January’s increase in hiring is good news, but it masks a bigger and more disturbing story – the continuing downward mobility of the American middle class.

Most of the new jobs being created are in the lower-wage sectors of the economy – hospital orderlies and nursing aides, secretaries and temporary workers, retail and restaurant. Meanwhile, millions of Americans remain working only because they’ve agreed to cuts in wages and benefits. Others are settling for jobs that pay less than the jobs they’ve lost. Entry-level manufacturing jobs are paying half what entry-level manufacturing jobs paid six years ago.

Other people are falling out of the middle class because they’ve lost their jobs, and many have also lost their homes. Almost one in three families with a mortgage is now underwater, holding their breath against imminent foreclosure.

Full Story Here: Robert Reich (The Downward Mobility of the American Middle Class, and Why Mitt Romney Doesn’t Know).

BP returned to profit with a bang in 2011, revealing Tuesday that it made $24 billion last year as the British energy giant prepares for a criminal trial over the US Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster.

BP lost $4.9 billion in April 2010 when an explosion on the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig killed 11 workers, sent millions of barrels of oil into the sea and left the company with huge compensation costs.

The many lawsuits against BP have been consolidated into one and it is scheduled to go to trial in New Orleans later this month. As the February 27 trial date nears the Sarasota (FL) Herald-Tribune reports on BP’s lawyers’ “hide-and-stall tactics.” However, the New Orleans Time-Picayune reports that negotiators for the Obama administration and the gulf states are trying to avoid a trial by reaching a settlement  before the trial even begins.

Full Story Here: As BP Profits Gush Skywards, Deal May Be Cut to Allow BP to Avoid Trial | Common Dreams.

I often ask Congressional Democrats these days: “If you agree that your Republican counterparts in Congress are the most craven, corporatist, fact-denying, falsifying, anti-99 percent, militaristic Republicans in the party’s history, then why are you not landsliding them?” Their responses are largely in the form of knowing smiles and furrowed brows.

There are answers that are more specific to account for the large election losses in 2010, the loss of the House of Representatives to John Boehner and Eric Cantor, and the prospect of losing the House and the Senate this November. Chief among them is that the two parties are vigorously dialing for the same commercial dollars to finance their campaigns. The resultant inhibitions and self-censorships bring the parties’ real agendas closer together, erasing the bright lines that make elections clearer choices for voters.

Here are eight initiatives that could landslide the Republicans in November’s Congressional contests. It starts with a ringing declaration that recalls the legendary labor rally challenge: “Whose side are you on?” With the two parties often seen as Republicrats or DemReps, due to the lack of credible, distinct differences on military, foreign policy, trade, agribusiness, energy and corporate crime/welfare subjects, among others, such a proclamation of “we the people” helps frame the details of this fresh approach, as follows.

Full Story Here: Can Democrats Landslide Republicans? | Common Dreams.

Conservativism may be the refuge of the dim. But the room for rightwing ideas is made by those too timid to properly object

Self-deprecating, too liberal for their own good, today’s progressives stand back and watch, hands over their mouths, as the social vivisectionists of the right slice up a living society to see if its component parts can survive in isolation. Tied up in knots of reticence and self-doubt, they will not shout stop. Doing so requires an act of interruption, of presumption, for which they no longer possess a vocabulary.

Perhaps it is in the same spirit of liberal constipation that, with the exception of Charlie Brooker, we have been too polite to mention the Canadian study published last month in the journal Psychological Science, which revealed that people with conservative beliefs are likely to be of low intelligence. Paradoxically it was the Daily Mail that brought it to the attention of British readers last week. It feels crude, illiberal to point out that the other side is, on average, more stupid than our own. But this, the study suggests, is not unfounded generalisation but empirical fact.

It is by no means the first such paper. There is plenty of research showing that low general intelligence in childhood predicts greater prejudice towards people of different ethnicity or sexuality in adulthood. Open-mindedness, flexibility, trust in other people: all these require certain cognitive abilities. Understanding and accepting others – particularly “different” others – requires an enhanced capacity for abstract thinking.

Full Story Here: The right’s stupidity spreads, enabled by a too-polite left | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian.

If we could see the world with a particularly illuminating set of spectacles, one of its most prominent features at the moment would be a giant carbon bubble, whose bursting someday will make the housing bubble of 2007 look like a lark. As yet — as we shall see — it’s unfortunately largely invisible to us.

In compensation, though, we have some truly beautiful images made possible by new technology. Last month, for instance, NASA updated the most iconic photograph in our civilization’s gallery: “Blue Marble,” originally taken from Apollo 17 in 1972. The spectacular new high-def image shows a picture of the Americas on January 4th, a good day for snapping photos because there weren’t many clouds.

It was also a good day because of the striking way it could demonstrate to us just how much the planet has changed in 40 years. As Jeff Masters, the web’s most widely read meteorologist, explains, “The U.S. and Canada are virtually snow-free and cloud-free, which is extremely rare for a January day. The lack of snow in the mountains of the Western U.S. is particularly unusual. I doubt one could find a January day this cloud-free with so little snow on the ground throughout the entire satellite record, going back to the early 1960s.”

Full Story Here: The Great Carbon Bubble: Why the Fossil Fuel Industry Fights So Hard | Common Dreams.

One of the problematic developments for the U.S. economy in the last several decades has been increased financialization. In the 1950s, the financial sector made up less than 3 percent of the economy. Today, it is back to its pre-recession heights of more than 8 percent. The financial sector accounts for about 30 percent of total corporate profits, which is actually down from before the financial crisis, when it made closer to 40 percent.

Increased financialization is of dubious societal use; as former Federal Reserve Chairman and big bank critic Paul Volcker has said, “I wish someone would give me one shred of neutral evidence that financial innovation has led to economic growth — one shred of evidence.” (Volcker has opined that the last useful bit of financial innovation was the ATM.) At the same time, the industry is one of the highest paid. In a new piece in New York magazine, a former Lehman Bros trader explained that, in his view, “there’s no other industry where you could get paid so much for doing so little“:

Many [on Wall Street] acknowledge that the bubble­-bust-bubble seesaw of the past decades isn’t the natural order of capitalism—and that the compensation arrangements just may have been a bit out of whack. “There’s no other industry where you could get paid so much for doing so little,” a former Lehman trader said.

Full Story Here: Former Wall Street Trader: ‘There’s No Other Industry Where You Could Get Paid So Much For Doing So Little’ | ThinkProgress.

Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis deliberately broke ranks with the official portrayal of the war after spending a year in the country, issuing a grim assessment and accusing his superiors of covering up the harsh realities that plague the mission.

“What I saw bore no resemblance to rosy official statements by US military leaders about conditions on the ground,” Davis wrote in an article published in Armed Forces Journal, a private newspaper not affiliated with the Pentagon.

Full Story Here: Officer: U.S. paints false picture of Afghan war | The Raw Story.

It’s not just a pipe dream. The Seasteading Institute, a think-tank out of California, is working on developing sustainable cities on the world’s oceans.

The nonprofit company believe these “seasteads,” or independent, floating cities, are the key to creating havens of societal happiness — a way to experiment with innovative governments and promote free thinking.

The idea is especially appealing among libertarians, including PayPal Founder Peter Thiel, who has donated millions to the project.

Full Story Here: Floating Cities Could Be A Reality Within Decades (VIDEO).

Full Story Here: Life & Happiness With Laura Rowley: How To Sleep Better (VIDEO).

Mitt Romney answered his last question from a voter three weeks ago, and just about every day since then, he has swept through towns across America like a whistling train conductor proclaiming, “All aboard.”

Out are 55-minute town hall meetings. In are 15-minute stump speeches at buffed-up rallies. There are rope lines and hot lights, giant flags and Secret Service agents with wires in their ears. The objective: appear presidential, avoid gaffes and convince Republicans that they have no reasonable option left but to rally around Romney’s winning candidacy.

That was the image he presented here Saturday night with his Nevada caucus victory speech. Hundreds of adoring supporters waved “Nevada Believes” signs as the candidate assailed President Obama. Yet the music playing as soon as Romney finished speaking — “A Little Less Conversation” by Elvis Presley — underscored his new don’t-ask-questions-just- get-on-board mantra.

Full Story Here: On campaign trail, Romney skips questions in taking up mantle of likely GOP nominee – The Washington Post.

“Corporations are people, my friend.” Mitt Romney at Iowa State Fair

Corporations are obviously not people.  But Romney is accurate in the sense that corporations have hijacked most of the rights of people while evading the responsibilities. An important part of the social justice agenda is democratizing corporations.  This means we must radically change the laws so people can be in charge of corporations.  We must strip them of corporate personhood and cut them down to size so democracy can work.  People are taking action so democracy can regulate the size, scope and actions of corporations.

One of the most basic roles of society is to protect the people from harm.  The massive size of many international corporations makes democratic control over them nearly impossible.

Corporate crime is widespread.  The New York Times, ProPublica and others have revealed Wall Street giants like JPMorgan, Citigroup, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs have been charged with fraud many times only to get off by paying hundreds of millions.  Professors at University of Virginia have documented hundreds of corporations which have been found guilty or pled guilty in federal courts.

Full Story Here: Occupying Corporations: How to Cut Corporate Power | Common Dreams.

Also: Japan’s Nuclear Exclusion Zone Shows Few Signs of Life

The temperature of Reactor #2 at Japan’s stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has soared overnight and remained mysteriously high Monday, despite more water being pumped through it.

On January 27th, the reactor’s internal temperature was 113º F, Monday the temperature soared to 164º F.  Japanese authorities require that the reactor temperature remain below 176º F.

* * *

Japan’s NHK TV reports:

The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant says the temperature in the No.2 reactor remains high despite the injection of additional water.

A thermometer at the bottom of the reactor showed 73.3 degrees Celsius on Monday morning. It was around 45 degrees on January 27th and 71.7 degrees at 4 PM on Sunday.

Tokyo Electric Power Company began injecting 10.6 tons of water per hour from around 1:30 AM on Monday. That’s one ton more per hour than before.

Full Story Here: Temperature Soars Mysteriously Inside Fukushima Nuclear Reactor | Common Dreams.

The thrust of the 60 Minutes program was the fine job of counter terrorism being done by the NYPD and its Commissioner, Raymond Kelly. It was a triumph in public relations for a police department about to go on an assault spree – pepper spraying and punching peaceful protestors; kicking, ramming and arresting journalists attempting to cover the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations.

On air, the reporter, Scott Pelley, said the surveillance center was “housed in a secret location,” as one would expect of a real counter terrorism program — as opposed to a program to simply quash dissent. Mr. Pelley also said the program was run by the NYPD. As it turns out, neither of those assertions were accurate.

Full Story Here: Wall Street’s Secret Spy Center, Run for the 1% by NYPD » Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names.

The Obama administration’s recent decision to require all employers, with the exception of churches and places of worship, to cover contraceptives in health care plans continues to cause a firestorm of controversy. House Speaker John Boehner told reporters on Thursday that the rule is unconstitutional. Catholic bishops continue to call the rule an “attack” on “religious liberty” and are calling on the administration to broaden the exemption and Congress to pass a law that could overturn it. The administration, however, is standing firm on its decision.

Misinformation on how the rules works has leaked into the media. For instance, pro-life and religious groups continue to claim the rule would force employers to pay for drugs that cause abortion, which the administration says is not the case. Senior White House officials held a conference call with reporters on Thursday to clear up any misunderstandings. Here’s a rundown of the most important facts according to those who actually wrote the rule:

Full Story Here: Just the Facts: Churches and the Contraceptive Coverage Mandate | Truthout.

Washington – Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey told Israeli leaders Jan. 20 that the United States would not participate in a war against Iran begun by Israel without prior agreement from Washington, according to accounts from well-placed senior military officers.

Dempsey’s warning, conveyed to both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak, represents the strongest move yet by President Barack Obama to deter an Israeli attack and ensure that the United States is not caught up in a regional conflagration with Iran.

But the Israeli government remains defiant about maintaining its freedom of action to make war on Iran, and it is counting on the influence of right-wing extremist views in U.S. politics to bring pressure to bear on Obama to fall into line with a possible Israeli attack during the election campaign this fall.

Full Story Here: Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dempsey Told Israelis US Won’t Join Their War on Iran | Truthout.

Full Story Here: UPDATE: Komen confirms continued involvement of Ari Fleischer on Planned Parenthood strategy | ThinkProgress.

As a percentage of ever-growing profits, corporations are paying less in taxes than they have in decades.

Thanks in part to federal tax breaks, corporations paid out just 12.1 percent of their 2011 profits in taxes, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That’s well below the country’s top marginal corporate tax rate of 35 percent — and as The Wall Street Journal notes, it’s the lowest percentage corporations have paid since 1972. During the two previous decades, a period that included the economic prosperity of the 1990s and the housing boom of the George W. Bush administration, corporations were paying an average percentage almost twice as high.

The CBO’s numbers undercut a popular conservative claim — that the United States places a higher tax burden on its corporations than almost any other first-world nation — and arrive at a time when national politicians are engaged in a fierce rhetorical battle over how much wealthy institutions and individuals should pay to the government.

Corporations reported a combined $1.97 trillion in profits in the third quarter of 2011. As recently as June, they were also believed to be sitting on more than $2 trillion in cash hoardings. Most of that money has not been touched by taxation, even though the federal government has experienced budget shortfalls of more than $1 trillion for each of the past four years, and is scrambling to cut back on staff and services as a result. Meanwhile, the money isn’t going to employees either, as real wages for most Americans declined in 2011 in spite of strong corporate balance sheets.

Full Story Here: Corporate Taxes As Percentage Of Profits Now Lowest In Decades.

Dr. David Agus spoke with “CBS This Morning” about his new book “The End of Illness” and longevity. Watch the above video to see his key tip to living longer and why something as simple as wearing uncomfortable shoes can hurt you in the long run.

Full Story Here: Dr. David Agus, Author Of ‘The End Of Illness,’ Offers Surprising Tips To Live Better, Longer.

The action is part of a continuing effort by Republicans to kill the entire project, which was a major element of President Obama’s 2009 stimulus. California’s $100 billion plan for bullet trains running from San Francisco to San Diego already has the stimulus money in hand to get started, but future federal funding on which the project depends is very much at risk if House Republicans maintain control of the chamber, not to mention take the White House.

The high speed rail prohibition came as an amendment, approved 31-22, by Rep. Jeff Dunham, R-Turlock, who said he wanted to make sure that all transportation funds for California to go to highways.

Full Story Here: Republicans prohibit funding for high speed rail | Politics Blog | an SFGate.com blog.

Judging from its unexpected jump into the most-read list, this graph showing the breakdown of care provided by Planned Parenthood’s health centers is proving useful to people. So here it is again, lifted from April. Note the light blue slice, which suggests that cancer screenings account for approximately one-sixth of Planned Parenthood’s activities.

With Planned Parenthood being either the major obstacle to a budget deal or one of the major obstacles to a budget deal, it’s worth taking a minute explaining what they do — and what they don’t do.

As you can see in the chart atop this post, abortion services account for about 3 percent of Planned Parenthood’s activities. That’s less than cancer screening and prevention (16 percent), STD testing for both men and women (35 percent), and contraception (also 35 percent). About 80 percent of Planned Parenthood’s users are over age 20, and 75 percent have incomes below 150 percent of the poverty line. Planned Parenthood itself estimates it prevents more than 620,000 unintended pregnancies each year, and 220,000 abortions. It’s also worth noting that federal law already forbids Planned Parenthood from using the funds it receives from the government for abortions.

Full Story Here: Repost: What Planned Parenthood actually does, in one chart – The Washington Post.

The most significant aspect of January’s jobs report is political. The fact that America’s labor market continues to improve is good news for the White House. But as a practical matter the improvement is less significant for the American work force.

President Obama’s only chance for rebutting Republican claims that he’s responsible for a bad economy is to point to a positive trend. Voters respond to economic trends as much as they respond to absolute levels of economic activity. Under ordinary circumstances January’s unemployment rate of 8.3 percent would be terrible. But compared to September’s 9.1 percent, it looks quite good. And the trend line – 9 percent in October, 8.6 percent in November, 8.5 percent in December, and now 8.3 percent – is enough to make Democrats gleeful.

But the U.S. labor market is far from healthy. America’s job deficit is still mammoth. Our working-age population has grown by nearly 10 million since the recession officially began in December 2007 but many of these people never entered the workforce. Millions of others are still too discouraged to look for work.

Full Story Here: Robert Reich (America’s Jobs Deficit, and Why It’s Still More Important than the Budget Deficit).

Two summers ago, at the U.S. Social Forum, I attended a panel discussion about ways to expand the use of credit unions as alternatives to the “too big to fail” banks whose risky investments had helped tank the economy. Each of the speakers—people involved in credit union leadership or advocacy—expressed confusion and frustration that they hadn’t already seen a post-crisis shift away from corporate banks and toward credit unions (which have the advantages of being not-for-profit, owned and governed by their depositors, far more likely than big banks to lend to small businesses, and not responsible for any global economic meltdowns).

It seemed that even as Americans were angry with Big Finance, they didn’t make the connection to their personal accounts

Full Story Here: Big News on Bank Transfers by Brooke Jarvis — YES! Magazine.

The Anglo-American aggression addicts haven’t kicked the habit. The team that brought you shock and awe and Operation Infinite Justice is gearing up for yet another crack at winning a senseless war in the Middle East.

This time the target is Iran, the pretence the regime’s imminent possession of nuclear weapons. But some things will remain the same – it will lead to slaughter and end in disaster.

A brief recap of the Anglo-American “war on terror” in the Middle East, 2001 to date: Afghanistan was occupied to “eliminate terrorism” but, many thousands of dead later, terror has spread to Pakistan and beyond, leaving Kabul with the most corrupt government on earth.

Full Story Here: An attack on Iran must be stopped | Andrew Murray | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

Ellen Brown :-:

A foreclosure settlement between five major banks guilty of “robo-signing” and the attorneys general of the 50 states is pending for Monday, February 6th; but it is still not clear if all the AGs will sign. California was to get over half of the $25 billion in settlement money, and California AG Kamala Harris has withstood pressure to settle.

That is good.  She and the other AGs should not sign until a thorough investigation has been conducted.  The evidence to date suggests that “robo-signing” was not a mere technical default or sloppy business practice but was part and parcel of a much larger fraud, the fraud that brought down the whole economy in 2008.  It is not just distressed homeowners but the entire economy that has paid the price, resulting in massive unemployment and a shrunken tax base, throwing state and local governments into insolvency and forcing austerity measures and cutbacks in government services across the nation.

The details of the robo-signing scam were spelled out in my last article, here.  The robo-signing fraud and its implications are expanded on below.

Why All the Robo-signing?

Full Story Here: Why the AGs Must Not Settle: Robo-signing Is Just the Tip of the Iceberg | Common Dreams.

During a radio appearance on Thursday, conservative pundit Ann Coulter revealed that she once had a rather revealing private talk with GOP candidate Mitt Romney. Coulter was speaking with conservative talk show host Sean Hannity.

Hannity asked Coulter who she thinks Romney will “surround himself with” if he were to be elected president. Coulter, who is a staunch Romney supporter, said, “well I better have his ear.” Coulter added that she was once at a fundraiser and approached Romney just before she was leaving the event. “I just wanted to go up to him and tell him, ‘You owe me and you better be as right-wing a president as I’m telling everybody you’re going to be,’” Coulter said.

Hannity asked how Romney responded to Coulter’s demands. “He laughed about it and acknowledged the point and said something to the effect ‘don’t worry,’” Coulter said of Romney.

Full Story Here: Ann Coulter Confronts Mitt Romney: ‘You Owe Me’ (AUDIO).

At a private three-day retreat in California last weekend, conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch and about 250 to 300 other individuals pledged approximately $100 million to defeat President Obama in the 2012 elections.

A source who was in the room when the pledges were made told The Huffington Post that, specifically, Charles Koch pledged $40 million and David pledged $20 million.

The semi-annual, invitation-only meeting attracts wealthy donors, Republican politicians and conservative activists. Last year, hundreds of activists gathered outside the walled-off resort to protest the meeting. This year, however, the conference went off quietly.

Full Story Here: Koch Brothers, Allies Pledge $100 Million At Private Meeting To Beat Obama.

Fleischer’s relationship with Komen and the Planned Parenthood controversy was previously undisclosed. He confirmed to ThinkProgress his recent role in filling a key communication position at Komen. Fleischer stressed, however, another communications firm (Ogilvy PR) was retained by Komen to deal with crisis communications over the last few days and he has not been involved.

In November, Komen advertised for a top level communications position in Roll Call. Promising applicants received a call from Fleischer. The advertisement is no longer posted on the Roll Call website, but a portion is accessible via Google:

Full Story Here: Ari Fleischer Secretly Involved in Komen Strategy on Planned Parenthood | Truthout.

The New York Times has an o-kay story on the problem here: As Jobs Go Global, U.S. Workers Pay.

I’m glad the NYT is running this, and glad Reuters wrote it.

But it’s mild, mild stuff. In terms of my book Free Trade Doesn’t Work, they’ve admitted to Chapter 5′s dubious assumptions #3 (domestic factor mobility) and #4: (increased inequality). No mention of the other 7. I summarized these issues in an article here.

So they’re really trying to preserve the conventional “free trade is, all things considered, best” model, by showing how observed problems do not refute that model but can be explained within it. As I noted in my book, none of my “7 deadly sins” are exotic stuff; they’re all actually well-cataloged within conventional economics, if one knows where to look.

Expect more of this: the conventional wisdom is designed for defense in depth. The establishment’s strategy is to make the smallest possible concession in the face of every new fact.

I wrote about the MIT “China Syndrome” report the article mentions when it came out, here.

In a similar vein, the Third Way think tank has a new report out on dealing with China, “China’s Trade Barrier Playbook: Why America Needs a New Game Plan,” here.

Third Way styles itself, more or less, as a post-partisan “fresh thinking” good-government group. I’m not a huge fan, as they tend towards repackaging establishment-pleasing solutions in “new” garb, but they’re sometimes worth reading.

Their report grasps the scale and nastiness of China’s trade barriers against the U.S. But I can’t take seriously any would-be trade reformer who supports the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which I debunked here.

Also, the report has some tediously naive stuff about how China supposedly doesn’t know what’s best for it (and how we can teach them!), to wit:

The United States should redouble its efforts to convince China’s government, business and thought leaders that playing by the rules is ultimately in China’s own interest. America might note, for example, that:

 • Increasing the value of the Yuan will help China control serious inflation,
increase domestic consumption and benefit China’s consumers.

• Protecting IP is critical if China is to develop its own new ideas and build a
real innovation-based economy.

• Fair, international technical standards will help Chinese companies sell
innovative products in foreign markets.

• Assuring fairness for U.S. investors will win China allies as it seeks to
increase its own investment in the United States.

Like China’s going to take trade pointers from the side that’s currently losing!

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

Three big banks were hit on Friday with yet another lawsuit related to wrongful foreclosures. Democratic New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman filed suit against Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo for deceptive and fraudulent use of a private database used to register mortgages, according to a Friday press release from his office.

Schneiderman has been outspoken in urging the Obama administration to hold the nation’s largest financial institutions accountable for their role in the foreclosure crisis, notably hesitating to join a larger nationwide case against the country’s five largest banks for mortgage fraud. States now have until Monday, according to the Iowa attorney general’s office, to decide to join that deal.

The New York attorney general has yet to announce whether New York will participate in the deal because of concerns that joining the settlement would make it impossible for him to file his own, state-based lawsuits against the banks, said sources close to the negotiations who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The decision to bring this lawsuit on Friday indicates that the larger nationwide settlement is now more to Schneiderman’s pleasing, said a source familiar with the discussions.

Full Story Here: Eric Schneiderman Sues BofA, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase Over Electronic Mortgage Fraud.

Indiana’s top elections official could lose his job and his freedom after jurors convicted him of multiple voter fraud-related charges on Saturday, leaving in flux the fate of one of the state’s most powerful positions.

Republican Secretary of State Charlie White has held on to his office for more than a year despite being accused of lying about his address on voter registration forms.

A Hamilton County jury found White guilty of six of seven felony charges, including false registration, voting in another precinct, submitting a false ballot, theft and two counts of perjury. He was acquitted on one fraud charge.

Full Story Here: Charlie White, Indiana Election Chief, Found Guilty Of Voter Fraud.

In a speech expounding on the rift between rural America and Washington D.C., Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.) vowed Thursday to use his funding powers to stop the Obama administration from implementing new child-labor rules pertaining to agricultural work, accusing the “urban” Labor Department of meddling in a “rural” industry it doesn’t understand.

“This is one of those situations where I think the Department of Labor is overstepping its boundaries, its knowledge base, and frankly I think you’re sitting around watching reruns of “Blazing Saddles” and that’s your interpretation of what goes on in the West,” Rehberg, who holds the Labor Department’s purse strings for the House of Representatives, said as he lectured a labor official during a hearing Thursday. “And it’s not anymore.”

Last year, the Labor Department proposed new rules governing what kinds of potentially dangerous tasks minors can and cannot perform on farms and in grain facilities. Although child and worker advocates said the new rules were long overdue, the proposals created an uproar among farmers and agricultural trade groups, who argued that the rules could hurt family-farming traditions.

Full Story Here: Denny Rehberg, GOP Congressman And Senate Hopeful, Blasts Child Labor Regulations.

When travelers from abroad come to this city, the financial and cultural capital of the world’s richest nation, two dilapidated and depressing airports greet them. The clogged runways, the leaking roofs, the maddening taxi lines, the lost travelers bumping into each other — all these depredations are just part of flying the friendly skies to JFK or LaGuardia.

Jetsetters’ laments about subpar airports, now almost a cliche, may not have been foremost on President Obama’s mind when he gave his State of the Union address on January 24. But they may actually be more representative of the country’s nagging infrastructure problems than the images invoked by the “crumbling roads and bridges” he referenced in that speech.

The problems America faces with its infrastructure are often much less headline-grabbing than the 2005 collapse of the I-35 bridge in Minnesota, which focused national attention on the subject in a way that has set the tone of discussion ever since. They are more often on the order of lost productivity and lost opportunity. They include other problems Obama referenced in his speech, like “a power grid that wastes too much energy; an incomplete high-speed broadband network.”

Full Story Here: Infrastructure Problems In U.S. Go Far Beyond Dollars.

In a scathing letter to the editor, thirty-eight of the world’s top climatologists have rebuked Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal for its publication of a “scientist” op-ed denying the threat of manmade global warming. The letter, authored by climate scientist Kevin Trenberth and colleagues from the world’s top science institutions, tells the Wall Street Journal editors to “Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate“:

You published “No Need to Panic About Global Warming” (op-ed, Jan. 27) on climate change by the climate-science equivalent of dentists practicing cardiology. While accomplished in their own fields, most of these authors have no expertise in climate science. The few authors who have such expertise are known to have extreme views that are out of step with nearly every other climate expert. This happens in nearly every field of science. For example, there is a retrovirus expert who does not accept that HIV causes AIDS. And it is instructive to recall that a few scientists continued to state that smoking did not cause cancer, long after that was settled science.

Full Story Here: Climate Scientists Rebuke Rupert Murdoch: WSJ Denier Op-Ed Like ‘Dentists Practicing Cardiology’ | ThinkProgress.

Noting that the foundation based their decision to sever ties on anti-choice advocate Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) “spurious congressional investigation” into Planned Parenthood, Speier blasted Komen for falling into the trap of a “political sandbox.” “A hearing has never been held,” she noted. “I guess it means that Susan G. Komen has become a 501(d)(4), because no longer do they want to be providing nonprofits, they want to become a political advocacy group,” she said.

Watch it:

Full Story Here: Rep. Speier Pulls Support From Breast Cancer Foundation Over Decision To Sever Ties With Planned Parenthood | ThinkProgress.

Someone alert the unions: raising teacher pay will actually make for worse teachers–according to one GOP lawmaker.

Alabama state Sen. Shadrack McGill said that increasing teacher pay is against “a biblical principle” because it might attract people who otherwise wouldn’t do the job.

“Teachers need to make the money that they need to make,” McGill said, according to the Times-Journal. “If you double a teacher’s pay scale, you’ll attract people who aren’t called to teach … and these teachers that are called to teach, regardless of the pay scale, they would teach. It’s just in them to do. It’s the ability that God give ‘em.”

McGill’s comments came at a prayer breakfast this week in Fort Payne, Ala. State legislators are currently weighing raising teacher pay. One GOP leader proposed raising salaries of newer teachers by 2.5 percent, but critics argue that it isn’t fair to longer-serving educators, according to the Montgomery Advertiser.

Full Story Here: Shadrack McGill, Alabama State Senator, Says Keeping Teacher Pay Low ‘A Biblical Principle’.

In a stunning break with First Amendment policy, House Republicans directed Capitol Hill police to detain a highly regarded documentary crew that was attempting to film a Wednesday hearing on a controversial natural gas procurement practice. Initial reports from sources suggested that an ABC News camera was also prevented from taping the hearing; ABC has since denied that they sent a crew to the hearing.

Josh Fox, director of the Academy Award-nominated documentary “Gasland” was taken into custody by Capitol Hill police this morning, along with his crew, after Republicans objected to their presence, according to Democratic sources present at the hearing. The meeting of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment had been taking place in room 2318 of the Rayburn building.

HuffPost has obtained exclusive video of the arrest of Josh Fox. Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.), the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee, can be heard at the end of the clip asking Republican Chairman Andy Harris (R-Md.) to halt the arrest and permit Fox to film the public hearing. Harris denies Miller’s request as Fox is escorted out of the hearing in handcuffs.

Full Story Here: ‘Gasland’ Journalists Arrested At Hearing By Order Of House Republicans (UPDATES).

Looking at millions of individual bills that makeup the 2.7 trillion dollars of annual health care costs opens a gigantic window on the massive waste, redundancy, profiteering, fraud and sometimes criminal over-billing.

Here is a partial example of what I mean, in the words of Philip M. Boffey, the estimable science writer for the New York Times:

“Why does an appendectomy in Germany cost roughly a quarter what it costs in the United States? ($3,285 compared to $13,123). Or an MRI scan cost less than a third as much, on average, in Canada? ($304 compared to $1,009).”

“Americans continue to spend more on health care than patients anywhere else. In 2009, we spent $7,960 per person, twice as much as France, which is known for providing very good health services. And for all that spending, we get very mixed results–some superb, some average, some inferior–compared with other advanced nations.”

Moreover, France and Germany, Italy, England, Canada, Belgium, Sweden and all other western countries plus Japan and Taiwan cover almost all their citizens, unlike the U.S. where 50,000,000 people are uninsured.

Full Story Here: Why Are US Health Costs So High? Follow the Bills | Common Dreams.

Super PACS, made possible following the outcomes of two court decisions in 2010 — the Citizens United v. FEC decision and the SpeechNow.org v. FEC decision, can take unlimited donations from individuals, corporations, associations and unions.

As the disclosures to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) late last night show, not only have millions been flowing to these Super PACs, the disclosures show these are clearly donations from the “0.1%” — corporations and individuals donating tens of thousands, one hundred thousand, even donations of millions of dollars.

Mitt Romney’s Super PAC Restore Our Future shows around 60 donations of $100,000 or more, with a total of around $17.9 million for the last six months of 2011.

An NBC/MSNBC report adds:

Full Story Here: Super PAC Power: The 0.1% Buying Our Elections | Common Dreams.

In response to an op-ed printed late last week in the Wall Street Journal, signed by sixteen ‘scientists’ and entitled, ‘No Need to Panic About Global Warming,’ thirty-nine climate scientists have penned a letter, printed in today’s WSJ, arguing that taking advice on climate change from scientists who have either “no expertise in climate science” or “extreme views that are out of step with nearly every other climate expert” is akin to allowing dentists perform heart surgery.

Suzanne Goldenberg reports for The Guardian:

The Wall Street Journal has received a dressing down from a large group of leading scientists for promoting retrograde and out-of-date views on climate change.

In an opinion piece run by the Journal on Wednesday, nearly 40 scientists, including acknowledged climate change experts, take on the paper for publishing an article disputing the evidence on global warming.

The offending article, No Need to Panic About Global Warming, which appeared last week, argued that climate change was a cunning ploy deployed by governments to raise taxes and by non-profit organisations to solicit donations to save the planet.

Full Story Here: Wall Street Journal Slammed for Giving Platform to Climate Change Deniers | Common Dreams.

Eight in 10 Americans believe that there is too much money in American politics, and only 17 percent agree with the Supreme Court that corporations should be allowed to spend unlimited money to try to influence elections.

Yet top Republicans are coalescing around the idea that current campaign finance laws — which still prohibit corporations and wealthy individuals from giving unlimited money directly to campaigns — are actually too restrictive. Judging from interviews with ThinkProgress and Republican campaign speeches over the past two months, the GOP’s standard response to the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling has solidified: allow for unlimited contributions directly to candidates while requiring immediate disclosure.

The language used by different high-ranking Republicans is so similar that it suggests a certain level of message-coordination on the subject. Indeed, from GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney to former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) to Republican money man Fred Malek, their reactions to campaign finance laws are virtually identical:

Full Story Here: Republicans Start To Unite Around Call To Allow Billionaires And Corporations To Directly Fund Campaigns | ThinkProgress.

Volcanoes.

“The new study suggests that the onset of the little Ice Age was caused by an unusual, 50-year-long episode of four massive tropical volcanic eruptions,” According to a statement from the American Geophysical Union. These “erupting volcanoes…cooled the planet by ejecting shiny aerosol particles that reflected sunlight back into space.”

Normally, the effects would persist for only a few years. But study co-author Bette Otto-Bliesner, a scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research, told the Daily Mail that “The eruptions could have triggered a chain reaction, affecting sea ice and ocean currents in a way that lowered temperatures for centuries.”

Full Story Here: Volcanoes Caused Little Ice Age, Baffin Island Study Suggests.

\Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos a few days ago, said the “critical risks” facing the American economy this year were a worsening of Europe’s chronic sovereign debt crisis and a rise in tensions with Iran that could stoke global oil prices.

What about jobs and wages here at home?

As the Commerce Department reported Friday, the U.S. economy grew 2.8 percent between October and December – the fastest pace in 18 months and the first time growth exceeded 2 percent all year. Many bigger American companies have been reporting strong profits in recent months. GE and Lockheed Martin closed the year with record order backlogs.

Yet the percent of working-age Americans in jobs isn’t much different than what it was three years ago. Yes, America now produces more than it did when the recession began. But it does so with 6 million fewer workers.

Full Story Here: Robert Reich (The Biggest Risk to the Economy in 2012, and What’s the Economy For Anyway?).

For decades Monsanto used Snow Creek, a small local waterway that flowed past its plant, to dispose of PCBs. The company claims that they just didn’t know any better – that as soon as they became aware that PCBs were a human and environmental health problem, they took steps to stop the dumping and to protect local residents and workers. But as documents that the company was forced to turn over during a series of lawsuits that began in the late 1990’s show, their claimed ignorance of the harmful impacts of PCBs is just another in a long, ongoing list of Monsanto’s endless lies.

As early as 1938 Monsanto knew from researchers that PCBs caused liver damage in rats. In the 50’s they started to tell their own workers to wear protective clothing and respirators when working around PCBs, while at the same time they continued to dump their poisons out into the West Anniston community. In 1966, Monsanto hired a Mississippi State University biologist to dunk fish into Snow Creek. The study found that “all 25 fish lost equilibrium and turned on their sides in 10 seconds and all were dead in 3 ½ minutes,” their skin broken and bleeding. The fact the Creek was lethal didn’t stop Monsanto. By 1969 the company was pouring 250 pounds of PCBs a day into the creek that feed into the area’s drinking water supply and which many local residents, including children, used for fishing, playing and recreating. That year, Monsanto researchers found fish in the local community fishing spot with PCB levels 7,500 times the legal limit. A company memo concluded, “there is little object in going to expensive extremes in limiting discharges.” Instead, Monsanto executives enlisted state officials to try and “handle the problem quietly without release of the information to the public.”

Full Story Here: Monsanto Returns to the Scene of the Crime | Food & Water Watch.

For lending purposes, the nation’s four biggest banks define small businesses as those with annual revenues up to $20 million — an amount far higher than many businesses on Main Street will ever reach. This could explain the ongoing disconnect between big banks’ upbeat lending reports and the 61 percent of small-business owners who say it’s harder to get loans now than four years ago, according to a study released Thursday by the American Sustainable Business Council, Small Business Majority and Main Street Alliance.

Sarwan “Rimpy” Singh, owner of seven Taco Time restaurants in the Portland, Ore., area, experienced the disconnect when two big banks rejected his application for a $300,000 loan to buy property he is leasing. One bank told Singh it doesn’t give loans to restaurants because they’re high-risk, though Singh has been in business for 16 years, has excellent credit, a sizable down payment and has been a longtime bank customer. Earning $2.5 million to $3 million in 2011 revenue, Singh said he wonders whether he’s at the wrong end of the revenue spectrum when it comes to borrowing. “There are a lot of mixed messages from the big banks,” he said. “That definition is completely wrong. They have no clue what a small business is.”

Full Story Here: Big Banks’ Small Business Lending: Do The Numbers Really Add Up?.

The Securities and Exchange Commission investigates a Wall Street behemoth over claims that it assembled and sold a package of subprime mortgage-backed securities at the behest of hedge fund king John Paulson without telling other investors that Paulson planned to short it.

Sound familiar?

Almost two years ago, Goldman Sachs was in the SEC’s cross hairs over such an allegedly fraudulent scenario and ended up settling charges for $550 million, but not without becoming the poster boy for Wall Street shenanigans that helped crash the economy. Now, it’s Deutsche Bank that is being probed by the SEC, Der Spiegel reports, for allegedly letting Paulson help pick “junk” mortgage-backed securities that went into a collateralized debt obligation without telling other investors that the hedge funder was shorting the CDO, called START.

Deutsche Bank was the fourth-largest issuer of CDOs in the United States, but it has largely avoided the glare of a federal investigation while its competitors, including Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and JPMorgan, have all been probed by the SEC over how they marketed deals involving subprime mortgage-backed securities. The agency has come under criticism for that lapse, with particular focus on the fact that the SEC’s enforcement chief, Robert Khuzami, previously worked as the general counsel at Deutsche Bank when it was packaging such CDOs.

Full Story Here: SEC Probes Deutsche Bank’s ‘Crap’ Subprime CDOs.

A team of shipwreck hunters that found a strange circular object on the floor of the Baltic Sea in 2011 now says they have discovered visual evidence of a second “disc-like shape” some 200 meters from the original find, CNN reports.

Peter Lindberg, who leads the group, previously joked to CNN that the first object they found 300 feet below the surface might be an unidentified flying object.

When the object, which has a diameter of 195 feet, was first discovered in June of last year, many believers thought it was a wrecked UFO that had crashed onto the seafloor and left behind a path of destruction measuring some 900 feet, according to News.com.au.

CNN explains how the team discovered the objects:

The imaging technique involves pulling a sonar “towfish” — that essentially looks sideways underwater — behind a boat, where it creates sound echoes to map the sea floor below.

The team is waiting until the spring to further investigate their intriguing discovery.

Full Story Here: UFO Found In Baltic Sea? (VIDEO).

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) announced Monday that he will unveil “Buffett Rule” legislation this week. President Barack Obama highlighted the need for such a measure at the State of the Union earlier this month and will likely continue to call for it throughout his presidential re-election campaign.

Whitehouse is expected to introduce the Paying a Fair Share Act on Wednesday. His proposal would codify the “Buffett Rule,” named after billionaire Warren Buffett: It would require people who make more than $1 million to pay a 30 percent effective tax rate. Tax loopholes now allow some of the wealthiest Americans to pay lower tax rates than people in the middle class.

“Our tax system is long-overdue for reform,” materials from Whitehouse’s office stated. “In his State of the Union address, President Obama proposed adding to the tax code a ‘Buffett Rule,’ which would ensure that millionaires and billionaires pay at least the tax rate paid by middle-class families. Senator Whitehouse’s Paying a Fair Share Act would codify that proposal, bulwarking the system against gimmickry and abuse.”

Full Story Here: Senate Democrats To Push ‘Buffett Rule’ Bill This Week.

The Senate advanced a bill Monday that aims to curb potential insider trading by Congress.

The Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, or Stock Act, easily passed a procedural vote 93 to 2, clearing the way for a debate and amendment process that insiders said they expected would lead to passage by week’s end.

The measure would require members of Congress and high-ranking staffers and federal employees to abide by insider trading rules that apply to everyone, and also would require members of Congress and top aides to report significant financial transactions within 30 days.

“The American people need to know that their elected leaders play by the exact same rules that they play by,” said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), a lead sponsor. “They also deserve to know that their lawmakers’ only interest is what’s best for the country, not their own financial interest.”

Full Story Here: Stock Act: Senate Moves To End Congressional Insider Trading.

The GOP front-runners endorse a plan that could disenfranchise millions of voters—including their own.

As Republican primary voters head to the polls in Florida on Tuesday, both GOP front-runners have endorsed a policy that would contradict existing law and could disenfranchise millions of voters across the country.

During a recent debate, both Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney supported getting rid of bilingual ballots when the topic was brought up by the moderator. “I would have ballots in English,” Gingrich said. “And I think you could have programs where virtually everybody would be able to read the ballots.” Romney agreed. “I think Speaker Gingrich is right with regards to what he’s described,” he said.

That wasn’t much of a stretch for Gingrich, who once called Spanish “the language of living in a ghetto.” Yet their glib demand for English-only ballots would require amending the Voting Rights Act and doing away with hard-won legal requirements that have existed for decades. It’s a sharp turn away from the Bush administration, which despite a spotty civil rights record filed more ballot access cases on behalf of non-English speakers than any administration had before.

Full Story Here: Gingrich and Romney Want to Say Adios to Bilingual Ballots | Mother Jones.

When Washington puts policy on the auction block, bankers are consistently the highest bidders.

The industry’s most striking victory has been the watering down of post-financial crisis reforms, to the point that banks are now bigger than ever and the bonuses keep flowing. But Wall Street’s campaign spending and lobbying power is so intimidating that banks have repeatedly stuck the public with the tab for their losses and no one in Washington stops them.

Why hasn’t the government done something about outrageous ATM fees? Or credit card interest rates up to 30 percent? Bankers’ clout is such that common-sense pro-consumer legislation is presumptively dead on arrival at Capitol Hill if it threatens banks’ revenue streams.

An epic recent battle between consumers and Wall Street was fought over a congressional proposal to give bankruptcy judges the legal authority to modify principal balances on mortgages in a way that is fair to both parties. Known as “cramdown,” it would have allowed more than a million ordinary Americans to keep their homes. But because it would have leveled the playing field between banks and debtors — and would have forced banks to officially recognize losses they don’t want to acknowledge — the financial services industry fought cramdown with everything it had.

Full Story Here: Auction 2012: How The Bank Lobby Owns Washington.

What happened to Canada? It used to be the country we would flee to if life in the United States became unpalatable. No nuclear weapons. No huge military-industrial complex. Universal health care. Funding for the arts. A good record on the environment.

But that was the old Canada. I was in Montreal on Friday and Saturday and saw the familiar and disturbing tentacles of the security and surveillance state. Canada has withdrawn from the Kyoto Accords so it can dig up the Alberta tar sands in an orgy of environmental degradation. It carried out the largest mass arrests of demonstrators in Canadian history at 2010’s G-8 and G-20 meetings, rounding up more than 1,000 people. It sends undercover police into indigenous communities and activist groups and is handing out stiff prison terms to dissenters. And Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper is a diminished version of George W. Bush. He champions the rabid right wing in Israel, bows to the whims of global financiers and is a Christian fundamentalist.

Full Story Here: Corporations Have No Use for Borders | Common Dreams.

“The science is now clear, bees poisoned by neonicotinoid pesticides are much more likely to die from disease, gather less food and produce fewer new bees.”

Bayer-produced imidacloprid harmful to bees even at very low levels

A new study published in Naturwissenschaften – The Science of Nature by a leading bee expert provides damning evidence that a widely used pesticide, even at low levels, is responsible for the recent catastrophic decline in honey bees. Dr. Jeff Pettis of the USDA’s Bee Research Laboratory in Beltsville, MD led the study.

Colony collapse disorder, as this phenomenon is known, has been getting worse since 2006.

The news has brought renewed calls for these pesticides, which only became widely used in the 1990s, to be banned as honey bees are key to human’s survival – pollinating 70 per cent of the crops which produce most of the world’s food.

The pesticide that the study (pdf) looked at was imidacloprid, one of the most widely used pesticides worldwide. It is neonicotinoid insecticide produced by Bayer CropScience.

Full Story Here: More Damning Evidence Points to Pesticide as Cause of Mass Bee Deaths | Common Dreams.

OPS: is this really a surprise to anyone?!  Really?

Unbeknownst to the press, President Obama met Friday evening with former president George H.W. Bush and his son, former Florida governor Jeb Bush, in the Oval Office.

White House officials did not list the meeting on the president’s schedule but released a photo on Flickr. According to the photo’s time stamp, the meeting occurred shortly after 5 p.m., about the time the president returned to the White House from a fundraiser.

When asked what the men discussed and why it wasn’t on the schedule, the White House released a statement saying, “The three men enjoyed a personal visit in the Oval Office – as they have done on previous occasions when President Bush is Washington.”

The Bushes are in town to attend the exclusive Alfalfa Club dinner Saturday, an annual get-together for Washington power brokers that Obama also is scheduled to attend, according to the Associated Press.

Full Story Here: Obama hosts George H.W. and Jeb Bush at White House – POLITICO.com.

OPS: Making secret ‘back room’ deals with the oligarchy again Barry? How bad did you sell us out THIS time?

The World Economic Forum opened in Davos amid choruses of central bankers and economists calling for governments to cut spending.

This message of austerity is like the call of the ancient Sirens, whose music lured sailors to shipwreck.

We should take a lesson from Odysseus, who poured wax into the ears of his crew and had himself lashed to the mast of his ship to resist the Siren call.

Austerity supporters are selling the idea that governments, like families, must cut back when income shrinks. But economically, governments are not like families.

Firing teachers, cops and government clerks will, for sure, reduce public spending. But budgets, like the song of the Sirens, are only part of the story. Listen only to the alluring lyrics and, like the many voyagers before Odysseus, we will suffer disastrous consequences – in our case falling incomes and worsening economies.

Full Story Here: David Cay Johnston.

Full Story Here: Moyers & Company Show 103: How power and influence helped big banks rewrite the rules of our economy. on Vimeo.

‘Drones are counter-productive’

Over 100,000 Pakistanis rallied in Karachi Friday afternoon to protest US drone strikes on their country. The demonstrators also demanded that the Pakistani government continue the blockade on the NATO supply route to Afghanistan.

The Times of India reports:

DAVOS — Pakistan’s prime minister said today that there was “a trust deficit” between Islamabad and Washington as he criticized the resumption of US drone strikes on his country’s tribal belt.

Speaking the day after over 100,000 people massed in Karachi to protest the strikes, Yousuf Raza Gilani said they only served to bolster militants.

“Drones are counter-productive. We have very ably isolated militants from the local tribes. When there are drone attacks that creates sympathy for them again,” Gilani told reporters at the Davos forum.

Full Story Here: Huge Protest in Pakistan Against US Drone Attacks | Common Dreams.

Occupying the Grounds of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry

Japanese anti-nuclear protesters defied a government order Friday to vacate the area in front of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in Tokyo’s Kasumigaseki. Protesters have been occupying the Ministry grounds since Sept. 11, 2011.

The Japan Times reports Saturday:

Antinuclear activists camping out at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry refused to take down their tents Friday despite an order to do so by 5 p.m.

Hundreds of people meanwhile came to see the three tents around the deadline, apparently to show their support for the protesters.

About 10 of the activists have regularly stayed in the tents since September.

METI on Wednesday handed the protesters an order to remove their tents by 5 p.m. Friday because they “continued to use fires even though we repeatedly told them not to,” official Hideyuki Maekawa said.

Full Story Here: Occupied: Japanese Nuclear Foes Defy Order to Remove Tents | Common Dreams.

Scott Lemieux :-:

The Supreme Court rules that installing a GPS device on a car is unconstitutional, but not for the reason one might think

The Supreme Court unanimously held Monday that the installation of a GPS device in a person’s car constitutes a “search” under the Fourth Amendment (which prohibits “unreasonable searches and seizures”). This unanimity is somewhat misleading, however, as the Court split with respect to what theory of the Fourth Amendment should be applied going forward and left a crucial question unanswered.

The Court has often struggled to adapt the Fourth Amendment to technologies that expand the reach of the state. As is reflected in the amendment’s language (“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects”) government searches at the time of the amendment’s adoption generally involved the physical invasion of property. But various technological innovations have allowed the state to increase its surveillance authority without conducting physical searches, and the Supreme Court has sometimes been behind the curve. In the 1928 case Olmstead v. United States , most famous for Justice Louis Brandeis’s dissenting opinion that the Bill of Rights “conferred, as against the Government, the right to be let alone—most comprehensive of rights, and the right most valued by civilized men,” the Court upheld the warrantless wiretapping of a suspect’s phone. Recognizing that the focus on physical searches was inadequate, however, in Katz v. United States (1967) the Court held that warrantless eavesdropping on conversations at a public phone booth violated the Fourth Amendment. As Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote in his influential concurrence in Katz, the Fourth Amendment applies wherever an individual “has a constitutionally protected reasonable expectation of privacy.”

Full Story Here: Surveillance in a Wireless Age.

We’ve already made our choice for the best headline of the year, so far:

“Citigroup Replaces JPMorgan as White House Chief of Staff.”

When we saw it on the website Gawker.com we had to smile — but the smile didn’t last long. There’s simply too much truth in that headline; it says a lot about how Wall Street and Washington have colluded to create the winner-take-all economy that rewards the very few at the expense of everyone else.

The story behind it is that Jack Lew is President Obama’s new chief of staff — arguably the most powerful office in the White House that isn’t shaped like an oval. He used to work for the giant banking conglomerate Citigroup. His predecessor as chief of staff is Bill Daley, who used to work at the giant banking conglomerate JPMorgan Chase, where he was maestro of the bank’s global lobbying and chief liaison to the White House.

Daley replaced Obama’s first chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, who once worked as a rainmaker for the investment bank now known as Wasserstein & Company, where in less than three years he was paid a reported eighteen and a half million dollars.

Full Story Here: The Washington-Wall Street Revolving Door Just Keeps Spinning Along | Common Dreams.

The Wall Street Journal reported on January 19th that the Obama Administration was pushing heavily to get the 50 state attorneys general to agree to a settlement with five major banks in the “robo-signing” scandal. The scandal involves employees signing names not their own, under titles they did not really have, attesting to the veracity of documents they had not really reviewed. Evidence reveals that it was an industry-wide practice, dating back to the late 1990s; and it may have clouded the titles of millions of homes. If the settlement is agreed to, it will let Wall Street bankers off the hook for crimes that would land the rest of us in jail – fraud, forgery, securities violations and tax evasion.

To the President’s credit, however, he seems to have shifted his position on the settlement, in response to protests before his State of the Union address.  In his speech on January 24th, he did not mention the settlement but announced instead that he would be creating a mortgage crisis unit to investigate wrongdoing related to real estate lending. Of course, only the future will reveal if this investigative unit will be given the necessary authority or mandate when it comes to criminal prosecutions.

The Deeper Question Is Why 

Investigation is needed into not just whether massive robo-signing occurred but why it was being done.  The alleged justification—that the bankers were so busy that they cut corners—hardly seems credible given the extent of the practice.

Full Story Here: The Shadow Banking System: A Web of Financial Fraud | Common Dreams.

According to leaked data from the European Commission obtained by EuroActiv, greenhouse gas emissions from some biofuels are higher than those from fossil fuels, when Indirect Land Usage Change (ILUC) is factored in.

EuroActiv reports:

ILUC happens when forests and wetlands are cleared to compensate for lands taken to grow biofuels elsewhere.

One recent report predicted that all of Malaysia’s tropical peatswamp forests would be destroyed by the end of the decade because of ILUC – with alarming consequences for greenhouse gas emissions – unless the expansion of palm oil production was halted.

To measure the climate impact of fuels, Brussels favours assigning default values based on a calculation of their full lifecycle emissions, hence the debate over ILUC factors and biofuels.

Full Story Here: Dirty Biofuels: Leaked Data Shows Some Worse Than Fossil Fuels | Common Dreams.

ThinkProgress Green has learned that TransCanada, the foreign tar sands company behind the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, is facing a potential inquiry into whether it deliberately deceived investors by inflating the job-creation potential of the project. Greenpeace has filed a complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over TransCanada’s “false or misleading statements about the proposed Keystone XL pipeline project.”

In the complaint, Greenpeace shows evidence from TransCanada’s Canadian filings and the State Department that the project would involve fewer than 1000 in-state jobs, and around 6000 total jobs. This evidence is contrasted with TransCanada’s (TRP) repeated public pronouncements that pipeline construction would involve 20,000 American jobs:

Specifically, TRP has asserted that each mile of KXL pipeline constructed in the U.S. would create American jobs at a rate that is 67 times higher than job creation totals given by the company to Canadian officials for the Canadian portion of the pipeline.

Full Story Here: BREAKING: TransCanada’s Dirty Keystone XL Jobs Claims Draw Complaint To SEC | ThinkProgress.

NASA on Wednesday added four spectacular images to its 20,500-photo database of high-resolution images of Mars.

These new images were taken in November and December of 2011 by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

Launched in 2005, the MRO’s mission is to look for signs that water existed on the red planet for an extended length of time, explore the planet’s climate and study its geology.

In addition to the HiRISE camera, the orbiter is also equipped with instruments that analyze minerals and monitor the weather on the planet, among others.

Full Story Here: Mars Pictures: NASA Releases New Images From Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (PHOTOS).

A new poll shows U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh trailing Democrats in Illinois’ 8th District.

The poll, conducted by Public Policy Polling on behalf of House Majority PAC, shows Walsh’s approval rating at 28 percent. Testing the congressman against a generic Democrat, PPP reports that voters chose that unnamed Democrat 49 percent to 35 percent, Politico reports.

Democrat Tammy Duckworth’s campaign said Walsh is “extremely vulnerable” in the 8th, and believes she has the best chance to beat the outspoken, staunchly conservative congressman. According to a poll of 500 registered voters in the 8th, 65% of voters believe former Assistant Secretary of Veterans Affairs Duckworth has the best chance of defeating Walsh.

Against her opponent, former deputy State Treasurer Raja Krishnamoorthi, Duckworth held a 59% to 17% lead.

“I have never seen anyone overcome a 42-point deficit this late in the race,” President Obama strategist and Duckworth supporter David Axelrod said in a statement.

Krishnamoorthi’s campaign, however, begs to differ.

Full Story Here: Joe Walsh Trailing Democrats In Illinois 8th District Poll: Duckworth Leading Krishnamoorthi.

How did life originate from lifeless matter? It’s a question that has long puzzled scientists – and fueled the doubts of those who question the overwhelming scientific evidence that evolutionary processes explain the origins of life. But chemists at England’s University of York and University of Nottingham are reporting what they call a significant advance toward our understanding of the chemistry of a pair of sugar molecules that are essential for life.

Their research, published in Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry, essentially recreates the process that may have led to the formation of two sugars, threose and erythrose.

“There are a lot of fundamental questions about the origins of life and many people think they are questions about biology,” University of York researcher Dr. Paul Clarke said in a written statement. “But for life to have evolved, you have to have a moment when non-living things become living – everything up to that point is chemistry.”

Full Story Here: Origins Of Life Clues Revealed By Sugar Study.

But are we safe from the next big bank bailout? Many experts are dubious and Wednesday the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen decided to test the theory in the most direct way possible. They used the administrative law process to formally petition the nation’s top bank regulators to move swiftly to break up Bank of America (BofA) asserting in their petition: “The bank poses a grave threat to U.S. financial stability by any reasonable definition of that phrase.”

“A Ticking Time Bomb”

BofA is not just big, its behemoth. With assets of $2.1 trillion, equal to more than 14 percent of U.S. GDP, it is bigger than many small countries. Yet, its stock is trading at $7.

What does Wall Street know that we don’t?

Full Story Here: Stress Testing Tim Geithner | Center for Media and Democracy.

Yes, betrayal, because if Obama meant what he said in Tuesday’s State of the Union address about holding the financial industry responsible for its scams, why did he appoint the old Clinton crowd that had legalized those scams to the top economic posts in his administration? Why did he hire Timothy Geithner, who has turned the Treasury Department into a concierge service for Wall Street tycoons?

Why hasn’t he pushed for a restoration of the Glass-Steagall Act, which Clinton’s deregulation reversed? Does the president really believe that the Dodd-Frank slap-on-the-wrist sellout represents “new rules to hold Wall Street accountable, so a crisis like this never happens again”? Can he name one single too-big-to-fail banking monstrosity that has been reduced in size on his watch instead of encouraged to grow ever larger by Treasury and Fed bailouts and interest-free money?

Full Story Here: Obama’s Faux Populism Sounds Like Bill Clinton | Common Dreams.

While many of us are working to ensure that the Occupy movement will have a lasting impact, it’s worthwhile to consider other countries where masses of people succeeded in nonviolently bringing about a high degree of democracy and economic justice. Sweden and Norway, for example, both experienced a major power shift in the 1930s after prolonged nonviolent struggle. They “fired” the top 1 percent of people who set the direction for society and created the basis for something different.

Both countries had a history of horrendous poverty. When the 1 percent was in charge, hundreds of thousands of people emigrated to avoid starvation. Under the leadership of the working class, however, both countries built robust and successful economies that nearly eliminated poverty, expanded free university education, abolished slums, provided excellent health care available to all as a matter of right and created a system of full employment. Unlike the Norwegians, the Swedes didn’t find oil, but that didn’t stop them from building what the latest CIA World Factbook calls “an enviable standard of living.”

Neither country is a utopia, as readers of the crime novels by Stieg Larsson, Kurt Wallender and Jo Nesbro will know. Critical left-wing authors such as these try to push Sweden and Norway to continue on the path toward more fully just societies. However, as an American activist who first encountered Norway as a student in 1959 and learned some of its language and culture, the achievements I found amazed me. I remember, for example, bicycling for hours through a small

Full Story Here: How Swedes and Norwegians broke the power of the ‘1 percent’ / Waging Nonviolence – People-Powered News and Analysis.

Without research into risks, “the future of safe and sustainable nanotechnology-based materials, products, and processes is uncertain”

Not enough is known about the potential hazards of nanotechnology, and millions of dollars more a year are needed to study the potential health and environmental effects of it, said the National Research Council yesterday.

The panel’s findings come from a study sponsored by the EPA.

Full Story Here: Study: Potential Hazards of Nanotechnology Not Known | Common Dreams.

“It’s Madison Avenue hell”

“Hydraulic fracturing” is more commonly known as “fracking.”

During this week’s State of the Union address, President Obama said:

“It was public research dollars, over the course of thirty years, that helped develop the technologies to extract all this natural gas out of shale rock, reminding us that Government support is critical in helping businesses get new energy ideas off the ground.”

But he never said the F-word, no doubt pleasing industry lobbyists.

Full Story Here: No Fracking Way! Industry Says Word ‘Frack’ Has Been Co-Opted | Common Dreams.

The FBI’s Strategic Information and Operations Center (SOIC) posted a ‘Request for Information (RFI)’ online last week seeking companies to build a social network monitoring system for the FBI. The 12-page document (.pdf) spells out what the bureau wants from such a system and invites potential contractors to reply by February 10, 2012.

It says the application should provide information about possible domestic and global threats superimposed onto maps “using mash-up technology”.

It says the application should collect “open source” information and have the ability to:

Full Story Here: FBI Wants New App to Wiretap the Internet | Common Dreams.

2011 was a banner year for anti-choice activists who succeeded in pushing through a record number of abortion restrictions. But it’s a new year, and it appears the GOP is dead set on outdoing itself. Republicans in Congress and across the country are introducing a variety pack of extreme anti-abortion bills — including personhood initiatives, heartbeat bills, and fetal pain bills — that saw some success last year. Here is a run-down of the abortion restrictions American women across the country are already facing in the first month of 2012:

– PERSONHOOD: The Virginia General Assembly’s very first bill, House Bill 1, is a “personhood” measure that defines life as beginning at conception and would essentially outlaw abortions. Modeling it on Mississippi’s failed measure, Virginia Republicans threaten to outlaw birth control and in vitro fertilization for couples trying to have a baby. Anti-choice activists hope to push similar measures in at least 11 other states, including Ohio and Kansas.

Full Story Here: The War On A Woman’s Right To Choose, 2012 Edition | ThinkProgress.

Memo to those who are out of work: Don’t get your hopes up this year. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Wednesday that the central bank did not expect the U.S. unemployment rate to go below 8.2 percent in 2012 or below 7.4 percent in 2013.

That’s one reason the Fed left short-term interest rates unchanged at 0 to 0.25 percent, where they are expected to remain through 2014. “Unless there is a substantial strengthening of the economy in the near term, I would think that it’s a pretty good guess that we will be keeping rates low for some time from now,” Bernanke said.

Bernanke’s muted outlook reinforced many economists’ view that, despite some small glimmers of hope, the economy and jobs won’t be picking up in the near term. His prediction for continued high unemployment comes on the heels of President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech Tuesday night, which offered a few ideas for improving the employment picture — none of which curried much favor with economists.

Full Story Here: Ben Bernanke: Unemployment High, Interest Rates Unchanged For Many Months To Come.

Have you ever spoken to someone who lived through a fascist regime? If and when you do, you might be surprised at what you hear. When they get talking, most people who lived through Mussolini’s Italy, Franco’s Spain, Salazar’s Portugal. Videla’s Argentina, Vargas’s Brazil or Bordaberry’s Uruguay paint surprisingly benign pictures of daily life in those places.

Most Americans who’ve lived abroad have, at one time or another, had the experience of talking with a foreign friend who, though never having lived in the US, is pretty well convinced that they understand the cardinal elements of our culture.  Why?

Because for years, that person has consumed a non-stop diet of Hollywood movies and TV programs.

When, after fully acknowledging cinema’s great value as a tool of cultural knowledge, you try and let them know there are many important social realities this medium cannot convey, they often become annoyed or indifferent.

Full Story Here: A Better Question Might Be, ‘How Is It NOT Fascism?’ | Common Dreams.

Has Iran decided to build a nuclear bomb? That would seem to be the central question in the current bellicose debate over whether the world should simply cripple Iran’s economy and inflict severe pain on its civilian population or launch a preemptive war to destroy its nuclear capability while possibly achieving “regime change.

And if you’ve been reading the New York Times or following the rest of the Fawning Corporate Media, you’d likely assume that everyone who matters agrees that the answer to the question is yes, although the FCM adds the caveat that Iran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only. The line is included with an almost perceptible wink and an “oh, yeah.”

However, a consensus seems to be emerging among the intelligence and military agencies of the United States – and Israel – that Iran has NOT made a decision to build a nuclear weapon. In recent days, that judgment has been expressed by high-profile figures in the defense establishments of the two countries – U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

Full Story Here: US/Israel: Iran NOT Building Nukes | Common Dreams.

Excuse me for not yelling myself hoarse for Obama’s warmed over State of the Union address.

While I agree with his call for economic fairness, there was not much in his speech that was new or all that promising. And there were several troublesome passages for progressives.

First, mentioning John Boehner, Obama said he was still open to a grand compromise on Social Security and Medicare, which would make Americans have to work longer and get less benefits from Medicare and Medicaid. We don’t need a Democrat to hack away at these crucial social programs.

Full Story Here: In Obama’s State of the Union, Troublesome Passages for Progressives | The Progressive.

Responding to President Obama’s State of the Union address, longtime consumer advocate and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader says Obama’s criticism of income inequality and Wall Street excess fail to live up to his record in office. “[Obama] says one thing and does another,” Nader says. “Where has he been for over three years? He’s had the Justice Department. There are existing laws that could prosecute and convict Wall Street crooks. He hasn’t sent more than one or two to jail.” On foreign policy, Nader says, “I think his lawless militarism, that started the speech and ended the speech, was truly astonishing. [Obama] was very committed to projecting the American empire, in Obama terms.” [includes rush transcript]

Full Story Here: “He Says One Thing and Does Another”: Ralph Nader Responds to Obama’s State of the Union Address.

In today’s On the News segment: Mitt Romney is definitely Wall Street’s favorite guy, 83 percent of Americans approve of Obama’s economic plan laid out in his State of the Union speech, the situation at Fukushima may once again be getting worse, and more.

Full Story Here: On the News With Thom Hartmann: Mitt Romney Is Definitely Wall Street’s Favorite Guy, and More | Truthout.

Currently, NIOSH is still evaluating whether there exists sufficient scientific causality to justify compensating 9/11 first responders and survivors that have developed cancer. In fact, this past July, NIOSH Director John Howard issued a report explaining:

Full Story Here: Sickened and Still Waiting for Justice: 9/11 First Responders and Cold War Nuclear Weapons Workers Battle for Fair Compensation | Truthout.

Tax reform should follow the Buffett rule: If you make more than $1 million a year, you should not pay less than 30 percent in taxes…Now, you can call this class warfare all you want. But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense.

Full Story Here: In State Of The Union, Obama Calls For Minimum 30 Percent Tax On Millionaires | ThinkProgress.

Mitt Romney’s campaign, as promised, released the former governor’s 2010 tax returns, as well as an estimate for his 2011 returns, and we’re starting to get a sense of why the Republican candidate wasn’t eager to share these details.

Mitt Romney offered a partial snapshot of his vast personal fortune late Monday, disclosing income of $21.7 million in 2010 and $20.9 million last year — virtually all of it profits, dividends or interest from investments.

None came from wages, the primary source of income for most Americans. Instead, Romney and his wife, Ann, collected millions in capital gains from a profusion of investments, as well as stock dividends and interest payments.

By any fair estimate, over $42 million in income over two years isn’t bad for a guy who jokes about being “unemployed.” Indeed, Romney would be in the top 1% based solely on the income he makes in one week.

Full Story Here: Political Animal – What we’ve learned from Romney’s returns.

Vinegar is more than something you use while cooking and baking. From cleaning to laundry, the sour stuff has a host of other uses. Here are my favorite five ways you can use vinegar inside (and outside) your home.

Household Disinfectant. During the days of the Black Plague, it was believed that vinegar would ward off disease. Technically they were right. Vinegar is effective bacteria killer, and you can use it for household cleaning purposes, ranging from scrubbing the tub to even cleaning mirrors or stainless steel. You can use the vinegar straight-up.

Windshield De-Icer. If the forecast calls for frost, ensure a morning free of scraping with a coat of this preventative solution: 3 parts vinegar to 1 part water. Simply spritz over your windshield for a few weeks’ worth of protection.

Drain Unclogger. Remember the science experiments you would do as a kid with the volcano made of vinegar and baking soda? Try putting a little bit of baking soda into a clogged drain and then pour vinegar into it. Your volcano, I mean drain, will erupt and the reaction helps break down down. The best part about this method is that is much safer than industrial chemical drain cleaners, which are toxic to your pets and children.

Full Story Here: How To Be Organized: 5 Uses For Vinegar.

Google announced changes to its privacy policies that will allow the web giant to merge user data collected across multiple services, an update that promises to renew scrutiny over Google’s privacy practices.

The new privacy policies go into effect on March 1. Users have no choice but to accept the changes, except, of course, to stop using Google’s services.

The update marks the latest in Google’s ambitious push across to learn even more about the people who use its services, an effort that has preoccupied the company of late and helped spur the launch of new products such as social networking site Google+. By combining information it gleans about an individual’s interests and preferences based on his use of several different Google products, from Gmail and YouTube to Google search and Googe Maps, Google can effectively compile more complete profiles of the people using its offerings — and, among other things, serve up more targeted ads and more customized content.

“Our new Privacy Policy makes clear that, if you’re signed in, we may combine information you’ve provided from one service with information from other services,” wrote Alma Whitten, Google’s director of privacy, product and engineering, in a blog post. “In short, we’ll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience.”

Full Story Here: Google Privacy Policies Get Major Revamp.

Martin Bashir tore into Representative Joe Walsh on Tuesday, condemning the congressman for his failure to pay over $100,000 in back child support in a live interview.

The MSNBC host was interviewing Walsh in the lead-up to President Obama’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night. Bashir suggested that Walsh had been “somewhat disrespectful” for his refusal to attend Obama’s jobs speech in September, and quizzed him on his support on Newt Gingrich’s plan for zero tax on capital gains.

Then, Bashir abruptly shone the light on a sore subject for the congressman. “One of the things you’ve repeatedly said is that you will not place another dollar on the backs of your children,” Bashir said. “Haven’t you already done that by inadequately paying child support that you owe to your wife and children?”

Full Story Here: Martin Bashir Tears Into Rep. Joe Walsh For Owing Back Child Support (VIDEO).

Abandoning any pretense that they’re focused on job creation, Colorado Republicans have clarified their priorities for the new legislative session: guns rights. Specifically, they are doing their best to ensure that citizens have the unfettered ability to carry guns anywhere — including into elementary, middle, and high schools:

Colorado Republicans are reloading previous attempts to expand gun rights, bringing back legislation that would allow concealed weapons in schools and let businesses use deadly force against intruders.

Republicans say they want to protect Second Amendment rights, but Democrats accuse them of straying from the job-creation platform both parties promised to focus on this year.

A proposal running simultaneously in the House and Senate would allow concealed weapons on school grounds and college campuses if a person has a permit and another bill would let business owners and employees use deadly force against intruders.

Full Story Here: Colorado Republicans Push Bill To Allow Guns In Elementary Schools | ThinkProgress.

The high court said that GPS tracking amounted to a search, and the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution protects Americans against unreasonable searches and seizures.

The ruling comes as a defeat for the Obama administration, which sought have the top U.S. court overturn the ruling of a U.S. appeals court in Washington which threw out the conviction in August of a Washington nightclub owner arrested for drug dealing.

Full Story Here: Supreme Court: Warrant needed for GPS tracking | The Raw Story.

A little more than a year after the conservative-led state board of education in Texas approved massive changes to its school textbooks to put slavery in a more positive light, a group of Tea Party activists in Tennessee has renewed its push to whitewash school textbooks. The group is seeking to remove references to slavery and mentions of the country’s founders being slave owners.

According to reports, Hal Rounds, the Fayette County attorney and spokesman for the group, said during a recent news conference that there has been “an awful lot of made-up criticism about, for instance, the founders intruding on the Indians or having slaves or being hypocrites in one way or another.”

“The thing we need to focus on about the founders is that, given the social structure of their time, they were revolutionaries who brought liberty into a world where it hadn’t existed, to everybody — not all equally instantly — and it was their progress that we need to look at,” Rounds said, according to The Commercial Appeal.

Full Story Here: Tea Party Groups In Tennessee Demand Textbooks Overlook U.S. Founder’s Slave-Owning History.

Stem cells sure are versatile. They’re being eyed as the key to treating medical conditions ranging from heart disease to neurological problems and blindness.

Can stem cells make a better mousetrap? Maybe not, but a provocative new study shows they’re capable of making something even more impressive:

A better rat penis.

And while rats might not care, urologists say the feat could be very good news for men suffering from Peyronie’s disease and other deformities of the penis.

For the study, published online in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers led by Tulane University urologic surgeon Dr. Wayne Hellstrom tested tissue grafts on rats whose penises had been surgically scarred.

Full Story Here: Stem Cells Shown To Help Penis Problems In Rats.

A recently discovered mysterious “winged” structure in England, which in the Roman period may have been used as a temple, presents a puzzle for archaeologists, who say the building has no known parallels.

Built around 1,800 years ago, the structure was discovered in Norfolk, in eastern England, just to the south of the ancient town of Venta Icenorum. The structure has two wings radiating out from a rectangular room that in turn leads to a central room.

“Generally speaking, [during] the Roman Empire people built within a fixed repertoire of architectural forms,” said William Bowden, a professor at the University of Nottingham, who reported the find in the most recent edition of the Journal of Roman Archaeology. The investigation was carried out in conjunction with the Norfolk Archaeological and Historical Research Group.

Full Story Here: Roman Ruins In England Found To Have Mysterious ‘Winged’ Structure.

GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum explained his opposition to abortion even in cases of rape during an interview Friday, saying that women who face such circumstances should “make the best out of a bad situation.”

Asked by CNN’s Piers Morgan what he would do if his own daughter approached him, begging for an abortion after having been raped, Santorum explained that he would counsel her to “accept this horribly created” baby, because it was still a gift from God, even if given in a “broken” way.

“Well, you can make the argument that if she doesn’t have this baby, if she kills her child, that that, too, could ruin her life. And this is not an easy choice, I understand that. As horrible as the way that that son or daughter and son was created, it still is her child. And whether she has that child or she doesn’t, it will always be her child, and she will always know that,” Santorum said.

Full Story Here: Rick Santorum On Opposition To Abortion In Cases Of Rape: ‘Make The Best Out Of A Bad Situation’.

Recent comments by Mitt Romney, the probable Republican nominee for President all but guarantee the inequality issue will remain front and center this election year.

When asked whether people who question the current distribution of wealth and power are motivated by “jealousy or fairness” Romney insisted, “I think it’s about envy. I think it’s about class warfare.” And in this election year he advised that if we do discuss inequality we do so “in quiet rooms” not in public debates.

A public debate, of course, is inevitable. And welcome. To help that debate along I’ll address the five major statements that comprise the Republican argument on inequality.

1. Income is Not All That Unequal

Full Story Here: Challenging the Republican’s Five Myths on Inequality | On the Commons.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.<br>

THIRTY-NINE YEARS AGO, CONGRESS SIGNED INTO LAW A HISTORIC PIECE OF LEGISLATION THAT WOULD, FOR MORE THAN THREE DECADES, TURN THE TIDE OF OUR POLLUTED WATERWAYS AND HOLD BIG POLLUTERS ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR ACTIONS.

When the Clean Water Act was enacted, the Cuyahoga River was so polluted that it literally caught fire, the majestic Hudson River’s fishery was gone and Lake Erie was declared all but dead. This bold legislation put forward by visionaries in Congress returned control of our nation’s waterways to the citizens of the United States as part of the public trust. However, today the concept of the public trust, the commons, is being quickly eroded by corporate polluters and their cronies in Congress who are determined to return to the era of using out nation’s waterways as open sewers, toxic dumps and landfills.

Despite the fact that the Clean Water Act has been responsible for providing millions of Americans with opportunities to swim, drink and fish in clean water, every branch of our federal government—the legislative, executive and judicial—have taken aim at the Act. The courts have worked to narrow the definition of “waters of the United States,” the Bush Administration used its power to narrow that definition even further, and Congress made efforts to chip away at the Act. Even the states have joined the party, cutting clean-water enforcement budgets every time they face a fiscal challenge. Now, however, our Congress is launching the most aggressive, nefarious attacks on our right to clean water in the nation’s history.

Full Story Here: Clean Water Safeguards Headed Down the Drain? « EcoWatch: Uniting the Voice of the Grassroots Environmental Movement.

“I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values.” –Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 1967

One. Human rights must be taken absolutely seriously. Every single person is entitled to dignity and human rights. No application needed. No exclusions at all. This is our highest priority.

Two. We must radically reinvent contemporary democracy. Current systems are deeply corrupt and not responsive to the needs of people. Representatives chosen by money and influence govern by money and influence. This is unacceptable. Direct democracy by the people is now technologically possible and should be the rule. Communities must be protected whenever they advocate for self-determination, self-development and human rights. Dissent is essential to democracy; we pledge to help it flourish.

Full Story Here: Ten Steps for Radical Revolution in the US | Common Dreams.

That’s the claim made in a recent op/ed in our local paper by policy analyst Josiah Neeley of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think-tank in Austin. His conclusion: “Throughout history, technological advances have been driven by private investment, not by government fiat. There is no reason to expect that to change anytime soon.” http://www.statesman.com/opinion/cheap-energy-comes-when-market-rules-2105711.html

As is often the case in faith-based systems, reconciling doctrine to the facts of history can be tricky. When I read Neeley’s piece, I immediately thought of the long list of modern technological innovations that came directly from government-directed and -financed projects, most notably containerization, satellites, computers, and the Internet. The initial research-and-development for all these projects so central to the modern economy came from the government, often through the military, long before they were commercially viable. It’s true that individuals and businesses often used those innovations to create products and services for the market, but without the foundational research funded by government, none of those products and services could exist.

Full Story Here: Conservative Fantasies About the Miracles of the Market | Common Dreams.

The president seems to labor under the misapprehension that crimes by members of the elite must be swept under the rug because prosecuting them would destabilize the system. What he misses is that we are well past the point where coverups will work, and they may even blow up before the November elections. If nothing else, his settlement pact has a non-trivial Constitutional problem which the Republicans, if they are smart, will use to undermine the deal and discredit the Administration.

To add insult to injury, Obama is apparently going to present his belated Christmas present to the banking industry as a boon to ordinary citizens. He refused to appoint a real middle class advocate, Elizabeth Warren, to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, but he’s not above stealing her talking points.

Full Story Here: Obama to Use Pension Funds of Ordinary Americans to Pay for Bank Mortgage “Settlement” | Common Dreams.

A long anticipated draft settlement between the nation’s largest private mortgage lenders and US states has been announced, but it doesn’t look good for industry critics who hoped the banking giants — Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citibank and Ally Financial —would suffer full investigations and payouts equal to the damage they caused to homeowners and the overall economy.  The deal would still have to be accepted by the states.

UPDATE: George Zornick writes at The Nation:

Obama Is on the Brink of a Settlement With the Big Banks—and Progressives Are Furious

For months, a massive federal settlement with big Wall Street banks over their role in the mortgage crisis has been in the offing. The rumored details have always given progressives heartburn: civil immunity, no investigations, inadequate help for homeowners and a small penalty for the banks. Now, on the eve President Obama’s State of the Union address—in which he plans to further advance a populist message against big money and income inequality—the deal may be here, and it’s every bit as ugly as progressives feared.

Full Story Here: Critics of Mortgage Deal Press Obama, State AGs to Reject Big Bank Proposal | Common Dreams.

There remains no viable solution for either the management or certainly the “disposal” of nuclear waste. Yet, the one recommendation that will not be contained in the DOE report is to stop making any more of it. While a child would never be allowed to continue piling up toys in his or her room indefinitely, failing to tidy up the mess, the nuclear industry continues to be permitted to manufacture some of the world’s most toxic detritus without a cleanup plan.

A sneak peak last July at the Commission’s draft report confirms that no new miracles are to be unveiled this month. Its preferred “solution” appears to be “centralized interim” storage, an allegedly temporary but potentially permanent parking lot dumpsite for highly radioactive waste that, based on past practices, will likely be targeted for an Indian reservation or a poor community of color. “Centralized interim” storage sites for the country’s irradiated reactor fuel rods could easily become permanent if no suitable geological repository site is found. It will mean transporting the waste from reactors predominantly located east of the Mississippi to a likely more remote, western location. And these wastes would then have to be moved again, transported past potentially 50 million homes, en route to a “permanent” dump site or for reprocessing.

Full Story Here: The Radioactive Waste Crisis » Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names.

Horgan is a writer for “Scientific American,” and approaches the question of whether war can be ended as a scientist. It’s all about research. He concludes that war can be ended, has in various times and places been ended, and is in the process (an entirely reversible process) of being ended on the earth right now.

The war abolitionists of the 1920s Outlawry movement would have loved this book, would have seen it as a proper extension of the ongoing campaign to rid the world of war. But it is a different book from theirs. It does not preach the immorality of war. That idea, although proved truer than ever by the two world wars, failed to prevent the two world wars. When an idea’s time has come and also gone, it becomes necessary to prove to people that the idea wasn’t rendered impossible or naïve by “human nature” or grand forces of history or any other specter. Horgan, in exactly the approach required, preaches the scientific observation of the success (albeit incomplete as yet) of preaching the immorality of war.

The evidence, Horgan argues, shows that war is a cultural contagion, a meme that serves its own ends, not ours (except for certain profiteers perhaps). Wars happen because of their cultural acceptance and are avoided by their cultural rejection. Wars are not created by genes or avoided by eugenics or oxytocin, driven by an ever-present minority of sociopaths or avoided by controlling them, made inevitable by resource scarcity or inequality or prevented by prosperity and shared wealth, or determined by the weaponry available. All such factors, Horgan finds, can play parts in wars, but the decisive factor is a militaristic culture, a culture that glorifies war or even just accepts it, a culture that fails to renounce war as something as barbaric as cannibalism. War spreads as other memes spread, culturally. The abolition of war does the same.

Full Story Here: War and Being and Nothingness.

One has to feel for Romney, thrashing about amidst the Newt horror. Here comes the portly Georgian, brushing aside the Mormon priests guarding Mitt’s hotel suite, kicking open the bedroom door, seizing Romney by the throat…Aaaargh! And then Romney is awake, realizing that this is a cold-sweat nightmare that will last … maybe until they close in Florida on January 31, maybe until Super Tuesday on March 6, when nine states hold their primaries, maybe….

We left Romney amidst the supposed flush of victory in Iowa (now awarded to Santorum), and triumph in New Hampshire, with polls in South Carolina showing him a solid ten points ahead of Gingrich, who made a poor showing in New Hampshire on top of a fourth place in Iowa below Santorum and Ron Paul.

Full Story Here: Here He Comes Again! » Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names.

You may remember that there was a time when apartheid in South Africa seemed unstoppable.

Sure, there were international boycotts of South African businesses, banks, and tourist attractions. There were heroic activists in South Africa, who were going to prison and even dying for freedom. But the conventional wisdom remained that these were principled gestures with little chance of upending the entrenched system of white rule.

“Be patient,” activists were told. “Don’t expect too much against powerful interests with a lot of money invested in the status quo.”

With hindsight, though, apartheid’s fall appears inevitable: the legitimacy of the system had already crumbled. It was harming too many for the benefit of too few. South Africa’s freedom fighters would not be silenced, and the global movement supporting them was likewise tenacious and principled.

Full Story Here: OpEdNews – Article: Corporate Rule Is Not Inevitable.