credit risks in the growing derivatives markets, mortgage-backed securities, how the Feds reluctance to regulate US banks and zero interest rate policy affects working Americans.

Full Story Here: Understanding the Banking Crisis (Part 1): “Too Big to Fail” – YouTube.

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

Part 3:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FakZia8sCOA

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

Part 5:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXQGxC6gYAw

Roger Waters – Occupy

Roger Waters – Occupy

Full Story Here: Roger Waters – Occupy – YouTube.

Thousands surround the White House to protest TransCanada pipeline

Thousands of demonstrators, including movie stars and a Nobel laureate, surrounded the White House on Sunday to protest a proposed Canadian pipeline that’s serving as a flashpoint for the U.S. environmental movement while resonating with Americans fed up with corporate interests.

The demonstration is the latest in a series of White House protests aimed at convincing U.S. President Barack Obama to thwart Calgary-based TransCanada’s attempts to build the Keystone XL pipeline that would carry Alberta oilsands crude through six American states to Gulf Coast refineries.

Mark Ruffalo, nominated for an Academy Award last year, and Jody Williams, winner of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for her work on banning landmines, were among a sea of protesters who marched along several downtown blocks, including past the U.S. Treasury building, before joining hands in a mammoth circle around the White House.

Police on the scene estimated the crowd at about 5,000-strong while organizers claimed as many as 12,000 people were on hand at the peak of the protest.

Full Story Here: Thousands surround the White House to protest TransCanada pipeline – Winnipeg Free Press.

More Small Businesses Are Pulling Their Accounts Out Of Big Banks

Even in a tight credit market, David Meinert didn’t think he’d have a problem getting funding from his bank. He was a model entrepreneur, with good credit and a profitable business earning $2 million in revenue. But when he applied for a relatively small $50,000 line of credit from Chase in late 2010, he got denied in 12 hours, with no explanation. “It was insulting and made no sense, even to the banker. And there was no one to even talk to about it,” Meinert says. “It’s frustrating that banks are getting billions of dollars in taxpayers’ money and they’re sitting on that money and not lending it to small businesses. If you’re making less than $10 million, they don’t care about you.”

Meinert decided to turn his frustration into action. After 12 years with Bank of America and a year with Chase, he’s switching all his business accounts to Seattle Bank. Like many small-business owners, he initially joined the big banks for no particular reason other than that they were conveniently located. Bank of America was the closest bank to his office and Chase was the closest bank to his office that wasn’t Bank of America. He spent years enduring all the subsequent irritations — outdated online banking systems, the revolving door of bank employees, increasing fees, a sense that he was more a number than a name — with little more than an eye roll. But the credit line denial was a breaking point.

Full Story Here: More Small Businesses Are Pulling Their Accounts Out Of Big Banks.

Most of the unemployed no longer receive benefits

The jobs crisis has left so many people out of work for so long that most of America’s unemployed are no longer receiving unemployment benefits.

Early last year, 75 percent were receiving checks. The figure is now 48 percent — a shift that points to a growing crisis of long-term unemployment. Nearly one-third of America’s 14 million unemployed have had no job for a year or more.

Congress is expected to decide by year’s end whether to continue providing emergency unemployment benefits for up to 99 weeks in the hardest-hit states. If the emergency benefits expire, the proportion of the unemployed receiving aid would fall further.

Full Story Here: Most of the unemployed no longer receive benefits – Business – Stocks & economy – msnbc.com.

The Specious Case Against a Financial Transactions Tax

DEAN BAKER :-:

With the European Commission seriously considering a tax on financial transactions (sometimes referred to as a “speculation tax”), the opponents of such a tax are shifting their campaign into high gear. We are hearing predictions of disaster from the financial industry and friendly economists if the European Union goes this route.

The opponents’ claims go along three lines:

1. The tax will not be enforceable;

2. The tax will just be passed on to consumers and therefore will not be taking
money from the intended targets in the financial industry;

3. It will raise the cost of capital and therefore slow growth.

Each of these objections are either altogether wrong or hugely exaggerated.

The claim that financial transactions taxes are not enforceable is disproven by the fact that many countries — including China, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom — have financial transactions taxes in place and raise substantial revenue through the tax. In the UK, the tax raises an amount that is between 0.2 and 0.3 percent of GDP each year ($30-$40 billion in the United States). This is done by just taxing stock trades. It does not tax bonds, options, futures or the other derivative instruments that would be subject to the tax being considered by the EC.

Full Story Here: The Specious Case Against a Financial Transactions Tax » Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names.

NASA: If Life Existed On Mars, It Was Probably Underground

A new study from NASA postulates that if life ever existed on Mars, it was probably underground.

Ever since clay minerals were discovered on Mars in 2005, scientists have thought warm and wet conditions that could have supported life may have existed, according to NASA. That’s because clay is formed when water and rock interact with one another.

SEE SLIDESHOW BELOW FOR INFRARED IMAGES

But researchers analyzing orbiter data from over 350 areas of the planet’s surface have found that the type of clay that’s formed underground is abundant on Mars, while the type of clay that’s formed above the surface is rare.

And conditions on Mars aren’t especially conducive to water above the planet’s surface.

Full Story Here: NASA: If Life Existed On Mars, It Was Probably Underground (PHOTOS).

Occupy Wall Street is bringing down the big banks..

Thom Hartmann :-:

According to the Credit Union National Association – or CUNA – more than 650,000 people have moved their money into local credit unions across the nation in just the last 4 weeks – coinciding with the rise of Occupy Wall Street – and Bank of America’s decision to set up a $5 debit card fee…a decision the bank has since backed down from.

More people fled the big banks and joined credit unions in the last month – than they did through the entire year of 2010.

If Congress doesn’t want to do its job and end too big to fail banksters – then the people will just starve the banksters themselves. Move your money!

Full Story Here: Occupy Wall Street is bringing down the big banks.. | Thom Hartmann – News & info from the #1 progressive radio show.

Things Congress passed this week that had nothing to do with jobs

The House passed:

House Concurrent Resolution 13 reaffirming “In God We Trust” as the official motto of the United States;

The Wireless Tax Fairness Act of 2011;

The Kate Puzey Peace Corps Volunteer Protection Act of 2011;

The Civilian Service Recognition Act of 2011;

Veterans’ Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act of 2011;

H.R. 1965, which raises the monetary threshold for banks issuing securities;

The Small Company Capital Formation Act of 2011, which exempts other securities from regulation;

Access to Capital for Job Creators Act, which exempts some security issuers from regulation;

and The Entrepreneur Access to Capital Act, which reduces regulations on yet other kinds of securities.

The Senate passed:

Appeal Time Clarification Act;

Removal Clarification Act;

Federal Courts Jurisdiction and Venue Clarification Act;

Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Justice, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development, and Related Programs Appropriations Act;

Wallowa Forest Service Compound Conveyance Act;

Sugar Loaf Fire Protection District Land Exchange Act;

Fort Pulaski National Monument Lease Authorization Act;

Box Elder Utah Land Conveyance Act;

Utah Land Conveyance Act

Uintah Water Conservancy District;

Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act;

East Bench Irrigation District Water Contract Extension Act;

Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Business Travel Cards Act;

and the America’s Cup Act

Full Story Here: Things Congress passed this week that had nothing to do with jobs | The Raw Story.

OPS: There are links to detailed articles for each of the above  at the Full Story Here link

Biggest spike ever in global warming gases: U.S.

Harmful carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels made their biggest ever annual jump in 2010, according to the US Department of Energy’s latest world data released this week.

China led the way with a spike of 212 million metric tons of carbon in 2010 over 2009, compared to 59 million metric tons more from the United States and 48 million metric tons more from India in the same period.

“It’s big,” Tom Boden, director of the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center Environmental Sciences Division at the DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, told AFP in an interview.

Full Story Here: Biggest spike ever in global warming gases: U.S. | The Raw Story.

Michigan City Removes Streetlights In Desperate Budget Cut

States and cities around the country have desperately slashed spending in the face of record budget deficits, including unpaving roads, shrinking schools, closing libraries, and even a failed attempt to decriminalize domestic violence.

The latest consequence of extreme austerity is in Highland Park, Michigan, which has not only turned off all of its streetlights, but also ripped out the light poles — a telling sign that its darkening of the streets is permanent. With an unemployment rate at 22 percent and a city debt of $58 million, Highland Park could no longer afford to pay the electric bills:

The city is $58 million in debt and has many more people than jobs, plus dozens of burned-out or vacant houses and buildings. With fewer than 12,000 residents, its population has dwindled to half the level from 20 years ago. Faced with a $4 million electric bill that required $60,000 monthly payments, Mayor Hubert Yopp asked the City Council to consider reducing lighting. Council members reluctantly approved it, even in an election year.

In Highland Park, “the median household income is $18,700, compared with $48,700 statewide. And 42 percent of the city’s residents live in poverty.” The city has seen a precipitous drop in population over the last few decades.

Full Story Here: Michigan City Removes Streetlights In Desperate Budget Cut | ThinkProgress.

Microsoft Funds Koch’s Climate-Denying Tea Party Conference

Microsoft Corporation, which argues that climate pollution requires a “comprehensive and global response,” is sponsoring the Koch brothers’ Tea Party convention taking place in Washington, DC. Microsoft is a “gold sponsor” of the Americans For Prosperity Foundation’s fifth annual Defending The American Dream Summit, cheek and jowl with top climate denial front groups like the Heartland Institute, the American Legislative Exchange Council, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Speakers at the conference include climate deniers Herman Cain, Mitt Romney, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS), Ken Cuccinelli, Ann McElhinney, Chris Horner, Myron Ebell, and Carly Fiorina. Their prominent involvement was captured in a photograph by Slate.com reporter Dave Wiegel.

Full Story Here: Microsoft Funds Koch’s Climate-Denying Tea Party Conference | ThinkProgress.

Mississippi Personhood Bill Could Criminalize Doctors Who Perform An Abortion To Save A Woman’s Life

Physicians and medical associations are now speaking out against Mississippi’s personhood amendment, warning that it is “a dangerous intrusion of criminal law into the provision of medical care.”

Specifically, by criminalizing abortion, the measure could “criminalize routine medical practice that intentionally or not terminates a pregnancy” because, according to the measure, any fertilized egg — regardless of if and where it implants — could be considered a “person.” And because the measure has no exceptions for health of the mother (let alone rape or incest), Mississippi physicians are worried that termination of such a life-threatening pregnancy could still be considered a form of homicide:

[Mississippi Medical Association President Dr. Tom] Joiner and other opponents of Initiative 26 are concerned that by attempting to criminalize abortion, the initiative will criminalize routine medical practice that intentionally or not terminates a pregnancy. There is no mention in the initiative of an exception for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest, nor for the health of the mother, as in the case of life-threatening conditions such as ectopic or molar pregnancies. (In an ectopic pregnancy the fertilized egg implants outside the uterus, most often in the fallopian tube; in a molar pregnancy the fertilized egg becomes an abnormal growth such as a tumor rather than a fetus.)

Full Story Here: Mississippi Personhood Bill Could Criminalize Doctors Who Perform An Abortion To Save A Woman’s Life | ThinkProgress.

Deadbeat Rep. Joe Walsh, Who Owes $100k In Child Support, Receives ‘Pro-Family’ Award From Family Research Council

In July, the press learned that Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL), a Tea Party freshman in Congress, owed $117,000 in unpaid child support to his ex-wife. Walsh, despite earning a hefty salary as a member of Congress, has continued to refuse to pay his ex-wife to support his children. Now, it appears, an influential Christian right lobbying group is lending some support to the deadbeat congressman.

The Sun-Times reports that the Family Research Council, a social conservative advocacy nonprofit headed by CNN pundit Tony Perkins, has awarded Walsh a 100 percent rating as a “True Blue” member of Congress. The FRC said it gave the honor to Walsh because of his “unwavering support of the family”:

“We thank Cong. Walsh who has voted consistently to defend faith, family and freedom,” said FRCA President Tony Perkins. “Cong. Walsh and other ‘True Blue Members’ have voted to repeal Obamacare, de-fund Planned Parenthood, end government funding for abortion within the health care law, uphold the Defense of Marriage Act, and continue support for school choice. I applaud their commitment to uphold the institutions of marriage and family.”

Full Story Here: Deadbeat Rep. Joe Walsh, Who Owes $100k In Child Support, Receives ‘Pro-Family’ Award From Family Research Council | ThinkProgress.

OPS: Oh those whacky Kristian-Teabaggers

196 House Democrats Sign Letter To State Election Officals Opposing War On Voting

A massive 196 House Democrats — nearly their entire caucus — signed a letter to state election officials asking them to “put partisan considerations aside and serve as advocates for enfranchisement” during this unfortunate era of voter disenfranchising state laws:

Beginning with the passage of the Voting Rights Act, Congress and election officials across the country have worked on a bipartisan basis to open our democracy to all our citizens. Removing unnecessary barriers to voting was a cause shared across party lines. Sometimes, these efforts were directed at laws and practices that were intentionally created to deny citizens their right to vote. Other times, the laws or practices were relics of a prior era and served no continuing purpose. [...]

Full Story Here: 196 House Democrats Sign Letter To State Election Officals Opposing War On Voting | ThinkProgress.

Scientist Who Testified In Support Of Mining Around The Grand Canyon Stands To Make $225,000 From It

As ThinkProgress reported yesterday, Republican members of Congress have been waging a war to open 1 million acres around the Grand Canyon to uranium mining. Last week Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar took one of the last steps in withdrawing the area from new mining claims. But in response, Republicans have introduced H.R. 3155, the Northern Arizona Mining Continuity Act of 2011, to keep the decision from moving forward. The issue has become “one of the top legislative priorities of Republicans in Congress” as Energy and Environment Daily reported this morning.

At a hearing yesterday on the bill in the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forest and Public Lands, Republicans called a witness to the stand who is a retired United States Geological Survey scientist. Dr. Karen Wenrich noted in her testimony supporting the bill that the Bureau of Land Management has “vastly overstated the environmental harm caused by past and potential uranium development.”

However, under questioning from Representative Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), it became clear through public Securities and Exchange Commission filings that Wenrich stands to make $225,000 by selling 61 uranium claims that she owns only if the Interior Department’s withdrawal does not go forward.

Full Story Here: Scientist Who Testified In Support Of Mining Around The Grand Canyon Stands To Make $225,000 From It | ThinkProgress.

Mississippi Catholic Bishop, Religious Leaders Denounce Personhood Anti-Abortion Bill

This Tuesday, Mississippians will vote on Initiative 26, a “personhood” amendment to the state constitution that defines a person as “every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof.” This “profoundly ambiguous” amendment will deliberately trample on a woman’s reproductive health and privacy, essentially criminalizing abortion, outlawing contraception like the birth control pill, and even preventing couples from having a child through in vitro fertilization.

It is these consequences that leave even the most staunch anti-choice activists cold. The National Right to Life organization has refused to promote it. Even the Catholic Bishops have refused to endorse the amendment, noting that the bill is so extreme, it could jeopardize their more serious efforts to overturn Roe v. Wade:

Full Story Here: Mississippi Catholic Bishop, Religious Leaders Denounce Personhood Anti-Abortion Bill | ThinkProgress.

Oligarchy, American Style

Paul Krugman :-:

Inequality is back in the news, largely thanks to Occupy Wall Street, but with an assist from the Congressional Budget Office. And you know what that means: It’s time to roll out the obfuscators!

Anyone who has tracked this issue over time knows what I mean. Whenever growing income disparities threaten to come into focus, a reliable set of defenders tries to bring back the blur. Think tanks put out reports claiming that inequality isn’t really rising, or that it doesn’t matter. Pundits try to put a more benign face on the phenomenon, claiming that it’s not really the wealthy few versus the rest, it’s the educated versus the less educated.

So what you need to know is that all of these claims are basically attempts to obscure the stark reality: We have a society in which money is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few people, and in which that concentration of income and wealth threatens to make us a democracy in name only.

Full Story Here: Oligarchy, American Style – NYTimes.com.

Debunking the Iran “Terror Plot”

At a press conference on October 11, the Obama administration unveiled a spectacular charge against the government of Iran: The Qods Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had plotted to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Adel al-Jubeir, right in Washington, DC, in a place where large numbers of innocent bystanders could have been killed. High-level officials of the Qods Force were said to be involved, the only question being how far up in the Iranian government the complicity went.

The US tale of the Iranian plot was greeted with unusual skepticism on the part of Iran specialists and independent policy analysts, and even elements of the mainstream media. The critics observed that the alleged assassination scheme was not in Iran’s interest, and that it bore scant resemblance to past operations attributed to the foreign special operations branch of Iranian intelligence. The Qods Force, it was widely believed, would not send a person like Iranian-American used car dealer Manssor Arbabsiar, known to friends in Corpus Christi, Texas as forgetful and disorganized, to hire the hit squad for such a sensitive covert action.

But administration officials claimed they had hard evidence to back up the charge. They cited a 21-page deposition by a supervising FBI agent in the “amended criminal complaint” filed against Arbabsiar and an accomplice who remains at large, Gholam Shakuri. [1] It was all there, the officials insisted: several meetings between Arbabsiar and a man he thought was a member of a leading Mexican drug cartel, Los Zetas, with a reputation for cold-blooded killing; incriminating statements, all secretly recorded, by Arbabsiar and Shakuri, his alleged handler in Tehran; and finally, Arbabsiar’s confession after his arrest, which clearly implicates Qods Force agents in a plan to murder a foreign diplomat on US soil.

Full Story Here: Debunking the Iran “Terror Plot” | Middle East Research and Information Project.

Six Reasons to Move Your Money for Bank Transfer Day

Kristen Christian didn’t know she was tapping into a wellspring of consumer discontent. She just knew she was fed up with her “too big to fail” bank’s treatment of its customers. So she created a Facebook event called Bank Transfer Day and invited 500 of her contacts to move their money to credit unions. The response went viral.

Within weeks, Bank Transfer Day swelled to nearly 70,000 participants. Credit Union Times reported that several large credit unions were experiencing record account openings and funds transfers. Kristen’s event had given thousands of unhappy bank customers a solution, and a day of action: November 5th, 2011.

Despite all the ruckus, 70,000 is only a fraction of the big banks’ customer base. Many people have been with the same bank for most of their adult lives, and aren’t likely to move their savings without a few good reasons, of which “my bank is evil” may not be the most convincing.

Full Story Here: Shareable: Six Reasons to Move Your Money for Bank Transfer Day.

G20 summit fails to allay world recession fears

Summit ends in disarray as world leaders fail to agree increase to IMF and concerns mount over prospects for Italian economy

The G20 summit in Cannes has ended in ominous disarray, drawing nearer the threat of a world recession.

Leaders were unable to agree upon a boost to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to help distressed countries, while debt-ridden Italy, now seen as the epicentre of the euro crisis, was forced to put its austerity programme under the fund’s control.

UK hopes that the Germans would relent and allow the European Central Bank to become the lender of last resort for the euro were also dashed.

In a day of unremitting gloom, and yet more market turbulence, the Greek government also stood on the precipice of collapse, risking an uncontrolled default, as the government of George Papandreou faced a late-night confidence vote in parliament. Prime Minister Papandreou was forced to cancel plans for a referendum on the euro.

Full Story Here: G20 summit fails to allay world recession fears | World news | guardian.co.uk.

Credit Union Business Grows as Consumers Sour on Banks

The big banks may have dropped the debit card fees, but the credit unions are the ones picking up the business.

Long touted by consumer groups as a more consumer-friendly option than large commercial banks, the nation’s not-for-profit credit unions saw a significant jump in new members and deposits last month as momentum in the Occupation Wall Street campaign has increased, and many of the big banks rescinded, debit card fees.

The credit unions pulled in some 650,000 new customers since September 29, when Bank of America announced it would add a $5-a-month debit card fee, an industry trade group reported. Deposits from new customers surged to $4.5 billion, according to the survey released Thursday of 5,000 credit unions by the Credit Union National Association.

The deposits from these new customers were about as much as credit unions’ get from their entire base of existing customers in a typical month.

Full Story Here: Credit Union Business Grows as Consumers Sour on Banks | Common Dreams.

Woman stuck in airport after not having enough for extra baggage fees: report 

Terri Weissinger was floored at the $60 baggage fee

A California woman hoping to start a new life in Idaho was marooned for eight days in the airport for eight days after she said she didn’t have enough money for a surprise baggage fee.

Teri Weissinger told KGO-TV that she only had $30 in her pocket after she purchased a ticket Orbitz.com – not enough for the $60 surcharge to get on the U.S. Airways flight to the Gem Stateto start a new life in Idaho. With just $30 in her pocket, she was unable to pay the $60 baggage fee U.S. Airways said she owed.

She offered to leave a bag behind, but couldn’t because of security regulations and also said she could pay when she arrived at her destination – which the airline declined to allow.

So instead of a new life, she ended up stranded.

The Justice Department reconsiders, now says it’s not really OK to lie to reporters

The Justice Department has gotten the message from journalists, interest groups and government watchdogs and has decided to withdraw its proposal to allow federal agencies to lie to people seeking sensitive documents under the Freedom of Information Act.

Currently, if a requested document is so sensitive that it would be dangerous to acknowledge its very existence, the government is allowed to tell you that it can neither confirm nor deny whether there is such a document.

Last month, the Justice Department proposed a rule revision that would let government agencies tell requesters there is no such document — even if there is. According to the proposal, which was retrieved by the nonprofit investigative project ProPublica, agencies would be allowed to “respond to the request as if the excluded records did not exist.”

Full Story Here: Open Channel – US reconsiders, now says it’s not really OK to lie to reporters.

Roubini predicts eurozone collapse; world markets will follow

Noted American economist Nouriel Roubini says the eurozone is in the midst of crumbling, and with the rest of the world’s future at stake with a potential collapse, they might want to listen up — Roubini has been right before.

Speaking privately at a get-together this week at his apartment, those in attendance have since leaked that Roubini, who manages the Roubini Global Economics firm, has low-expectations for resurgence in the eurozone. According to the economist, a collapse is imminent as the economy overseas gets more chaotic.

There is a “significant risk of a Eurozone breakup,” sources say Roubini told a handful of select party guests recently, reports the Business Insider. Adds the economist, if the Eurozone goes under, “everything around the world goes sour.”

Roubini has claimed that in the past he correctly predicted both the housing market crash and the worldwide recession, the aftermath of both is still evident in the crises across the globe. For his forecasting, Roubini has earned the title “Dr. Doom” from members of the media, who look to him for economic outlook and have been met with not-so-optimistic — and correct — assumptions from the analyst in the past. As the American economy continues to show slumping statistics and the unemployment rate stays at or above a stagnant 9 percent for months, a collapse across the pond could cause a catastrophe for the world economy.

Full Story Here: Roubini predicts eurozone collapse; world markets will follow — RT.

Lawmakers Aim to Stop Pentagon Cuts if Deficit Panel Fails

As pessimism mounted this week over the ability of a bipartisan Congressional committee to agree on a deficit-reduction plan, lawmakers began taking steps to head off the large cuts in Pentagon spending that would automatically result from the panel’s failure.

Members of both parties and both chambers said they increasingly feared that the 12-member committee would be unable to bridge deep partisan divisions and find $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction as required under the law that raised the debt ceiling and created the committee in the summer.

As talks sputtered, one panel member publicly lamented that the process was not working, and the group was chastised by a bipartisan group of budget experts at a public hearing for failing to show progress. Several members of Congress, especially Republicans on the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, are readying legislation that would undo the automatic across-the-board cuts totaling nearly $500 billion for military programs, or exchange them for cuts in other areas of the federal budget.

Full Story Here: Lawmakers Aim to Stop Pentagon Cuts if Deficit Panel Fails – NYTimes.com.

Maddow – Republican War on Voting

New Florida voter registration laws (as well as other such laws around the country) are making it harder to register/vote.

Video belongs to MSNBC.

Full Story Here: Maddow – Republican War on Voting – YouTube.

How Wall Street Occupied America

During the prairie revolt that swept the Great Plains in 1890, populist orator Mary Elizabeth Lease exclaimed, “Wall Street owns the country…. Money rules…. Our laws are the output of a system which clothes rascals in robes and honesty in rags. The [political] parties lie to us and the political speakers mislead us.”

She should see us now. John Boehner calls on the bankers, holds out his cup and offers them total obeisance from the House majority if only they fill it. Barack Obama criticizes bankers as “fat cats,” then invites them to dine at a pricey New York restaurant where the tasting menu runs to $195 a person.

That’s now the norm, and they get away with it. The president has raised more money from employees of banks, hedge funds and private equity managers than any Republican candidate, including Mitt Romney. Inch by inch he has conceded ground to them while espousing populist rhetoric that his very actions betray.

Let’s name this for what it is: hypocrisy made worse, the further perversion of democracy. Our politicians are little more than money launderers in the trafficking of power and policy—fewer than six degrees of separation from the spirit and tactics of Tony Soprano.

Full Story Here: How Wall Street Occupied America | The Nation.

RAW VIDEO: Chopper footage of 100,000+ Occupy Oakland Takes back Highway

100,000 source ( San Francisco Chronicle): Oakland’s Interim Police Chief Howard Jordan (a capable and politically smart leader in a tough position) got the Occupy Oakland General Strike crowd count massively wrong: it’s not 7,000, but 100,000.

Absolutely enormous crowd hit the street in Oakland in support of Oakland. They took over a highway; there’s got to be a good 100,000 people there.

Full Story Here: RAW VIDEO: Chopper footage of 100,000+ Occupy Oakland Takes back Highway – YouTube.

Why Is the State Department Using Our Money to Pimp for Monsanto?

The State Department is using taxpayer money to help force genetically modified crops on other countries.

People in India are up in arms about eggplant. Not just any eggplant — the fight, which is also raging in the Philippines, is over Monsanto’s Bt eggplant. Even as increasing scientific evidence concludes that biotechnology and its arsenal of genetically modified crops may be doing more harm than good, companies like Monsanto are still pushing them hard and they are getting help from the U.S.

The State Department is using taxpayer money to help push the agenda of Monsanto and its friends all across the world. Here’s a recent example: Assistant Secretary of State Jose W. Fernandez, addressing an event of high-level government officials from around the world, agribusiness CEOs, leaders from international organizations, and anti-hunger groups said, “Without agricultural biotechnology, our world would look vastly different. One of our challenges is how to grow more crops on the same land. This is where biotechnology plays a role.”

Full Story Here: Why Is the State Department Using Our Money to Pimp for Monsanto? | Food | AlterNet.

America’s corporate tax obscenity

A new report about companies’ finances won’t just enrage you — it’ll make you run to the nearest protest

In 2010, Verizon reported an annual profit of nearly $12 billion. The statutory federal corporate income tax rate is 35 percent, so theoretically, Verizon should have owed the IRS around $4.2 billlion. Instead, according to figures compiled by the Center for Tax Justice, the company actually boasted a negative tax liability of $703 million. Verizon ended up making even more money after it calculated its taxes.

Verizon is hardly alone, and isn’t even close to being the worst offender. Perhaps most famously, General Electric raked in $10.5 billion in profit in 2010, yet ended up reporting $4.7 billion worth of negative taxes. The worst offender in 2010, as measured by its overall negative tax rate, was Pepco, the electricity utility that serves Washington, D.C. Pepco reported profits of $882 million in 2010, and negative taxes of $508 million — a negative tax rate of 57.6 percent.

Altogether, according to “Corporate Taxpayers & Corporate Tax Dodgers 2008-10,” a blockbuster new report  put together by the Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy that will have you reaching for your hypertension medicine before you finish reading the third page, 37 of the United States’ biggest corporations paid zero taxes in 2010. The list is a blue-chip roll-call.

Full Story Here: America’s corporate tax obscenity – Salon.com.

How to Take Back Our Political System From the 1%

Ferguson outlines bold measures to stop the tsunami of money that threatens our democracy, starting with a Constitutional Amendment.

he following has been adapted from a version of a speech delivered to Occupy Boston by Thomas Ferguson, the father of the “Investment Theory of Politics.”

I’m honored to speak to you today about money and politics, but it’s not the first time I’ve been here. This is actually the third time I’ve visited your encampment. The first couple of times I walked around and looked at the signs. Many were priceless; the best tutorials I’ve ever seen on the subject of money and politics. My favorite was the one that advised that Congressmen and women should emulate NASCAR drivers and show us their sponsors. Another styled contemporary capitalism “socialism for the 1%.” And many sharply attacked the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which helped throw open the floodgates to the tidal wave of secret money that is now engulfing American elections.

I’m a social scientist, so I actually counted: about a third of all the signs that day had money and politics as their themes. It was obvious that you here at Occupy Boston and your colleagues in New York, Oakland, Chicago, and other cities have already grasped the heart of the problem of money and politics in America: that we live in a money-driven political system that works pretty well for the 1%, but no one else.

Full Story Here: Thomas Ferguson: How to Take Back Our Political System From the 1% | | AlterNet.

Why Bank Transfer Day is only the beginning

If the big  banks aren’t scared yet at the power of social-media grass-roots activism, they’re not paying attention

On Oct. 9, Kristen Christian, a 27-year-old art gallery owner in Los Angeles, created a Facebook page urging her friends to move their money out of the big banks on Nov. 5. The suggestion hit a nerve. By Nov. 4, 77,015 “friends” had declared their intention to “attend” Bank Transfer Day.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that 77,015 people will be pulling all their money out of the likes of Chase, Citibank, Wells Fargo and Bank of America all at once. Saturday is hardly an ideal day to get banking business done, and the process of switching over one’s account to a new bank or credit union is not something that can be accomplished — yet — with a flip of a switch. (Detailed advice on how to change your banking account can be found here.) And of course, clicking your intent to do something on Facebook is a far cry from actually, well, doing it.

It’s also not clear that the big banks will take a big hit from Bank Transfer Day. The usually sensible economics commentator Felix Salmon goes so far as to assert that “the big banks are blithely unconcerned about people withdrawing their funds on Saturday … I’m not kidding myself that doing so is going to harm the big banks at all.”

Full Story Here: Why Bank Transfer Day is only the beginning – Salon.com.

IQ Blackout: Why Did Studying Intelligence Become Taboo?

Somewhere along the way, the very idea of intelligence became politicized. An IQ blackout descended.

Scholars used to avidly study human intelligence. They measured cranial capacity. They administered IQ tests. They sought to define what intelligence was and who had more or less of it and why.

These days, not so much. Somewhere along the way, the very idea of intelligence became politicized. Its legitimacy as a field of study, as a measurable quality — on par with height, eyesight and hand-and-eye coordination — and as a concept came under fire. Talk of “brainpower” and “smarts” ebbed as scholars proposed “multiple intelligences” — such as musical, spatial, interpersonal and intrapersonal — rather than whatever had hitherto been called IQ. An IQ blackout has descended. When researchers talk about IQ at all, the big question is whether it’s inherited, and if so, how much. IQ now faces fierce competition from SQ and EQ, social and emotional intelligence, two burgeoning theories.

Why are our minds and their capabilities among the most taboo topics in 21st-century academia?

Full Story Here: IQ Blackout: Why Did Studying Intelligence Become Taboo? | Education | AlterNet.

Occupy The Banks, with Matt Taibbi

11-03-11 1b – Occupy The Banks, with Matt Taibbi – Countdown with Keith Olbermann

Full Story Here: 11-03-11 1b – Occupy The Banks, with Matt Taibbi – Countdown with Keith Olbermann – YouTube.

Wisconsin GOP Senate Passes Abstinence-Only Bill That Prohibits Teachers From Teaching Contraception

Yesterday night, the Wisconsin Senate passed a bill that requires public school teachers “to promote abstinence and marriage over contraception in sex education classes.” Currently, sex education classes must include use of contraception in a comprehensive curriculum. Overturning the ban on abstinence-only classes passed last year, the bill will remove the contraception requirement and “instead mandate that schools teach that abstinence is the only reliable way to prevent pregnancy and disease. The benefits of marriage would also have to be taught.” The GOP bill passed 17-15 along party lines and now heads to the GOP-led Assembly. Republicans argue that they “are trying to back away from the bill passed last year that we feel mandated sex ed that was too nonjudgmental, too explicit and at too young an age.” State Sen. Jon Erpenbach (D), however, said simply that Wisconsin “was taking a step back to the Flintstone era.”

Full Story Here: Wisconsin GOP Senate Passes Abstinence-Only Bill That Prohibits Teachers From Teaching Contraception | ThinkProgress.

Bill Gates Champions A Financial Transactions Tax: ‘This Money Could Be Well Spent And Make A Difference’

While Republicans resist any attempt to address growing income inequality, more and more of America’s wealthy are asking to pay their fair share. Joining billionaire Warren Buffet, Microsoft founder Bill Gates recently issued his support for “millionaires and billionaires” paying more in taxes.

Now, Gates is taking it a step further and traveling to the G-20 meeting in Cannes, France today to champion the “Robin Hood tax” — a small financial transaction tax on each stock and bond trade — in order to help financially strapped developed nations meet their global aid pledges to the poor. Aware that countries like the U.S. are not currently receptive to this or any taxes, Gates told the Guardian that hopes his “credibility” lends credence to the idea that such taxes work:

Speaking to the Guardian on the eve of the summit, Gates said: “It is very plausible that certain kinds of FTTs could work. I am lending some credibility to that. This money could be well spent and make a difference. An FTT is more possible now than it was a year ago, but it won’t be at rates that magically raise gigantic sums of money.” [...]

Full Story Here: Bill Gates Champions A Financial Transactions Tax: ‘This Money Could Be Well Spent And Make A Difference’ | ThinkProgress.

650,000 Americans Joined Credit Unions Last Month — More Than In All Of 2010 Combined

One of the tactics the 99 Percenters are using to take back the country from the 1 percent is to move their money from big banks to credit unions, community banks, and other smaller financial unions that aren’t gambling with our nation’s future.

Now, the Credit Union National Association (CUNA) reports that a whopping 650,000 Americans have joined credit unions since Sept. 29 — the date that Bank of America announced it would start charging a $5 monthly debit fee, a move it backed down on this week.

To put that in perspective, there were only 600,000 new members for credit unions in all of 2010. “These results indicate that consumers are clearly making a smarter choice by moving to credit unions where, on average, they will save about $70 a year in fewer or no fees, lower rates on loans and higher return on savings,” said CUNA President Bill Cheney.

Full Story Here: 650,000 Americans Joined Credit Unions Last Month — More Than In All Of 2010 Combined | ThinkProgress.

Romney’s Estate Tax Cut Would Save The Koch Brothers Up To $8.7 Billion Each

Tomorrow, 2012 GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney is slated to give a “major spending policy speech” at Americans For Prosperity’s Defending the American Dream Summit. Both the conference and AFP itself are funded by money from the billionaire Koch Brothers.

Romney has, of late, been trying to claim the economic plan he put forth is meant to aid the middle-class, not those in the Koch brothers’ tax bracket. “I want to focus on where the people are hurting the most, and that’s the middle class. I’m not worried about rich people. They are doing just fine,” Romney said at a GOP debate last month. Yesterday, he even tried to claim “I’m proposing no tax cuts for the rich.”

Leaving aside that Romney intends to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, he has proposed a huge giveaway to the very rich by suggesting the complete elimination of the estate tax. Only the very richest households in the country ever have to pay the estate tax, since, right now, an estate must be worth more than $5 million (or $10 million for a couple) to pay any estate tax at all.

Full Story Here: Romney’s Estate Tax Cut Would Save The Koch Brothers Up To $8.7 Billion Each | ThinkProgress.

Bill Gates: Ignoring World’s Poor ‘Would Hurt Our Economic Future’

Bill Gates says the world’s developed nations need to ensure that they aid the world’s poor. And the best way to do this, according to the billionaire philanthropist? A tax on financial transactions.

In an interview with BBC News, the Microsoft co-founder, said that while the plight of impoverished people in developed nations may seem like it has little to with the economies of rich countries, it affects everyone.

“Not caring about the instability of these countries really would hurt our economic future quite dramatically, whether it’s unrest, whether it’s disease,” Gates told BBC News. “On the other hand, if you bring these people into the world economy then you get this very positive, virtuous cycle.”

Gates, who made a presentation highlighting the importance of foreign aid at the G20 conference in Cannes Thursday, has outlined several ways to better integrate the globe’s poor into the world economy, the Guardian reports. One of his most popular proposals seems to be the institution of a tax on trades on stocks, bonds and derivatives, also known as the Robin Hood tax.

Full Story Here: Bill Gates: Ignoring World’s Poor ‘Would Hurt Our Economic Future’.

U.S. News Releases Ranking Of Best Diets For Healthy Eating

Not all diet plans are nutritious and safe. A new U.S. News ranking rates diets’ healthiness.

Weight lost doesn’t always equal health gained. That new diet that took inches off your waistline could be harming your health if it locks out or severely restricts entire food groups, like carbs, or relies on supplements with little scientific backing, or clamps down on calories to an extreme.

“People are so desperate to lose weight that it’s really weight loss at any cost,” says Madelyn Fernstrom, founding director of the UPMC-University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Weight Management Center and author of The Real You Diet. And when that desperation sets in, says Fernstrom, “normal thinking goes out the window.” Who cares if the forbidden-foods list is longer than War and Peace? Pounds are coming off. You’re happy. But your body might not be.

Full Story Here: U.S. News Releases Ranking Of Best Diets For Healthy Eating.

Obama Infrastructure Plan: Senate GOP Blocks $60 Billion Measure

Republicans in the Senate Thursday dealt President Barack Obama the third in a string of defeats on his stimulus-style jobs agenda, blocking a $60 billion measure for building and repairing infrastructure like roads and rail lines.

Supporters of the failed measure said it would have created tens of thousands of construction jobs and lifted the still-struggling economy. But Republicans unanimously opposed it for its tax surcharge on the wealthy and spending totals they said were too high.

The 51-49 vote fell well short of the 60 votes required under Senate procedures to start work on the bill. Every Republican opposed the president, as did Democrat Ben Nelson of Nebraska and former Democrat Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., who still aligns with the party.

Obama’s loss was anything but a surprise, but the White House and its Democratic allies continue to press popular ideas from Obama’s poll-tested jobs package in what Republicans say is nothing more than a bare-knuckle attempt to gain a political edge by invoking the mantra of jobs but doing little to seek compromise.

Full Story Here: Obama Infrastructure Plan: Senate GOP Blocks $60 Billion Measure.

Bank Customers Flee to Credit Unions

An estimated 650,000 consumers have closed their bank accounts and opted for credit union membership over the past four weeks, according to CUNA, bringing the approach to Saturday’s Bank Transfer Day to a crescendo.

In a survey of 5,000 of its credit union members CUNA estimates that at least 650,000 consumers across the nation have joined credit unions since Sept. 29, the day Bank of America unveiled its now-rescinded $5 monthly debit card fee. Also during that time, CUNA estimates that credit unions have added $4.5 billion in new savings accounts, likely from the new members and existing members shifting their funds.

The survey results also show that more than four in every five credit unions experiencing member growth since Sept. 29 attributed the growth to consumer reaction to new fees imposed by banks, or a combination of consumer reactions to the new bank fees plus the social media-inspired “Bank Transfer Day,” Nov. 5.

Full Story Here: Bank Customers Flee to Credit Unions – American Banker Article.

CONFIRMED: #OWS Surrounded Goldman Sachs HQ Chanting “Arrest George Bush” w/ GW Inside

A group of Occupy Wall Street protesters this evening encircled Goldman Sachs’ Headquarters in New York City, where it was rumored that George W. Bush was meeting with executives.

The crowd of about 200 boisterously and continuously chanted, “Arrest George Bush” before convening an impromptu General Assembly at the foot of the Goldman Sachs building, which is just blocks from Zuccotti Park.

When the bulk of the protesters decided to return to Zuccotti Park, a heavy police presence escorted someone out of the building. Ryan Devereaux, of Democracy Now, was able to confirm that GW was indeed within the building as protesters screamed for his arrest:

NYPD told us step back, five cars-two NYPD, three unmarked-sped out Goldman. I asked senior white shirt if it was Bush, he said “Yeah.” #OWS

A producer for Keith Olbermann’s show was on scene, and was also able to confirm that our nation’s 43rd president was indeed meeting with Goldman Sachs executives at its headquarters for a “tribute” event. Did you catch that? A tribute.

I wonder why.

Full Story Here: Daily Kos: CONFIRMED: #OWS Surrounded Goldman Sachs HQ Chanting “Arrest George Bush” w/ GW Inside.

Revolt against a system that only benefits the top 1 percent…

Thom Hartmann:-:

Tens of thousands of people flooded the streets of Oakland yesterday to participate in Occupy Oakland’s call for a general strike. Banks, businesses and schools across the city shutdown – with about one-fifth of the city’s teachers skipping school to participate in the strike – the first of its kind in a major city in 65 years. As evening fell, roughly ten thousand patriots marched to the Port of Oakland. The peaceful crowd blocked all the entrances – and then mounted containers, cranes, and trucks – forcing the nation’s fifth busiest port and a major entry point for imported Asian-manufactured goods to shut down for the night.

But after the crowd dispersed and went home – the streets of Oakland were again turned into a warzone as a small group of protestors set a fire in the middle of the street. After midnight – tear gas canisters and flash bangs were deployed by police to disperse the crowds – putting a tumultuous cap on a peaceful day of action. Seattle, New York, and Washington, DC – as well as several other cities – held solidarity marches with Occupy Oakland as well yesterday.

America is beginning to look like Europe, with young people in open revolt against a system that only benefits the top 1 percent.

Full Story Here: Revolt against a system that only benefits the top 1 percent… | Thom Hartmann – News & info from the #1 progressive radio show.

New Report Finds Vermont Could Save As Much As $1.8 Billion By 2020 From Shifting To Single Payer

Yesterday, the Vermont Legislative Joint Fiscal Office and the Department of Banking, Insurance, Securities and Health Care Administration released a new report estimating the savings the state could experience if it successfully enacts the single payer system it began designing earlier this year.

Using both a low and high estimate, the report concludes that the state would save between $553 million to $1.8 billion by the year 2020 by shifting to a single payer health care system and enacting other reforms along with it. The following chart from the report shows that these savings come from reductions in payer and provider administration, investments, clinical reforms, and fraud reduction:

Full Story Here: New Report Finds Vermont Could Save As Much As $1.8 Billion By 2020 From Shifting To Single Payer | ThinkProgress.

New Jersey Plans To Give Food Company $80 Million In Tax Incentives To Create Nine Jobs

Last month, Florida’s economic development agency disclosed that Florida taxpayers have coughed up $1.7 billion in tax credits and incentives for businesses since 1995, but have gotten few jobs to show for it. In fact, “the lion’s share of the awards — 971 — have yet to report any jobs.”

But Florida is far from the only state with this problem. As New Jersey Policy Perspective (NJPP) noted, the Garden State offered food company Goya $80 million in tax incentives last month, for which the state will receive precisely nine jobs in return:

Imagine you are a New Jersey job seeker (one of 418,000 unemployed in the state as of September, 2011, according to the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development) and you read in the news that a firm will be getting a state subsidy to hire 175 new workers. You would be thrilled to see those new job opportunities in the state, right?

But, in the case of Goya Foods, Inc., only nine truly new jobs are being created.

Nine.

Full Story Here: New Jersey Plans To Give Food Company $80 Million In Tax Incentives To Create Nine Jobs | ThinkProgress.

Johnson & Johnson Baby Shampoo Has Cancer-Causing Chemicals, Group Says

Two chemicals considered harmful to babies remain in Johnson & Johnson’s baby shampoo sold in the U.S., even though the company already makes versions without them, according to a coalition of health and environmental groups.

The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics has unsuccessfully been urging the world’s largest health care company for 2 1/2 years to remove the trace amounts of potentially cancer-causing chemicals – dioxane and a substance called quaternium-15 that releases formaldehyde – from Johnson’s Baby Shampoo, one of its signature products.

Johnson & Johnson said it is reducing or gradually phasing out the chemicals, but did not r

Full Story Here: Johnson & Johnson Baby Shampoo Has Cancer-Causing Chemicals, Group Says.

Duqu Virus Exploits Microsoft Windows Software Flaw

Microsoft Corp said hackers exploited a previously unknown bug in its Windows operating system to infect computers with the Duqu virus, which some security experts say could be the next big cyber threat.

“We are working diligently to address this issue and will release a security update for customers,” Microsoft said on Tuesday in a short statement.

News of Duqu surfaced in October when security software maker Symantec Corp said it had found a mysterious computer virus that contained code similar to Stuxnet, a piece of malicious software believed to have wreaked havoc on Iran’s nuclear program.

Government and private investigators around the world are racing to unlock the secret of Duqu, with early analysis suggesting that it was developed by sophisticated hackers to help lay the groundwork for attacks on critical infrastructure such as power plants, oil refineries and pipelines.

Full Story Here: Duqu Virus Exploits Microsoft Windows Software Flaw.

‘Highly Probable’ Fracking Tests Caused Earthquakes in UK Drill Site

It is “highly probable” that shale gas test drilling triggered earth tremors in Lancashire, a study has found.

But the report, commissioned by energy firm Cuadrilla, also said the quakes were due to an “unusual combination of geology at the well site”.

It said conditions which caused the minor earthquakes were “unlikely to occur again”.

Protesters against fracking, a gas extraction method, said the report “did not inspire confidence”.

Six protesters from campaign group Frack Off climbed a drilling rig at one of Cuadrilla’s test drilling sites in Hesketh Bank, near Southport, ahead of the report.

Full Story Here: ‘Highly Probable’ Fracking Tests Caused Earthquakes in UK Drill Site | Common Dreams.

Tax the One Percent — Make Wall Street Fund America

The giant cries of protest sweeping across the country are starting to reverberate in the halls of Congress. Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Representative Peter DeFazio (D-OR) are proposing a Wall Street Tax. Their bill would establish a tiny financial transaction tax of 0.03% on every single trade of stocks, bonds, options, futures, swaps, and credit default swaps.

I think this is a great idea, and Congress should pass the bill. Rebuild the Dream and MoveOn.org started a petition so you can show support for the Wall Street Tax.

Notably, a Wall Street Tax is in the Contract for the American Dream, the 10-point plan to fix our economy that more than 131,000 people created earlier this year, through a grassroots, bottom-up process. To date, more than 300,000 people have signed the Contract for the American Dream. In other words, the idea of a Wall Street Tax is already popular.

Full Story Here: Tax the One Percent — Make Wall Street Fund America | Common Dreams.

Japan: signs of possible nuclear fission at Fukushima plant

Signs of a possible nuclear fission have been detected at Japan’s damaged Fukushima power plant raising fears of further radiation leaks.

Full Story Here: Japan: signs of possible nuclear fission at Fukushima plant – Telegraph.

Europe tells Greece: ‘no more money unless you cancel referendum’ – Telegraph

European leaders have threatened to withhold €8bn (£6.9bn) of international aid from Greece until Athens agrees to adopt the terms of the Brussels debt crisis deal without a referendum.

Full Story Here: Europe tells Greece: ‘no more money unless you cancel referendum’ – Telegraph.

China Technology Surges Forward with Spectacular First Docking in Space

China’s technological capabilities took a major surge forward with the successful docking in space today for the first time ever of two Chinese built and launched spaceships orbiting some 343 kilometers in the heavens above at 1:37 a.m. Beijing time Nov. 3(1:37 p.m. EDT, Nov. 2). China’s goal is to build a fully operational space station in Earth orbit by 2020 – about the time when the ISS may be retired.

Today’s space spectacular joining together the Shenzhou-8 unmanned spacecraft and the Tiangong-1 prototype space station was an historic feat for China, which now becomes only the 3rd country to accomplish a rendezvous and docking of spacecraft in Earth orbit.

Full Story Here: China Technology Surges Forward with Spectacular First Docking in Space.

Michael Moore to Democrats: Forget the Crazy White Guy

Liberal filmmaker Michael Moore slams the Democratic party for focusing too much attention on the demands of older, white male voters and too little attention on 18-to-29 year-olds, a critical demographic for Obama in the 2008 election. “Young people didn’t come out in 2010,” says Moore, “because they don’t take bullshit. You promise them something, you’d better do it.”

—–

Here Comes Trouble: Stories from My Life is an unflinchingly honest, take-no-prisoners ride through the life of Oscar-winning filmmaker and bestselling author Michael Moore. Moore shares far-ranging, irreverent, and stranger-than-fiction vignettes from his early life. One moment he’s an 11-year-old boy lost in the Senate and found by Bobby Kennedy; and in the next, he’s inside the Bitburg cemetery with Ronald Reagan. At 17, he goes to get a snack and ends up on the news, creating a firestorm that helps eliminate racial discrimination at private establishments across America. Funny, eye-opening, and moving, it’s the book he has been writing and living his entire life. – Sixth & I Historic Synagogue

Michael Moore is an Academy Award-winning American filmmaker, author and liberal political commentator. He is the director and producer of Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11, and Sicko, three of the top five highest-grossing documentaries of all time. In September 2008, he released his first free movie on the Internet, Slacker Uprising, documenting his personal crusade to encourage more Americans to vote in presidential elections. He has also written and starred in the TV shows “TV Nation” and “The Awful Truth.” Moore is a self-described liberal who has criticized globalization, large corporations, assault weapon ownership, the Iraq War, U.S. President George W. Bush and the American health care system in his written and cinematic works. In 2005, Time magazine named him one of the world’s 100 most influential people.

Full Story Here: Michael Moore to Democrats: Forget the Crazy White Guy – YouTube.

OWS Oakland Takes Over City, Shutting Down One of the Biggest Ports in the Country…But Nightfall Brings More Chaos and Teargas

Calling the protests a “general strike” resulted in an unbelievable amount of media coverage — a victory for the Occupy movement.

As many as 15,000 people participated in actions across Oakland yesterday, with small marches peeling off to protest in front of banks or “occupy” foreclosed homes. There were probably eight to ten times the number of people in the streets of Oakland today as I’d seen during past OWS actions. Police maintained a minimal presence throughout the day. There were a few scattered acts of vandalism — windows were broken at two banks but there was no violence, and the protests were remarkably up-beat throughout the day. But that changed when night fell as the streets of Oakland once again resonated with the sharp cracks of tear gas canisters and “less lethal” projectiles being fired, and flash-bang grenades scattering the crowd.

But first: did a small group of activists manage in just 5 short days of organizing to bring about the first general strike in the United States in generations?

Full Story Here: OWS Oakland Takes Over City, Shutting Down One of the Biggest Ports in the Country…But Nightfall Brings More Chaos and Teargas | Occupy Wall Street | AlterNet.

Personhood USA Confirms That Mississippi Abortion Ban Would Outlaw Birth Control Pills

Next Tuesday, Mississippians will go to the polls to decide on Initiative 26, a personhood amendment to the state constitution that defines a person as “every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof.” Personhood amendments represent an extreme reach into a family’s privacy, essentially criminalizing abortion and potentially outlawing common forms of birth control.

Right-wing supporters of Mississippi’s personhood amendment, however, decry the fact that the bill will ban birth control as “scare tactics.” “It’s an outright lie that Initiative 26 would ban birth control pills,” said American Family Association Executive Director Brad Prewitt. “Stopping a pregnancy is not the issue; ending a pregnancy is.” Unfortunately for proponents, the Personhood movement spokesman Walter Hoye stated the opposite on NPR’s Diane Rehm Show. As the Florida Independent reports, when asked if there were any restrictions on birth control in the amendment, Hoye answered “no…well, yes,” adding, “any birth control that ends the life of a human being will be impacted by this measure,” including the pill:

Full Story Here: Personhood USA Confirms That Mississippi Abortion Ban Would Outlaw Birth Control Pills | ThinkProgress.

The Median Net Worth Of A Member Of Congress Is Five Times Higher Than The Median American Household

Part of the reason the richest 1 percent of Americans have captured our politics is because they are able to finance political races, issue campaigns, and lobbyists. But the other reason some of the richest Americans have been able to control our politics is because they themselves have gotten elected to positions of power at a much higher rate than the rest of us.

As Roll Call points out today, the estimated median net worth for a member of Congress in 2010 was $513,000 (this is strictly an estimate as assets are reported in ranges). Meanwhile, the Center for Economic and Policy Research’s David Rosnick points out that the net worth of the median household in the United States that same year was closer to $100,000:

For Congress, the median net worth in 2010 was about $513,000. For regular households, the Federal Reserve Board pegged that number at about $120,000 in 2008, and that number this year is probably around $100,000, [said economist David Rosnick]. While it is hard to make an exact comparison between Congress and the rest of the nation, what is clear is lawmakers “are all a lot richer than anything you would call a typical American,” Rosnick said.

Full Story Here: The Median Net Worth Of A Member Of Congress Is Five Times Higher Than The Median American Household | ThinkProgress.

The Republican ‘voter fraud’ fraud

| Diane Roberts  <br>

All over the US, GOP lawmakers have engineered schemes to make voting more difficult. Well, if you can’t win elections fairly…

Presidential candidate and angry white man Newt Gingrich seems nostalgic for the good old Jim Crow poll tax days: he has called for people to have to pass an American historical literacy test before they can vote. His colleagues on the anti-democratic right have not gone quite so far, but 38 states, most of them controlled by Republicans, are concocting all kinds of ingenious ways to suppress the vote. A new report from New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice says that more than five million people – enough to swing the 2012 presidential election – could find themselves disenfranchised, especially if they’re poor or old or students or black or Latino.

Hyper-conservative governors and legislators, working with templates produced by a shady cabal called the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec), have pushed through laws to cut the number of voting days, impede groups registering new voters, demand proof of citizenship and otherwise make it more difficult to cast a ballot. Alec, partly funded by the John Birch-er billionaire Koch brothers and affiliated with Liam Fox’s Atlantic Bridge, is on a mission to shrink not just government (which it regards as a cancer on capitalism), but democracy itself. Ion Sancho, elections supervisor of Leon County, Florida, and veteran of Florida’s 2000 presidential election fiasco, says: “Every state that has a Republican legislature is doing this, from Maine to Florida. It’s a national effort.”

Full Story Here: The Republican ‘voter fraud’ fraud | Diane Roberts | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

Occupy Oakland Calls for a November 2 General Strike

The details are familiar to many by now.

On October 10, hundreds of members of Occupy Oakland descended on downtown to take over Frank Ogawa Plaza. Twelve days later, occupiers marched through the city in their first action. Then, in the pre-dawn hours of October 25, Oakland police—aided by officers from seventeen other agencies—raided the camp, employing tear gas and flash-bang grenades. That afternoon a protest rally and march was held, leading to a violent nighttime confrontation with the police in which Scott Olsen, an Iraq war veteran, was hit in the head with a projectile and suffered a skull fracture. The following night an overflow crowd filled the plaza, with nearly 1,500 voting to hold a general strike on November 2. In the words of a widely circulated flyer, “All banks and corporations must close down for the day or we will march on them.”

To review: in less than two weeks, Occupy Oakland went from its first public action to calling for a city-wide general strike. That’s one hell of an escalation. In my previous life as a community organizer, our campaigns were launched with the understanding that they would be long, drawn-out affairs—weeks of door-knocking, the initial meeting, our first collective action—with the butcher paper taped to the walls measuring the progression in months.

So what accounts for the breathtaking speed of the events in Oakland? The sketchy record of the Oakland Police certainly deserves some credit, especially with the injured Olsen and the video footage showing an officer tossing a flash-bang grenade into a crowd of people trying to help him. And then there’s Mayor Jean Quan, who has also been a key if unwitting ally. Absent during the raid, she has attempted to explain her shifting positions with remarkable incoherence, and was recently booed when attempting to speak at a general assembly. At meetings of Occupy Oakland, many of the people I spoke with watched the unfolding occupation with sympathy—but just watched. It took the raid, the images of tear gas clouds and a bloodied Scott Olsen to get them into the streets. As Saul Alinsky wrote, all action is in the reaction. A former organizer, Quan will not soon forget that axiom.

Full Story Here: Occupy Oakland Calls for a November 2 General Strike | The Nation.

Greece’s Choice — and Ours: Democracy or Finance?

Robert Reich :-:

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou decided in favor of democracy yesterday when he announced a national referendum on the draconian budget cuts Europe and the IMF are demanding from Greece in return for bailing it out.

(Or, more accurately, the cuts Europe and the IMF are demanding for bailing out big European banks that have lent Greece lots of money and stand to lose big if Greece defaults on those loans – not to mention Wall Street banks that will also suffer because of their intertwined financial connections with European banks.)

If Greek voters accept the bailout terms, unemployment will rise even further in Greece, public services will be cut more than they have already, the Greek economy will contract, and the standard of living of most Greeks will deteriorate further.

Full Story Here: Robert Reich (Greece’s Choice — and Ours: Democracy or Finance?).

From Cairo to New York, Which Side Are Police On?

As the Arab Spring enters a tense autumn chill, Tahrir Square remains a fiery political battleground, where struggles between the people and the state constantly churn and redefinine themselves. When police officers went on strike in October, they raised hard questions about the position of the public sector in the struggle against counterrevolution.

Thousands of Egypt’s police, though tarnished by the shameful violence deployed by security forces during the January 25 uprising, are now staging their own revolt. Meanwhile, the military brass, initially lauded in the early days of the revolution when it refrained from crushing demonstrators on behalf of Mubarak’s dictatorship, have become the target of public vitriol. The chaos—part of a continual wave of strikes, demonstrations and crackdowns—illustrates the people’s growing bitterness at the hijacking of their revolution by a reactionary junta.

So are the cops defecting to join the rabble? The momentum comes from struggling rank-and-file officers who actively distance themselves from the corrupt interim regime and notoriously cruel Interior Ministry. Alongside basic bread-and-butter grievances about wages and working conditions—the crux of all the strikes that have rocked the country this year—there are calls for an internal overhaul to restore the integrity and credibility of the institution.

Full Story Here: From Cairo to New York, Which Side Are Police On? | Common Dreams.

Allied Home Mortgage Faces Multi-Billion Dollar Lawsuit From Government

The government sued Allied Home Mortgage Capital Corp and two top executives for at least $2.5 billion, accusing the company of fraud for misleading the government into believing its loans qualified for federal insurance, causing losses.

The civil fraud lawsuit seeks triple damages under the federal False Claims Act against Allied, Chief Executive Jim Hodge and Executive Vice President Jeanne Stell.

It contends that the poor quality of Allied mortgages insured by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) caused nearly one in three loans to default, causing more than $834 million of insurance claims.

Full Story Here: Allied Home Mortgage Faces Multi-Billion Dollar Lawsuit From Government.

TransCanada To Nebraska: Altering Keystone XL Pipeline Route Would Be Unconstitutional

In a signal of what might lie ahead in the contentious battle over the Keystone XL oil pipeline, the company behind the proposed project, Calgary-based TransCanada, suggested this week that legislative efforts underway in Nebraska to force a rerouting of the pipeline could prove unconstitutional.

The Nebraska legislature, at the urging of the state’s governor, opened a special session Tuesday during which lawmakers were expected to begin introducing myriad bills designed to tweak Nebraska’s pipeline siting and safety authority. For many lawmakers, the overarching goal is to force TransCanada to seek a different route for the pipeline, which as currently conceived would cut through a sensitive region known as the Sand Hills — part of the larger, multi-state Ogallala aquifer.

In a statement late Monday, TransCanada suggested that any law passed during the special session that affects the Keystone XL project would “constitute unconstitutional discrimination against interstate commerce.” Speaking on Tuesday, company spokesman Shawn Howard clarified that TransCanada was not suggesting that Nebraska had no right to govern pipelines that run within its borders, but that it was too late to do so with this project.

Full Story Here: TransCanada To Nebraska: Altering Keystone XL Pipeline Route Would Be Unconstitutional.

Citizens United Going Down? Democrats Introduce Constitutional Amendment To Overturn Ruling

The Supreme Court may treat corporations like people who can spend whatever they want on elections, but the American people don’t have to accept it, said Democratic senators who proposed a constitutional amendment Tuesday to retake control of campaign spending.

The amendment, introduced by Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), doesn’t directly address the justices’ legal finding that corporations have a right to free speech that was curtailed by election law. Instead, it would add to the Constitution language that says Congress and the states can regulate campaign contributions and expenditures.

The amendment would effectively reverse two landmark Supreme Court decisions — the 1976 ruling in Buckley v. Valeo, which said spending money in elections is a form of speech, and the 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which ruled it unconstitutional to regulate the money spent to influence elections by corporations and unions.

Full Story Here: Citizens United Going Down? Democrats Introduce Constitutional Amendment To Overturn Ruling.

Smithfield, North Carolina Police May Ignore ’911′ Calls If Not Provided More Gas Money

In one North Carolina town, some residents may not get an answer to their 911 calls because the police are running out of gas money.

In a town council meeting Tuesday night, Smithfield, North Carolina Police Chief Michael Scott will ask officials to let him use $30,000 meant for office supplies to buy gas for patrol cars, the Raleigh News and Observer reports. If he doesn’t get the money, Smith said the police force may stop responding to some 911 calls and investigating misdemeanors because he’s already cut patrols.

Smithfield isn’t the only town looking for ways to cut costs to contend with budget woes. High unemployment and a struggling housing market have pushed more than half of U.S. cities to cut staff, boost fees or cancel infrastructure projects, according to the National League of Cities. The situation has gotten so dire that deep state and local budget cuts may be slowing U.S. economic growth, according to The Associated Press.

City officials in Allen Park, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, announced Tuesday that they would lay off more than 30 police officers, firefighters and city workers, the Detroit Free Press reports. In Santa Ana, California a budget analysis found that the city may need to take steps including closing some fire stations at night to close a projected $30 million budget gap, according to Voice of OC.

Full Story Here: Smithfield, North Carolina Police May Ignore ’911′ Calls If Not Provided More Gas Money.

Is Capitalism Losing the Debate?

A remarkable shift in mass public opinion is occurring right before our eyes. It does not happen often. Normally, only when there is a severe breakdown in public confidence about the future.

Now is such a time.

Millions are demanding clear explanations for the economic turmoil surrounding their lives and rejecting en masse standard platitudes from an increasingly discredited political establishment.

Fox-News pundits, Heritage Foundation business scholars, glib right-wing loud mouths and two-faced politicians from both major parties have been exposed as stand-in ventriloquists for the wealthy – shockingly, all in a few short weeks.

It all began with only a few hundred protestors camped out on Wall Street challenging conceited notions of the one percent.

Full Story Here: Is Capitalism Losing the Debate? | Common Dreams.

Emergency Reported At San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant

An alert has been declared at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in San Diego County.

Orange County Sheriff’s officials say that there was an incident at the plant at approximately 3:10 p.m. Tuesday, prompting an alert.

Southern California Edison tells CBS 2 that the incident is “an ammonia leak that is being contained.” The leak occurred in a steam system used to drive the station’s turbines, SCE said. The leak is not nuclear.

No radiation is currently escaping from the power plant, Lt. Roland Chacon said. The Orange County Emergency Operations Center has been activated.

Full Story Here: Emergency Reported At San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant « CBS Los Angeles.