carapace – Not your father's america

Recovery Rebates and Economic Stimulus for the American People Act of 2008 H.R. 5140, the Recovery Rebates and Economic Stimulus for the American People Act of 2008 (bill text)

Technical Explanation of the Revenue Provisions of H.R. 5140, the “Recovery Rebates and Economic Stimulus for the American People Act of 2008″

Summary of Tax Provisions
Caculation of Recovery Rebate
Recovery Rebates

http://tinyurl.com/257y2q  (waysandmeans.house.gov)

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Olbermann named Beck “runner-up” in “Worst Person” for his “hypocritical” comments about Obama, race

On the January 28 edition of MSNBC’s Countdown, host Keith Olbermann named CNN Headline News’ Glenn Beck the “runner-up” in his “Worst Person in the World” segment for Beck’s recent comments — documented by Media Matters for America — on Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) and race. On the January 25 edition of his show, Beck responded to National Public Radio commentator John Ridley’s statement that “questions about ‘Is Obama black enough?’ ” are “ridiculous” by asking: “[C]an you imagine a white commentator saying that? Can you imagine if I said, ‘Is Barack Obama black enough?’ … I don’t see that man as black. Of course I do, because I’m not blind. I don’t see him as black or white. He just is. He’s an American. He’s a man.”

Read More

http://mediamatters.org/items/200801290005?lid=37256&rid=2599358

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Bush’s yellow cakewalk to Iran: Text of State of the Union Address –Prepared text of President [sic] Bush’s State of the DisUnion address on Jan. 28, 2009, as provided by the White House 29 Jan 2008 pResident Bush said earlier tonight, “Tehran is also developing ballistic missiles of increasing range and continues to develop its capability to enrich uranium, which could be used to create a nuclear weapon.” (It’s from Niger, right? ) Flashback! During the 2003 State of the DisUnion speech, Bush said, “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” BTW, what the f*ck is a ‘protective overwatch mission?’ “American troops are shifting from leading operations, to partnering with Iraqi forces, and, eventually, to a protective overwatch mission.” [!?!] Also, according to Bush, the State of the Union will be strong – only if the spying telecoms get immunity from lawsuits! “To protect America, we need to know who the terrorists are talking to, what they are saying, and what they are planning [Check your Palm Pilot]… Unfortunately, the Congress set the legislation to expire on February 1. This means that if you do not act by Friday [LOL], our ability to track terrorist threats would be weakened and our citizens will be in greater danger. The Congress must ensure the flow of vital intelligence is not disrupted. The Congress must pass liability protection for companies believed to have assisted in the efforts to defend America.” –LRP

At:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/29/us/29bushtext.html

From: CLG News

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AMERICANS DEMAND CHANGE, THE STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS IS MORE OF THE SAME

By Andrea Batista Schlesinger, Drum Major Institute

This year the President labored to keep breathing life into the same worn out ideology that has repeatedly failed America’s middle class.

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/75279/

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Layoffs coming, and in large numbers, survey finds

28 Jan 2008

Corporate executives are poised to start making substantial cutbacks in their staffing, according to a new forecast by employment consulting and legal firm Career Protection. In fact, the firm is predicting a 37% increase in layoffs this year over last, based on a survey of more than 1,300 corporate executives and senior level officials that was conducted earlier this month.

At:

http://www.financialweek.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080128/REG/600868279/1036

From: CLG News

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Mrs. Smith’s plant closing … and more

Spartanburg Herald Journal (subscription) – Spartanburg,SC,USA

Horton said the closing and job loss might reflect problems in the larger economy, with the stock market down and so much uncertainty. …

http://www.goupstate.com/article/20080118/NEWS/801180342/1051/NEWS01

Schwan food plant closing

Post-Bulletin – Rochester,MN,USA

AP SPARTANBURG, SC — The Schwan Food Company says it is closing a dessert plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina, in March. The plant employs 525 workers. …

http://tinyurl.com/2kyba7   (www.postbulletin.com)

Flint Plant No. 2 closing its doors for good; 250 employees losing …

Gaston Gazette – Gastonia,NC,USA

A cutback at the Society Hill Plant in Florence, SC would mean “similar reductions,” according to Landreth. Gaston’s last notable closing came when RL Stowe …

http://tinyurl.com/2jyh2a (www.gastongazette.com)

Schult Homes closing

NTV – Kearney,NE,USA

(AP) – A company that makes manufactured housing is closing its plant in the northwest Kansas town of Plainville, citing market conditions and a shortage of …

http://www.nebraska.tv/Global/story.asp?S=7762716&nav=menu605_2

Plant at Ceres to shut down; 2nd to close since 2006

Vicksburg Post – Vicksburg,MS,USA

Moss said word of a possible closing had circulated for some months and was made definitive to the Port Commission’s executive director, Wayne Mansfield, …

http://www.vicksburgpost.com/articles/2008/01/26/news/news03.txt

Panasonic plant to close in Clark County WA

Seattle Post Intelligencer – USA

The Panasonic projection television assembly plant in Clark County is laying off its final 89 workers and closing permanently effective on March 29. …

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/6420ap_wa_clark_closure.html

GE Niles Closing Early

WYTV – Youngstown,OH,USA

The plant will still close, as scheduled, in October. Employees that lose their jobs in February will be put on “laid off” status until the plant officially …

http://www.wytv.com/news/local/14580982.html

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Iraq War Lies

The Center for Public Integrity has released a report titled “Orchestrated Deception on the Path to War,” available at:

http://www.publicintegrity.org/WarCard

JOHN R. MACARTHUR, barbara@harpers.org

In October 2002, MacArthur wrote the article “Sounds Fishy, Mr. President: To Drum Up Rage Against Iraq, Bush Senior and Junior Have Been Known to Tell Tall Tales”

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/1028-09.htm> and in January of 2003 he appeared on “NOW” with Bill Moyers, well before the invasion of Iraq, refuting the administration’s falsehoods for war:
http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_macarthur.html .

MacArthur, available for a limited number of interviews, said today: “The administration lied its way into attacking Iraq and now wants us to believe that it can foster a democracy in Iraq built on a foundation of lies.”

From: Institute for Public Accuracy

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FOIA Request Yields VA Data on American Casualties from Iraq and Afghanistan Wars 

The Herald (United Kingdom): “The US has suffered more than 72,000 battlefield casualties since the start of the war on terror in 2001, a Freedom of Information request has revealed. The query by the campaigning Veterans for Common Sense organisation shows that 4,372 American soldiers have died and another 67,671 have been wounded in action, injured in accidents or succumbed to illness in Iraq and Afghanistan. The veterans’ group had to force the US Defence Department to release the figures by persuading judges to uphold their FoI rights. A second request to the Veterans’ Administration, the government-funded body responsible for taking care of ex-servicemen and women, showed 263,909 soldiers with experience of the two 21st-century wars have so far received treatment for everything from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to the aftermath of amputated limbs.”

DoD Fact Sheet: Casualties from Iraq and Afghanistan Wars: DoD Reports 72,043 Battlefield Casualties Among 1.6 Million Deployed Since 2001

http://tinyurl.com/3co7ys (www.veteransforcommonsense.org)

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Borowitz Report – Nader Announcement Shocker

Nader Warns Bloomberg Not to Run

Only Room for One Egomaniac in Race, Activist Says

Not so fast.

That was the message delivered today to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg by consumer activist Ralph Nader, who warned Mr. Bloomberg, “If some egomaniac is going to jump in and screw up this election, it’s going to be me.”

Mr. Nader established an exploratory committee for a presidential bid today to let Mr. Bloomberg know that there was “only room for one self-absorbed gas-bag in the 2008 race.”

At a press conference in Washington, Mr. Nader said that voters who are looking for someone to spoil the 2008 election should be suspicious of Mr. Bloomberg’s motives: “Michael Bloomberg has a track record of winning elections, not screwing them up.”

In contrast, Mr. Nader said, “I know how hard it is to wreck an election, and I am prepared to put in the long hours necessary to mess this one up big-time.”

If both Mr. Nader and Mr. Bloomberg were to enter the race, they would be competing head to head for the vote of egomaniacs, who make up three percent of the electorate nationwide but closer to fifty percent in California and New York.

Speaking to that egomaniac constituency, Mr. Nader called Mr. Bloomberg a “novice spoiler,” adding, “When it comes to screwing up elections, experience matters.”

“Michael Bloomberg can’t point to a single election he’s messed up – I can,” he said. “I am ready to screw this one up on Day One.”

Elsewhere, Attorney General Michael Mukasey clarified his position on waterboarding, saying, “Having to answer questions about whether waterboarding is torture or not is torture.”

Andy’s Only West Coast Appearance – April 24
Andy makes his only scheduled West Coast appearance Thursday, April 24 at University of California, Santa Barbara. 8 PM at Campbell Hall. Tickets available at https://artsandlectures.sa.ucsb.edu

Andy with Susie Essman and Jeffrey Toobin – May 13
Andy hosts “Countdown to ’08″ on Tuesday, May 13 at 8 PM at the 92nd St. Y with his special guests Susie Essman (HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm) and Jeffrey Toobin (CNN, bestselling author of The Nine). The Y is located at 92nd St. and Lexington Avenue. For tickets, go to www.92y.org .

http://www.borowitzreport.com/

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three thousand words

Mike Luckovich: blah-blah-blah-blah

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoons/LuckoM/2008/LuckoM20080130_low.jpg

Stuart Carlson: and the state of the union is, excuse me, …

http://img.slate.com/media/77/080129_ed.gif

what did you do in the economy collapse, pop?

http://www.suddenlysenior.com/Images/oileconomycollapse.gif

The More Americans Demand Change, The More the State of the Union Address Stays the Same -
DMI’s Rapid Response to the 2008 State of the Union

Click here to read DMI’s full analysis of the President’s domestic policy prescriptions – complete with statistics and talking points — online at www.drummajorinstitute.org/sotu2008

The American people want change. Every Presidential candidate, Democrat and Republican, has made this a mantra. But the State of the Union Address reveals no alteration from President George W. Bush. This year the President labored to keep breathing life into the same worn out ideology that has repeatedly failed America’s current and aspiring middle class.

The President continues to proclaim the foundation of our economy sound when so many current and aspiring middle-class Americans are losing their spot in the American Dream. He prioritizes ideology over proven methods of stimulating the economy and providing health care. He uses the language of consumer choice to dress up what really amounts to unbridled corporate power and profiteering. He continues to assert that the market will right itself, if only people understand it more and restrict it less, despite all of the evidence to the contrary.

Despite the praise-worthy components of President Bush’s address tonight – his signing of the Energy Independence and Security Act, his cooperation with Congress to pass a stimulus reform that would include millions of low-income Americans he initially intended to exclude, his newfound interest in supporting military families –  his approach reflected a commitment to ideology, as opposed to  willingness to see how that ideology has actually impacted current and aspiring middle-class Americans.

After years of insisting that the economy was doing great as middle-class families were squeezed by stagnant wages and a rising cost of living, it takes weak corporate profits to make the President recognize that times are tough.

Because the President’s ideology insists that tax cuts are always preferable to government spending, the stimulus proposal includes costly and ineffective incentives for business rather than a fast and efficient expansion of unemployment benefits that would both boost the economy and help the middle-class households hardest hit by the downturn.

Looking at the corporate recklessness and lack of government oversight that created the subprime mortgage crisis, President Bush avoids regulating the industries at fault. Rather he touts a plan that allows banks to decide on a purely voluntary basis whether they care to work out a payment plan with beleaguered homeowners. We don’t imagine that’s the kind of volunteerism he heralded elsewhere in his address.

A middle-class standard of living is defined by things like access to education, health coverage and the opportunity to hold down a stable, well-paid job, yet from education to health care to tax policy, the President preferred to experiment with market-based solutions that won’t help aspiring Americans work their way into the middle class.  It was particularly shocking that the President urges Congress to make his failed tax cuts for the wealthy permanent, despite their failure to help the nation recover from the last economic downturn.
The President tells us that he trusts the American people. The more important question is whether the American people have any reason to trust the White House. The President’s support of choice in this State of the Union address reveals that he is choosing not to heed the call of the American people for common-sense solutions to the challenges they face.

Yet, what is most important in this address is not the President delivering it, but the ideas represented.  This State of the Union can either serve as a blueprint for continuing to move backwards, or a line of demarcation away from a policy outlook that has caused irreparable harm to America’s middle class.  While the President’s years of imposing dangerously flawed policies on the nation are drawing to a close, future leaders, in Congress and the White House, will determine whether his distorted worldview lives on, and continues to afflict the middle class and the nation.

You will find DMI’s full analysis of the President’s domestic policy prescriptions online at www.drummajorinstitute.org/sotu2008.

…

Complete article at:

http://www.drummajorinstitute.org/home.php

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One Bush Left Behind

by Greg Palast

Here’s your question, class:

In his State of the Union, the President asked Congress for $300 million for poor kids in the inner city. As there are, officially, 15 million children in America living in poverty, how much is that per child? Correct! $20.

Here’s your second question. The President also demanded that Congress extend his tax cuts. The cost: $4.3 trillion over ten years. The big recipients are millionaires. And the number of millionaires happens, not coincidentally, to equal the number of poor kids, roughly 15 million of them. OK class: what is the cost of the tax cut per millionaire? That’s right, Richie, $287,000 apiece.

Mr. Bush said, “In neighborhoods across our country, there are boys and girls with dreams. And a decent education is their only hope of achieving them.”

So how much educational dreaming will $20 buy?

-George Bush’s alma mater, Phillips Andover Academy, tells us their annual tuition is $37,200. The $20 “Pell Grant for Kids,” as the White House calls it, will buy a poor kid about 35 minutes of this educational dream. So they’ll have to wake up quickly.

-$20 won’t cover the cost of the final book in the Harry Potter series.

If you can’t buy a book nor pay tuition with a sawbuck, what exactly can a poor kid buy with $20 in urban America? The Palast Investigative Team donned baseball caps and big pants and discovered we could obtain what local citizens call a “rock” of crack cocaine. For $20, we were guaranteed we could fulfill any kid’s dream for at least 15 minutes.

Now we could see the incontrovertible logic in what appeared to be quixotic ravings by the President about free trade with Colombia, Pell Grant for Kids and the surge in Iraq. In Iraq, General Petraeus tells us we must continue to feed in troops for another ten years. There is no way the military can recruit these freedom fighters unless our lower income youth are high, hooked and desperate. Don’t say, ‘crack vials,’ they’re, ‘Democracy Rocks’!

The plan would have been clearer if Mr. Bush had kept in his speech the line from his original draft which read, “I have ordered 30,000 additional troops to Iraq this year – and I am proud to say my military-age kids are not among them.”

Of course, there’s an effective alternative to Mr. Bush’s plan – which won’t cost a penny more. Simply turn it upside down. Let’s give each millionaire in America a $20 bill, and every poor child $287,000.

And, there’s an added benefit to this alternative. Had we turned Mr. Bush and his plan upside down, he could have spoken to Congress from his heart.

-For more on Bush and education read “No Child’s Behind Left” in Armed Madhouse excerpted here.

http://www.gregpalast.com/no-childs-behind-left

-Also read Palast’s take on the 2007 State of the Union here.

http://tinyurl.com/294ods

Greg Palast is the author of the NY Times best-sellers, Armed Madhouse and The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. View Palast’s investigative reports for BBC Television on our YouTube Channel.

http://youtube.com/profile?user=GregPalastOffice

Join our social networking sites on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/p/Greg_Palast/505970501
on MySpace http://myspace.com/theofficialgregpalast and on Google’s Orkut.
Sign up for RSS updates of our site http://feeds.feedburner.com/gregpalast-articles and for our podcasts http://gregpalast.com/section/podcasts/feed .

Support our work by donating to the Palast Investigative Fund(a 501c3 educational foundation).

http://www.palastinvestigativefund.org/

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‘We think that this e-mail could be the tip of the iceberg and that we may have many more similar e-mails circulating in federal agencies.’ 3 US workers face investigation over Obama e-mail

26 Jan 2008

Three federal employees are being investigated for unlawful political activities after they allegedly sent an e-mail falsely accusing Barack Obama of being a “radical Muslim,” the Globe has learned. The US Office of Special Counsel has launched investigations of two employees at one agency and one employee at another agency. All three are believed to have forwarded the erroneous chain e-mail about Obama from their government e-mail accounts… The e-mail questioning Obama’s faith and patriotism, recently appeared on a local Republican Party office’s website in Washington state.

At:

http://tinyurl.com/28zqtx  (www.boston.com)

From: CLG News

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Beck said “to be consistent,” Clinton should give Obama “5 percentage points” because of affirmative action 

On the January 25 edition of his CNN Headline News program, Glenn Beck asserted: “[I]f [Sen.] Hillary Clinton [D-NY] wants to be consistent, I believe, affirmative action, she should give [Sen.] Barack Obama [D-IL] an additional 5 percentage points just for the years of oppression.” In the same discussion, National Public Radio commentator John Ridley said that “questions about ‘Is Obama black enough?’ ” were “ridiculous.” Beck responded by asking: “[C]an you imagine a white commentator saying that? Can you imagine if I said, ‘Is Barack Obama black enough?’ … I don’t see that man as black. Of course I do, because I’m not blind. I don’t see him as black or white. He just is. He’s an American. He’s a man.”

Read More

http://mediamatters.org/items/200801280005?lid=36885&rid=2527307

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Shell set to stir petrol storm with record profits of £13.6bn –Oil group to post highest earnings by British firm

28 Jan 2008

Shell will be at the centre of a political storm this week when it posts profits of almost $27bn (£13.6bn), the highest earnings ever made by a British company. The record-breaking profits, on the back of soaring oil prices, seem likely to stir fresh allegations of profiteering. Texas-based Exxon Mobil, the world’s largest privately-owned oil company, is expected to improve on its own previous record on Friday by reporting earnings of $39.6bn, the biggest annual profits that the US has ever seen.

At:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/jan/28/royaldutchshell.oil

From: CLG News

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Iraq Oil Report – ‘Talks on Iraq’s oil disputes not officially happening …’

Plus:
*Iraq oil exports up last year
*But the northern pipeline is down
*And last week production dropped
*Oil Minister in Davos says OPEC output OK
*Babil province talking tough over blackouts

Despite rumors that oil law negotiations were going to restart, it appears not so, United Press International reports. The Kurdistan Regional Government and the national government have not come [...]

You may view the latest post at

http://tinyurl.com/3y8c9z   (iraqoilreport.com)

Iraq Oil Report – ‘Iraq intent on boosting oil production by 17 percent; security and investment still uncertain …’

Plus:
*Negotiated deals with Big Oil done by first quarter 2008
*Contracts on oil fields from bids signed by end ’08, more next year
*Exports to Turkey resumes, fears remain it can’t deliver on crude
 contracts
*Political party that runs Basra may rejoin national government
*Iraq’s editorial pages

Iraq has its sights set on 300,000 to 400,000 extra barrels per day
 [...]

You may view the latest post at

http://tinyurl.com/3558vv  (iraqoilreport.com)
http://iraqoilreport.com/2008/01/25/iraq-intent-on-boosting-oil-production-by-17-percent-security-and-investment-still-uncertain/

Iraq Oil Report – ‘Turkey to study pipeline for Iraq gas to run same route as Iraq oil pipelines’

Plus:
*Iraq stops auctions, starts term contracts for Kirkuk oil
*Iraq oil flow north to Turkey stopped, storage capacity blamed
*One of three major Iraq refineries working
*Oil Ministry reaffirms blockade of firms who sign with Kurds
*Fight for Mosul escalates
*Political tensions mount
*Much more

Turkey has launched a feasibility study for a natural gas pipeline connecting northern Iraq’s fields to the [...]

You may view the latest post at

http://tinyurl.com/2gq7n9   (iraqoilreport.com)

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War, What Is it Good For? Electing Democrats in ’08

Source: Politico.com, January 17, 2008

Ryan Grim reports that the biggest and best-funded organizations in the liberal peace movement, primarily MoveOn and the groups in its Americans Against Escalation in Iraq (AAEI) coalition, are no longer advocating that Congress end the war. This year “the groups instead will lower their sights and push for legislation to prevent President Bush from entering into a long-term agreement with the Iraqi government that could keep significant numbers of troops in Iraq for years to come. … The groups believe this switch in strategy can draw contrasts with Republicans that will help Democrats gain ground in November.” AAEI’s PR spokesperson, Moira Mack of Hildebrand Tewes Consulting, called it “the perfect legislative opportunity.” In other words, as CMD’s Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber noted last March, for MoveOn and other Democrat-aligned peace groups it’s not about ending the war, it’s about electing Democrats. Most of the tens of millions of dollars that MoveOn and AAEI have spent lobbying and organizing for “peace” has been directed at pressuring and embarrassing pro-war Republicans, while the Democratic Congress has continued to fund the war and pro-war Democrats have generally been given a pass.

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$100 BILLION AND COUNTING: HOW WALL STREET BLEW ITSELF UP

By Pam Martens, CounterPunch

Big firms are giving the media a stage-managed version of what went wrong, but we better get to the truth fast, or face greater economic pain.

http://www.alternet.org/stories/74510/

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Congressman Paul’s Texas Straight Talk

Economic Stimulus Concerns
 

“This past week in Washington there has been much talk about the economy. It seems by their actions the leadership and the Fed is finally willing to admit we have a problem, and we need to do something about the economic mess we are in. This is a good thing. However, they are still not being honest about the root cause of our impending crisis and want to deal only with symptoms, not the disease.”

Click here for the full article:  http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2008/tst012708.htm

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And now for the important news …. 

By Argus Hamilton
Congressman Steve Wexler collected two hundred thousand signatures Friday calling for impeachment hearings. It’s too late. We engaged in pre-emptive war, torture, kidnapping and illegal wiretapping, and history will show the only one who went to jail was Kiefer Sutherland.

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com

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three thousand words

Tab: sotu

http://www.comics.com/editoons/tab/archive/images/tab20366718080129.gif

Jen Sorensen: recession fun park

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoons/SorenJ/2008/SorenJ20080128_low.jpg

Ben Sargent: despite its veneer of civilization …

http://img.slate.com/media/31/080128_ed.gif

New watchdogging tools from Sunlight

We’re excited to share new online tools from the Sunlight community to help you with your congressional watchdogging.

With Congress returning Washington to start a new session, OpenCongress.org just launched several new features to help you track and rate what’s happening on Capitol Hill and organize support for the legislation and issues you care about. The first,

My OpenCongress  http://www.opencongress.org/ ,

is the first-ever social network designed for people who care about Congress. Now, OpenCongress makes it super easy to track any bill, senator, representative or issue area on the site, simply by clicking “track this” at the top of any page. Use your OpenCongress profile to make your voice heard: vote “aye” or “nay” for every bill in Congress, give a personal approval rating to senators and representatives on a scale of 1-100, and see the total votes for each bill and lawmaker.

OpenCongress also launched new comment boards on pages for every bill, senator, and representative on the site. These comment boards allow real-world people to discuss the details of legislation, share links, evaluate political landscapes, and give their opinions. Boards are designed to “filter up” the comments rated “most helpful” by the user community, using a simple slider bar located next to each comment. What’s more, each user builds up a site-wide rating for all his or her comments, so there is an incentive for people with helpful insights, expertise, or “insider information” to comment more frequently. To check out these new features, create your own “My OpenCongress” account now, it’s free and only take a minute:

http://www.opencongress.org/register .

Additionally, just in time for the elections, MAPLight.org

http://maplight.org

made it easier than ever to track fundraising for over 1,500 congressional candidates running for office with free widgets http://www.maplight.org/map_fec/widget/congress . These widgets are perfect for blogs, social networking pages, and personal Web sites, and they are completely customizable according to the candidates you are interested in. You can show money raised for one congressional race, view all candidates in your home district or state, view House and Senate races from across the country, in any combination desired.

On a related note, remember you can help our Congresspedia editors ‘Wiki the Vote’ http://www.congresspedia.org by reporting on the full record of every candidate running for Congress.

We look forward to hearing your feedback and hope that you will continue to help build public knowledge about Congress by using these tools.

Sincerely,
Gabriela Schneider
Communications Director

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Exxon-Mobil Makes $75,000 a Minute 

By Young Turks

26 Jan 2008

In the midst of record profits for oil companies we are giving them a $14 billion subsidy. That’s insane. That’s money straight out of our pockets and into Exxon-Mobil’s pockets. Outside of politicians who get their elections financed by these guys, no one in the country should be in favor of this. This is not a conservative or liberal position, this is plain old robbery… And now, because of this insane economic stimulus package, businesses are going to get another $50 billion in tax breaks.

At:

http://news.aol.com/newsbloggers/2008/01/26/exxon-mobil-makes-75-000-a-minute/

From: CLG News

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Earth Policy News – Why Ethanol Production Will Drive World Food Prices Even Higher in 2008

Earth Policy Institute
Plan B Update
Embargoed for January 24, 2008, 11:00 AM EST

WHY ETHANOL PRODUCTION WILL DRIVE WORLD FOOD PRICES EVEN HIGHER IN 2008

http://www.earthpolicy.org/Updates/2008/Update69.htm

Lester R. Brown

We are witnessing the beginning of one of the great tragedies of history. The United States, in a misguided effort to reduce its oil insecurity by converting grain into fuel for cars, is generating global food insecurity on a scale never seen before.

The world is facing the most severe food price inflation in history as grain and soybean prices climb to all-time highs. Wheat trading on the Chicago Board of Trade on December 17th breached the $10 per bushel level for the first time ever. In mid-January, corn was trading over $5 per bushel, close to its historic high. And on January 11th, soybeans traded at $13.42 per bushel, the highest price ever recorded. All these prices are double those of a year or two ago.

As a result, prices of food products made directly from these commodities such as bread, pasta, and tortillas, and those made indirectly, such as pork, poultry, beef, milk, and eggs, are everywhere on the rise. In Mexico, corn meal prices are up 60 percent. In Pakistan, flour prices have doubled. China is facing rampant food price inflation, some of the worst in decades.

…

Complete article at:

www.earthpolicy.org

As global food costs rise, are biofuels to blame?

Converting corn and soybeans into fuels is contributing to higher food prices. The dispute is how much.

By Mark Clayton, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

The biofuels industry plans on producing record amounts of ethanol this year to meet a mandate of the new US energy law – and will need a lot of corn to do it. At the same time, global food prices are at near-peak levels. The question is, how big is the connection between those two developments?

It’s a topic getting more scrutiny as the world enters 2008 with the lowest grain stockpiles on record, near-record grain prices, and prospects for even tighter supplies as global demand rises for food and fuel.

Political instability over higher food prices is a key concern. Last year saw tortilla demonstrations in Mexico, pasta protests in Italy, and unrest in Pakistan over bread prices. Soybean prices, meanwhile, prompted demonstrations in front of Indonesia’s presidential palace. Food inflation in China is a major problem.

But the connection between the expansion of biofuels and higher global food prices is not clear cut, with the biofuels industry saying its impact is relatively small and biofuel critics saying that ethanol plants are driving up the price of corn and biodiesel producers are taking a bite out of the soybean crop.

“The United States, in a misguided effort to reduce its oil insecurity by converting grain into fuel for cars, is generating global food insecurity on a scale never seen before,” says Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute (EPI), an environmental think tank in Washington. World population growth will require food for an additional 70 million people this year, the EPI said in a report last week.

…

Complete article at:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0128/p03s03-usec.htm

Controversial ethanol being forced on us 

Atlanta Journal Constitution – GA, USA

Inevitably, by spring, all gas you buy will be ethanol-bearing. You will have no choice, simply because the big oil companies that distribute the fuel for …

http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/stories/2008/01/28/pitfielded_0128.html

Ethanol’s growth spurs water fears

Minneapolis Star Tribune (subscription) – Minneapolis,MN,USA

By TOM MEERSMAN, Star Tribune

With a flood of ethanol plants headed toward Minnesota, there’s growing concern about whether there will be enough groundwater …

http://www.startribune.com/local/14471982.html

                          ==========

Scarborough: Clinton campaign is “at war against African-Americans, and now they are at war against the Democratic Party” 

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough said of Sen. Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign: “They are at war against African-Americans and now they are at war against the Democratic Party.” As evidence, Scarborough and Bloomberg News columnist Margaret Carlson falsely claimed that the Clinton campaign “sued the Democratic Party” about caucus sites in Nevada. In fact, the Clinton campaign was not a party to the lawsuit.

Read More

http://mediamatters.org/items/200801270004?lid=36483&rid=2447254

                          ==========

Swift Boating John McCain

Source: BBC, January 18, 2008
“A shadowy group calling itself Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain has been busy,” reports Kevin Connolly, “handing out flyers implying that in Mr. McCain’s long spell as a prisoner of war in Hanoi, during which he was tortured, he gave information to America’s enemy. The evidence? Well, there isn’t any. It’s a straightforward attempt to take one of Mr. McCain’s best cards — his status as a war hero — and use it against him.” VVAJM’s members include Ted Sampley, who previously attacked other U.S. veterans in Congress including 2004 presidential candidate John Kerry and Pennsylvania Representative John Murtha. In addition to VVAJM, attacks on McCain and several other Republican presidential candidates have been launched by “Common Sense Issues,” a group working on behalf of candidate Mike Huckabee. In response to the current attacks, McCain has “mobilised a group of volunteers called ‘the Truth Squad’ to lead his rebuttal of the rumours,” Connolly reports. “We shall see how they fare.”

                          ==========

MICHAEL SAVAGE’S HATE SPEECH CATCHES UP WITH HIM

By Sam Stein, Huffington Post

Major firms are pulling their advertising from Savage’s radio show following a campaign highlighting his inflammatory rhetoric.

http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/75119/

                          ==========

Miner Safety Bill Clears House, Bush Veto Looms

The House passed the Supplemental Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act (S-MINER) on Jan. 16. The bill aims to improve mine safety and the responsiveness of the federal government’s chief mine regulator, the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), in response to the Crandall Canyon mine collapse and other recent disasters. White House officials have indicated President Bush will veto the bill.

http://www.ombwatch.org/article/articleview/4139/

                          ==========

Crandall Canyon Bombshell

http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/011808LB.shtml

Robert Gehrke, The Salt Lake Tribune: “Newly released meeting minutes show that, in the months before the Crandall Canyon mine disaster, its co-owners were dealing with serious structural problems, higher-than-expected costs and subpar coal, but were hopeful that plans approved by federal regulators would get things back on track.”

                          ==========

Borowitz Report – Bill Clinton Itinerary Shocker

Hillary Sends Bill on Campaign Trip to Antarctica

Will Remain There Until Convention, Aides Confirm

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton has sent her husband, former President Bill Clinton, on a “special campaign trip” to Antarctica that could last “six or seven months,” Clinton aides confirmed today.

“From here on in, Bill is going to be our man in Antarctica,” said top Clinton strategist Mark Penn. “We have sent him down there with enough food and firewood to last until the Democratic convention this summer.”

The unexpected change in the former president’s itinerary happened just hours after Mrs. Clinton’s drubbing in the South Carolina primary, causing some party insiders to wonder if Mr. Clinton’s mission to Antarctica represented something of a demotion.

The decision to dispatch Mr. Clinton to the South Pole also raised eyebrows because the continent of Antarctica does not participate in the so-called “Super Tuesday” primaries on February 5 and sends no delegates to the Democratic National Convention.

Mr. Penn attempted to tamp down all such speculation, telling reporters, “This race isn’t about votes or delegates, it’s about land mass, frozen tundra and penguins.”

Mr. Clinton’s itinerary change comes on the heels of a controversial incident Saturday night in which he was discovered bound and gagged in the bathroom of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign plane, his hands tied by what appeared to be the jacket of a bright yellow pantsuit.

Speaking to reporters with a strip of duct tape still over his mouth, Mr. Clinton denied that he was being muzzled by the campaign, adding, “Mmmfff mghrmfff mmbrrfff.”

Elsewhere, the White House announced that President Bush’s State of the Union address would be simulcast in English.

Andy’s Only West Coast Appearance – April 24
Andy makes his only scheduled West Coast appearance Thursday, April 24 at University of California, Santa Barbara. 8 PM at Campbell Hall. Tickets available at https://artsandlectures.sa.ucsb.edu

Andy with Susie Essman and Jeffrey Toobin – May 13
Andy hosts “Countdown to ’08″ on Tuesday, May 13 at 8 PM at the 92nd St. Y with his special guests Susie Essman (HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm) and Jeffrey Toobin (CNN, bestselling author of The Nine). The Y is located at 92nd St. and Lexington Avenue. For tickets, go to www.92y.org .

http://www.borowitzreport.com/

                          ==========

three thousand words

Matt Bors: caution! you’re about to enter the sit and spin zone

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoons/BorsM/2008/BorsM20080128_low.jpg

Thank Goodness for a Free Press

http://tinyurl.com/2lu6yn  (www.afterdowningstreet.org)

Ted Rall: pa-thetic

http://picayune.uclick.com/comics/trall/2008/trall080128.gif

January 2008 Southwest Climate Outlook

The January Southwest Climate Outlook is online. This month’s outlook provides recent drought conditions and the latest seasonal forecasts. The feature article is entitled “Forecast Verification: Past, Present, and Future”

This month’s cover photo was provided by Michael O’Neill, Superintendent Agricultural Science Center at Farmington.

You can both view the latest Southwest Climate Outlook in html format or view the printer-friendly PDF file at: http://www.climas.arizona.edu/forecasts/swoutlook.html

 

Highlights from the January 2008 Outlook

Drought – Drought conditions have remained unchanged or improved slightly across Arizona and New Mexico due to precipitation in late November and December. These early winter storms missed much of eastern New Mexico, leaving abnormally dry conditions to persist there. The precipitation across Arizona has improved short-term drought status, but most of the state is experiencing some type of drought.

Temperature – Temperatures have been below average for the past thirty days across Arizona and New Mexico. Most locations observed temperatures 3 to 6 degrees F below average for the period.

Precipitation – Much of Arizona and New Mexico observed below-average precipitation over the past thirty days. Only northern portions of both states saw average to above-average precipitation due to storms crossing the region in early January.

ENSO – A moderate La Niña is still underway in the Pacific Ocean and is expected to persist through the spring. Forecasts point to a mature La Niña event that is impacting circulation patterns across the Pacific Ocean.

Climate Forecasts – Seasonal climate forecasts continue to indicate that above-average temperatures and below-average precipitation are in store for the Southwest through the spring.

The Bottom Line – Cool and wet conditions in December brought accumulating snow and some short-term drought relief to much of Arizona and New Mexico—a pleasant surprise given the moderate La Niña event underway. The current event is expected to persist and bring below-average precipitation to much of the Southwest through the spring. The current short-term precipitation deficits could continue if typical La Niña impacts emerge as expected over the next several months.

Kristen E. Nelson
Associate Editor
Institute for the Study of Planet Earth
715 N. Park Ave., 2nd Floor
Tucson, AZ 85721
(520) 622-9001

                          ==========

And now for the important news …. 

By Argus Hamilton

The Weather Channel said the cold winter in the Midwest and South is likely to continue due to a northern jet stream. The meteorologists say El Nino is long gone. Apparently he went back home when the slump hit the housing and construction industry.

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com

                          ==========

Economic Stimulus Plan for Michigan

Recently, I was pleased to hear President Bush discussing the need for a stimulus plan for our nation’s economy.

Michigan, more than any other state, needs an economic growth plan that includes significant tax relief for every family struggling to make ends meet and every employer willing to invest here.  The President’s proposal has potential, but Congress must act quickly to give our families and employers the tools we need to get back on track economically.

As your Representative, I am aggressively pursuing solutions for Michigan ‘s struggling economy.   I have authored measures to strengthen Michigan’s jobs base including increased investment in alternative fuels research, lower taxes for job providers and families, and demand for tough enforcement of international trade rules.

Specifically, I intend to continue my efforts on a number of important economic issues including:

Stopping the illegal Chinese counterfeits that are washing up on our shores
Making health care affordable for workers and employers
Helping to stem the housing and mortgage crisis
Bringing runaway energy costs under control
Ending Asian currency manipulation that puts American manufacturers at a competitive disadvantage
Cutting billions in wasteful, inefficient, and duplicative government spending
Slashing the anti-manufacturing taxes that continue to smother domestic manufacturing
Ending frivolous lawsuits that enrich trial lawyers and put Americans out of work

For more information on my work to improve Michigan ‘s economy, please click here.

http://mikerogers.house.gov/JobResources.aspx

Congressman Mike Rogers, Michigan’s 8th District

                          ==========

The WasteBasket: A Bulletin on Wasteful Government Spending -  FIRST DO NO HARM

by Taxpayers for Common Sense
www.taxpayer.net

FIRST DO NO HARM
Volume XIII No. 4 — January 24, 2008

Like most Americans, we deplore Congressional gridlock. But a hundred billion dollar legislative train speeding down the tracks scares us too.

By all reports, there is rare agreement between the White House and Capitol Hill on the need for a fiscal stimulus package for the flagging economy. There appears to be agreement on the size and scope of the package, so as the details are finalized, we offer some advice.

The first rule should be a sort of economic Hippocratic Oath – first do no harm. Long-term changes to the tax code, tacking on unrelated pet projects, or significantly increasing the national debt for the sake of quickly passing a short term stimulus package are all examples of how Congress could take a temporary problem – a recession – and do lasting damage to the economy. Any stimulus should be targeted, limited, simple, and temporary. These guidelines will help avoid digging deeper into the economic hole (pdf) that we are in.

There is scant evidence supporting one type of stimulus over others. A 2002 Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report compares the tradeoffs inherent in many of the more popular proposals for priming the economy. In the end it comes down to predicting individual behavior – a favorite pastime of economists. That said, a more recent CBO report proposes three fixes that at least do minimal harm: temporary tax cuts and rebates, temporarily extending or expanding unemployment benefits, and temporarily increasing foods stamps. Other economists suggest tax breaks and incentives for business investment, such as temporary provisions for accelerated depreciation on new equipment purchases.

A stimulus package aims to inject money into a stagnant economy with the consequent outcome being greater consumer spending. The trick is getting the most short term consumption for the least long term cost – either with tax cuts, spending increases, or some combination thereof.

One challenge is that it is difficult to pinpoint exactly when the economy has begun to tank. In fact, the recession may have already started and may be over by the time the stimulus is enacted – actually creating an inflationary rather than stimulating effect. Regardless, we won’t even know for certain the depth of the current problem until the final arbiter on recessions, the National Bureau of Economic Research, weighs in, which will not happen until later this summer.

Congress should quickly get a “Hippocratic” stimulus package done and then get down to the business of working on a long term plan to get our spending house in order, starting with figuring out what to do about the looming and ballooning entitlement costs that are coming with the retirement of all those baby-boomers. It also wouldn’t hurt to develop future generic stimulus packages that could be automatically triggered when the next economic slump begins. This might help with the historic problem of Congress passing a bucket of stimulus after the economic fire is already out. In the end, clear headed thinking and long term solutions are the real boosts to the economy.

Going on at Taxpayer.net This Week

Check out TCS’s Complete Coverage of FY08 Spending Bills

http://capwiz.com/taxpayer/utr/1/MVZLIAJWGN/IJDTIAJWHH/1689092056

TCS Congressional Testimony About Reform of 1872 Mining Law

http://capwiz.com/taxpayer/utr/1/MVZLIAJWGN/EYMTIAJWHI/1689092056

TCS in the News

ProLogic ‘believes it has acted responsibly’ (Times-West Virginian)
Corporate farmers hog our bucks (Mountain Mail Newspaper, Colorado)
GOP plans to shame Dems on earmarks (Politico)
Earmarks Seen Likely to Continue, but With Details (New York Times)
Day, Kline oppose earmarks (Post-Bulletin, Minnesota)
Federal earmarks to religious group raise constitutional concerns (Kansas City Star)
New rules make it easier to track earmarks (Salem Statesman Journal, Oregon)
Defense and the Future of Contracting (Washington Post)
One way to calculate true cost of earmarks (Nashua Telegraph, New Hampshire

Notable Quote

“…if we’re going to stimulate the economy through fiscal policy, let’s do it correctly, not in a way that dams the economy for the future or basically gets you a short-term political headline but doesn’t get you the impact you need which is to help people through a difficult economic period.”

–Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH)

                          ==========

Ethanol Fuel from Corn Faulted as ‘Unsustainable Subsidized Food Burning’

David Pimental, a leading Cornell University agricultural expert, has calculated that powering the average U.S. automobile for one year on ethanol (blended with gasoline) derived from corn would require 11 acres of farmland, the same space needed to grow a year’s supply of food for seven people. Adding up the energy costs of corn production and its conversion into ethanol, 131,000 BTUs are needed to make one gallon of ethanol. One gallon of ethanol has an energy value of only 77,000 BTUS. Thus, 70 percent more energy is required to produce ethanol than the energy that actually is in it. Every time you make one gallon of ethanol, there is a net energy loss of 54,000 BTUs.

Mr. Pimentel concluded that “abusing our precious croplands to grow corn for an energy-inefficient process that yields low-grade automobile fuels amounts to unsustainable subsidized food burning”.

Neither increases in government subsidies to corn-based ethanol fuel nor hikes in the price of petroleum can overcome what Cornell University agricultural scientist, David Pimentel, calls a fundamental input-yield problem: It takes more energy to make ethanol from grain than the combustion of ethanol produces.

At a time when ethanol-gasoline mixtures (gasohol) are touted as the American answer to fossil fuel shortages by corn producers, food processors and some lawmakers, Cornell’s David Pimentel, one of the world’s leading experts in issues relating to energy and agriculture, takes a longer range view.

…

For further information, contact:

Roger Segelken
Phone: 607-255-9736
E-Mail: hrs2@cornell.edu

http://healthandenergy.com/ethanol.htm

What Is the Real Deal With Biofuels?

January 25, 2008

by Wilton D. Alston

“The decisions we each make about what we eat are some of the most basic ones we’ll ever encounter. But in the case of HFCS – just as one example – we in the U.S. aren’t given that choice. The FDA claims to ‘protect’ us from snake-oil salesmen of every stripe, yet when it comes to being able to choose an item of food that is among the most basic and prevalent in any diet, economic considerations trump safety. From my standpoint, while this [is] about par for the course, it is still darned unsettling.”

~ “Does High-Fructose Corn Syrup Have to Be in Everything?”

About a year ago I penned the essay from which the above quote is taken. I had no idea it would be so well-received, but apparently I struck a nerve, at least with readers of LRC. Thanks to everyone who found a modicum of value in my modest musings.

Fast-forward to today and right on cue, another thrilling subject arises about everyone’s favorite multi-purpose grass. Yes, I’m talking about corn, and this time, I’m talking about the apparently widely-held belief that it can be grown as a means of mitigating the US dependence on fossil fuels. What the heck? We’re saved from the Terrorists!

Not quite.

If you haven’t heard, biofuels are apparently the next big thing. And corn is the king of court. Given that the conversion to biofuels from oil has been going on for so many years without success, it would probably be better called the court jester.

…

Complete article at:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/alston/alston38.html

Wilt Alston [send him mail] lives in Rochester, NY, with his wife and three children. When he’s not training for a marathon or furthering his part-time study of libertarian philosophy, he works as a principal research scientist in transportation safety, focusing primarily on the safety of subway and freight train control systems.

Ethanol Keeps ADM Drunk On Tax Dollars

by Doug Bandow

This article appeared in the Investor’s Business Daily.

 

Congress is back, and the GOP has promised to. put taxes at the top of its agenda. But rather than simplify and lower tax rates, Republicans plan to expand tax preferences for their business friends, including ethanol producers such as Archer-Daniels-Midland Co., the poster company for corporate welfare today.

At least 43% of ADM’s profits come from products subsidized by the taxpayers. Most of ADM’s fortunes come from ethanol, produced through the distillation of corn into grain alcohol. Ethanol can either be mixed with gasoline to yield gasohol or be turned into gin.

Over the years, ethanol has benefited from a host of taxpayer supports. The Carter administration provided hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidized loans to a dozen gasohol producers and imposed a tariff on imported ethanol. The Reagan administration provided surplus corn to gasohol producers, including $29 million worth to ADM. And the Clinton administration ordered, on dubious environmental grounds, inclusion of small amounts of ethanol in gasoline.

Most expensive is Washington’s 54 cent-per-gallon tax break for gasohol. This special-interest loophole accounts for the bulk of the more than $10 billion in subsidies to ADM since 1980. All told, analyst James Bovard estimates that every dollar in profits earned by ADM costs taxpayers $30.

…

Complete article at:

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6079

Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and the author of “The Politics of Plunder: Misgovernment in Washington.”

                          ==========

Sailing OK but the Fish are Dead -Ethanol to Blame … and more 

Sail World – Mandalong,NSW,Australia

And an increasing demand for corn — largely fueled by demand for the bio-fuel ethanol — could mean more runoff, leading to an increase of marine habitat …

http://www.sail-world.com/indexs.cfm?Nid=41067&rid=11&sc=crw

The Case Against Ethanol & Other Plant-Based Biofuels

By GreenStyle staff

Grain prices for everything from corn to rice have skyrocketed because of ethanol (and possibly other biofuel) production. This diverts farm land from food production and causes food prices to go up. This is especially problematic in …

http://www.greenstylemag.com/blog/?p=843

Blog: More Bad News for Ethanol

Wall Street Journal (*requires registration)
http://blogs.wsj.com/energy/2008/01/23/more-bad-news-for-ethanol/
Posted by Keith Johnson

January 23, 2008

Another brick in the wall against ethanol. Academics tasked with plotting California’s transition to a low-carbon fuel have delivered more bad news: Ethanol appears to come with a higher greenhouse-gas price tag than previously thought — higher, indeed, than fossil fuel….

THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY’S TRANSPORTATION SUSTAINABILITY RESEARCH CENTER told the California Air Resources Board that ethanol could be twice as bad as gasoline, from a carbon-emissions point of view. How? Basically by turning land now covered with trees, grass, and other natural “carbon sinks” into farmland for corn and other crops used for ethanol. (Ethanol’s dirty secret has also recently been explored by Science and other magazines.)

“Simply said, ethanol production today using U.S. corn contributes to the conversion of grasslands and rainforest to agriculture, causing very large GHG emissions,” wrote BERKELEY PROFS ALEX FARRELL and MICHAEL O’HARE in a January 12 memo to California regulators. “Even if only a small fraction of the emissions calculated in this crude way [through land use change] are added to estimates of direct emissions for corn ethanol, total emissions for corn ethanol are higher than for fossil fuels.”…

The solution, according to Berkeley? Newer technologies to squeeze more ethanol out of every acre of food crop, or, better yet, ethanol from non-food cellulose such as switchgrass, which wouldn’t require a land-use change. In the meantime, the burning question is how to juggle this hot potato.

What California does about these new numbers, the professors write, “will have major implications” for the state’s low-carbon-fuel push.

Iowa: Ethanol boom raising food prices

BusinessWeek – USA

By HENRY C. JACKSON

The nation’s fascination with ethanol is pushing food prices upward and raising the specter of potential shortages, according to a …

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8UCHMHO0.htm

Why Ethanol Production Will Drive World Food Prices Even Higher in …

Cherry Creek News – Denver,CO,USA

Then came the explosion in demand for grain used in US ethanol distilleries, which jumped from 54 million tons in 2006 to 81 million tons in 2007. …

http://www.thecherrycreeknews.com/content/view/2326/2/

Ethanol production driving up food prices, critic says

By John Funk

Oil prices are driving up global food prices, including the American grocery bill, says the head of a Washington think tank opposed to turning corn into ethanol. The burgeoning ethanol industry has sharply increased the demand for corn …

Cleveland Business News – The…

http://blog.cleveland.com/business/

Corn Crops Causing Gulf Dead Zone to Grow

Powerboat-World.com reports that a 7900 square mile area in the Gulf of Mexico is becoming more and more polluted from fertilizer runoff the drifts down the Mississippi. Nitrogen and phosphorus in fertilizer used in cornfields harm the marine habitat by stripping oxygen from the water. Some say the added corn crops to produce ethanol are making the dead zone even worse.

From: Biodiesel and Ethanol Investing

                          ==========

Four Types of Government Operatives: Bullies, Muggers, Sneak Thieves, and Con Men

December 20, 2007
Robert Higgs

Somehow it seemed as though the farm had grown richer without making the animals themselves any richer—except, of course, for the pigs and the dogs.
—George Orwell, Animal Farm

 

The beginning of political wisdom is the realization that despite everything you’ve always been taught, the government is not really on your side; indeed, it is out to get you.

Sometimes government functionaries and their private-sector supporters want simply to bully you, to dictate what you must do and what you must not do, regardless of whether anybody benefits from your compliance with these senseless, malicious directives. The drug laws are the best current example, among many others, of the government as bully. Our rulers presently enforce a host of laws that combine the worst aspects of puritanical priggishness and the invasive, pseudo-scientific, therapeutic state. They tolerate our pursuit of happiness only so long as we pursue it exclusively in officially approved ways: gin, yes; weed, no.

Notwithstanding the great delight that our rulers take in tormenting us with their absurdly inconsistent nanny-state commands, they generally have bigger fish to fry. Above all, the government and its special-interest backers want to take our money. If these people ran a store, they might aptly call it Robberies R Us. Their credo is simple and brazen: “you have money, and we want it.”

Unlike the sincere street criminal, however, the robber in official guise rarely puts his proposition to you in the blunt form of “your money or your life,” however much he intends to relate to you on precisely such terms. (If you doubt my characterization of these intentions, test what happens if you steadfastly resist at every step as the brigands escalate their threats: first ordering you to pay, then billing you for unpaid balances plus penalties and interest, sending you a summons, and ultimately beating you into submission or killing you for resisting arrest. Your sustained, open resistance always ends in the state’s use of violence against you, in either your forcible imprisonment or your removal from the land of the living, after which your memory will be defamed by your designation as a criminal—governments never settle for mere brutality, but always supplement it with unabashed presumptuousness.)

…

Complete article at:

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2091

Robert Higgs is Senior Fellow in Political Economy for The Independent Institute and Editor of the Institute’s quarterly journal The Independent Review. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Johns Hopkins University, and he has taught at the University of Washington, Lafayette College, Seattle University, and the University of Economics, Prague. He has been a visiting scholar at Oxford University and Stanford University, and a fellow for the Hoover Institution and the National Science Foundation. He is the author of many books, including Depression, War, and Cold War.

                          ==========

Why the right loves a disaster

Ideologues use times of crisis as an opportunity to foist their economic policies on desperate societies.

By Naomi Klein
January 27, 2008
 

Moody’s, the credit-rating agency, claims the key to solving the United States’ economic woes is slashing spending on Social Security. The National Assn. of Manufacturers says the fix is for the federal government to adopt the organization’s wish-list of new tax cuts. For Investor’s Business Daily, it is oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, “perhaps the most important stimulus of all.”

But of all the cynical scrambles to package pro-business cash grabs as “economic stimulus,” the prize has to go to Lawrence B. Lindsey, formerly President Bush’s assistant for economic policy and his advisor during the 2001 recession. Lindsey’s plan is to solve a crisis set off by bad lending by extending lots more questionable credit. “One of the easiest things to do would be to allow manufacturers and retailers” — notably Wal-Mart — “to open their own financial institutions, through which they could borrow and lend money,” he wrote recently in the Wall Street Journal.

Never mind that that an increasing number of Americans are defaulting on their credit card payments, raiding their 401(k) accounts and losing their homes. If Lindsey had his way, Wal-Mart, rather than lose sales, could just loan out money to keep its customers shopping, effectively turning the big-box chain into an old-style company store to which Americans can owe their souls.

If this kind of crisis opportunism feels familiar, it’s because it is. Over the last four years, I have been researching a little-explored area of economic history: the way that crises have paved the way for the march of the right-wing economic revolution across the globe. A crisis hits, panic spreads and the ideologues fill the breach, rapidly reengineering societies in the interests of large corporate players. It’s a maneuver I call “disaster capitalism.”

…

Complete article at:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-naomi27jan27,0,3813752.story?track=ntothtml

Naomi Klein is the author of “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.”

                          ==========

The Financial Tsunami: The Financial Foundations of the American Century

By F. William Engdahl

Global Research, January 16, 2008

Part II

The financial foundations of the American Century

The ongoing and deepening global financial crisis, nominally triggered in July 2007 by an event involving a small German bank holding securitized assets backed by USA sub-prime real estate mortgages, can best be understood as an essential part of an historical process dating back to the end of the Second World War—the rise and decline of the American Century.

The American Century, proudly proclaimed by Time-Life founder and establishment insider, Henry Luce in a famous 1941 Life magazine editorial, was built on the preeminent role of New York banks and Wall Street investment banks which had by then clearly replaced the City of London as the center of gravity of global finance. Luce’s American Century was to be built in a far more calculated manner than the British Empire it replaced.1

A then top-secret Council on Foreign Relations postwar planning group, The War & Peace Studies Group, led by Johns Hopkins President and geo-political geographer, Isaiah Bowman, laid out a series of studies designed to lay the foundations of their postwar world, already beginning 1939, well before German tanks had rolled into Poland. The American Empire was to be an empire indeed. But it would not make the fatal mistake of the British or other European empires before, namely to be an empire of open colonial conquest with costly troops in permanent military occupation.

Instead, the American Century would be packaged and sold to the world, above all the emerging countries of Africa, Latin America and Asia, as the guardian of liberty, democracy. It would clothe itself as the foremost advocate of end to colonial rule, a stance which uniquely benefited the only major power without large colonies—namely, the United States.

The new American Century world was to be led by the champion of free trade everywhere, which also uniquely benefited the strongest economy in the early postwar years, the United States. It was a brilliant, if fatally flawed concept. As State Department planning head, George F. Kennan wrote in a confidential internal memo in 1948, “We have about 50% of the world’s wealth but only 6.3% of its population. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security.” 2

The core of the War & Peace Studies, which were designed for and implemented by the US State Department after 1944, was to be the creation of a United Nations organization to replace the British-dominated League of Nations. A central part of that new UN organization, which would serve as the preserver of the US-friendly postwar status quo, was creation of what were originally referred to as the Bretton Woods institutions—the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development or World Bank.3 The GATT multinational trade agreements were later added.

The US negotiators in Bretton Woods New Hampshire, led by US Treasury deputy Secretary Harry Dexter White, imposed a design on the IMF and World Bank which insured the two would remain essentially instruments of an “informal” US empire, an empire, initially based on credit, and later, after about 1973, on debt.

New York and the New York Federal Reserve Bank were the heart of the new empire in 1945. The United States held the overwhelming majority of world central bank monetary gold reserves. The postwar Bretton Woods Gold Exchange Standard uniquely benefited the role of the US dollar, then and even now world reserve currency.

All IMF member country currencies were to be fixed in value to the US dollar. In turn, the US dollar, but only the US dollar was fixed to a preset weight of gold at $35 per ounce of gold. At this fixed rate, foreign governments and central banks could exchange dollars for gold.

Bretton Woods established a system of payments based on the dollar, in which all currencies were defined in relation to the dollar. It was ingenious and uniquely favorable to the emerging financial power of New York, whose bankers actively shaped the final agreements.

In those days, in stark contrast to the present, the dollar was “as good as gold.” The US currency was effectively the world currency, the standard to which every other currency was pegged. As the world’s key currency, most international transactions were denominated in dollars.

Maintaining the role of the US dollar as world reserve currency has been the foremost pillar of the American Century since 1945, related to but more strategic even than US military superiority. How that dollar primacy has been maintained to now encompassed the history of countless postwar wars, financial warfare, debt crises, and threats of nuclear war to the present.

Important to place the emergence of the asset securitization revolution in global finance which is now impacting the world financial system in wave after wave of new shocks and dislocations, and to appreciate Alan Greenspan’s substantial contribution to preserving the dominance of the dollar as world reserve well beyond the point the US economy ceased being the world’s most productive industrial manufacturer, a brief review of the distinct phases in postwar dollar hegemony is useful.

The Golden Years of America’s Century
…

Complete article at:

www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7813

F. William Engdahl is the author of  A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order,Pluto Press. His most recent book published by Global Research is Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation, www.GlobalResearch.ca.

Contact at: www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net

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three thousand words

Tom Toles: 2008 candidate guide

http://news.yahoo.com/edcartoons/tomtoles

Ann Telnaes: stimulating, isn’t ?

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoons/TelnaA/2008/TelnaA20080127_low.jpg

Non Sequitur: If We Hired People The Same Way We Elect Them

http://images.ucomics.com/comics/nq/2008/nq080125.gif

Darwin Day, It’s Official

By DUNCAN CRARY
HumanistNetworkNews.org
Jan. 16, 2008

On Friday, the city of Albany, N.Y. proclaimed Feb. 12, 2008 to be Darwin Day.

Albany joins a growing list of municipalities, including cities, states, and Canadian Provinces that have officially recognized the birthday of the father of evolutionary biology, Charles Darwin.

Jennifer Lange, legislative liaison of the Institute for Humanist Studies, contacted the Mayor’s Office in Albany to request the proclamation.

“Proclamations are a great way for promoting public awareness of Darwin Day by giving credibility to the event,” Lange said. “Every local official should have a staff person who handles proclamations.”

…

http://www.humaniststudies.org/enews/?id=332&article=1

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Creationists would take us back to Dark Ages

Tower Timberjay News – Tower,MN,USA

These adherents have recently tried to push the creationist “Theory of Intelligent Design” into our science classrooms. The only problem is that creationism …

http://www.timberjay.com/current.php?article=4050

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A HEATHEN’S GUIDE TO THE RAPTURE

By Jim Gerard, Nation Books

How to navigate your way through born-again America, with tips on how to avoid being Left Behind.

http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/73108/

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Apocalyptic politics

By Philip Jenkins

The religious right has splintered, but hard times could bring it back.

http://tinyurl.com/35axr6  (www.latimes.com)

Frank Schaeffer’s latest book is Crazy for God. Visit his website to learn more about Frank’s work.

http://www.frankschaeffer.com/

Jeff Sharlet is the editor of The Revealer and author of The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, forthcoming this spring.

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HUCKABEE WANTS TO REWRITE CONSTITUTION, SAYS IT’S EASIER TO CHANGE THAN “WORD OF LIVING GOD”

By Lindsay Beyerstein, Majikthise

The Constitution never uses the word “God” or makes mention of any religion, Mike Huckabee thinks it’s time to put an end to that.

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/73946/

WHAT RELIGION’S BLIND STRANGLEHOLD ON AMERICA IS DOING TO OUR DEMOCRACY

By Ira Chernus, Tomdispatch.com

We’ve got to find a way to take the conservative symbolic message of faith talk out of American politics.

http://www.alternet.org/stories/73764/

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The Myth/Reality Of Antichrist – And The Danger To America!

By William Cormier

Interesting as it may sound, the Antichrist is not confined to references in the Bible, but predates the few Biblical references found in the 1st and 2nd Book of John. The Antichrist was first referred to in the Hebrew Book of Daniel – and to this day, some scholars are questioning whether the Antichrist was a man, Antiochus IV, who actually lived and was viewed by many Jews as the actual Antichrist;

http://tinyurl.com/3d37st (www.opednews.com/)

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GOD’S PROFITS: FAITH, FRAUD AND THE GOP CRUSADE FOR VALUES VOTERS

By Sarah Posner, PoliPoint Press

A look into the shady finances and manipulative politics of America’s leading televangelist hucksters.

http://www.alternet.org/stories/74440/

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Primary Season Generates Complaints about Church Engagement in Partisan Activities

The 2008 presidential campaign is in full swing, and so is the debate over what charities and religious organizations can say or do without violating the tax code’s ban on partisan electoral activity. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which enforces the law through its Political Activities Compliance Initiative (PACI) program, has already received numerous requests for investigations, and one church has challenged it to investigate a 2006 sermon. The controversy reflects a healthy interest in public affairs within the nonprofit sector, as well as an unhealthy uncertainty about what is allowed in many election-related activities.

http://www.ombwatch.org/article/articleview/4146/

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Americans United Cautions Southern Baptist Convention About Partisan Politicking

January 24, 2008

SBC President’s Call For United Evangelical Front Against Giuliani Raises Tax Law Issues, Says Church-State Watchdog Group

Americans United for Separation of Church and State has cautioned the top official of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) that using his denominational news agency to oppose Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani raises federal tax law issues.

In a Jan. 24 letter, Americans United advised SBC President Frank Page that the Internal Revenue Code prohibits the use of tax-exempt resources to support or oppose candidates for public office.

Americans United acted after learning of a Jan. 21 analysis distributed by Baptist Press, the SBC’s official news agency. The analysis stated in part, “Page said he agrees with James Dobson of Focus on the Family that a united front against Giuliani is needed and that ‘evangelicals can realistically defeat him.’ Even a ticket with Giuliani on top and Huckabee for vice president ‘would be problematic for Dr. Dobson and myself,’ Page said.”

The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director, urged Page to review the requirements of tax law.

“Since you are the top official of the Southern Baptist Convention and Baptist Press is the denomination’s official news agency,” wrote Lynn, “Southern Baptists and other readers could easily get the impression that you are using the denomination’s tax-exempt resources to oppose Giuliani’s candidacy…. [W]e encourage you to review the provisions of the Internal Revenue Code and to refrain from activities that might endanger the tax-exempt status of the Southern Baptist Convention.”

The Internal Revenue Code bars religious leaders serving in their official capacities from involvement in political campaigns. When church leaders use their pulpits, church newsletters or other official resources of their organizations to advocate or oppose candidates, federal tax law is violated.

In its letter, Americans United notes that the Baptist Press article identifies Page as SBC president and gives no indication that he is being interviewed as an individual citizen rather than as the top official of the Southern Baptist Convention. (The Southern Baptist Convention is the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.)

AU’s Lynn says he hopes Page and other religious leaders take the time to learn about the law.

“We should have learned by now that churches should not become political machines,” said Lynn. “If clergy are a little fuzzy on federal tax law, now is a good time to get sound information. With a presidential campaign underway, it’s especially important for everyone to play by the rules.”

Americans United is a religious liberty watchdog group based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1947, the organization educates Americans about the importance of church-state separation in safeguarding religious freedom.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State www.au.org

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Will religion sabotage Charlotte’s future?

Rigorous science must inform our debate over global, local problems

Wed, Jan. 23, 2008

DAVID WALTERS
Special to the Observer

At the beginning of my year as a community columnist I want to say something clearly: I quite like living in Charlotte. The qualifying “quite” is not polite English understatement; it’s a reflection of my ambiguous relationship with this city that’s been home for nearly 18 years. Despite this lengthy period of residence, Charlotte is still to me a foreign city in a foreign land.

This cultural distance means that while there are many attributes I admire about Charlotte, there are some things about the city and its people that still strike me as slightly odd or, occasionally, disturb me more deeply.

On the positive side is the city’s optimistic, “can-do” approach to problems. The way Charlotte is exploring antidotes to our unsustainable patterns of suburban growth by creating new housing and transportation options and by developing the city center as the thriving heart of the region with ambitious new buildings and facilities is bold and exciting. Many of these progressive initiatives are based on creative public-private partnerships, models of “joint-venture” capitalism that bode well for the future.

In the highly competitive global marketplace, cities that don’t continuously adapt and develop get left behind. Our city is the envy of many across the country, but we can’t rest on our laurels. Our next challenge is to develop in ways that are more sustainable and energy efficient in the face of potentially drastic climate change: we’ll need to use less land, live more compactly and drive less. This will be difficult but if we fully understand the science of global warming, this city has the ingenuity to succeed.

Alarming emphasis on faith

…

Complete article at:

http://www.charlotte.com/171/story/458616.html

Observer community columnist David Walters, a British architect, is professor of architecture and urban design at UNC Charlotte. Write him c/o The Observer, P.O. Box 30308, Charlotte, NC 28230-0308, or at drwalter@uncc.edu

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Church officials investigate sex abuse allegations

Capital News 9 – Albany,NY,USA

TROY, NY — A priest in Troy has taken a leave of absence while church officials investigate allegations that he sexually abused a minor. …

http://www.capitalnews9.com/content/headlines/?ArID=229911&SecID=33

Church admits “complicity” in sex abuse case

The case of a Swiss priest who was moved to France by superiors who knew he had already sexually abused at least one child is rocking the Swiss Catholic Church.

http://digg.com/world_news/Church_admits_complicity_in_sex_abuse_case

Lampasas priest sentenced to prison time for sexual assault

KCEN-TV – Eddy,TX,USA

A Lampasas Episcopal priest pleaded guilty to one count of sexual assault and was sentenced to three years in state prison. Police arrested Reverend Jim …

http://www.kcentv.com/news/c-article.php?cid=1&nid=14727

Preacher pleads guilty to sodomy

Columbus Ledger-Enquirer – Columbus,GA,USA

BY ALAN RIQUELMY – ariquelmy@ledger-enquirer.com –

A former Russell County preacher charged with trying to hire someone to kill his victim pleaded
guilty …

<http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/news/story/230361.html

Diocese faces sex abuse suits

The North Bay Nugget – North Bay,Ontario,Canada

The allegations of sexual misconduct occurred in the Sault diocese communities of North Bay, Powassan, Sudbury, Field, Crystal Falls and Tecumseh, …

http://www.nugget.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=874995

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three thousand words

reverendfun.com: SORRY, WE HAVE A STRICT JEREMIAH 13:23 POLICY

http://www.reverendfun.com/add_toon_info.php?date=20080125&language=en

Freethunk!: before gutenberg

http://humaniststudies.org/~funnies/freethunk/sf20080123.gif

Mikhaela Reid: Mitt vs. Mike in Extreme Godmania Smackdown!

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Today’s Quote

“Machiavelli presents to his readers a vision of political rule purged of extraneous moralizing influences and fully aware of the foundations of politics in the effective exercise of power. The term that best captures Machiavelli’s vision of the requirements of power politics is virtù. While the Italian word would normally be translated into English as “virtue,” and would ordinarily convey the conventional connotation of moral goodness, Machiavelli obviously means something very different when he refers to the virtù of the prince. In particular, Machiavelli employs the concept of virtù to refer to the range of personal qualities that the prince will find it necessary to acquire in order to “maintain his state” and to “achieve great things,” the two standard markers of power for him. This makes it brutally clear there can be no equivalence between the conventional virtues and Machiavellian virtù. Machiavelli expects princes of the highest virtù to be capable, as the situation requires, of behaving in a completely evil fashion. For the circumstances of political rule are such that moral viciousness can never be excluded from the realm of possible actions in which the prince may have to engage. Machiavelli’s sense of what it is to be a person of virtù can thus be summarized by his recommendation that the prince above all else must acquire a “flexible disposition.” That ruler is best suited for office, on Machiavelli’s account, who is capable of varying her/his conduct from good to evil and back again “as fortune and circumstances dictate” (Machiavelli 1965, 66).”

- Cary Nederman, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Machiavelli

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Media outlets uncritically reported McCain’s dubious defense of vote against Bush tax cuts

CNN national correspondent John King uncritically reported that Sen. John McCain “says he opposed the Bush tax cuts because the plan did not also include spending cuts.” The Los Angeles Times, Bloomberg, and the Palm Beach Post also similarly reported McCain’s assertion. But in a floor statement during the Senate debate on the 2001 tax cut bill, McCain did not mention the absence of offsetting spending cuts; rather, he stated, “I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us, at the expense of middle class Americans who most need tax relief.”

Read More

http://mediamatters.org/items/200801230013?lid=35449&rid=2198457

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Truth was first US casualty in Iraq war: study

23 Jan 2008

US President [sic] George W. Bush and his top officials ran roughshod over the truth in the run-up to the Iraq war lying a total of 935 times, a study released Wednesday found. Bush and his administration “waged a carefully orchestrated campaign of misinformation about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq,” said the damning report entitled “False Pretenses.” According to the Center for Public Integrity, eight administration officials “made at least 935 false statements” about Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction, or links to Al-Qaeda [al-CIAduh], on 532 separate occasions.

At:

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hYM8h8wNn4ccjLCLy7N8cyPwUcUA

From: CLG News

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False Pretenses –Following 9/11, President Bush and seven top officials of his administration waged a carefully orchestrated campaign of misinformation about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

By Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith

23 Jan 2008

President [sic] George W. Bush and seven of his administration’s top officials, including Vice President [sic] Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Nearly five years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an exhaustive examination of the record shows that the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.

At:

http://www.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/

From: CLG News

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National Security Archive Update, January 24, 2008 – “Secrecy” Film Premieres at Sundance
Archive Director Featured in Q & A

For more information contact:

Tom Blanton – 202/994-7000

http://www.nsarchive.org

Park City, Utah, January 24, 2008 – The new documentary “Secrecy,” made by Harvard professors Peter Galison and Robb Moss, premiered this past week at the Sundance Film Festival, featuring National Security Archive director Tom Blanton in a leading role and on the after-show panels answering questions from Sundance audiences.

Blanton participated in the premiere showing on January 18 in Park City, the follow-up showing on January 19 also in Park City, and the noontime showing on Sunday January 20 at the screening room in Robert Redford’s Sundance Resort.

The reviewer for Zoom-In.com remarked that “Mr. Blanton comes off like a philosopher of national security, waxing downright poetic about the myriad issues of information control and even the erotic allure of secrets. He has so much to say that one suspects that Galison and Moss could have just as easily filmed his monologue–a classified information cousin to An Inconvenient Truth’s environmental lecture would have emerged.”

Reviewers from Hollywood Reporter and Reuters this week report that “Documentaries stole the show at the Sundance Film Festival over the weekend” and that “Peter Galison and Robb Moss’ national security expose ‘Secrecy’” was among the “documentaries creating late acquisitions buzz.”

Visit the Web site of the National Security Archive for more information about today’s posting.

http://www.nsarchive.org

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Will the Fed rate cut work?

01/22/2008

Posted by: Stephen Roach, Chairman, Morgan Stanley Asia

Timing is everything, I guess. No sooner had I arrived in Davos, when my Blackberry started chirping with alarms over an emergency 75 basis point Fed rate cut. No new news on the state of the US economy was evident. The only breaking development was a swoon in global equity markets that was likely to be reflected in the form of a similar plunge in the US. And so the Fed jumped into action. Borrowing a page from the market-friendly script of the Greenspan Fed, Bernanke & Co. offered up a market-friendly action of its own.

Will it work? That’s undoubtedly the question that will be hotly debated this year in Davos – a question that I certainly plan to tackle at the opening session on the global economy tomorrow (Wednesday) morning.

…

Complete article at:

http://blogs.ft.com/davosblog/2008/01/will-the-fed-ra.html

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WHO WILL STOP THE BANKS?

By Robert Scheer, Truthdig

No Dem candidate will say what Kucinich would have said: Bankers will steal from the public unless the government holds them accountable.

http://www.alternet.org/stories/74718/

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Editorial Commentary: Don’t let government off the hook

The Economist: An inconvenient truth for advocates of CSR is that the connection between good corporate behavior and good financial performance is fuzzy at best. The latest academic research suggests that a positive link exists, but that it is a weak one.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/347961_davos22.html

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Borowitz Report – Kucinich Withdrawal Shocker

Kucinich’s Exit Stuns Lone Supporter
Solitary Volunteer Calls Departure ‘Hasty’

The lone supporter of Dennis Kucinch’s presidential bid said today that he was “stunned” by the Ohio congressman’s decision to withdraw from the 2008 race, calling the decision “hasty and premature.”

Tracy Foyler, 32, of Mayfield Heights, Ohio gave the Kucinich campaign a shot in the arm when he signed up as a volunteer last year, a move that seemed to augur well for the Ohio congressman’s chances of attracting additional volunteers.

When no one else stepped forward to join his ranks, however, Mr. Foyler gained special status within the campaign as Mr. Kucinich’s one and only staffer.

“It was a lot of work and all, being Dennis’ only volunteer,” Mr. Foyler said. “But it was worth it, because I got unprecedented access, which was totally awesome.”

Mr. Foyler said he was “blindsided” by Mr. Kucinich’s decision to halt his bid today, telling reporters, “I can’t believe that Dennis wasn’t feeling the same momentum on the ground that I was.”

As the Ohio congressman withdrew from the race, Mr. Kucinich’s number one backer could not help but wonder if the candidate “had pulled the plug too soon,” adding, “I really felt like we were going crack one percent in some of the upcoming states.”

With his favorite candidate out of the race, Mr. Foyler is not sure where he will throw his support, but he gave reporters a hint today: “I’m taking another look at Mike Gravel.”

Elsewhere, former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson announced that he would return to acting, joining “E.R.” in the role of a coma patient.

Andy’s Only West Coast Appearance – April 24
Andy makes his only scheduled West Coast appearance Thursday, April 24 at University of California, Santa Barbara. 8 PM at Campbell Hall. Tickets available at https://artsandlectures.sa.ucsb.edu

Andy with Susie Essman and Jeffrey Toobin – May 13
Andy hosts “Countdown to ’08″ on Tuesday, May 13 at 8 PM at the 92nd St. Y with his special guests Susie Essman (HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm) and Jeffrey Toobin (CNN, bestselling author of The Nine). The Y is located at 92nd St. and Lexington Avenue. For tickets, go to www.92y.org .

http://www.borowitzreport.com/

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three thousand words

Mike Luckovich: bush’s state of the union …

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoons/LuckoM/2008/LuckoM20080124_low.jpg

Heng: Danger From All Directions

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Jack Ohman: the fed … the feeding

http://images.ucomics.com/comics/tmjoh/2008/tmjoh080124.gif