Thursday, February 24, 2011
Popular Uprising:
2 part interview with Noam Chomsky
Democracy Now! - 'Democracy Uprising' in the U.S.A.?: Noam Chomsky on Wisconsin’s Resistance to Assault on Public Sector, the Obama-Sanctioned Crackdown on Activists, and the Distorted Legacy of Ronald Reagan
Democracy Now! - Noam Chomsky on Civil Rights, Obama, Latin America, and the History of the U.S. in the Middle East
A False Choice, Based On Giving Away The Store To Special Interests
The Cap Times (WI): Walker gins up ‘crisis’ to reward cronies
"...Despite shortfalls in revenue following the economic downturn that hit its peak with the Bush-era stock market collapse, the state has balanced budgets, maintained basic services and high-quality schools, and kept employment and business development steadier than the rest of the country. It has managed so well, in fact, that the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau recently released a memo detailing how the state will end the 2009-2011 budget biennium with a budget surplus.
In its Jan. 31 memo to legislators on the condition of the state’s budget, the Fiscal Bureau determined that the state will end the year with a balance of $121.4 million.
To the extent that there is an imbalance -- Walker claims there is a $137 million deficit -- it is not because of a drop in revenues or increases in the cost of state employee contracts, benefits or pensions. It is because Walker and his allies pushed through $140 million in new spending for special-interest groups in January. If the Legislature were simply to rescind Walker’s new spending schemes -- or delay their implementation until they are offset by fresh revenues -- the 'crisis' would not exist.
The Fiscal Bureau memo -- which readers can access at http://legis.wisconsin.gov/lfb/Misc/2011_01_31Vos&Darling.pdf -- makes it clear that Walker did not inherit a budget that required a repair bill.
The facts are not debatable.
Because of the painful choices made by the previous Legislature, Wisconsin is in better shape fiscally than most states.
Wisconsin has lower unemployment than most states.
Wisconsin has better prospects for maintaining great schools, great public services and a great quality of life than most states, even in turbulent economic times.
Unfortunately, Walker has a political agenda that relies on the fantasy that Wisconsin is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy..."
This man needs a refresher course on the First Amendment right to peaceable assembly...
The Raw Story: ‘Use live ammunition’ against Wisconsin protesters, Indiana official says
"The Indiana Attorney General's office announced Wednesday that the deputy attorney general who called for Wisconsin riot police to use deadly force on protesters is no longer employed by the agency, according to WISH..."
The Environment
AFP: Indigenous Ecuadoran woman humbles US oil giant
"She has no legal training, and doesn't speak the Spanish that dominates government in Quito but indigenous villager Maria Aguinda helped bring a landmark judgment against US oil giant Chevron for polluting the rain forest she calls home.
The diminutive grandmother whose modest home sits near marshes clogged for decades in sticky oil has been at the heart of the David-and-Goliath case, and spoke out after Chevron was slapped last week with a $9.5-billion fine, among the heaviest ever handed down for environmental damage.
'Before I die they have to pay me for the dead animals, and for what they did to the river, and the water and the earth,' the 61-year-old Aguinda told AFP at her home in Rumipamba, a town in remote Orellana province where pollution caused by 30 years of oil drilling and petroleum accidents had become a sad fact of life.
Texaco operated in the area between 1964 and 1990, and was bought in 2001 by Chevron, which inherited Texaco's legal nightmare..."
2 part interview with Noam Chomsky
Democracy Now! - 'Democracy Uprising' in the U.S.A.?: Noam Chomsky on Wisconsin’s Resistance to Assault on Public Sector, the Obama-Sanctioned Crackdown on Activists, and the Distorted Legacy of Ronald Reagan
Democracy Now! - Noam Chomsky on Civil Rights, Obama, Latin America, and the History of the U.S. in the Middle East
A False Choice, Based On Giving Away The Store To Special Interests
The Cap Times (WI): Walker gins up ‘crisis’ to reward cronies
"...Despite shortfalls in revenue following the economic downturn that hit its peak with the Bush-era stock market collapse, the state has balanced budgets, maintained basic services and high-quality schools, and kept employment and business development steadier than the rest of the country. It has managed so well, in fact, that the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau recently released a memo detailing how the state will end the 2009-2011 budget biennium with a budget surplus.
In its Jan. 31 memo to legislators on the condition of the state’s budget, the Fiscal Bureau determined that the state will end the year with a balance of $121.4 million.
To the extent that there is an imbalance -- Walker claims there is a $137 million deficit -- it is not because of a drop in revenues or increases in the cost of state employee contracts, benefits or pensions. It is because Walker and his allies pushed through $140 million in new spending for special-interest groups in January. If the Legislature were simply to rescind Walker’s new spending schemes -- or delay their implementation until they are offset by fresh revenues -- the 'crisis' would not exist.
The Fiscal Bureau memo -- which readers can access at http://legis.wisconsin.gov/lfb/Misc/2011_01_31Vos&Darling.pdf -- makes it clear that Walker did not inherit a budget that required a repair bill.
The facts are not debatable.
Because of the painful choices made by the previous Legislature, Wisconsin is in better shape fiscally than most states.
Wisconsin has lower unemployment than most states.
Wisconsin has better prospects for maintaining great schools, great public services and a great quality of life than most states, even in turbulent economic times.
Unfortunately, Walker has a political agenda that relies on the fantasy that Wisconsin is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy..."
This man needs a refresher course on the First Amendment right to peaceable assembly...
The Raw Story: ‘Use live ammunition’ against Wisconsin protesters, Indiana official says
"The Indiana Attorney General's office announced Wednesday that the deputy attorney general who called for Wisconsin riot police to use deadly force on protesters is no longer employed by the agency, according to WISH..."
The Environment
AFP: Indigenous Ecuadoran woman humbles US oil giant
"She has no legal training, and doesn't speak the Spanish that dominates government in Quito but indigenous villager Maria Aguinda helped bring a landmark judgment against US oil giant Chevron for polluting the rain forest she calls home.
The diminutive grandmother whose modest home sits near marshes clogged for decades in sticky oil has been at the heart of the David-and-Goliath case, and spoke out after Chevron was slapped last week with a $9.5-billion fine, among the heaviest ever handed down for environmental damage.
'Before I die they have to pay me for the dead animals, and for what they did to the river, and the water and the earth,' the 61-year-old Aguinda told AFP at her home in Rumipamba, a town in remote Orellana province where pollution caused by 30 years of oil drilling and petroleum accidents had become a sad fact of life.
Texaco operated in the area between 1964 and 1990, and was bought in 2001 by Chevron, which inherited Texaco's legal nightmare..."
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
The Anti-Labor Agenda of The Ultra-Rich:
NY Times Editorial: Spreading Anti-Union Agenda
"...Conservative leaders in most states with strong unions have in the past generally made accommodations with organized labor, often winning support on social issues in return. That changed this year after wealthy conservatives poured tens of millions of dollars into the election campaigns of hard-right candidates like Mr. Kasich and Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin.
As Eric Lipton reported in The Times on Tuesday, the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, who have long been staunch union opponents, were among the biggest contributors to Mr. Walker. (Americans for Prosperity, the conservative group financed by the Kochs, will begin running anti-union broadcast ads in Wisconsin in the next few days.)
Some public sector unions have contracts and benefits that are too rich for these times, but even when they have made concessions, Republican officials have kept up the attack. The Republicans’ claim to be acting on behalf of taxpayers is not believable..."
Egypt:
Webster G. Tarpley: Mubarak Toppled by CIA Because He Opposed US Plans for War with Iran; US Eyes Seizure of Suez Canal; Was this the Threat that Forced Mubarak to Quit?
"There never was an 'Egyptian revolution,' but rather a behind-the-scenes military putsch by a junta of CIA puppet generals who evidently could not succeed in their goal of ousting Hosni Mubarak without the help of a heavy-duty ultimatum from Washington in the night between Thursday, February 10 and Friday, February 11, 2011. There is growing evidence that the threat in question involved the seizure or blocking of the Suez Canal, the Egyptian waterway which carries over 8% of all seaborne world trade, which the imperialists tried to grab back in 1956, and from which they would today like to exclude China, Iran, and Russia. As for Mubarak, there are strong indications that he was toppled by Washington and London because he opposed the current US-UK plan to organize a block of Sunni Arab states such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the Gulf states — under a US nuclear umbrella and shoulder to shoulder with Israel — for purposes of confrontation and war with Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, and their Shiite and radical allies..."
The Gulf Oil Disaster:
Far from the headlines, all is not well in the Gulf of Mexico...
BBC News: Gulf spill's effects 'may not be seen for a decade'
"The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill 'devastated' life on and near the seafloor, a marine scientist has said.
Studies using a submersible found a layer, as much as 10cm thick in places, of dead animals and oil, said Samantha Joye of the University of Georgia.
Knocking these animals out of the food chain will, in time, affect species relevant to fisheries.
She disputed an assessment by BP's compensation fund that the Gulf of Mexico will recover by the end of 2012...."
Technology:
CNet: Apple report reveals grim truths behind gadgets
"Apple's just-released progress report on the labor-related practices of its overseas parts suppliers reveals grim truths behind the making of such popular gadgets as the iPad and iPhone--including worker poisonings, child labor violations, and 60-plus-hour work weeks..."
NY Times Editorial: Spreading Anti-Union Agenda
"...Conservative leaders in most states with strong unions have in the past generally made accommodations with organized labor, often winning support on social issues in return. That changed this year after wealthy conservatives poured tens of millions of dollars into the election campaigns of hard-right candidates like Mr. Kasich and Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin.
As Eric Lipton reported in The Times on Tuesday, the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, who have long been staunch union opponents, were among the biggest contributors to Mr. Walker. (Americans for Prosperity, the conservative group financed by the Kochs, will begin running anti-union broadcast ads in Wisconsin in the next few days.)
Some public sector unions have contracts and benefits that are too rich for these times, but even when they have made concessions, Republican officials have kept up the attack. The Republicans’ claim to be acting on behalf of taxpayers is not believable..."
Egypt:
Webster G. Tarpley: Mubarak Toppled by CIA Because He Opposed US Plans for War with Iran; US Eyes Seizure of Suez Canal; Was this the Threat that Forced Mubarak to Quit?
"There never was an 'Egyptian revolution,' but rather a behind-the-scenes military putsch by a junta of CIA puppet generals who evidently could not succeed in their goal of ousting Hosni Mubarak without the help of a heavy-duty ultimatum from Washington in the night between Thursday, February 10 and Friday, February 11, 2011. There is growing evidence that the threat in question involved the seizure or blocking of the Suez Canal, the Egyptian waterway which carries over 8% of all seaborne world trade, which the imperialists tried to grab back in 1956, and from which they would today like to exclude China, Iran, and Russia. As for Mubarak, there are strong indications that he was toppled by Washington and London because he opposed the current US-UK plan to organize a block of Sunni Arab states such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the Gulf states — under a US nuclear umbrella and shoulder to shoulder with Israel — for purposes of confrontation and war with Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, and their Shiite and radical allies..."
The Gulf Oil Disaster:
Far from the headlines, all is not well in the Gulf of Mexico...
BBC News: Gulf spill's effects 'may not be seen for a decade'
"The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill 'devastated' life on and near the seafloor, a marine scientist has said.
Studies using a submersible found a layer, as much as 10cm thick in places, of dead animals and oil, said Samantha Joye of the University of Georgia.
Knocking these animals out of the food chain will, in time, affect species relevant to fisheries.
She disputed an assessment by BP's compensation fund that the Gulf of Mexico will recover by the end of 2012...."
Technology:
CNet: Apple report reveals grim truths behind gadgets
"Apple's just-released progress report on the labor-related practices of its overseas parts suppliers reveals grim truths behind the making of such popular gadgets as the iPad and iPhone--including worker poisonings, child labor violations, and 60-plus-hour work weeks..."
Monday, February 21, 2011
Pointless Prohibition:
When Sec. Clinton said there was too much money in illicit drugs, is this what she meant?
Ed Vulliamy: The Wachovia Whistleblower
"Martin Woods had become an expert at spotting dirty money swilling around the banking system by the time he discovered his own employer—one of America's leading banks—was helping to launder the profits of drug-dealing in Mexico...
...Woods issued a series of 'suspicious activity reports' (SARs) urging the blockage of named parties and large series of sequentially numbered traveler's checks from Mexico...
...As it turns out, his instincts were exactly right. On April 10, 2006, soldiers from the Mexican military found 128 cases packed with 5.7 tons of cocaine, valued at $100 million, aboard a jet that had just arrived in the port city of Ciudad del Carmen. A twenty-two-month investigation by agents from the DEA, the IRS and others further revealed that the smugglers had bought the plane with money they had laundered through Wachovia...
...Instead of launching its own investigation, Wachovia hung Woods out to dry. In August 2008 the bank invoked disciplinary proceedings: serving a discipline letter and scheduling a hearing for alleged professional misconduct. A stinging reprimand claimed that Woods's actions could expose the bank to 'potential regulatory jeopardy' and even 'large fines,'..."
The Bankster Heist:
Chris Lehmann: The Great Squid Hunt: On Matt Taibbi
"...When the idolatry of the market, and market expertise, becomes this perverse and unchecked, the value of a stubborn autodidact like Matt Taibbi stands out in high relief. Heeding the shifting tenor of the times, Taibbi, a contributing editor for Rolling Stone, moved from the campaign beat into finance journalism shortly after the 2008 meltdown. At the outset, he muffed a few things. In his now (in-)famous July 2009 takedown of Goldman Sachs, which placed the investment house at the center of three signature market bubbles—the 1920s joint stock fiasco, the '90s Internet mania and the recent housing Guignol—he overstated the firm's power to drive markets while mischaracterizing crucial Goldman operations such as CDO exchanges as derivatives deals. But despite such missteps—which earned Taibbi the concerted scorn of most of the financial press—the brunt of his argument about Goldman's particular outsize role in the housing debacle has been proven correct, and has gained remarkable traction in our emerging and impressionistic understanding of the past decade of Wall Street larceny. When Taibbi quoted a hedge-fund operator as saying that Goldman's initiative to sell short on the same mortgage deals it systematically inflated in pitches to other investors was nothing less than 'securities fraud,' the same financial journalists derided Taibbi as an irresponsible naïf—until the SEC charged the bank with securities fraud for constructing just those kinds of deals, in a prosecution that eventually produced the largest civil settlement in the regulatory agency's history...
...In his view, Goldman's AIG ultimatum was like the Mafia's neighborhood business model as laid out in Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas: pump up a local restaurant or bar with supplies extorted from your protection-paying debtors, and when the thing is leached of its last profit, set it afire for the insurance money. 'In the end, Blankfein and Goldman...did a mob job on AIG, burning it to the ground for the 'insurance' of a government bailout they knew they would get, if that army of five hundred bankers could not find the money to arrange a private solution.' In this, Taibbi argues, Goldman was no different from the shakedown artists pumping out 'no down payment' adjustable-rate mortgages to borrowers who had no earthly hope of making their adjusted ARM payments—'the kind of shameless con man who preyed on families and kids and whom even other criminals would look down on.... The only difference with Goldman was one of scale...."
When Sec. Clinton said there was too much money in illicit drugs, is this what she meant?
Ed Vulliamy: The Wachovia Whistleblower
"Martin Woods had become an expert at spotting dirty money swilling around the banking system by the time he discovered his own employer—one of America's leading banks—was helping to launder the profits of drug-dealing in Mexico...
...Woods issued a series of 'suspicious activity reports' (SARs) urging the blockage of named parties and large series of sequentially numbered traveler's checks from Mexico...
...As it turns out, his instincts were exactly right. On April 10, 2006, soldiers from the Mexican military found 128 cases packed with 5.7 tons of cocaine, valued at $100 million, aboard a jet that had just arrived in the port city of Ciudad del Carmen. A twenty-two-month investigation by agents from the DEA, the IRS and others further revealed that the smugglers had bought the plane with money they had laundered through Wachovia...
...Instead of launching its own investigation, Wachovia hung Woods out to dry. In August 2008 the bank invoked disciplinary proceedings: serving a discipline letter and scheduling a hearing for alleged professional misconduct. A stinging reprimand claimed that Woods's actions could expose the bank to 'potential regulatory jeopardy' and even 'large fines,'..."
The Bankster Heist:
Chris Lehmann: The Great Squid Hunt: On Matt Taibbi
"...When the idolatry of the market, and market expertise, becomes this perverse and unchecked, the value of a stubborn autodidact like Matt Taibbi stands out in high relief. Heeding the shifting tenor of the times, Taibbi, a contributing editor for Rolling Stone, moved from the campaign beat into finance journalism shortly after the 2008 meltdown. At the outset, he muffed a few things. In his now (in-)famous July 2009 takedown of Goldman Sachs, which placed the investment house at the center of three signature market bubbles—the 1920s joint stock fiasco, the '90s Internet mania and the recent housing Guignol—he overstated the firm's power to drive markets while mischaracterizing crucial Goldman operations such as CDO exchanges as derivatives deals. But despite such missteps—which earned Taibbi the concerted scorn of most of the financial press—the brunt of his argument about Goldman's particular outsize role in the housing debacle has been proven correct, and has gained remarkable traction in our emerging and impressionistic understanding of the past decade of Wall Street larceny. When Taibbi quoted a hedge-fund operator as saying that Goldman's initiative to sell short on the same mortgage deals it systematically inflated in pitches to other investors was nothing less than 'securities fraud,' the same financial journalists derided Taibbi as an irresponsible naïf—until the SEC charged the bank with securities fraud for constructing just those kinds of deals, in a prosecution that eventually produced the largest civil settlement in the regulatory agency's history...
...In his view, Goldman's AIG ultimatum was like the Mafia's neighborhood business model as laid out in Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas: pump up a local restaurant or bar with supplies extorted from your protection-paying debtors, and when the thing is leached of its last profit, set it afire for the insurance money. 'In the end, Blankfein and Goldman...did a mob job on AIG, burning it to the ground for the 'insurance' of a government bailout they knew they would get, if that army of five hundred bankers could not find the money to arrange a private solution.' In this, Taibbi argues, Goldman was no different from the shakedown artists pumping out 'no down payment' adjustable-rate mortgages to borrowers who had no earthly hope of making their adjusted ARM payments—'the kind of shameless con man who preyed on families and kids and whom even other criminals would look down on.... The only difference with Goldman was one of scale...."
Friday, February 18, 2011
Economics & Budgets:
Robert Reich: Budget Baloney (1): Why Social Security Isn’t a Problem for 26 Years, and the Best Way to Fix It Permanently
"New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a Republican presidential hopeful, says in order to 'save' Social Security the retirement age should be raised. The media are congratulating him for his putative 'courage.' Deficit hawks are proclaiming Social Security one of the big entitlements that has to be cut in order to reduce the budget deficit.
This is all baloney.
In a former life I was a trustee of the Social Security trust fund. So let me set the record straight.
Social Security isn’t responsible for the federal deficit. Just the opposite. Until last year Social Security took in more payroll taxes than it paid out in benefits. It lent the surpluses to the rest of the government.
Now that Social Security has started to pay out more than it takes in, Social Security can simply collect what the rest of the government owes it. This will keep it fully solvent for the next 26 years...
...the Social Security payroll tax applies only to earnings up to a certain ceiling. (That ceiling is now $106,800.) The ceiling rises every year according to a formula roughly matching inflation.
Back in 1983, the ceiling was set so the Social Security payroll tax would hit 90 percent of all wages covered by Social Security. That 90 percent figure was built into the Greenspan Commission’s fixes. The Commission assumed that, as the ceiling rose with inflation, the Social Security payroll tax would continue to hit 90 percent of total income.
Today, though, the Social Security payroll tax hits only about 84 percent of total income.
It went from 90 percent to 84 percent because a larger and larger portion of total income has gone to the top. In 1983, the richest 1 percent of Americans got 11.6 percent of total income. Today the top 1 percent takes in more than 20 percent.
If we want to go back to 90 percent, the ceiling on income subject to the Social Security tax would need to be raised to $180,000..."
Richard Wolff: 'Austerity' Comes to America (video)
Joshua Holland: 5 Ways Corporate Scavengers Are Making Big Money Off Our Economic Pain
"The ruins of the American economy represent a massive crime scene. Wall Street built a house of cards on fraud and misrepresentation, it crashed, and Americans' aggregate net worth is now more than $12 trillion off of its peak. Unemployment remains sky-high and the prospects for a robust recovery anytime soon are dim.
But as Naomi Klein artfully laid out in her book, The Shock Doctrine, a catastrophe for you and I usually presents an opportunity for the Titans of capital. And the grievous economic crisis affecting so many American families is no exception -- big business has found a number of ways to profit, directly, from Main Street's economic pain..."
Johann Hari: Vision: Everyday Brits Are in Revolt Against Wealthy Tax Cheats -- Can We Do That Here?
"Imagine a parallel universe where the Great Crash of 2008 was followed by a Tea Party of a very different kind. Enraged citizens gather in every city, week after week—to demand the government finally regulate the behavior of corporations and the superrich, and force them to start paying taxes..."
Pro-Business Thuggery?
Brad Friedman: U.S. Chamber of Commerce Thugs Used 'Terror Tools' for Disinfo Scheme Targeting Me, My Family, Other Progressive U.S. Citizens, Groups
"As I learned late last Thursday, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the most powerful Rightwing lobbying group in the country, was revealed to have been working with their law firm and a number of private cyber security and intelligence firms to target progressive organizations, journalists and citizens who they felt were in opposition to their political activism, tactics and points of view..."
Promoting Equality By Buying From Fair Companies:
...and avoiding those who fail their workers.
Human Rights Campaign: Buying For Workplace Equality
"...Corporate social responsibility has become an imperative for a successful business. With Buying for Workplace Equality, we hope to harness that power by providing you with the most accurate review of a business's workplace policies toward LGBT employees.
Whether you are buying a cup of coffee or renovating your home, by supporting businesses that support workplace equality you send a powerful message that LGBT inclusion is good for the bottom line...."
Robert Reich: Budget Baloney (1): Why Social Security Isn’t a Problem for 26 Years, and the Best Way to Fix It Permanently
"New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a Republican presidential hopeful, says in order to 'save' Social Security the retirement age should be raised. The media are congratulating him for his putative 'courage.' Deficit hawks are proclaiming Social Security one of the big entitlements that has to be cut in order to reduce the budget deficit.
This is all baloney.
In a former life I was a trustee of the Social Security trust fund. So let me set the record straight.
Social Security isn’t responsible for the federal deficit. Just the opposite. Until last year Social Security took in more payroll taxes than it paid out in benefits. It lent the surpluses to the rest of the government.
Now that Social Security has started to pay out more than it takes in, Social Security can simply collect what the rest of the government owes it. This will keep it fully solvent for the next 26 years...
...the Social Security payroll tax applies only to earnings up to a certain ceiling. (That ceiling is now $106,800.) The ceiling rises every year according to a formula roughly matching inflation.
Back in 1983, the ceiling was set so the Social Security payroll tax would hit 90 percent of all wages covered by Social Security. That 90 percent figure was built into the Greenspan Commission’s fixes. The Commission assumed that, as the ceiling rose with inflation, the Social Security payroll tax would continue to hit 90 percent of total income.
Today, though, the Social Security payroll tax hits only about 84 percent of total income.
It went from 90 percent to 84 percent because a larger and larger portion of total income has gone to the top. In 1983, the richest 1 percent of Americans got 11.6 percent of total income. Today the top 1 percent takes in more than 20 percent.
If we want to go back to 90 percent, the ceiling on income subject to the Social Security tax would need to be raised to $180,000..."
Richard Wolff: 'Austerity' Comes to America (video)
Joshua Holland: 5 Ways Corporate Scavengers Are Making Big Money Off Our Economic Pain
"The ruins of the American economy represent a massive crime scene. Wall Street built a house of cards on fraud and misrepresentation, it crashed, and Americans' aggregate net worth is now more than $12 trillion off of its peak. Unemployment remains sky-high and the prospects for a robust recovery anytime soon are dim.
But as Naomi Klein artfully laid out in her book, The Shock Doctrine, a catastrophe for you and I usually presents an opportunity for the Titans of capital. And the grievous economic crisis affecting so many American families is no exception -- big business has found a number of ways to profit, directly, from Main Street's economic pain..."
Johann Hari: Vision: Everyday Brits Are in Revolt Against Wealthy Tax Cheats -- Can We Do That Here?
"Imagine a parallel universe where the Great Crash of 2008 was followed by a Tea Party of a very different kind. Enraged citizens gather in every city, week after week—to demand the government finally regulate the behavior of corporations and the superrich, and force them to start paying taxes..."
Pro-Business Thuggery?
Brad Friedman: U.S. Chamber of Commerce Thugs Used 'Terror Tools' for Disinfo Scheme Targeting Me, My Family, Other Progressive U.S. Citizens, Groups
"As I learned late last Thursday, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the most powerful Rightwing lobbying group in the country, was revealed to have been working with their law firm and a number of private cyber security and intelligence firms to target progressive organizations, journalists and citizens who they felt were in opposition to their political activism, tactics and points of view..."
Promoting Equality By Buying From Fair Companies:
...and avoiding those who fail their workers.
Human Rights Campaign: Buying For Workplace Equality
"...Corporate social responsibility has become an imperative for a successful business. With Buying for Workplace Equality, we hope to harness that power by providing you with the most accurate review of a business's workplace policies toward LGBT employees.
Whether you are buying a cup of coffee or renovating your home, by supporting businesses that support workplace equality you send a powerful message that LGBT inclusion is good for the bottom line...."
Monday, February 14, 2011
Targeting WikiLeaks:
Glenn Greenwald: The leaked campaign to attack WikiLeaks and its supporters
"There's a very strange episode being widely discussed the past couple of days involving numerous parties, including me, that I now want to comment on. The story, first reported by The Tech Herald, has been written about in numerous places (see Marcy Wheeler, Forbes, The Huffington Post, BoingBoing, Matt Yglesias, Reason, Tech Dirt, and others), so I'll provide just the summary.
Last week, Aaron Barr, a top executive at computer security firm HB Gary Federal, boasted to the Financial Times that his firm had infiltrated and begun to expose Anonymous, the group of pro-WikiLeaks hackers that had launched cyber attacks on companies terminating services to the whistleblowing site (such as Paypal, MasterCard, Visa, Amazon and others). In retaliation, Anonymous hacked into the email accounts of HB Gary, published 50,000 of their emails online, and also hacked Barr's Twitter and other online accounts.
Among the emails that were published was a report prepared by HB Gary -- in conjunction with several other top online security firms, including Palantir Technologies -- on how to destroy WikiLeaks. The emails indicated the report was part of a proposal to be submitted to Bank of America through its outside law firm, Hunton & Williams. News reports have indicated that WikiLeaks is planning to publish highly incriminating documents showing possible corruption and fraud at that bank, and The New York Times detailed last month how seriously top bank officials are taking that threat. The NYT article described that the bank's 'counterespionage work' against WikiLeaks entailed constant briefings for top executives on the whistleblowing site, along with the hiring of 'several top law firms' and Booz Allen (the long-time firm of former Bush DNI Adm. Michael McConnell and numerous other top intelligence and defense officials). The report prepared by these firms was designed to be part of the Bank of America's highly funded anti-WikiLeaks campaign.
The leaked report suggested numerous ways to destroy WikiLeaks, some of them likely illegal -- including planting fake documents with the group and then attacking them when published; 'creat[ing] concern over the security' of the site; 'cyber attacks against the infrastructure to get data on document submitters'; and a 'media campaign to push the radical and reckless nature of wikileaks activities.' Many of those proposals were also featured prongs of a secret 2008 Pentagon plan to destroy WikiLeaks..."
Glenn Greenwald: The leaked campaign to attack WikiLeaks and its supporters
"There's a very strange episode being widely discussed the past couple of days involving numerous parties, including me, that I now want to comment on. The story, first reported by The Tech Herald, has been written about in numerous places (see Marcy Wheeler, Forbes, The Huffington Post, BoingBoing, Matt Yglesias, Reason, Tech Dirt, and others), so I'll provide just the summary.
Last week, Aaron Barr, a top executive at computer security firm HB Gary Federal, boasted to the Financial Times that his firm had infiltrated and begun to expose Anonymous, the group of pro-WikiLeaks hackers that had launched cyber attacks on companies terminating services to the whistleblowing site (such as Paypal, MasterCard, Visa, Amazon and others). In retaliation, Anonymous hacked into the email accounts of HB Gary, published 50,000 of their emails online, and also hacked Barr's Twitter and other online accounts.
Among the emails that were published was a report prepared by HB Gary -- in conjunction with several other top online security firms, including Palantir Technologies -- on how to destroy WikiLeaks. The emails indicated the report was part of a proposal to be submitted to Bank of America through its outside law firm, Hunton & Williams. News reports have indicated that WikiLeaks is planning to publish highly incriminating documents showing possible corruption and fraud at that bank, and The New York Times detailed last month how seriously top bank officials are taking that threat. The NYT article described that the bank's 'counterespionage work' against WikiLeaks entailed constant briefings for top executives on the whistleblowing site, along with the hiring of 'several top law firms' and Booz Allen (the long-time firm of former Bush DNI Adm. Michael McConnell and numerous other top intelligence and defense officials). The report prepared by these firms was designed to be part of the Bank of America's highly funded anti-WikiLeaks campaign.
The leaked report suggested numerous ways to destroy WikiLeaks, some of them likely illegal -- including planting fake documents with the group and then attacking them when published; 'creat[ing] concern over the security' of the site; 'cyber attacks against the infrastructure to get data on document submitters'; and a 'media campaign to push the radical and reckless nature of wikileaks activities.' Many of those proposals were also featured prongs of a secret 2008 Pentagon plan to destroy WikiLeaks..."
Friday, February 11, 2011
The Power of Myth:
William Rivers Pitt: A Rich Fantasy Life
"I know I should be immune to this by now, but I still find myself awestruck by the incredibly detailed, insulated fantasy world that the American conservative 'movement' has created for themselves. No lie is too big to be told, no fact is too firm to be bent around ideology, no myth is too absurd to defend to the knife. The ability to spew deliberate nonsense into the credulous ears of Fox-watching right-bent voters - and to be utterly without shame while doing it - is the core of this 'movement's' political muscle, and has been for a number of decades now.
Take, for example, this past weekend's festival of Reagan. The late president's 100th birthday opened the floodgates for an ocean of nonsense to be dumped on the American people. He was a great leader, the conservative's conservative, a small-government hero who deserves a place on Mt. Rushmore.
Rilly?
Ronald Reagan's 'supply side' economic model was the gateway drug that led inexorably to the collapse of the American economy two years ago, and yet his conservative acolytes - as well as far too many Democrats who should know better - still cling to that economic model as if it were holy writ.
Ronald Reagan raised taxes massively, and grew the federal government enormously, while sending the country spiraling into a morass of debt we are nowhere near recovering from, and yet his worshippers continue to tout him as the perfect 'small government' man.
Ronald Reagan and his people sold shiploads of weapons to Iran even as they supported Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in his war against the Islamic Republic. Ronald Reagan and his people basically created the Taliban, al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan as a means of carrying on the Cold War fight against the Soviet Union, and yet today his conservative followers cling to a "War on Terror" as their sword and shield.
Didn't hear any of this during the weekend's Reaganapallooza, did you? No surprise. Why let facts - Reagan was a terrible president who bears a great deal of responsibility for today's national problems, a president who exploded the debt and the size of government, a president who supported known terrorists and rogue nations with money and materiel even as they were killing Americans - get in the way of a perfectly good story line..."
Dirty Tricks:
ThinkProgress: US Chamber’s Lobbyists Solicited Hackers To Sabotage Unions, Smear Chamber’s Political Opponents
"ThinkProgress has learned that a law firm representing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the big business trade association representing ExxonMobil, AIG, and other major international corporations, is working with set of “private security” companies and lobbying firms to undermine their political opponents, including ThinkProgress, with a surreptitious sabotage campaign.
According to e-mails obtained by ThinkProgress, the Chamber hired the lobbying firm Hunton and Williams. Hunton And Williams’ attorney Richard Wyatt, who once represented Food Lion in its infamous lawsuit against ABC News, was hired by the Chamber in October of last year. To assist the Chamber, Wyatt and his associates, John Woods and Bob Quackenboss, solicited a set of private security firms — HB Gary Federal, Palantir, and Berico Technologies (collectively called Team Themis) — to develop tactics for damaging progressive groups and labor unions, in particular ThinkProgress, the labor coalition called Change to Win, the SEIU, US Chamber Watch, and StopTheChamber.com..."
Religion:
Lawrence Wright: The Apostate: Paul Haggis vs. the Church of Scientology
William Rivers Pitt: A Rich Fantasy Life
"I know I should be immune to this by now, but I still find myself awestruck by the incredibly detailed, insulated fantasy world that the American conservative 'movement' has created for themselves. No lie is too big to be told, no fact is too firm to be bent around ideology, no myth is too absurd to defend to the knife. The ability to spew deliberate nonsense into the credulous ears of Fox-watching right-bent voters - and to be utterly without shame while doing it - is the core of this 'movement's' political muscle, and has been for a number of decades now.
Take, for example, this past weekend's festival of Reagan. The late president's 100th birthday opened the floodgates for an ocean of nonsense to be dumped on the American people. He was a great leader, the conservative's conservative, a small-government hero who deserves a place on Mt. Rushmore.
Rilly?
Ronald Reagan's 'supply side' economic model was the gateway drug that led inexorably to the collapse of the American economy two years ago, and yet his conservative acolytes - as well as far too many Democrats who should know better - still cling to that economic model as if it were holy writ.
Ronald Reagan raised taxes massively, and grew the federal government enormously, while sending the country spiraling into a morass of debt we are nowhere near recovering from, and yet his worshippers continue to tout him as the perfect 'small government' man.
Ronald Reagan and his people sold shiploads of weapons to Iran even as they supported Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in his war against the Islamic Republic. Ronald Reagan and his people basically created the Taliban, al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan as a means of carrying on the Cold War fight against the Soviet Union, and yet today his conservative followers cling to a "War on Terror" as their sword and shield.
Didn't hear any of this during the weekend's Reaganapallooza, did you? No surprise. Why let facts - Reagan was a terrible president who bears a great deal of responsibility for today's national problems, a president who exploded the debt and the size of government, a president who supported known terrorists and rogue nations with money and materiel even as they were killing Americans - get in the way of a perfectly good story line..."
Dirty Tricks:
ThinkProgress: US Chamber’s Lobbyists Solicited Hackers To Sabotage Unions, Smear Chamber’s Political Opponents
"ThinkProgress has learned that a law firm representing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the big business trade association representing ExxonMobil, AIG, and other major international corporations, is working with set of “private security” companies and lobbying firms to undermine their political opponents, including ThinkProgress, with a surreptitious sabotage campaign.
According to e-mails obtained by ThinkProgress, the Chamber hired the lobbying firm Hunton and Williams. Hunton And Williams’ attorney Richard Wyatt, who once represented Food Lion in its infamous lawsuit against ABC News, was hired by the Chamber in October of last year. To assist the Chamber, Wyatt and his associates, John Woods and Bob Quackenboss, solicited a set of private security firms — HB Gary Federal, Palantir, and Berico Technologies (collectively called Team Themis) — to develop tactics for damaging progressive groups and labor unions, in particular ThinkProgress, the labor coalition called Change to Win, the SEIU, US Chamber Watch, and StopTheChamber.com..."
Religion:
Lawrence Wright: The Apostate: Paul Haggis vs. the Church of Scientology
Wednesday, February 09, 2011
Food:
Real Economics: Commodity speculation = hunger (MSNBC video)
"Not everyone gets billions of dollars in interest free money from the Fed.
Most people work for the money they get. This creates a real problem for people whose wages have been stagnant (or declining) while the US government shovels trillions of dollars to banks to help them cover their gambling losses.
What do banks like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan do with the free money?
They 'play'...with wheat prices, with corn prices, with oil prices.
There is no supply/demand reason for commodities to be as high as they are now. It's all speculation based on free money given to bankers.
Note: The prices will come down eventually - precipitously - but in the meantime hundreds millions of people go hungry and have had their standard of living decimated."
Raw Story: China’s poor treated to fake rice made from plastic: report
"China's history with food safety is a rocky one, but even in the annals of robbery and abuse, this will go down in infamy.
Various reports in Singapore media have said that Chinese companies are mass producing fake rice made, in part, out of plastic, according to one online publication Very Vietnam.
The 'rice' is made by mixing potatoes, sweet potatoes and plastic. The potatoes are first formed into the shape of rice grains. Industrial synthetic resins are then added to the mix. The rice reportedly stays hard even after being cooked.
The Korean-language Weekly Hong Kong reported that the fake rice is being sold in the Chinese town of Taiyuan, in Shaanxi province..."
Absurdist Prohibition Logic:
We know Clinton isn't stupid, so her position is just dishonest...
Raw Story: Why can’t the US legalize drugs? There’s ‘too much money in it,’ Clinton says
"In what will likely be seen as something of a Freudian slip by the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton said recently in a Mexican news interview that the United States cannot legalize drugs as a means of fighting the black market because 'there is just too much money in it.'
Asked by Denise Maerker of Televisa what she thought of drug legalization, Clinton said it was unlikely to work.
'There is just too much money in it,' Clinton said. 'You can legalize small amounts for possession, but those who are making so much money selling, they have to be stopped. They can’t be given an even easier road to take, because they will then find it in their interest to addict even more young people.'
The comments drew criticism from legalization advocates who argued her position was a misunderstanding of the situation.
'Clinton's response illustrates not only the intellectual bankruptcy of the prohibitionist position but the economic ignorance of a woman who would be president,' Jacob Sullum argued at Reason.com.
At the Drug War Chronicle, Scott Morgan called Clinton's argument 'perfectly incoherent' and argued it flew in the face of economic theory.
Real Economics: Commodity speculation = hunger (MSNBC video)
"Not everyone gets billions of dollars in interest free money from the Fed.
Most people work for the money they get. This creates a real problem for people whose wages have been stagnant (or declining) while the US government shovels trillions of dollars to banks to help them cover their gambling losses.
What do banks like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan do with the free money?
They 'play'...with wheat prices, with corn prices, with oil prices.
There is no supply/demand reason for commodities to be as high as they are now. It's all speculation based on free money given to bankers.
Note: The prices will come down eventually - precipitously - but in the meantime hundreds millions of people go hungry and have had their standard of living decimated."
Raw Story: China’s poor treated to fake rice made from plastic: report
"China's history with food safety is a rocky one, but even in the annals of robbery and abuse, this will go down in infamy.
Various reports in Singapore media have said that Chinese companies are mass producing fake rice made, in part, out of plastic, according to one online publication Very Vietnam.
The 'rice' is made by mixing potatoes, sweet potatoes and plastic. The potatoes are first formed into the shape of rice grains. Industrial synthetic resins are then added to the mix. The rice reportedly stays hard even after being cooked.
The Korean-language Weekly Hong Kong reported that the fake rice is being sold in the Chinese town of Taiyuan, in Shaanxi province..."
Absurdist Prohibition Logic:
We know Clinton isn't stupid, so her position is just dishonest...
Raw Story: Why can’t the US legalize drugs? There’s ‘too much money in it,’ Clinton says
"In what will likely be seen as something of a Freudian slip by the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton said recently in a Mexican news interview that the United States cannot legalize drugs as a means of fighting the black market because 'there is just too much money in it.'
Asked by Denise Maerker of Televisa what she thought of drug legalization, Clinton said it was unlikely to work.
'There is just too much money in it,' Clinton said. 'You can legalize small amounts for possession, but those who are making so much money selling, they have to be stopped. They can’t be given an even easier road to take, because they will then find it in their interest to addict even more young people.'
The comments drew criticism from legalization advocates who argued her position was a misunderstanding of the situation.
'Clinton's response illustrates not only the intellectual bankruptcy of the prohibitionist position but the economic ignorance of a woman who would be president,' Jacob Sullum argued at Reason.com.
Clinton evidently does not understand that there is so much money to be made by selling illegal drugs precisely because they are illegal. Prohibition not only enables traffickers to earn a "risk premium" that makes drug prices much higher than they would otherwise be; it delivers this highly lucrative business into the hands of criminals who, having no legal recourse, resolve disputes by spilling blood.
At the Drug War Chronicle, Scott Morgan called Clinton's argument 'perfectly incoherent' and argued it flew in the face of economic theory.
I can't help but wonder what everyone on the left would say if this preposterous analysis came from Sarah Palin, rather than Hillary Clinton. It's the sort of profound nonsense that ought to get you skewered by Jon Stewart, yet our Secretary of State will almost certainly get a free pass on misunderstanding literally everything about the escalating violence below our border..."
Friday, February 04, 2011
Wikileaks:
Washington Post: Leaked cable tells of 3 previously undisclosed members of 9/11 plot
"A newly released U.S. diplomatic cable discloses the existence of previously undisclosed participants in the Sept. 11, 2001, plot: a group of Qatari men who conducted surveillance of targets in New York and the Washington area before leaving the United States on the eve of the attacks.
The three men flew into the United States on Aug. 15, 2001, and 'visited the World Trade Center, the Statue of Liberty, the White House, and various areas in Virginia' before flying on to Los Angeles, according to the cable, part of the cache of documents obtained by the antisecrecy group WikiLeaks.
But a U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity in order to comment on classified material made public by WikiLeaks, said that the three men were 'looked at' within days of the attacks and that investigators concluded they could not be charged..."
Washington Post: Leaked cable tells of 3 previously undisclosed members of 9/11 plot
"A newly released U.S. diplomatic cable discloses the existence of previously undisclosed participants in the Sept. 11, 2001, plot: a group of Qatari men who conducted surveillance of targets in New York and the Washington area before leaving the United States on the eve of the attacks.
The three men flew into the United States on Aug. 15, 2001, and 'visited the World Trade Center, the Statue of Liberty, the White House, and various areas in Virginia' before flying on to Los Angeles, according to the cable, part of the cache of documents obtained by the antisecrecy group WikiLeaks.
But a U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity in order to comment on classified material made public by WikiLeaks, said that the three men were 'looked at' within days of the attacks and that investigators concluded they could not be charged..."
