Undernews for Feb 22

Labor update

Alternet - Mirroring events in Wisconsin, Democrats in the Indiana House have left the state to deny a quorum and block legislation that would strip collective bargaining rights. From the Indianapolis Star: A source said Democrats are headed to Illinois, though it was possible some also might go to Kentucky. They need to go to a state with a Democratic governor to avoid being taken into police custody and returned to Indiana.

What has been widely ignored about Walker's bill is a sneaky provision that paves the way for him to cut, or eliminate, Medicaid and BadgerCare healthcare benefits for low-income people: "In short: Walker's administrative rules change would allow the Department of Health Services, via the overwhelmingly GOP-controlled budget committee, to change state laws unilaterally, skipping the legislative process altogether. . . . [It would] give the state Department of Health Services the authority to restrict eligibility, modify benefits and make other changes to Medicaid with less legislative review than required now. If the federal government didn't grant permission to make some of the changes, the state would drop at least 50,000 people from Medicaid next year."

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker warns that state employees could start receiving layoff notices as early as next week if a bill eliminating collective bargaining rights isn't passed soon.

Washington Post - President Obama has traveled across the country since the November elections to tout his economic vision and rebuild relationships with the business community, meeting with executives, community college presidents, students, venture capitalists, plant workers and others. One group has been left out: the nearly one in 10 Americans who is old enough to work and seeking a job but can't find one. In eight trips outside of Washington since Election Day, Obama, who frequently says he uses his out-of-state travel to better understand the lives of Americans, has held almost no formal meetings with groups of unemployed people or organizations that advocate for them. White House officials were unable to give a single example of him interacting, even in private, with a person who had recently lost a job, although they emphasized they don't know every person Obama might have met.

Robert Reich - Public budgets are in trouble because revenues plummeted over the last two years of the Great Recession. They're also in trouble because of tax giveaways to the rich. Before Wisconsin's budget went bust, Governor Walker signed $117 million in corporate tax breaks. Wisconsin's immediate budge shortfall is $137 million. That's his pretext for socking it to Wisconsin's public unions.

AFL CIO - Workers right now in Indiana are packing into the state Capitol to protest Republican-led moves to impose ”right to work” for less legislation and other bills up for debate this week that would eliminate collective bargaining rights for teachers and public employees, aim to limit wages and seek to make it harder for workers to designate a union as their representative.

Think Progress - The last time Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) went after public-sector unions it had “disastrous results” for him and for taxpayers. As Milwaukee County Executive in 2009, Walker tried to get rid of the unionized security guards at the county courthouse and replace them with contractors, which he promised would save the county money. The County Board rejected the idea, but in March of 2010 Walker “unilaterally ordered it,” claiming there was a budget emergency.

Walker hired the British security contractor Wackenhut ¬ of Kabul Embassy sex scandal fame ¬ to replace the guards. Unfortunately for Walker and Milwaukee taxpayers, an arbiter later ruled that Walker had overstepped his authority, and ordered the county to reinstate the unionized workers, pay back wages, and pay tens-of-thousands of dollars in arbiter fees. As MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow pointed out , Walker’s “dress reversal” for his current union busting effort may end up costing Milwaukee taxpayers an extra half a million dollars.

The billionaire brothers behind a governor's war on unions

TPM - Just a short time ago we brought you word that the state senate Democrats in Wisconsin were worried that the Republicans could manage an end-run and push the union-busting bill through without their being present. The approach would be to take that stuff out of the budget bill, which requires a larger quorum of senators present, and put it into regular legislation they could pass with the Dems still out of state. But now the Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald is saying he won't take the legislation up until the Democrats come back.

The back story seems to be that there's a moderate faction among the Republican senators. And they are apparently refusing to go ahead with that approach. We don't know that latter point for certain yet. But it seems to be the most logical inference to draw from Fitzgerald's statement. And his clear ruling out of such an option seems to leave the standoff in place, with no clear option for Walker absent some agreement with the Democrats.

Eco notes

Tree Hugger - Researchers claim that Roundup Ready GE crops contain an organism, completely unknown until now, that has been shown to cause miscarriages in farm animals.

Tree Hugger - Scientists from the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies are reporting that dead baby dolphins are washing up along the Gulf Coast of Mississippi and Alabama at 10 times the normal rate. That is, more than the normal number that can be expected to be either stillborn or died in infancy.So far 17 baby dolphins have been found (14 in Alabama and 3 in Mississippi), in the first birthing season since the Gulf Oil Spill occurred. Normally just one or two dead babies are found in the region in January and February.

Mid East update

Gaddafi vows to fight on

Demonstrations resume in Yemen

More than 100,000 protesters turn out in Bahrain

Obama's lead based on the Review's moving average of latest polls

Political farce of the day

What's next: Bernie Madoff to head the Federal Reserve?

Guardian, UK - Former presidents George Bush Sr and Bill Clinton have joined forces to open a new centre in Arizona committed to encouraging civility in US politics, in the wake of the shooting of a Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

The two are to serve as honorary chairmen of the centre, the National Institute for Civil Discourse, whose board will also include other prominent US political figures from both the Democratic and Republican parties.

Bush, in a statement at the opening of the new centre, said: "Our country needs a setting for political debate that is both frank and civil." Clinton said the new institute "can elevate the tone of dialogue in our country".

Among those who will serve on the board of the new centre will be the former supreme court justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the former Democratic Senate majority leader Tom Daschle, former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, former chief of staff to Ronald Reagan, Kenneth Duberstein, and Fox News anchor Greta Van Susteren.

About $1m has been raised for the centre, which will be funded by private donations.

Who said Greens weren't hip?

DC Statehood Green Party - The Washington Area Music Association held their annual awards celebration last Sunday evening. Head Roc, a strong DC Statehood Green Party member and supporter and the Mayor of DC Hip Hop won for his Funk. Rock & Soul Hip Hop Band “GODISHUS.

Head Roc recently completed an Empower DC project with many songs about housing, childcare, education, stewardship of public property and organizing: “If you want to change your situation, you got to join an organization.” He is now writing songs about the continuing corporate attack on unions.

Stats

Michael A. Fletcher, Washington Post - Only one in four African Americans and one in six Hispanics reported owning stocks, bonds or mutual funds, a new poll shows. In addition, only 46 percent of blacks and 32 percent of Hispanics said they had an individual retirement account or any similar retirement arrangement, according to a new Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation-Harvard University poll. Half of whites said they had stocks, bonds or mutual funds, and two in three said they had IRAs, 401(k)s or similar holdings. . .

Not only are African Americans and Hispanics less likely than whites to own retirement accounts or investment securities, they also are far less likely to own homes, which remains the largest engine of wealth creation for most Americans. And when they do own homes, they tend to have less equity in them, in large part because they live in communities where prices appreciate more slowly, many analysts say.

Cliche Challenge

Listening to Howard Fineman salivate as he used the word "optics" led us to check it for possible listing in our cliche challenge. Not only did have 49 million Google hits in the past month, that's half as many as it has had in the whole past year. Waydago, Howard; your flair for conventional rhetoric is more than secure.

Cliche challenge

Ayn Rand: Textbook sociopath

Mark Ames, Alternet - One reason most countries don't find the time to embrace Ayn Rand's thinking is that she is a textbook sociopath. In her notebooks Ayn Rand worshiped a notorious serial murderer-dismemberer, and used this killer as an early model for the type of "ideal man" she promoted in her more famous books. These ideas were later picked up on and put into play by major right-wing figures of the past half decade, including the key architects of America's most recent economic catastrophe -- former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan and SEC Commissioner Chris Cox -- along with other notable right-wing Republicans such as Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Rush Limbaugh and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford.

The loudest of all the Republicans, right-wing attack-dog pundits and the Teabagger mobs fighting to kill health care reform and eviscerate "entitlement programs" increasingly hold up Ayn Rand as their guru. Sales of her books have soared in the past couple of years; one poll ranked Atlas Shrugged as the second most influential book of the 20th century, after the Bible. . .

Oklahoma town learns about climate change in one week

News 6 - One week ago it was minus 31, now? Lots of sun. Nowata set a record low for Oklahoma. Now the area has a new record high for this date. When there is a 100 plus degree temperature change like that in a week's time, you can bet the car wash is a busy place.

Another reason to avoid Wal Mart

The American Civil Liberties Union says it will appeal a decision by a federal judge to dismiss its lawsuit filed in June against Wal-Mart and the manager of its Battle Creek, Michigan store for wrongfully firing an employee for using medical marijuana in accordance with state law. The patient, Joseph Casias, used marijuana to treat the painful symptoms of an inoperable brain tumor and cancer.

Michigan voters in 2008 passed the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act, which provides protection for the medical use of marijuana under state law. But in a 20-page ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Robert J. Jonker said the law doesn't mandate that businesses like Wal-Mart make accommodations for employees like Casias, the Battle Creek, Michigan Wal-Mart's 2008 Associate of the Year who was fired from his job at the store for testing positive for marijuana, despite being legally registered to use the drug. In accordance with the law, Casias never ingested marijuana while at work and never worked while under the influence of marijuana.

Ex-CIA analysts says agency is hiding information on causes of veterans' war illnesses

Spy Talk - A former CIA intelligence analyst says in a new book that the agency is “sitting on” 1.5 million documents that could shed new light on the mysterious maladies that have afflicted veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

Some facts about Wisconsin's pensions

Naked Capitalism - According to David Cay Johnson of Tax.com, the average Wisconsin pension is $24,500 a year, which is hardly lavish. But what is stunning is that 15% of the money contributed to the fund each year is going to Wall Street in fees. Thus the blame for any shortfall should go in very large measure to rank incompetence in the state’s dealing with the financial services industry and the impact of the financial crisis on state revenues. A recent paper by Dean Baker concludes:

Most of the pension shortfall using the current methodology is attributable to the plunge in the stock market in the years 2007-2009. If pension funds had earned returns just equal to the interest rate on 30-year Treasury bonds in the three years since 2007, their assets would be more than $850 billion greater than they are today. This is by far the major cause of pension funding shortfalls. While there are certainly cases of pensions that had been under-funded even before the market plunge, prior years of under-funding is not the main reason that pensions face difficulties now. Another $80 billion of the shortfall is the result of the fact that states have cutback their contributions as a result of the downturn.

In addition, the [Wisconsin] governor has poor-mouthed about the state pension and budgetary concerns generally while handing out further tax breaks to business. And in a strained economic climate, the state has been increasing gimmies to corporations. The state had tried tightening up provisions which had contributed to 2/3 paying no taxes in 2007, often due to income shifting to lower tax states. But tax expert Lee Sheppard believes that corporate tax cuts implemented by Walker will probably undo 2009 tax law changes intended to increase revenues from corporations. And note corporations pay for only 5% of the state’s general revenues. .

Obama undermines organic farming

Ari LaVaux, Alternet - The Obama administration struck a blow to freedom in the realms of food and agriculture late January, when the USDA deregulated genetically modified alfalfa seed. The agency's decision threatens to deprive farmers of the right to produce GM-free milk and meat and deny consumers the right to purchase it. It also threatens the relevance of the USDA's organic program.

Then, on Feb. 4, the USDA did it again, this time by partially deregulating GM sugar beet seed. Both announcements were great news for Monsanto, which owns both types of GM seeds -- and USDA chief Tom Vilsack as well, apparently. Vilsack's trips on the Monsanto corporate jet while governor of Iowa are well documented, and his "Governor of the Year" award from the Biotechnology Industry Association was surely well deserved. Indeed, both of Vilsack's recent deregulations were big victories for the biotech industry as a whole. And the sugar beet move is especially chilling to those harboring fears of a GM planet. The USDA's deregulation of sugar beet seed defied an order from a San Francisco District Court demanding an Environmental Impact Statement be produced before USDA deregulated the seed.

USDA deregulated it anyway. And even if the agency is ultimately penalized for this intransigence, the seed will have been planted, which is a significant gain of ground for GM agriculture-lovers.

Who really holds US debt?

Peter Grier, Christian Science Monitor - At the end of 2010, about 53 percent of US debt held by the public was held domestically, according to a recent study from the Congressional Budget Office.

Within this slice, the largest category is individuals – Treasury notes are good solid additions to any portfolio. US individuals hold 12 percent of the country’s debt. Next under the domestic category comes the Federal Reserve, which holds 9 percent of US debt, then pension and retirement funds, mutual funds, and state and local governments.

Foreigners hold about 47 percent of US public debt. And yes, the largest foreign holder here is China – but only by a hair. Chinese investors are owed 9.8 percent of US debt. Next comes Japan, at 9.6 percent, and the United Kingdom, at 5.1 percent.

Oil exporting nations as a group, including Saudi Arabia, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, etc., account for about 2.6 percent of US debt. Brazil has 1.8 percent. The rest is split among lots of other countries.

So if anybody tells you that Americans work for China now, since they hold all our T-notes and can yank our fiscal chain, tell them that’s an exaggeration.

Scientists ponder droughts in Amazon

NPR - The world's largest tropical forest, the Amazon, experienced something rare last year ¬ a drought. It wasn't the earth-cracking kind of drought that happens in the American Southwest or the Australian outback, but it did stunt or kill lots of trees. It was the second such drought in the Amazon in five years, and forest scientists are trying to understand why these droughts are happening, and what their effects will be for the planet.

The 2005 drought in the Amazon was so unusual that scientists called it a "100-year event" ¬ something supposed to happen only once a century. . .

Writing in the journal Science, Lewis and his scientific team say the droughts are probably caused by the northward movement of especially warm water in the Atlantic Ocean. That shift carries moisture north, robbing big chunks of the Amazon of rain it normally would get.

How to solve Social Security's long term problem in one easy step

Robert Reich - In a former life I was a trustee of the Social Security trust fund. So let me set the record straight.

Social Security isn’t responsible for the federal deficit. Just the opposite. Until last year Social Security took in more payroll taxes than it paid out in benefits. It lent the surpluses to the rest of the government.

Now that Social Security has started to pay out more than it takes in, Social Security can simply collect what the rest of the government owes it. This will keep it fully solvent for the next 26 years. . .

Remember, the Social Security payroll tax applies only to earnings up to a certain ceiling. (That ceiling is now $106,800.) The ceiling rises every year according to a formula roughly matching inflation.

Back in 1983, the ceiling was set so the Social Security payroll tax would hit 90 percent of all wages covered by Social Security...Today, though, the Social Security payroll tax hits only about 84 percent of total income.

It went from 90 percent to 84 percent because a larger and larger portion of total income has gone to the top...

If we want to go back to 90 percent, the ceiling on income subject to the Social Security tax would need to be raised to $180,000.

Presto. Social Security’s long-term (beyond 26 years from now) problem would be solved...

Not incidentally, several months ago the White House considered proposing that the ceiling be lifted to $180,000. Somehow, though, that proposal didn’t make it into the President’s budget.

Why seahorses look like seahorses

BBC - The strange and beautiful seahorse has fascinated people for centuries. And scientists now say they understand why this unusual fish evolved its equine-like head and S-shape.

A study published in the journal Nature Communications has shown that, compared to straight-bodied pipefish from which they evolved, seahorses are able to strike at more distant prey.

The team concludes that the seahorses' delicate curves evolved to help it hunt and feed.

Leading activist abuses by police in plain view of Hillary Clinton

David Swanson - As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave her speech at George Washington University yesterday condemning governments that arrest protestors and do not allow free expression, 71-year-old Ray McGovern was grabbed from the audience in plain view of her by police and an unidentified official in plain clothes, brutalized and left bleeding in jail. She never paused speaking. When Secretary Clinton began her speech, Mr. McGovern remained standing silently in the audience and turned his back. Mr. McGovern, a veteran Army officer who also worked as a C.I.A. analyst for 27 years, was wearing a Veterans for Peace t-shirt.

Blind-sided by security officers who pounced upon him, Mr. McGovern remarked, as he was hauled out the door, "So this is America?" Mr. McGovern is covered with bruises, lacerations and contusions inflicted in the assault.

Mr. McGovern is being represented by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund. "It is the ultimate definition of lip service that Secretary of State Clinton would be trumpeting the U.S. government's supposed concerns for free speech rights and this man would be simultaneously brutalized and arrested for engaging in a peaceful act of dissent at her speech," stated attorney Mara Verheyden-Hilliard of the PCJF.

Recovered History: TWA 800 revisited

Sam Smith

I recently was discussing the TWA 800 disaster with someone formerly in the airline industry who had direct knowledge of situation and the plane. The conversation brought to mind something that has troubled me ever since: if the crash was due only to a design failure, why did it so quickly escalate the massive airport security with which we are all so familiar? And why did everyone from the president on down act as though it might have been a terrorist attack?

The plane went down in July 1996 off Long Island with 230 people aboard. There was enough official concern over the possibility of a terrorist attack that both the FBI and CIA conducted investigations. Neither found anything to challenge the conclusion of the National Transportation Safety Board that the incident was due to something, probably a short circuit, causing the explosion of flammable fuel in a fuel tank. The terrorist attack theory and another, that it was caused by misguided missiles from a US Naval vessel, would eventually be forcibly dismissed by official sources and mainstream media.

But a week after the crash, CNN reported:
|||| After consoling relatives of those who died last week in the crash of TWA Flight 800, President Clinton announced new steps Thursday to improve airline safety. Clinton said he does not know whether the July 17 crash that killed 230 people was the result of a security breach. Instead the measures were described as a response to increased anxiety over air travel prompted by the TWA crash and the ValuJet crash that killed 110 people May 11.

Clinton said authorities will hand search more luggage and screen more bags and that all airliners to and from the United States will be searched before takeoff. Every plane, every cabin, every cargo hold, every time.

To improve airline safety and security, Clinton said he would order Vice President Al Gore will head a commission, and will report to Clinton within 45 days on additional security measures, including plans to use high tech machines to detect sophisticated explosives.

Clinton acknowledged the steps would increase inconvenience and cost for passengers, but he said, the safety and security of the American people must be our top priority.||||

Less than two months later, the presidential commission under Al Gore went into session and made recommendations just four days later, probably a record for presidential commissions that will never be broken.

Jack Cashill and James Sanders would write later:
||| The full commission held its first executive session on Sept. 5, 1996, and on Sept. 9 submitted its tough preliminary report to the president. The report advanced 20 serious recommendations to strengthen aviation security. The proposals called for a 60-day test for matching bags with passengers on domestic flights and a computer-based system of ''profiling'' passengers that, of course, immediately riled the ACLU.

Also proposed were ''vulnerability assessments'' at every commercial airport in the country, increased numbers of bomb-sniffing dogs, better screening and training of the workers who examined bags, and more frequent tests of their work. At a press conference on Sept. 9, Vice President Gore declared his strong support for these proposals. .

Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board, saying they are convinced that none of the physical evidence recovered from TWA Flight 800 proves that a bomb brought down the plane, plan tests intended to show that the explosion could have been caused by a mechanical failure alone.

Weeks before the Times had reported that "the only good explanations remaining are that a bomb or a missile brought down the plane off Long Island. . . .

In the weeks following Sept. 11, 2001, several political insiders referred to the destruction of Flight 800 as a terrorist incident. But only one did it twice. That person is Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts. Appearing on Larry King Live on Sept. 11 itself, Kerry suggested that TWA Flight 800 was brought down by a terrorist act. On Sept. 24, on Hardball with Chris Matthews, the authors watched as Kerry casually recited a number of terrorist attacks against the United States, among them TWA "Flight 800." Like Larry King before him, Chris Matthews either did not catch the remark or chose to let it pass.

As security slows the process, travelers may find themselves spending more time in airports than on airplanes. In addition, some conveniences will be removed. Curbside baggage check in for international flights will be discontinued, and hotels will longer be allowed to deliver guests bags to the airport. ||||

Given everything that has happened since, including 9/11, it's hard to get back to the spirit of that time. I don't know what brought down TWA 800 but because of things like the foregoing I'm less inclined that many to dismiss the possibility that it was either a misguided Navy missile or an enemy attack. And I find myself wondering if, in fact, it was an terrorist attack and if this had been admitted by the government, how different the resulting American history might have been. We might not even have had 9/11. One will never know.

I do know that at the time, flying a plane was a lot simpler. I know that in part because of a story I wrote just two years after the TWA 800 crash. It sounds, by today's standards, quaint and satirical but clearly I had been surprised and seriously troubled because of the novelty of the experience. I was the first person I knew who had gone through this and it was rare enough that I would eventually get an apology from an aide to the president of U.S. Airways. The instigation was clearly TWA 800. The story won't go away and with its memory, the question keeps creeping in: what really happened to TWA 800?

Progressive Review, November 5, 1998 - The Progressive Review's editor, Sam Smith, was detained at Washington National Airport for a half hour on Wednesday Nov. 4 as five US Airways security officials, 3 police officers, and one bomb-sniffing dog attempted to determine if he was, as they suspected, a terrorist.

Total evidence for the suspicion came from a defective high tech security machine convinced that the Quaker-educated Smith's computer and power supply box contained nitroglycerine. Despite admitting that certain brands of computers had been falsely interpreted by the machine, the security officials required former Coast Guard officer Smith to empty everything from his backpack. They also called two passenger service shift managers to the scene who ordered the 60-year-old Smith's checked bags removed from the aircraft and inspected for traces of explosives.

One of the bags carried clothes, the other contained copies of "Sam Smith's Great American Political Repair Manual" (WW Norton, 1997, $14.95) for sale during appearances by Smith. The backpack contained considerable Carefree gum, various paperwork, as well as Richard Sennett's "The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism." In his book, Sennett notes that in all forms of work, people identify with tasks that are difficult, tasks that challenge them. In the new workplace, however, the machine has become "the only real standard of order. . . By a terrible paradox, when we diminish difficulty and resistance, we create the very conditions for uncritical and indifferent activity on the part of the users."

By the time the computer had been tested by a second machine, which also thought the Fujitsu laptop might be a bomb, Smith, who has never received even a speeding ticket before, began having intimations of imminent mortality as well as feeling deep humiliation and shock as hundreds of his fellow US Airways passengers walked by observing his plight. Efforts to engage the security personnel in normal human discourse produced but a stream of bureaucratic bromides such as "I'm just doing my job," "There is nothing I can do," and "I don''t make the rules." Efforts to stave off physical collapse by sitting on the table, however, brought a rebuke from one of the guards. At no time was any concern expressed for the needs or physical comfort of US Airways frequent flyer Smith.

Said longtime Washington journalist Smith, who was on his way to Kansas City to give several talks and interviews and take part in a conference of Green activists: "I was trapped in that post-Orwellian synergy of defective technology and incompetent bureaucracy. At a time when our highest public officials ignore the law with impunity, it appears that a citizen a few years shy of Medicare can no longer go about his business without being considered a terrorist. I was told that it was all being done for my own good, but I fail to see how being publicly terrified and humiliated by US Airways because it has bought some crummy techno-toy helps the war against terrorism. Any terrorist watching the incident would have been emboldened rather than chastened."

In the end, the bomb-sniffing dog happily nosed about the computer, licked the hard drive and quickly returned without complaint to K-9 officer Jim Cox. Smith, who covered his first Washington story in 1957, was permitted to restuff his backpack and board the plane. Said Vietnam era veteran Smith, "A half dozen living human beings surrendered their will to a dubious creation of the late 20th century marketplace of fear, but the dog was smart enough to trust his own judgment. Officer Cox, to his credit, trusted the dog as well. As Harry Truman said, if you want a friend in Washington, get a dog."

Cox was the only one of those involved in the search who expressed more than perfunctory concern to Smith, visiting the plane before takeoff to do so. Flight attendant Brian M. Lindsay, who had observed the bizarre incident as he checked through security, also expressed dismay and checked on Smith's well-being several times during the flight. Smith says any legal action will be held in abeyance pending a colloquy he hopes to have with US Airways officials.

Question of the day

Why do liberals like the commerce clause of the Constitution better than they like the 1st, 4th & 10th Amendments?

Only senators to oppose Patriot Act extension

Baucus (D-MT)
Begich (D-AK)
Brown (D-OH)
Harkin (D-IA)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Lee (R-UT)
Merkley (D-OR)
Murray (D-WA)
Paul (R-KY)
Sanders (I-VT)
Tester (D-MT)
Udall (D-NM)

Obama willing to compromise on Social Security & Medicare with the rightwing

"This is not a matter of, 'you go first, I go first. It's a matter of everybody having a serious conversation about where we want to go and then ultimately getting in that boat at the same time so it doesn't tip over. - Barack Obama

No more Justin Bieber jokes. . . he supports single payer

Asked if he wanted to become an American citizen, Bieber made clear his love for Canada -- and its health care system. "You guys are evil," he sad. "Canada's the best country in the world. We go to the doctor and we don't need to worry about paying him, but here, your whole life, you're broke because of medical bills. My bodyguard's baby was premature, and now he has to pay for it. In Canada, if your baby's premature, he stays in the hospital as long as he needs to, and then you go home." - Rolling Stone

Highly ignored rules for defense budgeting

RULE 1: Weapons are not the most important ingredient in winning wars. People come first; ideas are second and hardware is only third.

RULE 2: Not all weapons are equally important in war. Their importance is unrelated to their cost - Center for Defense Information

Obama's priorities

The amount Obama is cutting for low income home heating assistance is about the same as the cost of fighting one more week in Afghanistan.

Local hero: homeowner forecloses on Wells Fargo

Jeff Gelles, Philadelphia Inquirer - Frustrated by a dispute with Wells Fargo Home Mortgage and by his inability to get answers to questions, West Philadelphia homeowner [Patrick Rodgers] took the mortgage company to court last fall. When Wells Fargo still didn't respond, Rodgers got a $1,000 default judgment against it for failing to answer his formal questions, as required by a federal law called the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act. . . The result: At least for the moment, the contents of Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, 1341 N. Delaware Ave., are scheduled for sheriff's sale on March 4 to satisfy the judgment and pay about $200 for court and sheriff's costs.
Posted by TPR at 2/16/2011 0 comments

Gorgeous Basciano to be a model prisoner

NY Post - Vincent "Vinny Gorgeous" Basciano already has the perfectly coiffed hair, but at his upcoming capital-murder trial, the former Bonanno crime-family boss will also have a personal valet -- courtesy of the US Bureau of Prisons. A federal judge has ordered prison officials to make available to the mobster a selection of five coordinated business outfits each day of his death-penalty trial.

The judge's unusual order -- most defendants are lucky if they have a single suit arranged by their lawyers -- was prompted by a request from Basciano's defense attorneys aimed at ensuring that the mobster's trial in Brooklyn federal court will not be marred by the sort of wardrobe malfunction seen at his 2007 murder and racketeering trial. That's when Basciano ran out of freshly laundered dress shirts and was forced to borrow a shirt-and-tie combination from the judge himself. In that trial, when Basciano showed up to court in a gray suit over a white undershirt, Garaufis asked his size and sent out for a dress shirt. "I would do my shopping here," the grateful Bonanno boss joked while changing.

Bookshelf: A Renegade History of the United States

Jesse Walker, Reason - If you associate the era of the American Revolution with individual liberty, you're right in more ways than you probably realized. In the lead-up to the War of Independence and during the revolution itself, prosecutions for prostitution, sodomy, and drunkenness were rare. Divorce was easy. Women entered a wide range of professions. Members of different races mixed freely in raucous taverns.

Such liberties shocked the more respectable classes, including the Founding Fathers; in what one historian calls "a counterrevolution against the pleasure culture of the cities," the young country's leaders called for new restrictions on disreputable recreations. Soon there were crackdowns on illicit sex, tighter controls on divorce, and a booming network of anti-vice groups that "targeted gambling houses, brothels, dance halls, and lower-class taverns."

The historian speaking is Thaddeus Russell, 45, a professor at Occidental College and the author of a provocative and engaging new book, A Renegade History of the United States. While Russell is a man of the left, more or less, he doesn't have many kind words for the traditional pantheon of liberal heroes. One chapter of his book attacks Franklin Roosevelt for cartelizing the economy and regimenting the culture. Another highlights the puritanical side of Martin Luther King, who "called for blacks to stop drinking and gambling and to curtail their desires for luxuries." Even the '60s counterculture gets a mixed review, with Russell finding an ascetic strain in a movement more famous for its hedonism.

Fascinating interview with the author

Order

U.S. journalist has camera, notes, computer searched by customs officials

Alternet - Independent journalist Brandon Jourdan recently returned from Haiti after being on assignment documenting the rebuilding of schools in the earthquake-devastated country. However, when he returned to the United States, he was immediately detained after deboarding the plane by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. He was questioned about his travels and had all of his documents, computer, phone and camera flash drives searched and copied. This is the seventh time Jourdan says he has been subjected to lengthy searches in five years, and has been told by officials that he is “on a list.”

Wal Mart sales continue to drop

Reuters - Wal-Mart Stores Inc posted its seventh consecutive quarterly drop in sales at existing U.S. stores and said it will take some time to turn around sales in that unit. The world's largest retailer has struggled with pricing as it has lost customers to dollar stores while it also is still recovering from a poorly executed decision, since reversed, to pare down the number of items it offered.

New Zealand video

Measuring America's shame

Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail?

GOP Congressmember wants to censor press with Espionage Act

Recovered History: Thurgood Marshall's letters

Seattle Times backs legalized marijuana

The answer to Afghanistan: get out

Spousal irritation rating chart c.1930

ENDS

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