Atlas Insight In Sight Site

10 Policies We Can All* Agree On

2008-12-13T12:37:00.006-05:00

YES we can

ECONOMY

Repair and rebuild neglected bridges, railroads, schools, and other infrastructure, designing for climate change & a post-petroleum world.
Extend unemployment insurance benefits.
Provide tax relief to middle- and low-income families, and reinstate fair taxes on high-wealth individuals and corporate profits.
Adopt the Employee Free Choice Act to increase opportunities to unionize.

*
67% Favor public works projects to create jobs.

55% Favor expanding unemployment benefits.

73% Say corporations don’t pay a fair share of taxes.

76% Support tax cuts for lower- and middle-income people.

71% Say unions help their members;

53% Say unions help the economy in general.

[sources]

FAMILIES

Make the minimum wage a “living wage” adequate to keep working families out of poverty.
Provide everyone vacation and family leave.
Provide gay and lesbian couples with the legal protections afforded to straight couples.
Make bankruptcy and foreclosure laws protect families first, not predatory lenders.

*
80% Support increasing the federal minimum wage.

59% Favor guaranteeing two weeks or more of paid vacation.

75% Want to limit rate increases on adjustable-rate mortgages.

64% Are not confident that life for our children’s generation will be better than it has been for us.

65% Believe same-sex couples should be allowed to marry or form civil unions.

[sources]

CONSTITUTION

Fully restore habeas corpus for all people in U.S. custody.
Protect our right to privacy and freedom from warrantless search and seizure.
Keep the internet free of corporate and government censorship and obstruction. Protect “net neutrality.”
Restore the balance of power between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government.

*
70% Support restoring habeas corpus rights for detainees at Guantanamo.

58% Believe a court warrant should be required to listen to the telephone calls of people in the U.S.

59% Would like the next president to do more to protect civil liberties.

68% Believe the president should not act alone to fight terrorism without the checks and balances of the courts or Congress.

[sources]

ENERGY & CLIMATE

Take a leadership role in reducing our own greenhouse gas emissions.
Maximize the conservation and efficient use of existing energy supplies.
Launch and fund ambitious research & development programs, offer tax credits, invest in public works projects, and focus government procurement to jump- start renewable energy deployment.
Invest in public transit and intercity rail.
Tax carbon; use revenues for renewables and to help ratepayers.

*
79% Favor mandatory controls on greenhouse gas emissions.

76% Believe that oil is running out and a major effort is needed to replace it.

90% Favor higher auto fuel efficiency standards.

75% Favor clean electricity, even with higher rates.

72% Support more funding for mass transit.

[sources]

HEALTH CARE

Offer all Americans the option of joining a single-payer national health insurance program, paid for with tax dollars.
Break the drug companies’ monopoly and lower drug prices by allowing Americans to buy prescription drugs abroad.

*
73% Believe our health care system is in crisis or has “major problems.”

64% Believe the government should provide national health insurance coverage for all Americans, even if it would raise taxes.

55% Favor one health insurance program covering all Americans, administered by the government, and paid for by taxpayers.

69% Believe the government should make it easier to buy prescription drugs from other countries.

[sources]

FOREIGN RELATIONS

Lead a global effort to abolish nuclear weapons.
Rule out unilateral attacks, deploying weapons in space, and torture.
Phase out U.S. role as global police, and instead work through the U.N. and other international agencies to develop and enforce international law.
Work with other countries to improve global health and environment.

81% Oppose torture and support following the Geneva Conventions.

76% Say the U.S. should not play the role of global police.

79% Say the U.N. should be strengthened.

73% Favor abolishing nuclear weapons, with verification. 80% favor banning weapons in space.

85% Say that the U.S. should not initiate military action without support from allies.

[sources]

IRAQ & IRAN

Develop a timetable for a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.
Build no long-term military bases in Iraq. Leave control of Iraq’s oil in the hands of Iraqis.
Fund an international effort to help restore the economy and infrastructure of Iraq.
Abolish future uses of private mercenaries.
Enter into negotiations with Iran about nuclear issues and regional stability. End threats of attack and attempts to destabilize the Iranian government.

*
63% Want U.S. forces home from Iraq within a year.

47% Favor using diplomacy with Iran. 7% favor military action.

57% Say going to war in Iraq was the wrong decision.

67% Believe we should use diplomatic and economic means to fight terrorism, rather than the military.

[sources]

ELECTIONS

Provide public financing for elections campaigns.
Bring back the Fairness Doctrine and get broadcasters to open the people’s airwaves to free campaign information.
Require voter-verified paper ballots that are audited and can be recounted.
End partisan districting and voter-roll purges.
Fully implement the Voting Rights Act and enforce existing laws against vote suppression.
Restore voting rights to ex-felons who have served their sentences.

*
86% Say big companies have too much power.

74% Favor voluntary public financing of campaigns.

66% Believe intentional acts are likely to cause significant voting machines errors.

80% Say ex-felons should have their voting rights restored.

[sources]

CRIMINAL JUSTICE

Drop punitive sentences for drug possession and other nonviolent offenses in favor of substance-abuse treatment, fines, community service, and restitution.
Offer training and counseling to prepare inmates for a crime-free life after release.
Channel youth into schools and jobs, not jail.

*
65% Believe attacking social problems is a better cure for crime than more law enforcement.

87% Support rehabilitation rather than a “punishment-only” system.

81% Say job training is “very important” for reintegrating people leaving prison. 79% say drug treatment is very important.

[sources]

IMMIGRATION

Implement trade policies that strengthen, not undermine, rural economies south of the border, reducing the poverty and displacement that spur migration. Start by ditching NAFTA.
Increase minimum wage and worker protection for all, documented and undocumented.
Provide a pathway to legal status and citizenship for immigrants already here.

*
56% Believe NAFTA should be renegotiated.

64% Believe that on the whole, immigration is good for the country.

80% Favor allowing undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. to stay and apply for citizenship if they have a job and pay back taxes.

[sources]

I.O.U.S.A

2008-12-13T12:34:00.001-05:00

Byte Size

[One Nation. Under Stress. In Debt]

Bank Eat Bank

2008-11-22T18:18:00.001-05:00

[American News Project]

4193, 555

2008-11-11T14:02:00.004-05:00

Happy Veteran's Day

4193

555

The "S" Word

2008-10-27T19:04:00.004-04:00

From "S"mirking Chimp:

Whenever I hear the old joke, "He was born on third base but thinks he hit a triple," I cringe a little, because I immediately think of the inverse -- of the millions of people who are born with two strikes against them.

"In America, if you have the brains and the talent and are willing to work as hard as it takes, you can make it to the top."

Well, yes; the operative word in that oft-repeated maxim is "can." But you can have a top-class brain and a top-class talent and work yourself to the bone and still go to the grave with nothing in this country... if you happen to have been born with two strikes against you.

See, brains and talent and hard work don't mean a thing when you aren't to the manour born in America; not unless you step into at least a tiny little bit of luck to go with it. And that shouldn't have to be the American Way.

A level playing field, indeed. Imagine an America in which everyone begins life on home base, with no balls and no strikes. Or, to use a clearer analogy -- on a level field, rather than some on a mountaintop and some in a ditch. Simple, really: Healthcare for all, food and shelter, education and basic employment -- all basic necessities guaranteed for all. For every other element one might wish, one would simply have to... work hard. To compete in a truly free market, unemcumbered by hunger, by the disabilities of race, family circumstances, "who you know." One's merits would truly be the yardstick by which accomplishments, achievements and advancements would be measured. THAT... is socialism.

Now, WHO could feel threatened by THAT?

I'll tell you who: The TRUE elitists in this VERY unlevel playing field on which we all stumble and on which we've been playing, blindfolded, listening to propaganda over their corporate-funded loudspeakers for generations. Propaganda that's told us that "Socialism equals Communism equals Russia equals Stalin equals BAD!

And lately, we have several decades' worth of examples of wildly successful Socialist nations to refute arguments against Socialist philosophy and economics. Not hideous beasts of governments run amokl rather, governments providing basic necessities and services with fabulous efficiency, NOT meddling in their citizens' private lives... and then getting out of the way. And the citizens' approval ratings of their governments? Through the roof. Their Happiness index? Quality of life? Life expectancy? Through the roof. And ours? Let's just say we're competing with the likes of Bolivia.

So... Maybe Americans are getting... less stupid. Because for one thing, they're not buying the "Barack is a Socialist" garbage. And for another, they seem to recognise Socialism when they see it (See: $700 billion bailout for the financial system and using taxpayer money to do it)... and they seem, by all known polling systems, to think it would be a REALLY good idea to start doing some MORE of it -- where it counts: say, healthcare, education, green infrastructure...

SO WAKE THE FUCK UP, Washington and Corporate Elites. The Sleeping Giant is stirring.

Old Turkey

2008-10-24T18:49:00.002-04:00

Wassup?

Just What in the Heck Does the Vice President Do, Anyway?

2008-10-22T16:36:00.003-04:00

Beside shoot people in the face?

Protest the Wall Street Bailout

2008-10-19T17:15:00.000-04:00

[VoteNader]

Jews and Cuban Food

2008-10-01T18:42:00.002-04:00

[still inDecided?]

Mo Money, Mo Problem

2008-10-01T18:04:00.013-04:00

Barack Obama is Just Saying...

2008-09-29T20:57:00.002-04:00

Obama Runs Constructive Criticism Ad Against McCain

We're cool, right?

Debt to America!

2008-09-24T20:25:00.003-04:00

[Daily Show]

Three Way Presidential Debate

2008-09-23T22:32:00.001-04:00

[VoteNader.org]

Now is the Time to Resist Wall Street's Shock Doctrine

2008-09-23T21:09:00.005-04:00

By Naomi Klein - September 22nd, 2008

I wrote The Shock Doctrine in the hopes that it would make us all better prepared for the next big shock. Well, that shock has certainly arrived, along with gloves-off attempts to use it to push through radical pro-corporate policies (which of course will further enrich the very players who created the market crisis in the first place...).

The best summary of how the right plans to use the economic crisis to push through their policy wish list comes from Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich. On Sunday, Gingrich laid out 18 policy prescriptions for Congress to take in order to "return to a Reagan-Thatcher policy of economic growth through fundamental reforms." In the midst of this economic crisis, he is actually demanding the repeal of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which would lead to further deregulation of the financial industry. Gingrich is also calling for reforming the education system to allow "competition" (a.k.a. vouchers), strengthening border enforcement, cutting corporate taxes and his signature move: allowing offshore drilling.

It would be a grave mistake to underestimate the right's ability to use this crisis -- created by deregulation and privatization -- to demand more of the same. Don't forget that Newt Gingrich's 527 organization, American Solutions for Winning the Future, is still riding the wave of success from its offshore drilling campaign, "Drill Here, Drill Now!" Just four months ago, offshore drilling was not even on the political radar and now the U.S. House of Representatives has passed supportive legislation. Gingrich is holding an event this Saturday, September 27 that will be broadcast on satellite television to shore up public support for these controversial policies.

What Gingrich's wish list tells us is that the dumping of private debt into the public coffers is only stage one of the current shock. The second comes when the debt crisis currently being created by this bailout becomes the excuse to privatize social security, lower corporate taxes and cut spending on the poor. A President McCain would embrace these policies willingly. A President Obama would come under huge pressure from the think tanks and the corporate media to abandon his campaign promises and embrace austerity and "free-market stimulus."

We have seen this many times before, in this country and around the world. But here's the thing: these opportunistic tactics can only work if we let them. They work when we respond to crisis by regressing, wanting to believe in "strong leaders" - even if they are the same strong leaders who used the September 11 attacks to push through the Patriot Act and launch the illegal war in Iraq.

So let's be absolutely clear: there are no saviors who are going to look out for us in this crisis. Certainly not Henry Paulson, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, one of the companies that will benefit most from his proposed bailout (which is actually a stick up). The only hope of preventing another dose of shock politics is loud, organized grassroots pressure on all political parties: they have to know right now that after seven years of Bush, Americans are becoming shock resistant.

[The Huffington Post]

Protecting the public interest in any economic "bailout"

2008-09-23T20:58:00.006-04:00

Dear Friends,

The U.S. government has been turned into an engine that accelerates the wealth upwards into the hands of a few. The Wall Street bailout, the Iraq War, military spending, tax cuts to the rich, and a for-profit health care system are all about the acceleration of wealth upwards. And now, the American people are about to pay the price of the collapse of the $513 trillion Ponzi scheme of derivatives. Yes, that’s half a quadrillion dollars. Our first trillion dollar compression bandage will hardly stem the hemorrhaging of an unsustainable Ponzi scheme built on debt "de-leverages."

Does anyone seriously think that our public and private debts of some $45 trillion will be paid? That the administration's growth of the federal debt from $5.6 trillion to $9.8 trillion while borrowing another trillion dollars from Social Security has nothing to do with this? Does anyone not see that when we spend nearly $16,000 for every family of four in our society for the military each year that we are heading over the cliff?

This is a debt crisis, not a credit crisis. Just as FDR had to save capitalism after Wall Street excesses, we have to re-invigorate our economy with real - not imaginary - growth. It does not address the never-ending war on the middle class.

The same corporate interests that profited from the closing of U.S. factories, the movement of millions of jobs out of America, the off-shoring of profits, the out-sourcing of workers, the crushing of pension funds, the knocking down of wages, the cancellation of health care benefits, the sub-prime lending are now rushing to Washington to get money to protect themselves.

The double standard is stunning: their profits are their profits, but their losses are our losses.

This bailout will not bring real jobs back to America. It will not bring back jobs that make things. It does not rebuild our schools, streets, neighborhoods, parks or bridges. The major product of this financial economy is now debt. Industrial capitalism has been destroyed.
In the next few days I will push for a plan that includes equity for every American in any taxpayer investment in this so-called bail-out plan. Since the bailout will cost each and every American about $2,300, I have proposed the creation of a United States Mutual Trust Fund, which will take control of $700 billion in stock assets, convert those assets to shares, and distribute $2,300 worth of shares to new individual savings accounts in the name of each and every American.
I will also insist that all of the following issues be considered in whatever Congress passes:

Reinstatement of the provisions of Glass-Steagall, which forbade speculation
Re-regulation of the finance, insurance, and real estate industries
Accountability on the part of those who took the companies down:
a) resignations of management
b) givebacks of executive compensation packages
c) limitations on executive compensation
d) admission by CEO's of what went wrong and how, prior to any government bailout
Demands for transparencey
a) with respect to analyzing the transactions which took the companies down
b) with respect to Treasury's dealings with the companies pre and post-bailout
An equity position for the taxpayers
a) some form of ownership of assets
Some credible formula for evaluating the price of the assets that the government is buying.
A sunset clause on the legislation
Full public disclosure by members of Congress of assets held, with possible conflicts put in blind trust.
A ban on political campaign contributions from officers of corporations receiving bailouts
A requirement that 2008 cycle candidates return political contributions to officers and representatives of corporations receiving bailouts

And, most importantly, some mechanism for direct assistance to homeowners saddled with unreasonable or unmanageable mortgages, as well as protection for renters who have lived up to their obligation but fall victim to financial tragedy when the property they live in undergoes foreclosure.

These are just some thoughts on the run. You will hear more from me tomorrow.

Dennis J Kucinich
www.Kucinich.us
216-252-9000 877-933-6647

[Take the Power Back]

Free Market Ideology is Far from Finished

2008-09-23T17:44:00.003-04:00

By Naomi Klein - September 19th, 2008

Whatever the events of this week mean, nobody should believe the overblown claims that the market crisis signals the death of "free market" ideology. Free market ideology has always been a servant to the interests of capital, and its presence ebbs and flows depending on its usefulness to those interests.

During boom times, it's profitable to preach laissez faire, because an absentee government allows speculative bubbles to inflate. When those bubbles burst, the ideology becomes a hindrance, and it goes dormant while big government rides to the rescue. But rest assured: the ideology will come roaring back when the bailouts are done. The massive debts the public is accumulating to bail out the speculators will then become part of a global budget crisis that will be the rationalization for deep cuts to social programs, and for a renewed push to privatize what is left of the public sector. We will also be told that our hopes for a green future are, sadly, too costly.

What we don't know is how the public will respond. Consider that in North America, everybody under the age of 40 grew up being told that the government can't intervene to improve our lives, that government is the problem not the solution, that laissez faire was the only option. Now, we are suddenly seeing an extremely activist, intensely interventionist government, seemingly willing to do whatever it takes to save investors from themselves.

This spectacle necessarily raises the question: if the state can intervene to save corporations that took reckless risks in the housing markets, why can't it intervene to prevent millions of Americans from imminent foreclosure? By the same token, if $85bn can be made instantly available to buy the insurance giant AIG, why is single-payer health care – which would protect Americans from the predatory practices of health-care insurance companies – seemingly such an unattainable dream? And if ever more corporations need taxpayer funds to stay afloat, why can't taxpayers make demands in return – like caps on executive pay, and a guarantee against more job losses?

Now that it's clear that governments can indeed act in times of crises, it will become much harder for them to plead powerlessness in the future. Another potential shift has to do with market hopes for future privatizations. For years, the global investment banks have been lobbying politicians for two new markets: one that would come from privatizing public pensions and the other that would come from a new wave of privatized or partially privatized roads, bridges and water systems. Both of these dreams have just become much harder to sell: Americans are in no mood to trust more of their individual and collective assets to the reckless gamblers on Wall Street, especially because it seems more than likely that taxpayers will have to pay to buy back their own assets when the next bubble bursts.

With the World Trade Organization talks off the rails, this crisis could also be a catalyst for a radically alternative approach to regulating world markets and financial systems. Already, we are seeing a move towards "food sovereignty" in the developing world, rather than leaving access to food to the whims of commodity traders. The time may finally have come for ideas like taxing trading, which would slow speculative investment, as well as other global capital controls.

And now that nationalization is not a dirty word, the oil and gas companies should watch out: someone needs to pay for the shift to a greener future, and it makes most sense for the bulk of the funds to come from the highly profitable sector that is most responsible for our climate crisis. It certainly makes more sense than creating another dangerous bubble in carbon trading.

But the crisis we are seeing calls for even deeper changes than that. The reason these junk loans were allowed to proliferate was not just because the regulators didn't understand the risk. It is because we have an economic system that measures our collective health based exclusively on GDP growth. So long as the junk loans were fuelling economic growth, our governments actively supported them. So what is really being called into question by the crisis is the unquestioned commitment to growth at all costs. Where this crisis should lead us is to a radically different way for our societies to measure health and progress.

None of this, however, will happen without huge public pressure placed on politicians in this key period. And not polite lobbying but a return to the streets and the kind of direct action that ushered in the New Deal in the 1930s. Without it, there will be superficial changes and a return, as quickly as possible, to business as usual.

[The Guardian]

Sanders Wake Up Call

2008-09-22T22:39:00.009-04:00

Rescue Wall Street--and the Rest of Us
by BERNIE SANDERS

For years, as a member of the House Banking Committee and now as a member of the Senate Budget Committee, I have heard the Bush administration tell us how "robust" our economy was and how strong the "fundamentals" were. That was until a few days ago. Now, we are being told that if Congress does not act immediately and approve the $700 billion Wall Street bailout proposal these "free marketers" have just written up, there will be an unprecedented economic meltdown in the United States and an unraveling of the global economy.

This proposal as presented is an unacceptable attempt to force middle-income families (and our children) to pick up the cost of fixing the horrendous economic mess that is the product of the Bush administration's deregulatory fever and Wall Street's insatiable greed. If the potential danger to our economy was not so dire, this blatant effort to essentially transfer $700 billion up the income ladder to those at the top would be laughable.

Let us be clear. If the economy is on the edge of collapse we need to act. But rescuing the economy does not mean we have to just give away $700 billion of taxpayer money to the banks. (In truth, it could be much more than $700 billion. The bill only says the government is limited to having $700 billion outstanding at any time. By selling the mortgage-backed assets it acquires--even at staggering losses--the government will be able to buy even more resulting is a virtually limitless financial exposure on the part of taxpayers.) Any proposal must protect middle-income and working families from bearing the burden of this bailout.

I have proposed a four-part plan to accomplish that goal that includes a five-year, 10 percent surtax on the income of individuals above $500,000 a year, and $1 million a year for couples; a requirement that the price the government pays for any mortgage assets are discounted appropriately so that government can recover the amount it paid for them; and, finally, the government should receive equity in the companies it bails out so that when the stock of these companies rises after the bailout, taxpayers also have the opportunity to share in the resulting windfall. Taken together, these measures would provide the best guarantee that at the end of five years, the government will have gotten back the money it put out.

Second, in addition to protecting the average American from being saddled with the cost, any serious proposal has to include reforms so that we end the type of behavior that led to this crisis in the first place. Much of this activity can be traced to specific legislation that broke down regulatory safety walls in the financial sector and allowed banks and others to engage in new types of risky transactions that are at the heart of this crisis. That deregulation needs to be repealed. Wall Street has shown it cannot be trusted to police itself. We need to reinstate a strong regulatory system that protects our economy.

Third, we need to address the needs of working families in this country who are today facing very difficult times. If we can bail out Wall Street, we need to respond with equal vigor to their plight. That means, for example, creating millions of jobs through major investments in rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and creating a new renewable energy system. We must also make certain that the most vulnerable Americans don't freeze in the winter or die because they lack access to primary healthcare.

Finally, we need to protect ourselves from being at the mercy of giant companies that are "too big to fail," that is, companies who are so large that their failure would cause systemic harm to the economy. We need to assess which companies fall into this category and insist they are broken up. Otherwise, the American taxpayer will continue to be on the financial hook for the risky behavior, the mismanagement and even the illegal conduct of these companies' executives.

These are the last days of the Bush administration, the most dishonest and incompetent in modern American history. It is imperative that, at this important moment, Congress stand up for the middle class and for fiscal integrity. The future of our country is at stake

[unacceptable outrage]

Wall Street Socialism

2008-09-21T17:23:00.005-04:00

U.S. orgy of debt: Americans borrowed to hilt, then housing bubble burst

by Eric Margolis | September 21, 2008 - 12:58pm

NEW YORK -- The financial panic sweeping the globe is maddeningly complex, but the cause of the worst financial crisis since the 1930s Great Depression is clear.

America has reveled for two decades in an orgy of debt. The U.S. national debt is now twice its net worth. From Wall Street's "masters of the universe" financial powerhouses such as Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Lehman, and Morgan Stanley, to the humblest homeowners, America's national motto became "borrow to the hilt and bet."

The traditional regulated banking system was pushed aside by Wall Street's financial titans who created their own money in the form of complex securities and furiously traded these exotic instruments and borrowed recklessly against them with little government regulation or oversight.

As Kevin Phillips points out in his prophetic book, Bad Money, America's primary business became non-productive finance. Manufacturing fell to only 12% of GDP. Wall Street titans grew obscenely rich by simply passing around paper. Inflated or semi-worthless securities increased in bogus value at each stage of the trading process.

Wall Street was allowed to virtually print money and peddle toxic securities around the globe because the big financial houses and heads of hedge funds bought the politicians of both parties.

Equally important, the mammoth financial and housing bubble thus created was hailed by the Bush administration as proof positive of Republican free market philosophy and the true road to prosperity.

More cautious European and Canadian bankers were dismissed by Republican chest thumpers as financial sissies.

This Ponzi scheme worked so long as markets kept rising. When the music stopped - disaster.

It's uncertain how far damage from America's financial equivalent of Hurricane Katrina will spread. Hedge funds, money market funds and automakers could be next. Real estate losses may reach $636 billion by 2012.

All stock market gains of the past 10 years have been wiped out in the most dangerous crash since the 1930s.

The "free market" Republican administration has ended up nationalizing nearly $1 trillion worth of businesses, including the federal mortgage agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Bear Stearns, and global insurer AIG. Welcome to Wall Street socialism.

One thing is now clear. When great empires run onto the financial rocks, their power quickly ebbs. France's Sun King, Louis XIV, ended his once glorious rein in near bankruptcy caused by his long, ruinous wars with the British and Dutch. Louis XVI's runaway borrowing to finance the American Revolution helped ignite the French Revolution. The Soviet Union's collapse was caused by spending half its national income on arms, and failure to modernize industry.

Over the past decade, the U.S. foreign debt doubled. Japan and China now hold 47% of the U.S. foreign debt and finance Washington's wars. The addition in recent days of at least $1 trillion in new debt will cause interest rates to rise and the dollar to weaken. Even the U.S. government's AAA credit rating now is in question.

Washington may no longer be able to spend half the globe's defence budgets.

The $12-13 billion a month wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will end up costing $750 billion by December 2008. There will be less cash in Washington's kitty to buy foreign dictators and prop up their regimes, as in the Mideast and Central Asia. Less cash to pay for little wars in Africa.

Less for exotic anti-missile systems and death rays.

America's enormous global power is based as much on its financial might as military muscle. Wall Street has been the vehicle and policeman of America's hegemony. It shaped the destiny of the globe and made many nations subservient to the demands of New York's titan bankers. Wall Street is essential to raising capital for business expansion, but often it resembled New York's ruthless loan sharks: Once you borrowed from them, you never got off the hook.

Americans will have to relearn the hard truth that you can't borrow your way to prosperity.

Let's Not Bicker and Argue About Ooo Killed Ooo

2008-09-21T11:21:00.006-04:00

Naomi!

Bush in Drag

Free Levi

[FreeLevi.org]

Perspective

Cry Wolf

2008-09-21T11:06:00.004-04:00

Yikes - where are the manners?

RNC Revisited

2008-09-19T18:27:00.001-04:00

[way back when]

Society of Apathetics

2008-09-18T19:20:00.002-04:00

[VoteNader.org]

YES!

2008-09-15T19:06:00.006-04:00

So good, I had to steal it directly from The Martian Chronicles

Check it out - this is probably the first image of an extra solar planet around a Sun-like star! More specifically, the image above shows both the primary and companion of the star 1RXSJ160929.1-210524 (romantic, eh?), imaged at the Gemini North Telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. The companion is about 8 times the mass of Jupiter, and has a radius about 17% of the Sun’s. One of the reasons that the team was able to image the planet so clearly is that it’s orbiting really far away from it’s star - 330 AU! (In our solar system, that would put it almost 7 times farther out than Pluto!) Planets that are close to their star are very difficult to find with imaging like this, since the light of the star washes out the light from the planet. For more info on how a planet could have ended up so far away from it’s star, look here. The planet was found as part of a survey of 85 young (~5 million year old) stars in the same stellar group, about 150 Mpc away. The other very cool part of this discovery is that this is a fairly random star in a fairly random group of young stars, and it has a planet. This (along with all the planets found with other methods) is a fantastic piece of evidence that planets are common, For those that want to get into the technical details, here’s the pre-print of the paper on the arXiv. Just a note, this discovery has not been peer reviewed yet (to my knowledge), but since Gemini chose to release the press release, we can assume that they, at least, are pretty confident with the results.

[Martian Chronicles]

What's Your Relevance Expectancy?

2008-09-15T18:45:00.003-04:00

Disney Lab Unveils Its Latest Line Of Genetically Engineered Child Stars

The economy takes a hit: who will harass a retired old man?

Economists Warn Anti-Bush Merchandise Market Close To Collapse

A Seal, You!

2008-09-12T19:11:00.004-04:00

[ACLU]

[TRNN]

Paul, McKinney, Nader

2008-09-11T21:53:00.001-04:00

[CSpanJunkie.org]

god Has Rewarded Her

2008-09-05T17:19:00.002-04:00

[ANP]

IVAW at the RNC

2008-09-05T15:10:00.005-04:00

IVAW Gets McCain's Attention

IVAW members have been trying to get John McCain's attention all week. On monday, a formation of 60 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans marched in uniform to the Xcel center to deliver a briefing on veterans issues, but McCain's staff refused even to accept the report.

Last night, IVAW finally got McCain's attention when Adam Kokesh, IVAW board member, interrupted his speech with a sign reading "McCain Votes Against Vets."

McCain's record on veterans' issues is extremely poor. He received a "D" rating from the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America and the Disabled American Veterans reports that he voted for legislation benefiting veterans only 20% of the time.

[Support the Iraq Veterans Against the War]

Free Speech

2008-09-05T15:00:00.005-04:00

Dear Reader,

Reports of journalists, bloggers and videomakers being arrested keep rolling in. The St. Paul police department's targeting of journalists, including Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! and the I-Witness videomakers, is having a chilling effect on free speech as the city hosts the Republican National Convention.

Many in the mainstream media are ignoring these attacks on journalism -- and some independent media makers are still in jail. But in less than 24 hours, more than 35,000 people have signed our letter demanding that press intimidation cease immediately and that all charges against journalists be dropped.

This is an incredible response. Help deliver the message that a free press will not be intimidated!

Help Us Reach 50,000 Letters: Take Action Now

Thanks,

Josh

P.S. Below is yesterday's e-mail with detailed information about the arrests.

Dear Friend,

Police in St. Paul arrested several journalists yesterday, including Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman.

Stand Up for Independent Journalism

Yesterday, police in St. Paul arrested several journalists, including Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman and an AP photographer as they were covering protests of the Republican National Convention.

Amy Goodman and others were released last night, but the story is not over.

We need you to cosign our public letter demanding that press intimidation cease immediately, and that all charges be dropped. It will be delivered immediately to St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman, the RNC Host Committee and the local prosecuting attorneys. We need 10,000 signatures in the next 24 hours, so please take action now:

Sign the Letter: Drop All Charges Against Journalists

In addition to these arrests, police with firearms drawn raided a meeting of the video journalists' group I-Witness and arrested independent media, bloggers and videomakers. We’re also receiving late-breaking reports of other arrests.

By signing this letter, you’re sending a powerful message: Officials must rein in aggressive and violent tactics by local law enforcement, stop the targeting of journalists and immediately drop all charges against them.

Reporting by independent journalists is vital to a functioning democracy. Americans must have access to diverse sources of information to hold their leaders accountable. Journalists must be free to do their jobs without intimidation.

Please Take Action by Signing this Letter

Don’t wait. We need a free press now more than ever. Tell your friends and take action now!

Thank you,

Josh Silver
Executive Director
Free Press
http://www.freepress.net/

1. Watch the video of Goodman's arrest.

2. See other journalists being arrested as reported by UpTake.

3. News of the AP arrest.

4. Learn more about the arrest of an ABC News producer during the Democratic Convention in Denver.

5. Watch the video of the police raid of I-Witness journalists (Caution: strong language).

Getting Saved Here

2008-09-03T18:44:00.010-04:00

[Early September Videorrhea]

Oh boy...

How it went down

I'd Rather not

That's Fairly scientific

We Love you, George

Ironically, but not surprisingly, empty words

RNC Ronvolution

No He Won't

2008-09-01T15:28:00.008-04:00

Curb Your Enthusiasm for Obama

Posted on Aug 31, 2008

By Chris Hedges

Barack Obama’s health care plan coddles the corporations that profit from the misery and illnesses of tens of millions of Americans. The plan is naive, at best, and probably disingenuous when it insists that we can coax these corporations, which are listed on the stock exchange and exist to maximize profit, to transform themselves into social service agencies that will provide adequate health care for all Americans. I wish we lived in such a rosy world. I know, and I suspect Obama knows, that we do not.

“Obama offers a false hope,” said Dr. John Geyman, the former chair of family medicine at the University of Washington and author of “Do Not Resuscitate: Why the Health Insurance Industry Is Dying, and How We Must Replace It.” “We cannot build on or tweak the present system. Different states have tried this. The problem is the private insurance industry itself. It is not as efficient as a publicly financed system. It fragments risk pools, skimming off the healthier part of the population and leaving the rest uninsured or underinsured. Its administrative and overhead costs are five to eight times higher than public financing through Medicare. It cares more about its shareholders than its enrollees or patients. A family of four now pays about $12,000 a year just in premiums, which have gone up by 87 percent from 2000 to 2006. The insurance industry is pricing itself out of the market for an ever larger part of the population. The industry resists regulation. It is unsustainable by present trends.”

We face a health crisis. The Democratic and Republican parties, awash in campaign contributions from the beasts they should be slaying on our behalf, have no interest in addressing it. A report in the journal Health Affairs estimates that, if the system is left unchanged, one of every five dollars spent by Americans in 2017 will go to health coverage. Half of all bankruptcies in America are because families are unable to pay their medical bills. There are some 46 million Americans without coverage and tens of millions more with inadequate policies that severely limit what kinds of procedures and treatments they can receive.

“There are at least 25 million Americans who are underinsured,” said Dr. Geyman. “Whatever coverage they have does not come close to covering the actual cost of a major illness or accident.”

Obama, like John McCain, did not support HR 676, the single-payer legislation. The corporations that run our for-profit health care industry, which would be shut down if the bill was enacted, have vigorously fought it through campaign contributions and armies of lobbyists. A study by Harvard Medical School found that national health insurance would save the country $350 billion a year. But Medicare does not make campaign contributions. The private health care industries do. They have lavished money on Obama. He received $708,000 from medical and insurance interests between 2001 and 2006, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. And Michelle Obama is a vice president for community and external affairs at the University of Chicago Hospitals, a position that paid her $316,962 annually.

“The private health insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry completely and totally oppose national health insurance,” said Dr. Stephanie Woolhandler, one of the founders of Physicians for a National Health Program. “The private health insurance companies would go out of business. The pharmaceutical companies are afraid that a national health program will, as in Canada, be able to negotiate lower drug prices. Canadians pay 40 percent less for their drugs. We see this on a smaller scale in the United States, where the Department of Defense is able to negotiate pharmaceutical prices that are 40 percent lower.”

Sen. Obama argues that we can improve the system by expanding government oversight. The government, he says, should require doctors and hospitals to prove they provide quality care. His plan links payment with reported quality. This would mean that health care providers would have to hire even larger staffs to collect and report this data to the government. There would be a $10-billion federal investment in health care information technology over five years under the Obama plan, in essence turning record keeping from paper to electronic data.

Obama’s plan, said Dr. Don McCanne, who writes on health care issues, would actually make health plans “more expensive, which compounds the problem.”

Obama says he would require insurance companies to use more income from premiums for patient care.

“There isn’t an enforcement mechanism,” Geyman said bluntly. “Most states have been unable to control rates or set a cap on rates.”

Obama’s plan would also not cover all Americans. Unlike in Canada, citizens would not be enrolled in a plan automatically. Americans would have to go looking for one they could afford. And if they could not find one they would remain uninsured. Dr. Woolhandler, who is also a professor at Harvard Medical School, estimates that “tens of millions” of Americans would remain uninsured under Obama’s plan. These numbers would swell as employers, who provide plans for 59 percent of those who are employed, continue to reduce coverage.

“The only way everyone will get insurance is with national health insurance,” she said from Boston in a phone interview. “There is nothing in the Obama plan that will change the bitter reality that working-class families face when their breadwinner gets sick. People with catastrophic illnesses usually lose their jobs and lose their insurance. They often cannot afford the high premiums for the insurance they can get when they are unable to work. Most families that file for bankruptcy because of medical costs had insurance before they got sick. They either lost the insurance because they lost their jobs or faced gaps in coverage that meant they could not afford medical care.”

Obama has borrowed John Kerry’s idea to have the government absorb certain severe costs, although again the details are not spelled out. Insurers, he says, would no longer be able to discriminate based on preexisting conditions. All children would have health coverage. He would, he says, expand Medicare and Medicare-like coverage to protect the very young and the elderly. This is laudable, if he can make it happen. But the fundamental problem is a health industry run for profit. Our health system costs nearly twice as much as national programs in countries such as Switzerland. The overhead for traditional Medicare is 3 percent, and the overhead for the investment-owned companies is 26.5 percent. A staggering 31 percent of our health care expenditures is spent on administrative costs. Look what we get in return.

We on the left, those who should be out there fighting for universal health care and total and immediate withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, sit like lap dogs on the short leashes of our Democratic (read corporate) masters. We yap now and then, but we have forgotten how to snarl and bite. We have been domesticated. And until we punish the two main parties the way big corporations do, by withdrawing support and funding when our issues are ignored, we will remain irrelevant and impotent. I detest Bill O’Reilly, but he is right on one thing—we liberals are a spineless lot.

Labor unions don’t negotiate with corporations on the basis of good will. They negotiate carrying the threat of a strike. What power do we have as long as we cave on every issue we stand for, from opposition to the death penalty to battling back against the military-industrial complex?

It is not about liking or not liking Obama. It is not about race or class or gender. It is not about growing up poor or a member of the working class. There is no shortage of greasy politicians who, once in power, sold out their own. Look at Bill Clinton. It is about fighting back. It is about confronting a system that belittles us, what we stand for and what is best for the majority of Americans. We need to throw our support behind alternative candidates who champion what we care about, whether Cynthia McKinney or Ralph Nader. Bob Barr’s health care plan, like John McCain’s, is even worse than Obama’s tepid proposal. We need to begin to actively and militantly defy the corporate state, and this means stepping outside of the two-party system. Universal health insurance is one issue. There are others. Nothing we care about will change until we do.

The Democrats, who promise to end the war in Iraq, create jobs and provide universal health care, ignore these promises once election cycles are over. And we never make them pay. They gave us NAFTA, the destruction of welfare and increased military spending, and we gave them our vote. This is the party that took back Congress in 2006 on an anti-war platform and then increased troop levels and funding for the Iraq war. This is a party that talks about the crushing weight of debt carried by Americans and then refuses to cap predatory interest rates as high as 30 percent imposed by credit card companies. This is a party that promises to protect our constitutional rights and then passes the FISA bill to protect the telecommunications companies. The list goes on. These politicians, including Obama, must begin to feel heat. They must learn that there is a cost to be paid for working on behalf of corporations and disempowering citizens.

[TruthDig]

Not Allowed Inside

2008-08-30T12:49:00.005-04:00

Matt Taibbi, author of The Great Derangement, on Bill Maher

In Case You DNC Enough Yet

2008-08-29T12:10:00.015-04:00

[Support the Iraq Veterans Against the War]

Selling out America

Well, [Biden's] going to be, probably, an effective attack dog against the Republicans. But what we call him is “Senator Plastic,” because he is the champion of the credit card industry. MBNA is in Delaware. It’s a huge credit card company. It’s given more than $200,000 to Joe Biden over his career. And he championed, almost shamelessly, the anti-consumer bankruptcy law that his fellow colleague, Senator Chris Dodd, who’s the chair of the Senate Banking Committee, called, quote, “the worst bill ever,” end-quote.

And what it did, unlike corporate bankruptcy, it really squeezed people who had to go into bankruptcy because of medical bills or because they lost their job, as Professor Elizabeth Warren at Harvard Law School pointed out. Those are the two main reasons for bankruptcy. It squeezed them horribly. And this paved the way for predatory lenders to shift the burden on these hapless borrowers in the subprime home mortgage crisis, as they call it. He’s got a lot to answer for. He tries to say he moderated the bill, and it couldn’t have been worse.

But he’s very corporate. He comes from Delaware, which is in—has always been in a race to the bottom to weaken corporate charter laws, which is why so many of the giant corporations are strangely chartered in Delaware over the years, like the big New York banks or General Motors. We want to use that to raise the whole issue of what Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft were proposing a hundred years ago, which is federal chartering of giant corporations. Take it away from the states like Delaware, rewrite the compact between the people and these artificial entities, and hopefully take away some of the constitutional rights to lobby and to engage in politics of these artificial entities, because they’re not human beings, they don’t vote, and they shouldn’t have these constitutional rights.

I mean, that’s the tragedy of Dennis Kucinich. Now, he’s done by February or March. The primaries are over. He will not at all support the Nader-Gonzalez campaign. I mean, he doesn’t have to endorse us. We can’t even get his mailing list. And I say, “Dennis, we’re the only people who are going to take your proposals to November.”

Imagine the Democrats—in 2004, they were prohibited from criticizing Bush at the Democratic National Convention in Boston, and now, in 2008, they don’t want to raise the issue of criminal recidivism in the White House, the most impeachable presidency and vice presidency in our history—torture, incarcerating people without charges, the criminal war of aggression in Iraq, spying on millions of Americans without judicial approval. That’s a five-year jail term. That’s a first-class felony. So the Democrats are really abandoning the rule of law, abandoning the Constitution and its impeachment provisions. And they ought to be taken into account. But, you know, Dennis got virtually—he got nothing in the platform. They won’t give him a comma in the Democratic national platform.

Kucinich addresses progressives outside the DNC about OUR Constitution - we insist that it must be reclaimed

[Sign the Petition to impeach]

3 Years Post-Katrina

2008-08-29T11:41:00.005-04:00

Neither Barack Obama's nor John McCain's healthcare "plans" address the fundamental problem of our broken healthcare system and broken disaster response system.

Since they are so disinclined to support the necessary measures, vote for someone who will.

[Guaranteed HealthCare]

[HR 676]

Nader at DNC Protest

2008-08-28T21:30:00.004-04:00

It's quiet as hell, but you can't silence Nader

[VoteNader]

Rage Against the DNC

2008-08-28T20:13:00.008-04:00

WAKE UP!

[IRAQ VETERANS AGAINST THE WAR]

DNC - Do Not Criticize

2008-08-27T15:20:00.019-04:00

As the Democrats celebrated inside the Pepsi Center on opening day of the convention, outside on the streets police pepper-sprayed protesters and rounded up dozens of them in mass arrests. The incident began near the Civic Center Park around 7:00 p.m., where a few hundred protesters had gathered to march. The police arrived in full riot gear, surrounded the protesters, blocking them in before firing pepper spray into the crowd. Protesters fled across the park, where they were met by dozens of police officers who boxed them in. Many of the marchers sat down in the street. Nearly a hundred people were arrested.

The Real News Network spoke with environmental lawyer, Robert F Kennedy, Jr. at the convention.

Ralph Nader will hold a rally tonight in Denver to protest the democrat and republican parties' refusal to open up the debates to other qualified candidates, like Nader and Libertarian candidate, Bob Barr.

Now, in 2008, Nader is back, and on track to be on the ballot in 45 states -- the campaign was on only 34 in 2004 -- and the Nader/Gonzalez ticket is at 6 percent in the latest CNN poll.

These rallies will be part of a massive outpouring of protest in Denver and Minneapolis against the two corporate controlled parties and their policies of perpetual militarism and war.

Nader/Gonzalez is aiming to bust open the presidential debates.
Featured guests include Val Kilmer and Sean Penn, Cindy Sheehan, Jello Biafra ... Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, Nellie McKay and Ike Reilly.

Watch the Rallies HERE

Naomi Klein reiterates the need to not let leaders off the hook, just because they're better than the last guy. The Hope and Change this country needs does not come down from above in the form of a handsome young presidential hopeful; it comes from the people.

Be one of them.

Somebody's gotta keep the pressure up on Obama. This isn't a fairy tale, it's democracy. It's your country - you rule it, no matter who sits in the White House. Participatory democracy doesn't end when last vote is (mis)counted; that's only the beginning.

Keep the pressure up.

GitCO

2008-08-24T13:36:00.002-04:00

Guantanamo comes to Denver, CO

I suppose 80% of our country qualifies for that lock-up - that's a lot of unhappy campers to round up

Somebody search these women!

Segment after segment featured Broncos cheerleaders, Hooters waitresses, with Brian Kilmeade joking about joining the security team to “pat down” the cheerleaders;

Who else will give Hooters their due?

Things are already getting hairy

Clearly, Obama's full head of hair, though closely cropped, sends off crippling messages of inexperience. With the addition of Joe Biden's foreign policy experience, comes a combover that screams years of hair-pulling experience and wisdom.

God doesn't want socialized medicine either

DNC Expectations:

Maybe you're actually in Denver attending the Democratic National Convention. Or, maybe you're just going there in your mind. However you get there, here's what you need to know to get the most out of it:

Dress Code
Appropriate attire is a must. If you're a delegate, this means a conservative suit or dress (no midriffs!), closed-toed leather shoes, and a six-foot-tall Uncle Sam hat with the name of your state on it. If you're a member of the press, this means your press pass. You can pretty much go naked, as long as you've got your press pass on.

Conduct
Conduct yourself with dignity. Disgruntled Hillary Clinton supporters may be tempted to create a ruckus during the nomination roll-call, but this is a big no-no. If you have a grievance, take it up directly with the Democratic National Committee chairman, Howard Dean. He'll be happy to drop whatever he's doing to help out. Also, don't be tempted to bring any buckets of feces into the Convention, because those are strictly off limits.

Celebrities
While you are wandering the Convention floor, you will definitely run into some political celebrities. You might see the likes of John Kerry, Al Franken, or even Emanuel Cleaver II! Don't gawk; you'll just reveal yourself as a star-struck hick. Instead, sidle up to the politician, grip him or her on the shoulder, and strike up a conversation about your favorite special interest groups. Since you are here to impress, you should name-drop people even more important than they are. (Example: “As I was saying to FDR the other day…”)

Beyond the Convention
If you get bored, you can always stroll outside the arena to gawk at the Ralph Nader protesters. You can look and point, but do not talk to them. Attention will only encourage them further.

The Only Way I'd Vote for Obama

2008-08-21T20:32:00.003-04:00

Is if he chose a genuine REPRESENTATIVE of his constituency, INDEPENDENT Senator Bernie Sanders as his VP choice this Saturday

[Which watch will YOU choose?]

McCrybaby

2008-08-18T23:02:00.003-04:00

Another Special one from Olbermann

Take The Power Back

2008-08-18T21:53:00.019-04:00

Yeah, the movement's in motion with mass militant poetry
Now check this out...

In the right light, study becomes insight
But the system that dissed us
Teaches us to read and right

So called facts are fraud
They want us to allege and pledge
And bow down to their God
Lost the culture, the culture lost
Spun our minds and through time
Ignorance has taken over
Yo, we gotta take the power back!
Bam! Here's the plan
Motherfuck Uncle Sam
Step back, I know who I am
Raise up your ear, I'll drop the style and clear
It's the beats and the lyrics they fear
The rage is relentless
We need a movement with a quickness
You are the witness of change
And to counteract
We gotta take the power back

Yeah, we gotta take the power back
Come on, come on!
We gotta take the power back

The present curriculum
I put my fist in 'em
Eurocentric every last one of 'em
See right through the red, white and blue disguise
With lecture I puncture the structure of lies
Installed in our minds and attempting
To hold us back
We've got to take it back
Holes in our spirit causin' tears and fears
One-sided stories for years and years and years
I'm inferior? Who's inferior?
Yeah, we need to check the interior
Of the system that cares about only one culture
And that is why
We gotta take the power back

Yeah, we gotta take the power back
Come on, come on!
We gotta take the power back

Hey yo check, we're gonna have to break it, break it,
break it down

Come on, yeah! Bring it back the other way!

The teacher stands in front of the class
But the lesson plan he can't recall
The student's eyes don't perceive the lies
Bouncing off every fucking wall
His composure is well kept
I guess he fears playing the fool
The complacent students sit and listen to some of that
Bullshit that he learned in school

Europe ain't my rope to swing on
Can't learn a thing from it
Yet we hang from it
Gotta get it, gotta get it together then
Like the motherfuckin' weathermen
To expose and close the doors on those who try
To strangle and mangle the truth
'Cause the circle of hatred continues unless we react
We gotta take the power back

Yeah, we gotta take the power back
Come on, come on!
We gotta take the power back

No more lies

Take it back

Barack HUSSEIN!

2008-08-15T19:49:00.003-04:00

[American News Project]

A Problem Which No One Can Ignore

2008-08-15T15:41:00.005-04:00

Two million Iraqis are living as refugees in Syria and Jordan, and the U.S. seems to be doing nothing to help the vast majority of them despite occupying their country while posing as a savior. A new film, “The Hard Way Home,” produced by the BBC to give faces to that depressing number, is available on YouTube in six parts. Here is the first.

And Pelosi still sucks

She was in Los Angeles to discuss her recently published book "Know Your Power: A Message to America's Daughters." Instead, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi got slammed by protesters screaming that she has been derelict in her duties for not authorizing impeachment hearings against George W. Bush.

The venue: more than 300 people paid $30 each Monday night at the American Jewish University (formerly known as the University of Judaism). The format: a 75-minute interview by the Rabbi Robert Wexler (not to be confused with the Palm Beach, Fla., congressman of the same name). The questions: tough but respectful. Wexler asked Pelosi about a recent Rasmussen Poll that showed a 9% approval rating for Congress.

But then, according to blogger Alan Breslauer, things turned ugly. A protester shouted that Pelosi, in not impeaching Bush for launching a war on false pretenses, had failed to live up to her constitutional duties. She shot back:

I take the oath of office to uphold the constitution of the United States and don't tell me that I don't do that. Why don't you go picket the Republicans in Congress that will not allow us to have a vote on the war? This is not very effective. Not very effective.

In the video, it's clear that most of the audience rallied to Pelosi's side, applauding her rebuttal. According to Breslauer, protesters were escorted out by the Secret Service. *(More likely they were local police or perhaps the sergeant at arms, as Igor, one of our readers, pointed out.) But it's also clear that the San Francisco Democrat, with a lifetime of public service, was upset.

As speaker of the House, the third-highest office -- first is the president, then vice president and then speaker -- I take my responsibilities deadly seriously. I try to promote bipartisanship but that's not what the other side wants.

With war protester Cindy Sheehan now on the ballot challenging Pelosi, these challenges are likely to continue. All of which prompts C2C to wonder where the line is between free speech and good manners.

Make September 10th a Day to Change the World

2008-08-15T15:25:00.006-04:00

September 10th: The day before our world changed,

a day to change the world!

Dear Friends,

On August 1st, I delivered to Speaker Nancy Pelosi; a petition bearing the names of over 100,000 Americans that, like us, feel that the President must be held accountable for abusing executive power and disregarding his Constitutional obligations.

Your voices have been heard and your support continues to send a powerful message to lawmakers. That is why I call on you again to help us in a new effort to deliver 1 Million signatures to Speaker Pelosi on September 10, 2008.

Together we can:

Urge real Congressional action to hold President Bush accountable now
Reinstate the authority of our Constitution
Document crimes committed by President Bush for historical account
Facilitate post-Administration law enforcement and prosecution
Reset the standard for the incoming and future administrations
Demand justice for the over 3,000 who died on 9/11and whose deaths were tragically exploited to take us into an illegal war in Iraq
Demand justice for the estimated 30,324 U.S. military personnel who have been injured/wounded
Demand justice for the estimated 4,138 U.S. military personnel who have been killed or died
Demand justice for the 1 Million innocent Iraqis who have died*
Avert another illegitimate looming war – this time against Iran

We need your active participation to deliver 1 Million signatures to Congress by September 10, 2008.

Please give at least ten of your friends the opportunity to stand up for our country - the way you and I have, by inviting them to sign the impeachment petition online at www.Kucinich.us. Send your friends an email invitation to sign the petition by clicking here.

Together we can make September 10, the day before the world changed, a day we change the world!

Thank you for your active and ongoing citizenship.

Dennis Kucinich

-------------------------------------------------

Answers!

Get your questions about Impeachment answered!
Click here to find out why your involvement is essential and how we can succeed.

Justice!

After you have invited at least ten of your friends and family to sign the petition, consider sending your own member of Congress a personal letter urging him or her to support:

House Resolution 1258: President Bush
House Resolution 333: Vice-President Cheney.

Click on the link here to find a form letter and some guidelines which may help in your efforts.

Truth!

*Lancet reported 650,000 war-related Iraqi civilian deaths as of October, 2006. Nearly two years later, a reasonable projection of the conservative Lancet estimate would place war-related Iraqi civilian deaths at least 1 million.

Open Up The Debates

2008-08-11T20:43:00.005-04:00

VoteNader.org

On Wednesday, August 27, right during the heart of the Democratic National Convention, we will be holding a Super Rally for 5,000-7,000 people at the University of Denver Magness Arena.

And we'll be hosting a second super rally in Minneapolis on September 4th at the Orchestra Hall during the week of the Republican National Convention.

Why?

To protest the corporate control over our political system and to call for opening the presidential debates.

During his 2000 campaign, Ralph Nader drew sellout crowds to super rallies in arenas from Portland's Memorial Coliseum to Madison Square Garden.

After the election, the NewsHour's Mark Shields called the Nader Super Rallies "the most exciting political development of the campaign year."

"My apology to Ralph Nader for not demanding that he be included in the debates," Shields said.

In 2004, the Democratic Party - along with its Republican allies - smothered the Nader campaign with phony lawsuits in a coordinated campaign of petition sabotage.

We had a tough time keeping our heads above water.

Just last month, legislative leaders responsible for illegal use of tax money to keep us off of the ballot in Pennsylvania in 2004 were indicted by a grand jury in Harrisburg.

Now, in 2008, Nader is back, and - thanks to you - on track to be on the ballot in 45 states - we were on only 34 in 2004 - and the Nader/Gonzalez ticket is at six percent in the latest CNN poll.

Now, we need your help for another breakthrough.

We are launching a campaign to Open the Debates.

In its first phase, the super rallies will rise again in Denver and Minneapolis during the Democratic and Republican conventions.

We call all of our supporters to action from every corner of the United States: come to our first rally in Denver on Wednesday, August 27, 2008.

Plan to make the trip to Denver - or Minneapolis - or both.

These rallies will be part of an massive outpouring of protest in Denver and Minneapolis against the two corporate controlled parties and their policies of perpetual militarism and war.

We'll be filling in the details on the two rallies in the days to come.

But for now, we need you to spread the word.

Nader/Gonzalez is aiming to bust open the presidential debates.

As Ralph says, if tens of millions of Americans can hear the Nader/Gonzalez message through the Presidential debates, it will be a three way race.

Send this message to everyone in your address book.

Tell friends and family.

The super rallies are back.

Time to get on board.

Onward to November

[VoteNader]

Trapped By Olympic Fever

2008-08-11T20:12:00.006-04:00

The Beijing Olympics: Are They A Trap?

Stunning photos from Beijing

Chinese Officials: Deadly Virus Sweeping China Is Just Olympic Fever

Naomi Klein and the Beijing Olympics

An invitation to Senator Barack Obama to meet with IVAW

2008-08-11T19:58:00.008-04:00

[reposted from Iraq Veterans Against the War]

Dear Senator Obama,

Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) was founded by Iraq war veterans in July 2004 at the annual convention of Veterans for Peace (VFP) in Boston to give a voice to the large number of active duty service people and veterans who are against this war, but are under various pressures to remain silent.

From its inception, IVAW has called for:

Immediate withdrawal of all occupying forces in Iraq;
Reparations for the human and structural damages Iraq has suffered, and stopping the corporate pillaging of Iraq so that their people can control their own lives and future; and
Full benefits, adequate healthcare (including mental health), and other supports for returning servicemen and women.

Today, IVAW members are in 48 states and on numerous bases overseas, with chapters throughout the U.S. and in Canada and Germany.

On behalf of Iraq Veterans Against the War I would like to invite you to meet with a delegation of our members at Our Savior's Lutheran Church, located at 915 East 9th Avenue Denver, CO between August 25-27, at a time most convenient to you. We would like to discuss your position on withdrawal from Iraq as well as your commitment to veterans care and reparations to the Iraqi people. We would also like to present to you our Winter Soldier testimony, which illustrates the moral necessity of bringing an immediate end to the occupation of Iraq. Please RSVP at your earliest convenience regarding this matter, stating whether or not you or members of your staff will attend or proposing an alternative location for the meeting.

In addition, we would like you to review the following background information and provide your official response to the questions below prior to or on the date of August 27, 2008.

US-headquartered multinational corporations (MNCs) are currently awaiting passage of a law governing foreign direct investment (FDI) in Iraq's energy sector. They have indicated that they will not substantially invest in reconstruction of the country's oil infrastructure until the Iraqi government passes a law which will allow them to negotiate long-term investment contracts called "Production Sharing Agreements" (PSAs) in the parlance of the oil industry.

PSAs have been compared to the colonial concessions which European imperial powers imposed upon Middle Eastern nations in the 20th century, including Iraq and Iran. Numerous historians have pointed out that these concessions humiliated the Arab-Muslim world for decades and provoked internal political instability, the rise of militant nationalism and most recently, religious radicalism directed primarily against the United States.

We are concerned that the Bush administration, despite its denials, is exerting political pressure on the Iraqi government to pass a law which will open the door to these types of contracts once again. We believe that this sort of alleged pressure directly contradicts the ostensible mission of the United States military in Iraq and hinders political progress and stability there. Without a doubt, the prospect of perpetual instability will tempt future administrations to justify a prolonged occupation or continued interference in Iraq's internal political affairs.

Our troops have fought hard. They do not deserve to have their efforts undermined by this or any other administration. The Iraqi people demand independence and we have no right to deny it to them. In doing so we contradict the principles our own nation was founded on and act against our own national security interests. For these reasons we are determined to oppose such policies, official or otherwise.

For more information please see the accompanying documents.

Our questions are:

What is your position on long term FDI in Iraq's oil industry by US-headquartered MNCs?
What is your position on the role of the United States government in negotiating a so-called hydrocarbon law with the Iraqi government which would govern FDI there?
What is your position on Production Sharing Agreements and similar sorts of contracts?
What is your position on debt relief to the Iraqi government? Should it be contingent upon passage of the above-mentioned hydrocarbon law?
What is your position on the so-called Strategic Framework Agreement, which is rumored to contain language on FDI? Should it be ratified by the U.S. Senate, whether or not it is actually called a "treaty"?

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Kelly Dougherty
Executive Director
Iraq Veterans Against the War

Supporting Documents:

Secret US plans for Iraq's oil [BBC Newsnight]
Hands off Iraqi oil [Naomi Klein]
Crude Designs: The rip-off of Iraq's oil wealth [pdf]
Spoils of War [In These Times]
Resisting the economic war in Iraq [pdf - Platform]
Slick Connections: U.S. Influence on Iraqi Oil [pdf - Foreign Policy in Focus]
Panel Questions State Dept. Role in Iraq Oil Deal [New York Times]

McCommunism

2008-08-09T12:27:00.007-04:00

"I think this is an incredibly efficient, actually, a scarily efficient way of organizing society that's actually being celebrated here, which is a hybrid of some of the worst elements of authoritarian communism—mass surveillance of the population, total lack of civil liberties, lack of a free press, lack of democratic rights, authoritarian central planning, all harnessed not to advance the goals of social justice, even in name, although there may be some lip service still paid to that, but to advance the goals of global capitalism. So it is Stalinism meets global capitalism.... There are 100,000 security officers just on Olympic duty. And to put that into perspective, the stadium itself, the Bird's Nest Stadium holds 90,000. So there's 90,000 spectators and 100,000 secret police keeping control of things in Beijing. So this is an incredible operation. But when you hear people like Lou Dobbs and other commentators talking about the problems in China, it's always red China, communist China, or the Chi-coms. And it's really this blast from the past of—you know, it's almost as if the Cold War never ended."

The Olympics: Unveiling Police State 2.0
[from Huffington Post]

The games have been billed as China's "coming out party" to the world. They are far more significant than that. These Olympics are the coming out party for a disturbingly efficient way of organizing society, one that China has perfected over the past three decades, and is finally ready to show off. It is a potent hybrid of the most powerful political tools of authoritarianism communism -- central planning, merciless repression, constant surveillance -- harnessed to advance the goals of global capitalism. Some call it "authoritarian capitalism," others "market Stalinism," personally I prefer "McCommunism."

...Much of the Chinese government's lavish spending on cameras and other surveillance gear has taken place under the banner of "Olympic Security." But how much is really needed to secure a sporting event? The price tag has been put at a staggering $12-billion -- to put that in perspective, Salt Lake City, which hosted the Winter Olympics just five months after September 11, spent $315 million to secure the games. Athens spent around $1.5-billion in 2004. Many human rights groups have pointed out that China's security upgrade is reaching far beyond Beijing: there are now 660 designated "safe cities" across the country, municipalities that have been singled out to receive new surveillance cameras and other spy gear. And of course all the equipment purchased in the name of Olympics safety -- iris scanners, "anti-riot robots" and facial recognition software -- will stay in China after the games are long gone, free to be directed at striking workers and rural protestors.

China's All-Seeing Eye
[from Rolling Stone]

American commentators like CNN's Jack Cafferty dismiss the Chinese as "the same bunch of goons and thugs they've been for the last 50 years." But nobody told the people of Shenzhen, who are busily putting on a 24-hour-a-day show called "America" — a pirated version of the original, only with flashier design, higher profits and less complaining. This has not happened by accident. China today, epitomized by Shenzhen's transition from mud to megacity in 30 years, represents a new way to organize society. Sometimes called "market Stalinism," it is a potent hybrid of the most powerful political tools of authoritarian communism — central planning, merciless repression, constant surveillance — harnessed to advance the goals of global capitalism.

...Remember how we've always been told that free markets and free people go hand in hand? That was a lie. It turns out that the most efficient delivery system for capitalism is actually a communist-style police state, fortressed with American "homeland security" technologies, pumped up with "war on terror" rhetoric. And the global corporations currently earning superprofits from this social experiment are unlikely to be content if the lucrative new market remains confined to cities such as Shenzhen. Like everything else assembled in China with American parts, Police State 2.0 is ready for export to a neighborhood near you.

Never too much [Naomi Klein]

Bomb Iran...then what?

2008-08-08T18:15:00.002-04:00

Washington's neocons are alive and well, advising both John McCain and President Bush. Now many are saying Bush should permit Israel to attack Iran's nuclear facilities after Election Day before the new president takes office. ANP investigates as we chase down John Bolton, Bill Kristol and Frank Gaffney to see how far ahead these hawks are thinking. And a new report says the whole plan could backfire.

A Word From Failed States

2008-08-08T16:57:00.005-04:00

Noam Chomsky's Failed States: The Abuse of Pow er and the Assault on Democracy is published as part of The American Empire Project.

The following is taken from Chapter 6: Democracy Promotion at Home (pages 211-212)

...When neoliberal-style programs began to take shape in the 1970s, real wages in the United States were the highest in the industrial world, as one would expect in the richest society in the world, with incomparable advantages. The situation has now dramatically changed. Real wages for the majority have largely stagnated or declined and are now close to the lowest level among industrial societies; the relatively weak benefits system has declined as well. Incomes are maintained only by extending working hours well beyond those in similar societies, while inequality has soared. All of this is a vast change from the preceding quarter century, when economic growth was the highest on record for a protracted period and also egalitarian. Social indicators, which closely tracked economic growth until the mid-1970s, then diverged, declining to the level of 1960 by the year 2000.* [end notes and citations: See the biennial studies of the Economic Policy Institute, The State of Working America; the most recent, by Lawrence Mishel, Jared Bernstein, and Sylvia Allegretto, covers 2004-2005. Marc and Marque-Luisa Miringoff, The Social Health of the Nation (Oxford, 1999), Index of Social Health report of the Fordham Institute for Innovation in Social Policy, which monitors social indicators (as is done by government agencies in other industrial societies).]

Edward Wolff, the leading specialist on wealth distribution, writes that "living conditions stagnated in the 1990s for American households in the middle, while rapid advances in wealth and income for the elite briskly pulled up the averages." From 1983 to 1998, average wealth of the top 1 percent rose "a whopping 42%," while the poorest 40 percent "lost 76 percent of their (very modest) wealth." He concludes that even "the boom of the 1990s has bypassed most Americans. The rich have been the main beneficiaries," in a continuation of tendencies that go back to the late 1970s. The Bush administration's dedication to wealth and privilege accelerated these tendencies, leading to a surge in "corporate profits, professionals' incomes, gains from investments and executive compensation," while, by mid-2005, "average hourly wages for production and non-supervisory workers" had yet to rise to the low point of the 2001 recession. Census Bureau 2004 figures revealed that for the first time on record, household incomes failed to increase for five straight years. Median pretax real income was at its lowest point since 1997, while poverty rate increased for the fourth consecutive year, to 12.7 percent. Median earnings for full-time workers "dropped significantly," for men, by 2.3 percent. Inequality continued to rise to "near all-time highs," not including "gains from stock holdings, which would further increase inequality," given the extremely narrow concentration of stock ownership. The Labor Department reports an additional decline in real wages in 2004 for most workers, apart from a small percentage of the highly skilled. Economist Dean Baker reported in October 2005 that "the economy went through its longest period of job loss since the Great Depression following the 2001 recession. The employment to population ratio is still almost 2 percentage points below its pre-recession level. Using the recovery of the labor market as a metric, the economy has never been less resilient throughout the post-war period."* [Edward Wolff, Milken Institute Review, 3rd quarter, 2001. Eduardo Porter, New York Times, Business section, 14 July 2005. Census Bureau, see David Leonhardt, New York Times, 31 August 2005; Robert Guy Matthews, Wall Street Journal, 31 August 2005. Jessica Vascellaro, Wall Street Journal, 13 September 2005. Dean Baker, Center for Economic and Policy Research, 17 October 2005.]

The number of people who go hungry because they cannot afford to buy food rose to over 38 million in 2004: 12 percent of households, an increase of 7 million in five years. As the government released the figures, the House Agricultural Committee voted to remove funding for food stamps for 300,000 people, and cut off school lunches and breakfasts for 40,000 children, only on of many illustrations.* [Libby Quaid, AP, 29 October 2005.]

The results are hailed as a "healthy economy" and a model for other societies. Alan Greenspan is treated with reverence for having presided over these achievements, which he attributes in part to "atypical restraint on compensation increases [which] appears to be mainly the consequence of greater worker insecurity," an obvious desideratum for a healthy economy. The model may in fact be without many precedents in harming the "underlying population" while benefiting the "substantial people," in Thorstein Veblen's acid terminology.* [Alan Greenspan, testimony, Senate Banking Committee, February 1997, cited in Multinational Monitor, March 1997. Edward Herman, Z Magazine, March 2005.]

Buy Failed States and the other great titles in The American Empire Project series

Revolutionary Morales

2008-08-07T20:40:00.018-04:00

Morales awaits verdict on his revolution

Voters to decide whether to back president who promised radical change

by Rory Carroll, Latin America correspondent and Andrés Schipani in Alto Parapeti

The Guardian, Friday August 8 2008

When Che Guevara decided to export Cuba's revolution to South America he chose Bolivia, a country where poverty and inequality were so extreme that the oppressed would surely rally to his banner. He was wrong. The rebellion flopped and the guerrilla was captured and executed in 1967.

Four decades later the eastern lowlands of Alto Parapeti, where Guevara plotted his doomed campaign, have not changed much. The lush landscape of corn and cattle is still owned by a handful of rich landowners and the rickety huts that house their labourers are still occupied by impoverished indigenous families.

"All my life I've been here and at the end of it I have nothing and have nowhere else to go," said Teresa Barrio, 65, a half-blind grandmother. She had lost five of seven children to disease and had no pesos in the pockets of her ragged skirt.

"It is a land lost to God," said one United Nations official, who requested anonymity because of political sensitivity.

But now there is supposed to be a new revolution sweeping Bolivia. Evo Morales, the Andean nation's first indigenous president, took power three years ago promising radical but peaceful socialist policies to finish what his hero Guevara had barely started.

This weekend the new revolution faces a crucial test when Bolivians vote in a recall referendum on whether to confirm or eject the president and elected regional governors. If Morales loses he must resign and call an election. If he wins he will claim a fresh mandate to "refound" South America's poorest country.

Morales's ambitious project is struggling. The plight of Barrio and other Guarani Indians in Alto Parapeti shows just how little has changed for the peasants who support him.

Many are illiterate and have little or no access to healthcare, electricity or running water. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, part of the pan-regional Organisation of American States (OAS), said in June that the conditions were akin to slavery. "They live in extreme poverty and are subjected to punishments including lashings."

Despite the historic landslide in his 2005 election Morales has struggled to deliver change. Like Guevara, he has made some tactical blunders, polarised the country and encountered fierce resistance.

The relatively prosperous eastern lowlands have rebuffed land reform and other government policies, saying they are ruinous and autocratic. Landowners have blocked government inspection teams, sometimes violently. Four departments recently voted for autonomy in unofficial referendums, a bold challenge to the central government based in La Paz.

This week protesters besieged an airport and clashed with police, leaving two dead and forcing Morales to call off a summit with the presidents of Venezuela and Argentina, Hugo Chávez and Cristina Kirchner.

Security concerns obliged Morales to hold Wednesday's independence day celebrations in his power base of La Paz rather than the opposition-run city of Sucre, underlining that much of the country has become unsafe for him.

The president accused "small and privileged groups" of blocking change. "These groups do not want equality ... They do not respect the identity and diversity of our people."

The head of OAS, José Miguel Insulza, said he was "deeply concerned" about the political violence and appealed to all sides to allow Sunday's referendum to go ahead peacefully.

With the country so polarised the centrepiece of Morale's agenda, a new constitution, has stalled. Sunday's recall referendum is his high-stakes effort to regain momentum.

The coca farmer-turned president is expected to survive since to eject him opponents must garner more votes than he won in 2005 when he gained 53.7%. Opinion polls suggest his popularity has only dipped slightly.

A huge sign in El Alto - Bolivia's de facto indigenous capital - captured the mood of his supporters: "Evo as you never abandoned the people, the people will never abandon you. Vote yes".

If several opposition governors are ousted the president could revive his push for a new constitution. "This referendum is going to clearly show the support for President Evo Morales," said Alfredo Rada, the minister for government. "The ratification of his mandate will set on stone the fact that Bolivia is on the right track, that it is undergoing a transformation."

In fact even if Morales wins the deadlock is likely to continue since the most important opposition governors, their confidence boosted by the recent autonomy votes, are tipped to hold on to their jobs.

"If [the president] is not revoked on Sunday he should respect our will of autonomy, and we will then try to respect his authority," said Carlos Dabdoud, an opposition leader in Santa Cruz province.

By championing indigenous rights over those of mixed-race heritage Morales had forfeited the support of half the country, he said. "We cannot back this so-called process of change as this is not a change for all Bolivians."

Analysts express alarm that the polarisation had paralysed the political process and corrupted institutions, with civil servants, the courts, the police and army sucked into taking sides.

With little prospect of compromise, or either side scoring a knockout victory, many government supporters are digging in for a long battle of attrition, a far cry from the heady early days when Morales spoke of overturning 500 years of colonialism.

"We have to back this government because it is defending the rights of the indigenous peoples ... but it has been acting very slowly," said José Amangay, a Guarani leader.

President Morales appeared on the Daily Show last fall

Around the same time, he sat for an interview with Democracy Now! hosts Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez
(full video and audio stream and download available)

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated]

I never wanted to be a politician. In my country, politicians are seen as liars, thieves, arrogant people. In 1997 they tried to get me to run for president. I rejected that idea, even though that brought me problems with my own grassroots organizations. Then I was later obligated to become a member of the lower house of parliament. I didn’t want to do that at the time, either. I preferred to be the head of a rat than the tail of a horse. I preferred to be the head of my own organizations fighting for human rights and fighting for the rights of the members, and not getting involved in electoral political processes and wind up not fulfilling promises.

...The austerity measures that you mentioned a moment ago, I cut my own salary by more than 50, and the ministers’ as well as also the members of congress, and that money has been redirected to health and education, convinced of the idea that to arrive at the presidency means that you’re there to serve the people...

We said we were going to nationalize the gas and oil sector. We did, without expropriating or kicking out any of the companies. We said it’s important to have partners, but not bosses. And we did it. The investor has the right to recuperate their investment and to a reasonable profit, but we can’t allow for the sacking of the country and only the companies benefiting, not the people...

The struggle against corruption, it’s a key issue in my country. We’re starting that campaign aggressively, starting with members of the executive branch...

...There’s always expenses involved in a campaign, but we spent less than half-a-million dollars. The elections end, we closed the books, did our accounting. More than half-a-million dollars was left over. And I said, “We have to give this money back to the national electoral court, to the state.” But some members of my party said, “But how are you going to give the money back. It’s easy to buy papers in Bolivia to demonstrate other forms of accounting.” I got angry, and I went on my own with just a couple of other people, and we gave that money back. People were impressed....

...Some people who are ill-informed said we should have spent that money on health and education, but no, that’s impossible, because that’s money only for electoral campaigns and had to be returned. Honesty is so important...

The arrogance of an ambassador or the arrogance of others, including a president, is always an error. This arrogance creates greater rebellion, greater resistance. In 2002, former U.S. ambassador to Bolivia, Manuel Rocha, said, “Don’t vote for Evo Morales.” And after that, people came out massively to vote for me. I said he was my best campaign chief. And a number of things were said about what would happen if I came to the presidency, that international cooperation would be reduced, we would no longer have access to markets, but in fact I’ve come to the presidency and we’ve seen a lot more support from other governments...

...A special greeting to the United States people, and thanks for opening this space to me. On my arrival here in the United States, I’ve encountered many friends. I have spoken with ex-presidents Carter and Clinton. We’ve had good conversations. And it seems like the business sectors are starting to understand our message, that we want partners and not bosses.

Let's hope this honest and open President remains in power and is able maintain and further democratic power over the US-backed aristocracy.

Good luck, Evo

There Has To Be Accountability

2008-08-07T14:37:00.004-04:00

Last week, Congressman Dennis Kucinich delivered a petition bearing more than 100,000 names to the Speaker of the House urging that impeachment proceedings begin into the conduct of President Bush. In a special video message, Dennis is asking for your help to deliver an even more powerful message to Congress when it reconvenes in September.

With new disclosures that the Administration tried to "cook the books at the CIA" by creating a phony, forged link between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, "We cannot step back and let this President escape accountability."

If you have already signed the impeachment petition at www.kucinich.us, thank you. If you haven't, please do. And, in the next few weeks, please ask just one more person to sign so we can let the members of Congress hear our collective demand that they meet their obligation to uphold the Constitution.

Sign the PETITION

E'rybody Gonna Keep Killin Each Other

2008-08-06T18:54:00.003-04:00

"We're all the way over in Iraq - don't we have a war here?"

[American News Project]

Big Ideas That Changed The World

2008-08-05T20:31:00.027-04:00

Tony Benn

"If you don't keep up the pressure for democratic control, you lose it. It's 'use it or lose it.' And that is something that people find hard to understand - there is never a final victory for democracy; it's always a struggle in every generation, and you have to take up the cause time and time and time again"

This quick movie demonstrates why Tony Benn, former Member of Parliament and Cabinet Minister, is one of the leading minds today on democracy.

"What democracy did, even in a very elementary form, was to transfer power from the marketplace to the polling station; from the wallet to the ballot. People who didn't have the money were able to vote for candidates who would provide collectively what they couldn't afford personally."

"But, of course, getting the vote only provides a route to political power, it does not provide control of economic power. And as we look at the world today with the economy in the hands of rich and powerful people, you realize that there's a great deal more to be done."

"The World Bank, International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, the European Commission - none of these are elected, and yet they have growing power now to dictate to the governments that are elected. And for them, privatization and profit are the main objectives, regardless of the social costs... So it's true to say that power is moving back from the polling station to the marketplace, from the ballot to the wallet."

"If we allow business interests on an international scale to dominate, we shall find we've surrendered all the rights to those with money, which would be a throwback to the dark ages. And now, increasingly, people are being managed and not represented. And somehow that is an issue that has to be tackled; because if we don't provide a democratic opportunity, one of three things will happen:
Either people will become cynical - and cynicism destroys politics and opens the way to dictatorship
Or they will just abstain, which will destroy the legitimacy of elected governments
Or they'll turn to violence, because the history of the world has been a history of violence.
And sometimes, indeed many times - it's been discovered - the only way to resolve that, is to provide democratic rights."

Ask your political/social/economic leaders these 5 questions:

What power have you got?
Where did you get it from?
In whose interest do you exercise it?
To whom are you accountable?
How can we get rid of you?

Only Democracy gives us that right.
That is why no one with power likes democracy
And that is why every generation must struggle to win it and keep it
INCLUDING YOU AND ME, HERE AND NOW

Are you a Bennite?

"I think democracy is a very, very radical idea. It's not accepted by communists, Stalin didn't accept it; I don't think capitalists like it because it takes power from them and gives it to people who haven't got money. And that is a very dangerous idea, indeed."

You may remember Minister Benn from Michael Moore's Sicko,

"The most powerful religion, as you know, is not Christianity, Judaism, or Islam...it's the people who worship money."

Real News 'Surge'

2008-08-05T19:59:00.005-04:00

The New Jerusalem

The New York Times reported that US intelligence agencies believe that members of Pakistan’s spy service, the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, helped plan the deadly July 7th bombing of India’s embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. 54 people were killed in that attack. Pakistan's government admitted Friday that it needs to purge Taliban sympathizers from the ISI, but it angrily denied a report that the agency helped plan the bombing in Kabul. The US also suspects rogue elements in the ISI of giving militants sensitive information that helps them launch attacks from Pakistan's tribal regions into bordering Afghanistan.

[The Real News]

Chutes and Liars

2008-08-04T20:28:00.003-04:00

Dutch scientists have successfully demonstrated a plan which could harness renewable energy, by flying a 10 metre kite

Pentagon's Unmanned Spokesdrone Completes First Press Conference Mission

The News Better Run

2008-08-01T12:57:00.007-04:00

Running news:

Expanding Blackwater

EurObama

ParticleRap

CERN Rap from Will Barras on Vimeo.

Obama's Economics of More-of-the-Same

CIA Blacksite on British Soil

2008-08-01T06:29:00.003-04:00

More on Congress' Torture Hearings

[Physicians For Human Rights]

Sign the Letter

2008-07-30T17:46:00.004-04:00

An Open Letter to Barack Obama

Dear Senator Obama,

We write to congratulate you on the tremendous achievements of your campaign for the presidency of the United States.

Your candidacy has inspired a wave of political enthusiasm like nothing seen in this country for decades. In your speeches, you have sketched out a vision of a better future--in which the United States sheds its warlike stance around the globe and focuses on diplomacy abroad and greater equality and freedom for its citizens at home--that has thrilled voters across the political spectrum. Hundreds of thousands of young people have entered the political process for the first time, African-American voters have rallied behind you, and many of those alienated from politics-as-usual have been re-engaged.

You stand today at the head of a movement that believes deeply in the change you have claimed as the mantle of your campaign. The millions who attend your rallies, donate to your campaign and visit your website are a powerful testament to this new movement's energy and passion.

This movement is vital for two reasons: First, it will help assure your victory against John McCain in November. The long night of greed and military adventurism under the Bush Administration, which a McCain administration would continue, cannot be brought to an end a day too soon. An enthusiastic corps of volunteers and organizers will ensure that voters turn out to close the book on the Bush era on election day. Second, having helped bring you the White House, the support of this movement will make possible the changes that have been the platform of your campaign. Only a grassroots base as broad and as energized as the one that is behind you can counteract the forces of money and established power that are a dead weight on those seeking real change in American politics.

We urge you, then, to listen to the voices of the people who can lift you to the presidency and beyond.

Since your historic victory in the primary, there have been troubling signs that you are moving away from the core commitments shared by many who have supported your campaign, toward a more cautious and centrist stance--including, most notably, your vote for the FISA legislation granting telecom companies immunity from prosecution for illegal wiretapping, which angered and dismayed so many of your supporters.

We recognize that compromise is necessary in any democracy. We understand that the pressures brought to bear on those seeking the highest office are intense. But retreating from the stands that have been the signature of your campaign will weaken the movement whose vigorous backing you need in order to win and then deliver the change you have promised.

Here are key positions you have embraced that we believe are essential to sustaining this movement:

§ Withdrawal from Iraq on a fixed timetable.

§ A response to the current economic crisis that reduces the gap between the rich and the rest of us through a more progressive financial and welfare system; public investment to create jobs and repair the country's collapsing infrastructure; fair trade policies; restoration of the freedom to organize unions; and meaningful government enforcement of labor laws and regulation of industry.

§ Universal healthcare.

§ An environmental policy that transforms the economy by shifting billions of dollars from the consumption of fossil fuels to alternative energy sources, creating millions of green jobs.

§ An end to the regime of torture, abuse of civil liberties and unchecked executive power that has flourished in the Bush era.

§ A commitment to the rights of women, including the right to choose abortion and improved access to abortion and reproductive health services.

§ A commitment to improving conditions in urban communities and ending racial inequality, including disparities in education through reform of the No Child Left Behind Act and other measures.

§ An immigration system that treats humanely those attempting to enter the country and provides a path to citizenship for those already here.

§ Reform of the drug laws that incarcerate hundreds of thousands who need help, not jail.

§ Reform of the political process that reduces the influence of money and corporate lobbyists and amplifies the voices of ordinary people.

These are the changes we can believe in. In other areas--such as the use of residual forces and mercenary troops in Iraq, the escalation of the US military presence in Afghanistan, the resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict, and the death penalty--your stated positions have consistently varied from the positions held by many of us, the "friends on the left" you addressed in recent remarks. If you win in November, we will work to support your stands when we agree with you and to challenge them when we don't. We look forward to an ongoing and constructive dialogue with you when you are elected President.

Stand firm on the principles you have so compellingly articulated, and you may succeed in bringing this country the change you've encouraged us to believe is possible.

Sign your name

[3183 July 30, 2008 Joshua Lennon]

Contempt!

2008-07-30T17:40:00.003-04:00

House Panel Votes to Hold Karl Rove in Contempt

Constitutional Limits

2008-07-25T21:38:00.022-04:00

And Constitutional obligations
[Article I, Section 2; Article I, Section 3; Article II, Section 2; Article II, Section 4]

"Impeachment comprises both the act of formulating the accusation and the resulting trial of the charges"

It is not the removal from office or a guilty charge, but merely allegations - allowing for the pursuit of justice, setting the stage to take further action:
"A typical misconception is to confuse it with involuntary removal from office; in fact, it is only a legal statement of charges, paralleling an indictment in criminal law. An official who is impeached faces a second legislative vote (whether by the same body or another), which determines conviction, or failure to convict, on the charges embodied by the impeachment."

A great review of today's hearing on Executive Power and Constitutional Limits by The Nation's John Nichols:

• We have seen this Administration fabricate the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and allege, despite all evidence to the contrary, a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. These lies dragged our country into a preemptive and unjustified war that has taken the lives of more than 4,000 U.S. troops, injured 30,000 more, and will cost our nation more than a trillion dollars.
• We watched as this Administration again undermined national security by manipulating and exaggerating evidence of Iran's nuclear weapons capabilities and openly threatened aggression against Iran, despite no evidence that Iran has the intention or capability of attacking the U.S.
• We have looked on in horror as the Administration suspended habeas corpus by claiming the power to declare any person an "enemy combatant" – ignoring the Geneva Convention protections that the U.S. helped create.
• We have seen torture and rendition of prisoners in violation of international law and stated American policy and values, and destruction of the videotaped evidence of such torture, under the tenure of this Administration.
• We have seen this Administration spy on Americans without a court order or oversight in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
• We watched as U.S. Attorneys pursued politically-motivated prosecutions in violation of the law and perhaps at the direction of this White House.
• We watched as Administration officials outed Valerie Plame Wilson as a covert agent of the CIA and then intentionally obstructed justice by disseminating false information through the White House press office.
As we know, the framers of our Constitution called for impeachment only in the case of high crimes and misdemeanors. The standard is purposely set high because we should not impeach for personal or political gain – only to uphold and safeguard our democracy. Sadly, in my judgment, at least two high ranking administration officials have met that standard. Although the call to impeach is one I take neither easily nor lightly, I now firmly believe that impeachment hearings are the appropriate and necessary next step.

Part I (begins 19:00 in)

The text of Kucinich's statement:

Our country has been at war in Iraq, and has occupied the streets and villages of Iraq for five years, four months, and 6 days. The war has caused the deaths of 4,127 American soldiers and the deaths of as many as one million innocent Iraqis. The war will cost the American people upwards of $3 trillion and is the main contributing factor to the destruction of our domestic economy.

Mr. Chairman, I would ask unanimous consent to enter S.J. Res. 45 into the record. The primary justifications for going to war, outlined in the legislation which the White House sent to Congress in October of 2002, have been determined conclusively to be untrue:

• Iraq was not “continuing to threaten the national security interests of the United States”
• Iraq was not “continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability. . .”
• Iraq was not “actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability”
• Iraq did not have the “willingness to attack, the United States”
• Members of Al Qaeda were not “known to be in Iraq”
• Iraq had not “demonstrated capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction. . .”
• Iraq could not “launch a surprise attack against the United States or its Armed Forces”
• Therefore there was not an “extreme magnitude of harm that would result to the United States and its citizens from such an attack”
• The aforementioned did not “justify the use of force by the United States to defend itself”
• Iraq had no connection with the attacks of 9/11 or with al Qaeda's role in 9/11
• Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction to transfer to anyone
• Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and therefore had no capability of launching a surprise attack against the United States or its Armed Forces and no capability to provide them to international terrorists who would do so

However, many Members of Congress relied on these representations from the White House to inform their decision to support the legislation that authorized the use of force against Iraq. We all know present and former colleagues who have said that if they knew then what they know now, they would not have voted to permit an attack upon Iraq.

The war was totally unnecessary, unprovoked and unjustified. The question for Congress is this: what responsibility do the President and members of his Administration have for that unnecessary, unprovoked and unjustified war? The rules of the House prevent me or any witness from utilizing familiar terms. But we can put two and two together in our minds. We can draw inferences about culpability.

Mr. Chairman, I would ask unanimous consent to enter H. Res. 333, H. Res. 1258, and H. Res. 1345 into the record. I request that each Member read the three bills I have authored, bills which are now awaiting consideration by the Judiciary Committee. I am confident the reader will reach the same conclusions that I have about culpability.

What, then, should we do about it?

The decision before us is whether to honor our oath as Members of Congress to support and defend the Constitution that has been trampled time and again over the last seven years.

The decision before us is whether to stand up for the checks and balances designed by our founding fathers to prevent excessive power grabs by either the judicial, legislative or executive branch of government.

The decision before us is whether to restore faith in government, in justice, and in the rule of law.

The decision before us is whether Congress will endorse with its silence the methods used to take us into the Iraq war.

The decision before us is whether to demand accountability for one of the gravest injustices imaginable.

The decision before us is whether Congress will stand up to tell future Presidents that America has seen the last of these injustices, not the first.

I believe the choice is clear.

I ask this committee to think, and then to act, in order to enable this Congress to right a very great wrong and to hold accountable those who have misled this Nation.

Much more to follow...

UPDATE:

Part 2: the Testimonies

Part 3:

Part 4:

Extreme Makeover: Anti-Christ Edition

2008-07-24T17:15:00.005-04:00

Jews Don't Support Anti-Semite

Future Health

2008-07-24T16:46:00.002-04:00

[stolen directly from Smirking Chimp]

By RJ Eskow

This country is in a healthcare crisis today -- but we're not thinking enough about tomorrow either. Here are seven trends to watch, starting with the short-term and ending with what may seem more like science-fiction.

The seven trends are: Doctors leaving the public system, a shortfall in primary care, underutilization of medical treatment, "superbugs," virtual health care, climate change, and radical self-redesign and enhancement.

1. Doctors Leaving the Public System: Medicare dodged a bullet when Congress stopped a substantial pay cut for physicians this month. But doctors continue to leave the Medicare system -- in Texas, in Washington State, in Tennessee, and elsewhere. And many doctors already limit the number of Medicaid patients they accept. Shortages will become more acute as SCHIP and other reforms (hopefully) increase the number of Medicare and Medicaid recipients, and they'll hit lower-income and minority communities first and hardest.

2. Unavailability of Primary Care Doctors: Primary physicians (internists, family practitioners, gerontologists, etc. ) aren't paid enough. It's part of a general tendency to under-compensate for "cognitive services" -- thinking, talking, and diagnosis. Doctors are economic actors like the rest of us. So the result of this payment bias is a critical lack of "cognitive" physicians who should be the drivers of the medical process. Instead, young doctors are being lured into high-cost specialties. This increases the use of costly (and sometimes unnecessary procedures), according to studies conducted at Dartmouth and elsewhere.

This shortage is already crippling health reform in Massachusetts. The idea of increasing compensation for primary care keeps circling around in health circles, as it is now -- along with the concept of a "medical home," which is a re-articulation of health reform ideas that appear at regular intervals like comets. The thinking is probably correct, but the problem will persist -- until there is fundamental reform in the way doctors are educated, compensated, and rewarded with social status. And meaningful reform will be difficult without adequate primary care.

3. Underutilization: Medical policy types are well-versed in the cost problems and health complications that stem from over-utilization of health services. Over-utilization is a central tenet of the McCain health proposals. But, while it occurs -- especially in certain specialties -- the reverse problem of under-utilization is prevalent and growing.

As insurers and employers shift more and more costs to individuals' pockets people are seeking less and less treatment, as this California survey (warning: pdf file) demonstrates. 38% of respondents said they avoided seeking medical care -- either preventive or curative -- because of health costs. That's up from 34% three years ago, and it's a problem. Failure to seek needed care increases health costs, adds to individual suffering, and can allow untreated contagious conditions to spread. Which gets us to...

4. Superbugs: A study of MRSA "superbug" infections published last year found a dramatic increase in occurrence among Chicago's urban poor. Crowded living conditions in jails and public housing could be a factor, according to the study's authors, and illegal tattoos may also be contributing to their spread. Now British hospitals are facing a new superbug called "Steno" that is at least as hard to treat as MRSA.

As new viruses mutate and spread, ready access to preventive and curative medicine becomes more critical. Superbugs would be a concern even if we had a fully functional health system. With the system we've got, the impact of new mutated pathogens could be serious -- and potentially catastrophic.

5. Virtual Health Care: Online healthcare holds great promise for the future - both as a way for people to manage their own health, and as a tool that links doctors and patients in a unified network. But even now, before "Health 2.0" is a reality, we're seeing a wave of health data losses and thefts. (They've become so common that I have a whole blog section devoted to privacy issues.)

The combination of electronic medical records, electronic prescriptions, and other online tools could result in new forms of crime -- with scary enough potential results that I'd rather not describe them in public. (Why serve as a think tank for the bad guys?) Virtual health could also cause substantial shifts in the kind of medical care people demand. While that might actually be a good thing, failure to plan for it could result in some temporary inconveniences.

6. Climate Change: Global warming could change the way we use medical care - and how much we need. As an Australian study found (and we summarized here), overall hospital admissions went up by 7% during heat waves, while mental health admissions went up by the same percentage -- and kidney-related admissions increased 17%. That adds up to a snapshot of medical conditions on a globally-warmed planet. Other changes, like a dramatic increase in the occurrence of mosquito-borne diseases, could also take place.

7. Radical self-redesign: 'Transhumanism' -- the movement to re-engineer the human body -- isn't a well-known term today. But the process is already underway, and it will gain momentum in the coming decades. Choosing our children's genetic characteristics, building computer technologies into our bodies, extending our lifespans, all of these will come into being in the coming years. This will raise a series of questions in fields like medical ethics and health financing, as we've discussed before.

What should we be allowed to do to ourselves and our children? Which changes should be paid for as a social right, and which are a personal choice? Will we create a 'two-tiered' race of human beings? These science-fiction questions will become increasingly concrete as we consider the health care reform issues of the coming century.

Socialism for the Rich

2008-07-24T16:41:00.032-04:00

"In a new sign of increasing inequality in the U.S., the richest 1% of Americans in 2006 garnered the highest share of the nation's adjusted gross income for two decades, and possibly the highest since 1929, according to Internal Revenue Service data.

"Meanwhile, the average tax rate of the wealthiest 1% fell to its lowest level in at least 18 years. The group's share of the tax burden has risen, though not as quickly as its share of income."

The richest 1% reported 22% of the nation's income, the highest share since the Great Depression.

The tax rate for the richest 1% is at a low of 22.8% and declining. (The tax rate for the middle class is around 28%).

Bush's tax cuts effectively "boost the income of millionaires by 10.1 percent."

Unfortunately, the middle class isn't making out as well:

Unemployment is at a 3-year high
[M]edian household income, adjusted for inflation, dropped by $1,175 between 2000 and 2007.
At the same time, the average family is spending $4,655 more on basic expenses, such as gas, housing, food and health insurance.
Gas alone costs $2,195 more for a family making the same commute in May 2008 as it did eight years earlier.

Much of the widening gap can be attributed to run-away "free market" capitalism, a.k.a., Socialism for the Rich:

'"Free trade" policies and the loan sharks that have run the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have destroyed national economies. Millions of people have been forced into poverty, and entire communities have been displaced from the countryside. Multinationals and northern industrial nations siphon wealth from the developing countries. Those that migrate from their homelands to make a living in the north are greeted with walls, bullets and racism. In the United States, millions are homeless, unemployed, in prison, or one paycheck away from bankruptcy. The social wage has been beaten down to unsustainable levels -- real wages are lower now than they were 30 years ago. Yet the costs of fuel and raw materials have skyrocketed, causing worldwide food shortages. We have wiped out public budgets by eliminating taxes on those who profit most. Vital public infrastructure and services cannot meet basic needs like maintaining the levees in New Orleans and reconstructing the Gulf Coast, or controlling the devastating blazes in Southern California. Yet the majority of our federal budget sponsors the wars and occupation in the Middle East, the warehousing of generations of the poor and people of color, the witch hunt of immigrant refugees of U.S. foreign and trade policy, and the growing national debt.

'And while we're at it, let's just be clear that the free market capitalism we have seen in the United States is by no means "free." In reality, the U.S. economy functions as a form of socialism for the rich. Taxpayers have bailed out the savings and loan industry, banks and airlines. We finance at least two federal social security programs: the one to which most of us contribute through each paycheck, and the one for United Airlines employees (since that company no longer pays its pension obligations). We give huge government contracts to the prison and military industrial complexes, and increasingly to private education and health care companies.'

And these radical changes in America's economic landscape are not without their victims. Americans are seeing unprecedented rates of foreclosures as a quarter of a million families lose their homes.

One family in Taunton, MA, lost more than their house on Tuesday in the collapse of the middle class.

"That's the real sad part: This is a middle-class family, a husband working, the son is working," O'Berg said. But the housing crunch, he said, "is inflicting real pain on middle-class Americans.

Fifty-three year old wife and mother, Carlene Balderrama, fatally shot herself with a high-powered rifle an hour and a half before her home was to be auctioned off. Just before taking her own life, she sent a fax to her mortgage company reading, "By the time you foreclose on my house I'll be dead."

As Congress rushed yesterday to help 400,000 strapped homeowners avoid foreclosure and prevent Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from collapsing, the suicide underscored the potentially devastating toll of the housing crunch...

"What gets us so angry is that people blame themselves," Marks said. "They can't see past their sense of responsibility to see the responsibility and the predatory nature of these lenders. The fact of the matter is, unless something dramatic happens, there's going to be more and more people like her taking their lives."

Back On The Table

2008-07-23T19:51:00.003-04:00

May 10, 2008

Get With It

Make the Case

2008-07-22T20:09:00.003-04:00

Sign the Petition

It's all going down on Friday...

[The Case So Far]

Age of Incarceration

2008-07-22T18:14:00.052-04:00

Mother Jones is running a special on our incarceration nation:

SLAMMED
Inside America's Broken—and Broke—Prison System

Slammed: The Coming Prison Meltdown

Slammed: Welcome to the Age of Incarceration
By Jennifer Gonnerman

The number first appeared in headlines earlier this year: Nearly one in four of all prisoners worldwide is incarcerated in America. It was just the latest such statistic. Today, one in nine African American men between the ages of 20 and 34 is locked up. In 1970, our prisons held fewer than 200,000 people; now that number exceeds 1.5 million, and when you add in local jails, it's 2.3 million—1 in 100 American adults. Since the 1980s, we've sat by as the numbers inched higher and our prison system ballooned, swallowing up an ever-larger portion of the citizenry.

When Prison Guards Go Soft
By Sasha Abramsky

"We plan to fail," he says of current correctional policies. "You can put all the police officers you want on the street, but if we don't give those kids hope of a future, of a life, of an ability to make something of themselves, they don't care about life. Nobody's willing to forgive anymore. And we are willing to lock people up for unreasonable periods of time."

Why Texas Still Holds 'Em
By Stephanie Mencimer

Historically, Mexicans caught illegally entering the country have been dumped back across the border, while immigrants and asylum seekers from other countries were processed and released to await their court dates. (Only those with criminal records were detained.) Most of those released, though, failed to appear for court hearings and removal proceedings, and the government didn't have the resources to go looking for them. So in 2006, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency ended its traditional "catch and release" policy and instead started incarcerating non-Mexican immigrants—anyone from a Salvadoran migrant to an Iraqi family seeking political asylum—pending their deportation or asylum hearings. Over the two years since, the agency has increased its use of detention facilities by more than half; it now holds some 30,000 people on any given day.

Why Prisons Banned This Magazine

Banned: Mother Jones, Sept/Oct 2007 (nude child ...in a story on mining dangers)

Approved: Letters to Penthouse XXVIII

How to Get a Conjugal Visit

Disease rates in US prisons compared to general population:

HIV: 490% higher

AIDS: 500% higher

TUBERCULOSIS: 400% higher

HEPATITIS C: 2,000% higher

US prisons and jails house 3 times as many people with serious mental illness as US mental hospitals do.

Where Does $49,000 for Each Inmate Go?

Security: $20,429

Administration: $2,871

Vocational education: $289

Library: $23

The Shawnee Redemption
By Justine Sharrock

In 2006, two-thirds of the offenders entering Kansas prisons were guilty of parole violations—90 percent of them technicalities, like missing meetings with counselors. A third of all parole violations were because of substance abuse, yet fewer than half of the offenders were getting substance abuse treatment in prison. Only 18 percent had completed job training. Meanwhile, the state's corrections spending increased fourfold between 1985 and 2005; by 2016, the state forecasts, it will rise to $500 million. And the consequences fell disproportionately on the poorest parts of the state: According to the New York-based Justice Mapping Center, the state spent $11.4 million in 2004 incarcerating people from just one part of Wichita—the same area that had to absorb many of those offenders when they were released.

8 Tips for an Easier Prison Stay
By Peter Laufer

Leggo your ego: Be humble. New prisoners will "lock eyes with the wrong person and have problems," says Steven Oberfest, an ex-bouncer and personal trainer who won't say what he did time for. "This is not Fifth Avenue and their penthouse anymore. They're just a number."

Which Works Better Behind Bars, Scuba or Buddha?

Underwater welding (Chino state prison, California)
Every year, 100 inmates enroll in this yearlong career-training program taught in a special diving tank.

Why it works: The program's grads have a very low (6 to 12 percent) recidivism rate. And no wonder: After release, they can earn $100,000 a year in the construction and oil industries.

Meditation (Donaldson Correctional Facility, Alabama)
At this notoriously violent maximum-security prison, 75 men participate in a Buddhist meditation program that includes daily meetings and a 10-day silent retreat.

Why it works: Prison officials say the meditators better control their anger and have fewer disciplinary problems.

Hard Time Out
By David Goodman

One reason why students are increasingly ending up in jail is that police now patrol the halls in many schools. In New York, the police department took control of school safety in 1998 under the Giuliani administration; by the 2005-06 school year, according to the New York Civil Liberties Union, the city employed 4,625 school safety agents and at least 200 armed officers, making the NYPD School Safety Division the 10th-biggest police force in the country—larger than those of Washington, DC, Detroit, Boston, or Las Vegas. "We are treating the kids like potential criminals," says Donna Lieberman of the NYCLU. In January, a five-year-old named Denis Rivera was handcuffed behind his back by an NYPD school safety officer for throwing a tantrum in his kindergarten class in Queens.

What Do Prisoners Make for Victoria's Secret?

A stitch in time: California inmates sew their own garb. In the 1990s, subcontractor Third Generation hired 35 female South Carolina inmates to sew lingerie and leisure wear for Victoria's Secret and JCPenney. In 1997, a California prison put two men in solitary for telling journalists they were ordered to replace "Made in Honduras" labels on garments with "Made in the USA."

What Is Nutraloaf, Anyway?
By Justin Elliott

According to a Prison Legal News investigation, overcrowding has caused sewage spills in more than 30 prisons in 17 states, causing wastewater contamination, disease outbreaks, and inmates' deaths.

Probation Profiteers
By Celia Perry

Middle Georgia, along with the rest of the state's private probation industry, owes much of its business to Bobby Whitworth, who was Georgia's commissioner of corrections until 1993, when a sex-abuse scandal involving female inmates forced him out. Gov. Zell Miller promptly reassigned him to the Board of Pardons and Paroles, which positioned him nicely for a side job consulting with a private probation company called Detention Management Services. Three years later, in December 2003, a jury found Whitworth guilty of public corruption for accepting $75,000 from the company to draft and lobby for legislation that dramatically expanded the role of private probation companies. Whitworth was sent to prison for six months, but the law remains on the books, and the private probation industry—led by Georgia's two most powerful Republican lobbyists—has lobbied to be given felony cases as well. That plan has run into opposition from law enforcement: One sheriff told lawmakers last year that among his peers, private probation was seen mostly "as a moneymaking fee-collection service." Another said there is generally "not a lot of emphasis on supervision as much as there is on collection."

Timeline: A Crackdown Chronology

1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act makes mandatory minimum federal sentences for selling or possessing crack 100 times stricter than for cocaine. Total prison population doubles in the following 10 years.

1988 Omnibus Anti-Drug Abuse Act establishes a mandatory 5-year sentence for anyone (girlfriends, roommates) even tangentially linked to the sale or possession of 5 or more grams of crack. Number of drug offenders in federal prisons quadruples in 6 years.

1994 Federal law mandates life without parole for anyone whose 3rd offense is a federal crime.

1999 Car-wash operator Euka Wadlington is sentenced to 2 concurrent federal life sentences for dealing, based on the testimony of drug offenders seeking reduced sentences.

2002 In a survey, 74% of district court judges and 83% of circuit court judges say that mandatory drug sentences are too harsh.

2003 PROTECT Act limits judges' ability to stray from sentencing guidelines. House Republicans form task force to look for "judicial abuse."

The Psychology of Happiness

2008-07-22T17:27:00.004-04:00

Courtesy of Martin Seligman
(and TED)

Distributed Intelligence

2008-07-22T07:02:00.003-04:00

A traffic god among ants

Like the Borg

Unemployment Sucks

2008-07-22T06:56:00.003-04:00

The US labor department reported Wednesday that consumer prices rose 1.1 percent in June, the highest one month rise in 26 years, and the 12 month inflation rate at 5.0% the highest since may 1991. Testifying before Congress, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke suggested that inflation would go higher.The Fed last month broke a string of reductions by leaving interest rates unchanged, a recognition that lower rates had weighed on the US dollar and led to increases in commodities such as oil and food. The so called downturn is also being fueled by the turmoil and bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the collapse of IndyMac. The troubled economy is having direct effects on people’s everyday lives. US home prices have fallen 17 percent over the past year, foreclosure filings surged 53 percent in June with 252,363 homes receiving at least one foreclosure-related notice and More than 71,000 properties were repossessed by lenders nationwide in June. In addition, access to health care is increasingly out of reach, In 2007, more than 75 million or 42% of all working age Americans either had no health insurance during the year or were under insured, up from 35% in 2003 and almost 16 percent of Americans or 47 million people have no health insurance at all. The jobless rate stayed at 5.5% percent in June after soaring in May to the highest rate in 20 years, and is expected to reach 6% next year. Meanwhile, consumers are taking drastic steps in changing their eating habits to adjust to rising food prices. To add to the economic woes, The Auto Industry, traditionally one of the largest employers in North America as well as offering some of the best wages and benefits is also in a financial tailspin.

15x/Day

2008-07-21T22:39:00.002-04:00

Suicides among veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan are reaching epidemic proportions. More than 6,000 veterans took their lives in 2005 alone, according to a study by CBS News. By some estimates, veterans are attempting suicide 1,000 times a month. Marine Corporal James Jenkins of New Jersey was one of these unsung casualties of war. A decorated veteran of the Iraq invasion and the Battle of Najaf, he took his own life after serving 22 months overseas. His mother, Cynthia Fleming, shares his story with ANP - a tragedy that is being repeated 15 times a day in this country.

They Pay Money For It

2008-07-21T22:35:00.002-04:00

Domino's Scientists Test Limits Of What Humans Will Eat

I'm looking forward to the big New York hot dog pizza...

Salute Your Shorts

2008-07-21T22:17:00.007-04:00

More pants in the news:

[W]earing pants below the waist is a crime - a violation of the city's disorderly conduct ordinance - and can give police probable cause to search saggers for other crimes, such as weapon or drug possession

"Given that Flint has one of the highest crime rates in the country, you would think the police chief would be fighting crime instead of the latest fashion fad,"

In the south Chicago suburb of Lynwood, village leaders have passed an ordinance that would levy $25 fines against anyone showing three inches or more of their underwear in public.

In Flint, Mich., the city’s police chief has directed his officers to arrest people wearing pants or shorts below their waists or buttocks, and issue misdemeanors, citing the city's disorderly conduct and indecent exposure laws.

And in Riviera Beach, Fla., local police are now able to act on the so-called "saggy pants" law that was put on the books in March after a legal glitch was fixed Wednesday night.

The southeast Florida city had adopted the controversial ordinance just months after nearby Opa-locka became one of the first U.S. cities to ban saggy pants in certain public facilities.

"I'm not sure what it really serves... They should solve some real problems."

"Proposals to ban saggy pants are starting to ride up in several places...There's a fear with people associating the way you dress with crimes being committed"

"They're better off taking the pants off and just wearing a dress"

Netroots Nation

2008-07-20T19:29:00.008-04:00

Saturday morning, Al Gore addressed the Netroots Nation at an Austin, TX, progressive bloggers convention.

Gore repeated the message he gave Thursday calling for true energy independence within 10 years and promoted the WE campaign, www.wecansolveit.org

Unfortunately, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi attempted to ride his popularity and insultingly portrayed herself as holding the executive branch accountable, as well as being a climate hero.

She should take a page from a real Congressional leader in climate change, Senator Bernie Sanders

'Last year I wrote of Sen. Sanders' green collar jobs amendment which passed but currently awaits funding. Now his 10 Million Solar Roofs legislation – whose cosponsors include Republican Senators Arlen Specter and John Warner – offers yet another transformative alternative to oil dependence as usual. The bill would provide homeowners, businesses, non-profits and state and local governments with rebates covering up to half of the cost of photovoltaic systems which average $20,000. In order to qualify for the federal rebates, stringent energy efficiency standards would need to be met. Some experts say that if 10 percent of the existing rooftops in the US were equipped with properly installed systems, they could supply 70 percent of peak energy demands during summer months.'

A Note on Constitutions

2008-07-20T16:30:00.004-04:00

From The Rights of Man

A constitution is not a thing in name only, but in fact. It has not an ideal, but a real existence; and wherever it cannot be produced in a visible form, there is none. A constitution is a thing antecedent to a government, and a government is only the creature of a constitution. The constitution of a country is not the act of its government, but of the people constituting its government. It is the body of elements, to which you can refer, and quote article by article; and which contains the principles on which the government shall be established, the manner in which it shall be organised, the powers it shall have, the mode of elections, the duration of Parliaments, or by what other name such bodies may be called; the powers which the executive part of the government shall have; and in fine, everything that relates to the complete organisation of a civil government, and the principles on which it shall act, and by which it shall be bound. A constitution, therefore, is to a government what the laws made afterwards by that government are to a court of judicature. the court of judicature does not make the laws, neither can it alter them; it only acts in conformity to the laws made: and the government is in like manner governed by the constitution.

3 Inches of Justice

2008-07-20T14:37:00.002-04:00

LYNWOOD, Ill.—Be careful if you have saggy pants in the south Chicago suburb of Lynwood. Village leaders have passed an ordinance that would levy $25 fines against anyone showing three inches or more of their underwear in public.

Eugene Williams is the mayor of Lynwood. He says young men walk around town half-dressed, keeping major retailers and economic development away. He calls the new law a hot topic.

The American Civil Liberties Union says the ordinance targets young men of color.

Young adults in the village, like 21-year-old Joe Klomes, say the new law infringes on their personal style. He says leaders should instead spend money on making the area look nicer.

$100 Billion Class War

2008-07-19T13:21:00.011-04:00

There was high drama on the Hill when a whistle blower in hiding told how some of America's richest citizens cheat on their taxes with the help of offshore banks. The latest scandals point to deeper questions about the fairness of our tax system and the widening gulf between the rich and the rest of us.

The top 0.01% (14,000 Americans) hold 22% of America's wealth (a 2,200-fold equality gap).

The US has a GDP of about $13.8 TRILLION. So 14,000 people are in control of about $3 Trillion of our nations wealth.

That's well over $215 MILLION EACH on average.

The "bottom" 90% (133,000,000 tax paying families) hold 4% of America's wealth, about $550 billion of the national wealth, significant, but shameful in comparison to the 5.5x more wealth that 1/9000th hold.

And don't fool yourself into thinking it's an equal stratification: The bottom 50% (HALF the country) certainly doesn't hold as much wealth as the 50%-75% group, let alone the top 10%, 1%, or 0.01%

This social and economic disparity is the foundation for most of the nation's woes.

The land of opportunity?

Oh Oh It's...

2008-07-18T18:35:00.008-04:00

Brain Magic

The Impossible Dollar Bill: Try and spend that shit

The Monk Illusion

The Rubik Cubes

[Keith Barry]

Foreign Obamacy

2008-07-18T07:15:00.007-04:00

"Look, I am a Zionist," Kimche told me when we met in a Tel Aviv shopping mall. "I believe very strongly we need to have a state here. And I believe strongly that the only way to thrive is by reaching peaceful relations with our neighbors and reaching a two-state solution. If we have one state for two peoples, it will be our doom. It will have to become an apartheid state, an anti-democratic state."

Gore's Gone Wild!

2008-07-18T07:14:00.005-04:00

www.Wecansolveit.org

Alliance for Climate Protection Solutions

100% Carbon-free in 10 years

[cue the U2]

The Zinn is In

2008-07-18T06:44:00.013-04:00

"Have our political leaders gone mad? Have they learned nothing from recent history? Have they not learned that no one "wins" in a war, but that hundreds of thousands of humans die, most of them civilians, many of them children?"

Korea:
2 million casualties
50,000 American lives

Vietnam:
2 million casualties
58,000 American lives

Gulf War:
100,000 casualties
few hundred American lives

Afghanistan:
?
473 American lives

Iraq War:
1 million casualties
4,121 American lives

"We should be asking the presidential candidates: Is our war in Afghanistan ending terrorism, or provoking it? And is not war itself terrorism?"

[HowardZinn.org]

It's Time

2008-07-16T16:14:00.001-04:00

For some Campaignin'!

JibJab - Time for Some Campaignin'

Have Feith

2008-07-15T22:56:00.004-04:00

Showing off his Nadlers

Fannie, Freddie, Indy

2008-07-15T22:42:00.005-04:00

--House GOP leaders, defying Bush, called for hearings on the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac rescue, and said it shouldn't be attached to the housing package, which they call a bailout for irresponsible homeowners and unscrupulous lenders. In a statement, Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said the changes "should not be coupled with a multibillion-dollar taxpayer-funded bailout bill that includes no reform or a multibillion-dollar permanent new government spending program."

The takeover of IndyMac came amid rampant speculation that the federal government would also have to take over lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which together stand behind almost half of the nation’s mortgage debt.

The Patriot Act (Is Bullshit)

2008-07-15T22:38:00.003-04:00

P & T; BS! - B1G BR0THER

Penn & Teller: Bullshit!

I mpeach, You mpeach, We all mpeach

2008-07-15T22:35:00.004-04:00

The Case for Impeachment (So Far)

Iran Sand Jam

2008-07-13T17:07:00.009-04:00

Last week, after years of being threatened as part of the Axis of Evil, Iran showed its "claws" with a series of war games missile tests

The two sides had better use diplomacy rather than force, guns and weapons. However, when they (the US and Israel) show their teeth, Iran must also show its claws to them. But I am quite sure that no war will take place.

Canada is home to one of the largest oil sites on the planet, but it's a bit dirty, and more costly to process. But should Canada really being paying big bucks to allow Shell and other petroleum developers access to the oil sands?

Over the next several days, Sweden is holding a record breaking jazz festival. In anticipation of the Stockholm Jazz Festival on Wednesday, a "marathon jazz improvisation" began Friday in an effort to log the Guinness World Record for the world's longest jam session.

Check out the jam while it's happening!

Living in Terror

2008-07-13T16:58:00.007-04:00

These brave Iraqi women describe some of the horrors of being Alive in Baghdad:

being afraid to go to the market, to school; seeing neighbors and friends kidnapped before their eyes only to turn up dead a week later; seeing their country dismembered before their eyes...

With all the numbers of dead, wounded, and displaced Iraqi citizens, it's easy to lose sight of the direct impact that each one of those individuals faces as their country is torn apart by war. The scale of suffering of the Iraqi people is unfathomable.

Conyers: Obstacle to Justice

2008-07-13T16:35:00.006-04:00

Rep John Conyers still refuses to decide on whether to move along impeachment hearings against both President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard Cheney.

(OFF CAMERA): What is holding you back from beginning impeachment proceedings at this point?

CONYERS: Well, as I have said before, what's holding me back is that I haven't decided to do them. So I think there are enormous consequences involved in this decision, and that's why I haven't arrived at one yet. I don't plan to give any excuse. I haven't made up my mind. How can I tell you why I'm not going to impeachment? I came here, and the first thing out of my mouth was "I haven't decided."

In a January, 2008 letter to Conyers, Robert Wexler urged him to move along with impeachment hearings against Cheney. It's been 6 months: still nothing from Conyers.

In June, Congressman Kucinich offered 35 articles of impeachment against Bush. One month later, with still no action taken, he introduced another, single article of impeachment against Bush. Still nothing.

Biggest obstacle?

It's not the White House.
It's not the GOP.
It is the democrat "leadership," it is John Conyers.

Lob-Bomba

2008-07-11T17:31:00.006-04:00

Lob Bombs New Biggest Worry for US in Baghdad

Support the Iraq Veterans Against the War

Not Hearing Hearings

2008-07-11T16:59:00.006-04:00

Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) again introduced an article of impeachment against President Bush.

Karl Rove failed to appear before the judiciary committee, despite a subpoena.

FISA Raids

2008-07-09T17:43:00.001-04:00

A Declaration of Independence

2008-07-04T09:32:00.012-04:00

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

A Declaration for our times

Right of the People

The guise of something so noble

Backwards dictatorships

Men who dared

Would we be celebrating if our Declaration of Independence had been edited by King George III?

Pretend Patriotism

Common Sense

Free Press

2008-07-03T19:29:00.006-04:00

This is a War, make no mistake.

I love Naomi Klein
...and we are crazy out here

East Georgebushistan

2008-07-03T19:05:00.002-04:00

Constitutional Compromise

Finest Moments

2008-07-02T17:39:00.029-04:00

Bush Tours America To Survey Damage Caused By His Disastrous Presidency

Some Pre-ndependence Day News:

Barack and Jesus sitting in a tree, E-V-A-N-Gelizing

Emergency Room Fallure

Iraq sues for over $10 Billion Waste in oil for food

FBI Director on SC Gun Ruling: "I tend to believe weapons harm people and more often than not they harm the people carrying them."

What do you do when prices are up and demand is high? Stop importing!

Spy Harder Every Day

Contractor Incompetence: It's Electric!

Torture Training: Learn from the experts

All is forgiven, or at least ignored

Wiretipping Point

Bush Saves Bush

McGaydar

Article 27

2008-06-29T12:45:00.005-04:00

War can only be understood and put an end to if you and all those who are concerned very deeply with the survival of man, feel that you are utterly responsible for killing others. What will make you change?

- J. Krishnamurti

Obama's Advisors

2008-06-28T20:40:00.003-04:00

And what's with the recent onslaught of lapel pins and excessive American flags? How far will he go to court the Fox News vote?

aDICKted

2008-06-28T14:09:00.008-04:00

"Deep water crude? That's shwag, Jon! Stems and seeds!"

"An addict will say anything he has to, in order to get his fix."

Not Anymore

2008-06-27T19:11:00.003-04:00