Census shows 1 in 2 people are poor or low-income

Nearly half of Americans are low-income as rising expenses, unemployment shrink middle class

By Hope Yen, Associated Press | AP – Thu, Dec 15, 2011 12:40 PM EST

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Squeezed by rising living costs, a record number of Americans — nearly 1 in 2 — have fallen into poverty or are scraping by on earnings that classify them as low income. 

The latest census data depict a middle class that's shrinking as unemployment stays high and the government's safety net frays. The new numbers follow years of stagnating wages for the middle class that have hurt millions of workers and families.

5 Anti-Environment Policies Republicans Don't Want You To Notice

—By Alyssa Battistoni | Mon Dec. 12, 2011 1:50 PM PST

It's no secret that many Republicans aren't big fans of the EPA. But that hasn't stopped the GOP from being secretive about what exactly they're planning to do to scrap environmental regulations. Instead of putting anti-environment policies up for debate as stand-alone bills, they're trying to bypass scrutiny by sticking them into other pieces of legislation—like appropriations bills—that have to pass to keep key services or pet programs running. These provisions, called riders, are usually hard to find and often even harder to understand; that's basically the point. Fortunately, the Natural Resources Defense Council has been keeping track of the long list of policies that have been introduced into 2012 appropriations legislation thus far.

Dr. Strange: Newt Gingrich and Conservatism's Insane Idea Industry

By Richard (RJ) Eskow

December 13, 2011 - 4:59pm ET 

Fire all the janitors and make poor kids clean their schools? Zap Korea with an airborne superlaser that's never worked during testing? Ignore global warming and plan to re-engineer the entire planet with untested technology instead?

People like Maureen Dowd have been having fun with Newt Gingrich's wackier ideas lately. But despite their snarky comments - and the fact that some of Gingrich's ideas truly are bizarre - they're missing something important and making a fundamental mistake.

The Forgotten Leading Actor In The American Dream Story

By Robert Borosage

December 13, 2011 - 5:05pm ET 

When Newt Gingrich maligned our "truly stupid" child labor laws and suggested that children 14 and under be put to work cleaning their schools, he sparked the outrage the former House speaker relishes. Less attention was paid to the other casualty of his proposition: "get rid of the unionized janitors."

This is the slur turned to high art: a little race bait posturing at "poor kids" who, Gingrich tells us, don't work like middle class kids do, and a shot at "unionized janitors"—almost by definition overpaid and lazy, whose work could be done by a grade-schooler.

'Wealth defense industry' protects oligarchs from the rabble and its taxes

COMMENTARY | December 12, 2011

Thousands of lawyers, accountants and consultants work full-time to defend the wealth of the richest Americans, says a Northwestern University political economist. It's their secretive labor that makes the effective tax rate so regressive for the ultra-rich -- and makes everyone else so angry

By Dan Froomkin
froomkin@niemanwatchdog.org

Occupy protesters are putting their bodies on the line day and night -- leaving their homes, living in tents, braving the elements, and being treated as criminals by the police.

But the super-rich whose influence they are protesting have others to do their fighting for them.
"Oligarchs can go about their business as literally thousands of fulltime professionals work for their interests," says Northwestern University political economist Jeffrey Winters, author of the 2011 book Oligarchy.

Targeting the Unemployed

The House Republican leadership managed to get one thing right in its bill to extend the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits. The bill does, indeed, extend the payroll tax cut for another year, but, beyond that, there is a lot to dislike. To help pay for the package, for instance, the bill would cut social spending more deeply than is already anticipated under current budget caps without asking wealthy Americans to contribute a penny in new taxes.

It also holds the expiring provisions hostage to irrelevant but noxious proposals to undo existing environmental protections. Worse, it would make unemployment compensation considerably stingier than it is now. 

Philip Pilkington: The Austrian Disease – Poor Scholarship, a Priori Bias

By Philip Pilkington, a journalist and writer living in Dublin, Ireland

Recently I wrote an essay claiming that Austrian economics provided a metaphysical-theological basis for what is today called ‘libertarianism’ – a popular, dogmatic political cult in the vein of Marxism-Leninism. The essay was abstract and, quite possibly, a bit obtuse – for that I apologise, but such is the nature of the material.

If I am correct and libertarianism is a political cult and its foundations were laid by the Austrian economists, what real world effects does this have? I pointed out in the aforementioned essay that if the libertarians ever truly seized power the results would probably be – as so often is the case with extremists who preach liberty – totalitarianism. But in all likelihood the libertarians will never get hold of true power – for unlike their Marxist-Leninist brethren, they are a political cult without a broad base of support; they have no proletariat and no peasantry!

A new genre of tires: Call 'em 'sweet' and 'green'

Motorists may be driving on the world's first "green" tires within the next few years, as partnerships between tire companies and biotechnology firms make it possible to produce key raw materials for tires from sugar rather than petroleum or rubber trees. Those new bio-based tires — already available as prototypes— are the topic of an article in the current edition of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society.

Occupy Economics Departments

by David Morris

 

On November 2nd nearly 70 students walked out of an introductory economics class at Harvard in solidarity with the Occupy movement. The mainstream media largely ignored the protest. That’s regrettable since the economics profession has provided the intellectual framework and justification for the inequality and centralization of corporate power the Occupiers are challenging.

“You can’t get into so disastrous a situation as we are in now without extraordinarily bad thinking and the economics departments were the source of that bad thinking,” observes Steven Keen, Professor of Economics at the University of Western Sydney and author of Debunking Economics.

Surviving the Second Gilded Age

Wednesday 14 December 2011
by: Henry A. Giroux, Truthout | Op-Ed

It has become difficult to not recognize that we are firmly in the grip of a second Gilded Age. Not only is this return obvious in the homage - if not hysteria - that marks a return to the dream worlds of consumption, commodification and a survival-of-the-fittest ethic, but also in the actions of right-wing politicians who want to initiate policies that take the country back to the late 19th century - a time in which the reforms of the New Deal, the Great Society and the Progressive Era did not exist.

This was a period in which robber barons, railroad magnates and the super-rich spread their corrupting influence throughout the political, economic and cultural landscapes - without having to deal with irritating social reforms such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, child labor laws, environmental protections, affirmative action, civil rights, union rights, antitrust laws, a progressive income tax and a host of other reforms. This was a period when money flowed and privilege shaped practically all aspects of American life, making a mockery out of democracy and imposing massive amounts of suffering on the vast majority of Americans. Women could not vote and were seen as second-class citizens, blacks were treated harshly by Jim Crow policies, young people were exploited through harsh labor, education was limited to the elite, inequality in wealth and income reached extreme disparities, slums festered, and politics was corrupted by the moneyed classes.

The 1 Percent Club’s Misguided Protectors

By EDUARDO PORTER
Published: December 10, 2011

The Republican right is pushing back hard against the 99 percent movement and its focus on the widening chasm between the fortunes of the few at the summit of the income scale and everybody else. Newt Gingrich, who led the field of Republican presidential candidates last week, argued that the concept of the 99 percent versus the 1 percent is “un-American.” His rival Rick Perry, who led the Republican pack in September, answered a question about taxes and inequality by saying “I don’t care about that.”

This indifference is grounded in a proposition that has for decades dominated American debate over redistributive policies like steeper taxes for the rich: that inequality is an expected outcome of economic growth, and that efforts to tamp down inequality would slow growth down. As President Obama said in his speech in Kansas last week, this strain of thought goes back to at least the turn of the last century when “there were people who thought massive inequality and exploitation of people was just the price you pay for progress.”

Meet the Financial Wizards Working With Occupy Wall Street

The bankers, quants, and hedge fund gurus who want to reform our financial system—by helping OWS kick ass

—By Josh Harkinson  | Tue Dec. 13, 2011 3:00 AM PST

High up in a Manhattan conference room on Sunday, a group of investment gurus discussed Occupy Wall Street. Should they support a set of tough-sounding financial reforms just proposed on the campaign trail by presidential candidate Jon Huntsman? Or was it reasonable to demand even deeper reforms? "This isn't enough," argued Cathy O'Neil, a former hedge fund quant who organizes the group, a branch of Occupy Wall Street known as the Alternative Banking Group. She proposed that the gathering of financial experts come up with improvements to Huntsman's plan and present them to Occupy Wall Street's General Assembly. Another OWS supporter, whose day job involves consulting for private equity firms, looked up from his laptop and smiled. "That's an excellent idea!"

Matt Stoller: Why Does the Dallas Fed President Want to Destroy West Coast Port Unions?

By Matt Stoller, the former Senior Policy Advisor to Rep. Alan Grayson and a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. You can reach him at stoller (at) gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @matthewstoller. Cross posted from New Deal 2.0

The FOMC is far more secretive than most government agencies, and after reading the transcripts of its meetings, it’s not hard to see why.

The people that really run the world are not elected, but sit on the Federal Open Market Committee of the Federal Reserve (FOMC). This is the crew of Fed insiders — mostly regional reserve bank presidents hired by banks as well as finance-friendly Fed governors appointed by the president — who set monetary policy. They are the ones who decide whether interest rates go up or down and whether to heat or cool the economy.

You can actually read the deliberations of their meetings, but only for those that took place five years ago or more. Unlike most federal agencies, their meetings are kept secret for at least five years.
.

Affordable Solar: It's Closer Than You Think

Last Modified 10:30 AM, December 9, 2011
By Marcia Goodrich

November 30, 2011—It’s time to stop thinking of solar energy as a boutique source of power, says Joshua Pearce.

Sure, solar only generates about 1 percent of the electricity in the US. But that will change in a few years, says Pearce, an associate professor of electrical engineering and materials science at Michigan Technological University. The ultimate in renewable energy is about to go mainstream.

Findings on Biochar, Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Ethylene

By Ann Perry
December 13, 2011
 
Adding a charred biomass material called biochar to glacial soils can help reduce emissions of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists.

Studies by scientists with USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) are providing valuable information about how biochar-the charred biomass created from wood, plant material, and manure-interacts with soil and crops. As part of this effort, ARS scientists in St. Paul, Minn., are studying biochar activity in soils formed from glacial deposits.

Wonkbook: The real unemployment rate is 11 percent

By Ezra Klein, Published: December 12

Typically, I try to tie the beginning of Wonkbook to the news. But today, the most important sentence isn't a report on something that just happened, but a fresh look at something that's been happening for the last three years. In particular, it's this sentence by the Financial Times' Ed Luce, who writes, "According to government statistics, if the same number of people were seeking work today as in 2007, the jobless rate would be 11 percent."

Remember that the unemployment rate is not "how many people don't have jobs?", but "how many people don't have jobs and are actively looking for them?" Let's say you've been looking fruitlessly for five months and realize you've exhausted every job listing in your area. Discouraged, you stop looking, at least for the moment. According to the government, you're no longer unemployed. Congratulations?

The Warning in Gary Webb’s Death

December 9, 2011

Special Report: Modern American history is more complete because journalist Gary Webb had the courage to revive the dark story of the Reagan administration’s protection of Nicaraguan Contra cocaine traffickers in the 1980s. However, Webb ultimately paid a terrible price, as Robert Parry reports.

By Robert Parry

Every year since investigative journalist Gary Webb took his own life in 2004, I have marked the anniversary of that sad event by recalling the debt that American history owes to Webb for his brave reporting, which revived the Contra-cocaine scandal in 1996 and forced important admissions out of the Central Intelligence Agency two years later.

But Webb’s suicide on the evening of Dec. 9, 2004, was also a tragic end for one man whose livelihood and reputation were destroyed by a phalanx of major newspapers – the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times– serving as protectors of a corrupt power structure rather than as sources of honest information.

Documents Show Boehner Helped Gerrymander Ohio Map Giving GOP 12 of 16 Congressional Seats

By Ian Millhiser on Dec 13, 2011 at 9:50 am

The GOP-controlled Ohio legislature recently approved a heavily gerrymandered Congressional map that gives Republicans an advantage in 12 of the state’s 16 congressional districts, despite the fact that the state is roughly evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. Moreover, according to newly released documents, Ohio residents can blame the Speaker of the House for turning many of their congressional elections into little more than a sham:

Scott Walker Recall Volunteers Say They Have Proof Of Intimidation By Opponents

First Posted: 12/13/11 10:35 AM ET, Updated: 12/13/11 10:40 AM ET


Volunteers working for the effort to recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) captured a video this week that they claim is proof of the sort of intimidation and harassment they've been subjected to over the past month.

In the video, available at ABC affiliate WISN, a visibly upset Fred Frisby can be seen approaching the camera of Walker recall volunteer Steve Nagel while hurling obscenities and eventually making physical contact. Frisby was later arrested by local police and charged with disorderly conduct.

The Health of Children and Consumers is Threatened by Conservative Push for Corporate Speech Rights

Some pro-business federal judges have shockingly approved a constitutional right for big companies to avoid revealing product dangers on labels.

December 12, 2011  |  In recent years, corporate lawyers representing industries whose products touch millions of American lives have stopped numerous government efforts to better inform the public about possible health risks with an eyebrow-raising legal strategy. They have asserted a constitutional right not to speak, or say more than they want on labels and advertising, and pro-business federal judges have agreed, rejecting the public’s right to know.

In cases involving manmade hormones fed to dairy cows, heart and lung disease caused by tobacco, the nutritional value of foods contributing to childhood and teenage obesity, and even radiation emitted by cell phones, the industries keep returning to court until a business-friendly judge or majority on an appeals court rules that the First Amendment includes the corporate right not to ‘speak’ if it could harm profits.

Gingrich Plan to Add $1.3T to Deficit, Study Finds

By Richard Rubin and Heidi Przybyla - Dec 12, 2011 3:40 PM ET

The economic plan proposed by Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich would add $1.3 trillion to the U.S. budget deficit in 2015 alone, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.

The figures compare the federal government’s take under Gingrich’s proposal with projected U.S. revenue if current tax law ran its course and existing income tax cuts expired.

Sheila Bair Said to Be Top Pick for Foreclosure Accord Monitor

By David McLaughlin and Thom Weidlich - Dec 12, 2011 12:00 AM ET

Ex-Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair is a top candidate among state officials to ensure banks comply with any settlement of a nationwide foreclosure probe, a person familiar with the matter said.

Bair, who led the FDIC from 2006 until this year, is supported by some states as a third-party monitor of any accord with mortgage servicers including Bank of America Corp. (BAC), though Citigroup Inc. (C) opposes her selection, said the person. Selection of a monitor is one of the final issues to be worked out between the banks and state and federal officials, said the person and one other also familiar with the talks. Both declined to be identified because the negotiations are secret.

Lehman Brothers: financially and morally bankrupt

The lesson of Lehman Brothers' failures of fiduciary duty is that large-scale lending should not be entrusted to private banks

Richard Wolff
guardian.co.uk, Monday 12 December 2011 10.27 EST

Last week, federal court Judge James M Peck approved the final phase of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, which began with the investment bank's collapse on 15 September 2008. That bankruptcy, the largest in US history, precipitated the credit markets' disintegration that cascaded into the global economic meltdown that has deepened ever since. With roughly $450bn still owed by the bank, Judge Peck approved that Lehman Brothers has only $65bn left to settle creditors' claims. The latter must thus accept just over 14 cents for every dollar Lehman Brothers owed them. "Thieves," they are probably muttering.

Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy has revealed multiple layers of ramifying corruption and theft among global banks in the US and elsewhere, as well. Many juicy details are covered in the nine-volume court examiner's report of 11 March 2010. It documents the bank executives' mammoth misjudgments in their investment decisions, including their repeated violations of the basic banking principle not to borrow short-term and lend the proceeds long-term. The bank examiner shows misleading statements made about their activities and how they disguised Lehman's financial health and credit-worthiness. It appears that various legal and semi-legal mechanisms were used to manipulate their accounts, and otherwise violate the spirit and letter of laws and regulations.

Up to 1,200 companies working in the recycling sector will be able to save up to 10% thanks to a new system developed by Tecnalia

Tecnalia Research & Innovation has developed a new recycling system enabling the classification of waste from electrical and electronic equipment that cannot be ordered by conventional procedures, due to their similarities in colour, weight and shape. This system has received the EARTO Prize, giving recognition to the most innovative projects at a European level.
 

How to manage waste has become one of the most important paradigms of contemporary society, given the large quantities of electrical and electronic equipment that is designed, manufactured and finally thrown way, this type of waste not being biodegradable and at times highly toxic. Up to 1,200 companies working in the recycling sector will be able to save up to 10% of their recycling costs thanks to this new system developed by Tecnalia Research & Innovation.

A Tale of Two Deficit Charts

Written by Dean Baker
Monday, 12 December 2011 09:15

Not long after I first came to Washington 20 years ago I was at a conference dealing with Social Security privatization. One of the panelists used a number for the administrative costs of private accounts that was far lower than the numbers I had seen in the literature. After the panel, I asked one of the other panelists about her best estimate of the administrative costs of private accounts. She said that this depended on whether I was interested in advocacy or policy.

I was somewhat taken aback by her response, but after a moment I told her that I was interested in accuracy. I have always felt that this is the best approach to policy questions.

No One Telling Who Took $586B in Fed Swaps

Scott Lanman and Bradley Keoun - Dec 11, 2011 6:01 PM ET

For all the transparency forced on the Federal Reserve by Congress and the courts, one of the central bank’s emergency-lending programs remains so secretive that names of borrowers may be hidden from the Fed itself.

As part of a currency-swap plan active from 2007 to 2010 and revived to fight the European debt crisis, the Fed lends dollars to other central banks, which auction them to local commercial banks. Lending peaked at $586 billion in December 2008. While the transactions with other central banks are all disclosed, the Fed doesn’t track where the dollars ultimately end up, and European officials don’t share borrowers’ identities outside the continent.

Paul Krugman: Depression and Democracy
It’s time to start calling the current situation what it is: a depression. True, it’s not a full replay of the Great Depression, but that’s cold comfort. Unemployment in both America and Europe remains disastrously high. Leaders and institutions are increasingly discredited. And democratic values are under siege.

On that last point, I am not being alarmist. On the political as on the economic front it’s important not to fall into the “not as bad as” trap. High unemployment isn’t O.K. just because it hasn’t hit 1933 levels; ominous political trends shouldn’t be dismissed just because there’s no Hitler in sight.

Durban climate deal struck after tense all-night session

Talks came close to collapse when India insisted on concessions for developing countries, forcing 3am 'huddle to save the planet'

John Vidal and Fiona Harvey in Durban
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 11 December 2011 03.13 EST


A new global climate deal has been struck after being brought back from the brink of disaster by three powerful women politicians in a 20-minute "huddle to save the planet".

A major crisis had been provoked after 3am on Sunday morning when the EU clashed furiously with China and India over the legal form of a potential new treaty. The EU plan to bind all countries to cuts was close to collapse after India inserted the words "legal outcome" at the last minute into the negotiating text.

EU climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard, backed by UK energy secretary Chris Huhne, said it would have made the EU plan legally meaningless and would have forced the EU to walk away, effectively collapsing the negotiations.

The Remarkable Political Stupidity of the Street

Friday, December 9, 2011


Wall Street is its own worst enemy. It should have welcomed new financial regulation as a means of restoring public trust. Instead, it’s busily shredding new regulations and making the public more distrustful than ever.

The Street’s biggest lobbying groups have just filed a lawsuit against the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, seeking to overturn its new rule limiting speculative trading.

Karl Rove’s Latest Attack On Elizabeth Warren

By Simon Johnson

Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS has another ad out attacking Elizabeth Warren (video here).   This is beyond ludicrous – the ad attempts to blame Ms. Warren for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and for bank bailouts.  The principle here seems to be that when the truth cannot be slanted in a way you want, just ignore the facts and go all out for disinformation.

I count at least five misrepresentations in the ad, and I suggest the following corrections:

The Bomb Buried In Obamacare Explodes Today-Hallelujah!

I have long argued that the impact of the Affordable Care Act is not nearly as big of a deal as opponents would have you believe. At the end of the day, the law is – in the main – little more than a successful effort to put an end to some of the more egregious health insurer abuses while creating an environment that should bring more Americans into programs that will give them at least some of the health care coverage they need.

There is, however, one notable exception – and it’s one that should have a long lasting and powerful impact on the future of health care in our country.

The Koch Brothers, ALEC and the Savage Assault on Democracy

John Nichols on December 9, 2011 - 8:44am ET

 

Billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch finally got their way in 2011. After their decades of funding the American Legislative Exchange Council, the collaboration between multinational corporations and conservative state legislators, the project began finally to yield the intended result.
 
For the first time in decades, the United States saw a steady dismantling of the laws, regulations, programs and practices put in place to make real the promise of American democracy.

The Rise of the New Confederacy: How America-Hating Right-Wingers Took Over the GOP

In These Times / By Theo Anderson

The rhetoric of Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin and Rick Perry about the “real America” is not imagined: They and those who oppose them live in different Americas.

What is America, and what is an American? If anything binds us together across space and time, it is our ideals and the stories we tell about our pursuit of them. From the beginning, we set ourselves against Europe’s hierarchies. We exalted democratic government, equality of opportunity and individual freedom. We conceived of our experiment as “the last best hope of earth,” in Lincoln’s words.

But ideals don’t live in a vacuum; they take root in the soil of institutions. Beginning with our first experiments in self-government, the dissonance between our ideals and our institutional practices–especially the tolerance and extension of slavery–created tensions that finally tore us apart.
 

Memo to American Consumers: You Just Got Screwed... Again

Posted: 12/ 8/11 09:13 PM ET

The too-big-to-fail boys and their GOP handmaidens -- the Hon. Richard Shelby, the Hon. Mitch McConnell and the other 43 legislative dwarves in the U.S. Senate -- have struck again.

Today, they blocked the confirmation of Richard Cordray as Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is the first federal regulator with the sole purpose of protecting regular people from the likes of financial scoundrels.

Plain and simple -- just like we experienced a few months earlier with Elizabeth Warren (whose potential nomination was derailed by the same band of robber barons) -- Mr. Cordray is the newest roadkill on the conservative superhighway, and the American people have been hosed yet again. Now, you might not realize this, because you're about to witness a cable news cycle full of Republican senators prattling on as to why their vote was really about accountability and good government.

Elder Poverty and a GOP Sucker Punch - NOW Will Democrats Pledge to Defend Social Security?

By Richard (RJ) Eskow

December 9, 2011 - 12:20am ET 

Here are three things to consider:

Nearly one American in six over the age of 65 lives in poverty. A newly progressivized Barack Obama is rocking the populist bandwagon from Osawatomie to the Oval Office. And the Republicans have started attacking Democrats on Social Security - from the left.

This would be a good time for the President and other 'centrist' Democrats to offer the country a firm pledge not to cut Social Security benefits in any way, now or in the future.

Paul Krugman: All the G.O.P.’s Gekkos

Almost a quarter of a century has passed since the release of the movie “Wall Street,” and the film seems more relevant than ever. The self-righteous screeds of financial tycoons denouncing President Obama all read like variations on Gordon Gekko’s famous “greed is good” speech, while the complaints of Occupy Wall Street sound just like what Gekko says in private: “I create nothing. I own,” he declares at one point; at another, he asks his protégé, “Now you’re not naïve enough to think we’re living in a democracy, are you, buddy?”

Yet, with the benefit of hindsight, we can see that the movie went a little off at the end. It closes with Gekko getting his comeuppance, and justice served thanks to the diligence of the Securities and Exchange Commission. In reality, the financial industry just kept getting more and more powerful, and the regulators were neutered. 

The U.S. is facing a retirement security crisis -- and Washington wants to make it worse

COMMENTARY | December 08, 2011
 
More and more older people will be living in poverty as it is, writes a scholar at the Claude Pepper Foundation. So why are even Democrats talking about cutting their lifelines?


By Larry Polivka
lpolivka2@fsu.edu
The same political and corporate elites who are largely responsible for the erosion of retirement security now seem dead set on making the problem even worse.

Today's workers -- many of them trapped in low wage jobs with declining benefits -- are already facing a grim future in which the kind of retirement their parents were able to take for granted is out of reach. Unemployment and stagnant or declining wages have drained American families of the capacity to save for retirement. Likewise, the replacement of defined benefits (for the half of the U.S. labor force with a pension of any kind) by defined contributions plans, which depend on the variable performance of markets, have made income from private pensions generally smaller and less reliable. Increasing health care costs have also eroded the retirement security of most workers.

Paleoclimate Record Points Toward Potential Rapid Climate Changes

New research into the Earth's paleoclimate history by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies director James E. Hansen suggests the potential for rapid climate changes this century, including multiple meters of sea level rise, if global warming is not abated.

By looking at how the Earth's climate responded to past natural changes, Hansen sought insight into a fundamental question raised by ongoing human-caused climate change: "What is the dangerous level of global warming?" Some international leaders have suggested a goal of limiting warming to 2 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial times in order to avert catastrophic change. But Hansen said at a press briefing at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco on Tues, Dec. 6, that warming of 2 degrees Celsius would lead to drastic changes, such as significant ice sheet loss in Greenland and Antarctica.

Rupert Murdoch Lobbies Congress To Restrict Internet

First Posted: 12/ 7/11 08:26 PM ET Updated: 12/ 8/11 08:32 AM ET 

WASHINGTON -- News Corp. honcho Rupert Murdoch threw his weight behind Congress' attempt to restrict the Internet, personally lobbying leaders on Capitol Hill Wednesday for two measures that purport to combat piracy.

Murdoch's media empire is among some 350 large corporations that have come out in favor of the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House, as well as the Protect IP Act in the Senate.

Both measures would require Internet operators to police activity online, and would mandate Internet giants like Google and AOL (the parent company of The Huffington Post and an opponent of the bills) and credit card companies to take down sites that have content deemed to be in violation of copyright rules.

Economic Experts Gather In DC To Explain Why Politics Has Doomed Us

Brian Beutler, December 9, 2011, 6:00 AM

 

As the U.S. government and governments in Europe respond to the global economic slump with conservative austerity measures, it’s easy to forget that the overwhelming professional economic consensus is that depressed countries that can afford to should be doing the opposite — ramping up government purchases of goods and services and putting off the budget cuts and tax increases for a few years.

This isn’t even close to what’s happening. And as the space between what these experts think should happen and what global elites are actually doing grows, the experts’ forecast is becoming more and more pessimistic.

The Internet’s Intolerable Acts

You should be very afraid of a pair of bills that threaten Internet freedom.

By James Losey and Sascha Meinrath
Posted Thursday, Dec. 8, 2011, at 7:19 AM ET

The United States of America was forged in resistance to collective reprisals—the punishment of many for the acts of few. In 1774, following the Boston Tea Party, the British Parliament passed a series of laws—including the mandated closure of the port of Boston—meant to penalize the people of Massachusetts. These abuses of power, labeled the “Intolerable Acts,” catalyzed the American Revolution by making plain the oppression of the British crown.

More than 200 years later, the U.S. Congress is considering bills that would lead to collective reprisals against online communities.* The Senate’s PROTECT IP Act and the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House are supposed to address copyright infringement and counterfeiting. In reality, they are so technically impractical that they do little to address these problems. They would, however, undermine participatory democracy and human rights, which is why these bills have garnered near-universal condemnation from both human rights groups and technologists.

Building a sustainable hydrogen economy

SHE helps the environment more than HE

The concept of the hydrogen economy (HE), in which hydrogen would replace the carbon-based fossil fuels of the twentieth century was first mooted in the 1970s. Today, HE is seen as a potential solution to the dual global crises of climate change and dwindling oil reserves. A research paper to be published in the International Journal of Sustainable Design suggests that HE is wrong and SHE has the answer in the sustainable hydrogen economy.

Plummeting Income Shaves Household Cash

By Frank Bass and Timothy R. Homan - Dec 8, 2011 12:00 AM ET

The housing market collapse, historically low interest rates and corporations stingy with dividends helped cut the median household income in two of every three U.S. counties, the U.S. Census Bureau reported today.

The number of American households that made money from rent, interest or dividends fell by one-third to 24.2 percent in 2010, even in affluent counties including those that encompass New York City and San Francisco.

Nancy Pelosi Games Out The Long Fight Over Medicare And The Rest Of The Safety Net

Brian Beutler, December 7, 2011, 4:45 AM

 

Eight months is a long time in politics, but it will be eight months ago next week that House Republicans voted overwhelmingly for a budget that envisioned a massively scaled-down social safety net — a smaller, privatized health care system for old people, to replace traditional Medicare; Medicaid financially constrained, and handed over to state governments; cuts to various other support programs that benefit the poor, the young, and the elderly.

That didn’t sit well with voters. And in the months that followed, Republicans tried to contain the fallout by making federal deficits a central political issue while forcing Democrats to agree to real cuts to these programs — all while refusing themselves to raise taxes, even on the very wealthiest Americans.

Michigan's Radical Assault on Public Education

The state's GOP leaders are at the forefront of a national movement to eviscerate teachers' unions and privatize public schools.

—By Andy Kroll | Mon Dec. 5, 2011 3:00 AM PST

The list of initiatives reads like a grand plan to dismantle public education as we know it: Slash education spending. Outsource public teachers. Curb collective-bargaining rights. Kneecap teachers' unions. Open the floodgates to charter and "cyber" schools.

Welcome to education reform in the state of Michigan, where a Republican-dominated Legislature and a GOP governor are pushing one of the broadest anti-union, pro-privatization agendas in the country. Michigan is grappling with budget shortfalls like other states including Wisconsin, Ohio, and New Jersey—all places where GOP leaders (and occasionally Democrats) are exploiting the economic downturn to launch an ideological assault on teachers' unions and public school systems. Although some of Michigan's legislative attempts to overhaul public education have met resistance, state lawmakers have made an unprecedented push toward for-profit schools, dubious online curricula, and budget cuts and anti-union measures that would make the public teaching profession ever more insecure.

The Real History of 'Corporate Personhood': Meet the Man to Blame for Corporations Having More Rights Than You

By Jeffrey Clements, Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Posted on December 6, 2011, Printed on December 10, 2011

The following is an excerpt of Jeffrey Clement's Corporations Are Not People: Why They Have More Rights Than You Do and What You Can Do About It.) Click here to order a copy.

In 1971, Lewis Powell, a mild-mannered, courtly, and shrewd corporate lawyer in Richmond, Virginia, soon to be appointed to the United States Supreme Court, wrote a memorandum to his client, the United States Chamber of Commerce. He outlined a critique and a plan that changed America.

Lewis Powell, like the Citizens United dissenter Justice John Paul Stevens, was a decorated World War II veteran who returned to his hometown to build a most respected corporate law practice. By all accounts, Powell was a gentleman — reserved, polite, and gracious — and a distinguished lawyer and public servant. Commentators and law professors cite Powell’s “qualities of temperament and character” and his “modest” and “restrained” approach to judging. At his funeral in 1998, Sandra Day O’Connor, who had joined the Supreme Court in 1987, said, “For those who seek a model of human kindness, decency, exemplary behavior, and integrity, there will never be a better man.” Even the rare critic will cite Lewis Powell’s decency and kindness.

Solar power much cheaper to produce than most analysts realize, study finds

2011-12-07

The public is being kept in t
he dark about the viability of solar photovoltaic energy, according to a study conducted at Queen’s University.

“Many analysts project a higher cost for solar photovoltaic energy because they don’t consider recent technological advancements and price reductions,” says Joshua Pearce, Adjunct Professor, Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering. “Older models for determining solar photovoltaic energy costs are too conservative.”

Dr. Pearce believes solar photovoltaic systems are near the “tipping point” where they can produce energy for about the same price other traditional sources of energy.

Tomgram: Michael Klare, A New Cold War in Asia?

Posted by Michael Klare at 9:24am, December 6, 2011.

 

Last Friday, the U.S. military formally handed over its largest base in Iraq, the ill-named “Camp Victory,” to the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.  The next morning, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius officially declared counterinsurgency wars in the Middle East dead in -- if you don’t mind an inapt word -- the water.  (He is personally in mourning.)  He quoted one unnamed official describing Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s planning for the new Pentagon budget in this fashion: “It’s not going to be likely that we will deploy 150,000 troops to an area the way we did in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

No indeed.  As a result, in the inter-service scramble for the biggest slice of the Defense Department’s budgetary pie, the winners, Ignatius tells us, are going to be the Air Force and the Navy.  Translated geopolitically, this means that the focus of future military planning will switch to the Pacific -- with this country’s largest foreign creditor, China (not al-Qaeda), as the new enemy.

They're Sacrificing Us to Save Wall Street - But "Occupy Our Homes" Could Change That

By Richard Eskow

Created 12/05/2011 - 9:00pm

This week 60 Minutes gave viewers a good look [1] at the widespread criminality that created the Wall Street mortgage boom and led to our ongoing financial crisis. They also saw some of the overwhelming evidence of illegal activity on the part of big banks, and were reminded that none of those banks' executives have been prosecuted.
As u
gly as the situation is, there is some logic behind the government's actions - and its inactions. They're acting on a tragically incorrect (but internally coherent) set of assumptions that can be summed up in one sentence. It goes something like this:

"To preserve the health of the American economy, banks must be allowed to keep preying on their consumers."

That's it. That's the logic.

The infantile style in American politics

The GOP has reverted to a pre-potty-trained state. A 50-year-old essay explains why

By Gary Kamiya

 The farce known as the GOP presidential campaign has officially become a freak show. Newt Gingrich, the creepiest huckster in American politics, whose unique combination of hypocrisy, opportunism and sanctimoniousness led to his being unceremoniously bounced from Congress back in 1998, is now the front-runner to become the Republican presidential nominee.

Having gone through Michele “the founding Fathers ended slavery” Bachmann, Rick “I’d close down the federal government if only I could remember what it is” Perry, and Herman “all this stuff twirling around in my head” Cain, Republican voters have now embraced their latest unelectable stooge, a narcissistic, ethically challenged trough-feeder and third-rate history professor whose  brilliant ideas include a ludicrous two-track Social Security option and undermining the Supreme Court.

The Most Important News Story of the Day/Millennium

by Bill McKibben

 

The most important piece of news yesterday, this week, this month, and this year was a new set of statistics released yesterday by the Global Carbon Project. It showed that carbon emissions from our planet had increased 5.9 percent between 2009 and 2010. In fact, it was arguably among the most important pieces of data in the last, oh, three centuries, since according to the New York Times it represented “almost certainly the largest absolute jump in any year since the Industrial Revolution.”

What it means, in climate terms, is that we’ve all but lost the battle to reduce the damage from global warming. The planet has already warmed about a degree Celsius; it’s clearly going to go well past two degrees. It means, in political terms, that the fossil fuel industry has delayed effective action for the 12 years since the Kyoto treaty was signed. It means, in diplomatic terms, that the endless talks underway in Durban should be more important than ever--they should be the focus of a planetary population desperate to figure out how it’s going to survive the century.

The Stop Online Piracy Act is Class War in Cyberspace, Enriching the 1% at the Expense of the 99%

SOPA would require every web site in the country to become unpaid copyright enforcement officers for Time Warner, Disney and The Washington Post, among others.

December 5, 2011  |  The One Percent and their employees are masters of word play. They turned the estate tax into the "death tax," life-saving health and environmental rules became "job-killing" regulations and, of course, when it comes to taxes, the richest of the rich are now "job creators" who are supposed to be exempt from paying taxes. 

Given this track record, it is hardly surprising that a bill that would require every web site in the country to become unpaid copyright enforcement officers for Time Warner, Disney and The Washington Post comes packaged as the "Stop Online Piracy Act." While the name may lead the public to believe that Congress is trying to keep our email pure and our computer screens safe, the real story is that the One Percent are again trying to rig the rules so that they get as many dollars as possible from the rest of us.

David Cay Johnston: The taxpayers’ burden

Dec 3, 2011 20:38 EST

Taxpayers have much at risk in the coordinated action that six central banks took this week to lower short-term interest rates and make it easier to issue dollar-denominated loans to cope with the European debt crisis.

The joint action on the last day of November is being characterized widely as buying time to deal with the European government debt crisis. But fears about whether the PIGS — Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain — can pay back their debts in full are just a symptom of a metastasizing economic disease that has been plaguing the West for three decades. That is where the risks to taxpayers come in.

The disease was man-made, a policy virus cooked up by the Chicago School, where leading theorists persuaded the world to cast aside four millennia of human experience in favor of their radical legal and economic ideas. They have achieved this by couching their plans in language that made them seem conservative when the theories were the antithesis of conservative, at least in the classic meaning of that word.

Digital mutiny sinks piracy bill

05 December 2011 by Jim Giles

An online revolt has forced US Congress to rethink a draconian piracy bill, but the war isn't over

SO THAT'S what a digital revolt looks like. A million-and-a-half emails and almost 90,000 phone calls to US Congress. Public complaints from Google and Facebook. Even a few thousand old-fashioned letters to the US House of Representatives.

This internet ire, marshalled under the banner of American Censorship Day on 16 November, came in opposition to the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), legislation aimed at tackling the online trade in copyrighted movies and music. Claims that the act, if passed, will "break the internet" helped persuade several big companies, including a trade group which represents Apple and Microsoft, to withdraw their support. Then, last week, SOPA's backers in the House said they were open to changing the bill. Internet Activists 1, Big Media 0.

Paul Krugman: Send in the Clueless

There are two crucial things you need to understand about the current state of American politics. First, given the still dire economic situation, 2012 should be a year of Republican triumph. Second, the G.O.P. may nonetheless snatch defeat from the jaws of victory — because Herman Cain was not an accident.

Think about what it takes to be a viable Republican candidate today. You have to denounce Big Government and high taxes without alienating the older voters who were the key to G.O.P. victories last year — and who, even as they declare their hatred of government, will balk at any hint of cuts to Social Security and Medicare (death panels!).

And you also have to denounce President Obama, who enacted a Republican-designed health reform and killed Osama bin Laden, as a radical socialist who is undermining American security.

Bullies, Liars and Impostors: How Facebook and Go Daddy Shield Scott Walker's Online Guerillas

By Adele M. Stan and Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet
Posted on December 4, 2011, Printed on December 5, 2011

In Wisconsin, as in states around the nation, Republican lawmakers claim to be concerned with the integrity of the voting process and with fighting fraud. At least that 's the rationale for the passage of a new voter ID law passed this spring.

But as hundreds of thousands of Wisconsinites seek a recall election of Gov. Scott Walker, a spate of online disinformation, bullying and outright calls for the destruction of recall petitions by anonymous Web entities, possibly administered from out of state, raise a question: Who are the real impostors and fraudsters in Wisconsin's elections?

White House Threatens Veto Of Indefinite Detention Bill

by MIchael McAuliff 

 

WASHINGTON -- Accusing the Senate of "political micromanagement" of national security, the White House Friday stood by its threat to veto a defense bill over controversial military detention provisions.

The National Defense Authorization Act passed Thursday by the Senate contains a section that spells out the military's power to detain Americans indefinitely without trial and mandates military detention for some terrorism suspects.

New reports identify impacts of climate change on world's highest mountains

DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA -- Findings from the most comprehensive assessment to date on climate change, snow and glacier melt in Asia's mountainous Hindu Kush-Himalayan (HKH) region -- site of Mount Everest and many of the world's tallest peaks -- highlight the region's extreme vulnerability to climate change, as rising temperatures disturb the balance of snow, ice and water, threatening millions of mountain people and 1.3 billion people living downstream in Asia's major river basins.

The findings, published in three reports by the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), were released today during Mountain Day, a convening of mountain experts, policy makers, and climate change negotiators on the sidelines of UN climate talks.

America's army of jobless

The real number of unemployed or underemployed people in the U.S. is a stunning 26.9 million.

By David B. Grusky

November 30, 2011

When President Obama announced that 40,000 troops now in Iraq would come home by the end of the year, the initial excitement quickly turned to concern that our already struggling economy couldn't easily handle the shock of an additional 40,000 job seekers.

Although we should, of course, care deeply about returning Iraq war veterans, we ought not to think for a moment that adding 40,000 workers to the job-seeking pool will break the back of the economy. It's already broken. The nation is laboring under the weight of a reserve army of nearly 27 million women and men who don't have a full-time job, but most surely want one.

Michael Hudson: Debt and Democracy – Has the Link Been Broken?

By Michael Hudson, a research professor of Economics at University of Missouri, Kansas City and a research associate at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College

A longer version of this article in German was published in the Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung on December 5, 2011 [the FAZ provided this anachronistic note].

Book V of Aristotle’s Politics describes the eternal transition of oligarchies making themselves into hereditary aristocracies – which end up being overthrown by tyrants or develop internal rivalries as some families decide to “take the multitude into their camp” and usher in democracy, within which an oligarchy emerges once again, followed by aristocracy, democracy, and so on throughout history.

Debt has been the main dynamic driving these shifts – always with new twists and turns. It polarizes wealth to create a creditor class, whose oligarchic rule is ended as new leaders (“tyrants” to Aristotle) win popular support by cancelling the debts and redistributing property or taking its usufruct for the state.

The Lost Opportunity of Iran-Contra

by: Robert Parry, Consortium News | News Analysis

Special Report: A quarter century ago with the breaking of the Iran-Contra scandal, the United States had a chance to step back from its march toward Empire and to demand accountability for White House crimes. But instead a powerful cover-up prevailed, reports Robert Parry.

If you want to solve the perplexing mystery of modern-day America – and understand what went so terribly wrong – an important place to look for clues would be the Iran-Contra scandal, which began a quarter century ago, on Nov. 25, 1986.

The scandal’s failure to achieve meaningful accountability for high-level lawbreakers can be seen as a key turning point in modern American history. In effect, it was the moment that the United States veered firmly back onto a path toward Empire after a brief side trip toward again trying to be a functioning Republic.

Solyndra Was An Anomaly, Independent Report Finds

Carl Franzen - December 2, 2011, 6:36 PM

Unfortunate as the bankruptcy of California solar panel company Solyndra was, considering it defaulted on a $535 million loan guarantee from the Department of Energy, it isn’t reflective of the overall performance of the Energy Department’s loan guarantee program.

In fact, aside from Solyndra, the loan guarantee program is actually extremely sound, supporting low-risk investments and maintaining a reserve of funding to draw upon, and ending it — as Republicans have tried to do — wouldn’t help balance the budget. Instead, it would probably sacrifice advances in clean energy.

Seniors Group With Republican Ties Honors Republicans For Protecting Seniors

Jillian Rayfield - December 3, 2011, 10:44 AM<

A seniors group that claims to be grassroots but has ties to Republicans and members of the pharmaceutical industry has been handing out awards to vulnerable Republicans for standing up for senior citizens.

RetireSafe.org purports to be “a grassroots organization that advocates and educates on behalf of America’s seniors on issues regarding Social Security, Medicare, health and financial well being.”
But according to a Roll Call report this week, the group’s board has close ties to Republicans, and it receives a chunk of its financing from the pharmaceutical industry.

Decoding the Payroll-Tax Cut: How Well Does It Work?

by Marian Wang
ProPublica, Dec. 1, 2011, 12:54 p.m.

As Congress tries to deal with its long list of unfinished business, among the top and most contentious items has been the proposed extension of the payroll-tax cut.


It has certainly inspired plenty of political posturing. Democrats have charged Republicans with hypocrisy for opposing a measure that would put hundreds of dollars into the pockets of American workers; Republicans have fired back, accusing President Obama of failed economic policies and misguided efforts to grant tax relief to some while upping taxes on the rich, who they say often create jobs.

David Cay Johnston: In New York, gifts circumvent a ban

Taxpayers can expect ever more picking of their pockets by businesses with political clout thanks to the Nov. 21 decision by Judge Theodore Jones and four colleagues on the New York Court of Appeals.

At issue is $1.4 billion in state gifts whose primary beneficiary is a microchip maker, GlobalFoundries, a company controlled by Abu Dhabi’s hereditary ruler, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, one of the wealthiest people ever. The gifts, labeled economic development grants and made through a state-sponsored corporation, work out to about a million dollar subsidy per job at the plant near Albany.

The New York Court of Appeals said the 50 taxpayers who sued over the deal and over gifts to apple and wine trade associations have no standing to challenge the gift because it is proper.

The Greatest Hoax in the History of Money: The Fed, the Banks, the Lies

By Richard (RJ) Eskow

December 1, 2011 - 10:14pm ET 

It took the journalists at Bloomberg News two years - and presumably lots of legal fees - to pry information out of the Federal Reserve that should have been made public long ago. We now know that the Fed's secret $7.7 trillion lending program wasn't just the most massive bank bailout ever seen, and it wasn't just free money for mega-bankers - though it was certainly both of those things. It was also the greatest hoax in stock market history.

No, scratch that. It was the greatest hoax in the history of money. And it was built on lies. How many? Let us count the ways.

Three Pillars of a Revived Republic

December 2, 2011

As local governments shut down more Occupy encampments, the movement for the “99 percent” is at a crossroads. Some supporters advocate more civil disobedience; others urge a shift toward media outreach; and still others want a move into politics. But Robert Parry notes that all three approaches may be required.


By Robert Parry

American progressives are buoyed by Occupy Wall Street’s success in shifting the political debate from Republican demands for government austerity to the issue of concentrated private wealth at the top, but the question of what to do next is fraught with risks.

The discussion appears to be breaking down into which of three approaches should be pursued: activism (and civil disobedience), electoral (and legislative) politics, or outreach (via a stronger media infrastructure). Often the three are presented as somehow exclusive of one another.

Paul Krugman: Killing the Euro

Can the euro be saved? Not long ago we were told that the worst possible outcome was a Greek default. Now a much wider disaster seems all too likely.

True, market pressure lifted a bit on Wednesday after central banks made a splashy announcement about expanded credit lines (which will, in fact, make hardly any real difference). But even optimists now see Europe as headed for recession, while pessimists warn that the euro may become the epicenter of another global financial crisis.

How did things go so wrong? The answer you hear all the time is that the euro crisis was caused by fiscal irresponsibility. Turn on your TV and you’re very likely to find some pundit declaring that if America doesn’t slash spending we’ll end up like Greece. Greeeeeece!

Norquist Tells GOP That Raising Taxes On The Middle Class Doesn’t Count As A Tax Increase

By Travis Waldron on Dec 1, 2011 at 5:50 pm

Anti-tax zealot Grover Norquist, the president of Americans For Tax Reform and author of the radical anti-tax pledge that has played a significant role in hamstringing budget and deficit-reduction negotiations, has said that it is unacceptable for those who have signed his pledge to vote in favor of any tax increase. But now that President Obama and congressional Democrats are backing a tax cut aimed at stimulating economic growth, Norquist has changed his tune.

Declining Labor Force Participation Leads to Sharp Drop in Unemployment

By Dean Baker


The employment rate for women is down 0.7 percentage points from its year-ago level.

The Labor Department reported a decline of 315,000 people in the labor market in October. This was the main factor driving a drop of 0.4 percentage points in the unemployment rate to 8.6 percent. The establishment survey showed a weaker-than-expected 120,000 job gain for the month; although this bad news was largely offset by upward revisions of 72,000 to the job growth numbers for the prior two months.

Researchers Find that Abstinence-Only Sex Education Does Not, In Fact, Promote Abstinence

By J. Bryan Lowder  |  Posted Thursday, Dec. 1, 2011, at 10:25 AM ET

This one may come as a shock to those conservative types who believe that telling hormone-riddled teens to ‘just say no’ actually does anything to promote their sexual health:

Researchers at the University of Georgia have just published the first large-scale study of teen pregnancy rates by state in comparison with sex education curricula. The results demonstrate that rates of teen pregnancy are “significantly higher” in states that use “abstinence-only” models, while lower in those that provide a more comprehensive education, including birth control instruction and STI prevention alongside abstinence. Moreover, the significance of the relationship remained even when the researchers adjusted for potentially important factors like socioeconomic status, education level and ethnicity.

Military Police State


Why is the Senate so determined to allow the U.S. military to arrest and detain U.S. citizens?

By Dahlia Lithwick | Posted Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2011, at 7:02 PM ET

On Tuesday 60 members of the United States Senate voted to preserve a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act—that would be the bill that funds the Pentagon—allowing the U.S. military to pick up and detain, without charges or trial, anyone suspected of terrorism, including American citizens, and to restrict transfers of prisoners out of Guantanamo Bay. Specifically, 60 senators voted against an amendment that would have invalidated the part of the bill which empowers the president and the military to detain anyone they suspect was involved in the 9/11 attacks or supports al-Qaida, the Taliban, or “associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners.”

A Secret Scandal

The government and the big banks deceived the public about their $7 trillion secret loan program. They should be punished.

By Eliot Spitzer | Posted Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2011, at 1:34 PM ET

Imagine you walked into a bank, applied for a personal line of credit, and filled out all the paperwork claiming to have no debts and an income of $200,000 per year. The bank, based on these representations, extended you the line of credit. Then, three years later, after fighting disclosure all the way, you were forced by a court to tell the truth: At the time you made the statements to the bank, you actually were unemployed, you had a $1 million mortgage on your house on which you had failed to make payments for six months, and you hadn’t paid even the minimum on your credit-card bills for three months. Do you think the bank would just say: Never mind, don’t worry about it? Of course not. Whether or not you had paid back the personal line of credit, three FBI agents would be at your door within hours.

Does Anybody Who Gets It Believe Central Banks Did All That Much Yesterday?

I’m still mystified as to the market reaction on Wednesday to the coordinated central bank effort at waving a bazooka at the escalating European financial crisis. But as readers pointed out in comments, the big move was overnight, in futures, when trading is thin, and there was no follow through when markets opened. And volume was underwhelming.

The officialdom in the US seems to have been slow to wake up as to the direct effects of the Eurobank wobbles on the US economy. I worked for the Japanese in the 1980s, did some work for the US ops of a major German bank in the 1990s, and the story of big foreign banks in the US is largely unchanged: they provide commodity credit (big corporate lending facilities and acting as participants in loan syndications) as their best route to breaking into more lucrative services at the same companies. So as the Journal noted earlier this week, Eurobank stress is leading to a big crunch on all sorts of lending activities.

Washington state scrambles to fight massive tree die-offs

By Craig Welch | The Seattle Times

SEATTLE — So many pine, fir and spruce trees in the Northwest are riddled with bugs and disease that major tree die-offs are expected to rip through a third of Eastern Washington forests - an area covering nearly 3 million acres - in the next 15 years, according to new state projections.

Because Washington's forests are deteriorating so quickly, the state commissioner of public lands last week said he'll appoint an emergency panel of scientists and foresters to seek ways to stabilize or reverse the decline.

We Asked Obama for Change, Got Lousy T-Shirt Instead

By Ezra Klein
Nov 30, 2011 7:00 PM ET

Guess who tweeted this: “This Black Friday, take 10% off all purchases ... with code 10%TURKEYDAY.”

Wal-Mart? Best Buy? A hedge fund trying to unload Greek bonds?

Nope. That was the official Twitter account of President Barack Obama -- excuse me, President @BarackObama. And it’s not the first time that Obama’s 2012 campaign has sounded like a commercial for Al’s Used Car Lot.

You Can Arrest an Idea

Posted on Dec 1, 2011
By Robert Scheer

The bankers slept well. Their homes in Beverly Hills were not spotlighted by a noisy swarm of police helicopters, searchlights burning through the sanctity of the night, harassing the forlorn City Hall encampment of those who dared protest the banks’ seizure of our government. I live within sight of the iconic Los Angeles City Hall, and at first I thought it was being used once again as a movie location, given the massive police presence, as if an alien invasion was being thwarted.

Not eager to test the resilience of my new heart valve, I hesitated until the first crack of dawn to visit the place where former Labor Secretary Robert Reich and I had spoken weeks before at a teach-in on the origins of the economic crisis. I described the scene back then as a Jeffersonian moment, exactly the kind of peaceful assembly to redress grievances that the Founders of our nation enshrined in the Bill of Rights. But at 5 a.m. Wednesday there was only a graveyard of democratic hope. The protesters were gone, 200 arrested for exercising their constitutional rights, and only the television crews stayed to pick over the carcass of tents, books and posters, including one I pulled from the debris that read “99% you can’t arrest an idea.” Actually, you can, and the bankers have, as a result, been able to reoccupy Los Angeles’ City Hall and every other contested outpost of power throughout the nation.

Republicans Make Rare Retreat on Payroll Tax Cuts—Why?

George Zornick on November 30, 2011 - 12:58pm ET

There was a time—up until last night—when Republicans would not support a payroll tax cut in order to goose the economy.

The party swallowed it in last December’s agreement on the Bush tax rates, and so this year Americans were subject to a payroll tax rate of 4.2 percent instead of 6.2 percent. But in the ensuing months, most Republicans made it clear they wouldn’t support extending the payroll tax cut again because they felt it didn’t do enough and cost too much money. “I think that it is time we stop with putting these Band-Aids over huge chest wounds,” said Representative Allen West, a Tea Party favorite from Florida. Representative Paul Ryan called it “sugar-high” economics this summer, and added later that it “simply exacerbates our debt problems in my opinion.”

The Rebirth of Social Darwinism

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

What kind of society, exactly, do modern Republicans want? I’ve been listening to Republican candidates in an effort to discern an overall philosophy, a broadly-shared vision, an ideal picture of America.

They say they want a smaller government but that can’t be it. Most seek a larger national defense and more muscular homeland security. Almost all want to widen the government’s powers of search and surveillance inside the United States – eradicating possible terrorists, expunging undocumented immigrants, “securing” the nation’s borders. They want stiffer criminal sentences, including broader application of the death penalty. Many also want government to intrude on the most intimate aspects of private life.

Banks Got Bailed Out, We Got Sold Out
by BooMan
Wed Nov 30th, 2011 at 11:50:17 PM EST

We all know the story to one degree or another. The financial sector set up a system that encouraged mortgage initiators to prefer subprime loans to prime loans. They stopped asking for any documentation proving an ability to pay back home loans. They sought out unsavvy borrowers and steered them to riskier loans because they got bigger bonuses that way. The garbage loans were packaged up into derivatives and given deceptively high credit ratings. Then those derivatives were sold to unwitting customers who lost tons of money when they went bad. Meanwhile, the big banks bet against their own financial products even as they marketed them as safe investments. When the house of cards fell, the government had no choice but to save the banks because our economy can't function without a banking system. Then the bankers took the money and paid themselves big bonuses while millions lost their jobs, their homes, and their retirement security.

There are a few bankers who are honest about what happened.

6 Shocking Revelations About Wall Street's "Secret Government"

By Les Leopold, AlterNet
Posted on November 30, 2011, Printed on December 2, 2011

We now have concrete evidence that Wall Street and Washington are running a secret government far removed from the democratic process. Through a freedom of information request by Bloomberg News, the public now has access to over 29,000 pages of Fed documents and 21,000 additional Fed transactions that were deliberately hidden, and for good reason. (See here and here.)

These documents show how top government officials willfully concealed from Congress and the public the true extent of the 2008-'09 bailouts that enriched the few and enhanced the interests of giant Wall Streets firms. Here’s what we now know:

• The secret Wall Street bailouts totaled $7.77 trillion, 10 times more than the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) passed by Congress in 2008. 

• Knowledge of the secret bailout funds was not shared with Congress even while it was drafting and debating legislation to break up the big banks.