UNDERNEWS: October 20, 2011

Confronting post-political disorder

Sam Smith

Since history only hangs around these days for six months or so, it is easy not to notice that Republicans don’t act like Republicans anymore nor Democrats like Democrats.

Robert Taft, Dwight Eisenhower, or Margaret Chase Smith would be horrified at such political buffoons as Michelle Bachman or Herman Cain, not to mention the fact that Rick Perry has garnered $17 million for a presidential bid when he is actually qualified for little more than selling cleaning appliances on cable TV at $19.95 each. Further, they would find the desertion of the middle class on behalf of tax favoritism for billionaires thoroughly stunning.

As for the Democrats, FDR or LBJ would be pretty angry at what Clinton did to public welfare and bank regulation or what Obama has done to civil liberties, hasn’t done about the housing crisis, and threatens to do to Social Security and Medicare.

In fact, it has become increasingly difficult to tell the two parties apart. After all, liberals practically had a collective orgasm when they nominated a man for president who not too much earlier had said this of Donald Rumsfeld:

"I don't think that soon-to-be-Secretary Rumsfeld is in any way out of the mainstream of American political life. And I would argue that the same would be true for the vast majority of the Bush nominees, and I give him credit for that."

One of the few honest pieces in the mainstream media at the time was by NY Times reporter Jodi Kantor, who wrote of Obama:

"Friends say he did not want anyone to assume they knew his mind; and because of that, even those close to him did not always know exactly where he stood. . . Charles J. Ogletree Jr., another Harvard law professor and a mentor of Mr. Obama, said, 'He can enter your space and organize your thoughts without necessarily revealing his own concerns and conflicts'. . .

"People had a way of hearing what they wanted in Mr. Obama's words. . Mr. Obama stayed away from the extremes of campus debate, often choosing safe topics for his speeches. . . In dozens of interviews, his friends said they could not remember his specific views from that era, beyond a general emphasis on diversity and social and economic justice."

Fourteen years earlier, I had written of Bill Clinton:

"Of course, in the postmodern society that Clinton proposes -- one that rises above the false teachings of ideology -- we find ourselves with little to steer us save the opinions of whatever non-ideologue happens to be in power. In this case, we may really only have progressed from the ideology of the many to the ideology of the one or, some might say, from democracy to authoritarianism.

"Among equals, indifference to shared meaning might produce nothing worse than lengthy argument. But when the postmodernist is President of the United States, the impulse becomes a 500-pound gorilla to be fed, as they say, anything it wants."

During the 2008 campaign, writing for Counterpunch, an anonymous political consultant explained America’s post-political culture: we were not choosing a politician but a product, one that made us feel good about ourselves - Obama was the iPod while Hillary Clinton was the cell phone. Wrote the consultant: "In the world of toys it is the one that stands out the most [that] is the most marketable," which helps to explain why a black, inexperienced, atypical pol like Obama did so well against Clinton. And why McCain, who still, metaphorically at least, was using a dial phone, had such a hard time.

The author also noted:

"The two primary features of the post political age are a politics completely drained of all its contents and ability or willingness to be used as an agent of change in social or economic policy, and its full integration into the world of American popular, consumer and entertainment culture. To such an extent that there exists today a seamless web between our political, economic, media and consumer cultures wherein the modes and values of one are completely integrated and compatible with the others."

One of the effects of this phenomenon is that apparently contradictory policies thrive. For example, with a political market being driven by upscale and comfortable middle class whites, "the forces that make it possible for the rapid acceptance of ideas such as gay marriage are the same which can create a society that will accept massive social inequalities."

Which helps to explain why white liberals can talk so much about equality and pay so little attention to its economic factors.

Two years ago, politics received what may turn out to have been its final blow: the atrocious Citizens United ruling of the Supreme Court. Politicians were now finally products indistinguishable from items in a mail order catalog – or small firms awaiting a large corporate takeover.

Admittedly, the ability to purchase politicians was not new, nor was the exclusive market that could afford to do so. An analysis of the 2004 primaries found that over 50% of the donations to both Kerry and Bush came from zip codes with a median income of over $100,000 a year and less than 5% from zip codes with a high level of poverty.

But Citizens United brought political bribery largely out of the closet, although most corporate donations are still funneled through cover organizations. In September 2010, just a few months after the Citizens United decision, Mother Jones described how it was working:

“The 60 Plus Association’s] spending has skyrocketed to nearly $6 million so far this year, and when Dave Weigel asked them where this tidal wave of new cash was coming from, they declined to say. But that kind of money doesn't come from five-dollar donations from tea partiers. It comes from deep pockets ¬ including, as Suzy Khimm reports, $400,000 from American Financial Group to Karl Rove's new campaign spending group, American Crossroads, a contribution that wouldn't have been possible before the Citizens United decision.

“Jonathan Martin of Politico reports that an internal Democratic spreadsheet has tallied up the spending so far, and the story is grim: as of this week, pro-Republican organizations had paid for a total of $23.6 million worth of ads compared to $4.8 million for Democratic-aligned groups…”

And more recently, writes Salon, “Deep-pocketed corporate interest are writing big checks to members of the super committee, the group of 12 senators and members of Congress who have been tasked with coming up with a plan to cut over $1 trillion from the budget in the next decade.

Ten members of the committee got $83,000 from some of the biggest corporate donors in the country in the three-week period in August that is covered in the latest federal election filings.”

The 2012 election has changed the post-political landscape even more. Barack Obama is the most reactionary Democratic president since Grover Cleveland. Even Woodrow Wilson got anti-trust laws passed and created the Federal Trade Commission.

The Republicans, meanwhile, are – and without an ounce of shame - publicly advocating huge public gifts for all those because of their wealth and greed least deserve it. The Eric Cantors and John Boehners are part of the most despicable and decadent crowd on the Hill since the days of the segregationist South.

What is most revealing, however, is the number of GOP politicians willing to openly advocate the subsidy of the smallest political class in America. There is no conventional political explanation for this; it’s never happened before; it should make no sense. No one, for example, has complained before that the middle class wants to take “someone else’s Cadillac” as Herman Cain claims.

The only reason this works is because conventional national politics is dead. The Boehners and the Cantors are not politicians but mercenaries for multi-millionaires and corporate hitmen. It is money that counts. With enough of the money, the votes take care of themselves. The votes you can buy through advertising and the lies you tell in it. If we had a fair and democratic political system every major party presidential candidate could be indicted for taking innumerable bribes.

Which is why the current demonstrations are so important. It is not that national politics does not still have a function in mitigating failure and oppression – will Obama take less of our civil liberties than Rick Perry is a fair question – but in matters of progress or even guaranteeing the benefits we still have, it offers us next to nothing.

We are left only with ourselves, our souls, our choices – and our allies. The protesters have stepped away from their computers – discovering that there is far more than just “click here” to activism – and in just a few days have started to change the nature of things.

It is with the sharing, joining, and cooperating with one another that we can continue the struggle. Its forms are numerous – and, strikingly, like the current protests, mostly non-national in origins. More like the congregational model of the 1960s civil rights movement.

Yes, there are more protests to be held. But there are also bank accounts to be shifted to community institutions or credit unions, cooperatives to join or start, local and state initiatives to launch, law suits to be filed, and unanticipated alliances to be formed. And, of course, a constitution to amend so corporations can no longer destroy our culture and our communities by pretending to be people, too.

The fact that much of this unfinished business is not national but rooted in personal, local and state alliances will be novel to some, but change has always started at the bottom.

The task in the months ahead is not to figure out how we react to some national politician but how we can make these politicians react to us and our communities. We must create a political ecology that even their money can’t destroy.

Question of the day

If bin Laden and Gaddafi are dead, why is the unemployment rate so high and so many homeowner still in trouble? They were meant to be the cause of all our problems.

Reoccupying America

Forget the $5 charge, here's how Bank of America is really screwing you

UPCOMING
• Nov 4 Demonstration against Koch group in DC
• November 5 is bank transfer day
• Plans for a national convention next summer

Choose your sharer

Global Greens
Bookshelf: The Gospel of the Working Class

The Gospel of the Working Class
Labor's Southern Prophets in New Deal America
By Erik S. Gellman and Jarod Roll

In this dual biography and cultural history, Erik S. Gellman and Jarod Roll trace the influence of two southern activist preachers, one black and one white, who used their ministry to organize the working class in the 1930s and 1940s across lines of gender, race, and geography. Owen Whitfield and Claude Williams, along with their wives, Zella Whitfield and Joyce Williams, drew on their bedrock religious beliefs to stir ordinary men and women to demand social and economic justice in the eras of the Great Depression, New Deal, and Second World War.

Williams and Whitfield preached a working-class gospel rooted in the American creed that hard, productive work entitled people to a decent standard of living. Gellman and Roll detail how the two preachers galvanized thousands of farm and industrial workers for the Southern Tenant Farmers Union and the Congress of Industrial Organizations. They also link the activism of the 1930s and 1940s to that of the 1960s and emphasize the central role of the ministers' wives, with whom they established the People's Institute for Applied Religion.

"This is the story of heroic people, black and white, who tried to democratize the southeastern states of the USA in the years before Dr. King and the Warren Court."-- Pete Seeger

Alantic coast sea level rising more than in past 2000 years

Populiation Media - An international research team has shown that the rate of sea-level rise along the U.S. Atlantic coast is greater now than at any time in the past 2,000 years and has shown a consistent link between changes in global mean surface temperature and sea level.

Sea level rise is one of the threats of climate change, as rising temperatures melt glaciers and ice sheets and put coastal populations at risk of flooding.

In the new study, researchers provided the first continuous sea-level reconstruction for the past 2,000 years and compared variations in global temperature to changes in sea level over this time period.

The team found that sea level was relatively stable from 200 B.C. to 1,000 A.D. Beginning in the 11th century, sea level rose by about 1/50 of an inch per year for 400 years, associated with a warm climate period known as the Medieval Climate Anomaly. A second period of stable sea level associated with a cooler era, called the Little Ice Age, persisted until the late 19th century. Since then, sea level has risen by nearly 1/10 of an inch per year on average – the steepest rate for more than 2,100 years.

Study finds locally owned businesses are better for communities

Rural Blog -Locally-owned businesses with fewer than 100 employees have a positive relationship to economic growth but large, non-local businesses have a negative correlation to with it, according to a study from the Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development at Penn State. Researchers found that community economic development efforts are often "off-track" because they invest in bringing outside businesses into an area rather than in local start-ups.

Jon Bailey of the Center for Rural Affairs writes that locally owned businesses are better for economic development because they don't outsource their operations in the way larger businesses tend to do. Bailey says in-sourcing keeps money in a community and it multiplies several times, building the local economy from within. Small businesses also bring innovation and productivity to the community. According to the study, this brings a focus to local start-ups, on which many rural communities depend.

Bailey says the study should be a lesson to communities about long-term economic growth that locally-owned businesses can provide. This should make local leaders understand that attracting non-local businesses that normally provide short-term employment should not be their main focus. The study makes clear the importance of initiatives that provide capital and assistance to local businesses, he says. One of the study authors, Stephen Goetz, sums it up another way: "We can't look outside of the community for our economic salvation. The best strategy is to help people start new businesses and help them grow and be successful." To read the complete study, click here.

FULL REPORT

ACLU finds New York police abusing tasers, especially on minorities

NYCLU - Police officers throughout New York State are consistently misusing and overusing Tasers, according to a report released today by the New York Civil Liberties Union.

Among the NYCLU’s findings:

Nearly 60 percent of reported Taser incidents did not meet expert-recommended criteria that limit the weapon’s use to situations where officers can document active aggression or a risk of physical injury.

Fifteen percent of incident reports indicated clearly inappropriate Taser use, such as officers shocking people who were already handcuffed or restrained.

Only 15 percent of documented Taser incidents involved people who were armed or who were thought to be armed, belying the myth that Tasers are most frequently used as an alternative to deadly force.

More than one-third of Taser incidents involved multiple or prolonged shocks, which experts link to an increased risk of injury and death.

More than a quarter of Taser incidents involved shocks directly to subjects’ chest area, despite explicit warnings by the weapon’s manufacturer that targeting the chest can cause cardiac arrest.

In 75 percent of incidents, no verbal warnings were reported, despite expert recommendations that verbal warnings precede Taser firings.

40 percent of the Taser incidents analyzed involved at-risk subjects, such as children, the elderly, the visibly infirm and individuals who are seriously intoxicated or mentally ill.

People of color are overwhelmingly represented in Taser incidents. Of all incidents in which race was recorded, 58 percent involved blacks or Latinos.

Wall Street still bankrolling Obama

Washington Post - Obama has brought in more money from employees of banks, hedge funds and other financial service companies than all of the GOP candidates combined, according to a Washington Post analysis of contribution data. The numbers show that Obama retains a persistent reservoir of support among Democratic financiers who have backed him since he was an underdog presidential candidate four years ago.

Who actually steals from retail stores

Ezra Klein, Washington Post - The British Centre for Retail Research has put out the first ever international study of how much money is lost to theft and error, and it’s kind of staggering: $119 billion was lost across the 43 industry sectors surveyed. About half of that goes to petty shoplifters, but employee theft and theft by suppliers and vendors also make up a sizable part of what goes missing each year:

Actual band names

• Peanut Butter Lovesicle

• You Say France & I Whistle

• Wheelchair Sports Camp

• French Horn Rebellion

• Deathrow Tull

• Dinowalrus and Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs

• Moonmen on the Moon, Man

• Radical Dads and Dad Rocks!

• The Library is On Fire

• Experimental Dental School and Baybee Teeth and Last Good Tooth
How to kill an ambassador

Philip Giraldi, Anti War - An increasing number of former intel officers that I network with are convinced that the alleged plot to kill the Saudi Arabian ambassador in Washington is not only completely implausible as described by the Justice Department and White House but also possibly the contrivance of an intelligence or security service other than that of Iran. There is a consensus that the Iranian government has no motive for carrying out the attack, as it would have only further isolated Tehran internationally and could easily have led to massive retaliation. The “rogue element” theory that Iran’s fractured politics might mean that someone in the Quds group was actually trying to embarrass someone else in the government has a certain plausibility, but no one who knows anything about Iran actually believes it to be true. Nor is it likely that Iran mounted the complicated operation to avenge the assassinations of several of its nuclear scientists. The scientists were killed by the Israelis, who would have been the target if that had been the case. So the only question becomes, who is doing what to whom and why?. . . .

Forget the $5 charge, here's how Bank of America is really scewing you

Bloomberg - Bank of America Corp. (BAC), hit by a credit downgrade last month, has moved derivatives from its Merrill Lynch unit to a subsidiary flush with insured deposits, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation.

The Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. disagree over the transfers, which are being requested by counterparties, said the people, who asked to remain anonymous because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. The Fed has signaled that it favors moving the derivatives to give relief to the bank holding company, while the FDIC, which would have to pay off depositors in the event of a bank failure, is objecting, said the people. The bank doesn’t believe regulatory approval is needed, said people with knowledge of its position.

“The concern is that there is always an enormous temptation to dump the losers on the insured institution,” said William Black, professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and a former bank regulator. “We should have fairly tight restrictions on that.”
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Record number of underemployed

Free Bieber: campaign to kill proposed law that would send you to prison for 5 years for singing copyrighted music on YouTube

Boing Boing - S.978, a new bill in Congress, make it a felony to post videos that contain copyright-infringing music, with up to five years in prison for violators. The clever folks at Fight for the Future have noticed that this law would have put Justin Bieber in jail, since he launched his career by posting videos of himself singing R&B tunes, in violation of copyright. The Free Bieber campaign is aiming to raise awareness of the campaign to fight S.978 and keep posting videos of yourself singing music legal, and they've got plenty of info for helping you fight the bill and enlist your friends to do the same. After you sign, you can submit a webcam video "from behind bars" explaining why jail-time for ordinary internet users is a terrible idea (they're calling it the "Biebercam"). You can also submit your own photos of Bieber in jail to their Tumblr.

Free Bieber campaign

Antidepressant use up 400 percent over last two decades

Health Day - The rate of antidepressant use among Americans of all ages increased nearly 400 percent over the last two decades, and 11 percent of Americans aged 12 and older now take antidepressant drugs, according to a federal government report.

Doctors who prescribe some popular antidepressants should monitor their patients closely for warning signs of suicide, especially when they first start the pills or change a dose.

The analysis of 2005-2008 data from the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys also showed that antidepressants are the third most common prescription drug taken by Americans of all ages and the most frequently used by those aged 18 to 44.

Protesters planning national convention

CBS, Philadelphia - Mayor Michael Nutter was reacting cautiously to word that national organizers of “Occupy Wall Street” and similar protests across the country plan to gather here in Philadelphia next summer.

The plans are found in a document posted online by an “Occupy Wall Street” working group, titled “The 99 Percent Declaration.” The document proposes a National General Assembly to be held in Philadelphia starting on July 4th, 2012 and running through next October.

The proposal says the Assembly would operate similarly to the original “Committees of Correspondence” ¬ the Founding Fathers who met in Philadelphia prior to what the group refers to as “the first American Revolution.”

It was not immediately clear if such a gathering will actually take place, but city officials are aware of the proposal and Mayor Nutter says he wants to talk about it with the organizers.

Word

Elizabeth Warren - The people on Wall Street broke this country, and they did it one lousy mortgage at a time. This happened more than three years ago, and there still has been no basic accountability, and there has been no real effort to

The GOP’s privatized political campaigns

Huffington Post - Over the past several months, businessman Herman Cain has spent tens of thousands of dollars in campaign cash on his own books and pamphlets, multiple outlets reported on Tuesday. The money -- which went to Cain's company T.H.E New Voice -- represented a significant percentage of the total funds raised by his campaign.

Cain's use of his presidential campaign as a means of personal enrichment has already attracted the attention of watchdog groups, which find his behavior troubling. David Donnelly, national campaigns director of the Public Campaign Action Fund, argued that it could represent a Federal Election Commission violation, since Cain would personally profit by driving his book up the bestseller list.

But the move is still not particularly surprising. Cain may be the most flagrant abuser of the practice -- his schedule contains a relatively equal mix of campaign events and stops on his book tour -- but he is hardly the only one. In late September, the Washington Post reported that fellow Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich was intertwining his campaign activities with promotional stops for his and his wife's books.

If campaigns have the potential to become vehicles for candidates to advance themselves financially, far more often they serve as veritable bank accounts for associates or friends of those candidates. Take, for instance, the latest financial disclosure reports for Mitt Romney's presidential campaign. From July 1 to Sept. 30, the former Massachusetts governor paid more than $2.15 million in fees to SJZ LLC, a financial consulting firm that manages the campaign’s fundraising efforts nationwide.

SJZ LLC was founded by Spencer Zwick, the national finance director for Romney's 2008 campaign and Romney's son Tagg's current business partner at the private equity firm Solamere Capital.

Another day with the NY police

Colorlines - A New York City Police officer has been charged with a federal civil rights violation after prosecutors said he used a racial slur while bragging that he had falsely charged a black man with resisting arrest. The man was detained last spring in Staten Island as part of the department’s controversial stop-and-frisk policy.

“I fried another nigger,” Officer Michael Daragjati, who’s been with the NYPD for eight years, said in a conversation with a friend after his phone was tapped. “Another nigger fried, no big deal.”

Federal prosecutors tapped Daragjati’s cell phone during an investigation for an unrelated insurance fraud case when investigators heard him bragging to a female friend about falsely charging a man with resisting arrest.

How the human microphone works

From the Urban Dictionary

HUMAN MICROPHONE

A tactic protesters can use to circumvent police bans on electronic amplification of speech. One person starts to speak to a large crowd. After a short sentence, everyone within hearing distance repeats whatever was said at the top of their lungs, allowing people outside of hearing distance to hear the speech.
The Human Microphone on Wall Street announced this speech:

"Mike Check."

"MIKE CHECK!!"

"The human microphone is slow and cumbersome"

"THE HUMAN MICROPHONE IS SLOW AND CUMBERSOME!!"

"but it really makes you think through"

"BUT IT REALLY MAKES YOU THINK THROUGH"

"what it is you want"

"WHAT IT IS YOU WANT!!"

"to say."

"TO SAY!!"

Bankrupting a generation: outstanding student loans hit $1 trillion

USA Today - The amount of student loans taken out last year crossed the $100 billion mark for the first time and total loans outstanding will exceed $1 trillion for the first time this year. Americans now owe more on student loans than on credit cards, reports the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Total outstanding debt has doubled in the past five years ¬ a sharp contrast to consumers reducing what's owed on home loans and credit cards.

Taxpayers and other lenders have little risk of losing money on the loans, unlike mortgages made during the real estate bubble. Congress has given the lenders, the government included, broad collection powers, far greater than those of mortgage or credit card lenders. The debt can't be shed in bankruptcy.The credit risk falls on young people who will start adult life deeper in debt, a burden that could place a drag on the economy in the future.

Facebook building profiles of non-users

Slashdot - Max Schrems of Europe Versus Facebook has filed numerous complaints about Facebook's data collection practices. One complaint that has failed to draw much scrutiny regards Facebook's creation of Shadow Profiles. 'This is done by different functions that encourage users to hand personal data of other users and non-users to Facebook... (e.g. synchronizing mobile phones, importing personal data from e-mail providers, importing personal information from instant messaging services, sending invitations to friends or saving search queries when users search for other people on facebook.com). This means that even if you don't use it, you may already have a profile on Facebook.'

Super junta keeping proposals secret

Project on Government Oversight - POGO and a host of other good government groups called on the chairs and ranking members in both chambers of Congress last week to make public their recommendations to the "Super Committee." The deadline for these submissions was October 14th...

According to the letter, the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, aka the Super Committee, has been "mired in secrecy since its inception." Angela Canterbury, director of public policy at POGO, recently dubbed it the "Supersecret Committee."

POGO and allies say that the lack of transparency in this process is worrying, given that Members of the Super Committee have met repeatedly with each other and lobbyists behind closed doors.

Obama Has Awlaki’s 16-Yr-Old Son, Friends Killed at Dinner

The extra-legal assassination of New Mexico cleric Anwar al-Awlaki was certainly controversial in its own right, but reports about the assassination targeting some sort of terrorist convoy seem to be crumbling under evidence and the number of children killed in the attack.

Among the slain was also Abdel-Rahman Awlaki, Anwar’s 16-year-old son, one of his cousins Ahmed Abdelrahman Awlaki, and several of their friends, who were all teenage boys.

Though the Obama Administration seems pretty comfortable with assassinating the elder Awlaki, even though he was a US citizen and not charged with any crimes, the killing of the assorted other people, including several teenagers, seems considerably more suspect.

Cain on board of corporations that were stimulus junkies

Think Progress - According to his personal financial disclosure (view a copy here), Cain supplements his income by being a board member for several large corporations. As a board member, he collected $202,500 from Agco Corporation, a farm products company, and $259,008 from Whirlpool Corporation (including options and a board salary). A review of stimulus spending records reveal that Cain’s companies have eagerly accepted stimulus money:

– Agco Corporation received up to $5 million of stimulus grants to develop “supply systems to handle and deliver high tonnage biomass feedstocks for cellulosic biofuels production.”

– Whirlpool Corporation received a $19,330,000 stimulus grant from the Department of Energy to develop SmartGrid solutions.

– Whirlpool launched a special offer to encourage customers to take advantage of the stimulus program’s energy efficient appliance program. The company advertised that certain Whirlpool, Maytag and KitchenAid appliances are available for rebate through the $300 million rebate program authorized by the stimulus.

– Whirlpool also received two stimulus grants of $2,042,700 to develop next generation energy efficient refrigerators.

Detective admits NY police plant drugs

Alternet - The NYPD has been under fire in recent months for illegal searches resulting in thousands of low-level marijuana arrests, mostly of people of color. As corrupt as this practice is, testimony from Stephen Anderson, a former NYPD narcotics detective, shows it's just the tip of the iceberg.

According to Anderson, who testified at trial Wednesday, New York City police regularly planted drugs on innocent people to meet quotas. Anderson should know. He was arrested in 2008 for planting cocaine on four men in a bar in Queens. …

"As a detective, you still have a number to reach while you are in the narcotics division," Anderson added.

Clearly, the NYPD was requiring officers to fill quotas. The problem, it seems, was not lazy officers, but a lack of the guilty. … Disturbing data uncovered by the Drug Policy Alliance and Queens College sociology professor Dr. Harry Levine shows many incidences of abuse of police authority. In fact, the evidence was so strong and stunk of such wrongdoing that Police Commissioner Ray Kelly actually issued an internal memo last month, ordering officers to stop charging people based on improper searches.

Conventional rail grows faster than high speed

It’s buried in the Amtrak news release but the high speed Acela route only had its second best year while 20 of 27 state sponsored and short distance routes set records – as did the NE conventional regional route that travels the same course as the Acela. The conventional route also carries many more passengers than the Acela.

Which raises again the question: why did Obama obsess on high speed rail (for business class riders) as opposed to expanding more conventional service? It looks like, once more, a milder version of his bailing out the banks and doing so little for ordinary homeowners.

The myth of American exceptionalism

Obama copyright czar cozied up over close to industry

Wired - Top-ranking Obama administration officials, including the U.S. copyright czar, played an active role in secret negotiations between Hollywood, the recording industry and ISPs to disrupt internet access for users suspected of violating copyright law, according to internal White House e-mails.

The e-mails, obtained via the Freedom of Information Act, show the administration’s cozy relationship with Hollywood and the music industry’s lobbying arms and its early support for the copyright-violation crackdown system publicly announced in July.

Sim City had 999 plan before Cain

Techland - Presidential hopeful Herman Cain has jumped to the top of Republican polls thanks to a bold tax scheme called the "999 Plan." But it'd be even bolder if Sim City hadn't come up with the idea eight years ago.

The 999 Plan would impose a nine percent corporate tax rate, a nine percent income tax rate and a national sales tax of nine percent. Those are the exact same rates used by 2004's Sim City 4 for industrial, residential and commercial taxes, the Huffington Post points out.

While it's possible that Cain's simple and memorable tax plan drew inspiration from his years as chairman and CEO of Godfather's Pizza, there's no denying that Sim City 4 had the idea first.

Anita Perry blasphemes God, claims he supports her husband

MSNBC [Anita Perry]: "It’s been a rough month. We have been brutalized and beaten up and chewed up in the press to where I need this today," she said. "We are being brutalized by our opponents, and our own party. So much of that is, I think they look at him, because of his faith. He is the only true conservative – well, there are some true conservatives. And they’re there for good reasons. And they may feel like God called them too. But I truly feel like we are here for that purpose."

"My grandfather was the deacon in a Christian church and he made sure I went to Sunday school every Sunday because nothing made him prouder than for me to hear him in his sermon on Sunday," she said, before trailing off and bowing her head for about 15 seconds. "My grandfather still speaks to me today."

She likened Perry's decision to run to encountering a "burning bush," a reference to the Biblical story of Moses receiving a sign from God. And Anita Perry suggested that her husband's current difficulties were a "test."

"Last week, someone came up to Rick and gave him the scripture. He said Rick, I want to tell you God is testing you," she said.

Questions about how one goes about blowing up a Saudi Arabian ambassador in an overpriced Washington restaurant

Sam Smith

1. Is the Obama administration able to distinguish between an international incident and a personal mental problem? The alleged perp’s friends and his ex wife seem to think not. Wouldn’t therapy have been a better approach than entrapment? As one friend put it, “It’s a puzzle. Maybe somebody offered him some money. He doesn’t have the brain to say no.” According to the Washington Post, he was “renowned for being almost comically absent-minded, perpetually losing keys, cellphones, briefcases, anything that wasn’t tied down. He failed at a succession of ventures from used cars to kebabs.

2. Does the Obama administration really think Iran is that dumb? As Patrick Cockburn put it: “The claim that Iran employed a used-car salesman with a conviction for check fraud to hire Mexican gangsters to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington goes against all that is known of Iran’s highly sophisticated intelligence service.”

3.Why does Eric Holder’s crowd have such interesting ties to Mexican drug lords but is so hostile to the domestic - and far more peaceful and less damaging – marijuana market? Why does no one get involved anymore with a patriotic and respectable east coast hit man? And, given the economy, why are we outsourcing entrapment?

4. Name one significant thing that the United States has done in the past ten years to make it less likely that someone from the Mid East might want to do something crazy like this.

5. Name one case where ostracizing a petty dictator has improved the safety or progress of US foreign policy? How does making such people more paranoiac help our goals?

6. What if we treated the Saudi dictatorship the same way?

7. What was in it for Iran? As the Financial Times said, “Killing a foreign diplomat on US soil would be an extraordinary escalation of tensions between Tehran and Washington. It is not obvious why the Iranian leadership, and in particular the cautious Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader, would risk such a high stakes gamble.”

8. Name one Hollywood producer who would find this plot acceptable.

9. Name one thing Eric Holder has done really well in his career.

10. Who needs yet another war in the Mid East?

Seven lies about the economy

Robert Reich

1. Tax cuts for the rich trickle down to everyone else. Baloney. Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush both sliced taxes on the rich and what happened? Most Americans’ wages (measured by the real median wage) began flattening under Reagan and have dropped since George W. Bush. Trickle-down economics is a cruel joke.

2. Higher taxes on the rich would hurt the economy and slow job growth. False. From the end of World War II until 1981, the richest Americans faced a top marginal tax rate of 70 percent or above. Under Dwight Eisenhower it was 91 percent. Even after all deductions and credits, the top taxes on the very rich were far higher than they’ve been since. Yet the economy grew faster during those years than it has since. (Don’t believe small businesses would be hurt by a higher marginal tax; fewer than 2 percent of small business owners are in the highest tax bracket.)

3. Shrinking government generates more jobs. Wrong again. It means fewer government workers – everyone from teachers, fire fighters, police officers, and social workers at the state and local levels to safety inspectors and military personnel at the federal. And fewer government contractors, who would employ fewer private-sector workers. According to Moody’s economist Mark Zandi (a campaign advisor to John McCain), the $61 billion in spending cuts proposed by the House GOP will cost the economy 700,000 jobs this year and next.

4. Cutting the budget deficit now is more important than boosting the economy. Untrue. With so many Americans out of work, budget cuts now will shrink the economy. They’ll increase unemployment and reduce tax revenues. That will worsen the ratio of the debt to the total economy. The first priority must be getting jobs and growth back by boosting the economy. Only then, when jobs and growth are returning vigorously, should we turn to cutting the deficit.

5. Medicare and Medicaid are the major drivers of budget deficits. Wrong. Medicare and Medicaid spending is rising quickly, to be sure. But that’s because the nation’s health-care costs are rising so fast. One of the best ways of slowing these costs is to use Medicare and Medicaid’s bargaining power over drug companies and hospitals to reduce costs, and to move from a fee-for-service system to a fee-for-healthy outcomes system. And since Medicare has far lower administrative costs than private health insurers, we should make Medicare available to everyone.

6. Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. Don’t believe it. Social Security is solvent for the next 26 years. It could be solvent for the next century if we raised the ceiling on income subject to the Social Security payroll tax. That ceiling is now $106,800.

7. It’s unfair that lower-income Americans don’t pay income tax. Wrong. There’s nothing unfair about it. Lower-income Americans pay out a larger share of their paychecks in payroll taxes, sales taxes, user fees, and tolls than everyone else.

Demagogues through history have known that big lies, repeated often enough, start being believed ¬ unless they’re rebutted. These seven economic whoppers are just plain wrong. Make sure you know the truth – and spread it on.

Herman Cain's economist

Ezra Klein, Washington Post - Doug Mataconis sums up what we know about the man behind Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan:

That Cain doesn’t have a lot of specifics to back up the slogans shouldn’t be all that surprising. While he loves to mention the plan during his media appearances, he is far less willing to share any of the details behind the plan, such as the backup for his assertion that the plan is revenue neutral, or the even who has helped him come up with the plan. That’s not surprising, though, once you realize that the plan’s chief architect, Rich Lowrie, isn’t an economist at all and is in fact a Wells Fargo Branch employee working outside of Cleveland, Ohio, whose highest educational degree is a apparently a B.S. in Accounting from Case Western Reserve University.
My colleague Jennifer Rubin interviewed Lowrie on Tuesday: “He repeatedly refused to say how much more of the tax burden would be borne by the poor and middle class than under the current system.”

Nearly two thirds like jobs bill the GOP killed

Word

Wat Stearns - Was at OccupyBoston today. It was so sweet. You know? I mean, you really don't get a free floating societal island of love very often in the U.S. And really, you never get that without a commercial or institutional purpose of some kind. I understand Burning Man and Rainbow Gathering are heavily institutionalized now, even. Usually it's a music festival, or a school situation, and there are a...ll kinds of rules governing you every minute while you're trying to reach for your inner love and truth potential. It was such a relief of tension to be there. I hope we can really spread this vibe all over the country.

Obama threatens media with jail time over medical marijuana

Sign On San Diego - Federal prosecutors are preparing to target newspapers, radio stations and other media outlets that advertise medical marijuana dispensaries in California, another escalation in the Obama administration's newly invigorated war against the state's pot industry.

This month, U.S. attorneys representing four districts in California announced that the government would single out landlords and property owners who rent buildings or land where dispensaries sell or cultivators grow marijuana.

U.S. Attorney Laura E. Duffy, whose district includes Imperial and San Diego counties, said marijuana advertising is the next area she's "going to be moving onto as part of the enforcement efforts in Southern California." Duffy said she could not speak for the three other U.S. attorneys covering the state, but noted their efforts have been coordinated so far.

"I'm not just seeing print advertising," Duffy said in an interview with California Watch and KQED. "I'm actually hearing radio and seeing TV advertising. It's gone mainstream. Not only is it inappropriate – one has to wonder want kind of message we're sending to our children – it's against the law."

Federal law prohibits people from placing ads for illegal drugs, including marijuana, in "any newspaper, magazine, handbill or other publication." The law could conceivably extend to online ads; the U.S. Department of Justice recently reached a $500 million settlement with Google for selling illegal ads linking to online Canadian pharmacies.

The censorship of religion’s real role in politics

Sam Smith

The clearest indication that we have not adequately separated religion and state is that we are not supposed to talk about the former during a political campaign. This allows the two to become surreptitiously blended and for us, during what is supposed to be a secular activity, to support or oppose issues whose heart is deeply religious such as abortion or gay marriage, or a deadly collection of religious wars.

The best rule of thumb is that religion is absolutely fair territory for political debate when it leaves in its wake war, a crusade against another religion, ethnic cleansing, the destruction of constitutional government, or the endangerment of domestic tranquility.

Besides, if Pope Benedict XVI talked about Jews the way he talks about gays or treated blacks the way he treats women, what would we call him? Why are we not allowed to talk about this?

The ultimate irony of conservative politicians is that they pretend to be a bastion of Christian politics when, in fact, they are comprised in no small part of despoilers, usurers, war-mongers, hypocrites, idolaters and groupies of false prophets - all of whom are frowned upon by the book they pretend to follow. And their opponents, who are more faithful to the words the conservatives only quote, are often such good Christians that they never say a mumblin' word about it all.

Most recently, the issue has arisen concerning Mitt Romney and once again the message from the establishment media is that we are to respect his faith and not question it.

While, in this land, everyone is theoretically free to practice their beliefs the beliefs one freely practices must include one’s conviction that someone else’s beliefs are full of shit.

Thus, it would be perfectly fair for citizens or the media to question Romney or such matters as speaking in tongues, the prevalence of visions, or the idea that the New Jerusalem will be built in America. Governor, in what American locale will Zion arise?

Of more immediate concern is the Mormon position on homosexuality, described by the site, What Mormons Belive, this way:

|||| The Mormon Church is firm on its position condemning homosexuality as sinful behavior…. Frequently, a gay or lesbian who has been raised a Mormon will disassociate themselves from the Church because of Mormon doctrines, but a gay Mormon community is growing. There are also many gay Mormons who wish to overcome their same-sex attraction in order to have a successful eternal marriage and gain all the blessings promised by the Lord. It is a long and difficult struggle to change one's sexual orientation, but despite the denial of many pro-gay groups and psychologists, there are many formerly gay Mormons that have done it.

The Mormon Church will not bow to popular opinion that asserts because 'they were born that way', gays and lesbians should be permitted to live a homosexual lifestyle. The Mormon Church does not accept biological determination for same-sex attraction.

The tendency toward homosexuality is sometimes unfairly stigmatized but in Mormon doctrine is not treated any different than adultery, fornication, or any other sinful act. The natural tendency toward sin is no excuse. ||||

This is pretty slimy stuff for someone running for president to be involved with and certainly worth discussing.

Many religions – especially those favored by the American right – have similar dirty pockets of belief or childish fantasies. But being president is not a fantasy; it is real. And, if because of these beliefs and fantasies, we find ourselves, for example, in an endless war in the Middle East, than not speaking of these matters is not only unwise, it could be suicidal.

The issue is not whether one is entitled to one’s beliefs; the issue is whether, as result of the beliefs of our president and majority party, we are dragged into policies that force their beliefs upon us. And a campaign is the best time to start discussing this. After the election may be too late.

GOP debate gets serious

Michele Bachmann says if you turn Herman Cain's "9-9-9" plan upside down it becomes 6-6-6. "I think the devil is in the details," she said at the GOP debate.

Rick Perry: "We don't need to be focused on passing this policy or that policy."

What Finland could teach us about teaching

Diane Ravitch, Ed Week - I recently returned from a trip to Europe... The highlight of my trip was visiting schools in Finland... For the past decade, 15-year-old Finnish students have consistently been at or near the top of all the nations tested in reading, mathematics, and science. And just as consistently, the variance in quality among Finnish schools is the least of all nations tested, meaning that Finnish students can get a good education in virtually any school in the nation. That's equality of educational opportunity, a good public school in every neighborhood.

What makes the Finnish school system so amazing is that Finnish students never take a standardized test until their last year of high school, when they take a matriculation examination for college admission. Their own teachers design their tests, so teachers know how their students are doing and what they need. There is a national curriculum¬broad guidelines to assure that all students have a full education¬but it is not prescriptive. Teachers have extensive responsibility for designing curriculum and pedagogy in their school. They have a large degree of autonomy, because they are professionals.

Admission to teacher education programs at the end of high school is highly competitive; only one in 10¬or even fewer¬qualify for teacher preparation programs. All Finnish teachers spend five years in a rigorous program of study, research, and practice, and all of them finish with a masters' degree. Teachers are prepared for all eventualities, including students with disabilities, students with language difficulties, and students with other kinds of learning issues.

The schools I visited reminded me of our best private progressive schools. They are rich in the arts, in play, and in activity. I saw beautiful campuses, including some with outstanding architecture, filled with light. I saw small classes; although the official class size for elementary school is 24, I never saw a class with more than 19 children (and that one had two assistant teachers to help children with special needs).

Teachers and principals repeatedly told me that the secret of Finnish success is trust. Parents trust teachers because they are professionals. Teachers trust one another and collaborate to solve mutual problems because they are professionals. Teachers and principals trust one another because all the principals have been teachers and have deep experience. When I asked about teacher attrition, I was told that teachers seldom leave teaching; it's a great job, and they are highly respected.

Where we really are. . .

Majority of Republicans want higher taxes for the wealthy

Bloomberg - More than half of Republicans say wealthier Americans should pay more in taxes to bring down the federal budget deficit.

Fifty-three percent of self-identified Republicans back an increase in taxes on households making more than $250,000, a sentiment at odds with the party’s presidential candidates...

More than two-thirds of all Americans back higher taxes on the rich and even larger numbers think Medicare and Social Security benefits should be left alone, according to a Bloomberg-Washington Post national poll conducted Oct. 6-9.

Meanwhile, furthermore & on the other hand

JOE MADDEN

Jen McCreight blogs about giving a talk at a meeting of Mensa, the “international high-IQ society.” ... I was struck by one anecdote in particular: the color-coded stickers that indicated huggability.

* Green = Hug me!
* Yellow = Ask me first
* Red = Don’t touch me

A group of self-selected high-IQ people feels the need to have stickers on their name tags to let strangers know whether it’s okay to come up and hug them. - Discover Magazine

Five bike friendly small towns

Family caught in corn maze (complete with 911 call transcript)

Ryanair plans only one toilet per plane

After she's voted for 70 years, GOP bigots prevent 96 year old black woman from registering

Obama without a teleprompter

TOM LEHRER EXPLAINS NEW MATH

Great thoughts of Mitt Romney
As to what to do for the housing industry, specifically, and are there things that you could do to encourage housing: One is, don't try and stop the foreclosure process. Let it run its course and hit the bottom. Allow investors to buy homes, put renters in them, fix the homes up. And let it turn around and come back up.

Great thoughts of Rick Santorum
Rick Santorum doesn't like the idea of gays in the military because "They're in close quarters, they live with people, they obviously shower with people."

Great thoughts of Herman Cain
Average tax change of the 999 plan (Be sure to zoom in on the image or you won't see all the benefit for those making over $250k a year)

Stats
91 percent of kids between 2 and 17, or about 64 million people, are playing video games, up 9 percentage points compared to 2009.

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