Archive for December, 2011

Slip-Sliding to War with Iran

Exclusive: Having apparently learned nothing from the Iraq disaster, many of the same political/media players are reprising their tough-guy roles in a new drama regarding Iran. These retread performances may make another war, with Iran, hard to avoid, writes Robert Parry

By Robert Parry

With the typical backdrop of alarmist propaganda in place, the stage is now set for a new war, this time with Iran. The slightest miscalculation (or provocation) by the United States, Israel or Iran could touch off a violent scenario that will have devastating consequences.

Indeed, even if they want to, the various sides might have trouble backing down enough to defuse today’s explosive situation. After all, the Iranians continue to insist they have no intention of building a nuclear bomb, as much as Israeli and American officials insist that they are.

Full Story Here: Slip-Sliding to War with Iran | Consortiumnews.

Space And Sky Time Lapses Of 2011

Seeing images of Earth from space can be quite mesmerizing, but what about time lapse videos of trips around the planet? Below, we’ve compiled some of our favorite time lapse videos of outer space and the night sky from 2011.

From International Space Station flyovers to time lapses of the night sky, these videos bring the beauties of space to life.

If you can’t get enough of the best of the natural world in 2011, check out these photos of auroras and these fascinating pictures of meteor showers and eclipses.

Check out some of the best space and sky time lapse videos of 2011 and vote for your favorites.

Full Story Here: Space And Sky Time Lapses Of 2011 (VIDEOS).

Obama Signs Bill Allowing Indefinite Detention Of Americans

President Barack Obama signed a wide-ranging defense bill into law Saturday despite having “serious reservations” about provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation and prosecution of suspected terrorists.

The bill also applies penalties against Iran’s central bank in an effort to hamper Tehran’s ability to fund its nuclear enrichment program. The Obama administration is looking to soften the impact of those penalties because of concerns that they could lead to a spike in global oil prices or cause economic hardship on U.S. allies that import petroleum from Iran.

In a statement accompanying his signature, the president chastised some lawmakers for what he contended was their attempts to use the bill to restrict the ability of counterterrorism officials to protect the country.

Full Story Here: Obama Signs Defense Bill Despite ‘Serious Reservations’.

OPS: Talk is and has been cheap for Obama. Think of Clinton signing NAFTA and allowing Glass-Stegal to go down. Do their heart felt ‘reservations’ matter once it’s signed?

Wall Street Has Destroyed the Wonder That Was America

Imagine a vast field on which a terrible battle has recently been fought, the bare ground cratered by fusillade after fusillade of heavy artillery, trees reduced to blackened stumps, wisps of toxic gas hanging in the gray, and corpses everywhere.

A terrible scene, made worse by the sound of distant laughter, because somehow, on the heights commanding the dead zone, the officers’ club has made it through intact. From its balconies flutter bunting, and across the blasted landscape there comes a chorus of hearty male voices in counterpoint to the wheedling of cadres of wheel-greasers, the click of betting chips, the orotund declamations of a visiting congressional delegation: in sum, the celebratory hullabaloo of a class of people that has sent entire nations off to perish but whose only concern right now is whether the ’11 is ready to drink and who’ll see to tipping the servants. The notion that there might be someone or some force out there getting ready to slouch toward the buttonwood tree to exact retribution scarcely ruffles the celebrants’ joy.

Full Story Here: The Big Lie: Wall Street has Destroyed the Wonder That Was America | Common Dreams.

SpaceX will bring man to Mars in less than 20 years.

Elon Musk, the man who helped make Internet commerce possible for the everyman by creating PayPal, wants to bring space travel to the masses as well. And not that just putting a proverbial foot in space and then returning right away to Earth. Musk hopes his private space company SpaceX will bring millions to Mars. Says the New Scientist’s Greg Klerkx:

In his Heinlein prize acceptance speech, he said he wants to put 10,000 people on Mars. Musk rarely makes public statements merely for effect but a call for 10,000 would-be Martians is extraordinary, even by his standards. When I query him on this point, he pauses. Is he reconsidering? Yes… but, as with so much else about Musk, not in a predictable way. “Ultimately we don’t really want 10,000 people on Mars,” he says, after letting the pause linger a few seconds more. “We want millions.”

Musk estimates that SpaceX’s first mission to Mars will come in as soon as 10 years—and his more conservative estimate is just 20. And to carry out his plans, Musk tells Klerkx that he will require a positively frugal $2 billion to $5 billion.

A few weeks ago, Musk took his space case to the National Press Club, where he told an audience that he wants life to become interplanetary. Bringing life to new planets, Musk argues, is just a further step in human evolution.

Full Story Here: Elon Musk: SpaceX will bring man to Mars in less than 20 years. [VIDEO].

Defense Act Affirms Indefinite Detention of US Citizens: A ‘Significant Step’ Towards Fascist Govt

Civil liberties groups and many citizen activists are outraged over language in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2011 (NDAA) that appears to lay the legal groundwork for indefinite detention of U.S. citizens without trial.

David Gespass, president of the National Lawyers Guild, called it an “enormous attack on the U.S. and our heritage” and a “significant step” towards fascism, in an interview with IPS.

“For a very long time the U.S. has been moving towards what I personally think of as fascist – the integration of monopoly capital with state power, that’s combined with an increased repression at home and greater aggression around the world. I don’t think we’re there yet, but I do see that we’re going in that direction,” Gespass said. “I think the… act is a significant step in that direction.”

Full Story Here: Defense Act Affirms Indefinite Detention of US Citizens | Common Dreams.

OPS: Now, WE will have  “this disappeared”

Carelessly Mistaking Theater For Policy

Paul Krugman :-:

One crucial thing you need to understand about political journalists in the United States is that, with some honorable exceptions, they don’t know or care about actual policy.

In a way, that makes sense — the skills needed to cultivate contacts, to get the inside scoop on what’s going on in Congressional scheming or campaign war rooms, are very different from the skills needed to interpret spreadsheets from the Congressional Budget Office.

The problem, however, is that all too often political journalists mistake the theater of policy for reality (or don’t care about the difference).

Full Story Here: Carelessly Mistaking Theater For Policy | Truthout.

Thom Hartmann: Justice Department to Bring Charges Against BP Over 2010 Oil Spill, and More | Truthout

The Justice Department will bring charges against BP over 2010 oil spill,

You need to know this.  The oil barons may be held accountable after all.  A year and a half after the BP oil spill murdered 11 men and spewed 5 million barrels of crude into the Gulf of Mexico – the Wall Street Journal is reporting that U.S. Prosecutors are readying the first criminal charges against BP.  The Department of Justice is allegedly looking into charging engineers and at least one supervisor with providing false information to regulators – a felony charge that could carry with it one to five years in prison.  While this is a good first step – it won’t even effect the executives of an oil corporation that, from the top down, didn’t give a damn about the lives of its workers or the environment.  Following an oil spill last month in Brazil – Brazilian prosecutors are going after the President of Chevron – charging him with crimes that could lead to jail time and banning Chevron from the country.  We need to do the same things here with BP: throw some suits in jail for murder and ban BP from ever doing business again in the United States.

Full Story Here: On the News With Thom Hartmann: Justice Department to Bring Charges Against BP Over 2010 Oil Spill, and More | Truthout.

The Cost of Free Trade

Any renaissance of American manufacturing must begin by fundamentally reversing our trade policies—both in general and in particular toward China. Over the past two decades, leading U.S. manufacturers, both the venerable (like General Electric) and the new (like Apple), have offshored millions of jobs—by one recent estimate, 2.9 million—to China to take advantage of the cheap labor, generous state subsidies, and low currency valuation that are linchpins of China’s mercantilist development strategy. Other factors, including increasingly automated production, have also taken a toll on America’s manufacturing workforce, but it’s the mass exodus of American production to China and, more recently, the rise of indigenous, state-subsidized Chinese production that have decimated American industry and reduced the incomes of American workers.

The United States government did not have to stand idly by while the nation’s industrial base was disassembled. It could have preserved and promoted key industries and supply networks by creating favorable credit policies, tax incentives, local content rules, and tariffs to punish currency manipulation from countries like China. For that matter, the U.S. could have created more flexible trade rules when it helped to craft the World Trade Organization.

Full Story Here: The Cost of Free Trade | Economy In Crisis.

Negotiating Away Our Sovereignty

Our government must reexamine our involvement in organizations like the WTO, formerly GATT. GATT was established in 1948 in cooperation with the UN to help rebuild a devastated Europe and Asia following World War II. This was a major turning point in the history of America.

Prior to GATT, domestic policies were aimed at fostering growth and protecting our core industries. Tariffs and restrictions prevented foreign subsidized companies and governments from disarming our industries through predatory pricing, dumping, and buyouts. The rest of the world marveled with envy at the assets we had collected through our policies. They sought to establish “free-trade” that would allow them to access our markets and allow access to the wealth we had achieved.

Though this practice was effective in restoring and rehabilitating Europe and Asia, we have allowed these practices to run amuck and to continue unchecked to present day at the expense of our sovereignty regardless even of its potential detriment to national security. Specifically, Congress cannot legally pass laws that violate WTO bylaws even if such laws are necessary to ensure the safety of America.

Full Story Here: Negotiating Away Our Sovereignty | Economy In Crisis.

Our Weather On Steroids: The Mind-Boggling Climate Disasters Of 2011

The year 2011 brought the most billion-dollar climate disasters to the United States ever, piling history-making events on top of each other to catastrophic results. The litany of disaster included a scorching drought that rivaled the Dust Bowl summer of 1936, a tornado season twice as bad as the great 1974 tornado outbreak, and flooding worse than the the great 1927 flood on the Mississippi River. This year of disaster was the result of the unlimited burning of fossil fuels, which has trapped increasing amounts of heat in the atmosphere, disrupting our climate system.

In an interview with PBS News Hour, Weather Underground’s Jeff Masters described the effect of the hundreds of billions of tons of global warming pollution as being like “steroids for the atmosphere,” intensifying extreme weather to unprecedented results:

We look at heat waves, droughts, and flooding events. They all tend to get increased when you have this extra energy in the atmosphere. I call it being on steroids for the atmosphere. Normally, you have the everyday ups and downs of the weather, but if you pack a little bit of extra punch in there, it’s like a baseball hitter who’s on steroids. You expect to see a big home run total maybe from this slugger, but if you add a little bit of extra oomph to his swing by putting him on steroids, now we can have an unprecedented season, a 70 home run season. And that’s the way I look at this year. We had an unprecedented weather year that I don’t think would have happened unless we had had an extra bit of energy in the atmosphere due to climate change and global warming.

Watch the program:

Full Story Here: Our Weather On Steroids: The Mind-Boggling Climate Disasters Of 2011 | ThinkProgress.

Study: Bad weather makes voters more liberal

Voters who have experienced severe weather events are more likely to be in favor of environmental legislation — even if it comes at a cost of restricting some individual freedoms, according to a soon-to-be-published study.

In a 2009 Internet survey of about 2,500 Americans, four Hamilton College economists found that weather events like heat waves and drought tended to have the greatest impact on people who aren’t otherwise well-informed about global warming.

“[O]ur results are consistent with the idea that experiencing extreme weather causes individuals to become more aware of the issue of global warming, and increases their perception of the risk of global warming,” authors of the study wrote.

Full Story Here: Study: Bad weather makes voters more liberal | The Raw Story.

TV Analysts’ Collusion With the Military: Disgraceful but Legal?

I wasn’t going to look at the news on Christmas Day. I had just had successfully prepared a Christmas Eve dinner for my extended family and was up late singing at a Christmas Eve church service. On Christmas day, I was taking more food to another relative’s house to have another family dinner. But I was lying in bed Christmas morning and, as most news junkies will understand, just decided to do a quick peek of the headlines on my iPad.

And there it was. The New York Times was reporting that the Department of Defense’s Inspector General’s (DoD IG) office had finished a report saying no harm, no foul when Rumsfeld’s Pentagon used 74 military analysts, mainly retired generals, to push for the Iraq war and advocate more war spending and more DoD budget spending as national television commentators.

Full Story Here: TV Analysts’ Collusion With the Military: Disgraceful but Legal? | Truthout.

Best-Rated Apps 2011: Mobilewalla Ranks Users’ Favorites For Android, iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Phone

A few days ago, we brought you a report on the most popular mobile apps of 2011, in terms of downloads. (Quick version: You all really love Angry Birds). Now, new research from mobile analytics firm Mobilewalla lays out a different app landscape: The apps with the highest user ratings across iOS, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone.

Before we reveal the list, let’s talk methodology: Mobilewalla didn’t simply look at the scores users gave to the apps in the Android Market, or the App Store, etc.; rather, it devised its own Mobilewalla score. Sarah Perez of Techcrunch defines it nicely and succinctly:

Instead of looking at raw user ratings, this scoring system is an algorithm that analyzes a variety of factors in addition to ratings, including an app’s position within its own category, volume, social media sentiment and more.

Full Story Here: Best-Rated Apps 2011: Mobilewalla Ranks Users’ Favorites For Android, iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Phone.

Ron Paul Had Accurate Conspiracy Theory: CIA Was Tied To Drug Traffickers

According to a former aide, Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul has long been drawn toward conspiracy theories. Eric Dondero, who served Paul off and on from 1987 to 2003, wrote recently that the Texas Republican suspected that George W. Bush may have had advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks and that Franklin Roosevelt knew in advance about Pearl Harbor. Paul’s writings and speeches spotlight a host of other plots, including the “war on Christmas.”

But just because not all of Paul’s theories are backed by good evidence doesn’t mean none of them are.

In 1988, while running for president on the Libertarian Party ticket, he highlighted yet another conspiracy theory, and this one doesn’t collapse under investigation: The CIA, Paul told a gathering of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, was involved in trafficking drugs as part of the Iran-Contra debacle.

Full Story Here: Ron Paul Had Accurate Conspiracy Theory: CIA Was Tied To Drug Traffickers.

Daily Deals Sites Offering Cheaper Healthcare For Uninsured Americans

The last time Mark Stella went to the dentist he didn’t need an insurance card. Instead, he pulled out a Groupon.

Stella, a small business owner, canceled his health insurance plan more than three years ago when his premium rose to more than $400 a month. He considered himself healthy and decided that he was wasting money on something that he rarely used.

So when a deal popped up on daily deals site Groupon for a teeth cleaning, exam and an X-ray at a nearby dentist, Stella, 55, bought the deal – which the company calls a “Groupon” – for himself and another for his daughter. He paid $39 for each, $151 below what the dentist normally charges.

Full Story Here: Daily Deals Sites Offering Cheaper Healthcare For Uninsured Americans.

Synthetic Marijuana Use On The Rise Among U.S. Troops

U.S. troops are increasingly using an easy-to-get herbal mix called “Spice,” which mimics a marijuana high, is hard to detect and can bring on hallucinations that last for days.

The abuse of the substance has so alarmed military officials that they’ve launched an aggressive testing program that this year has led to the investigation of more than 1,100 suspected users.

So-called “synthetic” pot is readily available on the Internet and has become popular nationwide in recent years, but its use among troops and sailors has raised concerns among the Pentagon brass.

Full Story Here: Synthetic Marijuana Use On The Rise Among U.S. Troops.

ALEC-Linked Group Revealed as Major Secret Donor in Referendum on Maine Voting Rights

Last month, Maine voters delivered a major rebuke to Gov. Paul LePage (R) and the Republican-held legislature when they approved a referendum restoring election day voting registration rights in the state. Earlier this year, state legislators passed a bill repealing the state’s 38 year-old law allowing citizens to register at the polls on election day.

Tens of thousands of Mainers responded by petitioning for the matter come to a referendum. Issue 1 was one of the most-anticipated votes on election day this year, with pundits watching closely to see how citizens would react to the Republican-led war on voting, which ramped up in states across the country this year.

Recognizing the referendum’s importance, voting rights opponents poured money into the campaign to repeal election day registration. In fact, just two days after the state’s campaign finance reporting deadline, a secret conservative donor funneled $250,000 into the race, allowing the No On 1 campaign to make significant TV ad buys in an inexpensive media market.

Full Story Here: ALEC-Linked Group Revealed as Major Secret Donor in Referendum on Maine Voting Rights | Truthout.

Verizon Wireless Recants, Won’t Charge $2 Fee

Verizon Wireless has responded to the public backlash regarding its planned $2 bill-pay fee and decided against adding the fee. “At Verizon, we take great care to listen to our customers. Based on their input, we believe the best path forward is to encourage customers to take advantage of the best and most efficient options, eliminating the need to institute the fee at this time,” said Dan Mead, president and chief executive officer of Verizon Wireless, in a statement. The idea had earned the attention of the Federal Communications Commission, which has yet to respond to Verizon’s change of heart.

Full Story Here: Verizon Wireless Recants, Won’t Charge $2 Fee (Phone Scoop).

Chairman of the Somerville Republican Committee videotaped boys in showers at NJ Catholic high school for 3 years

An educator using a secretly installed camera videotaped teenage boys in the shower at a Catholic high school for nearly three years, authorities said.

Patrick J. Lott, who was arrested last week, was arraigned Wednesday on charges he videotaped students in a communal shower area at Immaculata High School in Somerville starting in January 2008. He did not enter a plea.

The prosecutor’s office said that there were at least 22 victims and that nine boys identified in the videos are currently under the age of 16. To protect the boys’ identities, they were referred to only by their initials in court filings.

Lott, 54, is an assistant principal at a public middle school who volunteered at the Catholic high school. Authorities declined to provide further details about his volunteer position.

Full Story Here: Authorities: Educator videotaped boys in showers at NJ Catholic high school for 3 years – The Washington Post.

Virginia GOP Will Require Voters To Sign ‘Loyalty Oath’

Less than a week after announcing that only two GOP presidential candidates qualified to appear on their ballot, the Republican Party of Virginia has adopted a new measure that may leave voters in the state scratching their heads: a loyalty oath.

On Wednesday the Virginia State Board of Elections approved a request from the Virginia GOP that will require voters to sign a loyalty oath in order to participate in the state’s presidential primary on March 6. A spokesman for the state’s election board tells ABC News that although some details are still in the works, voters wishing to cast a ballot must take the pledge.

“We’re still working out the details for how things will work on election day,” says Justin Riemer, spokesman for Virginia’s State Board of Elections, “but the instructions state that they must sign before voting.”

Full Story Here: Virginia GOP Will Require Voters To Sign ‘Loyalty Oath’ – ABC News.

Has America’s Stolen Election Process Finally Hit Prime Time?

It took two stolen US Presidential elections and the prospect of another one coming up in 2012.

For years the Democratic Party and even much of the left press has reacted with scorn for those who’ve reported on it.

But the imperial fraud that has utterly corrupted our electoral process seems finally to be dawning on a broadening core of the American electorate—if it can still be called that.

The shift is highlighted by three major developments:

1. The NAACP goes to the United Nations

In early December, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the largest civil rights organization in America, announced that it was petitioning the United Nations over the orchestrated GOP attack on black and Latino voters.

In its landmark report entitled Defending Democracy: Confronting Modern Barriers to Voting Rights in America, the NAACP directly takes on the new Jim Crow tactics passed in fourteen states that are designed to keep minorities from voting in 2012.

Full Story Here: Has America’s Stolen Election Process Finally Hit Prime Time? | Common Dreams.

Will a Bad Week for AquaBounty and the FDA be Enough to Keep GE Salmon Off Our Plates? | Food & Water Watch

Today marks one week to go before the holiday frenzy kicks into its highest gear. By next Friday, people will be so focused on holiday logistics that many consumers wouldn’t notice if the FDA green lighted AquaBounty Technology’s Genetically Engineered (GE) salmon, a scientific experiment they’ve been reviewing for close to two decades.

Although that will make for a nervous week around here, we are heartened by this past week’s latest round of criticism for GE salmon, as scientists lined up in the halls of Congress and on a National Public Radio debate to discredit a dodgy environmental risk-assessment of GE salmon. With so many concerns raised about its environmental impact, and given the FDA’s history of making controversial announcements right before a holiday, could this be the year the agency approves GE salmon?

When the FDA announced16 months ago that GE salmon was safe, many of us worried that regulatory approval was imminent. But in the intervening months, the agency has suffered slings and arrows from scientists and legislators alike, unhappy with the agency’s inadequate risk assessment of GE salmon, which, if approved, would be the first genetically engineered animal to enter the U.S. food supply.

Full Story Here: Will a Bad Week for AquaBounty and the FDA be Enough to Keep GE Salmon Off Our Plates? | Food & Water Watch.

6 Recipes for Winter Wellness

Fight seasonal maladies the natural way.

Thyme Gargle

Thyme has a natural antiseptic called thymol, which is an active ingredient in some mouthwashes. It also soothes the throat. Thyme tea can also be used as a gargle for a sore throat, or drunk to ease stomach cramps.

Steep one tablespoon of dried thyme in one cup boiling water. Strain, let cool, and gargle or drink.—K.M.

Organic Lip Balm

Immune systems aren’t the only things that take a hit in winter; skin also shows the wear of those chilly months. Lips lose moisture more quickly than other parts of the face because they don’t have sweat or sebaceous glands. Gentle protection from homemade lip balm is an appealing alternative to using store-bought brands made from petroleum jelly.

For this version you’ll need 2 tbsp. coconut oil, 1 tbsp. grated cocoa butter, and 1/4 tsp. vitamin E oil (or the oil from 3 capsules). If you like scent and flavor, add a drop of rose, peppermint, vanilla, or sweet orange essential oil.

Melt the coconut oil in a stainless steel pot over low heat. Stir in cocoa butter until melted. Remove from heat, add vitamin E oil and stir. Pour the mixture into a container—empty baby food or cosmetic jars, or small tins from the beauty supply store or herbalist. Let set for three hours.—J.K.

Full Story Here: 6 Recipes for Winter Wellness by Jennifer Kaye and Kate Malongowski — YES! Magazine.

Excerpt From the Book This Changes Everything: Occupy Wall Street and the 99%

Introducing the movement that’s shifting our vision of what kind of world is possible—from the new book, “This Changes Everything: Occupy Wall Street and the 99% Movement.”

“We fail to understand why we should have to pay the costs of the crisis, while its instigators continue to post record profits. We’re sick and tired of one injustice after another. We want human dignity back again.

This isn’t the kind of world we want to live in, and it’s we who have to decide what world we do want. We know we can change it, and we’re having a great time going about it.”

Something happened in September 2011 so unexpected that no politician or pundit saw it coming.

Inspired by the Arab Spring and uprisings in Europe, sparked by a challenge from Adbusters magazine to show up at Wall Street on September 17 and “bring a tent,” and encouraged by veteran New York activists, a few thousand people gathered in the financial district of New York City. At the end of the day, some of them set up camp in Zuccotti Park and started what became a national—and now international—movement.

Full Story Here: Excerpt From the Book This Changes Everything: Occupy Wall Street and the 99% Movement by Sarah van Gelder and the staff of YES! Magazine.

93-Year-Old Tennessee Woman Who Cleaned State Capitol For 30 Years Denied Voter ID

A 93-year-old Tennessee woman who cleaned the state Capitol for 30 years, including the governor’s office, says she won’t be able to vote for the first time in decades after being told this week that her old state ID failed to meet new voter ID regulations.

Thelma Mitchell was even accused of being an undocumented immigrant because she couldn’t produce a birth certificate:

Mitchell, who was delivered by a midwife in Alabama in 1918, has never had a birth certificate. But when she told that to a drivers’ license clerk, he suggested she might be an illegal immigrant.

Thelma Mitchell told WSMV-TV that she went to a state drivers’ license center last week after being told that her old state ID from her cleaning job would not meet new regulations for voter identification.

Full Story Here: 93-Year-Old Tennessee Woman Who Cleaned State Capitol For 30 Years Denied Voter ID | ThinkProgress.

FACT CHECK: Ron Paul Personally Defended Racist Newsletters

Recently, Ron Paul has been subject to intense criticism over controversial newsletters written under his name in the 80s and 90s that frequently included racism, bigotry, and conspiracy theories. Over the last few days, Paul has responded that he did not write the newsletters and disavowed their contents, claiming this has been his consistent position for 20 years. Here’s what Paul told CNN on December 21:

PAUL: I never read that stuff. I never — I would never — I came — I was probably aware of it 10 years after it was written… Well, you know, we talked about [the newsletters] twice yesterday at CNN. Why don’t you go back and look at what I said yesterday on CNN, and what I’ve said for 20-some years. It was 22 years ago. I didn’t write them. I disavow them and that’s it.

Paul’s denials, however, are not supported by the public record. When the newsletters first arose as an issue in 1996, Paul didn’t deny authorship. Instead, Paul personally repeated and defended some of the most incendiary racial claims in the newsletters.

In May 1996, Paul was confronted in an interview by the Dallas Morning News about a line that appeared in a 1992 newsletter, under the headline “Terrorist Update”: “If you have ever been robbed by a black teenaged male, you know how unbelievably fleet of foot they can be.” His response:

Full Story Here: FACT CHECK: Ron Paul Personally Defended Racist Newsletters | ThinkProgress.

Newfound Gas Cloud Points to Possible Planets Near the Milky Way’s Black Hole

Times are tough on planet Earth right now, but at least we don’t have a supermassive black hole lurking just over the horizon.

A new study suggests that stars near the Milky Way’s central black hole may well form planets. The researchers based their analysis on a very recent discovery of a gas cloud making its way toward the galactic center.

On December 14 an international team of astronomers led by Stefan Gillessen of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany, announced that they had spotted something heading toward a close encounter with the central black hole, known as Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), which has as much mass as four million suns. Gillessen and his colleagues interpreted the object to be a dusty gas cloud about three times as massive as Earth, possibly belched out as stellar winds (plasma streaming outward from stars) from the young stars that orbit the black hole.

Full Story Here: Newfound Gas Cloud Points to Possible Planets Near the Milky Way’s Black Hole | Observations, Scientific American Blog Network.

China Currency Manipulation: Treasury Declines To Name China In Report

The Obama administration on Tuesday declined to label China a currency manipulator after seeing recent increases in the value of the yuan compared to the dollar.

The decision angered some manufacturing groups, which have accused Beijing of artificially holding down the value of its currency to gain trade advantages. A cheaper yuan makes Chinese goods less expensive when they are shipped to the United States. It also makes U.S. goods more expensive in China. Both could increase the U.S. trade deficit with China, which is on pace to hit a record high this year.

The Treasury Department said the yuan has appreciated 12 percent against the dollar in the past 18 months, after adjusting for inflation. In addition, the department said in a semi-annual report that China promised at two high-level meetings last month to make the yuan’s exchange rate more flexible.

Full Story Here: China Currency Manipulation: Treasury Declines To Name China In Report.

Richard Nixon Had Gay Affair, ‘Nixon’s Darkest Secrets’ Claims

Watergate was only one of several scandalous aspects of former President Richard Nixon’s life, according to a new book by a former White House correspondent.

Nixon’s Darkest Secrets: The Inside Story of America’s Most Troubled President by Don Fulsom (Thomas Dunne Books, $25.99), former correspondent for United Press International, makes several eye-catching accusations, including that the former president had a gay affair with Charles “Bebe” Rebozo, a banker apparently with ties to the mob.

The allegation is especially noteworthy because, as gay news website Queerty reports, Nixon was known to have made homophobic remarks.

Full Story Here: Richard Nixon Had Gay Affair, ‘Nixon’s Darkest Secrets’ Claims.

The Coming Accidental War with Iran

Our attention has been rightfully turned to the stomach-churning photos of women being dragged by the hair through the streets of Egypt and Bahrain, and reports of yet more deaths in Syria. As this year ends however, it is worth noting with a bit of apprehension that Iran has been relatively quiet compared to its neighbors. In fact, when John Dudin of the New York Council on Foreign Relations reviewed the ten most significant developments in the Middle East in 2011 Iran did not make the list at all–even after the downing of the US drone earlier this month. Either things are improving and we are learning to better deal with Iran, or this is merely a pause in a decades-long estrangement which could turn violent, providing a shock to the global economy it might not be able to withstand.

War with Iran would mean the closing of the Strait of Hormuz, where the Iranian Navy began ten days of war games to practice doing just that on December 24th. At least 30% of all seaborne oil shipments pass through this chokepoint. Oil prices have been rising on the strength of the maneuvers alone: an actual blockade would double the price of oil overnight.

Now that America’s withdrawal from Iraq has been formalized, and Osama bin Laden, Hosni Mubarak, Muammar Gaddafi, Ali Abdullah Saleh, and Zine el Abidine Ben Ali have all been vanquished, after a year of unbelievable changes throughout the Middle East, my prediction is that Iran is about to regain center stage in the region. As a result of the US withdrawal, Iraq could be prone to more violence, and the Iranian leadership must certainly have taken note that none of the toppled leaders, including Sadam Hussein, possessed formal nuclear capabilities.

Full Story Here: Lyric Hughes Hale: The Coming Accidental War with Iran.

Vote Obama – if you want a centrist Republican for US president

 Glenn Greenwald :-:

Because Barack Obama has adopted so many core Republican beliefs, the US opposition race is a shambles

American presidential elections are increasingly indistinguishable from the reality TV competitions drowning the nation’s airwaves. Both are vapid, personality-driven and painfully protracted affairs, with the winners crowned by virtue of their ability to appear slightly more tolerable than the cast of annoying rejects whom the public eliminates one by one. When, earlier this year, America’s tawdriest (and one of its most-watched) reality TV show hosts, Donald Trump, inserted himself into the campaign circus as a threatened contestant, he fitted right in, immediately catapulting to the top of audience polls before announcing he would not join the show.

The Republican presidential primaries – shortly to determine who will be the finalist to face off, and likely lose, against Barack Obama next November – has been a particularly base spectacle. That the contest has devolved into an embarrassing clown show has many causes, beginning with the fact that GOP voters loathe Mitt Romney, their belief-free, anointed-by-Wall-Street frontrunner who clearly has the best chance of defeating the president.

Full Story Here: Vote Obama – if you want a centrist Republican for US president | Glenn Greenwald | Comment is free | The Guardian.

Half of America In Poverty? The Facts Say It’s True

Recent reports suggest that almost 50% of Americans are in poverty or at a “low income” level. The claim is based on a new supplemental measure by the Census Bureau that includes health care, transportation, and other essential living expenses in the poverty calculation.

The concept of “low income” is controversial. It has been defined as earnings between 100 and 199 percent of the poverty level, a claim which, if true, would place every American family making $50,000 or less at a near-poverty level.

Conservative organizations believe the whole ‘poverty’ issue is overblown. The Cato Institute blames LBJ and Obama for reversing a declining poverty rate. Forbes blames the calculations. The Heritage Foundation argues, “The average poor person, as defined by the government, has a living standard far higher than the public imagines…In the kitchen, the household had a refrigerator, an oven and stove, and a microwave.” The case for a growing “consumption equality” is alternately defended and denied.

Full Story Here: Half of America In Poverty? The Facts Say It’s True | Common Dreams.

Economic Downturn Took a Detour at Capitol Hill

When Representative Ed Pastor was first elected to Congress two decades ago, he was comfortably ensconced in the middle class. Mr. Pastor, a Democrat from Arizona, held $100,000 or so in savings accounts in the mid-1990s and had a retirement pension, but like many Americans, he also owed the banks nearly as much in loans.

Today, Mr. Pastor, a miner’s son and a former high school teacher, is a member of a not-so-exclusive club: Capitol Hill millionaires. That group has grown in recent years to include nearly half of all members of Congress — 250 in all — and the wealth gap between lawmakers and their constituents appears to be growing quickly, even as Congress debates unemployment benefits, possible cuts in food stamps and a “millionaire’s tax.”

Mr. Pastor buys a Powerball lottery ticket every weekend and says he does not consider himself rich. Indeed, within the halls of Congress, where the median net worth is $913,000 and climbing, he is not. He is a rank-and-file millionaire. But compared with the country at large, where the median net worth is $100,000 and has dropped significantly since 2004, he and most of his fellow lawmakers are true aristocrats.

Full Story Here: Economic Downturn Took a Detour at Capitol Hill – NYTimes.com.

Ben Nelson’s Christmas Gift to America

The Senate might hail itself as the “world’s greatest deliberative body,” but like all democratic institutions, it has had an incredibly mixed history, with moments of genuine achievement—the Civil Rights Act of 1964, for instance—tarnished by moments of cowardice and moral failure, like the Iraq War. If you can say anything about the tenure of Nebraska senator Ben Nelson—who announced his retirement this afternoon—it’s that he strove to embody the worst of the Senate during his two terms in office.

During the Bush presidency, in addition to his support for the Iraq War and the Patriot Act, Nelson voted to restrict marriage rights for gay couples and to make reproductive healthcare more difficult for women. He voted against legislation to raise the minimum wage, against attempts to increase Pell Grants and for the 2005 bill to make bankrupcy proceedings more difficult for ordinary Americans.. He voted to reauthorize the Patriot Act, and voted in support of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 and its draconian attacks on civil liberties for detainees (and everyone else). He voted against President Bush’s bill for comprehensive immigration reform, and voted in support of a bill to establish English as the official language of the United States.

Full Story Here: Ben Nelson’s Christmas Gift to America | The Nation.

Big Consequences From Small Trade Deals

Given the amount of press that has been given to larger free trade agreements like NAFTA and the newly passed South Korean free trade agreement, the damaging effects of smaller trade pacts are often overlooked. Passed at the same time as the South Korean free trade agreement were agreements with Panama and Colombia. These may not cost as many jobs as their larger counterparts, but they continue the trend of putting Americans in direct competition with cheap foreign labor, and the trend of giving American companies more opportunities to hide money in known tax havens.

Free trade with Colombia will mean that Americans have to compete for manufacturing jobs with workers willing or forced to work for much less. The annual earnings for someone earning minimum wage in Colombia totals just over $3,300. While some argue that those wages will come up due to increased business activity, the more likely scenario is that American wages will be pulled down toward that level as workers desperately try to hang on to their jobs.

Full Story Here: Big Consequences From Small Trade Deals | Economy In Crisis.

When Medicare Isn’t Medicare

Wendell Potter :-:

Let’s say you have a Ford and decide to replace everything under the hood with Hyundai parts, including the engine and transmission. Could you still honestly market your car as a Ford?

That question gets at the heart of the controversy over who is being more forthright about GOP Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan to “save” Medicare, Republicans or Democrats.

If you overhaul the Medicare system like you did your Ford and tell the public it’s still Medicare, are you doing so honestly?

As I noted last week, PolitiFact, the St. Petersburg Time’s fact checker, decided that the Democrats’ claim that Ryan’s plan would mean the end of Medicare was so blatantly untrue it merited designation as the 2011 “Lie of the Year.” Republicans, whose erroneous claims about health care reform garnered “Lie of the Year” prizes in 2009 and 2010, cheered. Democrats, as you might imagine, jeered — as did some journalists and pundits.

Full Story Here: When Medicare Isn’t Medicare | Common Dreams.

How to argue with right-wing relatives

Responding to common conservative talking points without losing your mind

There comes a time at most large family gatherings when a heated political argument breaks out. And by “heated political argument” what I mean is “someone just repeats something they heard on Hannity’s radio show that you know to be completely untrue.” You may be the lone liberal in a conservative family, or you may have one right-wing uncle in your left-wing family, but this will happen. What to do?

If you have a “smart phone,” just bookmark Snopes now. That’ll take care of the really weird stuff. (Well, not this level of weird, but “I read that airlines don’t pair Christian pilots and co-pilots in case The Rapture happens” weird.)

But a right-wing myth generally lives on forever, no matter how many times it is debunked. You are powerless to prevent its spread. All you can do is perhaps convince one person that one talk radio meme is completely bogus. But you will probably have better luck simply changing the subject. (Suggestions: Whether or not Peyton Manning will be a Colt next season, “American Horror Story,” Jay-Z and Beyonce’s baby.)

Full Story Here: How to argue with right-wing relatives – Fighting – Salon.com.

What Will the Democratic Left Do in 2012?

The Democratic Party’s left wing—comprised, for the most part, of labor, peace, racial justice, women’s rights, and environmental organizations, as well as unaffiliated progressive activists—faces some difficult choices in 2012, when it will be dealing with numerous election campaigns.

Many progressives feel a keen sense of disappointment with the Obama administration, which showed a remarkable willingness to capitulate to conservatives when the Democrats controlled Congress and even more craven behavior once the Republicans won back control of the House of Representatives. Organized labor is aghast at the continuation of the Bush tax cuts and the collapse of legislative efforts to facilitate union recognition, peace groups are appalled by the escalation of the Afghan War and the rise of the Pentagon budget, civil rights groups despair over the absence of anti-poverty measures and the growing restrictions on voting rights, women’s groups deplore the administration’s capitulation on contraception, and environmental groups shake their heads at the administration’s veto of auto emission standards, its green light to offshore oil drilling, and its retreat on reducing carbon emissions. Contrasting the administration’s all-out effort to save Wall Street with its indifference to Main Street, many progressives wonder if they have gained anything worthwhile with Obama’s election.

Full Story Here: What Will the Democratic Left Do in 2012? | Truthout.

Springtime for Toxics

Paul Krugman :-:

Here’s what I wanted for Christmas: something that would make us both healthier and richer. And since I was just making a wish, why not ask that Americans get smarter, too?

Surprise: I got my wish, in the form of new Environmental Protection Agency standards on mercury and air toxics for power plants. These rules are long overdue: we were supposed to start regulating mercury more than 20 years ago. But the rules are finally here, and will deliver huge benefits at only modest cost.

So, naturally, Republicans are furious. But before I get to the politics, let’s talk about what a good thing the E.P.A. just did.

Full Story Here: Springtime for Toxics – NYTimes.com.

Romney Falsely Claims Obama ‘Has Not Created Any New Jobs’

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) has faced scrutiny from his fellow Republican candidates over his career at Bain Capital, the venture capital firm that, despite his retirement, still pays him millions of dollars a year. Bain, and Romney, often raked in profits while companies were shedding jobs, as was the case in New Hampshire and South Carolina, among others.

Anticipating that Democrats and President Obama would pick up on those attacks, Romney told Politico last week how he plans to respond. Apparently, his plan is to toss around blatant falsehoods, as he told reporters that Obama “has not created any new jobs” as president:

“I know that the Democrats will try and make this a campaign about Bain Capital; … 25 million people are out of work because of Barack Obama. And so I’ll compare my experience in the private sector where, net-net, we created over 100,000 jobs.”

Full Story Here: Romney Falsely Claims Obama ‘Has Not Created Any New Jobs’ | ThinkProgress.

Christine Lagarde: World Economy In ‘A Dangerous Situation’

The head of the International Monetary Fund said the world economy was in danger and urged Europeans to speak with one voice on a debt crisis that has rattled the global financial system.

In Nigeria last week, IMF Christine Lagarde said the IMF’s 4 percent growth forecast for the world economy in 2012 could be revised downward, but gave no new figure.

“The world economy is in a dangerous situation,” she told France’s Journal du Dimanche in an interview published on Sunday.

Full Story Here: Christine Lagarde: World Economy In ‘A Dangerous Situation’.

Georgia River Reindeer Population Dramatically Dropping

If Santa is ever in need of some replacement reindeer, he will have considerably less to choose from than he would have 10 years ago.

The world’s largest reindeer population has plummeted up to 92 percent in the last few decades. Once standing at 900,000, the George River herd now stands at 74,000, according to Survival International.

Important to the Innu and Cree people of Quebec and Labrador in eastern Canada, iron-ore mining, hydro-power flooding and road building are reportedly to blame for the depleting numbers of reindeer.

Full Story Here: Georgia River Reindeer Population Dramatically Dropping (PHOTOS).

2011′s Top UFO Sightings And Paranormal News (VIDEO)

2011 was a very — watch out, here it comes — out-of-this-world year for UFOs. Every month of the year gave us UFO stories to digest, wonder about, or laugh at — depending on your point of view or belief about UFOs.

Ancient UFOs; scores of videos and photographs; military and government officials offering credible testimony; thousands of pages of previously classified documents; disk and dorito-shaped craft; an official state highway marker erected to commemorate the most widely publicized UFO abduction story in history; petitions sent to the White House asking the Obama administration to release all UFO information; an alleged alien spaceship hiding near the planet Mercury; an ET reportedly photographed standing in a Brazilian rainforest; and a theologian who says religious believers are ready to share a pew with aliens.

These and much more were all there for the taking. With the proliferation of so many video cameras and phone cams, it’s not surprising that, according to the Mutual UFO Network — the largest privately funded UFO research organization in the world — there were 67 percent more reports of unidentified flying objects in 2011, compared to 2008.

Full Story Here: 2011′s Top UFO Sightings And Paranormal News (VIDEO).

Apple Hydrogen Fuel Cell Battery Plans Revealed

Apple is planning to make devices powered by hydrogen fuel cells, according to patent applications published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

The plans could create computers and phones with weeks-long battery power. It would also make the devices lighter and less bulky.

According to the Telegraph, hydrogen fuel cells work by converting hydrogen and oxygen into water and electrical energy. This technology is already being explored for cars and the military.

Full Story Here: Apple Hydrogen Fuel Cell Battery Plans Revealed.

Ron Paul Took Credit For Controversial Newsletters In 1995 Interview

Ron Paul may now be backing away from controversial newsletters published in the 80s and 90s, but he took a different tone in a 1995 interview.

Buzzfeed’s Andrew Kaczynski unearthed this video of Paul taking credit for the newsletters.

“I…do a newsletter, it’s called the Ron Paul Survival Report,” he said. “It’s expressing concerning about surviving in this age of big government.”

Full Story Here: Ron Paul Took Credit For Controversial Newsletters In 1995 Interview (VIDEO).

Law turns kids into commodities

Compared to modern school kids, I was a downright worthless student.

I don’t mean worthless as a pejorative. (My father would have used a more colorful term to characterize my scholarly pursuits.) But worthless as a commodity. Us kids at Montrose Elementary School weren’t making anyone rich. Not like today’s pupils, particularly those in Florida, who’ve become valuable cogs in a burgeoning industry.

Such precious little dummies, these wayward students. Their benighted ways in the classroom have given rise to a recession-proof enterprise. To a no-lose sort of capitalism. Educational entrepreneurs (some backed by Wall Street hedge funds who know a sure thing when they see it) have figured out how to make millions without the usual risks of the marketplace, drilling for profits in the ever lucrative field of school reform.

No Child Left Behind, President Bush’s 2001 education reform package, since embraced by President Obama, may have forced needed attention onto failing schools, but the law also created an extraordinary new industry funded exclusively with public money.

Full Story Here: Law turns kids into commodities – Fred Grimm – MiamiHerald.com.

Satellite Imagery Indicates Shell Spill May Be Worse Than Reported

A Shell deepwater drilling site off the Nigerian coast that the company reported leaking on Wednesday may have spilled up to 2.4 million gallons, according to nonprofit environmental satellite monitoring group SkyTruth.

If so, that’s far worse than indicated in statements made so far by Royal Dutch Shell, which has put the amount of oil leaked at the Bonga offshore site at “less than 40,000 barrels,” (1.7 million gallons).

“That could mean anything from 1 gallon to 1.7 million gallons,” John Amos, founder and president of satellite-imaging nonprofit SkyTruth told TPM.

Full Story Here: Satellite Imagery Indicates Shell Spill May Be Worse Than Reported | TPM Idea Lab.

INDIANA’S REPUBLICAN VOTER FRAUD FELONY-CHARGED SEC. OF STATE ORDERED REMOVED FROM OFFICE, REPLACED WITH DEMOCRAT

Judge orders Republican Charlie White, accused voter fraud felon, ineligible to serve, orders he be replaced by Democrat…

It’s most definitely turning out to be a “White Christmas” for Democrats in the Hoosier State this week!

Some remarkable news late today. Finding he was not eligible to be a candidate on the ballot in the November 2010 election, a Marion County Circuit judge has ordered Indiana’s Republican Sec. of State Charlie White removed from office and replaced by his Democratic challenger Vop Isili, the second highest vote getter in that election.

The order comes as part of a civil suit brought by the state Democratic Party which has long charged, both before and ever since the election, that White was not eligible to be a candidate on the ballot.

Full Story Here: The BRAD BLOG : INDIANA’S REPUBLICAN VOTER FRAUD FELONY-CHARGED SEC. OF STATE ORDERED REMOVED FROM OFFICE, REPLACED WITH DEMOCRAT.

U.S. EAC Finds ES&S Paper Ballot Scanners Used Across the Country Fail to Count Votes Correctly

For first time, compromised federal agency admits their previous certification was deeply flawed…

Not to say we told ya so, but, ya know, we’ve been telling you so for years (and years.)

A new finding by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission — a rare finding, first of its kind, in fact, as the woeful EAC has never before taken the time to investigate and report on serious failures of e-voting systems that it has previously blessed with federal certification — reveals that ES&S paper ballot optical-scan systems used in a bunch of large swing states, result in machines freezing during elections, failing to log system events correctly, and, perhaps most troubling, ballots being misread and votes being lost entirely.

The EAC’s “Formal Investigation Report” follows on April 2010 revelations by the Cleveland Plain Dealer that some 10% of Cuyahoga County (Cleveland)’s EAC-certified ES&S Precinct Count Optical Scanner and Unity 3.2.0.0 tabulator voting systems failed in pre-election testing last year.

Full Story Here: The BRAD BLOG : U.S. EAC Finds ES&S Paper Ballot Scanners Used Across the Country Fail to Count Votes Correctly.

H-2B employers and their congressional allies are fighting hard to keep wages low for immigrant and American workers

For years, businesses in a number of major industries, including landscaping, food processing, lodging, and construction, have been using the “H-2B” program—a temporary immigrant guestworker program intended to help employers fill labor shortages—in order to keep wages low for workers. These employers are legally allowed to pay H-2B workers lower-than-average wages, which ultimately discourage American workers from applying to these jobs because wages often have been lowered so much that workers can no longer survive on them. In October 2010, the Department of Labor (DOL) proposed a simple new rule that would fix this problem. In the months that followed, the DOL considered hundreds of formal public comments from businesses, unions, and other interested parties and individuals before publishing the final rule in January 2011. The final rule was due to take effect on October 1, 2011, but for now, the rule’s implementation has been delayed. And a lobbying firestorm by businesses and members of Congress—led by Senator Barbara Mikulski from Maryland—has put its survival in doubt.

The DOL’s final rule would establish a new wage methodology for determining what H-2B guestworkers should be paid. U.S. law and regulation require that H-2B workers only be authorized to enter and work in the United States “if unemployed persons capable of performing such service or labor cannot be found in this country,” and if the H-2B worker’s employment will not be “displacing qualified United States workers” or “adversely affecting the wages and working conditions of United States workers.” This new rule, if implemented and enforced, is a giant leap forward for workers and will go a long way toward improving the lives of the immigrants and Americans who work in the main industries that hire H-2Bs.

Full Story Here: H-2B employers and their congressional allies are fighting hard to keep wages low for immigrant and American workers | Economic Policy Institute.

State jobs data calls for ‘super shift’ to job creation

Employment and unemployment data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics remind us once again that the so-called “recovery” continues to leave millions of Americans behind. While national policymakers have focused their attention on the “supercommittee,” the very real jobs crisis persists in nearly every state. (See interactive maps below.)

This month’s data show that 10 states and the District of Columbia continue to struggle with unemployment rates at or above 10.0 percent (led by Nevada at 13.4 percent, California at 11.7 percent, and the District of Columbia at 11.0 percent), while 19 states plus the District of Columbia have unemployment rates of 9.0 percent or higher.

The geographic impact of the weak recovery is noteworthy. Over the past three months, states in the Northeast lost more than 29,000 jobs, led by New York, which has lost 22,400 jobs since July. Unemployment rates remain persistently very high in the West and the Southeast.

Full Story Here: State jobs data calls for ‘super shift’ to job creation | Economic Policy Institute.

Payroll tax cut helps, but it’s a limited tool

As the showdown between President Obama and House Republicans continues, it is worth asking just how maintaining a cut in payroll taxes came to dominate the progressive agenda. To be clear, the economy (some recent good news aside) remains in serious need of fiscal support to alleviate the obvious crisis of joblessness. I don’t want to dampen enthusiasm for a measure that does indeed provide this support. But political realism should not completely overshadow the economic realism indicating that the payroll tax cut is a limited tool.

The simple history of how we got the payroll tax cut is pretty straightforward. In December 2010 the Bush tax cuts were set to expire, while the unemployment rate stood at 9.8 percent. The GOP Congress wanted an extension of the Bush tax cuts while the Obama administration wanted fiscal support to help lower unemployment. The primary outcomes of their negotiation were a two-year extension of the Bush tax cuts, a one-year extension of emergency unemployment insurance (UI) benefits, and a one-year payroll tax cut. This payroll tax cut in a sense supplanted the Making Work Pay (MWP) tax credit – a policy that President Obama campaigned on and which was part of the Recovery Act.

Full Story Here: Payroll tax cut helps, but it’s a limited tool | Economic Policy Institute.

11 telling charts from 2011

There are currently more than four unemployed persons for every job opening. While this ratio of job seekers to openings has improved since the depth of the recession, there is still a long way to go to reach a healthy job market.

Full Story Here: 11 telling charts from 2011 | Economic Policy Institute.

The Obama Deception

A Tsunami does not crash upon the shore in one great wall of water, chaos and destruction. It comes ashore in waves. The first wave is small, barely noticeable and easily ignored. The Occupy movement now taking place in hundreds of locations across this country is that first small wave. These gatherings are a symptom of our dysfunctional American family. These are Americans who have been shut out, locked out, disenfranchised and left to the vicissitudes of the free market.

I spent a week with both “Stop the Machine” and Occupy D.C. in McPherson Park in Washington. I had a chance to get to know these people and I have listened to their stories, stories of unemployment. A 26 year old man named Kevin who lost his job and his home after his IT job was outsourced to India. I listened to a mother who lost her son in Afghanistan and another mother who lost her son through a lack of health insurance. Their list is endless, their grievances are multiple.

President Barack Obama said of the Occupy Wall Street protests, “In some ways, they’re not that different from some of the protests that we saw coming from the Tea Party,” at the recent dedication of the Martin Luther King Memorial. President Obama said that the Occupy movement was blaming the wrong people. It is truly amazing, that a man once considered so astute could be so dumb. The complete misunderstanding of this movement, what it is and what it is all about is almost frightening. Barack Obama is supposed to be the good guy here and yet, he’s clueless. Republican Eric Cantor called Occupy Wall Street protestors, “a mob”; Herman Cain told an audience that the occupiers should all blame themselves for not being rich to thunderous partisan applause.

Full Story Here: OpEdNews – Article: The Obama Deception.

The Worst In The World – The U.S. Balance Of Trade Is Mind-Blowingly Bad

Did you know that we buy about a half a trillion dollars more stuff from the rest of the world than they buy from us? The U.S. balance of trade is not only mind-blowingly bad – it is the worst in the world. It is being projected that the U.S. trade deficit for 2011 will be 558.2 billion dollars. That would be an increase of more than 11 percent from last year. As I have written about previously, the United States is the worst in the world at a lot of things, but as far as the economic well-being of our nation is concerned, our balance of trade is particularly important. Every single month, far more money goes out of this country than comes into it. Tax revenues are significantly reduced as all of this money gets sucked out of our communities. The federal government, state governments and local governments borrow gigantic piles of money to try to make up the difference, but all of this borrowing just makes our debt problems a whole lot worse. In the end, no amount of government debt is going to be able to cover over the fact that our national economic pie is shrinking. We are continually consuming far more wealth than we produce, and that is a recipe for economic disaster.

The “current account balance” is one key indicator of how a country is doing economically. The following is how the CIA World Factbook defines “current account balance”….

Full Story Here: The Worst In The World – The U.S. Balance Of Trade Is Mind-Blowingly Bad | Economy In Crisis.

Court Rules Against U.S. Anti-Dumping Duties

A federal appellate court has ruled that the United States cannot place anti-dumping and countervailing duties on Chinese goods that benefit from export subsidies. The ruling is based on the fact that the United States has considered China a “nonmarket” economy in some cases, and it is considered impossible to determine the damage from export subsidies in a nonmarket economy because subsidies are so rampant. This ruling will hurt U.S. businesses, and has resulted in renewed calls for Congress to pass legislation to counter illegal Chinese practices.

The case was brought in U.S. courts over the use of the U.S. anti-subsidy law against Chinese-made off-road and agricultural tires. In some cases, the United States chooses to recognize China as a market economy, under which it would be legal to apply anti-dumping and countervailing duties, because market economies cannot legally subsidize their industries under international trade law. But because the United States sometimes treats China as a nonmarket economy, the court ruled that using the anti-subsidy law against Chinese imports is illegal in all cases.

Full Story Here: Court Rules Against U.S. Anti-Dumping Duties | Economy In Crisis.

The GOP History of Hostage-Taking

Special Report:

Since the days of Richard Nixon, Republicans have pursued an anything-goes brand of politics that often has the look of hostage-taking, with Democrats usually caving in. But, Robert Parry asks, has President Obama finally learned that the only way to stop bullying is to stand up to it?

By Robert Parry

There is a reason why governments refuse to give in to demands from hostage-takers: because otherwise it encourages more hostage-taking. That is an obvious lesson, but it seems it has taken Democrats many years to learn it, as they have faced Republican strategies of grabbing hostages for decades and have quietly given in, paying ransom again and again.

Yet on those rare occasions when Democrats do stand up – such as against House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s government shutdowns in 1995-1996 and against House Speaker John Boehner’s blockage of a payroll tax cut extension this week – the Democrats usually prevail politically.

Full Story Here: The GOP History of Hostage-Taking | Consortiumnews.

Heathcare: The Best of Times and the Worst of Times

Roger Bybee

With a raft of new Charles Dickens biographies hitting bookstores this fall, it is difficult not to quote the classic chronicler of the Victorian era’s polarities when describing the state of America’s healthcare system: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

The good times are concentrated among corporate executives. Healthcare, insurance and drug company CEOs have actually managed to displace bankers as the best-rewarded bosses in America. The Guardian archly reported recenty: “Pity Wall Street’s bankers. Once the highest-paid bosses in the land, they are now also-rans. The real money is in healthcare and drugs, according to the latest survey of executive pay.”

Among the big winners in healthcare listed by the UK-based newspaper:

John Hammergren, chief executive of McKesson Corporation, a pharmaceutical distribution corporation, took home a breathtaking $145,266,971 in 2010.

Joel Gemunder, outgoing president of Omnicare, a pharmacy company that dispenses drugs in nursing homes, benefited handsomely from s 2010 total pay package worth $98,283,242.

“CVS Caremark, which operates 7,000 pharmacies across the US, awarded chief executive Thomas Ryan $68,079,823 in 2010.

Ronald Williams, boss of health insurance giant Aetna, made $57,787,786 in 2010.

But for America’s healthcare consumers, the bad times got worse.

Full Story Here: The Best of Times and the Worst of Times, When It Comes to Heathcare – Working In These Times.

A Conservative Christmas Carol of Scrooge, Marley, Gingrich and Romney

John Nichols :-:

There is something painfully fitting about the fact that the race for the GOP presidential nomination is hitting its peak during the Christmastide. The open disdain for the least among us, for the toilers in the vineyards, for strangers that has been expressed by Newt “End Child Labor Laws” Gingrich, Mitt “Corporations Are People Too” Romney and their immigrant-bashing, union-hating compatriots has given the 2012 race a distinct 1843 character.

In her exceptional new biography of Charles Dickens, Claire Tomalin explains that the novelist’s tale of that latter year, A Christmas Carol, was “Dickens’ response to the condition of the working class.” And she is right, up to a point. But A Christmas Carol is, as well, Dickens’s response to those who would blame the conditions imposed by economic inequality on children who have not taught themselves how to “rise.”

In seeking to awaken a spirit of charity in his countrymen, Dickens called attention to those who callously dismissed the poor as a burden and the unemployed as a lazy lot best forced to grab at bootstraps and pull themselves upward.

Full Story Here: A Conservative Christmas Carol of Scrooge, Marley, Gingrich and Romney | Common Dreams.

Bradley Manning: Hero, or Traitor?

The end of U.S. military involvement in Iraq coincided with Bradley Manning’s military hearing to determine whether he will face court-martial for exposing U.S. war crimes by leaking hundreds of thousands of pages of classified documents to Wikileaks. In fact, there is a connection between the leaks and U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq.

When he announced that the last U.S. troops would leave Iraq by year’s end, President Barack Obama declared the nine-year war a “success” and “an extraordinary achievement.” He failed to mention why he opposed the Iraq war from the beginning. He didn’t say that it was built on lies about mushroom clouds and non-existent ties between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. Obama didn’t cite the Bush administration’s “Plan for Post-Saddam Iraq,” drawn up months before 9/11, about which Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill reported that actual plans “were already being discussed to take over Iraq and occupy it – complete with disposition of oil fields, peacekeeping forces, and war crimes tribunals – carrying forward an unspoken doctrine of preemptive war.”

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta also defended the war in Iraq, making the preposterous claim that, “As difficult as [the Iraq war] was,” including the loss of American and Iraqi lives, “I think the price has been worth it, to establish a stable government in a very important region of the world.”

Full Story Here: Bradley Manning: Hero, or Traitor? | Common Dreams.

Another Face of the US Recession: Homeless Children

As her mother sat in a homeless shelter in downtown Miami, talking about her economic struggles and loss of faith in the U.S. political system, 3-year-old Aeisha Touray blurted out what sounded like a new slogan for the Occupy Wall Street protest movement.

“How dare you!” the girl said abruptly as she nudged a toy car across a conference room table at the Chapman Partnership shelter in Miami’s tough and predominantly black Overtown neighborhood.

There was no telling what Aeisha was thinking as her 32-year-old mother, Nairkahe Touray, spoke of how she burned through her savings and wound up living in a car with five of her eight children earlier this year.

Full Story Here: Another Face of the US Recession: Homeless Children | Common Dreams.

Collateral Damage From Fukushima Hits Europe

Several leading European electricity providers and nuclear power plant constructors now count as part of the collateral damage caused by the tsunami that destroyed the Japanese nuclear power plant of Fukushima last March.

In reference to the German government’s decision to phase out nuclear power soon after the meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, Johannes Teyssen, CEO of E.ON, one of Germany’s leading electricity providers and power plant operators, warned the public that the industry’s balance sheet would be affected by “extraordinary costs caused by (these) market shifts and regulations.”

Data tabulated by the Free University of Berlin suggests that each of the eight nuclear power plants, had they remained in operation, would have generated a net income of one million euros per day for E.ON and other providers.

Full Story Here: Collateral Damage From Fukushima Hits Europe | Common Dreams.

Romney: If I’m President, All College Grads Will Have A Job; If Obama Wins, They Won’t | ThinkProgress

Asked at a campaign stop in New Hampshire why young people should mobilize behind Mitt Romney for 2012, the candidate had a simple but comically pandering answer. Romney promised 21-year-old Kallie Durkit that he will deliver jobs to college graduates if he’s elected president — that as a businessman he knows “what it takes” to help them. If Obama is reelected, Romney explained, all college grads would be simply out of luck:

Kallie Durkit: Relatability has been a large issue for you on this campaign trail, and as a college student many people in my generation find it especially hard to relate to you as a candidate. Why should we mobilize for you as a candidate instead of Obama, which we did in 2008?

Mitt Romney: What I can promise you is this –- when you get out of college, if I’m president you’ll have a job. If President Obama is reelected, you will not be able to get a job. That’s the reason I will hopefully get young people who are in college is to say, You know what, I understand what it takes to get jobs in America.

Full Story Here: Romney: If I’m President, All College Grads Will Have A Job; If Obama Wins, They Won’t | ThinkProgress.

OPS: Should be be titled: Romney’s Desperation

More proof that republicans really believe the conservative base is completely brain-dean

The Fight Over Keystone XL Now Has A 60-Day Deadline

Attached to the payroll tax deal was a provision forcing President Obama to decide within 60 days whether or not to approve the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, before its route is even finalized. The deadline runs out on February 21, 2012. The State Department has made it clear it can’t do a proper review of the pipeline, especially considering that TransCanada has agreed to change the pipeline’s pathway in Nebraska but hasn’t even finalized the new route.

With this new and arbitrary deadline, the punditocracy is relitigating the question of whether it should be built. The DC political elite assumed that the pipeline was an inevitability, dismissive or ignorant of the popular opposition to a risky, foreign tar sands pipeline cutting across the center of the nation. Most were blindsided when the State Department announced it needed to review its obviously flawed assessment of the project, and when the state of Nebraska held an emergency legislative session against the pipeline.

Full Story Here: The Fight Over Keystone XL Now Has A 60-Day Deadline | ThinkProgress.

‘Russia Without Putin’: Huge Protests Assemble In Moscow

For a month now, a nascent protest movement has roiled Russia as Prime Minister Vladimir Putin seeks to reassert himself as president, the same position he gave up in 2008. His successor and likely soon-to-be predecessor President Dmitri Medvedev responded to the protest movement by offering reforms on his way out the door after a planned March election. But today’s protests stand as a strong rebuke to the eleventh hour concessions.

Security sources told the U.K’s Guardian that 80,000 people showed up to protest in Moscow — the largest demonstration since the collapse of the Soviet Union — to demonstrate against what they contend was a fraudulent parliamentary election. Here’s a photograph of the crowds in Moscow on Saturday:

Full Story Here: ‘Russia Without Putin’: Huge Protests Assemble In Moscow | ThinkProgress.

Pentagon Finds No Fault In Its Ties to TV Analysts

A Pentagon public relations program that sought to transform high-profile military analysts into “surrogates” and “message force multipliers” for the Bush administration complied with Defense Department regulations and directives, the Pentagon’s inspector general has concluded after a two-year investigation.

The inquiry was prompted by articles published in The New York Times in 2008 that described how the Pentagon, in the years after the Sept. 11 attacks, cultivated close ties with retired officers who worked as military analysts for television and radio networks. The articles also showed how military analysts affiliated with defense contractors sometimes used their special access to seek advantage in the competition for contracts. In response to the articles, the Pentagon suspended the program and members of Congress asked the Defense Department’s inspector general to investigate.

In January 2009, the inspector general’s office issued a report that said it had found no wrongdoing in the program. But soon after, the inspector general’s office retracted the entire report, saying it was so riddled with inaccuracies and flaws that none of its conclusions could be relied upon. In late 2009, the inspector general’s office began a new inquiry.

Full Story Here: Pentagon Finds No Fault In Its Ties to TV Analysts – NYTimes.com.

‘Anonymous’ Stratfor Hack Reportedly Start Of Weeklong Assault

Hackers on Sunday claimed to have stolen 200 GB of e-mails and credit card data from United States security think tank Stratfor, promising a weeklong Christmas-inspired assault on a long list of targets.

Members of the loose hacking movement known as “Anonymous” posted a link on Twitter to what it said was Stratfor’s secret client list – including the U.S. Army, the U.S. Air Force, Goldman Sachs and MF Global.

“Not so private and secret anymore?,” the group taunted in a message on the microblogging site.

Anonymous said it was able to get credit details, in part, because Stratfor didn’t bother encrypting them – an easy-to-avoid blunder which – if true – would be a major embarrassment for any security company.

Full Story Here: ‘Anonymous’ Stratfor Hack Reportedly Start Of Weeklong Assault.

Pope Laments Christmas Consumerism, Urges People To Look Beyond ‘Superficial Glitter’

Pope Benedict XVI decried the increasing commercialization of Christmas as he celebrated Christmas Eve Mass on Saturday night, urging the faithful to look beyond the holiday’s “superficial glitter” to discover its true meaning.

Benedict presided over the service in a packed St. Peter’s Basilica, kicking off an intense two weeks of Christmas-related public appearances that will test the 84-year-old pontiff’s stamina amid signs that fatigue is starting to slow him down.

The Christmas Eve Mass was moved up to 10 p.m. from midnight several years ago to spare the pope a late night that is followed by an important Christmas Day speech. In a new concession this year, Benedict processed down the basilica’s central aisle on a moving platform to spare him the long walk.

Benedict appeared tired by the end of the Mass and a dry cough interrupted his homily.

In his homily, Benedict lamented that Christmas has become an increasingly commercial celebration that obscures the simplicity of the message of Christ’s birth.

Full Story Here: Pope Laments Christmas Consumerism, Urges People To Look Beyond ‘Superficial Glitter’.

The Big Lie: : How Ideologues Smeared Fannie Mae

So this is how the Big Lie works.

You begin with a hypothesis that has a certain surface plausibility. You find an ally whose background suggests that he’s an “expert”; out of thin air, he devises “data.” You write articles in sympathetic publications, repeating the data endlessly; in time, some of these publications make your cause their own. Like-minded congressmen pick up your mantra and invite you to testify at hearings.

You’re chosen for an investigative panel related to your topic. When other panel members, after inspecting your evidence, reject your thesis, you claim that they did so for ideological reasons. This, too, is repeated by your allies. Soon, the echo chamber you created drowns out dissenting views; even presidential candidates begin repeating the Big Lie.

Thus has Peter Wallison, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and a former member of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, almost single-handedly created the myth that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac caused the financial crisis. His partner in crime is another A.E.I. scholar, Edward Pinto, who a very long time ago was Fannie’s chief credit officer. Pinto claims that as of June 2008, 27 million “risky” mortgages had been issued — “and a lion’s share was on Fannie and Freddie’s books,” as Wallison wrote recently. Never mind that his definition of “risky” is so all-encompassing that it includes mortgages with extremely low default rates as well as those with default rates nearing 30 percent. These latter mortgages were the ones created by the unholy alliance between subprime lenders and Wall Street. Pinto’s numbers are the Big Lie’s primary data point.

Full Story Here: The Big Lie – NYTimes.com.

Taping Patient’s Mouth Shut: Utah Nurse Fired For Treatment Of Penny Artalejo

Two nurses in a Utah hospital’s intensive care unit were fired this week for taping a patient’s mouth shut and laughing about it, hospital officials said Friday.

Artalejo’s daughter, Brittany Bilson, told the television station that her mother’s teeth were chattering and she was moaning and shaking. Bilson said the nurses told her mother to shut up, taped her mouth closed and joked they would be fired if they were caught.

Penny Artalejo was admitted to Utah Valley Regional Medical Center in Provo on Dec. 17 with nausea and anxiety from taking medication for chronic neck pain, her daughters told Utah radio station KSL.com.

Full Story Here: Taping Patient’s Mouth Shut: Utah Nurse Fired For Treatment Of Penny Artalejo.

‘Wreath Nebula:’ Barnard 3 Image From NASA Telescope Brings Holiday Cheer (PHOTOS)

Here’s a Christmas present from 1,000 light years away.

Just in time for the holidays, NASA has released a new image from its WISE space telescope of a nebula that, with a little bit of imagination, could resemble a holiday wreath.

PHOTOS BELOW.

While the nebula’s official name is Barnard 3, or IRAS Ring G159.6-18.5, the folks at NASA have dubbed it the “Wreath Nebula” because, in the words of the space agency, “one might picture a wreath in these bright green and red dust clouds — a ring of evergreens donned with a festive red bow, a jaunty sprig of holly, and silver bells throughout.”

But that would have to be a big bow. After all, according to the WISE mission’s office, the diameter of the ring measures 22 light years.

From NASA:

Full Story Here: ‘Wreath Nebula:’ Barnard 3 Image From NASA Telescope Brings Holiday Cheer (PHOTOS).

An Atheist’s Plea on Christmas: ‘Go Enjoy Real Life’

If anyone tries to make you feel ashamed, or inferior, or like your life will be dreary and intolerable because you don’t believe in this lie they’re telling you that’s not OK.

For those who aren’t familiar with the story, in 1897 a young girl wrote a letter to the editor of the New York Sun.

“Dear Editor: I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, ‘If you see it in The Sun it’s so.’ Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?” – Virginia O’Hanlon

Virginia, your little friends are right. There is no Santa Claus. It’s a story made up by your parents.

Full Story Here: An Atheist’s Plea on Christmas: ‘Go Enjoy Real Life’ | Belief | AlterNet.

The 1 Percenters Who Act Like Scrooge…and the Ones Who Don’t

Some say that the 99 percent should shut up and thank the fatcats for their crust of bread. But a few 1 percenters think that’s humbug

Meanwhile, JPMorgan Chase honcho Jamie Dimon, the highest paid executive among the six biggest and most dangerous banks, whines that he doesn’t deserve our ire: “Acting like everyone who’s been successful is bad and because you’re rich you’re bad, I don’t understand it,” said Dimon, whose 2010 take totaled $23 million

Full Story Here: The 1 Percenters Who Act Like Scrooge…and the Ones Who Don’t | Economy | AlterNet.

Goodbye ‘Shop Til You Drop’ Mentality: Renegade Band of Economists Call for ‘Degrowth’ Economy

The road to prosperity and happiness doesn’t lead to the shopping mall, as most economists would have you believe.

In this country, shopping is not just a national pastime. Consumer spending, which makes up about 70 percent of the economy, is a sort of patriotic duty — never more so than in the last four years of economic malaise.

So news from the National Retail Federation that the country is on track for a record-breaking holiday shopping season — $469.1 billion in sales, up 3.8 percent from last year — could only be a good thing, right?

But what if all roads to prosperity don’t lead to the shopping mall, as most economists would have us believe? What if, in fact, all that shopping — and the imperative to grow corporate profits quarter after quarter and continuously expand the economy — was actually the root of many of the problems we face today?

Full Story Here: Goodbye ‘Shop Til You Drop’ Mentality: Renegade Band of Economists Call for ‘Degrowth’ Economy | Economy | AlterNet.

Tax Reform Coalition: Huge Corporations Gear Up For Upcoming Tax Battle

Huge U.S. corporations are forming lobbying groups to try to influence what could become the hottest congressional debate over comprehensive tax reform in a generation.

The newest organization calls itself the Tax Reform Coalition. Backed by companies including American Express Co and Xerox Corp, it filed paperwork with Congress this week to register as a lobbying group.

The coalition’s registration suggests it will have a broad portfolio, lobbying on “issues related to corporate tax reform,” but no one involved would answer questions on Friday.

It joins an increasingly crowded playing field of lobbying groups and politicians strategizing for what Washington will look like in 2013 following national elections in November 2012.

Full Story Here: Tax Reform Coalition: Huge Corporations Gear Up For Upcoming Tax Battle.

Bloomberg Releases Most Detailed Description Yet Of Federal Reserve Emergency Loans

Add up the emergency loans the Federal Reserve distributed to banks between 2007 and 2009 — when the American economy lurched closer to collapse than anyone had previously thought possible — and it’s an impressive picture.

On Friday, Bloomberg News made available the fullest version yet of its data on Fed emergency lending, a subject the news organization has written about numerous times in the past year. The Bloomberg release includes records of about 50,000 transactions the Fed made through seven different financial mechanisms.

At their peak, these seven programs represented $1.2 trillion in loans to banks and financial institutions — the high-water mark of a massive, systemic bailout whose details the country’s central banking authority has not always seemed eager to divulge.

Much of the information included in Friday’s release has been previously reported in Bloomberg coverage, but this week marked the first time that funds from the seven programs have been presented as a series of daily loans to 407 individual banks.

Full Story Here: Bloomberg Releases Most Detailed Description Yet Of Federal Reserve Emergency Loans.

Republican Security Advisers Tied to $40 Billion in Contracts

National security advisers to the Republican presidential candidates have ties to defense, homeland security and energy companies that have received at least $40 billion in federal contracts since 2008.

Five of former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s 41 national security and foreign policy advisers have links to companies that last year alone received at least $7.9 billion in federal contracts, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Government analyst Christopher Flavelle. Of that, $7.3 billion came from the Department of Defense.

Romney and former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia, who are leading in the polls, have advisers who sit on the board of directors of BAE Systems Inc., which has received at least $37 billion in U.S. government contracts since 2008, the most of any of the companies with ties to Republican national security advisers.

Full Story Here: Republican Security Advisers Tied to $40 Billion in Contracts – Bloomberg.

AT&T’s Qualcomm Spectrum Purchase Approved By FCC

The Federal Communications Commission approved wireless carrier AT&T Inc.’s $1.93 billion purchase of unused wireless spectrum from Qualcomm Inc.

AT&T Inc. said a year ago that it planned to buy the spectrum to add capacity to its fourth-generation, or “4G” network, which it has been rolling out across the country. The network’s higher speeds make it faster to load video and websites on phones.

Mobile technology company Qualcomm Inc. had used the spectrum for its FLO TV mobile television service, which it shut down because of weak customer interest.

On Thursday, the FCC said the purchase brings up some competitive concerns but they could be eased by conditions the commission outlined in its approval, including offering data roaming to competitors.

AT&T spokesman Fletcher Cook could not immediately comment on the approval.

Full Story Here: AT&T’s Qualcomm Spectrum Purchase Approved By FCC.

Newt Gingrich Fails To Qualify For Virginia GOP Primary Despite Residency

The Republican Party of Virginia announced early Saturday that GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich failed to amass the 10,000 signatures needed in order to secure a place on the ballot in the party’s March 6th primary election. Gingrich isn’t the first Republican presidential candidate who failed to qualify for the “Super Tuesday” primary contest – on Friday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry also failed to make the cut for the same reason. Rival candidates Mitt Romney and Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) qualified for the primary. On the Democratic side, President Barack Obama qualified earlier this year.

The failure is a particularly tough blow to Gingrich, who is a Virginia resident, having lived in the Washington suburb of McLean, Va. for more than a decade. Gingrich said earlier this week that he had reached the 10,000 signatures needed to appear on the ballot, but after a review of his 11,050 signatures, the Republican Party of Virginia announced in a tweet early Saturday that Gingrich “did not submit required 10k signatures and has not qualified for the VA primary.”

Full Story Here: Newt Gingrich Fails To Qualify For Virginia GOP Primary Despite Residency [UPDATED].

The Post-Truth Campaign

Paul Krugman :-:

Suppose that President Obama were to say the following: “Mitt Romney believes that corporations are people, and he believes that only corporations and the wealthy should have any rights. He wants to reduce middle-class Americans to serfs, forced to accept whatever wages corporations choose to pay, no matter how low.”

How would this statement be received? I believe, and hope, that it would be almost universally condemned, by liberals as well as conservatives. Mr. Romney did once say that corporations are people, but he didn’t mean it literally; he supports policies that would be good for corporations and the wealthy and bad for the middle class, but that’s a long way from saying that he wants to introduce feudalism.

But now consider what Mr. Romney actually said on Tuesday: “President Obama believes that government should create equal outcomes. In an entitlement society, everyone receives the same or similar rewards, regardless of education, effort, and willingness to take risk. That which is earned by some is redistributed to the others.”

Full Story Here: The Post-Truth Campaign – NYTimes.com.

A Christmas Message From America’s Rich

Matt Taibbi

It seems America’s bankers are tired of all the abuse. They’ve decided to speak out.

True, they’re doing it from behind the ropeline, in front of friendly crowds at industry conferences and country clubs, meaning they don’t have to look the rest of America in the eye when they call us all imbeciles and complain that they shouldn’t have to apologize for being so successful.

But while they haven’t yet deigned to talk to protesting America face to face, they are willing to scribble out some complaints on notes and send them downstairs on silver trays. Courtesy of a remarkable story by Max Abelson at Bloomberg, we now get to hear some of those choice comments.

Home Depot co-founder Bernard Marcus, for instance, is not worried about OWS:

“Who gives a crap about some imbecile?” Marcus said. “Are you kidding me?”

Full Story Here: A Christmas Message From America’s Rich | | Rolling Stone.

Uncle Sam is making the wrong choices

NORMAN SOLOMON :-:

On a recent day in Petaluma, two very different events spotlighted grim results of upside-down priorities from the federal government.

Upwards of 600 people gathered for an early breakfast at the Veterans Memorial Hall to raise money for the Committee on the Shelterless (COTS), a nonprofit organization that last year sheltered nearly 2,000 individuals, served more than 127,000 hearty meals and distributed 800,000 pounds of food to the needy.

We heard moving stories about — and from — people whose lives have been transformed by active compassion, generosity and their own hard work. But, as speakers lamented, COTS must turn away many who need help.

Charities and other nonprofits are struggling to cope with deep economic wounds that have been festering for years. The dire consequences are far more widespread than private agencies can possibly heal.

Only government has the capacity to provide economic remedies for social distress of this magnitude. But government is failing.

Full Story Here: GUEST OPINION: Uncle Sam is making the wrong choices | PressDemocrat.com.

It’s time that we valued people over profits, poll results show

The British public want business to put “people before profits” and to see politicians close the gap between rich and poor, according to a new survey.

The findings suggest growingsupport for “responsible capitalism” in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and bankers’ excessive bonuses – and public sympathy with the anti-globalisation protests such as the Occupy London camp outside St Paul’sCathedral.

YouGov, which polled 1,723 people for the Labour-affiliated Fabian Society and the TUC, found that 80 per cent believe the private sector should forgo some profits to meet a wider responsibility to their employees, customers and communities and invest more for the long-term. Only 12 per cent think that maximising profits for shareholders is a company’s top priority.

Full Story Here: It’s time that we valued people over profits, poll results show – UK Politics – UK – The Independent.

The Wall Street System is Destroying Not Serving Society

Joseph Stiglitz :-:

A Banking System is Supposed to Serve Society, Not the Other Way Around

Forget monetary policy. Re-examining the cause of the Great Depression—the revolution in agriculture that threw millions out of work—the author argues that the U.S. is now facing and must manage a similar shift in the “real” economy, from industry to service, or risk a tragic replay of 80 years ago.

t has now been almost five years since the bursting of the housing bubble, and four years since the onset of the recession. There are 6.6 million fewer jobs in the United States than there were four years ago. Some 23 million Americans who would like to work full-time cannot get a job. Almost half of those who are unemployed have been unemployed long-term. Wages are falling—the real income of a typical American household is now below the level it was in 1997.

We knew the crisis was serious back in 2008. And we thought we knew who the “bad guys” were—the nation’s big banks, which through cynical lending and reckless gambling had brought the U.S. to the brink of ruin. The Bush and Obama administrations justified a bailout on the grounds that only if the banks were handed money without limit—and without conditions—could the economy recover. We did this not because we loved the banks but because (we were told) we couldn’t do without the lending that they made possible. Many, especially in the financial sector, argued that strong, resolute, and generous action to save not just the banks but the bankers, their shareholders, and their creditors would return the economy to where it had been before the crisis. In the meantime, a short-term stimulus, moderate in size, would suffice to tide the economy over until the banks could be restored to health.

Full Story Here: Joseph Stiglitz: “A Banking System is Supposed to Serve Society, Not the Other Way Around” | Politics | Vanity Fair.

Why Are We Forced to Worship at the Feet of ‘Mythical’ Financial Markets Controlled by the Elite?

We are told to appease the market gods or face eternal financial damnation.

These are just a few of the many ways financial markets are described each and every day by the media, financial players and public officials. At first it seems as if these markets are humanoids onto which we project our feelings. Yet, on closer inspection, it’s more like we have ascribed to them god-like powers. We are told to appease the market gods or face eternal financial damnation. As President Obama warned Europe recently, they must “muster the political will” to “settle markets down.”

Why do we worship these angry market gods?

Full Story Here: Why Are We Forced to Worship at the Feet of ‘Mythical’ Financial Markets Controlled by the Elite? | Economy | AlterNet.

Eliot Spitzer: Our Rallying Cry Should Be, “We Own Wall Street and We Can Stop Corporate America’s Worst Behavior.”

If the public exercised its ownership capacity by influencing board member selection, compensation, and political donations, then these companies would be fundamentally altered.

As the year ends, American politics remains mired in the agenda of the right. The House is, at least momentarily, refusing to extend the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits—two policies genuinely beneficial to the middle class. And the presidential campaign heading into the Iowa primaries is dominated by the libertarianism of Ron Paul and the astonishing, appalling ideas—eliminate child labor laws, for instance—of Newt Gingrich.

Yes, Occupy Wall Street changed the debate for a brief spell, and, yes, President Obama harkened back to the glory days of progressivism with his Kansas speech. But in general American politics has lost sight of the most important crisis of our generation: the shrinking middle class.

So let me offer some advice to Democrats and progressives seeking to capture the attention of the American people. It has long been my belief that ownership trumps regulation. What I mean by that is while laws and regulations can create boundaries to behavior, the reality, as we have seen after passing much legislation—Sarbanes-Oxley, Dodd-Frank—is that even good laws leave room for bad decision making that results in cataclysm. Even though prosecutors should have charged many more bad actors on Wall Street, much of what led to the crisis was not blatant illegality: It was horrific judgment exercised by senior executives and regulators.

Full Story Here: Eliot Spitzer: Our Rallying Cry Should Be, “We Own Wall Street and We Can Stop Corporate America’s Worst Behavior.” | Occupy Wall Street | AlterNet.

Ron Paul Walks Out Of Interview After Facing Questions About Racist Content In Newsletter

Rep. Ron Paul’s (R-TX) emergence as the front-runner in the Iowa GOP primary is bringing new scrutiny on Paul’s newsletters from the 1980s and 1990s. The newsletters, published under his name, included content claiming that African-Americans are trying to give white people HIV, suggested that Washington, DC is “anti-white and proud of it,” provided instructions on how to murder African-Americans, and warned of “malicious gay(s)” who spread HIV.

Yesterday, Paul walked out of an interview after CNN’s Gloria Borger pressed him on his role in publishing the racist content:

PAUL: I never read that stuff. I was probably aware of it ten years after it was written. And it’s been going on twenty years that people have pestered me about this. And CNN does it every single time.

BORGER: Is it legitimate? Is it a legitimate question to ask that something that went out under your name? [crosstalk]

Full Story Here: Ron Paul Walks Out Of Interview After Facing Questions About Racist Content In Newsletter | ThinkProgress.

Democrats Defend Cutting Unemployment Benefits

A top ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives on Tuesday defended his party’s support for cutting 20 weeks of unemployment benefits, a position that has escaped much notice in the payroll tax cut debate consuming Washington.

Democrats want the House to pass a Senate bill that would postpone the January expiration of federal unemployment programs for two months. But even if it is reauthorized, one of those programs will automatically phase out next year, unless Congress changes federal law to allow states to keep it, a provision not included in the Senate bill.

“There are things in this bill as we pointed out that we had to make concessions on,” House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Thursday in response to a question from HuffPost.

Full Story Here: Democrats Defend Cutting Unemployment Benefits.

MF Global Collapse Spotlights Practice That Heightens Systemic Financial Risk

No one’s money is Safe

The swift implosion of MF Global highlights a common practice used by aggressive speculators, one that experts say makes the broader financial system vulnerable to another crisis. It’s called rehypothecation, and it allows a firm to essentially pledge the same limited collateral to arrange fresh loans.

MF Global is believed to have used client funds as collateral to borrow money to make bets on the risky sovereign debt of Portugal, Spain and Italy, leading to a daisy chain of securitization, Thomson Reuters Business Law Currents reported. It’s akin to using a single home as collateral for several loans and then investing that money to earn dividends before payments are due on the loans.

In recent weeks amid the turmoil of the debt crisis, European banks appear to be taking measures to restrict their exposure via these collateralized loans made through rehypothecation and have shortened the daisy chains of loaned securities. Clamping down on lending, they have instead deposited assets at the European Central Bank where the assets cannot be recommitted, Bloomberg reported on Thursday. They kept an average of $356 billion at the central bank over the last 20 days, nearing the record high from July 2010.

Full Story Here: MF Global Collapse Spotlights Practice That Heightens Systemic Financial Risk.

PolitiFact Weirdly Unable to Discuss Facts

After this week, plenty of pundits are well and done with the national version of PolitiFact. The local versions? They’re great. I was actually pretty fond of how one of them debunked an ad that misued one of my quotes, attributing it to a candidate, in 2010. Alas, PolitiFact Editor Bill Adair has committed the main site to a factually dubious “Lie of the Year” claim. PolitiFact claims that it’s a “lie” to say that the Path to Prosperity ends Medicare. ActualFacts tell us that this is not a lie.

Adair responds to the critics in the worst possible way.

At a Republican campaign rally a few years ago, I asked one of the attendees how he got his news.

“I listen to Rush and read NewsMax,” he said. “And to make sure I’m getting a balanced view, I watch Fox.”

We’re starting with an anoymous quote from a straw man that Adair met once? Here we go.

My liberal friends get their information from distinctly different sources — Huffington Post, Daily Kos and Rachel Maddow. To make sure they get a balanced view, they click Facebook links — from their liberal friends.

Full Story Here: PolitiFact Weirdly Unable to Discuss Facts.

Keystone XL: The Persistent Illusion Of Jobs, Jobs And More Jobs

Although the Senate and the House are facing off over legislation that would extend the payroll tax cut, it now seems certain that any compromise will contain a provision — one staunchly insisted upon by Republicans in both chambers — that President Obama make a decision on the long-disputed Keystone XL oil pipeline within 60 days.

The nominal reason offered by supporters of the provision is that the project would create jobs — roughly 20,000 of them, according to the number most often used these days.

But that number, like so much else attending the Keystone XL project, has been a matter of intense debate, and it’s difficult to imagine that the real motive behind the 60-day provision is anything but partisan gamesmanship. It is at least as pure as the Obama administration’s own decision early last month to postpone any ruling on the proposed pipeline until early 2013 — which just so happened to be after next year’s presidential contest.

Full Story Here: Tom Zeller Jr.: Keystone XL: The Persistent Illusion Of Jobs, Jobs And More Jobs.

Bank Of America Countrywide Settlement: Bank To Pay $335 Million To Settle Discriminatory Lending Claims

– Bank of America agreed to pay $335 million to resolve allegations that its Countrywide unit engaged in a widespread pattern of discrimination against qualified African-American and Hispanic borrowers on home loans.

The settlement with the U.S. Justice Department was filed Wednesday with the Central District court of California and is subject to court approval. The DOJ says it’s the largest settlement in history over residential fair lending practices.

According to the DOJ’s complaint, Countrywide charged over 200,000 African-American and Hispanic borrowers higher fees and interest rates than non-Hispanic white borrowers with a similar credit profile. The complaint says that these borrowers were charged higher fees and rates because of their race or national origin rather than any other objective criteria.

Full Story Here: Bank Of America Countrywide Settlement: Bank To Pay $335 Million To Settle Discriminatory Lending Claims.

The Poor Rich and the Scrooginess of Congress

Jim Hightower :-:

It’s at this time of the year that generous, big-hearted Americans reach out to aid the less fortunate among us — like those who’ve recently been knocked down by the recession and seen their incomes plummet. I speak, of course, about our nation’s severely squeezed millionaires.

Yes, many in the infamous 1 percent class are no longer feeling like a million bucks. According to a new federal report, the income of these high-living swells averaged a robust $1.4 million in 2007, but after Wall Street crashed in a heap of greed late that year, their average income took a tumble. In 2009, it fell below the millionaire threshold, leaving these poor rich folks struggling to make it on an average income of only $957,000.

Also, talk about getting a lump of coal in your Christmas stocking, the share of our nation’s total income taken by the 1-percenters fell from a whopping 23 percent in 2007 (the highest since the Roaring Twenties) to a mere 17 percent in 2009. How sad for them, huh?

Full Story Here: The Poor Rich and the Scrooginess of Congress | Common Dreams.

Break Up Bank of America Before it Breaks Us

On Monday, Bank of America (BofA) stocks briefly traded for under $5. Yes, you could buy a share of BofA for less than the noxious debit card fee they tried to force down your throat.

BofA is massive, with assets equivalent to 15 percent of U.S. GDP. So why is it trading for the price of a latte?

Because Wall Street’s dirty little secret is that BofA is a zombie bank. Now the reek is getting too strong to ignore.

The Most Dangerous Bank In America?

Full Story Here: Break Up Bank of America Before it Breaks Us | Common Dreams.

Lone holdout’s first nuclear winter looms in Tohoku

Fukushima Prefecture — As bitter winds blow around cesium and other radioactive particles spewed from the nearby Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant’s reactors, Naoto Matsumura lights a cigarette, which he considers relatively good for his health.

“I would get sick if I stopped smoking; I have a lot to worry about,” says Matsumura, 52, who reckons he is the only person still living within a 20-km radius of the world’s worst atomic disaster since Chernobyl.

According to reports from Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency published in August, following the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, and subsequent explosions at three reactors about 13 km from Matsumura’s door, the plant operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco) has released 168 times more radiation than the atomic bombs that razed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

Full Story Here: Lone holdout’s first nuclear winter looms in Tohoku | The Japan Times Online.

New EPA rules target mercury, gas pollution

The Environmental Protection Agency released far-reaching air pollution regulations Wednesday, 21 years after they were first mandated by Congress and six days after they were signed by the agency.

The rules require coal- and oil-fired power plants to lower emissions of 84 different toxic chemicals to levels no higher than those emitted by the cleanest 12% of plants. Companies have three years to achieve the standards, and EPA has made clear a fourth year and perhaps even more time are also available to them.

“We’re delighted,” says Janice Nolen of the American Lung Association. “After waiting 21 years, it looks like we may actually have a rule that will help to save 11,000 lives a year and reduce exposure all across the country to a bunch of really toxic substances.”

“It’s hard to overstate the significance of this rule,” says John Walke of the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group. “This is a generational achievement that marks America cleaning up dirty power plants once and for all.”

Full Story Here: New EPA rules target mercury, gas pollution – USATODAY.com.

Propagandizing for Perpetual War

Are Our Rulers Stupid, or Do They Think We’re Stupid?

According to the Congressional Research Service, the United States has appropriated $806 billion for the direct cost of invading and occupying Iraq. Including debt service since 2003, that sum rises to approximately $1 trillion. The White House estimates the number of U.S. military wounded at 30,000; the web site icasualties.org states that U.S. military fatalities from the Iraq war now stand at 4484. It is impossible to estimate precisely the numbers of Iraqi civilian deaths, but they are frequently cited as being in excess of 100,000. There are now around two million internally displaced Iraqis in a country of 30 million inhabitants. As United States armed forces (but not up to 17,000 State Department employees, contractors and mercenaries) leave the country, Iraq is plunging into a sectarian and ethnically-fueled political crisis. Even if it survives that crisis and remains a unitary state, it will almost certainly be pulled closer to the orbit of Iran, our bogeyman du jour.

In view of the crippling costs both human and financial as well as the strategic and moral disaster the invasion of Iraq precipitated, what sort of verdict do you think our leaders – leaders representing a presidential administration ostensibly opposed to the invasion and promising hope and change – bother to offer us? While junketing in Turkey on December 17, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told the press the following:

As difficult as [the Iraq war] was, I think the price has been worth it, to establish a stable government in a very important region of the world.

Full Story Here: Propagandizing for Perpetual War » Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names.

The Corporations That Occupy Congress

David Cay Johnston :-:

Some of the biggest companies in the United States have been firing workers and in some cases lobbying for rules that depress wages at the very time that jobs are needed, pay is low, and the federal budget suffers from a lack of revenue.

Last month Citizens for Tax Justice and an affiliate issued “Corporate Taxpayers and Corporate Tax Dodgers 2008-10″. It showed that 30 brand-name companies paid a federal income tax rate of minus 6.7 percent on $160 billion of profit from 2008 through 2010 compared to a going corporate tax rate of 35 percent. All but one of those 30 companies reported lobbying expenses in Washington.

Another report, by Public Campaign, shows that 29 of those companies spent nearly half a billion dollars over those three years lobbying in Washington for laws and rules that favor their interests. Only Atmos Energy, the 30th company, reported no lobbying.

Full Story Here: The Corporations That Occupy Congress | Common Dreams.

‘Shadowy’ Money in Iowa Only a Taste of What’s to Come

Outsider campaign spending, ads surge

Independent groups supporting Republican presidential candidates have sprung to life, funding a flurry of new commercials in recent days to influence the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses and other early primary contests.

Restore Our Future, a conservative “super” PAC promoting Mitt Romney, is running $300,000 worth of ads in Florida that question the conservative credentials of GOP front-runner Newt Gingrich. The group also is spending $3.1 million in Iowa.

The Red White and Blue Fund, a super PAC backing former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum’s presidential bid, recently launched a $200,000 Iowa advertising campaign.

Full Story Here: Outsider campaign spending, ads surge – USATODAY.com.