Obama veers over the edge

Notes 36

An organization that works with business. I thought that was Obama’s government.

AP Interview: Gingrich calls for replacing EPA
AP – Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich speaks at the Iowa Renewable Fuels Summit, Tuesday, Jan. 25, …
By MIKE GLOVER, Associated Press Mike Glover, Associated Press – 1 hr 56 mins ago
DES MOINES, Iowa – Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich called Tuesday for the elimination of the Environmental Protection Agency, which he wants to replace with a new organization that would work more closely with businesses and be more aggressive in using science and technology.
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Excesses of unbridled military are staggering.
Mock city rises at Marine base for urban training
Julie Watson, Associated Press –
SAN DIEGO – A mock city roughly the size of downtown San Diego has risen in a remote Southern California desert to train military forces to fight in urban environments.
The $170 million urban training center was unveiled Tuesday at the Twentynine Palms military base, 170 miles northeast of San Diego
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Dollar to a doughnut, Merrill made money on this deal. The system’s way of rewarding fraud.

Merrill paying $10M to settle SEC fraud charges
AP – Tue Jan 25, 1:57 pm ET
NEW YORK - Merrill Lynch on Tuesday agreed to pay a $10 million fine to settle civil securities fraud charges by regulators who accused the firm of misusing customers' order data to make trades for its own account and for failing to disclose trading fees.
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License to steal. The price we pay to keep puppet in power in Afghanistan

The Wall Street Journal reported in June that more than $3 billion in cash has been openly flown out of Kabul International Airport in the past three years -- “packed into suitcases, piled onto pallets and loaded into airplanes.” Only so much of that could be drug money. The bulk, presumably, was skimmed from U.S. aid and logistics spending.
And that’s just what people are declaring. The Journal calculated the $3 billion figure based on Afghan customs records, noting: “More declared cash flies out of Kabul each year than the Afghan government collects in tax and customs revenue nationwide.”

WASHINGTON -- The revelation that Afghanistan's vice president was caught carrying $52 million in cash last year in a Persian Gulf tax haven (and was allowed to keep it) is only the latest bit of evidence that countless billions of U.S. taxpayer money have been wasted in Afghanistan due to mismanagement, fraud and endemic corruption.
The latest disclosure comes courtesy of the international whistleblower website WikiLeaks,

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Imperial presidents break law with impunity.

Report: Bush administration broke law in '06 races
WASHINGTON – In the runup to the 2006 midterm election in which Republicans lost control of the House, the Bush administration repeatedly broke the law by using federal funds to send Cabinet secretaries and other high-level political appointees to congressional districts of GOP candidates in tight races, according to a government report.
OSC found that 10 agencies used federal funds to pay for political appointees to travel to events supporting Republican candidates in 2006 in an operation monitored closely by the White House Office of Political Affairs. The report says that aspects of OPA that came in conflict with the Hatch Act during the Bush era "have apparently existed for decades."

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Can’t afford to cut off that gun trade and undermine the 2nd Amendment BUT we can spy on citizens and abuse 1st Amendment without objection
U.S.: Gun raids show cartels at work in Arizona
'Straw buyers' amass hundreds of assault rifles, federal officials say
By Michael Isikoff National investigative correspondent
NBC News NBC News updated 1/25/2011 5:03:45 PM ET 2011-01-25T22:03:45 -
Federal officials say they have new evidence that Mexico's most violent drug cartels are exploiting U.S. guns laws to acquire massive quantities of assault rifles and other firearms for use in their war against the Mexican government.
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Getting guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them. PAY for enforcement.

After the tragic mass shooting at Virginia Tech in 2006, Congress passed the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) Improvement Act that created incentives for states to improve the reporting of background information to the NICS database. While it helped (increased the number of records in the database from 300,00 to 1.1 million), the database is still over a million records short.
The mayors effort focuses on two major components: Fully fund the NICS Improvement Act and strengthen procedures for compliance with the law, and fix the gun show loophole by requiring reasonable background checks at gun shows.
Their proposals are supported by more than 90% of the public, including gun owners.
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What happens when you reduce regulation

Why a Gruesome Pennsylvania Abortion Clinic Had Not Been Inspected for 17 Years
Marian Wang, ProPublica: "While this week's indictment involving a grisly abortion mill in Philadelphia has shocked many, the grand jury's nearly 300-page report also contains a surprising and little-noted revelation: In the mid-1990s, the administration of Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge, a pro-choice Republican, ended regular inspections of abortion clinics - a policy that continued until just last year. According to the grand jury report [PDF] released this week by Philadelphia prosecutors, Pennsylvania health officials deliberately chose not to enforce laws to ensure that abortion clinics provide the same level of care as other medical service providers."

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Time to stop being penny wise and pound foolish. Pay the bills. Raise taxes.

California Shows Corporate Subsidies Impoverish Us All
William L. Pelote, Sr., Truthout: "For years now, Californians have been told that we must choose between cutting public services and public service employees, or budget Armageddon. However, this is a false choice that has been driven more by political rhetoric than actual reality.... What we must bear in mind instead is that there is a direct relationship between California's quality of life and the quality of its public services and the people who provide those services. Economists agree that diminishing public service jobs and benefits will slow California's economic recovery and increase unemployment. These are unacceptable outcomes. That is why we must find the courage to confront the root cause of our state's structural budget deficit."
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What it took 165 years to establish, the Courts since 2000 have managed to destroy--an independent and trustworthy Supreme Court

Mark Karlin
Editor, BuzzFlash at Truthout
In recent months, Antonin Scalia has declared in speeches that there is nothing in the Constitution that guarantees rights for women, that the 17th Amendment allowing for the popular election of senators was a mistake, that legislative intent should not be considered in a SCOTUS ruling, and far too many more "Scaliaisms" to recount in a short column. Some of them are just plain stupid – and deadly.
Take Scalia's dissenting court opinion in 2009 that nothing in the Constitution prevents an innocent man from being put to death: "This Court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is 'actually' innocent."
And that is entirely consistent with a charge by Common Cause that Scalia and Clarence Thomas attended Koch Brothers-sponsored political planning sessions before the Citizens United Ruling (just over a year ago) that advanced the interests of the oligarchy present at the confabs.
The Los Angeles Times reported this week that Thomas failed to report his wife's income on his financial disclosure report – for five years. It added up to $680,000 from the Heritage Foundation.
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The U.S.is the quarterback at the center of a vast collusion in government corruption

Juan Cole | The Corruption Game: What the Tunisian Revolution and WikiLeaks Reveal
Juan Cole, TomDispatch.com: "Here's one obvious lesson of the Tunisian Revolution of 2011: paranoia about Muslim fundamentalist movements and terrorism is causing Washington to make bad choices that will ultimately harm American interests and standing abroad. State Department cable traffic from capitals throughout the Greater Middle East, made public thanks to WikiLeaks, shows that U.S. policy-makers have a detailed and profound picture of the depths of corruption and nepotism that prevail among some 'allies' in the region."