shocked!

good for him

(and for us, I suppose)

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1937938_19379...

good morning sam, you need to shlep over to the blue roots radio YA' Think without delay, ok?

The asshole Republican governors in two of the states I've been living in (VT & CT) did something similar in anticipation of stimulus money: While the congressional stimulus package negotiations drew toward the end, they cut funding to places where stimulus money was designated, places like sustainable energy and (what I do) public education, just to backfill their own budget shortfalls. Then when the stimulus money came in, they just held onto it.

Next, the nasty corporations and their lapdog legislators will be claiming credit for anything good that may come of this klutzdance.

Yep - that's right - get ready to be co-opted. Again.

For all the trillions of dollars lavished on it, for all the talk about confronting new security threats, for all the exhortations to reinvent government, America’s defense establishment, as John Farmer reminds us in “The Ground Truth,” continued to fight the cold war more than a decade after it had ended. Preoccupied with building a costly missile defense system to counter a spurious menace from Russia and with maintaining “full spectrum dominance” over the rest of the globe, most Bush administration officials blithely ignored the danger emanating from the caves of Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden and his acolytes plotted against America. Confronted by a small group of mostly Saudi nationals armed with box cutters, the central nervous system of the country’s defense agencies went into a state of cataleptic shock. The only decisive action taken on 9/11 came not from the military, but from the courageous passengers who stormed the cockpit of United Airlines Flight 93, leading the hijackers to crash the plane over Pennsylvania farmland before it could reach its intended target in Washington.

As senior counsel to the 9/11 Commission, Farmer, who was the attorney general of New Jersey and is the dean of the Rutgers School of Law, investigated the derelict conduct of the national security apparatus. He was well prepared to do so. In their valuable account of the commission’s activities, “Without Precedent,” the commission chairman, Thomas Kean, and the vice chairman, Lee Hamilton, noted that shortly after the attacks, Farmer — “one of our most important hires” — established a victims’ assistance center in New Jersey and helped the F.B.I. uncover important evidence in garbage at Newark International Airport. But the commission’s efforts to reconstruct the tragedy itself were, at best, resented and, at worst, impeded by the sprawling defense bureaucracy and the Bush administration, both of which had much to hide. Even two reports by the inspectors general of the Defense and Transportation Departments, released in 2006, whitewashed government failures. Now that numerous transcripts and tapes have been declassified, however, Farmer draws on them to assail the government’s official depiction of 9/11 as so much public relations flimflam.

Perhaps nothing perturbs Farmer more than the contention that high-ranking officials responded quickly and effectively to the revelation that Qaeda attacks were taking place. Nothing, Farmer indicates, could be further from the truth: President George W. Bush and other officials were mostly irrelevant during the hijackings; instead, it was the ground-level commanders who made operational decisions in an ad hoc fashion. The memoirs of the White House terrorism expert Richard Clarke, which Farmer credits with good faith, make it sound as though a dramatic video conference that Clarke led played a crucial role in organizing a response to the hijackings, but Farmer says that “this account does not square in any significant respect with what occurred that morning.”

To bolster such contentions, Farmer focuses minutely on newly available transcripts from the Federal Aviation Administration and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (Norad). He shows that, perversely enough, the one defense agency that had suffered draconian budget cuts was Norad, which had seen its alert sites reduced from about two dozen to a pitiful seven and, in any case, was unable to view large areas of the continental United States owing to its antiquated radar system.

In addition, local commanders bypassed established protocols for reporting and requesting assistance for a hijacking, in part because they had so little time in which to act. Farmer superbly renders the knuckle-biting tension and confusion engendered by the hijackings, and says the leadership of the F.A.A. and the Defense Department “would remain largely irrelevant to the critical decision making and unaware of the evolving situation ‘on the ground’ until the attacks were completed” — thereby making it close to impossible for the military to inter cept any aircraft.

Yet both Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Vice President Dick Cheney, Farmer says, provided palpably false versions that touted the military’s readiness to shoot down United 93 before it could hit Washington. Planes were never in place to intercept it. By the time the Northeast Air Defense Sector had been informed of the hijacking, United 93 had already crashed. Farmer scrutinizes F.A.A. and Norad rec ords to provide irrefragable evidence that a day after a Sept. 17 White House briefing, both agencies suddenly altered their chronologies to produce a coherent timeline and story that “fit together nicely with the account provided publicly by Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz and Vice President Cheney.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/books/review/Heilbrunn-t.html

This guy is a great tipper!

For a few transcendent minutes at the BMI country music awards show Tuesday evening (Nov. 10), the denizens of Music Row got a chance to ponder the difference between hits that keep on coming -- and going -- and songs built on emotional bedrock: in this case, the exemplary songs of Kris Kristofferson.

The performance rights organization honored Kristofferson with its BMI Icon award during ceremonies held at its Nashville headquarters to recognize the 50 most-performed country songs of the past year.

NO MMRules your info. is NOT there
new
Submitted by smcgee43 on Mon, 11/16/2009 - 9:54am.

*******

Thanks for the help.. :)

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

MMRules

hahahaha! I've often assumed that time stands still in a black hole because the higgs boson requires spin with no momentum. Spin vector is at 90 degrees so if it approaches the speed of light entering the event horizon, the spin goes to zero hence there is no matter. Absent matter, time and space dissolve.

What led you to this epiphany? And have you reconciled if time exists outside the galactic cluster?

you are diagnosed with a pre existing disease that you didn't know you had. But for 20 years you've had the same insurance and up to this point never used the insurance. For 20 years you've paid into that insurance company and then they drop you. We should pass a law that the insurance company would have to pay back all the money you paid in and never used.

toniD's Ya Think?

Thanks, ToniD -

Treebu and I applaud this idea.

Or add a provision clarifying that coercively extracting payments and then failing to provide the specified goods or service constitutes FRAUD - subject to all the liabilities, penalties, and remunerative compensation entailed in fraud.

before the race. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year. Cheers folks, and good morning.

Submitted by gbasin on Mon, 11/16/2009 - 10:29am.

*******

Sorry but,Jeebus someone tell him he can't sing..Sounds like a toad..
I'd rather hear Leo Kottke sing.. :)

**

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

MMRules

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

MMRules

I think he can sing...he just doesn't have a very melodic voice...I listened to the clip above and he pretty much nails every note. :)

and I am not prejudiced just because he gave us an 80.00 tip when we cooked for him....

The Worst is yet to Come: Unemployed Americans Should Hunker Down for More Job Losses

Nouriel Roubini | Nov 15, 2009

Think the worst is over? Wrong. Conditions in the U.S. labor markets are awful and worsening. While the official unemployment rate is already 10.2% and another 200,000 jobs were lost in October, when you include discouraged workers and partially employed workers the figure is a whopping 17.5%.

While losing 200,000 jobs per month is better than the 700,000 jobs lost in January, current job losses still average more than the per month rate of 150,000 during the last recession.

Also, remember: The last recession ended in November 2001, but job losses continued for more than a year and half until June of 2003; ditto for the 1990-91 recession.

So we can expect that job losses will continue until the end of 2010 at the earliest. In other words, if you are unemployed and looking for work and just waiting for the economy to turn the corner, you had better hunker down. All the economic numbers suggest this will take a while. The jobs just are not coming back.

There's really just one hope for our leaders to turn things around: a bold prescription that increases the fiscal stimulus with another round of labor-intensive, shovel-ready infrastructure projects, helps fiscally strapped state and local governments and provides a temporary tax credit to the private sector to hire more workers. Helping the unemployed just by extending unemployment benefits is necessary not sufficient; it leads to persistent unemployment rather than job creation.

The long-term picture for workers and families is even worse than current job loss numbers alone would suggest. Now as a way of sharing the pain, many firms are telling their workers to cut hours, take furloughs and accept lower wages. Specifically, that fall in hours worked is equivalent to another 3 million full time jobs lost on top of the 7.5 million jobs formally lost.

This is very bad news but we must face facts. Many of the lost jobs are gone forever, including construction jobs, finance jobs and manufacturing jobs. Recent studies suggest that a quarter of U.S. jobs are fully out-sourceable over time to other countries.

Other measures tell the same ugly story: The average length of unemployment is at an all time high; the ratio of job applicants to vacancies is 6 to 1; initial claims are down but continued claims are very high and now millions of unemployed are resorting to the exceptional extended unemployment benefits programs and are staying in them longer.

Based on my best judgment, it is most likely that the unemployment rate will peak close to 11% and will remain at a very high level for two years or more.

The weakness in labor markets and the sharp fall in labor income ensure a weak recovery of private consumption and an anemic recovery of the economy, and increases the risk of a double dip recession.

As a result of these terribly weak labor markets, we can expect weak recovery of consumption and economic growth; larger budget deficits; greater delinquencies in residential and commercial real estate and greater fall in home and commercial real estate prices; greater losses for banks and financial institutions on residential and commercial real estate mortgages, and in credit cards, auto loans and student loans and thus a greater rate of failures of banks; and greater protectionist pressures.

The damage will be extensive and severe unless bold policy action is undertaken now.

http://www.rgemonitor.com/roubini-monitor/257978/the_worst_is_yet_to_com...

toniD's Ya Think?

But,every one's entitled to their opinion..

My dog can sing,too..
**
He hurts my ears..
Ever see the re-make he's in of "A Star Is Born" ?
It will give you nightmares.. :)

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

MMRules

http://wtfpod.com

Federal Reserve proposes limits on gift cards
Rules would limit fees for not using the card; would require cards to last 5 years

The rules would limit fees for not using the card and would require that gift cards expire no earlier than five years.

In many cases, gift card issuers currently charge fees to recipients of gift cards that haven't been used for an extended period of time by deducting funds from the cards.

"The rules would protect consumers from certain unexpected costs and would require that gift card terms and conditions be clearly stated," the Fed said.

The proposed rules come after the Fed came under fire for not doing more to protect consumers during the credit bubble. However, the central bank has stepped up its consumer protection in recent months.

Last week, the Fed adopted strong rules limiting bank profits on overdraft fees. Bank customers won't be charged overdraft fees on cash withdrawals or one-time debit-card purchases that exceed their account balance unless they've agreed to such fees. See story on overdraft rule.

The proposed rule would prohibit a gift card issuer from imposing a service fee for gift certificates, store gift cards or prepaid cards in certain situations such as when there has been a year of inactivity on the certificate or card.

Any fees that are charged would have to be disclosed properly to consumers and it could only be a monthly fee, rather than more frequent charges. Monthly maintenance or service fees would still be permitted as would balance-inquiry fees and transaction-based fees.

The rule also prohibits issuers from offering cards that expire earlier than five years after being issued.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/federal-reserve-proposes-limits-on-gift...

toniD's Ya Think?

The Lloyd's Prayer

From an email making its way around Wall Street this morning:

Our Chairman,
Who Art At Goldman,
Blankfein Be Thy Name.
The Rally's Come. God's Work Be Done
On Earth As There's No Fear Of Correction.
Give Us This Day Our Daily Gains,
And Bankrupt Our Competitors
As You Taught Lehman and Bear Their Lessons.
And Bring Us Not Under Indictment.
For Thine Is The Treasury,
The House And The Senate
Forever and Ever.
Goldman.

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2009/11/16/the_lloyds_prayer.html

toniD's Ya Think?

Beneath the Congressional Favorability Numbers
"It's a commonly accepted fact that Congressional Democrats are unpopular but Congressional Republicans are even more unpopular," Tom Jensen writes.

"That's true but it shouldn't be taken as an indication that Democrats are going to be fine in 2010 because there's a pretty significant group of the electorate that dislikes both parties and they're overwhelmingly planning to vote Republican next year because they think it at least provides an opportunity for change."

http://publicpolicypolling.blogspot.com/2009/11/some-twists-in-congressi...

toniD's Ya Think?

What Will Republicans Do if Health Care Passes?
Ron Brownstein notes that if President Obama does sign a health care reform bill, "which appears more likely than not, Republicans will face a momentous choice between consolidation and repudiation -- between accepting the new program and seeking to dismantle it. The alternative paths are neatly captured by the GOP's contrasting reactions to the two central cords of America's existing social safety net."

"After FDR got Social Security approved in 1935, Alf Landon, his Republican challenger in 1936, denounced it... Roosevelt's landslide victory over Landon (and subsequent re-elections) provided Social Security the time to build impregnable support..."

"By contrast, Republicans largely accepted Medicare soon after President Johnson signed it into law in 1965."

http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/nj_20091114_2045.php

toniD's Ya Think?

my musician ex-husband had all his LPs and turned me on to him in the 70s (I had never heard of him at that point, since he was not well know in Europe then) and I was immediately conquered; his songs are just great, some of them brought tears to my eyes as i listened

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

MMRules

"What led you to this epiphany? And have you reconciled if time exists outside the galactic cluster??"

I have NO idea as to what u r asking. I just saw it
on a weird web-site & found it interesting. I'm a
big dummy where it concerns space & such.

Me too..
Plus headaches..
His voice attracts stray dogs..

Just saying.. :)

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

MMRules

Craziest Google Street View Shots OF ALL TIME

"this machine kills fascists"

Nov. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Wall Street, meet Eric W. Haugaard, a civil engineer who designs water and sewer-line systems for the North Carolina Department of Transportation. Haugaard says he had tears in his eyes as he watched Barack Obama’s acceptance speech, hopeful that politics would get more constructive and the economic crisis would get fixed. Today, he is disgusted when he thinks about “what Wall Street has done to average, honest, tax-paying, no-loopholes citizens,” and says it makes him ill when he considers that Congress is letting taxpayer-assisted financial outfits get rich “without producing anything of real value to our society.”

Haugaard, one of dozens of readers who e-mailed me in response to a Nov. 3 column titled “Wall Street Cries ‘Feed Me’ or World Will End,” is despondent that, even after the economic horror of the past year, people in finance are unrepentant. “I want these swine prosecuted,” wrote Robert Carlini of Richmond, Michigan, an auto-industry executive who says he is a “staunch conservative.”

In the 14 years I’ve written columns for Bloomberg News, I’ve had plenty of feedback from investors who said they lost money at the hands of corrupt brokers, plus a steady stream of vitriol from financial executives who say I’m clueless, stupid, and deserve to lose my job.

I have never, though, been bombarded with anything like the fury and frustration expressed this time by people far removed from Wall Street, ranging from computer programmers to administrative assistants to the caretaker of an estate. Typically a handful of e-mails will float in; this time the number topped 60 and counting.

Expressing Disillusion

Chase Van Der Rhoer of HSBC Securities in New York, one of six Bloomberg customers from Wall Street who responded, said I had it all wrong. I was “uninformed” for painting all Wall Street firms with the same brush no matter whether they received a bailout. He suggested that an emotional outcry by the public shouldn’t be the basis of setting public policy. Four of the Bloomberg customers who wrote, though, expressed disillusion with how out-of-touch their own industry has become.

Off Wall Street, the rage is palpable. Several readers said they were so enraged that acts of violence were called for against figures in finance. Most, though angry, managed to stake positions a tad more constructive. For starters, they are mystified that government is loaded with economic decision-makers who hail from finance. Obama’s top staff “seems to be tied more to Wall Street than to Main Street,” wrote Patrick Williams, a manager in Orlando, Florida.

Treasury’s Goldmanites

“If this administration really wanted to create policy and push agendas helpful to consumers, it would not have a Treasury Department populated by Goldmanites and other Wall Street alums,” wrote Melissa Huelsman, a lawyer in Seattle.

A number of readers said that we should have simply tested the capitalist system and let financial firms fail. “Americans are innovators,” wrote Steven Smith, an out-of-work MRI technologist in Austin, Texas. “We would have figured out a new way, a better way to do business without the greedy monsters on Wall Street.” A great starting point would be to slash bankers’ pay 60 percent across the board, in the view of Richard Watson, a software writer in Johannesburg, South Africa. He figures that might lead to some smart people in finance relocating to jobs where people “produce something.” I hate to break it to you, Wall Street, but Main Street is puzzled about why the monetary rewards of the industry seem so out of synch with its social contribution. The work of Wall Street “doesn’t go toward curing cancer, feeding the world’s poor, creating new innovative technologies to take us to a post- carbon-powered world -- it does no real work,” wrote Wayne Wells, who works for a paper company in Eastover, South Carolina. more...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=aQWBajhBATUU

When Main Street gets angry enough, watch out Wall Street!!

toniD's Ya Think?

VIDEO: Scuffle Ensues when Neo-Nazis Unfurl Hitler Flag at Tea Party Rally

PHOENIX, AZ -- A scuffle ensued Saturday when members of the National Socialist Movement (Neo-Nazis) found themselves shut out of an anti-immigration Tea Party protest at the Phoenix capitol.

American Citizens United, who organized the Phoenix Tea Party rally, told the Neo-Nazi group that racist messages were not welcome at the demonstration. The Neo-Nazis left, but two returned, standing defiantly on the sidewalk that borders the designated protest area.

When JT Ready, one of the Neo-Nazis tried to unfurl an Adolf Hitler flag, one of the event organizers became enraged and tried to rip the flag from Ready's hands. The other Neo-Nazi was holding a Confederate flag and a sign that read, "Bring our soldiers home, and put them on the Mexican border." Ready responded by shoving the organizer, sending him tumbling to the ground several feet away.

Police quickly intervened, and no one was hurt.

Video shot by Phoenix Channel 3 News, shows the event unfold, and the Neo-Nazi can be seen screaming throughout the incident, "You can't assult me! You can't assault me!" Then, after police intervene, he yells, "If you assault me, I get to assault you."

Watch the video from Phoenix Channel 3 News : at link

Ironically, New Times columnist Stephen Lemons, a stalwart activist for immigrants, was also asked to leave.

The Phoenix rally was one of dozens of similar demonstrations hosted across the country today by American Citizens United to voice opposition to immigration reform legislation that could be introduced into Congress as early as next month.

Police estimated that more than 200 protestors attended the rally.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dawn-teo/video-scuffle-ensues-when_b_35815...

toniD's Ya Think?

Richard Burr Would Allow "Mentally Incapacitated" Vets to Buy Guns

Major Nidal Hasan, accused of killing 13 people at Fort Hood Army base, has been described by former colleagues as "psychotic." As more details emerge about Hasan's troubled state, gun safety advocates are launching fresh attacks on a Senate bill they say would make it easier for mentally unstable veterans to buy firearms.

Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) says his "Veterans 2nd Amendment Protection Act" will protect veterans' gun rights. But the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence calls it a "dangerous" proposal that could allow "over 100,000 mentally incapacitated or incompetent persons" to buy guns--people who would previously have been barred from doing so by the Veterans Administration (VA).

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2009/11/senate-bill-would-allow-mentally...

toniD's Ya Think?

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Blue-Roots-RadioYa-Think/180089066598?ref=...

By MARC LACEY

MIAHUATLÁN, Mexico — During the best of the times, Miguel Salcedo’s son, an illegal immigrant in San Diego, would be sending home hundreds of dollars a month to support his struggling family in Mexico. But at times like these, with the American economy out of whack and his son out of work, Mr. Salcedo finds himself doing what he never imagined he would have to do: wiring pesos north.

Unemployment has hit migrant communities in the United States so hard that a startling new phenomenon has been detected: instead of receiving remittances from relatives in the richest country on earth, some down-and-out Mexican families are scraping together what they can to support their unemployed loved ones in the United States.

“We send something whenever we have a little extra, at least enough so he can eat,” said Mr. Salcedo, who is from a small village here in the rural state of Oaxaca and works odd jobs to support his wife, his two younger sons and, now, his jobless eldest boy in California.

He is not alone. Leonardo Herrera, a rancher from outside Tuxtla Gutiérrez in the southern state of Chiapas, said he recently sold a cow to help raise $1,000 to send to his struggling nephew in northern California.

Also in Chiapas, a poor state that sends many migrants to the United States, María del Carmen Montufar has pooled money with her husband and other family members to wire financial assistance to her daughter Candelaria in North Carolina. In the last year, the family has sent money — small amounts ranging from $40 to $80 — eight times to help Candelaria and her husband, who are both without steady work and recently had a child.

“When she’s working she sends money to us,” the mother said. “But now, because there’s no work, we send money to her.”

Statistics measuring the extent of what experts are calling reverse remittances are hard to come by. But interviews in Mexico with government officials, money-transfer operators, immigration experts and relatives of out-of-work migrants show that a transaction that was rarely noticed before appears to be on the rise.

“It’s something that’s surprising, a symptom of the economic crisis,” said Martín Zuvire Lucas, who heads a network of community banks that operate in poor communities in Oaxaca and other underserved Mexican states. “We haven’t been able to measure it but we hear of more cases where money is going north.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/16/world/americas/16mexico.html?_r=1&part...

toniD's Ya Think?

Make her go away! Disappear!!!

Please!!! No more Sarah!!!!!!!!

Grrrrr!

toniD's Ya Think?

100 new militia groups since Obama elected; watchdog alarmed

Some 100 new militia groups have formed since the election of President Barack Obama, says the Southern Poverty Law Center.

In a re-run of the phenomenon seen when President Bill Clinton took office, gun-rights advocates, libertarians, survivalists and others are forming militias as a symbol of their resistance to what they see as an administration that threatens to restrict their right to bear arms and expand government control over the lives of private citizens.

"The truth is that these groups are popping up like mushrooms after a spring rain," said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a social-justice group that has been tracking the rise of militias over the past year.

Potok's group put out a report earlier this year raising the alarm about the resurgence of armed militias. Since then, he told CNN, the group has counted about 100 new groups formed across the country.

"There really is this terrible fear mixed with fury about the idea that President Obama is somehow leading a socialistic takeover of America," Potok said.
Story continues below...

A CNN news crew that visited the Southeast Michigan Volunteer Militia found a group that sees itself as a "deterrent" to any attempts to restrict gun use, and otherwise sees itself as a place to learn survival skills.

"Just the simple fact that we are out here and we are doing this, will give somebody pause, will make them think twice," said militia member Michael Lackomar, who added that he thought Obama "could be dangerous for the nation."

"Anytime we get a Democratic president in the office, people become concerned, including myself, and we get a resurgence out here," said one militia member, identified only as Brian.

But CNN's Jim Acosta points out that gun control "is unrealistic in many ways, because the Obama administration and the Democrats know that it would be political suicide for them to go after gun control measures. Even the attorney general has indicated he won't go back to the assault weapons ban enacted in the Clinton administration."

In its report from August, the Southern Poverty Law Center pointed out that the most recent wave of militia groups differs slightly from the wave seen under President Clinton in one respect.

"A key difference this time is that the federal government — the entity that almost the entire radical right views as its primary enemy — is headed by a black man," the report states. "That, coupled with high levels of non-white immigration and a decline in the percentage of whites overall in America, has helped to racialize the Patriot movement, which in the past was not primarily motivated by race hate."

This video is from CNN's American Morning, broadcast Nov. 16, 2009. at link

http://rawstory.com/2009/11/100-new-militia-groups/

toniD's Ya Think?

I swear I just saw a huge flock of pigs flying outside my window! And I'm quite sure one was wearing lipstick. You betcha! Also.

~-~-~

Conservatives Say Gitmo Detainees Would Be Fine In IL Prison, Warn GOP Of 'Scaremongering'

Three prominent conservatives warned in a joint statement against Republican "scaremongering" on Guantanamo Bay detainees, saying the prison in Thomson, Illinois would be fine to handle them.

Former Republican Congressman and Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr, David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union and Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, have teamed up to urge the Gitmo detainees be taken to the U.S.

"The scaremongering about these issues should stop," Barr, Keene and Norquist wrote.

"Civilian federal courts are the proper forum for terrorism cases," they wrote. "Civilian prisons are the safe, cost effective and appropriate venue to hold persons in federal courts."

check this out:
http://wcbstv.com/topstories/food.pantry.fire.2.1314499.html

ummm - - Goldman Sachs, anyone??? And what did they do with those 200 doses of H1N1 vaccine?

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html?param=public

for the heads up..

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

MMRules

From its origins forty years ago as an employee-owned cooperative manufacturing paraffin stoves, Mondragon has grown to 160 employee-owned cooperatives, involving 23,000 member owners, with sales grossing $3 billion dollars US in 1991. Statistics show the Mondragon cooperatives to be twice as profitable as the average corporation in Spain with employee productivity surpassing any other Spanish organization. It has its own bank, a research institute, an entrepreneurial division, insurance and social security institutions, schools, a college, a health maintenance system and a health insurance cooperative. It is focused on relational cooperatives dedicated to the common good.
http://www.iisd.org/50comm/commdb/list/c13.htm
Gerard’s union has just announced a merger “deal” of its own — to help put an end to that hemorrhaging of jobs and futures. The Steelworkers will be joining with the Spanish-based Mondragón International, the world’s largest network of industrial worker cooperatives, in a bid to “transform manufacturing practices in North America.”

“We need a new business model,” Gerard explains, “that invests in workers and invests in communities.”

Mondragón may just fit that bill. The Mondragón network, launched 53 years ago by a visionary Basque priest, has become Spain’s seventh-largest business group and currently operates 260 enterprises in over 40 countries — making everything from high-tech tools to refrigerators.

Workers in Mondragón cooperatives own their enterprises. They each have an equal share and an equal vote in key enterprise policy decisions. Workers in Mondragón businesses, notes long-time progressive analyst Carl Davidson, “themselves decide on the income spread between the lowest-paid worker and the highest-paid manager.”

That spread, across the Mondragón universe, averages 4.5 times. In the United States last year, CEOs averaged 319 times the pay of average U.S. workers.

The United Steelworkers, the biggest union of manufacturing workers in the United States, will now be looking to apply Mondragón principles to “viable small businesses in appropriate sectors where the current owners are interested in cashing out.”

“We see Mondragón’s cooperative model with ‘one worker, one vote’ ownership,” says Steelworkers president Gerard, “as a means to re-empower workers and make business accountable to Main Street instead of Wall Street.”

For thousands of workers at Black & Decker, and millions of consumers, that accountability may come a little too late.

http://blog.usw.org /
The Mondragón Corporation is a group of manufacturing, financial, retail and knowledge companies based in the Basque Country and extended over the rest of Spain and abroad. It is one of the world's largest worker cooperatives and one important example of workers' self-management.

The company was founded in Arrasate, a town in Gipuzkoa known as Mondragón in Spanish. The town had suffered badly in the Spanish Civil War and there was mass unemployment. A young priest, Father José María Arizmendiarrieta, arrived in 1941 and decided to focus on the economic development of the town, settling upon co-operative methods to achieve his goals. Co-operatives and self-help organisations had a long tradition in the Basque Country but had died away after the fascist victory in the Spanish Civil War.

In 1943, Arizmendi set up a democratically-managed Polytechnic School. The school played a key role in the emergence and development of the co-operative movement. In 1956, five young graduates of the school set up the first co-operative enterprise, named ULGOR (now Fagor Electrodomésticos) after their surnames, which during its early years focused on the manufacture of petrol-based heaters and cookers. In 1959, they then set up the Caja Laboral Popular ("People's Worker Bank"), a credit union that both allowed the co-operative members access to financial services and subsequently provided start-up funds for new co-operative ventures. New co-operative companies started up in the following years, including Fagor Electrónica, Fagor Ederlan and Danobat.

It has also extended by inviting other co-operatives to join the group and offering rescue for some failed companies on condition of co-operativization.

The group companies give preference to fellow co-operatives. Co-operative workers manage their finances through Caja Laboral, hold health insurances and pension funds at Lagun Aro and have discounts at Eroski markets and on Fagor appliances. Eroski stores are furnished by co-operative trucks. Members may have studied at a group ikastola (college) and extended studies at the Mondragoón University while having a labor stage at a co-operative. The reference research centre is Ikerlan, which is focused on applied research since 1974.

more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&add...

Thom Hartmann had a segment about this.

toniD's Ya Think?

shocked!
Submitted by SEDER on Mon, 11/16/2009 - 9:23am.
Whaaaaaaa? Big biz is ripping us off massively and government is allowing it?
Shocking indeed.

"SLEEP TIGHT, BATSHIT."
-Bill Maher to 9/11 nut
www.sigzone.blogspot.com

I attended the WTF recording in L.A. last night. You people are in for fun!
Well, actually, Maria Bamford was hit and miss, Pepitone sounded like a drunken moron, and Jim Earl was mediocre. BUT the former host of Singled Out (of all people) was good.

"SLEEP TIGHT, BATSHIT."
-Bill Maher to 9/11 nut
www.sigzone.blogspot.com

Report: More Americans going hungry
By Amy Goldstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 16, 2009; 12:04 PM

The number of Americans who lack dependable access to adequate food shot up last year to 49 million, the largest number since the government has been keeping track, according to a government report released Monday that shows particularly steep increases in food scarcity among families with children.

In 2008, the report found, nearly 17 million children -- more than one in five across the United States -- were living in households in which food at times ran short, up from slightly more than 12 million children the year before. And the number of children who sometimes were outright hungry rose from nearly 700,000 to almost 1.1 million.

Among people of of all ages, nearly 15 percent last year did not consistently have adequate food, compared with about 11 percent in 2007, the greatest deterioration in access to food during a single year in the history of the report.

Taken together, the findings provide the latest glimpse into the toll that the weak economy has taken on the well-being of the nation's residents. The findings are from a snapshot of food in America that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has issued every year since 1995, based on Census Bureau surveys. It documents both Americans who are scrounging for adequate food -- people living with some amount of "food insecurity" in the lexicon of experts -- and those whose food shortages are so severe that they are hungry....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/16/AR200911...

toniD's Ya Think?

Paid to go away: CNN
gave Lou Dobbs $8 million to quit
The New York Post reports that CNN wanted him gone so badly that it gave him an $8 million severance package. Dobbs "had a year and a half to go on his $12 million contract." Dobbs averaged 631,000 viewers per evening.

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/11/16/dobbs-8-million/

toniD's Ya Think?

Historic switch: Anti-Castro Cubans shift funding to Democrats

Groups opposing Cuba's communist regime have dramatically shifted funding toward the US Democrats since the party took control of Congress in last year's elections, according to a study published on Monday. Beforehand, they were steadfastly supporting the GOP.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091116/pl_afp/uscubapolitics;_ylt=AqPUl9Dy...

toniD's Ya Think?

DADT Likely to Be Part of Defense Bill

I didn't until today...and note that it came right on the heels of Aravosis' Don't Ask, Don't Give drive, cosponsored by Daily Kos, Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake, Dan Savage, Michelangelo Signorile, David Mixner, Paul Sousa (Founder of Equal Rep in Boston), Pam Spaulding, Robin Tyler (ED of the Equality Campaign, Inc.), Bil Browning for the Bilerico Project, Andy Towle and Michael Goff of Towle Road, and soon others.

"We are asking voters to pledge to withhold contributions to the Democratic National Committee, Organizing for America, and the Obama campaign until the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) is passed, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT) is repealed, and the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is repealed -– all of which President Obama repeatedly promised to do if elected."

Keep up that pressure because, now that Obama has signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention legislation, law is in place to back up an executive order to rescind DADT via the stop loss policy until Congress repeals DADT in the Defense bill next year.

The Senate version is sponsored by Maine Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, and the Shepard-Byrd hate crimes Amendment left the conference committee last month with the additional support of three other Repubublicans, Dick Lugar (IN), Lisa Murkowski (AK), and George Voinovich (OH), so pressure to move the DADT repeal through Congress should be constantly applied as there is no reason for it to languish since it cannot be successfully obstructed by Republicans.

According to the Human Rights Campaign, the path seems to be to pass hate crimes legislation first (done), then the ENDA (next?) and then tying the DADT repeal to next year's appropriations bill (Spring?).

It would behoove Obama to rescind the policy in the meantime via a stop-loss order now, or very soon, if he and the Democrats want to secure the support of the gay community, Progressives and all supporters of LGTBQ civil and human rights, in next year's elections; and, to help apply pressure on Congress to make sure it clears any obstacles necessary for passage although there don't appear to be any unless Senate Democrats move to the right of moderate Republicans like Snowe, Collins, Lugar and Voinovich.

Withdrawing financial support from blanket Democratic organizations is fundamental to using the levers we have to expedite these decisions.

"this machine kills fascists"

Now I'll never get rid my Turkish Version.

___________________
Revisiting No Logo, Ten Years Later

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-klein/revisiting-no-logo-ten-ye_b_35...

Almost ten years ago, on November 30, 1999, tens of thousands of protestors shut down a meeting of the World Trade Organization in Seattle. The activists were not against trade or globalization, despite the many misleading claims in the mainstream media. They were against a system of deregulated capitalism that was spreading around the world.

At the time of the Seattle protests, my first book, No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies, was at the printer. The book looked at the war being waged on public space by a new breed of corporate "superbrands," as well as the first signs of a fight back against corporate power. It was good timing for an author-activist: I had the rare privilege of watching my book become useful to a movement I believed could change the world.

On the ten-year anniversary of the Seattle protests, with anger mounting at the open collusion between corporations and governments, I am re-releasing No Logo with an extended new introduction. Among other developments, the new essay looks at the unprecedented bailout of Wall Street, as well as the rise of the Obama Brand (the most powerful brand in the world) and examines the troubling gaps between its marketing and reality.

As the new edition comes out, it feels like a 'movement moment' once again. A new wave of exciting climate justice activism is underway in the lead up to the UN climate summit in Copenhagen, one that builds on many of the networks born in Seattle. As I wrote in a recent article in Rolling Stone, now that a serious deal is off the table, many activists see Copenhagen as "a chance to seize the political terrain back from business-friendly half-measures, such as carbon offsets and emissions trading, and introduce some effective, common-sense proposals -- ideas that have less to do with creating complex new markets for pollution and more to do with keeping coal and oil in the ground."

One of our movement's challenges back in 1999 was that, in the midst of the euphoria of the dot-com boom, few were interested in hearing about the downside of capitalism. Ten years later, perhaps our movement's time has come.

With that in mind, here's a blast from the past: an op-ed I wrote for the New York Times when Seattle was still overrun with activists and choking on tear gas. It seems positively timid by today's standards.

Rebels in Search of Rules
By Naomi Klein, New York Times, December 2, 1999

[...]

-

Congress is very close to passing the the Local Community Radio Act, but they won’t pass it if we don’t bring the noise.

Please, tell Congress why local radio matters to you — and then tell them to pass the Local Community Radio Act.

There are a lot of reasons to want more local low power FM (LPFM) radio stations — what's yours?

http://free.convio.net/site/R?i=_lNhb8NSUM8RN_tQAZgMVQ..

Free Press Action Fund

**

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

MMRules

Carrie Prejean: The Bible Allows Breast Implants ( Who knew ? )

http://airamerica.com/entertainment/11-13-2009/carrie-prejean-bible-allo...

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

MMRules

Bill Belichick hasn't been fired yet today.
And that Robert Kraft's plan to move the Pats to London is still secert.

Court won't hear about Redskins name
Ends the latest round in the 17-year court battle

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court won't hear an appeal from a group of Native Americans who think the name of the NFL's Washington Redskins football team is offensive.

The high court on Monday turned away an appeal from Suzan Shown Harjo. That ends the latest round in the 17-year court battle between the Redskins and a group of American Indians who want them to change their name.

Harjo and her fellow plaintiffs have been working since 1992 to have the Redskins trademarks declared invalid. They initially won — the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office panel canceled the trademarks in 1999. But U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly overturned the ruling in 2003 in part because the suit was filed decades after the first Redskins trademark was issued in 1967.
http://www.wpri.com/dpp/news/politics/supreme_ct/court-wont-hear-complai...

Conn. firefighters in bias case seek promotions
— White New Haven firefighters are seeking promotions after winning their discrimination lawsuit before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The case became an issue in confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor (SOHN'-ya soh-toh-my-YOR'). She ruled against the firefighters when she was a federal appeals court judge.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/8811348

By GREG BLUESTEIN (AP)

ATLANTA — A Kuwaiti company has been charged with conspiring to defraud the U.S. in connection with multibillion-dollar contracts to feed American troops in Iraq, Kuwait and Jordan.

Federal prosecutors said Monday that Public Warehousing Co. made false statements and submitted false claims to manipulate prices and overcharge for food for troops.

The company is registered in Kuwait and has received more than $8.5 billion in food supply contracts.

Acting U.S. Attorney Gentry Shelnutt says the fraud investigation is ongoing.

The case was filed in federal court in Atlanta, and the company is scheduled for a first court appearance on Friday. A phone listing for the company could not immediately be found.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5giNwSQF5pFbHib3hd_yseE...

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

MMRules

OpEdNews

Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/Shining-Light-on-Roots-of-by-Ray-McGove...

November 16, 2009

Shining Light on Roots of Terrorism

By Ray McGovern

“I think that we're going to shine a light on something that a lot of people don't want to look at” is how American Civil Liberties Union attorney Denney LeBoeuf put it, according to The New York Times on Saturday.

No problem, says Attorney General Eric Holder, who claims to have “great confidence” that other evidence – apart from what may have been gleaned from the 183 times Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded, for example – will suffice to convict him.

Maybe so, But what the Fawning Corporate Media (or FCM) have so far neglected is the likelihood that the testimony will be so public that they will have to break their studied silence about why Sheikh Mohammed and his associates say they orchestrated the attacks of 9/11.

For reasons that are painfully obvious, the FCM have done their best to ignore or bury the role that Israel's repression of the Palestinians has played in motivating the 9/11 attacks and other anti-Western terrorism.

It is not like there is no evidence on this key issue. Rather, it appears that the Israel-Palestine connection is pretty much kept off limits for discussion.

Yet, as Sheikh Mohammed and the other alleged 9/11 conspirators go to trial, the FCM's tacit but tight embargo will be under great strain. Eyes will have to be averted from the sensitive Israeli-Palestinian motive even more than from torture, which most Americans know about Yet, as Sheikh Mohammed and the other alleged 9/11 conspirators go to trial, the FCM's tacit but tight embargo will be under great strain. Eyes will have to be averted from the sensitive Israeli-Palestinian motive even more than from torture, which most Americans know about (and, God help us, are willing to explain away).
more...

I don't use Twitter, says Barack Obama, despite having 2.6m followers

US president's comment in Shanghai causes dismay among subscribers who thought he was typing tweets himself

...Barack Obama has suggested there are limits to his technophilia. Despite having 2.6m followers on his verified account, he told students in Shanghai that he has never used Twitter himself.

"My thumbs are too clumsy to type in things on the phone," he said.

The admission from the man whose Twitter feed said "We just made history" after his election victory has prompted disillusioned followers to express their dismay on the network.

"Shocking, given that his account with 2.6m followers has even been 'verified' by Twitter headquarters," said Vicki Kolovou, a web developer from Athens, Greece.

"I am sad," said Funuhu from Japan....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/16/obama-doesnt-use-twitter-sha...

Submitted by ghettodefender on Mon, 11/16/2009 - 4:03pm.

*******

there is No Santa Claus,sorry..

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

MMRules

The New State Solution

The collapse of the Palestinian Authority, the result of Israel's 42-year refusal to implement a two-state solution, leaves the Palestinians no option but to unilaterally declare an independent state. Israel acted unilaterally when it announced independence in 1948. It is the Palestinians' turn. It worked in Kosovo. It worked in Georgia. And it will work in Palestine. There are 192 member states in the United Nations and as many as 150 would recognize the state of Palestine, creating a diplomatic nightmare for Israel and its lonely ally the United States. Israel will face worldwide censure if it attempts to crush the independent state by force and very likely be subjected to the kind of divestment campaigns and boycotts that brought down the apartheid government of South Africa...

The death of the two-state solution is not news to those of us who have spent years in the Middle East. What is news is the public acknowledgement by the Palestinian leadership. Mahmoud Abbas, the compliant and discredited president of the Palestinian Authority, who has announced he will not run for another term, has uncharacteristically blasted Israel for deceiving the Palestinians. The chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, who says that the effort to negotiate a solution to the conflict with Israel is dead, has called on Palestinians to declare statehood.

The anniversary of Arafat's death is a bitter reminder to many Palestinians that Israel can never be trusted. It is widely believed among Palestinians, as well as Israeli peace activists such as Uri Avnery, that Arafat was poisoned by the Israelis, something Israeli officials deny. Arafat became gravely ill in 2004 as Israeli forces besieged his Ramallah headquarters. He was eventually flown to France for treatment and died at Percy military hospital outside of Paris on Nov. 11, 2004. The French, abiding by an agreement with the Israelis, did not release Arafat's medical records.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/16

A generation of British Islamists have been trained in Afghanistan to fight a global jihad. But now some of those would-be extremists have had a change of heart. Johann Hari finds out what made them give up the fight

Ever since I started meeting jihadis, I have been struck by one thing – their Britishness. I am from the East End of London, and at some point in the past decade I became used to hearing a hoarse and angry whisper of jihadism on the streets where I live. Bearded young men stand outside the library calling for "The Rule of God" and "Death to Democracy".

In the mosques across the city, I hear a fringe of young men talk dreamily of flocking to Afghanistan to "resist". Yet this whisper never has an immigrant accent. It shares my pronunciations, my cultural references, and my national anthem. Beneath the beards and the burqas, there is an English voice.

I hate to see her sad. Cause you know, usually she's known as the girl who put the FUN in Funuhu.

Btw, the whole tweet (excluding RT) is "Shocking! I am sad."

(Yes, I looked her up. That's how come I know it's a girl's name. No I shouldn't be doing this but rather bagging leaves.)

Yet another anti-corruption unit for Afghanistan

Afghanistan's newly unveiled anti-corruption unit drew guarded praise Monday from a wary international community, which has heard President Hamid Karzai promise before to end the graft and thievery that's bleeding his nation....

Still, the timing of Monday's announcement, just days before Karzai is inaugurated for a second five-year term following an election marred by fraud, was a clear indication that he is trying to show he's serious about battling corruption — from influence peddling and police bribes to the failure to prosecute government officials who have profited from their positions.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/8811430

http://www.thejefffariasshow.com/

At 6 PM MST Jeff Sharlet returns. Author of The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power.
The Family is about the other half of American fundamentalist power—not its angry masses, but its sophisticated elites. Sharlet follows the story back to Abraham Vereide, an immigrant preacher who in 1935 organized a small group of businessmen sympathetic to European fascism, fusing the far right with his own polite but authoritarian faith. From that core, Vereide built an international network of fundamentalists who spoke the language of establishment power, a “family” that thrives to this day. In public, they host Prayer Breakfasts; in private, they preach a gospel of “biblical capitalism,” military might, and American empire. Citing Hitler, Lenin, and Mao as leadership models, the Family’s current leader, Doug Coe, declares, “We work with power where we can, build new power where we can’t.”
We will discuss his newest Salon article on the Stupak amendment and the newly revealed Democratic Party’s connections to the Family
The Democrats’ new “Family” values (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/11/10/stupak_pitts)

but i'm not so sure about teeth whiteners...

...until you run headlong into the realm of self-parody...

Hoffman Takes Back His Concession Speech In NY-23

"Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman tried to reopen the NY-23 race this afternoon. Two weeks after he conceded defeat to Rep. Bill Owens (D), Hoffman attempted to take it all back in an interview with Glenn Beck.

Today, Hoffman seemed willing to oblige their fantasies."

"this machine kills fascists"

Read about it from JONATHAN TASSINI at workinglife.org --

http://www.workinglife.org/

Tassini is author of The Audacity of Greed. He was interviewed on Hartmann today.

worth a replay if you don't mind

Exactly.

And why Americans will never learn,
and continue to support and justify warfare.
Because most americans never see the horrific
carnage and collateral damage.

As long as the american sheeple have no
critical thinking skills and can not see the
propaganda coming out of the idiot box at them,
then the death and destruction will continue
for generations, as it has for generations. >:(

Thanks for the heads up about the latest WTF :)

.
.
.
_ _ _
BRR

1083 | brl vod | WTF

PRIORITIES!!! Stop giving the STRONGEST, RICHEST, MOST RUTHLESS industry on the PLANET -- the Pharmaceutical Industry -- a FREE RIDE. Take away their liability proof marketing of synthetic 'medications' (which have a product testing history of less than a 50 years). CONTROL THEM and every move they make.

Actually The Pharmaceuticals are the head of the Beast which looks like this -- and note that the cost of each part's product increases as you go up to the head of THE BEAST OF POLLUTION:

HEAD
Pharmaceutical industry
Synthetic Everything industry
Chemical industry
Petroleum/Oil indstry
Mining Industry
TAIL

The Beast is devouring us and the Planet.
And doing it in very short time.

Re MMRules@3:36

======================
That's so interesting about the pro Low Power FM stations bills.

Here's an excerpt from the bill H.R. 1147:

(18) LPFM stations have proven to be a vital source of information during local or national emergencies. Out of the few stations that were able to stay online during Katrina, several were LPFM stations. In Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, LPFM station WQRZ remained on the air during Hurricane Katrina and served as the Emergency Operations Center for Hancock County. Additionally, after Hurricane Katrina when thousands of evacuees temporarily housed at the Houston Astrodome were unable to hear information about the availability of food and ice, the location of FEMA representatives, and the whereabouts of missing loved ones over the loud speakers, volunteers handed out thousands of transistor radios and established a LPFM station outside the Astrodome to broadcast such information.

Here's the whole bill:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.1147:

Great post, jmach1jp; thanks!

Here's a link to the text of Banfield's speech:

http://www.alternet.org/story/15778

Fed Chairman Blames Banks For Continued High Unemployment

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Monday blamed banks for slowing the recovery and keeping unemployment high.

Despite hundreds of billions in dollars in taxpayer bailouts, the nation's banks have dramatically reduced their lending this year.

"Banks' reluctance to lend will limit the ability of some businesses to expand and hire," Bernanke said. "Because smaller businesses account for a significant portion of net employment gains during recoveries, limited credit could hinder job growth."

Bernanke predicted that the unemployment rate will get worse before it gets better. "The best thing we can say about the labor market right now is that it may be getting worse more slowly," Bernanke told several hundred people in suits crowded into a midtown Manhattan hotel ballroom.

"Access to credit remains strained for borrowers who are particularly dependent on banks," Bernanke said. "Bank lending has contracted sharply this year...[and] banks continue to tighten the terms on which they extend credit for most kinds of loans."

Bernanke also touched on "too big to fail." While some, like Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-Penn.) and Bank of England Governor Mervyn King, have said that big banks should be broken up, Bernanke said in response to a question, that "making banks smaller isn't going to do it."

Former Fed chairman Paul Volcker and former Citigroup chairman and co-CEO John Reed, among others, have advocated for some sort of restoration of the Glass-Steagall act -- the Depression-era law that kept commercial banks and investment banks separate. That, too, would result in the breakup of the biggest banks. But Bernanke said that such a move "would not be constructive."

The assortment of Wall Street bankers and titans who make up the Economic Club of New York listened to Bernanke deliver his speech as they dined on herb-roasted grilled chicken breast in a mushroom cabernet reduction with goat cheese and mesclun greens.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/16/fed-chairman-blames-banks_n_359...

toniD's Ya Think?

Paul Allen diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma
John Cook on Monday, November 16, 2009, 4:14pm PST
8 Comments

Microsoft | Paul Allen | Technology

Paul Allen

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin Lymphoma. In 1983, Allen successfully battled Hodgkin's disease, which is also a type of lymphoma. Allen's sister, Jody Allen, today sent an email to employees of Allen's investment arm, Vulcan, explaining the situation. Full email -- which was shared with TechFlash by a Vulcan spokesman -- below.

To employees of Vulcan and affiliates:

I want to let you know that Paul was recently diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

He received the diagnosis early this month and has begun chemotherapy. Doctors say he has diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, a relatively common form of lymphoma.

This is tough news for Paul and the family. But for those who know Paul's story, you know he beat Hodgkin's a little more than 25 years ago and he is optimistic he can beat this, too.

Paul is feeling OK and remains upbeat. He continues to work and he has no plans to change his role at Vulcan. His health comes first, though, and we'll be sure that nothing intrudes on that.

We would ask you to respect Paul's privacy and not discuss this outside of the office.

If you have any questions, please ask your EC member.

Thank you in advance for what I know will be all your good thoughts for Paul.

http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2009/11/paul_allen_diagnosed_with_non-h...

toniD's Ya Think?

Government Overpaid Wall Street Banks In AIG Bailout, Says TARP Watchdog

WASHINGTON — Officials handling the multibillion dollar bailout of insurance giant American International Group Inc. mismanaged an initial rescue attempt and may have overpaid other banks to wind down AIG's business relationships, a government watchdog says.

>b>The Federal Reserve Bank of New York – headed at the time by now-Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner – paid AIG's business partners full face value for securities so they would cancel insurance contracts AIG had written in order to ease the firm's liquidity crunch. But at least one of those partner banks offered to canceled the contracts for less, according to a report Monday from Neil Barofsky, the Special Inspector General for the $700 billion financial bailout Congress approved last October.

That means officials may have spent billions more than necessary to cancel debt insurance contracts with banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and others, the report says.

AIG, a financial services conglomerate that was the world's largest insurer, was considered so interconnected with other companies that its failure could upend the global financial system. As it teetered last fall, officials decided to save the company with billions of taxpayer dollars and government guarantees to prevent deepening the spreading financial crisis.

After several bailouts, AIG now holds government commitments worth up to $180 billion – more than any other company. The Treasury Department owns nearly 80 percent of the company.

Critics have long argued that AIG's trading partners should have been forced to take less than 100 percent of the value of their contracts with AIG. They note that the protection AIG offered – in the form of complex products called credit-default swaps – was unregulated and that AIG's trading partners knew the risks and should have to assume some losses.

Officials, however, have said they feared that underpaying AIG's business partners would cause the company's credit to be downgraded, which also could have sparked AIG's collapse.

The new report faults the New York Fed for decisions that "severely limited its ability to obtain concessions" from other banks. In particular, it says, officials refused to use their regulatory power over American banks like Goldman and Merrill Lynch, now part of Bank of America Corp., to force them to take concessions.

A French regulator had refused to accept concessions from the Fed for $20.8 billion worth of securities held by Societe Generale and Calyon, and New York Fed officials did not want to treat the U.S. banks differently. But the report points out that American banks already were benefiting from the financial bailout – Goldman, for example, had recently received the Fed's OK to become a bank holding company as a way to boost assets – and all the banks receiving AIG rescue funds benefited from the billions the U.S. already spent on AIG.

The New York Fed also weakened its bargaining position by refusing to threaten that AIG would go bankrupt after an initial $85 billion bailout proved too small to save the firm, the report says. Furthermore, negotiators led by Geithner told the banks that any concessions would be purely voluntary, the report says.

The result, the report says, was a weak negotiating strategy with little chance of success in obtaining concessions from the banks. It says the initial bailout "was done with almost no independent consideration of the terms of the transaction or the impact that those terms might have on the future of AIG."

The report says at least one bank, Germany-based UBS, told the New York Fed it would accept less than face value to cancel the contracts, as long as the other banks did so as well. The other banks refused to take less money "voluntarily," it says.

As president of the New York Fed, Geithner signed off on many key decisions concerning AIG's bailouts – including the move to pay in full for securities held by other banks, the report says. Also involved were officials from Treasury and the Federal Reserve.

The report says Geithner denied that officials intended to give other banks a "backdoor bailout." Yet it says decisions Geithner approved – "indeed, the very design" of AIG's rescue – meant that billions of taxpayer dollars were "funneled inexorably and directly" to other banks.

It acknowledges that officials had good reasons to save AIG, and were appropriately reluctant to break contracts the company had with other companies. But it says those decisions "came with a cost – they led directly to a negotiating strategy that even ... Geithner acknowledged had little likelihood of success." more...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/16/aig-bailout-government-ov_n_359...

toniD's Ya Think?

Glitch Could Force 15 MILLION People To Repay Obama's Stimulus Tax Credit

WASHINGTON – More than 15 million taxpayers may owe the government $250 or more because of how the IRS last spring set up President Barack Obama's tax break that was designed to help consumers spend the U.S. economy out of recession.

Individuals with more than one job and married couples in which both spouses work may have to repay the government $400, either through a smaller tax refund or a larger tax bill, according to a report released Monday by the Treasury Department's inspector general for tax administration. Social Security recipients who also earn taxable wages may have to repay $250.

The tax credit, which is supposed to pay individuals up to $400 and couples up to $800, was Obama's signature tax break in the massive stimulus package enacted in February. The credit has increased weekly paychecks for 95 percent of working families, giving them cash to help boost consumer spending during the worst economic recession in decades.

Workers concerned about whether they are withholding enough taxes can use a calculator on the IRS Web site to find the appropriate amount that should be withheld.

Taxpayers can adjust their withholding by filing a new W-4 form with their employer. But with only a month and a half remaining in the 2009 tax year, it's getting late to make adjustments.

Most workers started receiving the credit through small increases in their paychecks in April. The tax credit was made available through new tax withholding tables issued by the Internal Revenue Service.

The withholding tables, however, do not take into account several common categories of taxpayers. And that could force some people to repay what the government gave them.

For example, a worker with two jobs gets a $400 boost in pay at each job, for a total of $800. That worker, however, only is eligible for a maximum credit of $400, so the remaining $400 will have to be paid back at tax time – either through a smaller refund or a payment to the IRS.
Story continues below

The IRS recognized there could be a similar problem for married couples if both spouses work, so it adjusted the withholding tables. The fix, however, was imperfect.

A married couple is eligible for an $800 credit. However, if both spouses work and make more than $13,000, the new withholding tables give them each a $600 boost – for a total of $1,200.

There were 33 million married couples in 2008 in which both spouses worked. That's 55 percent of all married couples, according to the Census Bureau.

Also, a single student with a part-time job gets a $400 boost in pay. However, if students are claimed as dependents on their parents' tax returns, they don't qualify for the credit and would have to repay it when they file their returns.

Some retirees face even bigger headaches.

More than 50 million Social Security recipients received $250 payments in the spring as part of the economic stimulus package. Those lump sum payments were intended to provide a boost for people who didn't qualify for the tax credit.

However, the payments were sent to many retirees who also received the tax credit. Those retirees will have the $250 payment deducted from their tax credit – but not until they file their tax returns next year, long after the money may have been spent. (This effects me.)

"More than 10 percent of all taxpayers who file individual tax returns for 2009 could owe additional taxes," said J. Russell George, the Treasury inspector general for tax administration.

Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, called problems with the tax credit "another unfortunate example of what can happen when Congress and the White House rush through legislation like the stimulus without thinking through the consequences."

The tax credit is also available for 2010. George said the problems will continue if workers don't adjust their withholding for next year.

For many, the new tax tables will simply mean smaller-than-expected tax refunds. The average tax refund this year was about $2,800. A little more than three-fourths of the 143 million taxpayers filing a return last spring received refunds, according to the IRS.

But for 15.4 million taxpayers, the new tax tables will mean an unexpected tax bill, according the IG report.

The IRS was aware of the issues when the withholding tables were released last spring and waged a public awareness campaign to get people to check their tax withholding, said Michael Mundaca, acting assistant treasury secretary. (Did you here about this? I didn't!)

"It's just technically how withholding works," Mundaca said. "It's an approximation and therefore for some people there will be overwithholding and for some people there will be underwithholding."

Separately, the IRS estimated that about 65,000 taxpayers could face penalties for not withholding enough taxes in 2009 because of the Making Work Pay tax credit. However, those taxpayers will be eligible to have the penalty waived, IRS spokeswoman Michelle Eldridge said.

The credit pays workers 6.2 percent of their earned income, up to a maximum of $400 for individuals and $800 for married couples who file jointly. Individuals making more than $95,000 and couples making more than $190,000 are ineligible.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/16/obama-tax-credit-glitch-c_n_359...

toniD's Ya Think?

Uninsured ER patients twice as likely to die Updated at 4:51 PM

Source: MSNBC/AP

New study highlights disparity of care for those who don't have coverage

CHICAGO - Uninsured patients with traumatic injuries, such as car crashes, falls and gunshot wounds, were almost twice as likely to die in the hospital as similarly injured patients with health insurance, according to a troubling new study.

The findings by Harvard University researchers surprised doctors and health experts who have believed emergency room care was equitable.

"This is another drop in a sea of evidence that the uninsured fare much worse in their health in the United States," said senior author Dr. Atul Gawande, a Harvard surgeon and medical journalist.

The study, appearing in the November issue of Archives of Surgery, comes as Congress is debating the expansion of health insurance coverage to millions more Americans. It could add fodder to that debate.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33971846/ns/health-health_care

toniD's Ya Think?

toniD's Ya Think?

Bring US homeless in from the cold

Source: The Guardian (UK)

"Last week's United Nations' findings on America's homeless crisis couldn't have been more timely or more depressing. Three years into the post-housing bubble era, special rapporteur Raquel Rolnik detailed a growing crisis in which the poorest of the poor are, literally, left out in the cold while hundreds of billions of dollars are being pumped into propping up the broader pillars of the economy.

The combination of 16 million workers unemployed with an unprecedented housing market meltdown and collapse in state and local finances has magnified the misery of homelessness in the world's richest country."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/nov/16/homeless-...

toniD's Ya Think?

Good boy. Acknowledging the problem is the first step.

------
Fucking sucks about the tax penalties toniD. Bait and switch. They better let everyone waive that penalty from the middle class on down. Then what does that do to budget projections?

Bishops should be included in health-care debate, Cardinal says

Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

BALTIMORE -- In his address to all Catholic bishops of the United States, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago defended their right to express their views in the design of a national health care system.

"It is not for us to speak to particular means of delivering health care. It is our responsibility, however, to insist, as a moral voice concerned with human solidarity, that everyone should be cared for and that no one should be deliberately killed," he said today at their semiannual meeting here.

The bishops have long argued that health care is a basic human right and supported universal access to health insurance. But they have also insisted that abortion isn't health care.

Individual bishops and their national staff lobbied successfully for a recent amendment to the House version of the health care bill that banned coverage of most abortions --- other than those that could cause death of the mother or resulted from sexual abuse --- in any federally subsidized program, though it would allow the purchase of a rider to cover elective abortions. Parish bulletins encouraged parishioners to contact their legislators.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09320/1013968-84.stm

I wonder how many babies were born from the seed of "Celibate" priests and bishops that were never supported by the church?

Clean your own house first!

toniD's Ya Think?

(linked from the one tD posts) that deals more specifically with the UN findings. Notice also, this person was blocked by Bush admin from even entering the country do to this kind of research.

[snip]
The US government does not tally the numbers but interested organisations say that more than 3 million people were homeless at some point over the past year. The fastest growing segment of the homeless population is families with children, often single parents. On any given night in Los Angeles, about 17,000 parents and children are homeless. Most will be found a place in a shelter but many single men and women are forced to sleep on the streets.

Los Angeles, which is described as the homeless capital of America, has endured an 18-fold increase in housing foreclosures. Evictions from owned and rented homes have risen about tenfold, with 62,400 people forced out last year in Los Angeles county.

Welfare payments are not enough to meet the rent, let alone food and other necessities. A single person on welfare living in Los Angeles receives $221 (£133) a month – an amount that hasn't changed in a decade. The rent for one room is typically nearly double that.

[snip]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/12/un-investigator-us-neglect-h...

Kuwaiti company that supplies U.S. military accused of fraud

Source: CNN

A Kuwaiti company that has been paid more than $8.5 billion to supply food and other items to the U.S. military in the Middle East has been indicted on multiple federal fraud charges, authorities announced Monday.

Public Warehousing Company KSC is charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, committing major fraud against the United States, making false statements, submitting false claims and wire fraud, a six-count indictment states.

The company obtained contracts in May 2003, February 2005 and July 2005 to feed U.S. troops in Iraq, Kuwait and Jordan, said the U.S. attorney's office for the Northern District of Georgia, where the charges were filed.

"This indictment is the result of a multiyear probe into abuses in vendor contracts in the Middle East involving the illegal inflation of prices in contracts to feed our troops," said F. Gentry Shelnutt, who is serving as acting U.S. attorney on the case. "The indictment alleges PWC submitted false information and manipulated prices to overcharge for food."

Public Warehousing Company, also known as Agility, did not return a telephone message Monday.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/11/16/soldier.food.charges/index.html

toniD's Ya Think?

McCain asks staffers to
stay quiet after Palin
Sen. John McCain "has specifically asked his former aides not to do interviews rebutting Palin's charges in her book -- to avoid escalating the feud between her and the campaign staff. Most are complying with his wishes, hoping it will die down."

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2009/11/16/mccain_asks_staffers_to_sta...

toniD's Ya Think?

not an encouraging sign as far as the prognosis...

young lady.

I have run my eyes over Fernando's Thanksgiving post several times while scrolling and up until now I always read "turkey sundae."

I was thinking he meant a lump/scoop of stuffing or potatoes with a some turkey on top and gravy over. I thought it was a clever way to describe this.

But why, I thought, would he have it already made (thus having the leftovers before the meal) and why would he be thawing it? If frozen, why wouldn't he just stick in the microwave?

You were all desperate to know this, trust me.

that made sense to me.

He said that the salaries and the benefits started to rise when CEOs and Presidents of corporations were given stock options and company stocks as a pay package. The CEOs then we also stockholders and did everything to makes the stocks go up on the market making what they had more valuable.

Instead of growing the company, they did things to grow the stocks and the higher the stocks went the more money the stockholders made and none paid attention of what really was going on within the companies and their books.

That combines with the Fed fixing the books of the Nation that created bubbles and you are left with the greedy bastards heading the companies.

toniD's Ya Think?

More shock-- Barack is a liar!
Submitted by ghettodefender on Mon, 11/16/2009 - 4:03pm

Since Obama never did twitter personally, there is no evidence what so ever that he lied on twitter.

Once again you are spreading nonsense as you so often do or in other words you have lied again in another post. We all know its hard for you to keep things straight ever since you intimated you are in or from "the ghetto".

A CNN correspondent said Monday she was detained by Chinese security guards in Shanghai for two hours for displaying a T-shirt on camera depicting US President Barack Obama as Mao Zedong.

Emily Chang, a Beijing-based correspondent for the US television network, said in a blog post on CNN.com that she hunted down the shirt after hearing they had been banned amid fears they "may offend the American president."
http://rawstory.com/2009/11/cnn-reporter-detained-shanghai-obamamao-tshi...

at, least temporarily, as military does damage control.
_________________________

Soldier mom refuses deployment to care for baby
By RUSS BYNUM (AP) – 3 hours ago

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hbwXU5GGu5ZhF8SdvhXS1e...

SAVANNAH, Ga. — An Army cook and single mom may face criminal charges after she skipped her deployment flight to Afghanistan because, she said, no one was available to care for her infant son while she was overseas.
Spc. Alexis Hutchinson, 21, claims she had no choice but to refuse deployment orders because the only family she had to care for her 10-month-old son — her mother — was overwhelmed by the task, already caring for three other relatives with health problems.
Her civilian attorney, Rai Sue Sussman, said Monday that one of Hutchinson's superiors told her she would have to deploy anyway and place the child in foster care.
"For her it was like, 'I couldn't abandon my child,'" Sussman said. "She was really afraid of what would happen, that if she showed up they would send her to Afghanistan anyway and put her son with child protective services."
Hutchinson, who is from Oakland, Calif., remained confined Monday to the boundaries of Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, 10 days after military police arrested her for skipping her unit's flight. No charges have been filed, but a spokesman for the Army post said commanders were investigating.
Kevin Larson, a spokesman for Hunter Army Airfield, said he didn't know what Hutchinson was told by her commanders, but he said the Army would not deploy a single parent who had nobody to care for his or her child.
"I don't know what transpired and the investigation will get to the bottom of it," Larson said. "If she would have come to the deployment terminal with her child, there's no question she would not have been deployed."
Hutchinson's son, Kamani, was placed into custody overnight with a daycare provider on the Army post after she was arrested and jailed briefly, Larson said. Hutchinson's mother picked up the child a week ago and took him back to her home in California.
Hutchinson, who's assigned to the 3rd Combat Aviation Brigade of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, joined the Army in 2007 and had no previous deployments, Sussman said. She said Hutchinson is no longer in a relationship with the father.
The Army requires all single-parent soldiers to submit a care plan for dependent children before they can deploy to a combat zone.
Hutchinson had such a plan — her mother, Angelique Hughes, had agreed to care for the boy. Hughes said Monday she kept the boy for about two weeks in October before deciding she couldn't keep him for a full year.
Hughes said she's already having to care for her ailing mother and sister, as well as a daughter with special needs. She also runs a daycare center at her home, keeping about 14 children during the day.
"This is an infant, and they require 24-hour care," Hughes said. "It was very, very stressful, just too much for me to deal with."
Hughes said she returned Kamani to his mother in Georgia a few days before her scheduled deployment Nov. 5.
She said they told her daughter's commanders they needed more time to find another family member or close friend to help Hughes care for the boy, but Hutchinson was ordered to deploy on schedule.
Larson, the Army post spokesman, said officials planned to keep Hutchinson in Georgia as investigators gathered facts about the case.
"Spc. Hutchinson's deployment is halted," Larson said. "There will be no deployment while this situation is ongoing."
Russ Bynum has covered the military based in Georgia since 2001.
-------------
Because people did this?

Supporters are urged to contact Hutchinson's Congresswoman Barbara Lee at (202)225-2661, or fax (202)225-9817, and ask that she ask the Army to allow Hutchinson to care for her child.They can also donate to her defense/child care fund at couragetoresist.org/alexis.

http://www.examiner.com/x-20536-Dallas-Progressive-Examiner~y2009m11d15-...

--------
"ghettodefender" is a play on words ya twit (at least I assume so).

It's not exactly an earth shatteringly important issue, but technically that's what Twitter verified accounts are supposed to be about. If he is not doing the tweets himself, the account should be called WhiteHouse or whatever.

just pouring rain here,

taking the falls last leaves down

dinner on the stove

:)

-----
Very nice, btw. I'm a little slow.

i think the best haiku is writen on the spot.

so how are you doing?

i'm trying to get on top of my diabetes meds and treatment

spent the day here tinkering with the house playing my mandolin and reading 1930's model airplane magazines

the time thing, but some seem to go by it.)

----------------
Talking to Grief
Denise Levertov

Ah, Grief, I should not treat you
like a homeless dog
who comes to the back door
for a crust, for a meatless bone.
I should trust you.

I should coax you
into the house and give you
your own corner,
a worn mat to lie on,
your own water dish.

You think I don't know you've been living
under my porch.
You long for your real place to be readied
before winter comes. You need
your name,
your collar and tag. You need
the right to warn off intruders,
to consider
my house your own
and me your person
and yourself
my own dog.

-----
Not your (birthday) party anymore, so I'll cry if I want to. ;)

Let's talk on the phone soon, if you want to. Not tonight. (It's not the good time for you anyhow, right? "Dinner on the stove," as the poets say.)

Ya, get on top of that diabetes mister! ;)

I will Skype you (your phone). My cell is now a prepaid and will have very few minutes. Right now it has none. I think they messed up on changing the SIM card remotely, but have not gotten around to investigating.

"A man deserves a good dog and a good woman at least once in his life"

Jim Bridger

i don't have any thing pressing to say anyway.

delighted that you're holding your own.

Pelosi switches to jobs

"House Democratic leaders, worried they’ve appeared unresponsive to rising unemployment because they were absorbed by healthcare, are aiming for a legislation solution by Christmas.

The House change began Monday night when leaders scheduled AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Robert Kuttner, co-editor of The American Prospect, to address the House Democratic Caucus.
And it could end with an economic package on the floor sometime in December, Democratic sources said."

"this machine kills fascists"

"Don't Ask, Don't Give" Update
November 16, 2009

Hi everyone, just a quick message to ask folks to consider contacting the Department of Justice regarding a possible anti-gay hate crime in Puerto Rico. An openly gay 19 year old boy was found murdered last Friday in Puerto Rico. He was decapitated, dismembered, and burned. The local police investigator assigned to the case said to Univisión about the victim: "Someone like that, who does those kind of things, and goes out in public, knows full well that this might happen to him."

Clearly there's not going to be a fair and impartial local investigation as to whether or not this is a hate crime. Please join us in asking Attorney General Eric Holder to have the use its new Hate Crimes law to investigate whether this horrible murder was motivated by anti-gay animus. We've set up an online action center where you can email the Attorney General.

This is a perfect chance for the Obama administration to show that it cares about gay and lesbian Americans.

Thanks for all of your help,

JOHN & JOE at AMERICAblog

**

I just sent an email to Attorney General Eric Holder, asking him to have the FBI investigate whether the recent murder of Jorge Steven López Mercado in Puerto Rico was a federal hate crime. I hope you'll join me by sending your email to Attorney General Holder as well.

http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/6006/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=4...

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

MMRules

Submitted by ghettodependswearer on Mon, 11/16/2009 - 10:30pm.

*******

Do you have Myla working part-time on your new security system ? ;-)

**

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

MMRules

AP POLL: Tax the rich to pay for health bill
By ERICA WERNER, Associated Press Writer Erica Werner, Associated Press Writer 1 hr 23 mins ago

WASHINGTON – When it comes to paying for health overhaul, Americans see just one way to go: Tax the rich.

That finding from a new Associated Press poll will be welcome news for House Democrats, who proposed doing just that in their sweeping remake of the U.S. medical system, which passed earlier this month and would extend coverage to millions of uninsured Americans.

The poll found participants sour on other ways of paying for the health overhaul that is being considered in Congress, including taxing insurers on high-value coverage packages derided by President Barack Obama and Democrats as "Cadillac plans."

That approach is being weighed in the Senate. It is one of the few proposals in any congressional legislation that analysts say would help reduce the nation's health expenditures, but it has come under fire from organized labor and has little support in the House.

Lawmakers also are looking at levying new taxes on insurance companies, drug companies and medical device makers. But the only approach that got majority support in the AP poll was a tax on upper-income Americans.

The House bill would impose a 5.4 percent income tax surcharge on individuals making more than $500,000 a year and households making more than $1 million.

The poll tested views on an even more punitive taxation scheme that was under consideration earlier, when the tax would have hit people making more than $250,000 a year. Even at that level the poll showed majority support, with 57 percent in favor and 36 percent opposed.

"You know, I mean, why not? If they have that much money, it should be taxed," said Mary Pat Rondthaler, 60, of Menlo Park, Calif. "It isn't the same way that the guy making $21,000 is."

Not everyone agreed.

"They earn their money. And they shouldn't have to pay for somebody else. It doesn't seem fair," said Emerson Wilkins, 62, of Powder Springs, Ga.

The latest survey was conducted by Stanford University with the nonpartisan Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Overall, the poll found the public split on Congress' health care plans. In response to some questions, participants said the current system needed to be changed, but they also voiced concerns about the potential impact on their own pocketbooks, preferring to push any new costs onto wealthier Americans.

For example, 77 percent said the cost of health care in the United States was higher than it should be, and 74 percent favored the broad goal of reducing the amount of money paid by patients and their insurers. But 49 percent said any changes made by the government probably would cause them to pay more for health care. Thirty-two percent said it wouldn't change what they pay, and just 12 percent said they would end up paying less.

With lawmakers searching for new revenue sources to pay for their overhaul legislation, upper-income taxes may be increasingly gaining favor.

Legislation passed by Senate committees did not go that route, but now Majority Leader Harry Reid, who has a free hand in merging two committee-passed bills, is considering raising the payroll tax that goes to Medicare on income above $250,000 a year, officials told The Associated Press last week. Current law sets the tax at 1.45 percent of income, an amount matched by employers.

The Senate Finance Committee bill would tax health insurance plans costing more than $8,000 annually for individuals and $21,000 for families, although those numbers could rise. Union members are lined up against that approach because they fear their benefits could be hurt, and the public doesn't like it either, the AP poll found. Fifty-six percent were opposed and only 29 percent in favor.

Other payment methods being contemplated on Capitol Hill also met with disapproval. Participants in the poll didn't support new taxes on medical device makers, drug companies or even insurers — even though they said in response to different questions that drug companies and insurance companies made too much money.

Forty-eight percent in the poll were opposed to new taxes on insurance companies, and 42 percent were in support. Fifty-one percent opposed raising taxes on drug and device makers, while 41 percent supported that approach.

But 72 percent of people polled said insurance companies made too much profit, compared with 23 percent who said they made about the right amount of profit. And 74 percent said drug companies made too much profit, versus 21 percent who said they made about the right amount of profit.

People who told pollsters they generally supported Congress' health care overhaul plan were also more receptive to new taxes to pay for it. Taxing health care companies, drug companies and equipment manufacturers eked out majority support from that group.

The payment approach that met with least approval by far in the poll was borrowing the money and increasing the federal debt, something Obama has repeatedly vowed not to do. Just 6 percent of people polled said they could support that approach, while 88 percent opposed it.

The poll was based on landline and cell phone interviews with 1,502 adults from Oct. 29 to Nov. 8. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points. The interviews were conducted by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Media. Stanford University's participation was made possible by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which conducts research on all facets of the health care system.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091117/ap_on_bi_ge/us_ap_poll_health_taxes/...

toniD's Ya Think?

World Out of Balance
By PAUL KRUGMAN

International travel by world leaders is mainly about making symbolic gestures. Nobody expects President Obama to come back from China with major new agreements, on economic policy or anything else.

But let’s hope that when the cameras aren’t rolling Mr. Obama and his hosts engage in some frank talk about currency policy. For the problem of international trade imbalances is about to get substantially worse. And there’s a potentially ugly confrontation looming unless China mends its ways.

Some background: Most of the world’s major currencies “float” against one another. That is, their relative values move up or down depending on market forces. That doesn’t necessarily mean that governments pursue pure hands-off policies: countries sometimes limit capital outflows when there’s a run on their currency (as Iceland did last year) or take steps to discourage hot-money inflows when they fear that speculators love their economies not wisely but too well (which is what Brazil is doing right now). But these days most nations try to keep the value of their currency in line with long-term economic fundamentals.

China is the great exception. Despite huge trade surpluses and the desire of many investors to buy into this fast-growing economy — forces that should have strengthened the renminbi, China’s currency — Chinese authorities have kept that currency persistently weak. They’ve done this mainly by trading renminbi for dollars, which they have accumulated in vast quantities.

And in recent months China has carried out what amounts to a beggar-thy-neighbor devaluation, keeping the yuan-dollar exchange rate fixed even as the dollar has fallen sharply against other major currencies. This has given Chinese exporters a growing competitive advantage over their rivals, especially producers in other developing countries.

What makes China’s currency policy especially problematic is the depressed state of the world economy. Cheap money and fiscal stimulus seem to have averted a second Great Depression. But policy makers haven’t been able to generate enough spending, public or private, to make progress against mass unemployment. And China’s weak-currency policy exacerbates the problem, in effect siphoning much-needed demand away from the rest of the world into the pockets of artificially competitive Chinese exporters.

But why do I say that this problem is about to get much worse? Because for the past year the true scale of the China problem has been masked by temporary factors. Looking forward, we can expect to see both China’s trade surplus and America’s trade deficit surge.

That, at any rate, is the argument made in a new paper by Richard Baldwin and Daria Taglioni of the Graduate Institute, Geneva. As they note, trade imbalances, both China’s surplus and America’s deficit, have recently been much smaller than they were a few years ago. But, they argue, “these global imbalance improvements are mostly illusory — the transitory side effect of the greatest trade collapse the world has ever seen.”

Indeed, the 2008-9 plunge in world trade was one for the record books. What it mainly reflected was the fact that modern trade is dominated by sales of durable manufactured goods — and in the face of severe financial crisis and its attendant uncertainty, both consumers and corporations postponed purchases of anything that wasn’t needed immediately. How did this reduce the U.S. trade deficit? Imports of goods like automobiles collapsed; so did some U.S. exports; but because we came into the crisis importing much more than we exported, the net effect was a smaller trade gap.

But with the financial crisis abating, this process is going into reverse. Last week’s U.S. trade report showed a sharp increase in the trade deficit between August and September. And there will be many more reports along those lines.

So picture this: month after month of headlines juxtaposing soaring U.S. trade deficits and Chinese trade surpluses with the suffering of unemployed American workers. If I were the Chinese government, I’d be really worried about that prospect.

Unfortunately, the Chinese don’t seem to get it: rather than face up to the need to change their currency policy, they’ve taken to lecturing the United States, telling us to raise interest rates and curb fiscal deficits — that is, to make our unemployment problem even worse.

And I’m not sure the Obama administration gets it, either. The administration’s statements on Chinese currency policy seem pro forma, lacking any sense of urgency.

That needs to change. I don’t begrudge Mr. Obama the banquets and the photo ops; they’re part of his job. But behind the scenes he better be warning the Chinese that they’re playing a dangerous game.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/16/opinion/16krugman.html?_r=1&partner=rs...

toniD's Ya Think?

lou dobbs do that anybody would put a value of 8 million dollars on to cancel his contract?

Hell no! 70 percent of Americans
say Palin isn't fit to be President
Does she have what it takes for a 2012 presidential bid? The answer is a resounding "no," according a CNN and Opinion Research poll. Only 28% believe she�s qualified for the nation�s top job, and 70% say she isn�t.

http://www.newser.com/story/74167/palin-not-fit-for-presidency-poll.html

toniD's Ya Think?

Obama announces jobs
forum date, economic tour
Barack Obama will hold a forum on job creation with U.S. business leaders on December 3 and then embark on a cross-country tour to discuss economic recovery, the White House said on Monday.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091117/pl_nm/us_obama_jobs_forum

toniD's Ya Think?

get better ratings

Obama, Hu stress cooperation after 2 hours of talks, but divisions remain on key issues

BEIJING (AP) — President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao promised a determined, joint effort to tackle climate change, nuclear disarmament and other global troubles yet emerged from their first full-blown summit Tuesday with scant progress beyond goodwill.

After two hours of talks and a separate meeting over dinner the night before, the presidents spoke of moving beyond the divisiveness over human rights, trade and military tensions that have bedeviled relations in past decades.

"The major challenges of the 21st century, from climate change to nuclear proliferation to economic recovery, are challenges that touch both our nations, and challenges that neither of our nations can solve by acting alone," Obama said, standing with the Chinese leader in the Great Hall of the People.

Hu, who heads a collective leadership that often has preferred to go it alone internationally, said: "There are growing global challenges, and countries in today's world have become more and more interdependent. "

With each of those big issues — from global warming to the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs — persistent differences bubbled up in the form of indirect barbs during the joint appearance.

Stung by new U.S. levies on imports of Chinese-made tires and steel pipes, Hu said he told Obama that given a still struggling global economy both countries "need to oppose and reject protectionism in all its manifestations in an even stronger stand."

Obama later called on China to relax controls that keep the Chinese currency relatively weak and thus help fuel exports — something Beijing officials have rejected in recent days. Obama also pointedly raised human rights, saying they are fundamental to all.

"We do not believe these principles are unique to America, but rather they are universal rights and that they should be available to all peoples, to all ethnic and religious minorities," Obama said in his only nationally televised remarks on the sensitive issue.

The mixture of promises and lasting differences underscored how intertwined the superpower United States and rising power China are, and the difficult task Obama faces in managing friction with an authoritarian, sometimes testy Beijing.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sns-ap-obama,0,4263160.story

toniD's Ya Think?

ROME (Reuters) - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, in Rome for a U.N. food summit, spent several hours in the company of 200 Italian women recruited by an agency and tried to convert them to Islam, Italian media reported Monday.

"Seeking 500 attractive girls between 18 and 35 years old, at least 1.70 meters (5 foot, 7 inches) tall, well-dressed but not in mini-skirts or low cut dresses," read the ad by the Hostessweb agency and quoted in Italy's Corriere dell Sera newspaper in its story.

Some 200 women showed up at a Rome villa, having been told they would receive 60 euros ($90) and "some Libyan gifts." Among them was an undercover reporter for Italian news agency ANSA, who took photos and described the evening's proceedings.

Most had expected to attend a party, according to ANSA, but instead were invited to wait in a large hall until the arrival of Gaddafi, who gave them a lesson on Libya and the role of women in Islam.

After around two hours the lesson, including questions and answers through an interpreter, concluded with an exhortation by Gaddafi to "convert to Islam" and with each woman given a copy of the Koran and a book of sayings by Gaddafi.

"It was anything but the VIP party we were expecting, they didn't even give us a glass of water," one woman told ANSA.

Others said they were offended by what they considered anti-Christian aspects of his lesson, including a claim that Jesus was not crucified but that "someone who looked like him" was put to death in his place.

The Libyan ambassador told ANSA that Gaddafi was planning other similar evenings during his three-day stay for the summit.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE5AF2KS20091116

HOW CAN GEITHNER SURVIVE THIS?
Scathing Report Singles Out Treasury Chief For Bungled AIG Bailout

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/16/aig-bailout-government-ov_n_359...

yesterdays statement about delaying regular breast exams till you are 50 (it was previously 40) are representative of it.

as i understand it, the idea is that if routine screenings cost money and a majority of the time they find no problems. basically the current equation is:

cost of screenings * number of screenings

costs more than:

cost of treating * number of people needing treatment

for breast cancer, the argument is that while there may be incrementally more people that need treatment, the absolute cost still favors deferring screenings.

this is just furthur proof that our current healthcare calculus based on profit is all wrong.

Palin....

She is Hannity with a vagina

i guess the next thing we'll hear from her is "stand back, i have a vagina and i'm not afraid to use it"

dobbs / palin 2012

Pelosi switches to jobs
By Mike Soraghan - 11/16/09 08:41 PM ET

House Democratic leaders, worried they’ve appeared unresponsive to rising unemployment because they were absorbed by healthcare, are aiming for a legislation solution by Christmas.

That focus follows a similar shift in the Senate, where Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told colleagues he also plans to bring up a jobs measure, The Hill reported first last week.

The House change began Monday night when leaders scheduled AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Robert Kuttner, co-editor of The American Prospect, to address the House Democratic Caucus.

And it could end with an economic package on the floor sometime in December, Democratic sources said.

But some leadership aides cautioned that leaders are still debating whether to do one large package or a series of smaller bills.

And they say the Obama administration has yet to get on board.

One way or another, aides say, House Democrats’ message from now to Christmas will be about jobs.

“We continue to look for opportunities to build on the recovery package and other actions Congress has taken to bolster the economy,” said Nadeam Elshami, spokesman for Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

Leaders want members to have something to take home with them to show that they’re working on the economy. But they have to balance that against growing discomfort among voters about skyrocketing government spending.

The main idea for job creation is finding some sort of compromise on a highway-construction bill that Democrats have been haggling over for months. House Democrats have fought resistance in the Senate and at the White House for a massive, long-term expansion of the highway authorization bill.

They haven’t been able to agree on how to raise the money for a $500 billion bill. One idea would be to do a shorter-term bill without a revenue stream, a Democratic aide said, adding to the deficit. more...

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/68045-pelosi-switches-to-jobs

toniD's Ya Think?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/8363997.stm

HOW CAN GEITHNER SURVIVE THIS?
Scathing Report Singles Out Treasury Chief For Bungled AIG Bailout

Tonid seems like a big story to me but the news is "pre-occupied" with Palin,Lou Dobbs,and no Fair trial in NYC!.

# Post office was $3.8 billion in the red last year "- 6 hours ago"

The Postal Service reported a loss of $3.8 billion last year, despite a reduction of 40,000 full-time positions and other cost-cutting ...

LINK

toniD's Ya Think?

and of course the Chinese limited attendance/audience for Obama speech. Krugman column in the TImes yeaterday said the Chinese keeping currency rate fixed against the dollar makes for low employment in the US - will anyone dare mention this?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/16/opinion/16krugman.html?_r=1&sq=krugman...

Thought you might be interested in this....

Schizophrenia Study Finds Similarities Across 37 Countries »

medicalnewstoday.com | November 16, 2009 at 05:33 PM

An international study of more than 17,000 people with schizophrenia has found striking similarities in symptoms, medication, employment and sexual problems.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/171058.php

toniD's Ya Think?

i agree i think the "coverage" or "discussion" or whatever you want to call it about the "terrorist trials," "Gitmo North" etc. is hysterical and irresponsible.

Survey: 17 million US households now struggle with hunger issues
McClatchy Newspapers
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 11.17.2009

WASHINGTON — The number of U.S. households that are struggling to feed their members jumped by 4 million to 17 million last year, as recession-driven job losses and increased poverty and unemployment fueled a surge in hunger, a government survey reported Monday.

These "food-insecure" households represent about 49 million people and make up 14.6 percent, or more than one in seven, of all U.S. households. That's the highest rate since the U.S. Department of Agriculture began monitoring the issue in 1995.
Additionally, more than one-third of these struggling families — 6.7 million households, or 17.2 million people last year — had "very low food security," in which food intake was reduced and eating patterns were disrupted for some family members because of a lack of food.

In phone interviews, more than two-thirds of people with very low food security said they went hungry from time to time, and 27 percent of these adults said they didn't eat at all some days.

These families make up 5.7 percent of U.S. households, again the highest rate since 1995, up from 4.1 percent and 4.7 million households in 2007.

In a statement, President Obama called the report unsettling and said it was particularly troubling that there were more than 500,000 families in which children experienced hunger multiple times last year.
Obama said his administration was "committed to reversing the trend of rising hunger" and that restoring job growth would "help relieve the economic pressures that make it difficult for parents to put a square meal on the table each day."

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the situation would be far worse for many more Americans were it not for food pantries and federal food-assistance programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps.

http://www.azstarnet.com/news/317866

toniD's Ya Think?

tanks for gil (fixed mine too ;}) scott heron. look forward to watching when I get home.

I wouldn't like to be called the grandfather/mother of anything in the press but a grandbaby, but he's probably fine with it.

I just heard a story about that mammogram thing on the vacuous top-of-the-hour CNN thingy and it was put totally confusingly (on purpose?) but I thought that was probably the upshot.

turns out to be a very inclusive bag, true...

Who says Stephanie doesn't make ya think?

is usually not so good. You really have to research for yourself to evaluate. Personally, I think waiting to get mammograms is probably fine - the less radiation, the better, and there are several methods for detecting any suspicious material in the breast....

you don't miss a "celebrity" till she is gone. happy birthday shelly!

Harkin says Senate will work weekends this December on health
By Michael O’Brien - 11/16/09 11:45 AM ET

The chairman of a key Senate committee overseeing healthcare reform said Monday that the chamber will work every weekend in December to pass the bill by Christmas.

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), the chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, predicted during an interview on the liberal "Bill Press Radio Show" that the Senate will have the 60 votes needed to call up the healthcare bill this week. But Harkin said senators will not begin amending the legislation until after the Thanksgiving break.

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/67905-sen-harkin-says-senate-will-wor...

toniD's Ya Think?

Progressives To Reid: Hold Firm On Public Option (VIDEO)

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid met on Monday night with a group of Senate Democrats who urged him not to back down from his decision to put a public option in health care legislation.

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) requested the meeting, saying that progressive lawmakers had concluded that they had compromised enough.

"Most of us in the caucus want a strong public option, support the Reid way of doing it," he told the New York Times. "And we're confident that over time, as the debate unfolds and we take amendment after amendment after amendment, that we can get 60 votes."

"We figure on the public option there has been a lot of compromise already," he said. "...A large number of people in this country including many, many doctors wanted Medicare for all. That didn't happen. Then we wanted a strong public option tied to Medicare rates. Then we wanted a public option building the Medicare network. That didn't happen. Now we are saying public option coming out of the HELP Committee. And now we're saying public option with the state opt-out. Where was the compromise coming from their side?"

Sherrod Brown also discussed his position on "The Rachel Maddow Show" Monday night. He backed Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who said recently that the Democrats would force Republicans trying to delay the bill to stay in 24-hour sessions. "Whatever it takes," he said.

Asked about Sen. Joe Lieberman's (I-Conn.) threat to filibuster the bill, Brown reiterated that the majority of Democrats backed the public option. "We're not gonna let the tail wag the dog here," he said. He added that he was confident that in the end, reluctant Democrats would let the public option go to an up-or-down vote. He also said he was sure Harry Reid would not put an amendment restricting abortion coverage in the Senate bill.

Video at link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/17/progressives-to-reid-hold_n_360...

toniD's Ya Think?

Dave Obey Chides Obama Administration For 'Stupid Mistakes' On Stimulus Reporting

A powerful House Democrat used unusually harsh terms to blast the Obama administration's manipulation of stimulus data Monday night, and demanded an honest accounting of results from the $787 billion government program.

Rep. Dave Obey (D-Wis.), who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, took the administration to task for pervasive errors on the Web site designed to monitor disbursement of the stimulus funds. He called those errors "outrageous."

"Credibility counts in government and stupid mistakes like this undermine it. We've got too many serious problems in this country to let that happen," Obey said in a statement. "Whether the numbers are good news or bad news, I want the honest numbers and I want them now."

Obey demanded a commitment from the executive branch that they would "work night and day to correct the ludicrous mistakes." Congress and the public should be able to trust reports by the Recovery Accountability and Transparency (RAT) Board, he said.

The administration has already slashed 60,000 jobs from its estimates of how many jobs were created by the stimulus, after discovering "unrealistic data" submitted by stimulus recipients. In one extreme example, the stimulus Web site reported that 50 jobs were created or saved by an Arkansas cemetery's purchase of a lawnmower for roughly $1,000.

Republicans have also pounced on the administration's stat-juking. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, decried the "grossly inaccurate" information disseminated by the stimulus Web site in a letter to RAT Board Chairman Earl Devaney. If the transparency board can't certify that the stimulus has indeed saved or created 640,329 jobs, Issa wrote, the stimulus Web site should carry a disclaimer stating that its figures are unreliable.

Devaney will appear before the oversight committee Thursday during a hearing on tracking stimulus funds.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/16/dave-obey-chides-obama-ad_n_360...

toniD's Ya Think?

Thanks Taozen, for that wonderful link on Gil Scott Heron.

I found it interesting that Obama had a different serious look on his face and how he spoke was totally different. He wasn't really happy with the meeting.

And Ho's translator used the term "the two parties". If Ho spoke like that, I don't understand Chinese, it is totally impersonal. And it's talking down to the other person.

I, personally, am very afraid of China and have been for years. They've found a financial way to defeat their opponents and it was helped by a stupid president and a greedy administration and Congress borrowing money instead of collecting taxes and spending cuts and unnecessary wars.

The thing about America is that everyone is impatient. They want everything yesterday. The Chinese sat back and waited for the opportunity to pounce instead of starting a war.

May be a good lesson to us.

toniD's Ya Think?

"ghettodependswearer" - LOL.

Pruden: Obama lacks "blood impulse" for what America "is about" due to "Kenyan father," "mother attracted to men of the Third World"

But Mr. Obama, unlike his predecessors, likely knows no better, and many of those around him, true children of the grungy '60s, are contemptuous of custom. Cutting America down to size is what attracts them to "hope" for "change." It's no fault of the president that he has no natural instinct or blood impulse for what the America of "the 57 states" is about. He was sired by a Kenyan father, born to a mother attracted to men of the Third World and reared by grandparents in Hawaii, a paradise far from the American mainstream.

That's just lovely, ain't it? They don't even hide their racism anymore.

I guess Pruden prefers the precedents set by the two Bushies: One kisses a man-king full on the lips, holds his hand and walks through flower gardens (okay, that's even too gay for me, thank you), and the other one just throws up on them.

~-~-~
I'd slap you silly, but there's too much stupid in the way.

"Health insurance reform is about more than profits and deficits. It's about real people who need help. I demand the CEOs of the three largest insurance companies sit down with the people they've hurt, stop dropping our coverage, stop denying us care, and stop opposing real reform in Congress that gives us the choice of a public insurance plan. "

Sign the Petition

http://www.biginsurancekills.com/?Email=&code=hcan

Thank You ~

( Plus,get a Free Bumper Sticker ! Woot Woot ! )

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

MMRules

Sanford Impeachment Resolution To Be Introduced

receive an impeachment resolution on Gov. Mark Sanford.

It's the first bill that will be pre-filed Tuesday as the House opens the door to new legislation ahead of its January session beginning.

State Rep. Greg Delleney of Chester left the bill on the House desk last month when the House met in a brief, two-day session to deal with unemployment benefits and perks aimed at bringing Boeing Co. jobs to South Carolina.

Delleney said the bill will be the first one in the stack of legislation and it already has three co-sponsors and others may sign on after Tuesday.

Delleney says Sanford needs to be impeached because he abandoned the state to rendezvous with an Argentine lover and embarrassed South Carolina.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/17/sanford-impeachment-resol_n_360...

toniD's Ya Think?

N.A.A.C.P. Prods Obama On Job Losses: Stimulus Not Enough

With unemployment among blacks at more than 15 percent, the N.A.A.C.P. will join several other groups on Tuesday to call on President Obama to do more to create jobs.

The organizations -- including the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic advocacy group-- will make clear that they believe the president's $787 billion stimulus program has not gone far enough to fight unemployment.

Read the whole story: The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/us/17labor.html?ref=politics

toniD's Ya Think?

Sarah Palin & the conservatives have dismissed rumors about Trig's birth as generating from left wing bloggers. But it is simply not true. The Canadian Broadcasting Company & the Anchorage Daily News reported on this matter. In case you missed it the first time it was posted, here it is again.

FDIC, Reluctant Landlord, Owns $1.8 Billion In Real Estate

Sheila Bair, de facto real estate magnate?

As the mortgage market imploded over the past few years, the head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has watched as her agency became the owner of thousands of soured real estate properties, the Wall Street Journal reports this morning. In total, the FDIC currently owns $1.8 billion real estate, the WSJ notes.

Though the WSJ focuses on the agonizing process of unloading an Atlanta housing development named Dresden Heights -- located next to a Waffle House and a Motel 6, apparently -- the massive role the government is playing in propping up the housing market has come under increasing scrutiny of late.

The financial crisis and the real estate downturn have become linked in a vicious cycle. It goes something like this: borrowers default on their mortgages, banks holding mortgage assets fail, and, in bailing out the failed banks, the government is left owning thousands of shoddy real estate properties.

A quick scan of the some of the properties the FDIC is currently trying to unload, via the agencies website, reveals part of the problem. The agency is selling vastly different properties in very different markets (everything from a $1,800 single-family home in Detroit, and a $1 million property outside of Sacramento).

Here's the WSJ:

The financial crisis started with Americans buying homes they couldn't afford. It is ending with the government struggling to sell buildings it never wanted.

In the past two years, the FDIC has taken over 150 failed banks. In the process, it has seized more than 5,000 houses, subdivisions, buildings, parcels and other foreclosed assets. The current backlog of property stuck on the agency's books, with an appraised value of $1.8 billion, ranges from an $18,700 clapboard home with stained carpets in Birmingham, Ala., to a $1.7 million mountainside lodge with a heated driveway in Steamboat Springs, Colo.

Taxpayers will be grappling with this flotsam for years to come, one example of how the crisis will linger long after the economy begins to revive.

Story continues below

While no one expects the FDIC -- the body charged with regulating overseeing more than 8,000 banks -- to be particularly adept in the real estate game, the agency is just one of several government-controlled organizations that are wading through the detritus of the housing market.

The cash reserves at the Federal Housing Administration, which insures one out of every five single-family homes in the U.S., are at record lows. Fannie Mae, for its part, recently asked the government for $15 billion more in aid.

For 2009 alone, the government has spent a mind-boggling $300 billion propping up the housing market, according to a recent report from the Congressional Budget Office.

Worse, as the WSJ put it, some of the properties languishing on the FDIC's books are on their second go-around. "At a recent FDIC auction in Atlanta, the agency offered a four-unit condo building it had already sold once before -- after the savings-and-loan crisis two decades ago," the Journal reports.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/17/fdic-reluctant-landlord-o_n_360...

toniD's Ya Think?

Mortgage Delinquencies Hit Another Record In 3Q »

AP | EILEEN AJ CONNELLY | November 17, 2009 at 06:50 AM

NEW YORK — The pace at which people fell behind on their mortgages slowed during the summer for the third consecutive quarter, but the overall delinquency rate hit another record, a new report shows.

For the three months ended Sept. 30, 6.25 percent of U.S. mortgage loans were 60 or more days past due, according to credit reporting agency TransUnion. That's up 58 percent from 3.96 percent a year ago.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20091117/us-mortgage-delinquenc...

toniD's Ya Think?

Commentary
Dying to prosecute Hasan
By Jerry Mazza

The White House went ahead Thursday, according to the Washington Post, and charged Major Nidal M. Hasan with 13 counts of murder. It also reported that “Hasan has not cooperated with federal investigators seeking to interview him. His attorney, retired Col. John Galligan, told the Associated Press that military officials charged Hasan in the hospital without his Army lawyers present.”

Galligan went on to say, “What I find disturbing is that my client is in ICU, and he’s 150 miles south of his defense counsel, and he’s being served with the charges. Given his status as a patient, I’m troubled by this procedure and that I’m not there. I’m in the dark, and that shouldn’t be the case. I am mad.” That seems clear. The military officials are violating the rights of the accused.

Also, the WP states that “Guy Womack, a retired Marine lieutenant colonel who practices military law in Houston, said Hasan’s defense counsel probably will argue that Hasan was mentally unstable at the time of the shootings.

“‘The defense argument will be that Major Hasan knew that he would be identified, he knew that he would be captured, and he did it anyway, so clearly he was insane, that his mental defect was so severe that he couldn’t control his actions from right and wrong,’ Womack said.”

con't

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_5274.shtml

That upward stock market arrow may be about to burst your balloon
Rebound seen as too much, too soon

By Martha C. White
The Big Money
Sunday, November 15, 2009

With a close over 10,270 on Friday, the Dow Jones industrial average had its best showing of 2009. Like the day a few weeks earlier when it broke the five-figure mark for the first time since October 2008, the market's achievement was greeted not by champagne and celebration, but by introspection among economists and investors. Can this rally be trusted? Is it a real rebound or something else? Are we witnessing the growth of a new bubble or a zombie market propped up by outside forces?

By the math of some skeptics, the Dow's 10,000 is only "worth" about three-quarters of that anyway, owing to the ground the U.S. dollar has lost in comparison with other currencies since the index first hit five digits. Even taking the current number at face value, though, the sheer speed of the recovery should give us pause.

While the recession's been officially declared over, this recovery is not going to be V-shaped. It's going to take time, given the vastness of the financial crisis that precipitated it. The Dow gained more than 53 percent from its March trough, while the S&P is up over 61 percent from its springtime low. That's just not normal; it's too much, too soon. Yes, the economy bounced back strongly from the 1981-82 recession, but that was because the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates by more than 10 percentage points over the course of roughly a year. That arrow's already been shot this time around.

Take a look at other metrics unrelated to the movement of the equities market, and more red flags pop up. Many of the positive or less-negative returns that corporations have been delivering of late come from aggressive cost-cutting. Obviously, this tactic has a limited shelf life. Similarly, gains in productivity are a double-edged sword because they contribute to lower rehiring rates even after demand increases.

Unemployment and foreclosure rates are still rising, consumer and commercial borrowing remain restricted, and small businesses are getting hammered. Noted analyst Meredith Whitney wrote in the Wall Street Journal last month that these companies "have never had a harder time" securing financing. This latter point doesn't seem to be factored in to the market recovery. Small businesses, although they contribute roughly half the country's jobs, aren't represented by the Dow Jones. Their pain isn't reflected in the index, especially the large-cap benchmarks that so many use as a proxy for the broader economy. A look at the Russell 2000, one index that does focus on smaller companies, shows that the little guys haven't shared in the kind of recovery their larger brethren are experiencing.

What's holding this balloon aloft? Some attribute the rapid rise to investor euphoria at the realization that this recession hasn't spiraled into a full-blown depression. The Federal Reserve's continued stance of aggressively low interest rates gets partial credit. With rates so low, institutional investors that would otherwise stick to safer havens are entering the stock market just to eke out their required returns. This demand inflates prices. Low rates also play a role in that many of the stocks that have led the recent rebound are financial stocks, which benefit directly from being able to borrow money at bargain-basement rates. Just four stocks -- Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C), Fannie Mae (FNM), and Freddie Mac (FRE), all of which rely on the Fed's largesse to an outsized degree -- are responsible for up to 20 percent of all trades.

Direct and indirect infusions of capital into the banking sector are another factor. The Center for Economic and Policy Research crunched some numbers and issued a report last month asserting that half of this year's profits for banks that the group dubbed "too big to fail" are a direct result of government's facilitation of lower-cost borrowing.

Some analysts also finger the burgeoning growth in high-frequency trading that got the attention last summer of Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Mary Schapiro of the Securities and Exchange Commission. High-frequency traders are speculative, as opposed to long-term, investors. They don't need to be concerned about whether or not a company's fundamentals back up the price. Since high-frequency trades make up 70 percent of the market by trading volume, some people think that it has an accelerant effect on the market just by virtue of its size. And if 70 percent of the market's volume isn't looking at basics like profit relative to earnings and prospects for future growth, there's going to be a yawning disconnect. more...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/13/AR200911...

toniD's Ya Think?

What is Israel’s role in the destabilization of Pakistan?
By Jeff Gates
Online Journal Guest Writer

Nov 17, 2009, 00:21

When waging war “by way of deception,” the motto of the Israeli Mossad, well-timed crises play a critical agenda-setting role by displacing facts with what a target population can be deceived to believe. Thus the force-multiplier effect when staged crises are reinforced with pre-staged intelligence. In combination, the two often prove persuasive.

That duplicity was on display when U.S. lawmakers were induced to invade Iraq in response to the mass murder of 9-11. That crisis alone, however, was insufficient. Military mobilization required a “consensus” belief in Iraqi WMD, Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda, Iraqi mobile biological weapons, Iraqi meetings in Prague, and so forth. Though all were false, those “facts” proved sufficient to induce an invasion of Iraq.

Such agent provocateur operations typically include collateral incidents as pre-staging for the intended main event. Ongoing incidents suggest a follow-on operation is underway. Recent history suggests we’ll see an orgy of evidence that plausibly indicts a pre-staged Evil Doer. Though Iran is an obvious candidate, Pakistan is also a possibility where outside forces have been destabilizing this nuclear Islamic nation with a series of violent incidents.

con't

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_5273.shtml

My position right now is one of either not getting or getting for free, and I am in a higher risk group since my aunt had it so then the risk benefit might change I guess.

Holy fuck! We get less and less premature all the time.

By Don Davis

http://satiricalpolitical.com/2009/11/17/2/

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

MMRules

Swiss to divulge details of US tax cheats

By Agence France-Presse

BERN — US clients of UBS with more than 250,000 Swiss francs (165,641 euros, 248,040 dollars) in assets could have their details turned over to US tax authorities if there is proof of fraud, Swiss authorities said on Tuesday.

For those who have simply not disclosed their accounts, their records would only be provided to US tax authorities if the account held more than one million francs at any time between 2001 and 2008, the Swiss Federal Office of Justice said here.

In addition, Switzerland may also provide details on undeclared accounts that generated more than 100,000 francs every year over a period of three years, it added, publishing details of a deal between Washington and Bern.

UBS, and the US and Swiss governments, in August signed agreements ending months of diplomatically sensitive negotiations over a massive US probe of taxpayers with secret accounts at the world's largest wealth manager.

Under the out-of-court settlement for a lawsuit, UBS agreed to disclose up to 4,450 names of American clients to US tax authorities.

Current legislation requires UBS to pass these details to the Swiss government, which in turn would decide if they should be transmitted to the United States.

A special team set up by the Swiss authorities received the first 500 clients dossiers from UBS by the end of October.

"Final decisions are being issued on an ongoing basis, meaning that the first can be sent out as early as today," the justice office added.

http://rawstory.com/2009/11/swiss-divulge-details-tax-cheats/

toniD's Ya Think?

VIDEO: Scuffle Ensues when Neo-Nazis Unfurl Hitler Flag at Tea Party Rally

PHOENIX, AZ -- A scuffle ensued Saturday when members of the National Socialist Movement (Neo-Nazis) found themselves shut out of an anti-immigration Tea Party protest at the Phoenix capitol.

American Citizens United, who organized the Phoenix Tea Party rally, told the Neo-Nazi group that racist messages were not welcome at the demonstration. The Neo-Nazis left, but two returned, standing defiantly on the sidewalk that borders the designated protest area.

When JT Ready, one of the Neo-Nazis tried to unfurl an Adolf Hitler flag, one of the event organizers became enraged and tried to rip the flag from Ready's hands. The other Neo-Nazi was holding a Confederate flag and a sign that read, "Bring our soldiers home, and put them on the Mexican border." Ready responded by shoving the organizer, sending him tumbling to the ground several feet away.

Police quickly intervened, and no one was hurt.

Video shot by Phoenix Channel 3 News, shows the event unfold, and the Neo-Nazi can be seen screaming throughout the incident, "You can't assult me! You can't assault me!" Then, after police intervene, he yells, "If you assault me, I get to assault you."

Ironically, New Times columnist Stephen Lemons, a stalwart activist for immigrants, was also asked to leave.

The Phoenix rally was one of dozens of similar demonstrations hosted across the country today by American Citizens United to voice opposition to immigration reform legislation that could be introduced into Congress as early as next month.

Police estimated that more than 200 protestors attended the rally.

See video:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dawn-teo/video-scuffle-ensues-when_b_35815...

-- Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman (R), the current ambassador to China, when asked about the current ideological fight in the Republican party.

~-~-~
I'd slap you silly, but there's too much stupid in the way.

Ortega Organizes Street Gangs to Quash Public Dissent

Fear in Nicaragua

By DANNY WEIL

Violence has broken out all over the country of Nicaragua this week. Armed again, but this time organized by Sandinista thugs. I understand this is hard to swallow but I was in Nicaragua all last week, talking to sources I have in the Sandinista government and outside the government, amongst working people, intellectuals and campesinos.

Beatings and brutal physical attacks against intellectuals, journalists and civil rights group members are frequent here now. There is currently no legal opposition allowed in the country against the policies of the Nicaragua government (FSLN), controlled by the Sandinistas. As of November 9, 2009, for example, it was illegal for any opposition to the Sandinistas to paint anything on poles or walls, which is what students have been doing for weeks to declare the elections stolen. During the early hours of the morning vehicles carrying armed gangs erase any opposition on walls in the country’s capital, Managua. Organized citizen gangs, called the CPC or Consejo del Pueblo Ciudadana work closely with some of the most dangerous criminal delinquent gangs in the city and region, mostly young disenfranchised and uneducated men, to prevent any opposition to Daniel Ortega and his government policies, while rumors fly that Ortega flies to Cuba for blood transfusions. This is disconcerting and almost unbelieveable to those of us, like myself, who a quarter of a century ago lived and worked in Nicaragua supporting the Sandinista government against the ruthless Contra war that blanketed the small country with venal bloodshed.

At issue, or at least one of the issues, is the municipal elections that took place last year,. On November 9, 2008 Nicaragua held municipal elections in 146 cities and towns throughout the country. These races were huge, due to the fact that mayors have a great deal of autonomy and can act as a check on central government power. That is why Daniel stole them The liberal party Deputy, Enrique Quiñónez, said at the time that juvenile delinquents were used to pull off the 2008 municipal fraud. At the time of the elections, the Washington Office on Latin America, not a conservative organization by any means, warned of state-sponsored repression ahead of the vote. In a November 6, 2008 communique, the organization wrote:..
http://www.counterpunch.org/weil11172009.html

http://satiricalpolitical.com/2009/11/17/2/

Submitted by MMRules on Tue, 11/17/2009 - 11:45am.

I usually dont laugh at people's speech impediments\BUT

SINCE RUDY HAS BEEN AN IMPEDIMENT TO TRUTH AND SOCIAL JUSTICE AND
PROMOTED RACIAL PROBLEMS AND TOLERATED (promoted)CORRUPT POLICE PRACTICES
HE DERSERVES ON OFF SHORE TRIAL OF HIS CRIMES AGAINST AMERICA

I would love to hear that his son will get a spot in Broadcasting filling in for Ron JR...

Bolts, Gas Carts and Extreme Cruelty

By MARTHA ROSENBERG

"When he bolted her the first time, she didn't die. She just stood there looking stunned as blood trickled from her forehead. She then got her bearings and tried to turn and run."

"The gas cart was filled to the brim with pigs today, a total of 39, including 9 large pigs that were at weaning age. They were left in the cart all day to trample each other, before being gassed all at once."

Read the diary and watch the video of undercover investigator Mike who worked at the Country View/Hatfield Quality Meats hog farm last spring and you're sure laws are being broken and the operation will be shut down. Wrong. There is nothing illegal in one of the most gruesome videos to circulate the Web says Mercy For Animals (MFA) who conducted the investigation, because there are no farm welfare laws to break.

As the anti-factory farming movement gains momentum, many have heard about gestation crates, enclosures so small sows can't turn around, that are banned in the European Union and some states. They have heard of tail docking and castration without anesthesia--also banned in some European countries--manure lagoons, dead piles and animals that go cage crazy from their confinement...
http://www.counterpunch.org/rosenberg11172009.html

Pig Hell at Wal-Mart Supplier
new
Submitted by Leah on Tue, 11/17/2009 - 12:16pm.

Bolts, Gas Carts and Extreme Cruelty

Looks like GQ has adopted the Nobel Peace Prize committee strategy

Why does this happen? I don't understand it. :(
Submitted by smcgee43 on Tue, 11/17/2009 - 12:24pm.
====
Auswitch for animals is what immediately comes to my mind. Grotesque. I can barely read that stuff before I start looking for explosives.

Submitted by toniD on Tue, 11/17/2009 - 10:43am.
The thing about America is that everyone is impatient. They want everything yesterday. The Chinese sat back and waited for the opportunity to pounce instead of starting a war.

------

Oh you're so right Blog Goddess. The Chinese knew we had greed in this country so profound- that treason would be acceptable. They knew we were going to self-destruct. And boy, did we! It started with Nixon. But Reagan, Clinton, and that Demonic Bush Klan finally gave the Chinese the keys to the kingdom.

This new style of conservatism is a cleverly disguised form of treason. The people who perpetuate it, hate this nation. It is anti- constitutional. It really is. Think about it ToniD.

I've ever seen, or am I just that sick of his face?

If the former, the gears are spinning as to how that would play into the strategy. (You are giving America your youth; you might as well do it right?)

Well, luckily, Michelle is supposed to be a big "Dick Van Dyke" fan...because I think he just skipped over Cliff Huxtable (h/t Wyatt Cenac) and went there. :}

I also note that he is wearing that same type of quasi-madras shirt that McCain did (with a coat and tie) throughout the campaign...So maybe not so much an old-man look as a golfing look?
------

I try only to use my powers for good... :}

Do NOT say the m-word ;)

mmmmmmmmmonkeyshit...

mmmmmmmmmaybe I need to get back to work... :)

lol

what about these guys et al?

the conservacrap party is saying district 23 is in play again. they are claiming there are enough absentee ballots to change the outcome.

===

on 2nd thought, it has some possibilities. just think if al gore got to do 8 years when obama's term is over to make up for the election getting stolen from him. i could be a happy person if i knew there was going to be democrat in charge of the white house for the next 16 years. although given obama's 1st 9 months, perhaps happy is an exageration.

Obama Orders Task Force to Fight Financial Crime

Source: NY Times

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will issue an executive order Tuesday creating an administration-wide task force to crack down on financial fraud following a rise in mortgage scams and high-profile Wall Street trading scandals, an administration official said.

The order will direct the task force to investigate and prosecute financial crimes connected to the past year's financial crisis and to try to deter future fraud, said the official, who declined to be identified.

The stakes are high for the administration, particularly with a weak economy, anger about huge Wall Street bonuses and outrage that securities regulators missed one of the biggest frauds in U.S. history involving Bernard Madoff, who bilked investors of as much as $65 billion in a decades-long scheme.

The administration has long pledged to become more aggressive in fighting financial crime. The task force is set to be announced at a 12 p.m. EST (1700 GMT) Justice Department news conference that will include Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Attorney General Eric Holder.

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2009/11/17/us/politics/politics-us-usa-fr...

toniD's Ya Think?

there is that risk:benefit ratio....

IMF urges China to appreciate currency

Edited on Tue Nov-17-09 09:41 AM by denem
Source: Radio Australia

The head of the International Monetary Fund says it is important for China's currency to appreciate to achieve a more balance economy.

The IMF managing director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, is visiting Beijing, which has been coming under growing international pressure to let it rise because it artificially reduces the prices of its exports.

China's central bank said last week it would consider major currencies in guiding its currency, but a senior minister has played down expectations of a policy shift.

It says it needs a low currency to help many more millions of people to trade their way out of poverty.

http://www.radioaustralianews.net.au/stories/200911/2744767.htm?desktop

toniD's Ya Think?

A Slow-Burning Departure For Gregory Craig

Why was Gregory Craig, the departing White House counsel, allowed to twist in the wind for so long? For a month, it's been an open secret in Washington that Craig was on his way out. Five weeks ago, a senior administration official, speaking to me on an off-the-record basis, offered a tip that Craig would resign around Thanksgiving and would be replaced by the president's personal lawyer, Robert Bauer. A number of journalists reported having similar conversations.

For a White House that prides itself on mitigating the effects of internal drama, the Craig resignation is a real failure. It's left many Craig allies -- inside and outside of government -- angry with the president's top advisers. They accuse these advisers, primarily the president's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, of orchestrating a public whispering campaign designed to force Craig to resign. Implicitly, the thinking goes, no one in the White House had the -- gumption -- to fire Craig to his face.

It is true that Craig and Emanuel did not always see eye to eye. It was Craig's importuning that may have convinced the president to release Bush-era Justice Department memoranda that sanctioned torture.

"This is what you were elected to do," Craig told the president in one Oval Office meeting.

Emanuel worried about the political repercussions of a first-term young Democratic president who would appear to be thumbing the eyes of the national security establishment. Craig won the round.

Obama retains an enormous affection for Craig, who bucked the Democratic establishment in the primary, and the president is, in some ways, a sucker for arguments that draw back to the reasons why he decided to run for office in the first place. Craig is an idealist.

But the story doesn't end there. Emanuel and Craig worked together quite well on other projects. And Craig even borrowed a page from Emanuel's own handbook for resisting pressure from leaks that he would resign: Craig decided to try and wait it out, just as Emanuel did, more successfully, in the Clinton White House after the 1994 midterm elections.

As early as the beginning of the summer, it was clear to the President that the counsel's office was poorly managed. Craig had focused intently on several issues close to his heart, like the closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, and did not bring his authority to bear in others, like presidential personnel nominations, cross-executive branch ethics enforcement and congressional relations.

Moreover, senior staff -- and the president -- kept finding themselves surprised. "We would open the newspaper and find something that Greg should have told us about," one administration official who is sympathetic to Craig said.

They were surprised when Eric Holder, the attorney general, decided to appoint a prosecutor to review interrogation files. It wasn't so much that they disagreed with the decision -- Holder's independence is something that the White House grudgingly accepts as necessary and proper -- it was that Craig wasn't in the loop. He had not taken the time to build himself up as an institutional figure who the attorney general wouldn't dare avoid briefing before acting.

more...

http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/11/why_was_gregory_craig_the.php

toniD's Ya Think?

I agree with both of u on
the differing subjects here
on the blog.
I get sick to my stomach that
people & animals r treated in
such horrific situations.
As u probably know - my heart
is with animals & children. I will
fight 4 them - unconditionally.

e;;en << sorry bout that

It’s Greg Craig’s Fault that Dawn Johnsen Hasn’t Been Confirmed
By: emptywheel Tuesday November 17, 2009 5:45 am

Marc Ambinder has one of the most thorough discussions of Greg Craig’s ouster I’ve seen so far. It claims (Eric Holder’s public statements notwithstanding) that Craig wasn’t ousted for his “idealism” on national security…

The notion that the President was dissatisfied with Craig’s handling of the Guantanamo Bay closure has reached the level of an accepted urban myth, even though it is not true. This may be Craig’s legacy — and it may serve him well with his allies on the ideological left who are eager to portray his departure as evidence that Obama rejects a new national security paradigm.

Rather, he was ousted because his focus on such issues distracted him from things like Senate confirmations.

The White House was also dissatisfied with Craig’s handling of political appointments, believing that Craig should have spent more time working with the Justice Department and with Congress to force through some of the President’s most eagerly-awaited principals, like Dawn Johnsen, whose nomination to be head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel still languishes. The issue of nominations is especially sensitive for the president, a constitutional law lecturer in his former life. [my emphasis]

As a threshold matter, let me agree that Bob Bauer will be much more successful at ramming through nominations, which if we’re going to reclaim the judicial system from the mess that the Federalist Society and Alberto Gonzales’ DOJ made of it, is critically important. Bauer’s a fierce partisan unafraid to call out Republicans on their partisan grand-standing. I look forward to his role in nominations.

That said, Ambinder does give evidence of such a split.

It is true that Mr. Craig and Mr. Emanuel did not always see eye to eye. It was Craig’s importuning that may have convinced the president to release Bush-era Justice Department memorandum that sanctioned torture.

“This is what you were elected to do,” Craig told the president In one Oval Office meeting.

Emanuel worried about the political repercussions of a first-term young Democratic president who would appear to be thumbing the eyes of the national security establishment. Craig won the round.

Which, at the very least, ought to make you ask: even accepting the premise that this was all about Craig’s management problems, why was it handled in this way? Why was it clear to everyone outside the White House–at the time when, Ambinder claims, “the president’s staff appeared to be ready to give Craig a second chance”–that there was this animosity between Rahm and Craig? Why was that animosity always framed in terms of Gitmo and torture? If “the president’s staff appeared ready to give Graig a second chance,” why did leaks that looked remarkably like leaks from the President’s Chief of Staff continue unabated? Why did that leaker turn this into a public issue, rather than just handling it quietly?

If the White House is ousting people for bad management, and the Chief of Staff spent the last three or four months leaking about Craig’s imminent departure rather than implementing that imminent departure, then why isn’t Obama also ousting the Chief of Staff, who turned the White House into a petty sniping war instead of managing it like an adult?

Rahm may want to blame Greg Craig that Dawn Johnsen hasn’t been confirmed (a nice sop to the liberals suspicious that Craig’s ouster was over torture). But in doing so, he is making it clear he’s to blame for turning the Craig ouster into a fiasco.

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/11/17/its-greg-craigs-fault-that-...

toniD's Ya Think?

That’s the word from Democratic sources. Senator Reid hoping to get final analysis sometime today, to be shared with leadership team and full Democratic Caucus today and tomorrow.

Sources who’ve seen what CBO has produced so far are encouraged, saying the CBO will give Democrats and the White House enough reassurance on cost control, the deficit and coverage to get this bill to the floor.

We’ll see.

Meantime, Republicans reading the latest Washington Post-ABC poll say: bring it on.

The poll shows that public skepticism is hardening. Most Americans believe that reform will make their own health care worse -- especially on the key issue of cost -- with 54 percent fearing their own costs will rise, and 56 percent believing the costs to the country will increase.

Irony alert: two of the most popular provisions -- the public option and an employer mandate -- are the items most likely to be dropped or substantially modified by the Senate.

WH officials are resigned to the fact that public opinion won’t move much in the near term.

Their hope: once the bill is signed into law, the public will reward them for delivering on a big promise. But can they deliver on the details?

Here’s my conversation with Diane on GMA: at link

http://blogs.abcnews.com/george/2009/11/health-care-cbo-numbers-are-in-a...

toniD's Ya Think?

Sarah Palin Rejects GOP Senate Candidate Mark Kirk’s Plea For An Endorsement

Earlier this month, the Washington Post reported that Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL), a candidate for Senate in 2010, wrote a memo to Sarah Palin requesting that she endorse him during her visit to Chicago for the Oprah Winfrey Show. The Post noted that “Palin’s endorsement [of Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman] helped force state Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava (R) from the race” in the NY-23 special election, and that Kirk’s memo is “tangible evidence of the power of Palin’s endorsement in a Republican primary.”

The memo is also tangible evidence of Kirk’s willingness to dramatically switch positions in order to gain political power. Last year, Kirk panned Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) selection of Palin as his running mate, telling the Chicago Tribune, “I would have picked someone different.” Asked about Palin’s qualifications for office, Kirk said, “Quite frankly, I don’t know.”

However, it appears that Palin has rejected Kirk’s request for an endorsement. Recently, Kirk told ThinkProgress that he had been expecting her endorsement once she visited Chicago:

TP: How about Sarah Palin? How close are you to getting her endorsement?

KIRK: We sent a memo detailing the race, and she’ll be coming in to Chicago shortly.

Watch it: at link

However, Palin visited Chicago last week to tape an interview with Winfrey and made no mention of Kirk. Indeed, the Wall Street Journal noted that Kirk was “unsuccessful” in his bid for an endorsement, despite his detailed memo.

Facing a competitive challenge from businessman Patrick Hughes in the Republican primary, Kirk is attempting to veer to the right. After voting in favor of cap-and-trade clean energy legislation during the summer, Kirk quickly changed his mind and told tea party activists that he would vote against the same bill in the Senate. Speaking to another assembly of conservative supporters in April, Kirk suggested that people should shoot Gov. Pat Quinn (D-IL) for raising taxes.

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/11/16/kirk-palin-snub/

toniD's Ya Think?

One other interesting tidbit from the new polling on Palin: Only 38% of seniors say she’s qualified to be president. Guess all the “death panel” fearmongering didn’t go over so well with its target audience…

http://abcnews.go.com/images/PollingUnit/1096a1Table.pdf

toniD's Ya Think?

Submitted by dan on Tue, 11/17/2009 - 1:07pm.
just think if al gore got to do 8 years when obama's term is over
------

Sorry Dan. But if you think Gore is more progressive than Obama, you are sadly mistaken. Oh certainly, he deserves accolades for his work on the environment. But I cannot forget the beginning of Bowling For Columbine. The members of the Congressional Black Caucus tried desperately to bring attention to the 2000 election. But Gore shot them down. To this day, he has never acknowledge publicly what happened. But more problematic, was his selection of Lieberman as Vice President.

His recent appearance on Larry King was also revealing. In my opinion, he is the same glib man whose words are governed by the same political strategies- that told him to remain silent in 2000. It was his timid personality that let the Republicans get away with election fraud. This kicked the door open for the nightmare of the 2004 election.

Sorry Dan, you know I luv ya, but I still don't see the fire of progressiveness in the man, and frankly, not much courage.

oh, all right. i was just ramblin.

CREW REQUESTS INVESTIGATION OF REP. BACHMANN AFTER ANTI-HEALTH CARE BILL RALLY AT CAPITOL

17 Nov 2009 // Washington, D.C. - Today, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) requested that the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) investigate whether Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) violated House rules by organizing and holding a November 5th rally on the U.S. Capitol grounds to oppose a health care reform bill.

CREW contends that Rep. Bachmann misused her official congressional website by urging people to come to the Capitol to protest the legislation despite House rules restricting members from using their websites to engage in “grassroots lobbying or solicit support for a Member’s position.” Rep. Bachmann’s website urged people to come to the Capitol rally “and tell their Representatives to vote no” on the health care reform bill.

“Taxpayers fund members’ websites and because of that those sites may not be used to organize a public rally for or against any particular legislation,” said Melanie Sloan, CREW’s executive director.

CREW also asked OCE to determine if Rep. Bachmann and other members violated House rules by failing to acquire a permit for the Nov. 5 rally and by falsely calling the event a “press conference,” though no questions were asked by the media. Politico quoted from a Republican Study Committee email directing staff members to “please make sure your boss does not term this event a rally.” A Capitol Police spokeswoman confirmed the lawmakers had no permit for a demonstration. In a TV interview, however, Rep. Bachmann urged opponents of the bill “to come to Washington, D.C. by the car load.”

“Whoever heard of a press conference without questions?” asked Sloan. “Calling a rally a press conference to circumvent congressional rules is like calling a Hummer a Prius to meet fuel efficiency standards.” Sloan continued, “The OCE needs to make clear that members must abide by all rules, even those they find politically inconvenient.”

http://www.citizensforethics.org/node/43352

Click here for a copy of CREW’s letter requesting the OCE investigation and click here for the letter's exhibits.

http://www.citizensforethics.org/node/43350

toniD's Ya Think?

:)

RE Save Him:[Friends of Peltier] Announcement of New LPDOC Campaign
InboxX

Reply |info@freepeltiernow.org to me
show details Nov 15 (2 days ago)

* Zoom In: Focus on Executive Review *

A new campaign sponsored by the Leonard Peltier Defense Offense
Committee (LP-DOC) with Friends of Peltier and the International
Peltier Forum

The United States courts have acknowledged that Leonard Peltier
was the victim of official misconduct and convicted on the
basis of fabricated and suppressed evidence, as well as coerced
testimony. However, the courts have not granted Leonard a new trial.

Attorney General Eric Holder can conduct an Executive Review of
the Peltier case and provide a remedy. In fact, he has said that
in the face of misconduct by Department of Justice officials, it's
his job to do the right thing. That's why we've renewed the call
for an Executive Review of the Peltier case.

Join us in our new campaign to demand equal justice for Leonard
Peltier.

The Campaign

People often ask... "Who are those Peltier supporters, anyway?" We're
all just ordinary folks from all around the world. We're a diverse
group, representative of all races/ethnicities, religions, social
classes, political beliefs, etc. Yet, we have at least one thing in
common. We know a grave injustice has been done to Leonard Peltier.

The campaign concept is simple: (1) Send a message to AG Holder--We
want justice... equal justice... and we want it NOW and (2) Put a
face to the message.

The campaign has two components:

Action #1: Personal Response--Where you'll provide a photographic
image of yourself holding a campaign sign, as well as your name,
address and e-mail address.

Action #2: Community Response--Where you'll go out into your
community and get others to participate in the campaign.

A box filled to the brim with campaign flyers, including all our
faces, will be delivered to AG Holder's office on or around February
6, 2010 - the 34th anniversary of Leonard Peltier's arrest.

For details and instructions, see www.whoisleonardpeltier.info.

We also ask that you contribute $1 to help us with expenses
associated with the campaign. That's right--ONE U.S. dollar! You
can, of course, donate more if you wish. Checks and money orders
should be made out to "LPDOC". If you prefer, you may donate online
at www.whoisleonardpeltier.info.

Contrary to what some say, the Committee has limited resources and,
like any other grassroots organization, struggles financially. Your
dollars are needed to make this and other campaigns successful
and so that more events--like those held in Boulder, Lewisburg,
and Washington, DC, this year--can be planned and successfully
implemented in the months ahead. Please give what you can.

Deadline

All photos should be received NO LATER THAN JANUARY 31, 2010 (but
please don't wait until then to send us your photo).

Again, for instructions, see www.whoisleonardpeltier.info. Download
the campaign kit and review all of the materials provided. The
campaign e-mail address is zoom@whoisleonardpeltier.info.
Don't hesitate to ask questions or request assistance.

Note to our local support group coordinators: Please let us know
you're on board with this new campaign by sending an e-mail to
zoom@whoisleonardpeltier.info. We'll work closely with you to
help you succeed. To assist us with the planning of branch-specific
special communications (which may be state, regional or international
in scope) please provide your name and location in the body of
your e-mail.

Thanks to all of you for the work you do. With your help, Leonard
WILL see freedom soon.

Kari Ann Cowan, Assistant Coordinator
Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee
www.whoisleonardpeltier.info
Time to set him free... Because it is the RIGHT thing to do.

Friends of Peltier
http://www.FreePeltierNow.org

NOTE: Please delete text from this point down before forwarding our announcements along to friends and family.

YouTube to connect 'citizen journalists' with media outlets

YouTube launched a free tool on Tuesday that allows news organizations to highlight newsworthy video footage from "citizen journalists" on their websites.

The Huffington Post, National Public Radio, Politico, the San Francisco Chronicle and The Washington Post are among the US media outlets which have signed up to use "YouTube Direct."

"Almost any event that takes place today has a chance of being captured on camera," Steve Grove, the head of news and politics at YouTube, said in a blog post, citing newsworthy events such as earthquakes, fires and other disasters.

YouTube Direct allows news organizations to "connect directly with citizen reporters on our site so they broadcast this footage and bring it to a larger audience," Grove said.

Media organizations can use the interface to "request, review and rebroadcast YouTube clips directly from YouTube users," he said.

Media outlets can enable a customized version of YouTube's upload platform on their websites and use it to review video submissions and select the best ones for use.

The video would appear on YouTube and on the media organization's website.

Grove said YouTube Direct was not only aimed at connecting "citizen journalists" with news outlets.

He said it could also be used by businesses to solicit promotional videos, by nonprofits and by politicians seeking user-generated political commercials.

http://rawstory.com/news/afp/YouTube_to_connect_citizen_journali_1117200...

toniD's Ya Think?

he got me pissed off just a couple of weeks ago on rachel's show when pressed by rachel he had only good things to say about lieberman :(

Birthday

Happy
: )
==src
http://www.mylifeiscursed.com/?p=468

~`ordinary's just not good enough today - olp`~
Jamesbenet

I am attending a class and swear in to become a registrar for Voters Registration today.

So not only am I an election judge, I will also be able to register people to vote.

toniD's Ya Think?

.

~`ordinary's just not good enough today - olp`~
Jamesbenet

toniD's Ya Think?

US unveils extended Bagram prison

"...a new era of openness and transparency,..."

Journalists have been allowed to inspect refurbished facilities at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan, the largest US military hub in the region and home to a controversial prison.

Al Jazeera's correspondent James Bays, who was among those who inspected the facilities on Sunday, said Bagram, unlike its Guantanamo counterpart, was clearly not going to be shut down soon.

"The new prison wing cost some $60 million to build ... and is meant to be part of a new era of openness and transparency," Bays said.

Detainees 'beaten'

Omar Dighayes, a former detainee at Bagram and Guantanamo Bay, said the Bagram prison resembled a concentration camp.

"People were beaten, dragged, tortured in it. There were high places where guards stood with guns. It was a hard, difficult place," he told Al Jazeera.

But he said he doubts the newly refurbished Bagram prison will improve conditions for its detainees, one of which includes his brother-in-law, whom Dighayes says was recently "badly beaten" inside Bagram.

"I don't think it's the facilities which make the difference, it's the treatment of people inside.

'Guantanamo's evil twin'

However, Clara Gutteridge, an investigator of secret prisons and renditions from the human rights organisation, Reprieve, said Bagram is seen as "Guantanamo's lesser-known evil twin".

"All this talk about transparency, and the US government still won't release a simple list of names of prisoners who are in Bagram," she told Al Jazeera.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/11/20091115114337109563.html

has always struck me as a pompous ass.

I agree with both edna and mire on specific cases.

i didn't vote for gore...

ANSWER v teabaggers

teabaggers who walk right into ANSWER crowd, provoke them and end up getting their asses kicked...

oh teh humanity!

"this machine kills fascists"

Elizabeth Warren: Financial Rules 'Literally Don't Work Anymore,' Regulations Should Be 'Clear And Painful'

Elizabeth Warren, a professor at Harvard Law School who has more recently assumed the role of chairwoman of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), sat down with The New Yorker's James Surowiecki recently. The topic was Warren's brainchild, the Consumer Financial Protection Agency Act, which is currently being debated in Congress.

The agency would demand transparency in consumer financing, which Warren detailed in her essay, "Unsafe at Any Rate," published in Democracy in the summer of 2007. She lays out how the agency would essentially apply the same logic that is applied to buying a toaster to financing a home or car:

Consumers can enter the market to buy physical products confident that they won't be tricked into buying exploding toasters and other unreasonably dangerous products ... we need ... a new regulatory regime, and even a new regulatory body, to protect consumers who use credit cards, home mortgages, car loans, and a host of other products. The time has come to put scaremongering to rest and to recognize that regulation can often support and advance efficient and more dynamic markets.

Surowiecki pointed out that critics charge that consumer financial protection would restrict consumer credit too much, making it difficult for people to borrow money. Warren's response: "the point is not to say, 'Thou shalt not charge somebody more than X,' which would have restrictive consequences. It's to say, you've got to be really clear about it."

Warren added that last year's historic bailout of the financial sector necessitated a different set of rules regulatory principles:

"...The old rules of regulation just literally don't work anymore. Because now we're under this giant shadow of implicit and explicit government guarantees ... we said in effect ... we will throw as many taxpayers as we need to throw under the bus to keep your business functionally operational in the way that it was functionally operational before without a cost to you personally, and to your shareholders personally. That's a whole new world."

According to Warren, financial institutions need a regulator regime that is both "clear and painful."

Video of interview at link

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/17/elizabeth-warren-financia_n_360...

toniD's Ya Think?

Husband with chronic sleep disorder strangled wife during nightmare

Prosecution asks jury for not guilty verdict because Brian Thomas dreamed he was tackling an intruder inside camper van in Wales

A devoted husband strangled his wife while having a nightmare that she was an intruder who had broken into the camper van they were sleeping in, a court heard today.

Thomas told the jury: "This is a highly unusual case. The defendant accepts he caused the death of his wife, but the prosecution do not seek a verdict of guilty to murder or manslaughter.

"Instead, very unusually, we seek what is called a special verdict – a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity."

For almost 50 years Thomas had been prone to episodes of sleepwalking and other sleep-disorder behaviours, the court heard

Detectives were sceptical when Thomas claimed he had been asleep. But scientists specialising in sleep disorders conducted a series of tests and agreed his behaviour was consistent with the "legal concept of automatism".

Thomas said: "In other words, at the time of the killing the defendant was asleep and his mind had no control over what his body was doing."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/nov/17/husband-strangled-wife-during-n...

The Debt Economy - How The Tax Code Encourages Debt : The New Yorker

The Debt Economy
by James Surowiecki

John Kenneth Galbraith wrote that all financial crises are the result of “debt that, in one fashion or another, has become dangerously out of scale.” The recent financial crisis was no exception, with everyone—homeowners, private-equity investors, our biggest banks—taking on enormous amounts of debt. If it’s frustrating that the government is footing the bill to clean up the mess, it’s even worse that the government helped pay for the debt binge that created the mess in the first place, thanks to a tax system that actually subsidizes borrowing. Debt didn’t get dangerously out of scale because the system was broken. It got out of scale, in part, because the system worked.

The government doesn’t make people go into debt, of course. It just nudges them in that direction. Individuals are able to write off all their mortgage interest, up to a million dollars, and companies can write off all the interest on their debt, but not things like dividend payments. This gives the system what economists call a “debt bias.” It encourages people to make smaller down payments and to borrow more money than they otherwise would, and to tie up more of their wealth in housing than in other investments. Likewise, the system skews the decisions that companies make about how to fund themselves. Companies can raise money by reinvesting profits, raising equity (selling shares), or borrowing. But only when they borrow do they get the benefit of a “tax shield.” Jason Furman, of the National Economic Council, has estimated that tax breaks make corporate debt as much as forty-two per cent cheaper than corporate equity. So it’s not surprising that many companies prefer to pile on the leverage. more...

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2009/11/23/091123ta_talk_surowie...

toniD's Ya Think?

I agree with both edna and mire on specific cases.

And South Park.

Thanks 4 the petition
Leonard P. I appreciate
that.

what is out there Gore is a Saviour. He fought long and hard Yet WE (but not me & some others), WTP {We The People} & media kept saying, "Enough is Enough! Gore didn't win. JUST STOP! "SOUR GRAPES"..ETC & even more ETC...!"

Again there has been a constant media "blitz" every time Gore appears.

AP source: NYC papers' circulation offices raided

nvestigators in New York City raided circulation offices at some of the nation's largest newspapers Tuesday as part of a union corruption probe, a law enforcement official said.

Police officers working with the Manhattan district attorney's office searched circulation offices of The New York Times in Queens, the New York Post and the Daily News in Manhattan, and El Diario in Brooklyn, the official said, speaking to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing......

nvestigators in New York City raided circulation offices at some of the nation's largest newspapers Tuesday as part of a union corruption probe, a law enforcement official said.

Police officers working with the Manhattan district attorney's office searched circulation offices of The New York Times in Queens, the New York Post and the Daily News in Manhattan, and El Diario in Brooklyn, the official said, speaking to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/8813318

sun dec 6 at 9/8c

http://www.syfy.com/alice/index.php

~`ordinary's just not good enough today - olp`~
Jamesbenet

and compared to McCain/Palin, Obama is a Nader or Kucinich.

I root for the Lions, and compared to the Browns, they are almost the Bucs.

alice is that you or what?

~`ordinary's just not good enough today - olp`~
Jamesbenet

http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/2009/11/11/high-lysine-gm-maize-withdra...

Yesteday's news but I didn't hear it on "the Bloomberg" or the CNN

excerpt:

The lawyer from Monsanto did not need to add anything . He closed with the familiar complaint that Europe has no right to deprive the developing countries of the GM crops he claims they so desperately need [18].

The mere fact that a GMO has been withdrawn because the company has no answer to the safety concerns raised is not going to change the minds of those governments and bureaucrats in regulatory agencies that are supporting them. They still see their duty as overcoming consumer resistance rather than protecting health and the environment. It is even harder to make progress at the international level, because there, the top priority is trade, not the well being of the planet or its inhabitants.

Listen to the Isley Brothers " Fight the Power" while you search for a Politician who will touch this story. Grayson is quiet lately give him something to get emotional about!

;|

h/t Alyce....

Joyeux anniversaire, mon cher

http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/2009/11/14/obamas-pesticide-pushing-nom...

excerpt:

Siddiqui is a textbook example of the type of revolving door careerist that Obama promised to shun for key administration posts. Before joining CropLife, he held several jobs in Bill Clinton’s Department of Agriculture, including senior agricultural trade adviser and undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs. During that period, he advocated against efforts to label genetically modified foods.

The Obama's are for organic or against? This article does not make the president look sincere about his campaign promises. I think he has done this before? single payer etc... CAMPAIGN FINANCING REFORM IS OUR ONLY SOLUTION!

Residents of the C Street Christian fellowship house will no longer benefit from a loophole that had allowed the house's owners to avoid paying property taxes.

Previously, the house -- despite being home to numerous lawmakers -- had been tax exempt, because it was classified as a church. That arrangement had allowed the building's owner, the secretive international Christian organization The Family, to charge significantly below market rents to its residents. In recent year, Senators John Ensign (R-NV), Tom Coburn (R-OK), Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Jim DeMint (R-SC), and Reps. Zach Wamp (R-TN), Bart Stupak (D-MI) and Mike Doyle (D-PA) have all reportedly called C Street home.

Natalie Wilson, a spokeswoman for the Office of Tax and Revenue for Washington D.C., told TPMmuckraker that her office inspected the house this summer. "It was determined that portions of it were being rented out for private residential purposes," she said. As a result, the tax exempt status was partially revoked. Sixty-six percent of the value of the property is now subject to taxation.

The Senate this afternoon defeated an amendment aimed at the Obama administration's efforts to transfer detainees from the prison at Guantanamo Bay to the United States.

Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) had tried to attach an amendment to the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act that would have blocked money for building or modifying prisons to hold Gitmo detainees.

The Senate killed the Inhofe amendment in a 57-43 vote hailed by the ACLU. All 40 Republicans were joined by Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Sens. Mark Pryor and Blanche Lincoln, both Democrats from Arkansas.

Earlier today VoteVets.org chairman Jon Soltz, an Iraq war veteran, called Inhofe a hypocrite:

"Nearly 200 terrorists were tried and convicted in U.S. courts, most notably Zacharias Moussavi who was brought to the U.S. by President George W. Bush. All the while, Senator Inhofe was quiet. Playing politics with security like this is a disgrace."

Soltz added that "true conservatives" Bob Barr, Davide Keene and Grover Norquist (who support moving the detainees to the U.S.) are "on our side."

Sen. Pat Leahy (D-VT) charged the measure "put political interests ahead of our national interests" and ultimately is trying to keep the detention center open.

"I find it shameful that Congress is being asked to help keep open a facility that has been a stain on our reputation throughout the world and has given ammunition to our enemies," Leahy said.

"This amendment would say to the world that we are not strong enough, that our over 200 year old superior legal tradition is not flexible enough, to allow us to deal with those who attack us," he said. "Refusing to close Guantanamo also means we lose our ability to respond with moral authority if other countries should mistreat American soldiers or civilians."

Submitted by GBC on Tue, 11/17/2009 - 3:57pm.
Submitted by GBC on Tue, 11/17/2009 - 4:00pm.

TPM for both?

toniD's Ya Think?

The rapid adoption by U.S. farmers of genetically engineered corn, soybeans and cotton has promoted increased use of pesticides, an epidemic of herbicide-resistant weeds and more chemical residues in foods, according to a report issued Tuesday by health and environmental protection groups. The groups said research showed that herbicide use grew by 383 million pounds from 1996 to 2008, with 46 percent of the total increase occurring in 2007 and 2008.

The report was released by nonprofits The Organic Center (TOC), the Union for Concerned Scientists (UCS) and the Center for Food Safety (CFS).

The groups said that while herbicide use has climbed, insecticide use has dropped because of biotech crops. They said adoption of genetically engineered corn and cotton that carry traits resistant to insects has led to a reduction in insecticide use by 64 million pounds since 1996. Still, that leaves a net overall increase on U.S. farm fields of 318 million pounds of pesticides, which includes insecticides and herbicides, over the first 13 years of commercial use.

The rise in herbicide use comes as U.S. farmers increasingly adopt corn, soy and cotton that have been engineered with traits that allow them to tolerate dousings of weed killer. The most popular of these are known as "Roundup Ready" for their ability to sustain treatments with Roundup herbicide and are developed and marketed by world seed industry leader Monsanto Co.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/11/17-4

toniD's Ya Think?

Have a great evening

toniD's Ya Think?

So I turned on the TV looky box and guess what's on? Well, on the Movieplex Station, they are actually showing a documentary about the election fraud of 2000 & 2004. I've seen it before, but cannot recall the name. Other than HBO, which I don't have, this is the first time this issue has been acknowledged "seriously" in mainstream media.

this afternoon the mail brought my final notice to pay my dues or something terrible would happen to the country.

why they let the republicans convince them to govern from the right center i will never know but that's not who i voted for and that's not who i contribute to.

Submitted by toniD on Tue, 11/17/2009 - 4:23pm.

I hope Obama doesn't think this is good for the economy. Or for balancing the trade deficit

Maybe people getting sick from these chemicals is good for Medical service providers. Yea that's the way to look at it.

Has Obama ever said the word "Autism" in one of his radio addresses to the nation. I guess One in every One hundred births is not important enough.

The name of the documentary on election fraud is, Uncounted.

Apparently, it did air on August 28.

Wouldn't a very small fee on stock sales ,like a quarter of a penny or something like that raise lots of money for New York State? Would that minute fee drive business away from Wall Street? Bloomberg should make this suggestion to show he is concerned about the State of the State. Or would his business buddies laugh at his naivete? Profits before people,the business model that got U.S into this mess.

we love ya!

is if they come out for medical cannabis. I think Obama knows that and he has taken the attack dog out of the federal Government's approach to States that have chosen "compassionate use" laws. I am being hard on Obama today .It is November and things are moving too slowly for me.

YouTube Direct: Why Citizen Journalists Shouldn't Care

Jared Newman

Nov 17, 2009 9:16 am
http://www.pcworld.com/article/182362/youtube_direct_why_citizen_journal...

Great news, citizen journalists! Not only do the mainstream media have a condescending name for your ilk, but they now have a tool to help them swipe your videos, thanks to YouTube!

~`ordinary's just not good enough today - olp`~
Jamesbenet

At first I thought Tonid had a "crush" on him because she always found a way to bring him up,But now I see that she wants to "crush" him and thats what he deserves: A big verbal Beat Down from the Honorable Lady from
Chicago>

http://www.samsedershow.com/node/5491

"this machine kills fascists"

In House, Many Spoke With One Voice: Lobbyists’
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/us/politics/15health.html
By ROBERT PEAR
Published: November 14, 2009

WASHINGTON — In the official record of the historic House debate on overhauling health care, the speeches of many lawmakers echo with similarities. Often, that was no accident.

E-mail messages obtained by The New York Times show that the lobbyists drafted one statement for Democrats and another for Republicans.

~`ordinary's just not good enough today - olp`~
Jamesbenet

http://www.samsedershow.com/node/5491#comment-381868