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.
_____________________________________________

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
__________________________________________________

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.
______________________________________________

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,

_______________________________________________

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."

_________________________________________________

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.
___________________________________________________

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.
______________________________________________________
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."

__________________________________________________

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."
____________________________________________________

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.
____________________________________________________

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."

evolution vs creation

Notes 35

From a Reader summing up reality and the difference between Science and Religion

I saw a thing the other night about the stereopticans and the creation of the third dimension by our eyes from superimposing the images of the left eye and the right eye on the brain that transformed the composite into a three dimensional universe. Conclusion, we create our own reality and the accepted reality is the result of common agreement about what it really is--with a number of variants by groups that do not agree with it.
Science has become as much of a religion as any other, requiring leaps of faith for evolution etc. The difference between scientific religion and theological religion is that science agrees its faith is a moving target that is constantly changing as a result of new
evidence. Religion locks itself into what it believes to be immutable.
Upshot, Life is a remarkable experience for which there is no parallel and no absolute explanation. We make it what it is.

________________________________________________________

Finally somebody gets it
Ex-Minn. governor sues over body scans, pat-downs
Amy Forliti, Associated Press – Mon Jan 24
MINNEAPOLIS – Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura sued the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration on Monday, alleging full-body scans and pat-downs at airport checkpoints violate his right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.
Ventura is asking a federal judge in Minnesota to issue an injunction ordering officials to stop subjecting him to "warrantless and suspicionless" scans and body searches.
_______________________________________________________

Let’s see if Russia decides not to waste a crisis

MOSCOW – The Russian state RIA Novosti news agency says an explosion at Moscow's busiest airport has killed 23 people and wounded 130.

________________________________________________________

Israelis want it all and, honest brokers that we are, we are enabling them

No One Looks Good Here, writes The Guardian's editorial board: "It is hard to tell who appears worst: the Palestinian leaders, who are weak, craven and eager to shower their counterparts with compliments; the Israelis, who are polite in word but contemptuous in deed; or the Americans, whose neutrality consists of bullying the weak and holding the hand of the strong. Together they conspire to build a puppet state in Palestine, at best authoritarian, at worst a surrogate for an occupying force."

TIME
By TONY KARON – Mon Jan 24
A trove of more than 1,600 secret Palestinian documents whose release by the Qatar-based Al Jazeera news organization and Britain's Guardian newspaper began on Sunday could be post-mortem for Obama‘s Peace Process. The documents, allegedly leaked from within the Palestinian negotiating infrastructure and not part of the WikiLeaks Cablegate dump, detail an increasingly desperate yet futile effort by Palestinian negotiators to tempt Israel into a deal by conceding more and more ground, while pleading in vain with U.S. officials for help. And in the longer term, they could even prove politically fatal to chief Palestinian negotiator Saeeb Erekat and his boss, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

_______________________________________________

Society for whom the bells toll--another Mayan disappearance

Europe Begins to Run Short of Water
Pavol Stracansky, Inter Press Service: "Half of the Czech Republic’s population could face water shortages because of climate change, a top climate change expert has warned. The country has become one of the driest in the EU, according to local media, and climatologists say the land, and crucial underground water supplies, are drying up.... Climatologists and meteorologists in central Europe have said that the region is seeing more and more extreme weather including long periods of dry and hot weather in the summer, severe flooding and bitter winter weather."

__________________________________________________________

Rahmy finally runs out his string of running over the law and anybody else. Nor Obama nor Clinton can run Illinois politics
Court: Emanuel cannot run for mayor
Judges say former White House chief of staff is not a Chicago resident
Former White House Chief Of Staff Rahm Emanuel looks on during a meeting between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Gilani of Pakistan at the Blair House in Washington, DC on April 11, 2010.
msnbc.com staff and news service reports 2011-01-24
An Illinois appellate court on Monday threw former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel off the ballot for Chicago mayor because he didn't live in the city in the year before the election.

___________________________________________________

The terrorists killing us are not al Quaida but Big Tobacco and individual American Loughners

TIME
By ROMESH RATNESAR
In the wake of the Tucson, Ariz., tragedy, you might think that such high-profile alarm would center on the shortcomings of America's mental-health system or the inadequacy of the country's gun laws. You would be mistaken. Instead, some members of the political class remain fixated on what they regard as a greater national emergency: the purported rise of "homegrown" Islamic terrorists.
Though acts of violent extremism by U.S. Muslims appear to have grown, their potency has not. American Muslims remain more moderate, diverse and integrated than the Muslim populations in any other Western society. The paranoia about homegrown terrorism thus vastly overstates al-Qaeda's strength and reflects our leaders' inability to make honest assessments about the true threats to America's security.

________________________________________________

The movie Deliverane delivered every day and innumerable mutations someplace in the U.S.

Henry A. Giroux | America's Culture of Cruelty
Henry A. Giroux, Truthout: "The recent murderous acts of violence committed by Jared Lee Loughner in Arizona cannot be reduced to the mental instability of a young man out of touch with reality. Nor can such a horrendous act be reduced to a breakdown in civil discourse. Such rationales are too easy, and emulate what Frank Rich has called 'classic American denial.' There is a deeper order of politics behind this murderous act, one that the American public is inclined to ignore. More specifically, the general responses to this violent act are symptomatic of a society that separates private injuries from public considerations, refusing to connect individual acts to broader social considerations."
__________________________________________________________

Let’s see, how many people would an hundred million feed for a year? All the soup kitchens in America? Maybe Schmidt will donate it. He doesn’t need it.

On Monday January 24, 2011, 7:58 am
NEW YORK (AP) -- Google says it has awarded $100 million worth of equity to outgoing CEO Eric Schmidt.

_________________________________________________

Obama, the piecemeal president

Notes 34

Our “piecemeal president”
What does President Obama really believe?
Christian Science Monitor
By Jacob Bronsther – Fri Jan 21
New York

Obama surfed into the White House on a wave of seeming principle: change, bipartisanship, reason, deliberation, pragmatism.
They are so general that they provide little analytical or moral traction. He will never support tax cuts for the rich, until he will. He criticizes Bush's expansive view of presidential war powers, then adopts it. The list goes on.
There is no well of enduring principle upon which he seems to draw.
In 2009, The New York Times asked Obama: "Is there a one word name for your philosophy? If you're not a socialist, are you a liberal? Are you progressive?..." Obama's answer, "No, I'm not going to engage in that," underscored his fear of labels. That fear is curbing his ability to initiate a new era of liberalism. To create a lasting movement, Obama, like Reagan and FDR, must set down principles that apply to changing circumstances. His thin methodological principles are not up to the task.
So far he's the piecemeal president

______________________________________________________

The need to cut through the myths of America that permit so much unpardonable destruction

"Greatest Nation" Rhetoric Roars Back
Robert Jensen, Truthout: "[The] expression of American exceptionalism is unexceptional in US political history, but it roared back stronger than ever in 2010, especially in the rhetoric of the Tea Party movement. As it becomes harder to ignore the United States' decline as an economic power - which will limit the capacity for imperial marauding around the world - the inclination of most mainstream politicians to assert our greatness will intensify. Those of us with radical or progressive politics need to challenge these kinds of slogans when we talk with friends, family and co-workers.... It is neither churlish nor malevolent to want to honestly assess the accomplishments and failures of one's country. Rather, it is the obligation of every citizen."

________________________________________________________

The cost of unbridled greed

Is America Too Corrupt to Keep Up?
David Sirota, Truthout: "A sovereign nation investing its wealth in its domestic economy seems like a no-brainer, especially during a global recession. But in this crazy age of American politics, even that has become a controversial notion. This is the subtext of a dispute that simmered beneath the pomp and circumstance of this week's U.S.-China summit.... China's industrial policy success carries a basic lesson: When a nation couples public spending with incentives that encourage domestic corporate investment, an economy tends to grow its own wealth-building industries. That's simple enough to understand, right? Evidently, not within our own government."

__________________________________________________________


A story suitable for WikiLeaks. Right up there with the Bourne Identity series

Green zone, movie, Matt Damon, 2010
Storyline
Following the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller and his men are charged with finding the so-called weapons of mass destruction, whose existence justified American involvement, according to the Pentagon and their man in Baghdad, Poundsgate. Veteran CIA operative Marty tells Miller that there are no weapons, it is a deception to allow the Americans to take over the country and install a puppet leader. Also suspicious of Poundsgate is Wall Street Journal reporter Lawrie Dayne, who lets slip to Miller that Poundsgate told her he had secret talks in Jordan with an important Iraqi, code-named Magellan, who told him about the weapons, though it now seems likely Magellan's true information was to the contrary. So begins a hunt for the truth.
_______________________________________________

Somebody finally gets it. Reducing social security and medicare benefits is de facto increase in taxes for most Americans.

GOP's State of the Union Responder Would Set Higher Taxes on Middle-Class Than Millionaires
Pat Garofalo, Think Progress: "House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) was announced today as the Republican who will be responding to President Obama's State of the Union address next week. Ryan has gained a (largely unearned) reputation as a fiscal hawk due to his radical Roadmap for America's Future, under which the U.S. budget will eventually be balanced (after federal debt surpasses 100 percent of GDP), mostly via privatizing Social Security and Medicare. According to an analysis by Citizens for Tax Justice, the Roadmap would raise taxes on 90 percent of Americans, while dramatically lowering them for millionaires. In fact, a new analysis from the Economic Policy Institute found that Ryan's plan would ultimately translate into middle-class tax rates being higher than those for millionaires."

__________________________________________________________

WikiLeaks: 1 percent of diplomatic docs published
Raphael G. Satter, Associated Press –
LONDON: Italy's Foreign Minister Franco Frattini drew considerable attention when he described the WikiLeaks release as the "September 11 of world diplomacy."
WikiLeaks has given the world's public an unprecedented, behind-the-scenes look at U.S. diplomacy. Among the most eye-catching revelations were reports that Arab countries had lobbied for an attack on Iran, China had made plans for the collapse of its North Korean ally, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had ordered U.S. diplomats to gather the computer passwords, fingerprints and even DNA of their foreign counterparts.
Over and over again, the cables captured world leaders lying — to each other, to their allies, and to their own citizens.
Diplomacy "comes across as a scheming, duplicitous profession — which it kind of is," said Carne Ross, a former British diplomat who resigned over the Iraq war.
The cables are laced with cynicism.

___________________________________________________

What are the tea baggers saying about his rise in taxes, cut off oil imports. Hell no. Some increases are acceptable as long as they are business related and not part of public services.

Higher pump prices coming your way this spring
By SANDY SHORE, AP Business Writer Sandy Shore– Fri Jan 21
Gas pump prices that are around $3 a gallon now may seem like a bargain by the time your kids are on Easter egg hunts.
Pump prices have risen nearly 9 percent since Dec. 1 and topped $3.10 a gallon this week. That's the highest level since October 2008. The price may rise or fall a little over the next few months, but analysts expect it to range between $3.20 and $3.75 gallon by March and April ahead of the summer driving season.

____________________________________________________

We have become the gold standard for 28 other countries illegally snatching people off the street. Our policies have made international thuggery legitimate.

Use of extrajudicial rendition in Uganda terror case sparks controversy
Christiand Scinence Monitor,
By Scott Baldauf – Fri Jan 21
Nairobi, Kenya
While condemned by human rights activists and the European Parliament, and criticized by some US military officials as "counterproductive," renditions are seen by at least 28 US allies as a necessary weapon in the battle against terrorism. Estimates of the number of renditions since the US-led war on terror began after 9/11 are educated guesses, but some human rights organizations put the number over 1,000, and the British human rights group Cageprisoners estimates that 88 men, women, and children have been subjected to extrajudicial transfers from Kenya as of 2007.
"This is happening on a global scale," says Asim Qureshi, executive director of Cageprisoners, which tracks renditions and treatment of terrorism suspects at detention centers such as Guantánamo Bay and Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. "What is interesting about Uganda is that their efforts are quite open. I don't think any help is being given by the Kenyan government in this case."

__________________________________________________

Seems terrorism is common around the world, not just in Muslim Middle East

Car bomb blast kills Mexican policeman
AFP – Sat Jan 22, 7:40 pm ET
PACHUCA, Mexico (AFP) - A policeman was killed and three others wounded Saturday when an abandoned car rigged with explosives detonated in the central state of Hidalgo, local police said.

_____________________________________________________

Who really cares about Ivanka getting knocked up? Or me performing my toilette? What happened to private and personal?

LOS ANGELES — Donald Trump's daughter, Ivanka, is pregnant.
"I have been wanting to share some amazing news with you all for some time ... I'm pregnant!" she Tweeted.

______________________________________________________

Minority report, Tom Cruise, arresting people for what they think

Notes 33

We are already arresting people for crimes they might commit a la movie Minority Report. What concerns me is the risk of labeling every political dissident as a risk who needs locking up in an institution. That’s the next step in our race to rewrite judicial system.

An American Suicide Terrorist
William John Cox, Truthout: "As we evaluate the cause and effects of the Tucson murders, assign responsibility and seek solutions, we must continue to uphold the freedom of speech while taking reasonable steps to avoid violent consequences. Political speech has always been inflammatory in the United States, but perhaps due to the increasing militarization of the nation, politicians and commentators have come to routinely talk about 'hunting' and 'targeting' political opponents.... As best we can, given the Second Amendment as currently interpreted by the Supreme Court, we must do everything we can to legally ensure that mentally disturbed people, including those under the influence of highly-charged, political speech, cannot purchase, possess and carry concealed firearms, particularly those with combat capabilities."

_____________________________________________________

Difficult to rouse any passion against wars here. Must be really difficult in Israel

In Israel/Palestine, Occupation Has No Future
"In the Fall of 2009 I had the privilege of following a delegation of US veterans and war resisters traveling to Israel/Palestine to meet with their Israeli counterparts in an effort to strengthen connections between the US and Israeli anti-militarist movements and to share their experiences of refusing to be part of an occupying army.... My latest film, Occupation Has No Future: Militarism + Resistance in Israel/Palestine, is the result of dozens of exchanges and encounters during the month that [I] spent in Israel/Palestine.... Through conversations with Israeli conscientious objectors, former soldiers, and civil society activists ... the consequences of Israeli domestic policy are revealed in stark terms, not only for the Palestinian people, but for Israeli civil society as well."

________________________________________________________

How neat. Being able to lever public fear and support by controlling the estimates of the danger. Sort of like the threat levels established by Ashcroft for air travel.

After failed Iran nuclear talks
ISTANBUL –
Israeli officials now talk of a three-year window — until 2014 — before Iran can make a bomb. That compares with projections of 2011 just three years ago.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told NBC's "Today" show earlier this week that the new Israeli estimates are "very significant." The delay, she said, "gives us more of a breathing space to try to work to prevent them from obtaining a nuclear weapon."
______________________________________________


Obama defends U.S. soil against possible attack by North Korea. It’s not China OR North Korea that are in America’s back yard. Typical of U.S. ludicrous sense of the world’s threats to its sovereignty.

SEOUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) –
Obama warned his Chinese counterpart, President Hu Jintao, that if Beijing did not step up pressure on North Korea, Washington would redeploy its forces in Asia to protect itself from a potential North Korean strike on U.S. soil.
______________________________________________

There will be no end and no embarrassment for the broken compact with the American people

WASHINGTON – The U.S. awarded a no-bid, $266 million contract for a lucrative electricity project in southern Afghanistan despite promising last year to seek competitive bids, The Associated Press has learned.
The U.S. Agency for International Development made the change despite criticism over how it has managed billions of dollars spent on reconstruction contracts.
In January 2010, the agency said companies would compete for the project, which was awarded to Black & Veatch Corp. of Overland Park, Kan. USAID had chastised the company for cost overruns and busted deadlines on a diesel-fueled power plant in Kabul.
________________________________________________

With a godfather like D.C., how can you fail? Xe nee Blackwater, one of America’s stellar international corporations, is teaching ruthless lessons with the gun first paid for by D.C. through special forces training and then by government contracts funding an off the books Middle East private army to hide the cost of the Iraq war.

Blackwater Invades Somalia
by Mishima
Sat Jan 22, 2011 at 04:57:46 AM PST
Blackwater the mercenary army run by Erik Prince from North Carolina has obtained a contract from several Middle Eastern governments to fight piracy originating in Somalia. Given Blackwater's record no Xe services prior record the out come of this operation will only lead to further tragedy for the Innocent while the perpetrators continue to operate with impunity.
Even though Blackwater and its agents have committed numerous illegal transgressions while in the employee of the U.S. government lucrative contracts continue to come thier way. How can you faio with a godfather like that?

_________________________________________________

The long hand of U.S. extra judicial proceedings, pirating people for rumors, not money.

Nairobi, Kenya – They came for Ismail Abubakar at nightfall on Aug. 9, 2010, plucking him from an outdoor market near the mosque where he had just finished teaching young Kenyans how to read the Quran.
Three months later, Abubakar and two dozen other bombing suspects were released for lack of evidence. But the story of his rendition, and the ongoing detention of nine other Kenyans for the bombing, highlights a troubling pattern of extra-judicial abduction and human rights abuses as Africa increases efforts, often at the request of US counterterrorism officials, to combat rising Islamic terrorism.

__________________________________________ __________

Deciding the successful model for the future

China’s on the correct path--"They are thinking each and every day about how to educate their work force, rebuild their infrastructure, enter into new markets," Obama said in November, after wrapping up a 10-day Asia trip. "We should feel confident about our ability to compete, but we are going to have to step up our game."

Congress is on the wrong path, cutting costs instead of raising taxes: Some House Republicans have promised to cut $100 billion from the budgets of domestic agencies. They plan to vote next week on a resolution setting appropriations for the rest of the year at 2008 levels, in place before Obama took office.

Olberman's had enough

Notes 32

When you daily address the absurdities and inequities of the American scene and try to give witness to them and restore sanity, you end up distraught and burned out. We’ll miss ye, Keith.

Keith Olbermann gives abrupt goodbye to MSNBC show
Writer David Bauder, Ap Television Writer – Sat Jan 22
NEW YORK – Keith Olbermann was MSNBC's most popular personality and single-handedly led its transformation to an outspoken, left-leaning cable news network in prime time. Despite that, he often seemed to be walking on a tightrope with his job. Friday night, it snapped.
MSNBC spokesman Jeremy Gaines insisted Olbermann's exit had nothing to do with the acquisition of parent company NBC Universal by Comcast, which received regulatory approval last week.

______________________________________________

A few years ago, an historian said history was dead. Now democracy may be dead.

Does "Democracy" Still Mean Anything? (And in Case It Does, What Is It?)
Zygmunt Bauman, Truthout: "Henry A. Giroux wonders how one can possibly explain 'the electoral sweep that just put the most egregious Republican Party candidates back in power?'... One is the successful creation of 'punitive justice and a theatre of cruelty' as the political formula accepted (or at least acceptable) by the majority of Americans. The other is the accelerated pace of 'social amnesia': The most outrageous misdemeanor of the rulers, not so long ago a cause of public outcry, is pushed aside or forgotten altogether in time for the midterm elections. But there is another possibility as well, one that is perhaps too gruesome for the future of democracy to be seriously broached. It is the possibility - nay, the likelihood - that the link between public agenda and private worries, the very hub of the democratic process, has been broken, with each of the two spheres rotating by now in mutually isolated spaces….”
____________________________________________

Common Cause alleges that both justices were paid guests at exclusive gatherings organized by Koch Industries, where conservative business leaders and elected officials secretly strategized around elections. The justices were among those who provided the critical votes in the 5-4 ruling, a ruling that has prompted an unprecedented flood of corporate expenditures on electoral campaigns over the last year.

On Anniversary of Citizens United Ruling, Calls for DOJ to Investigate Scalia and Thomas
Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, Democracy Now!: "Today marks the one-year anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, that opened the floodgates for unlimited corporate spending on election campaigns. We speak with Bob Edgar, the president of Common Cause, which has filed a petition with the U.S. Department of Justice urging it to investigate whether Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas should have recused themselves from the case last year because of a conflict of interest."

______________________________________________

Oh, hell, why wouldn’t you expect Obama to put wolf in charge of hen house when his re-election is at stake? He’s a blessed pragmatist. To hell with principle.

Volcker Out, Immelt In on Economic Board
Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Anahad O'Connor, The New York Times News Service: "President Obama will name Jeffrey R. Immelt, the chief executive officer and chairman of General Electric, on Friday to run his outside panel of economic advisers, replacing Paul A. Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman, who is stepping down, the White House said. Mr. Immelt will chair a new Council on Jobs and Competitiveness that Mr. Obama intends to create by executive order.... The changes signal what the White House describes as 'a new phase of our recovery,' a shift from crisis to job creation."

_______________________________________________

Ancient Aphorism: To the victor belongs the spoils and corporations are collecting on their investments

Court and Chevron's "Crude" Attacks Continue
Thursday 20 January 2011
by: Michael Winship, t r u t h o u t | News Analysis
A recent Fortune magazine cover proclaimed it "the most pro-business court we have ever seen," and, as the Times more understatedly noted last month, "It is clear ... that the Supreme Court these days is increasingly focused on business issues."
Joe Berlinger's back is against the wall. Last week the independent filmmaker, already facing crushing debt from legal bills, was dealt a major blow in his continuing fight against the third-largest company in America: Chevron.
In May, federal judge Lewis A. Kaplan ordered Berlinger to turn over to Chevron more than 600 hours of raw footage used to create the film, how Ecuadorians challenged the pollution of rivers and wells from Texaco's drilling in the Lago Agrio oil field, a rainforest disaster savagely damaging the environment and the local population's health that's been described as the Amazon's Chernobyl.
In case you missed the Times story over the holidays, it was headlined "Justices Offer Receptive Ear to Business Interests." Scholars at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago prepared a report analyzing nearly 1,500 Supreme Court decisions across almost six decades. It found that, "The Roberts court, which has completed five terms, ruled for business interests 61 percent of the time, compared with 46 percent in the last five years of the court led by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who died in 2005, and 42 percent by all courts since 1953."
_________________________________________________

Giffords, an American reality check

Notes 31

American Optimism vs. reality.Why we misunderstand conditions in the rest of the starving, impoverished world and in the inequities of our own country. Typical of media dishonesty.
The front part of her skull is missing. One eye is gone. She is a web of tubes keeping her alive. Her brain needs constant draining. She can’t swallow. She is paralysed on one side and her brain can't move her legs. If she survives, she will never function better than a damaged child. That’s the hard reality of prognosis for her rehabilitation.

HOUSTON – She heard them, smiled, and tears welled up in her eyes.
The caravan carrying Rep. Gabrielle Giffords swept past cheering crowds Friday as she left the hospital in Tucson, Ariz., where she dazzled doctors with her recovery from being shot in the head two weeks ago, and was moved to Houston for rehabilitation.

______________________________________________


Infuriating. The (liberal) Obama started this with GM bailout. Let the states raise taxes like Illinois did instead of reneging on their guarantees to their citizens

A Path Is Sought for States to Escape Debt Burdens
MARY WILLIAMS WALSH, On Thursday January 20, 2011
Policy makers are working behind the scenes to come up with a way to let states declare bankruptcy and get out from under crushing debts, including the pensions they have promised to retired public workers.
Bankruptcy could permit a state to alter its contractual promises to retirees, which are often protected by state constitutions.
Discussions about something as far-reaching as bankruptcy could give governors and others more leverage in bargaining with unionized public workers.
Discussion of a new bankruptcy option for the states appears to have taken off in November, after Mr. Gingrich gave a speech about the country’s big challenges, including government debt and an uncompetitive labor market.
“We just have to be honest and clear about this, and I also hope the House Republicans are going to move a bill in the first month or so of their tenure to create a venue for state bankruptcy,” he said.
________________________________________________

Unlimited budget for war. Need to make the budget unlimited for peace. Give Peace a chance.

23-story rocket blasts off in California
By Brett Michael Dykes, Fri Jan 21,
On Thursday afternoon the Delta IV Heavy Launch Vehicle, 235 feet tall -- roughly 23 stories--was the largest rocket ever to launch from the West Coast.
The three-engine rocket is thought to carry a top-secret U.S. spy satellite, the Times said, that is "capable of snapping pictures detailed enough to distinguish the make and model of an automobile hundreds of miles below."
_______________________________________________________

No sperm, eggs, zygotes, fetuses, possibilities, or potentialities defined as citizens in Constitution to which Santorum refers. Why can’t they get it after all these centuries. Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God”s.

Thu Jan 20, 12:58 pm ET
Santorum invokes Obama’s race in abortion debate
By Holly Bailey

Rick Santorum says President Obama should be against abortion because Obama is black.
"The question is -- and this is what Barack Obama didn't want to answer: Is that human life a person under the Constitution? And Barack Obama says no," Santorum says.
____________________________________________

A reader writes

The al-Qaida leader questioned why the French would consider the resistance against Nazi German troops occupying their nation in World War II to be heroic while the fight against French and other foreign troops in Afghanistan is labeled terrorism.

"Why do you judge in a double standard?" he said
_________________________________________________

Birds from heaven. Makes you wonder what else is at risk

According to the Christian Science Monitor:
"The USDA's Wildlife Services Program, which contracts with farmers for bird control, said it used an avicide poison called DRC-1339 to cull a roost of 5,000 birds that were defecating on a farmer's cattle feed across the state line in Nebraska. But officials said the agency had nothing to do with large and dense recent bird kills in Arkansas and Louisiana.
"Nevertheless, the USDA's role in the South Dakota bird deaths puts a focus on a little-known government bird-control program that began in the 1960s under the name of Bye Bye Blackbird, which eventually became part of the USDA and was housed in the late '60s at a NASA facility. In 2009, USDA agents euthanized more than 4 million red-winged blackbirds, starlings, cowbirds, and grackles, primarily using pesticides that the government says are not harmful to pets or humans."
______________________________________________

The American Way. Nothing is sacred

A reader writes about donation to restore Roman Colliseum

Does this mean he gets naming rights now??? Is it now going to be called the "Tod's Luxury Leather Goods and Shoes Colosseum"?

_______________________________________________

Fetuses not written into Constitution, only citizens

Notes 31

No sperm, eggs, zygotes, fetuses, possibilities, or potentialities defined as citizens in Constitution to which Santorum refers. Why can’t they get it after all these centuries. Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God”s.

Thu Jan 20, 12:58 pm ET
Santorum invokes Obama’s race in abortion debate
By Holly Bailey

Rick Santorum says President Obama should be against abortion because Obama is black.
"The question is -- and this is what Barack Obama didn't want to answer: Is that human life a person under the Constitution? And Barack Obama says no," Santorum says.
____________________________________________

American Optimism vs. reality. Why we misunderstand conditions in the rest of the starving, impoverished world the inequities in our own country. One eye is gone. Part of her skull is blown away. She is a web of tubes keeping her alive. Her brain needs constant draining. She can’t swallow. She is paralysed on one side and can’t move her legs. If she survives, she will never function better than a damaged child. That’s the hard reality.

HOUSTON – She heard them, smiled, and tears welled up in her eyes.
The caravan carrying Rep. Gabrielle Giffords swept past cheering crowds Friday as she left the hospital in Tucson, Ariz., where she dazzled doctors with her recovery from being shot in the head two weeks ago, and was moved to Houston for rehabilitation.

______________________________________________


Infuriating. The (liberal) Obama started this with GM bailout. Let the states raise taxes like Illinois did instead of reneging on their guarantees to their citizens

A Path Is Sought for States to Escape Debt Burdens
MARY WILLIAMS WALSH, On Thursday January 20, 2011
Policy makers are working behind the scenes to come up with a way to let states declare bankruptcy and get out from under crushing debts, including the pensions they have promised to retired public workers.
Bankruptcy could permit a state to alter its contractual promises to retirees, which are often protected by state constitutions.
Discussions about something as far-reaching as bankruptcy could give governors and others more leverage in bargaining with unionized public workers.
Discussion of a new bankruptcy option for the states appears to have taken off in November, after Mr. Gingrich gave a speech about the country’s big challenges, including government debt and an uncompetitive labor market.
“We just have to be honest and clear about this, and I also hope the House Republicans are going to move a bill in the first month or so of their tenure to create a venue for state bankruptcy,” he said.
________________________________________________

Unlimited budget for war and neat technological successes. Need to make the budget unlimited for peace. Give Peace a chance.

23-story rocket blasts off in California
By Brett Michael Dykes, Fri Jan 21,
On Thursday afternoon the Delta IV Heavy Launch Vehicle, 235 feet tall -- roughly 23 stories--was the largest rocket ever to launch from the West Coast.
The three-engine rocket is thought to carry a top-secret U.S. spy satellite, the Times said, that is "capable of snapping pictures detailed enough to distinguish the make and model of an automobile hundreds of miles below."
_______________________________________________________

A reader writes

The al-Qaida leader questioned why the French would consider the resistance against Nazi German troops occupying their nation in World War II to be heroic while the fight against French and other foreign troops in Afghanistan is labeled terrorism.

"Why do you judge in a double standard?" he said
_________________________________________________

Birds from heaven. Makes you wonder what else is fallin down.

According to the Christian Science Monitor:
"The USDA's Wildlife Services Program, which contracts with farmers for bird control, said it used an avicide poison called DRC-1339 to cull a roost of 5,000 birds that were defecating on a farmer's cattle feed across the state line in Nebraska. But officials said the agency had nothing to do with large and dense recent bird kills in Arkansas and Louisiana.
"Nevertheless, the USDA's role in the South Dakota bird deaths puts a focus on a little-known government bird-control program that began in the 1960s under the name of Bye Bye Blackbird, which eventually became part of the USDA and was housed in the late '60s at a NASA facility. In 2009, USDA agents euthanized more than 4 million red-winged blackbirds, starlings, cowbirds, and grackles, primarily using pesticides that the government says are not harmful to pets or humans."
______________________________________________

The American Way. Nothing is sacred

A reader writes about donation to restore Roman Colliseum

Does this mean he gets naming rights now??? Is it now going to be called the "Tod's Luxury Leather Goods and Shoes Colosseum"?

_______________________________________________