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“State Sen. Brian Kelsey, R-Germantown, made a slight change to his proposed constitutional amendment to ban an income tax this morning, a move that will have the practical effect of delaying the Senate floor vote by about a week. Kelsey added language meant to clarify that the anti-income tax amendment trumps other tax provisions of the constitution and a statement that any taxes on the books as of Jan. 1, 2010, would not be affected by the amendment. The rules for amending the state constitution require three readings of the final version before the Senate can take a vote. The changes to the wording this morning reset the clock, meaning the vote cannot take place until next Wednesday at the earliest.” (03/18/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/ycphlgf | |
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“The dramatic shift in poll numbers in the California Senate race — a surge for former US Rep. Tom Campbell for the GOP nomination and a double-digit drop for Senator Barbara Boxer (D) since January — has serious national implications, according to political analysts. A California Field Poll released Thursday shows Mr. Campbell running ahead of businesswoman Carly Fiorina by six points and Assemblyman Chuck DeVore by 19 points among likely GOP primary election voters. Perhaps more important, say analysts, is that more voters now have an unfavorable than favorable view of the incumbent Ms. Boxer, and she is essentially tied when matched against Campbell (44 to 43 percent) or Ms. Fiorina (44 to 45 percent). Poll director Mark DiCamillo told the Sacramento Bee that ‘the tenor of political discourse’ has clearly changed in California since Republican Scott Brown registered an upset victory in the Massachusetts Senate race in January. Others agree.” (03/18/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yk9hhwb | |
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“Effective April 16, Walgreens drugstores across the state won’t take any new Medicaid patients, saying that filling their prescriptions is a money-losing proposition — the latest development in an ongoing dispute over Medicaid reimbursement. The company, which operates 121 stores in the state, will continue filling Medicaid prescriptions for current patients. In a news release, Walgreens said its decision to not take new Medicaid patients stemmed from a ‘continued reduction in reimbursement’ under the state’s Medicaid program, which reimburses it at less than the break-even point for 95 percent of brand-name medications dispensed to Medicaid patents.” (03/18/10) Link: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2011367936_walgreens18m.html | |
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“Voters in the upstate New York birthplace of the women’s rights movement have approved a proposal to dissolve their village government. Tuesday’s ballot proposal to merge the village of Seneca Falls into the surrounding town of the same name passed by a vote of 1,142 to 1,037. Absentee ballots still must be counted, but if the vote stands the nearly 180-year-old Finger Lakes village government will dissolve at the end of 2011. Supporters say dissolution will do away with costly duplication of governmental services and reduce property taxes. The village was the site of the first known women’s rights convention in 1848. It also claims to be the model for Bedford Falls, the mythical community depicted in the movie It’s a Wonderful Life.” [editor’s note: Take that, Mr. Potter! Today Seneca Falls, tomorrow … - SAT] (03/18/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/ykj9hsd | |
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“European researchers have taken the world a step closer to fictional wizard Harry Potter’s invisibility cape after they made an object disappear using a three-dimensional ‘cloak,’ a study published Thursday in the US-based journal Science showed. Scientists from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany and Imperial College London used the cloak, made using photonic crystals with a structure resembling piles of wood, to conceal a small bump on a gold surface, they wrote in Science. ‘It’s kind of like hiding a small object underneath a carpet — except this time the carpet also disappears,’ they said.” (03/18/10) Link: http://rawstory.com/2010/03/researchers-invisibility-cloak/ | |
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“Two soccer teammates took the field on a recent Saturday afternoon: one made shot after shot while the other played goalie. The shooter, wearing a distinctive uniform dotted with colorful spots, had just taken a powerful kick when something went wrong. The call went out to stop practice — and to find a hot glue gun. ‘Something is hanging off,’ Svilen Kanev, a Harvard University sophomore and member of Robotic Futbol Club Cambridge, said as fellow students picked up the cylindrical black robot to administer first aid. When most people think about robotics and artificial intelligence what comes to mind are individual robots — whether it is one that vacuums the floor, a rover that explores Mars, or the computer that beats a human chess champion.” (03/18/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/ycuy35n | |
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“Representative Dennis Kucinich, an Ohio Democrat, said he will switch sides to support legislation overhauling the U.S. health-care system, giving a boost to President Barack Obama’s top priority. Obama personally lobbied Kucinich during a trip to his Cleveland-area district two days ago. … Kucinich is the first lawmaker to commit to voting for the latest health-care bill after opposing a version that passed the House in November.” [editor’s note: Disappointing — Kucinich may be a socialist who favors “single-payer,” but he was correct and courageous in pointing out that ObamaCare as written is not much more than corporate welfare for insurance companies - TLK] (03/17/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/y86pc9e | |
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“A Walmart employee with sinus cancer and an inoperable brain tumor who was fired for using medical marijuana will not be rehired, even though the company says it is ’sympathetic’ to his condition. Joseph Casias, 29, was fired in November from a Walmart store in Battle Creek, Mich., after marijuana was detected in a routine drug screening that he underwent after he sprained his knee at work. Casias, who was the store’s 2008 associate of the year, said he legally used marijuana to reduce pain associated with his disease and was never under the influence while at work.” (03/17/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yzjagvc | |
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“Massachusetts Senate leaders indicated yesterday that they will push forward significant measures this year to control soaring health care costs in the state that probably will include caps on payments to hospitals and doctors. Legislators made their comments during the first day of high-profile state hearings being held to investigate why health care costs are rising so rapidly. Senate President Therese Murray, Democrat of Plymouth, told the audience at the University of Massachusetts Boston that state officials ‘must act quickly and decisively once the hearings are over’ and that ‘failure to act is not an option.’” (03/17/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yztuheu | |
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“Whether it’s a correctly called a movement, a backlash, or political theater, state declarations of their rights [sic] — or in some cases denunciations of federal authority, amounting to the same thing — are on a roll. Governor Mike Rounds of South Dakota, a Republican, signed a bill into law Friday declaring that the federal regulation of firearms is invalid if a weapon is made and used in South Dakota. On Thursday, Wyoming’s governor, Dave Freudenthal, a Democrat, signed a similar bill for that state. The same day, Oklahoma’s House of Representatives approved a resolution that Oklahomans should be able to vote on a state constitutional amendment allowing them to opt out of the federal healthcare overhaul.” [editor’s note: And Tennessee has a similar bill on the floor, passing one body and under consideration in the other; stay tuned! - SAT] (03/17/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yjdv6t8 | |
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“Imagine if a computer could identify the weakest-link teachers — the ones who should be told it’s time to get out of the classroom. It’s not quite so simple, but a new policy in Houston allows teachers to be fired based on data that some experts say isolates a teacher’s effect on his or her students’ test-score gains. Reform advocates say school districts should improve teacher quality in part by using such ‘value added’ data. Dozens of districts, including Houston’s, have already incorporated the concept into ‘pay for performance’ systems. Education leaders in New York City and the District of Columbia are moving toward linking it to tenure or dismissals. But none has gone ahead as boldly as the Texas district.” [editor’s note: It shouldn’t be the only factor, but it should be considered (assuming, of course, that these standardized tests actually measure student competence, which is still at question) - SAT] (03/17/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/ylekey4 | |
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“The ACLU of Vermont is suing the state after unsuccessfully seeking to find out whether police agencies are using cellphone tracking technology to keep tabs on people’s whereabouts. The state attorney general’s office refused public records requests by the ACLU seeking information about the practice, saying that information is exempt from public records statutes. So the ACLU filed suit Monday in Washington Superior Court, asking a judge to force the state to produce documents under the Public Records Act. ‘The attorney general’s behavior here is a real breach of trust,’ said Allen Gilbert, executive director. ‘The Public Records Act specifically requires public agencies to explain the factual basis for denying a request.’” (03/17/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yk8yn5h | |
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“This morning, the Marijuana Policy Project called upon shoppers across the country to join in a boycott of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., in order to protest the unjust and potentially unlawful firing of Joe Casias, a 29-year-old medical marijuana patient and sinus cancer survivor who suffers from an inoperable brain tumor. After dutifully working at a Wal-Mart in Battle Creek, Michigan, for five years, Casias was suddenly terminated because he tested positive for marijuana during a drug screening administered after he sprained his knee on the job.” (03/16/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yk6at45 | |
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“When President Obama took office, he famously aspired to be the leader in administrative transparency, but now he finds himself struggling to enforce it within his own government. In fiscal year 2009, 17 major governmental agencies refused to release information, claiming legal exemptions, 466,872 times, an increase of nearly 50 percent from the previous year, according to a review of requests conducted by The Associated Press. In 2008, the government refused 312,683 requests made under the Freedom of Information Act, AP reported. The AP examined the 2008 and 2009 budget year FOIA reports from the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Justice, Labor, State, Transportation, Treasury and Veterans Affairs; the Environmental Protection Agency; and the Federal Reserve Board.” (03/16/10) Link: http://whitehouse.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/03/16/chasing-transparency/ | |
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“Twice in recent years, House Appropriations Committee chairman David R. Obey helped obtain earmarks totaling $3.2 million for a home-state university to study how to make military jet fuel from plants. Standing behind that nonprofit work, however, is a for-profit Chicago firm that often partners with universities to reap part of their earmark benefits. Similar collaborations between private companies and nonprofits will pose tricky questions under a policy intended to end earmarks to profit-making firms, which Obey, a Democrat of Wisconsin, helped shepherd through the House Democratic caucus last week. That new rule was widely touted as a crackdown, but in reality it could leave untouched almost 90 percent of typical earmarks.” [editor’s note: Suspiciously like the money laundering they put people in jail for otherwise? - SAT] (03/16/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yhfp3ex | |
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“A House committee on Tuesday delayed a vote on legislation that would require abortion clinics in Tennessee to post anti-coercion signs because of concerns from some lawmakers. The state House Health and Human Resources Committee decided to put off the vote for a week to give lawmakers more time to review the measure sponsored Rep. Susan Lynn. The Mt. Juliet Republican said she was expecting House Bill 3301 to move forward. … Any type of coercion to have an abortion is prohibited under current law. Lynn said some women may not know that and the sign simply spells out what’s in the law. … But some lawmakers question the impact such a measure would have on individuals who are underage.” [editor’s note: While advocating “anti-coercion signs” would seem to be a pro-liberty move, it’s anything but that in this case! - SAT] (03/16/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/ykxwanl | |
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“A year after kicking the habit, smokers’ arteries showed signs of reversing a problem that can set the stage for heart disease, according to the first big study to test this. The improvement came even though smokers gained an average of 9 pounds after they quit, researchers found. Their levels of so-called good cholesterol improved, too. ‘A lot of people are afraid to quit smoking because they’re afraid to gain weight,’ said the study’s leader, Dr. James Stein, a University of Wisconsin-Madison cardiologist. The new research shows these people gain a health benefit even though they pick up pounds that hopefully can be shed once they have gotten used to not smoking, he said.” (03/16/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yjpmpno | |
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“Newly released documents from a major insurer detail how certain hospitals and doctors are paid dramatically more than others for the same types of services, sometimes as much as three times higher. The vast inequalities emerged in documents filed by Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Inc., the second largest health insurer in Massachusetts, before the start today of state hearings investigating why health care costs are rising so rapidly. Written testimony from Harvard Pilgrim discloses which of the hospitals and physician groups in its network are the best paid and which are paid the worst. The hospitals that commanded the highest fees for inpatient care in 2008 include powerhouses like Children’s Hospital Boston, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and the major Partners Healthcare hospitals, Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s, according to the insurer.” (03/16/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yjn8v6j | |
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“Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan is restarting her campaign against wars in Iraq and Afghanistan today, setting up tents and teaching protest seminars near the Washington Monument. Dubbed ‘Camp OUT NOW,’ the protest is geared to pressure President Obama and Democrats, whom Sheehan says have abandoned the anti-war cause now that they have control of the White House and Congress. ‘Obama said there’d be one combat battalion coming home per month, and that has not happened,’ Sheehan says. ‘We still have significant troops in Iraq, and he’s ramped up in Afghanistan. I don’t think this is what people understood they were voting for. I think they were voting for a change.’” [editor’s note: It’ll be fascinating to watch the Obamaphile progressives dance around this one - SAT] (03/15/10) Link: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-03-14-cindy-sheehan_N.htm | |
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“Hingham boasts million-dollar estates along its scenic shoreline, stately antique houses on Main Street, and boutique shops around the town square. The median household income is nearly $113,000 a year, well above the state and national average, while unemployment is well below the statewide rate. Yet Massachusetts has long classified Hingham as ‘economically distressed.’ And Hingham is not the only unlikely-seeming hard luck case. … Though lawmakers originally created the Economic Development Incentive Program in 1993 to nudge businesses to invest in decaying cities and other areas scarred by poverty and unemployment, such as Fall River and Lawrence, the state has, over time, expanded the program to include almost any municipality that applies.” (03/15/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yhnzmr7 | |
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“In an ambitious bid to make high-speed Internet service faster, cheaper, and more widely available, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will unveil a ‘national broadband plan’ Tuesday that outlines a decade-long course to bring more Americans online. The plan that was mandated by Congress is not only an effort to increase the availability of fast Internet and boost speeds to 100 megabits per second (Mbps), about 20 times faster than the current average, but also to put the US on equal footing with nations where broadband adoption is much higher. But the broadband plan is already raising hackles among large telecoms, many of whom view it as a first step toward government regulation of the Internet.” (03/15/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yfcva3b | |
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“In North Dakota, where insurers can cover abortions if customers pay a separate premium, the state’s largest provider says it sells no abortion policies because no one has asked to buy one. Amid a high-stakes debate over abortion that could determine the fate of President Obama’s healthcare initiative, North Dakota’s law offers a test because it is much like the language favored by antiabortion lawmakers on Capitol Hill, notably Representative Bart Stupak, Democrat of Michigan. … Similar policies are in place in Kentucky, Missouri, Idaho, and Oklahoma.” (03/15/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yzq2f9c | |
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“Golf clubs in hands or not, the kids of South Park are ready to take on Tiger Woods. Creators of the Comedy Central cartoon have long since proven that no subject is sacred to them. So for the opening of its 14th season on Wednesday, the troubled golfer encounters Stan, Kyle, Kenny and Cartman in their animated Colorado town. ‘It’s such an important issue in America right now — the sex addiction outbreak,’ Matt Stone, who makes the series with partner Trey Parker, said on Friday. ‘We’re all really concerned about him and hope he gets better.’ Sex addiction, the intersection of powerful men and willing women, late-night phone calls to the police and bad public relations gave them so much fodder they could have made an entire Tiger-centric season, Stone said.” (03/14/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/y97q3od | |
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“If the big ‘tea party’ protest in Atlanta last year had the trappings of a rock show, complete with a riding ‘Paul Revere,’ Saturday’s ‘coffee party’ get-together at Java Monkey cafe in nearby Decatur came off more like a well-attended poetry slam. A liberal-esque and pro-Obama answer to the conservative tea party movement, the coffee party kicked off in 370 locations across the US and the world (including Tokyo and Jakarta) in an attempt to brew some activism from cafes and salons and stir disaffected liberals into action. Hand-painted signs at Java Monkey ranged from pro-healthcare reform to ‘jobs for Americans.’ The crowd of about 40 — visibly more diverse than the average tea party gathering — included schoolteachers, a dreadlocked guy, young children, and even a visiting reporter from Le Monde.” (03/13/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yd3tbfb | |
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“Enough with the tweets, the blogs, the Internet searches. That’s the message being communicated by courts across the country as jurors using their portable electronic devices continue to cause mistrials, overturned convictions, and chaotic delays in court proceedings. Last year, a San Francisco Superior Court judge dismissed 600 potential jurors after several acknowledged going online to research the criminal case before them. Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon challenged her misdemeanor embezzlement conviction after discovering five jurors ‘friended’ one another on Facebook during the trial. And a federal judge in Florida declared a mistrial after eight jurors admitted Web surfing about a drug case.” (03/14/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yeg4sb9 | |
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“The Obama administration yesterday called for a broad overhaul of President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind law, proposing to reshape divisive provisions that encouraged instructors to teach to tests, narrowed the curriculum, and labeled 1 in 3 American schools as failing. By announcing that he would send his education blueprint to Congress tomorrow, President Obama returned to a campaign promise to change the sprawling federal law that affects each of the nation’s 100,000 public schools. His plan strikes a balance, retaining some key features of the Bush-era law, including its requirement for annual reading and math tests, while proposing far-reaching changes.” (03/14/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yarmawd | |
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“Residential recycling rates in Massachusetts have not budged in the past decade, even as environmental concerns have sparked ’sustainability’ movements and fueled markets for hybrid cars and green products. For years, environmentalists have preached the importance of recycling to relieve pressure on burgeoning landfills and reduce greenhouse gases released from decomposing trash. But to a startling degree, the refrain seems to have fallen on deaf ears. In 2008, according to preliminary statewide statistics, just over one-quarter of all residential trash was recycled, roughly the same percentage as 1997, according to a Globe review of figures kept by the state Department of Environmental Protection.” [editor’s note: One would note that this data comes from an allegedly “progressive” state that’s had mandatory bottle-recycling for over two decades; the hypocrisy reeks - SAT] (03/14/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/ye93bdx | |
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“Up to half the food aid intended for the millions of hungry people in Somalia is being diverted to corrupt contractors, radical Islamic militants, and local UN workers, according to a UN Security Council report. The report blames the problem on improper food distribution by the UN World Food Program in the African nation, which has been plagued by fighting and humanitarian suffering for nearly two decades, according to a UN diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity. It calls on UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to authorize an independent investigation of the Rome-based food agency’s operation in Somalia. Because of Somalia’s instability, transporters must truck food through roadblocks manned by an array of militias, insurgents, and bandits. Kidnappings and executions are common, and the insecurity makes it difficult for senior UN officials to travel to the country to check on procedures.” (03/11/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yhlw66w | |
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“A bill that would ban the sale of sugary drinks and junk food in school vending machines and school stores is gaining momentum in the Legislature, as Massachusetts combats a troubling rise in childhood obesity rates. The House passed it in January, after nearly a decade of debate on similar bills that went nowhere. Now, Senate President Therese Murray has thrown her support behind the effort and is optimistic that members will embrace it in a scheduled Senate vote today. ‘We haven’t heard anything negative from members,’ Murray said in an interview. ‘Obviously, everyone is very alarmed about the high level of diabetes and obesity rates. It’s a crisis.’” (03/11/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yzrsrmo | |
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“Governors and education leaders on Wednesday proposed sweeping new school standards that could lead to students across the country using the same math and English textbooks and taking the same tests, replacing a patchwork of state and local systems in an attempt to raise student achievement nationwide. But states must first adopt the rigorous new Common Core State Standards, and implementing the standards on such a large scale won’t be easy. Two states, Texas and Alaska, have already refused to join the project, and everyone from state legislatures to the nation’s 10,000 local school boards and 3 million teachers could chime in with their opinions. Since No Child Left Behind became law in 2002, every state has been required to create a set of K-12 grade-level learning goals in math and English. Most often, state standards were developed by committees of teachers, and the quality varied from state to state.” [editor’s note: Having worked a seasonal job for the past near-decade, scoring the results of such “standards” (from about a dozen states), I’ve borne witness to the good, bad and VERY ugly of all of this - SAT] (03/11/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/ykkvy9y | |
Commentary
jump to News Section | jump to Events and Movement News Section
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IKEA, Sweden & the inheritance tax: Lessons for the US
Source: Christian Science Monitor Author: Anders Ydstedt & Dick Patten “America sits at the same economic crossroads today that Sweden faced five years ago. Sweden’s experience in eliminating the death tax could help the United States save businesses and add jobs at a critical time. Once known as Europe’s socialist paradise, Sweden still has one of the world’s highest top income tax rates (57 percent). But like the US, it no longer has an inheritance tax, or what Americans commonly refer to as the estate or ‘death’ tax. The Swedish Parliament abolished its inheritance tax in late 2004. … The country’s entrepreneurs were moving offshore — and taking their companies with them. The death tax was only making a bad situation worse.” (03/18/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yjodnsv | |
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“When President Obama asked a group of senior executives for suggestions on streamlining government, it’s unlikely that any of them suggested layers of new bureaucracy, vague marching orders, or management by committee. Yet Sen. Dodd’s ‘compromise’ financial reform proposal does all these things. The likely result? Banks and other financial institutions will still be tightly-run, aggressive organizations that can develop and sell complicated and risky new products in a heartbeat. But the agencies tasked with their oversight will be complicated and slow, encumbered by hard-to-follow rules and divided lines of authority. … Banks shouldn’t be too big to fail, and bureaucracies shouldn’t be too big to succeed.” [editor’s note: if it is indeed a “bureaucracy” (rather than a tiny “steering group” of advisors?), it’s already by definition “too big to succeed” - SAT] (03/17/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yl3jgfw | |
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“Like a specter, the unpopularity of Congress’ reform proposals haunted the ultimate goal of universal health care all winter long. This issue weighed heavily on the minds of Democratic senators as they moved toward a final pre-Christmas vote on their version of reform; it became explosive after Scott Brown’s unexpected win in the Massachusetts special election. Brown’s victory needn’t have been a devastating blow to reform — there’s always been a clear legislative path forward — but the message it sent to Congress, rightly or wrongly, was that the bad poll numbers associated with health care could have real consequences on Election Day. And that’s made a big difference ever since. But a funny, though little noticed, thing happened as the wounded cause of reform limped toward the finish line: The polling started to turn around.” (03/18/10) Link: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=breaking_unhealthy_habits | |
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“The important claim here is not the stated argument that terrorist lawyers should be publicly revealed, or that they shouldn’t be working for the DOJ. It’s the assumption that they are representing terrorists. The assumption permeates conservative rhetoric on issues of torture and detainee rights. … Thiessen makes explicit the position that the rhetoric about ‘terrorist lawyers’ is meant to imply — namely, that terrorists should not have lawyers at all. The conclusion flows naturally when you begin by defining the defendants as ‘terrorists.’ The truth, though, is that a good number of these ‘terrorists’ are not terrorists at all.” (03/18/10) Link: http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/lawyer-up | |
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“For almost a full year, scores of progressive House members vowed — publicly and unequivocally — that they would never support a health care bill without a robust public option. They collectively accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars based on this pledge. Up until a few weeks ago, many progressive opinion leaders — such as Moulitsas, Howard Dean, Keith Olbermann and many others — were insisting that the Senate bill was worse than the status quo and should be defeated. But now? All of those progressives House members are doing exactly what they swore they would never do — vote for a health care bill with no public option — and virtually every progressive opinion leader is not only now supportive of the bill, but vehemently so. In other words, exactly what Rahm said would happen — ignore the progressives, we don’t need to give them anything because they’ll get into line — is exactly what happened.” (03/18/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yj8a93p | |
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“Does it make sense to buy insurance against, say, a nuclear attack on Washington — if all the insurance providers’ headquarters are inside the Beltway? Of course not. So why do investors buy insurance on U.S. government debt?” (03/17/10) Link: http://www.slate.com/id/2247590/ | |
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“During the Tea Party protests on Capitol Hill this week, conservative activists warned that if Congress manages to pass health care legislation, their movement would become more formidable than ever. Mark Meckler, a national coordinator for the Tea Party Patriots — one of the larger and better-organized national groups — predicted that if the bill passes, ‘the tea party movement will double in size almost instantaneously.’ But far from fueling the tea partiers’ cause, a sweeping new health care law could suck the air right out of their movement. Many tea party activists have a lot to gain from reform — because their ranks are dominated by aging baby boomers.” (03/18/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yzpq5r5 | |
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“All votes have still not been counted from the election on March 7, but the political landscape of Iraq after the poll is beginning to become clearer. Maliki has done well, but possibly not well enough to hold his post, since the Sadrists, who may have as many as 40 seats in the new 325-member parliament, are insisting that he should not head the next government. Once his allies when he became Prime Minister in 2006, the Sadrists blame him for co-operating with an American drive against them in 2008. Maliki might look to split the INA and seek an alliance with ISCI, which appears to have polled badly.” (03/18/10) Link: http://counterpunch.org/patrick03182010.html | |
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“Every great American boom and bust makes and breaks its share of crooks. The past decade — call it the Ponzi Era — has been no different, except for the gargantuan scale of white-collar crime. A vast wave of financial fraud swelled in the first years of the new century. Then, in 2008, with the subprime mortgage collapse, it crashed on the shore as a full-scale global economic meltdown. As that wave receded, it left hundreds of Ponzi and pyramid schemes, as well as other get-rich-quick rackets that helped fuel our recent economic frenzy, flopping on the beach.” (03/18/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/ylpqohp | |
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“Washington’s ruling class must believe that, like 5-year-olds, if you cover your ears and repeat ‘I can’t hear you,’ all problems go away. On the one-year anniversary of the $787 billion stimulus scheme last month, Vice President Joe Biden said taxpayers had ‘gotten their money’s worth’ from the massive waste of tax dollars. Biden said the program, now a year old, was designed to be implemented in two stages, saying ‘we’ve only been halfway through the act.’ Or maybe we’ve driven off a cliff and are halfway to the bottom. Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste, is also skeptical.” (03/16/10) Link: http://stossel.blogs.foxbusiness.com/2010/03/16/delusional/ | |
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“While channel-surfing the other day, I came across a fresh-faced, young reporter for a cable network aggressively following an important person around an airport and refusing to let up with his questions. The unwilling interviewee grew angry, suddenly snapping and shouting at the reporter to leave him alone. ‘Do you think you’re immune to questions?’ the reporter shouted back repeatedly. I was speechless. ‘Do you think you’re immune to questions?’ It was perfect — such a simple and powerful question. This would have been the most hopeful piece of journalism I had seen in years if it weren’t for one small detail: This was not a journalist from CNN or Fox or MSNBC. … The exchange was between an E! network reporter and a Hollywood celebrity. And that’s when it clicked. Could the news media learn something from the paparazzi?” (03/16/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yccgp63 | |
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“Seven years ago today, Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by a Caterpillar D9R Israeli bulldozer while nonviolently protesting the demolition of Palestinian homes in Rafah, Gaza Strip, along with other members of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). Now her parents, sister and brother are suing the State of Israel and the defense minister, claiming wrongful death. The suit’s objective, according to Rachel’s mother, Cindy, ‘is to illustrate the need for accountability for thousands of lives lost, or indelibly injured, by [Israel’s] occupation. … We hope the trial will bring attention to the assault on nonviolent human rights activists (Palestinian, Israeli and international) and we hope it will underscore the fact that so many Palestinian families, harmed as deeply as ours or more, cannot access Israeli courts.’ The State’s attorneys have decided to use any and all ammunition to undermine Corrie’s suit.” (03/16/10) Link: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100329/gordon | |
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“When she was four, the daughter of friends would circle the dining room table during political discussions, waiting for one of the adults to use a word that her nursery school teacher had admonished the class never to use. When one of us inevitably used the offending word, she would wag her finger and scold: ‘Don’t say ’stupid!” Politeness notwithstanding, the announcement by an Israeli bureaucrat that additional housing had been approved in East Jerusalem, made while Vice President Joe Biden was in Israel and just after the Palestinian Authority had finally been persuaded to resume peace negotiations with Israel, however indirectly, was stupid and indefensible. And that is why the Israeli government made no pretense at defending it.” (03/18/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yhz5cmx | |
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“Where will the jobs come from? President Obama wants to double America’s exports over five years to help generate good jobs. With Recovery Act spending coming to an end, states and localities laying off employees, banks still not making loans, and consumers reeling from unemployment, stagnant wages, and losses in home values and retirement plans, increasing exports is one ray of hope to generate jobs. And the U.S. can’t go back to the old economy where trade deficits reached 6 percent of gross domestic product, and we were borrowing over $2 billion a day from abroad to pay for goods made elsewhere. But if the U.S. is to sell more abroad and borrow less, countries with trade surpluses — notably Germany and China — will have to spend more, buy more, save less and export less. The G-20 governments, representing the leading economies in the world, agreed that is the only way to have the reductions essential to a secure recovery in the dangerous and unsustainable imbalances in the global system.” (03/17/10) Link: http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2010031117/showdown-chermany | |
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“In the prologue to The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, Michael Lewis explains that he envisioned his first and perhaps most famous work, Liar’s Poker, as a grim obituary for an industry that rewarded inexperience and greed. However, the byzantine banking industry continued to flourish, and young readers wrote Lewis to ask how they, too, could get into the game. His disappointment is palpable. In his new book, he may have replicated the mistake of glorifying a troubled industry. The premise of the book is simple: A few investors had the foresight to see that the sub-prime-mortgage loans at the heart of a vast bubble in the bond markets were destined to default and made fortunes betting against them. The Big Short, then, is the story of those counter-investors and in turn, an illustration of what was (and is) wrong on Wall Street.” (03/16/10) Link: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_short_game | |
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“Housing is still on the rocks and prices are headed lower. Master illusionist Ben Bernanke has managed to engineer a modest 7-month uptick in sales, but the fairydust is set to wear off later this month when the Fed stops purchasing mortgage-backed securities (MBS). When the program ends, long-term interest rates will creep higher and sales will begin to flag. The objective of Bernanke’s $1.25 trillion quantitative easing program was to transfer the banks’ toxic assets onto the Fed’s balance sheet. Having achieved that goal, Bernanke will now have to find a way to unload those same assets onto the public. Freddie and Fannie, which have already been used as a government-backed off-balance-sheet dumping ground, appear to be the most likely candidates.” (03/17/10) Link: http://counterpunch.org/whitney03172010.html | |
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“Three years ago, when I met with Senator Barack Obama in his Chicago office and we contemplated his possible run for the presidency, I was enthusiastic. On that day, it was hard for me to imagine a time I would have to say no to Barack Obama when he asked me for support. But last week, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus sat down with the president, and he asked us to vote for the health care reform bill — a bill that denies immigrants the opportunity to purchase health care with their own money. It was one more in a string of disappointments for the Hispanic community, and today, I no longer find myself able to confidently say ‘yes’ when President Obama asks me for his support.” (03/17/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yg38dmc | |
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“For the moment, the public focus is on the House’s ’self-executing rule,’ an effort by House Democrats to get around voting on the unpopular Senate health care bill. Under that back-bend, members would vote on a 100-page House bill of popular fixes to the roughly 2,000-page Senate bill. Passage of this smaller bill would automatically ‘deem’ that the larger Senate bill had passed. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she is leaning toward this approach because no one would have to actually vote on a bill he or she doesn’t like (one of the impediments she faces as she tries to line up the 216 votes she needs to pass health care legislation). But House Democrats aren’t going through all this just out of cowardice. Part of what is requiring them to be so creative is the unpredictability of the coming reconciliation process in the Senate.” (03/16/10) Link: http://www.slate.com/id/2248032/ | |
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“[T]he bill recently introduced by Joe Lieberman and John McCain — the so-called ‘Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention and Prosecution Act’ — now has 9 co-sponsors, including the newly elected Scott Brown. It’s probably the single most extremist, tyrannical and dangerous bill introduced in the Senate in the last several decades, far beyond the horrific, habeas-abolishing Military Commissions Act. It literally empowers the President to imprison anyone he wants in his sole discretion by simply decreeing them a Terrorist suspect — including American citizens arrested on U.S. soil. The bill requires that all such individuals be placed in military custody, and explicitly says that they ‘may be detained without criminal charges and without trial for the duration of hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners,’ which everyone expects to last decades, at least.” (03/17/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yhwsw9k | |
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“Astonishingly, Obama is repeating the key tactical mistake of his failed efforts to restart Middle East peace talks over the last year. Though Obama’s insistence on a settlement freeze to help restart negotiations was legitimate, he went a step too far by including building in East Jerusalem. Every Israeli government over the last four decades has built in the Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem; no government, let alone one headed by the Likud, could possibly agree to a freeze there. Obama made resumption of negotiations hostage to a demand that could not be met. The result was that Palestinian leaders were forced to adjust their demands accordingly. Obama is directly responsible for one of the most absurd turns in the history of Middle East negotiations.” (03/17/10) Link: http://www.tnr.com/article/world/the-crisis | |
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“A specter is haunting post-racial America. As pundits trip over themselves to declare that racism is dead in the era of a black president, ever-increasing numbers of African Americans are imprisoned and condemned to second-class citizenship. In The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (New Press), legal scholar and former ACLU attorney Michelle Alexander examines the American criminal-justice system and its propensity for decimating black lives and communities. She argues that prisons — and the consequent stigmatizing of a permanent ‘criminal’ population — have created a ‘new racial caste system’ whose effects are stunningly similar to those of the Jim Crow era.” (03/16/10) Link: http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/5685/jim_crow_redux | |
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“China argues that some American companies will suffer if China stops subsidizing manufacturing and adjusts their currency to market levels. They’re right. The fight over Chinese violations of trade rules is also another story about Wall Street and big, monopolistic corporations vs Main Street and American workers. A China Daily story says China’s huge export surplus is being ‘misread.’ The Chinese government says that US companies — the ones who close US factories, lay off workers, devastate communities and throw the costs onto the government — are also beneficiaries of China’s government subsidies.” (03/16/10) Link: http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2010031116/chinas-american-enablers | |
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“As much as politicians like to imagine themselves men and women of action, what they mostly do is talk. They talk to the cameras, they talk to constituents, they talk to contributors, they talk to each other. It’s almost impossible to be a successful politician without the ability to lodge words and images in the public mind. The result is that a really adept politician has to be part linguist and part semiotician. This is particularly true when you’re out of power and there’s so little you can actually accomplish. As Republicans are faced with the possibility that this week, Democrats might actually succeed in passing their most critical domestic initiative, is their mastery of the symbolic really enough?” (03/16/10) Link: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=more_than_words | |
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“College acceptance and rejection letters will be arriving in the mail in the coming days, launching high school seniors into the joyous or consoling embrace of parents. But many prospective college students aren’t watching anxiously for the mail carrier. Instead, they are busy attending to the needs of their own children and workplaces. The traditional 18- to 22-year-old residing on campus is no longer the norm. Almost three-quarters of undergraduates fall into the ‘nontraditional’ category, according to a 2002 National Center for Education Statistics report, meaning they work full time, are financially independent, attend college part time, or didn’t go directly from high school to higher education. … College isn’t just for children anymore.” (03/16/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yzze8jt | |
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“The Israel lobby is mobilizing for what might turn into the most significant confrontation between the United States and Israel since, well, the Suez War of 1956, when President Eisenhower told Israel — and its covert allies, the UK and France — to halt the unprovoked assault on Egypt. Since then, US-Israel conflicts have been relatively small and tied to side issues, such as the fight over President Reagan’s sale of AWACS surveillance aircraft to Saudi Arabia in the early 1980s or President Bush’s showdown with Israel in the early 1990s, when the United States threatened to withhold loan guarantees to Israel after a right-wing Israeli government stone-walled the peace process. This time, if President Obama plays his cards right, he could bring down the extremist government of Bibi Netanyahu. But that depends on whether Obama displays the guts and gumption necessary for a full-frontal challenge to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and its allies.” (03/15/10) Link: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/dreyfuss/541196/us_israel_showdown | |
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Ask Shamu: The US tortures both human and animal prisoners
Source: Mother Jones Author: James Ridgeway “Certainly, solitary confinement constitutes abject cruelty for killer whales (or chimps, or elephants, or any wild animals), and might well drive them to erratic or destructive behavior. But it’s rare to hear such expressions of sympathy or absolution for the tens of thousands of human beings who live in solitary confinement in the United States. Like Tilikum, many of these human prisoners did not kill until they were incarcerated; many more have not killed at all, and are held in isolation for disciplinary infractions, because they are mentally ill, or because they need ‘protective’ custody. They can remain there for years or even decades. And the devastating psychological effects of long-term lockdown — which is deemed to be torture by virtually everyone who has experienced it — are well documented.” (03/16/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/ydc8wmj | |
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“Virginia Thomas has many ardent defenders. In fact, it’s hard to find anyone who doesn’t think that Ginni, as everyone calls the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, has a perfect right to launch herself headlong into the Tea Party movement with the founding of her own group, Liberty Central Inc. As Thomas herself said, pointing out that the Supreme Court’s ethics office had approved her new endeavor, ‘I did not give up my First Amendment rights when my husband became a justice of the Supreme Court.’ In the end, this has turned into the kind of roll-out Thomas couldn’t have planned better. No one much noticed when Liberty Central opened shop in February. Now Thomas and her allies get lots of publicity as the champions of wife-activists who can righteously breathe fire at the left for hypocrisy.” (03/16/10) Link: http://www.slate.com/id/2248017/ | |
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“[T]he Obama White House — just as was true for the Bush White House, and using the same rationale — does not want any meaningful oversight (i.e., briefings beyond the absurd Gang of Eight sham) on whether it’s breaking the law in the conduct of its intelligence activities. One of the Intelligence Community’s most loyal Congressional servants — Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein — told The Post that she thinks a deal can be worked out with the White House, meaning that the bill needs to be diluted even further, to the point of virtual nothingness, in order for the White House to accept it. It’s critical to note that this is far from an abstract concern, because the Obama administration has almost certainly been hiding intelligence activities from the Intelligence Committees, thus ensuring it operates without oversight.” (03/16/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yfkoq8d | |
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“One need not be xenophobic to be troubled by the idea of foreign influence in American elections. Certainly the Framers were. The point is not that foreigners are evil. It is rather that elections are private. It is we — citizens — who are to select who is to govern us. And it is completely appropriate for us to protect the debate we have about that selection by limiting disproportionate spending by non-citizens. This insight gives a clue to perhaps the most sensible constitutional response to the Supreme Court’s decision. Not, as an angry gaggle of activists have proposed, through an amendment aimed at denying what Citizens United never asserted — that corporations are persons. But instead, through an amendment that recognizes what no one has ever asserted — that whether or not they are persons, corporations are not United States citizens.” (03/16/10) Link: http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/citizens-unite | |
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“Initially I was shocked at the thought of the University of Virginia welcoming former Justice Department lawyer John Yoo to the ‘Academical Village’ founded by Thomas Jefferson. There was something very wrong about that picture. Was it not Mr. Jefferson who condemned tyrannical acts — including ones that fell far short of waterboarding — in the Declaration of Independence? But I have come around to the view that Yoo’s visit on Friday could present a rich teaching moment for those of us Virginians who believe passionately in the highest ideals that Mr. Jefferson articulated so eloquently.” (03/16/10) Link: http://counterpunch.org/mcgovern03162010.html | |
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“Having an extra $250 pocket money to spend while jetting around the world’s capitals sounds pretty good to most people. But it’s chump change to some members of Congress. Taxpayers are the chumps. The $250 a day we give members is rarely spent on food, reports the Washington Times: ‘(S)chedules typically are jam-packed on foreign junkets, especially with meals and banquets sponsored by interests looking to curry favor with American VIPs. The fact is, our public servants rarely need their lavish street cash to get fed, so they blow taxpayer money on other things rather than return their leftover per diem.’ Congressional rules say they must return leftover cash to the government. They usually don’t, writes the Wall Street Journal. ‘(L)awmakers use the excess cash for shopping or to defray spouses’ travel expenses. Sometimes they give it away; sometimes they pocket it.’” (03/14/10) Link: http://stossel.blogs.foxbusiness.com/2010/03/14/chump-change/ | |
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“The circus sideshow that was CPAC folded its tent and left Washington weeks ago. However, its apparent ringmaster and chief snake oil salesman still sweats, struts, and sobs across the ’stage’ of conservative media — that medicine show never stops rolling and never stops hawking its ’solutions’ to Americans in desperate need of something to ease their economic aches and pains, and heal their political maladies. And like the medicine shows of old, Glenn Beck — and others like him — peddle magical ‘miracle cures’ that either poison directly by filling the body politic with toxic bile, or indirectly by distracting us from actual solutions, and aren’t intended to ‘cure what ails us’ so much as to make us think that we feel better even as the illness progresses.” [editor’s note: Gee, sounds a lot like the Big Pharma methodology! - SAT] (03/15/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/ygldy2t | |
Events and Movement News
jump to News Section | jump to Commentary Section
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“Legislative leaders unveiled the most sweeping ethics overhaul in decades yesterday, as they attempted to move past a series of high-profile scandals on Beacon Hill and reach an accord with Governor Deval Patrick on a sales tax increase. The ethics bill — which strengthens enforcement, levies higher penalties for violations and bans nearly all gifts to public officials — is the final piece of legislation requested by the governor before he said he would consider asking Massachusetts residents to pay more at the register.” (06/25/09) Link: http://tinyurl.com/mfhng9 | |
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“Vice President Joe Biden, well-known for his verbal gaffes, may have finally outdone himself, divulging potentially classified information meant to save the life of a sitting vice president. According to a report, while recently attending the Gridiron Club dinner in Washington, an annual event where powerful politicians and media elite get a chance to cozy up to one another, Biden told his dinnermates about the existence of a secret bunker under the old U.S. Naval Observatory, which is now the home of the vice president. The bunker is believed to be the secure, undisclosed location former Vice President Dick Cheney remained under protection in secret after the 9/11 attacks.” (05/17/09) Link: http://tinyurl.com/qhgu78 | |
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“Pressure from a dam, its reservoir’s heavy waters weighing on geologic fault lines, may have helped trigger China’s devastating earthquake last May, some scientists say, in a finding that suggests human activity played a role in the disaster. The magnitude-7.9 quake in Sichuan province was China’s worst in a generation, causing 70,000 deaths and leaving 5 million homeless. Just 550 yards from the fault line and 3.5 miles from the epicenter stands the 511-foot-high Zipingpu dam, the area’s largest. The quake cracked Zipingpu, forcing the reservoir to be drained. Fan Xiao, a chief engineer at the Sichuan Geology and Mineral Bureau, said Wednesday that the immense weight of Zipingpu’s waters — 315 million tons — likely affected the timing and magnitude of the quake.” (02/04/09) Link: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,487967,00.html | |
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“The Albuquerque Police Department has turned to the want ads for snitches. An ad this week in the alternative newspaper The Alibi asks ‘people who hang out with crooks’ to do part-time work for the police. It reads in part: ‘Make some extra cash! Drug use and criminal record OK.’ Capt. Joe Hudson says police received more than 30 responses in two days. He says one tip was a ‘big one’ but wouldn’t elaborate. An informant whose tip helps officers arrest a drug dealer could earn $50. A tip about a murder suspect could bring up to $700.” (11/23/08) Link: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,456466,00.html | |
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“Bharati Chaturvedi, the director and cofounder of Chintan, a small Indian NGO that provides education to waste-pickers, claims that more than 1 percent of Delhi’s population sifts through garbage, recycling as much as 59 percent of the city’s waste. ‘These waste-pickers are providing a public service — for free,’ she says. That may soon change. A new waste incinerator that turns trash into electricity is slated to be built in Timarpur, a suburb of Delhi. Because it will reduce the amount of methane off-gassed by landfills, it will generate carbon credits under the Kyoto Protocol. But the incinerator will also emit cancer-causing dioxins, mercury, heavy metals, and fly ash. Are the carbon credits available under Kyoto’s Clean Development Mechanism worth putting thousands of impoverished waste-pickers out of business?” (07/08) Link: http://tinyurl.com/638ptj | |
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“A conservation group has sued the U.S. Coast Guard in an effort to protect whales from being struck by passing ships off the coast of California. The Center for Biological Diversity’s lawsuit, filed Wednesday in federal court here, seeks to force the Coast Guard to consult more closely with the National Marine Fisheries Service . The group wants the Coast Guard to adhere to Endangered Species Act rules and consult with the National Marine Fisheries Service on how best to protect endangered whales.” (06/18/08) Link: http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_9626820 | |
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“By declaring bankruptcy, Vallejo has thrust itself into the national spotlight as a test case for thousands of floundering cities desperate to unload their extravagant public employee contracts. ‘There’s a wave of this coming across the U.S.,’ said Sajan George, an adviser to struggling public entities who worked on restructuring Orange County after it declared bankruptcy in 1994. ‘What happens in Vallejo could definitely set a precedent.’ Battered by the plummeting housing market and skyrocketing public employee contracts, Vallejo made dubious history Tuesday night by becoming the largest California city to declare bankruptcy. The North Bay city of 117,000 was on track to start the fiscal year July 1 with a $16 million deficit and no money in reserve.” (05/11/08) Link: http://tinyurl.com/6bketo | |
