February 2009 News History Archives

February 2009 News:

_2009 News News Reference February 2009 News
February 18, 2009 News URL: #February-18-2009-News
20090218 Wednesday

- Barack Obama - Don Young - Government - Money - Education - Missouri - Alaska
"GOP [Republicans] Fighting For Money From Stimulus They Opposed." ... "House Republicans, as a group, may take great pride in the goose egg [zero votes] they offered [Democratic] President Obama's stimulus package. But now the unanimous opposition is struggling to bring that money home." ... "Republicans will be working hard to make sure the money they opposed ends up benefiting their home districts, highlighting the political tightrope they walk in this economic crisis." ... "Back in his home district, [Missouri Republican Representative] Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO [Republican-Missouri]) [who voted against the stimulus plane] found some nice things to say about the plan." ... ""Within the stimulus package there is some Pell Grant money, which is a good thing. It helps students be able to pay for their education and that's kind of a long term stimulus effect there. I mean obviously that's not gonna provide a job in the next 120, 180 days, but the ability of someone to get an education is an economic development tool," Luetkemeyer said at a local college. He was there, in another inside-outside Washington twist, to celebrate an earmark for a college building." ... "[Alaska Republican Representative] Rep. Don Young (R-AK [Republican-Alaska]) [who voted against the stimulus plane] put out a press release saying that he "won a victory for the Alaska Native contracting program and other Alaska small business owners last night in H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act."" -By Ryan Grim -HuffingtonPost.com

- Barack Obama - Michael Steele - Pete Hoekstra - Don Young - Lindsey Graham - Ken Calvert - Emergency - Economics - Politics - Families - Jobs - Housing - Construction - Education - Government - US_Debt - Missouri - MN - SC - FL - CA - MI - NJ - AK
"Kit Bond Touts Effects Of Stimulus Bill He Voted Against." ... "[Missouri Republican Senator Kit Bond voted against the stimulus bill asserting:} “Unfortunately, this bill stimulates the debt, it stimulates the growth of government, but it doesn’t stimulate jobs,” Bond insisted." ... "However, today Bond is touring Missouri to tout the very stimulus plan he railed against. In a press release, Bond boasted about an amendment he included in the bill to provide more funding for affordable housing — and that will create jobs:"

"Last week, Bond led a bipartisan group of Senators in introducing an amendment to help provide needy families affordable housing. Bond’s amendment provides $2 billion to fund low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) projects that have been stalled by the financial credit crisis. As part of the Democrats’ spending bill now signed into law, the Senate unanimously accepted Bond’s provision. […]"

"This provision will have a real impact in Missouri, especially for low-income, working families in need of safe and affordable housing. … Bond’s amendment will save more than 700 housing units and create 3,000 new jobs in Missouri."

WATCH: "Kit Bond Touts Stimulus Plan He Voted Against."

"– [Minnesota Republican Governor] Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN), who complained that the “federal government is spending money they don’t have,” told Rachel Maddow he would nevertheless accept funds for Minnesota: “Our view is, if you buy the pizza, it’s OK if you have a slice.”"

"– [South Carolina Republican Senator] Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who also campaigned ardently against the bill, said he would nevertheless gladly accept its funds for his state. “You don’t want to be crazy here,” he said."

"– [Florida Republican Representative] Rep. John Mica (R-FL) gushed over the bill, which he, too, voted against. “I applaud [Democratic] President Obama’s recognition that high-speed rail should be part of America’s future,” he said in a press release."

"– [Alaska Republican Representative] Rep. Don Young (R-AK) boasted that he “won a victory for…Alaska small business owners” in the recovery bill he refused to vote for."

"petehoekstra If you know of someone thinking of buying first home, now may be the time.Stimulus incentive is very generous!Up to 8k!Check it out."

- US - Global - Science - Environment - Politics - Corporations
"Media often fail in their global warming coverage, says climate researcher." ... ""Business managers of media organizations: You are screwing up your responsibility by firing science and environment reporters, who are frankly the only ones competent to do this," said climate researcher and policy analyst Stephen Schneider, in assessing the current state of media coverage of global warming and related issues." ... "Schneider, a coordinating lead author of Chapter 19 in the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published in 2007, is calling for the news media to employ trained reporters in covering global warming. He discussed this and other issues [2009 February] Feb. 13 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Chicago [Illinois]." ... ""Science is not politics. You can't just get two opposing viewpoints and think you've done due diligence. You've got to cover the multiple views and the relative credibility of each view," said Schneider, the Melvin and Joan Lane Professor for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies at Stanford [Universtiy in California], in an interview before the annual meeting. "But that is not usually the problem of the well-trained reporters, who understand what is credible." ... ""The problem is CNN just fired their science team. Why didn't they fire their economics team or their sports team? Why don't they send their general assignment reporters out to cover the Super Bowl?" Schneider said." ... "In addition, researchers have to do their part by clearly explaining issues to reporters in succinct terms, he said." ... ""You have to have your elevator statement or people won't listen to you," Schneider said." ... ""What I always suggest is that scientists find metaphors that convey both urgency and uncertainty, so that you can get people's attention while at the same time not overstating the case," he said. "Then you have websites and backup articles and books where you can give the full story, but you have to have your sound bite and your op-ed piece."" -By Louis Bergeron -StanfordNewsService

- Government - Economic - Accounting - Job - History - Politics
"The New Deal and right-wing revisionism." ... "The best regarded data excluding public-works employees traces a steady decline in joblessness through the first five years of the New Deal, from 25 percent when [Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt] FDR took office to 14.3 percent in 1937. Then, however, joblessness rose, hitting 19.1 percent in 1938 before dropping back to 14.6 percent in 1940 and 9.9 percent in 1941." ... "Include work-relief employees, and unemployment declined more steeply, falling to 9.2 percent in 1937. It then rose to 12.5 percent in 1938 before dropping back to 6 percent in 1941." ... "Why did Roosevelt's recovery falter?" ... "Unfortunately for conservatives, the evidence cuts against their conclusions. The rise in unemployment followed FDR's cutback in government spending in 1937. The resulting spike in unemployment prompted him to shift courses and expand spending again, whereupon unemployment again fell." ... "Gross Domestic Product tracks the same way, notes economist Dean Baker, who has matched the increase in federal spending during each Depression year with the following year's growth in GDP. A 23.7 percent increase in federal spending in 1933 was followed by a 10.8 percent increase in GDP in 1934, for example, while a 34.2 percent increase in 1934 was followed by an 8.9 percent GDP increase in 1935. But when FDR retrenched and spending fell by 10 percent in 1937, the next year's GDP shrank by 3.4 percent." ... "There's virtually no disagreement that World War II gave the country the strong final tug out of the Depression. Yet that reality also argues for the efficacy of Keynesian remedies; economically, the war constituted a huge government stimulus, financed by massive deficit spending." -By Scott Lehigh -BostonGlobe

- Barack Obama - Michael Steele - Election - Technology - Politics - Michigan
"Republicans Prep the Portals of Online Organizing." ... "One of the key’s to [Democratic President] Obama’s victory, Republican strategist David All said, was the Web-based social network My BarackObama .com, which allowed supporters “to self-organize, track tasks, recruit friends and volunteers, train, connect, raise money, and turn out the vote on Election Day.”" ... "Added Michigan Republican Party Chairman, Saul Anuzis, “Obama did not create anything new, he took advantage of the latest technologies and integrated them into his campaign.”" ... "Anuzis, who is serving on [Republican Party Chairman Michael] Steele’s transition RNC [Republican National Committee] team and is a leading technology evangelist in the party, lamented that Republicans have failed to adopt these same techniques because it goes against their nature." ... "“We move slowly, we are methodical, we’re careful,” he said. “The idea of an open source, open to the public, open to the press technology summit . . . is unfathomable to many.”" (1, 2) -By Emily Cadei -CQPolitics.com

- Health Care - Science - Politics - Economic - Legislation - History - Pill - Advertising
"The Far Right's All Out Offensive Against Medical Research." ... "Opponents of fixing our broken health care system are at it again, attempting to use their same old scare tactics and falsehoods to kill a common-sense health care provision [in] the economic recovery package. Fortunately Congressional leaders have recognized these tactics for what they are and have wisely kept this provision in the legislation." ... "At issue is something called "Comparative Effectiveness Research" which basically means giving your doctor access to the latest research on what treatments and therapies work and which don't. This also helps doctors know which treatments are more expensive than others, and helps both patients and doctors decide if there is a cheaper treatment that is just as effective. As a doctor and the husband of a doctor, I know how important it is to have solid scientific research to make critical decisions for my patients." ... "When I was practicing medicine, having greater access to scientific evidenced-based research would have been truly helpful in guiding me to make the best medical decisions for my patients." ... "If an inexpensive pill that has been around a long time works substantially better than a brand new, highly-advertised and thus far more expensive pill - doctors should have that information at hand when we prescribe medications to our patients. When I do something for a patient, I want the scientific research that tells me its the best course for my patient. But the far right, led by people like Rush Limabaugh, hopes to somehow convince Americans that more and better research is a bad thing." ... "This claptrap is really about the far right laying the ground work for a far greater and more sustained attack on the Democrats' attempt to fix our health care system. As we move forward with the American people to finally fulfill the promise of Harry Truman, who over sixty years ago suggested that every American ought to have a reasonable health care plan, we will rely on the voters to remind the right wing that change is what we promised, and change is what we will deliver." -By Howard Dean -HuffingtonPost.com

- Journalism - Economics - Jobs - History
"The death of the news: If reporting vanishes, the world will get darker and uglier. Subsidizing newspapers may be the only answer." ... "Journalism as we know it is in crisis. Daily newspapers are going out of business at an unprecedented rate, and the survivors are slashing their budgets. Thousands of reporters and editors have lost their jobs. No print publication is immune, including the mighty New York Times. As analyst Allan Mutter noted, 2008 was the worst year in history for newspaper publishers, with shares dropping a stunning 83 percent on average. Newspapers lost $64.5 billion in market value in 12 months." ... "But the real problem isn't that newspapers may be doomed." ... "As Nation columnist Eric Alterman recently argued, the real problem isn't the impending death of newspapers, but the impending death of news -- at least news as we know it." ... "What is really threatened by the decline of newspapers and the related rise of online media is reporting -- on-the-ground reporting by trained journalists who know the subject, have developed sources on all sides, strive for objectivity and are working with editors who check their facts, steer them in the right direction and are a further check against unwarranted assumptions, sloppy thinking and reporting, and conscious or unconscious bias." ... "If newspapers die, so does reporting. That's because the majority of reporting originates at newspapers. Online journalism is essentially parasitic. Like most TV news, it derives or follows up on stories that first appeared in print." ... "Currently there is no business model that makes online reporting financially viable." ... "There is no substitute for field reporting, in which a real live human being observes an event while it is happening and talks to other real, live human beings." ... "If field reporting dies out, the world will become a less known place." ... "Without reporting, dirty little wars would be invisible dirty little wars." (1, 2, 3) -By Gary Kamiya -Salon

- Israel - Palestine - Land
"West Bank settlement gets green light for major expansion." ... "" -By Nadav Shragai -Haaretz.com

- Israel - Palestine - Land - US - Politics
"Israel Grabs More Palestinian Land, Sets Stage for Further Illegal Colonization of Palestinian Territory." ... "Meanwhile, in the Middle East’s only democracy, settlements continue to grow:"

"Some 1,700 dunams of land in the northern part of Efrat were declared state land last week, paving the way for the West Bank settlement to start the process of seeking government approval to build there."

"The Civil Administration issued the declaration after rejecting eight appeals by Palestinians against the move. A ninth appeal was accepted, and the land covered by this appeal was consequently removed from Efrat’s jurisdiction."

- Israel - Palestinians - Land - US
"Livni: Give up parts of 'Land of Israel'." ... "Tzipi Livni, who hopes to be appointed Israel's prime minister-designate, said Monday Israel must give up considerable territory in exchange for peace with the Palestinians, drawing a clear distinction with her rival, Benjamin Netanyahu." ... "She told a convention of American Jewish leaders, "we need to give up parts of the Land of Israel," using a term that refers to biblical borders that include today's Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, repeating her well-known view that pulling out of Palestinian areas would be for the good of Israel, to maintain it as a Jewish state." ... "Livni's centrist Kadima Party won one more seat than the hawkish Likud, led by Netanyahu. He opposes large-scale territorial concessions in peace talks with the Palestinians." -By Aron Heller -AP via -Yahoo

- Barack Obama - Corporate - Government - Labor - Makers - US - Global - Legislation - Secret - Terrorism - Detainee
"Liberals not pleased with go-slow approach by Obama." ... "Union leaders were taken aback this month when [Democratic President Barack] Obama, during television appearances discussing the stimulus legislation, spoke skeptically of "Buy American" provisions in the bill giving [United States] U.S. makers of steel and other materials an advantage in bidding for contracts." ... "Obama told Fox News that the U.S. "can't send a protectionist message," and he cautioned on ABC News that the requirements could be a "potential source of trade wars that we can't afford at a time when trade is sinking all across the globe."" ... "Now, some labor advocates worry about how aggressively the new president will push to fulfill other key campaign promises, such as passage of the so-called card check legislation that would make it easier to form labor unions." ... "At the ACLU, Executive Director Anthony D. Romero said his group's disappointment was "deep and unparalleled" after the Justice Department decided to keep in place one of the most controversial legal tactics of the [Republican President] Bush anti-terrorism arsenal: using the "state secrets" doctrine to block lawsuits by detainees." ... "The Justice Department invoked the privilege last week in arguing that a case should not proceed because it might lead to the disclosure of state secrets." ... "As a candidate, Obama had attacked Bush for using the tactic and had pledged to reverse such policies." -By Peter Wallsten -LAtimes

- Secret - Criminal - Torture - War Crimes - Prison - Psychological - Terrorism - Military - Government -  - Medical - Human - Rights - Law - US - Guantánamo - Cuba
"Former Gitmo Guard Tells All." ... "Army Private Brandon Neely served as a prison guard at Guantánamo [US military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba] in the first years the facility was in operation. With the [Republican President] Bush Administration, and thus the threat of retaliation against him, now gone, Neely decided to step forward and tell his story. “The stuff I did and the stuff I saw was just wrong,” he told the Associated Press. Neely describes the arrival of detainees in full sensory-deprivation garb, he details their sexual abuse by medical personnel, torture by other medical personnel, brutal beatings out of frustration, fear, and retribution, the first hunger strike and its causes, torturous shackling, positional torture, interference with religious practices and beliefs, verbal abuse, restriction of recreation, the behavior of mentally ill detainees, an isolation regime that was put in place for child-detainees, and his conversations with prisoners David Hicks and Rhuhel Ahmed. It makes for fascinating reading." ... "Neely’s comprehensive account runs to roughly 15,000 words. It was compiled by law students at the University of California at Davis and can be accessed here." ... "... Neely and other guards had been trained to the U.S. military’s traditional application of the Geneva Convention rules. They were put under great pressure to get rough with the prisoners and to violate the standards they learned. This placed the prison guards under unjustifiable mental stress and anxiety, and, as any person familiar with the vast psychological literature in the area (think of the Stanford Prison Experiment, for instance) would have anticipated produced abuses. Neely discusses at some length the notion of IRF (initial reaction force), a technique devised to brutalize or physically beat a detainee under the pretense that he required being physically subdued. The IRF approach was devised to use a perceived legal loophole in the prohibition on torture. Neely’s testimony makes clear that IRF was understood by everyone, including the prison guards who applied it, as a subterfuge for beating and mistreating prisoners—and that it had nothing to do with the need to preserve discipline and order in the prison." ... "[Neely] describes body searches undertaken for no legitimate security purpose, simply to sexually invade and humiliate the prisoners. This was a standardized [Republican President] Bush Administration tactic–the importance of which became apparent to me when I participated in some Capitol Hill negotiations with White House representatives relating to legislation creating criminal law accountability for contractors. The Bush White House vehemently objected to provisions of the law dealing with rape by instrumentality. When House negotiators pressed to know why, they were met first with silence and then an embarrassed acknowledgement that a key part of the Bush program included invasion of the bodies of prisoners in a way that might be deemed rape by instrumentality under existing federal and state criminal statutes. While these techniques have long been known, the role of health care professionals in implementing them is shocking." ... "Neely’s account demonstrates once more how much the Bush team kept secret and how little we still know about their comprehensive program of official cruelty and torture." -By Scott Horton -Harpers.org

- John McCain - US_Debt - Economic - Legislation - Obama - Arizona
"Dems Fed Up With McCain: "Angry Old Defeated Candidate"." ... ""He is bitter and really angry," Bob Shrum said of [Arizona Republican Senator John] McCain in an interview on Friday. "He is angry at the press, which he thinks is unfair. He is angry at [Democratic President] Obama and angry at the voters. He has gone from being an angry old candidate to being an angry old defeated candidate."" ... ""On Sunday, McCain wouldn't let the fight die, even with the [economic stimulus] legislation through Congress. Appearing on CNN, he described the $787 billion measure as "generational theft" and said that the bill's authors should "start over now and sit down together."" ... ""[A]s other observers pointed out, McCain isn't being entirely consistent." ... """During the Senate debate, 36 of the Senate Republicans voted for an alternative that would have cut taxes over the next decade by $2.5 trillion, [and] reduced the top marginal race to 25 percent," said the Atlantic's Ron Brownstein on "Meet the Press." "For John McCain -- who voted for that alternative of a $2.5 trillion tax cut over the next decade -- to talk about generational theft, I mean, pot meet kettle." -By Sam Stein -HuffingtonPost.com

- Earth - Science
"Galaxy has 'billions of Earths': There could be one hundred billion Earth-like planets in our galaxy, a US conference has heard." ... "So far, telescopes have been able to detect just over 300 planets outside our Solar System." -BBC/News

- Military - Torture - Prison - Psychological - Terrorism - War Crimes - Medical - Human Rights - Law - US - Guantánamo Bay - Cuba
"Former Gitmo guard recalls abuse, climate of fear." ... "Army Pvt. [Private] Brandon Neely was scared when he took Guantanamo's first shackled detainees off a bus. Told to expect vicious terrorists, he grabbed a trembling, elderly detainee and ground his face into the cement — the first of a range of humiliations he says he participated in and witnessed as the prison was opening for business." ... "Neely has now come forward in this final year of the detention center's existence, saying he wants to publicly air his feelings of guilt and shame about how some soldiers behaved as the military scrambled to handle the first alleged al-Qaida and Taliban members arriving at the isolated [United States] U.S. Navy base." ... "His account, one of the first by a former guard describing abuses at Guantanamo, describes a chaotic time when soldiers lacked clear rules for dealing with detainees who were denied many basic comforts. He says the circumstances changed quickly once monitors from the International Committee of the Red Cross arrived." ... "Neely, [now] 28, describes a litany of cruel treatment by his fellow soldiers, including beatings and humiliations he said were intended only to deliver physical or psychological pain." ... "Only months had passed since the [2001 September] Sept. 11 attacks, and Neely said many of the guards wanted revenge. Especially before the first Red Cross visit, he said guards were seizing on any apparent infractions to "get some" by hurting the detainees. The soldiers' behavior seemed justified at the time, he said, because they were told "these are the worst terrorists in the world."" ... "He said one medic punched a handcuffed prisoner in the face for refusing to swallow a liquid nutritional supplement, and another bragged about cruelly stretching a prisoner's torn muscles during what was supposed to be physical therapy treatments." ... "He said detainees were forced to submit to take showers and defecate into buckets in full view of female soldiers, against Islamic customs. When a detainee yelled an expletive at a female guard, he said a crew of soldiers beat the man up and held him down so that the woman could repeatedly strike him in the face. " -By Mike Melia -AP via -Yahoo

- Jay Bybee - John Yoo - Steven Bradbury - Torture - War Crimes - Investigators -  - Politics
"A Torture Report Could Spell Big Trouble For Bush Lawyers." ... "An internal Justice Department report on the conduct of senior lawyers who approved waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics is causing anxiety among former [Republican President] Bush administration officials. H. Marshall Jarrett, chief of the department's ethics watchdog unit, the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), confirmed last year he was investigating whether the legal advice in crucial interrogation memos "was consistent with the professional standards that apply to Department of Justice attorneys." According to two knowledgeable sources who asked not to be identified discussing sensitive matters, a draft of the report was submitted in the final weeks of the Bush administration. It sharply criticized the legal work of two former top officials—Jay Bybee and John Yoo—as well as that of Steven Bradbury, who was chief of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) at the time the report was submitted, the sources said." ... "[T[he OPR probe began after Jack Goldsmith, a Bush appointee who took over OLC in 2003, protested the legal arguments made in the memos. Goldsmith resigned the following year after withdrawing the memos, and later wrote that he was "astonished" by the "deeply flawed" and "sloppily reasoned" legal analysis in the memos by Yoo and Bybee, including their assertion (challenged by many scholars) that the president could unilaterally disregard a law passed by Congress banning torture." ... "OPR investigators focused on whether the memo's authors deliberately slanted their legal advice to provide the [Republican President Bush] White House with the conclusions it wanted, according to three former Bush lawyers who asked not to be identified discussing an ongoing probe." -By Michael Isikoff -Newsweek

- Corporate - Government - Coal-Mining - Dirt - Law - Politics - Television - Advertising - Election - West Virginia
"Case May Alter Judge Elections Across Country." ... "Don L. Blankenship, the chief executive of the nation’s fourth-biggest coal mining company, is not shy about putting his money where his mouth is when it comes to West Virginia politics." ... "In 2004, he spent $3 million on tough [television] advertisements attacking a justice of the State Supreme Court who was seeking re-election. Some of the advertisements said the justice had agreed to free a sex offender." ... "Brent D. Benjamin won that election and went on to join the 3-to-2 majority that threw out a $50 million jury verdict against Mr. Blankenship’s company, Massey Energy." ... "The question of whether Justice Benjamin should have disqualified himself is now before the United States Supreme Court." ... "The case, one of the most important of the term, has the potential to change the way judicial elections are conducted and the way cases are heard in the 39 states that elect at least some of their judges." ... "Mr. Blankenship’s advertisements, which said Justice McGraw had released a pedophile, were rough and arguably misleading. They concerned a youth who had been sexually abused from the age of 7 by two adult family members and a teacher before going on, at the age of 14, to abuse a younger half-brother. The youth was released on probation soon after he turned 18." ... "“I’m just a West Virginia country lawyer running for office,” Justice McGraw said. Of the advertisements, he said: “They say our court set a child molester loose in our schools. It’s absolutely untrue. I’m embarrassed to go out in public. They’ve absolutely destroyed me.”" ... "Mr. Blankenship cheerfully conceded that his real objection was to Justice McGraw’s rulings against corporate defendants. “Being the street fighter that I am,” he said, he had instructed his aides to find a decision that would enrage the public." ... "When they returned with an unsigned opinion in the sex abuse case, which Justice McGraw had joined, Mr. Blankenship said he knew he had hit pay dirt. “That killed him,” Mr. Blankenship said of Justice McGraw, smiling." (1, 2) -By Adam Liptak -NYTimes

- Corporate - Government - Lawmakers - Sacramento - California - Multinational
"Business the big winner in California budget plan: Firms would get nearly $1 billion in breaks, while the average person would pay higher taxes five ways. Republicans say the plan would create jobs, but others dispute the claim." ... "Reporting from Sacramento [California's capital] -- The average Californian's taxes would shoot up five different ways in the state budget blueprint that lawmakers hope to vote on this weekend. But the bipartisan plan for wiping out the state's giant deficit isn't so bad for large corporations, many of which would receive a permanent windfall." ... "About $1 billion in corporate tax breaks -- directed mostly at multi-state and multinational companies -- is tucked into the proposal. Opponents say the breaks will do nothing to create jobs, and the Legislature has rejected such moves repeatedly in the past. But now, to secure enough Republican votes to pass a budget that would raise taxes on everyone else, the Legislature is poised to write them into law with no public hearings at a time when the state treasury is almost out of cash." ... "The tax breaks were inserted into the spending plan during private meetings between legislative leaders and [California Republican Governor] Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Less than 24 hours before today's scheduled vote, the proposals had not yet been printed in bills and made available to the public, but legislative leaders acknowledged them. " -By Evan Halper with contributions by Patrick McGreevy -LAtimes

- Financial - Crisis - Analysis - Government - Politics
"Large U.S. banks on edge of insolvency, experts say." ... "Some of the large banks in the United States, according to economists and other finance experts, are like dead men walking." ... "A sober assessment of the growing mountain of losses from bad bets, measured in today's marketplace, would overwhelm the value of the banks' assets, they say. The banks, in their view, are insolvent." ... "None of the experts' research focuses on individual banks, and there are certainly exceptions among the 50 largest banks in the country. Nor do consumers and businesses need to fret about their deposits, which are insured by the [United States] U.S. government. And even banks that might technically be insolvent can continue operating for a long time, and could recover their financial health when the economy improves." ... "But without a cure for the problem of bad assets, the credit crisis that is dragging down the economy will linger, as banks cannot resume the ample lending needed to restart the wheels of commerce. The answer, say the economists and experts, is a larger, more direct government role than in the Treasury Department's plan outlined this week." ... "The Treasury program leans heavily on a sketchy public-private investment fund to buy up the troubled mortgage-backed securities held by the banks. Instead, the experts say, the government needs to plunge in, weed out the weakest banks, pour capital into the surviving banks and sell off the bad assets." ... "It is the basic blueprint that has proved successful, they say, in resolving major financial crises in recent years." (1, 2) -By Steve Lohr with contributions by Eric Dash -IHT.com

- Science - Journalism - Business
"Science Journalism’s Hope and Despair: ‘Niche’ pubs growing as MSM circles the drain." (1, 2) -By Curtis Brainard -CJR.org

- Barack Obama - Social Security -Political - Economists - Housing - History
"The Economists Who Missed the Housing Bubble Are Coming After Your Social Security." ... "Word has it that [Democratic] President Obama intends to appoint a task force the week after next which will be charged with "reforming" Social Security. According to inside gossip, the task force will be led entirely by economists who were not able to see the $8 trillion housing bubble, the collapse of which is giving the country its sharpest downturn since the Great Depression." ... "This effort is bizarre for several reasons. First, the economy is sinking rapidly. While President Obama's stimulus package is a good first step towards counteracting the decline, there is probably not a single economists in the country who believes that is adequate to the task. President Obama would be advised to focus his attention on getting the economy back in order instead of attacking the country's most important social program." ... "The second reason why this task force is strange is that Social Security doesn't need reforming. According to the Congressional Budget Office [PDF], it can pay all scheduled benefits for the next 40 years with no changes whatsoever." ... "The third reason that this effort is pernicious is that this talk of reform is occurring with the baby boomers just as the cusp of retirement. Due to the reckless policies of the Rubin-Greenspan-[ Republican]Bush clique, this cohort has just seen their housing equity wiped out with the collapse of the housing bubble. Tens of millions of baby boomers who might have felt reasonably secure three years ago are now approaching retirement with little or no equity in their homes." ... "Similarly, if they had been fortunate enough to accumulate any substantial amount of savings in a 401(k) account, they just saw much of this wealth vanish with the plunge in the stock market." -By Dean Baker -CEPR.net

- Mitch McConnell - Economic - Emergency - Jobs - Accounting - Politics - Opinion - People - Social Security - Government - Reference - Book - Kentucky
"Revisionists' blind view of New Deal." ... "[N]early eight decades after [Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt] FDR launched the New Deal, amid possibly the greatest economic emergency since the 1930s, it’s important to understand that the most sophisticated arguments seeking to demolish the New Deal are based on a misreading of the bulk of the historical evidence. University of California, Davis historian Eric Rauchway, the author of “The Great Depression & The New Deal: A Very Short Introduction,” dismantled Shlaes’ argument in a 2007 review in Slate. He showed how [right wing writer Amity] Shlaes had tried to diminish the nation’s economic growth during the 1930s using the narrow gauge of the Dow Jones Industrial Average as opposed to the gross domestic product." ... "Shlaes cited unemployment figures that excluded Americans who had New Deal-generated jobs, and she virtually ignored what Rauchway calls “the authoritative reference work Historical Statistics of the United States.” That reference book shows that during FDR’s first term, the real GDP grew by some 9 percent annually; and after the 1937-38 recession, the economy grew at an annual clip of 11 percent. By the fall of 1934, another New Deal historian, William E. Leuchtenburg, explains, “the ranks of the unemployed had been reduced by over 2 million and national income stood almost a quarter higher than in 1933.”" ... "The Shlaes-[ Kentucky Republican Senator Mitch] McConnell anti-New Deal critics tend to minimize the enduring contribution of laws such as the Wagner Act, which established workers’ rights to organize and bargain collectively, and the Social Security Act of 1935 that provided for unemployment as well as old-age insurance. They highlight, instead, the failure of the National Industrial Recovery Act to fuel economic growth, overlook the ways in which the New Deal alleviated people’s misery and rarely acknowledge that World War II lifted the economy and ultimately ended the Depression because the national government joined closely with the private sector to provide a massive stimulus in the form of federal wartime spending." ... "FDR’s New Deal had its share of failures, setbacks and problems. But to argue that it harmed the American people, “failed abysmally” (Shlaes’ words) to reduce unemployment, and retarded economic growth is to twist the historical evidence beyond all reasonable recognition. Such arguments are forms of revisionism that are misleading, polemical and riddled with distortions of the overwhelming facts at hand about the New Deal’s achievements as well as its real shortcomings. " -By Matthew Dallek -Politico.com

- Judd Gregg - Barack Obama - Economy - New Hampshire
"Sen. Gregg: Obama on the Right Economic Track." ... "[New Hampshire Republican Senator] Judd Gregg, the Republican senator who suddenly withdrew himself as a nominee for Commerce Secretary, "feels very strongly" that [Democratic] President Obama is on the right economic track." ... ""He's going to be a very strong President, in my opinion," he said in an interview on CNBC Friday." ... "Responding to assertions that he originally sought out the position, Gregg did not "campaign" for the job, he said." -CNBC

- Unemployment - Politics - Federal - Law
"Out of Work and Challenged on Benefits, Too: In Record Numbers, Employers Move to Block Unemployment Payouts." ... "It's hard enough to lose a job. But for a growing proportion of [United States] U.S. workers, the troubles really set in when they apply for unemployment benefits." ... "More than a quarter of people applying for such claims have their rights to the benefit challenged as employers increasingly act to block payouts to former workers." ... "The proportion of claims disputed by former employers and state agencies has reached record levels in recent years, according to the Labor Department numbers tallied by the Urban Institute." ... "Under state and federal laws, employees who are fired for misbehavior or quit voluntarily are ineligible for unemployment compensation. When jobless claims are blocked, employers save money because their unemployment insurance rates are based on the amount of the benefits their workers collect." ... "As unemployment rolls swell in the recession, many workers seem surprised to find their benefits challenged, their former bosses providing testimony against them." (1, 2) -By Peter Whoriskey -WashingtonPost

- Home - Prices - Unemployment
"Home Prices in U.S. Slid 12% in Fourth Quarter, Most on Record." ... "Home prices dropped the most on record in the fourth quarter as foreclosures dragged down values and the recession pushed buyers out of the market." ... "The median price of a [United States] U.S. home declined 12 percent to $180,100 from a year earlier and sales of properties with mortgages in default accounted for 45 percent of all transactions, the Chicago-based National Association of Realtors said today. Prices declined in almost nine out of every 10 cities." ... "The worst U.S. housing slump since the Great Depression is deepening as foreclosures drain value from neighboring homes and the economic recession worsens. The number of Americans collecting unemployment benefits rose to a record 4.81 million in the last week of January as companies such as Caterpillar Inc. [Incorporated] and Home Depot Inc. slashed jobs. The U.S. lost 2.6 million jobs last year in the biggest workforce reduction since 1945." -By Kathleen M. Howley -Bloomberg

- Nuclear - Computers - New Mexico
"67 computers missing from nuclear weapons lab." ... "The Los Alamos nuclear weapons laboratory in New Mexico is missing 67 computers, including 13 that were lost or stolen in the past year. Officials say no classified information has been lost." -By Joan Lowy -AP via -Yahoo

- Children's - Vaccines - Psychological - Medical - Science - Minnesota
"Vaccines don't cause autism, special court says." ... "The special masters who decided the case expressed sympathy for the families, some of whom have made emotional pleas describing their children's conditions, but the rulings were blunt: There's little if any evidence to support claims of a vaccine-autism link." ... "The evidence "is weak, contradictory and unpersuasive," concluded Special Master Denise Vowell. "Sadly, the petitioners in this litigation have been the victims of bad science conducted to support litigation rather than to advance medical and scientific understanding" of autism." ... "Science years ago reached the conclusion that there's no connection, but Thursday's rulings in a trio of cases still have far-reaching implications — offering reassurance to parents scared about vaccinating their babies because of a small but vocal anti-vaccine movement. Some vaccine-preventable diseases, including measles, are on the rise, and last fall a Minnesota baby who hadn't been vaccinated against meningitis died of that disease." -By Kevin Freking and Lauran Neergaard -AP via -Yahoo

- Criminal - Drug - War - Government - Law - Politics - Health -US - Brazil - Mexico - Colombia - World
"Latin American Panel Calls U.S. Drug War a Failure." ... "As drug violence spirals out of control in Mexico, a commission led by three former Latin American heads of state blasted the [United States] U.S.-led drug war as a failure that is pushing Latin American societies to the breaking point." ... ""The available evidence indicates that the war on drugs is a failed war," said former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, in a conference call with reporters from Rio de Janeiro [Brazil]. "We have to move from this approach to another one."" ... "The commission, headed by Mr. Cardoso and former presidents Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico and César Gaviria of Colombia, says Latin American governments as well as the U.S. must break what they say is a policy "taboo" and re-examine U.S.-inspired antidrugs efforts. The panel recommends that governments consider measures including decriminalizing the use of marijuana." ... "The report, by the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy, is the latest to question the U.S.'s emphasis on punitive measures to deal with illegal drug use and the criminal violence that accompanies it. A recent Brookings Institution study concluded that despite interdiction and eradication efforts, the world's governments haven't been able to significantly decrease the supply of drugs, while punitive methods haven't succeeded in lowering drug use." ... "The three former presidents who head the commission are political conservatives who have confronted in their home countries the violence and corruption that accompany drug trafficking." ... "The report warned that the U.S.-style antidrug strategy was putting the region's fragile democratic institutions at risk and corrupting "judicial systems, governments, the political system and especially the police forces."" ... "Latin America, he [former President of Colombia César Gaviria] said, should adapt a more European approach, based on treating drug addiction as a health problem." -By José de Córdoba with contributions by David Luhnow, Louise Radnofsky and Evan Perez -WSJ.com

- Barack Obama - Working - Families - Economic - Government - Accounting - History - Lawmakers - Politics
"BIGGEST. TAX CUT. EVER." ... "A few weeks ago, when the House approved the economic stimulus bill without any Republican votes, David Weigel noted that he literally couldn't remember "a time when the entire Republican conference in either house voted against tax cuts."" ... "That's true, but let's go a little further. The compromise plan announced last night includes $282 billion in tax cuts over two years. With that in mind, Steven Waldman argues, persuasively, that when the vast majority of congressional Republicans oppose the package, they'll be voting against the biggest tax cut "in history.""

"According to the Wall Street Journal, [Republican President] Bush's first two years of tax cuts amounted to $174 billion. A second batch in 2004 and 2005 cost $231. And those were thought to be bigger than the tax cuts offered by Reagan, Kennedy or others."

"Now, perhaps some new analysis will show that the tax cuts end up not quite being the largest in history by this measure or that. But it's clear they're massive."

"I'm ducking the debate on whether this is economically a good or bad -- but surely it ought to be a big story."

- Poll - Criminal - Terrorism - Politics - Torture - War Crimes - Wiretapping - US Attorney
"Poll: Most want inquiry into anti-terror tactics." ... "Even as Americans struggle with two wars and an economy in tatters, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds majorities in favor of investigating some of the thorniest unfinished business from the [Republican President] Bush administration: Whether its tactics in the "war on terror" broke the law." ... "Close to two-thirds of those surveyed said there should be investigations into allegations that the Bush team used torture to interrogate terrorism suspects and its program of wiretapping [United States] U.S. citizens without getting warrants. Almost four in 10 favor criminal investigations and about a quarter want investigations without criminal charges. One-third said they want nothing to be done." ... "Even reversed, Bush policies divide" ... "Even more people want action on alleged attempts by the Bush team to use the Justice Department for political purposes. Four in 10 favored a criminal probe, three in 10 an independent panel, and 25% neither." -By Jill Lawrence -USATODAY

- Financial - Crisis - Politics - Sports- Entertainment - Marketing - Trip - History - Consumers - Government - Lawmakers - Obama - Nevada - New York
"Unapologetic CEOs: What Did the Banks Do With Your Cash? Bank CEOs [Chief Executive Officer], With $125 Billion in Taxpayer Money in Hand, Testify and Defend Before Congress." ... "The heads of eight major banks that received $125 billion in taxpayer bailout funds were largely unapologetic for their role in helping to create the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression as they testified before Congress this morning." ... "The CEOs said they are trying to lend out more money and pledged to return to profit, be more transparent and repay taxpayers as soon as possible." ... "But for the most part, the CEOs in their prepared testimony shrugged off recent criticism about the high level of pay within their firms, the use of luxury jets and posh trips to Las Vegas or Monte Carlo [Monaco]." ... "Bank of America took heat recently for sponsoring a five-day carnival-like affair outside the Super Bowl. The event -- known as the "NFL experience" -- included 850,000 square feet of sports games and interactive entertainment attractions for football fans and was blanketed in Bank of America logos and marketing calls to sign up for football-themed banking products." ... "The eight financial firms received a combined total of $125 billion since October through the Troubled Asset Relief Program, commonly referred to as TARP." ... "Lawmakers have expressed outrage that the funds are not fulfilling their purpose of increasing the flow of credit to consumers. They point to a report released last month by the New York state comptroller that said Wall Street firms had handed out $18 billion in bonuses last year." ... "That news led [Democratic] President Obama to impose new restrictions on executive compensation for banks that receive money through the TARP in the future." ... "In the face of pressure from Washington, Citigroup recently scrapped plans to purchase a $50 million luxury jet." (1, 2, 3, 4) -By Matthew Jaffe and Scott Mayerowitz -ABCNEWS.com

- Government - Politics - New York
"Bailed-Out Firms Distributing Cash Rewards: "Please Do Not Call It A Bonus"." ... "Two Wall Street firms that received at least $60 billion in government bailout funds will be rewarding their financial advisers with controversial retention payments, the terms of which one senior executive described as "very generous" in audio obtained by the Huffington Post." ... "The soon-to-be-merged financial giants -- Morgan Stanley and Citigroup's Smith Barney -- announced the payments during an internal conference call last week, but warned advisers against describing them in terms that would cause PR headaches." ... ""There will be a retention award. Please do not call it a bonus," said James Gorman, co-president of Morgan Stanley. "It is not a bonus. It is an award. And it recognizes the importance of keeping our team in place as we go through this integration."" ... "The payments, Gorman said, will be calculated based on performance numbers from 2008 instead of 2009, when the merger is expected to be completed. That decision virtually guarantees an increase in the size of the awards. While 2008 was challenging for the firms -- Morgan Stanley's client assets in fee-based accounts dropped 25 percent in the fourth quarter, and a round of lay-offs is expected -- 2009 is expected to be substantially weaker." ... ""I think I can hear you clapping from here in New York," Gorman joked during the call, after announcing that the payments would be linked to '08 performance. "You should be clapping because frankly that is a very generous and thoughtful decision that we have made. We spent a lot of time kicking this around. We could easily have done it from the point of closing, which is obviously going to be somewhere in the latter half of this year or around the middle of the year. But we just decided... that it was right thing to do, to give you that certainty that it would be based off '08. '09 is a very difficult year... So that degree of anxiety, which many, many of you have emailed me about... is now off the table."" ... "Audio of the conference call was provided by a reader who responded to the Huffington Post's call for information about wasteful or extravagant spending by bailout recipients. " -By Sam Stein -HuffingtonPost.com

- Corporate - Government - Politics
"Bank CEOs: The Men Behind the Billions: From Seven-Figure Paydays to Billion-Dollar Losses: Meet the Bankers Getting Grilled." ... "The eight bank chief executives who will testify before Congress today will explain how they have used money from the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP." ... "Compensation totals, which are courtesy of James F. Reda and Associates, do not include retirement investments and other deferred compensation." ...

"John J. Mack, chairman and chief executive officer, Morgan Stanley"
"2007 Compensation: Salary of $800,000 plus $40.2 million in stock awards."
"Morgan Stanley TARP Funding: $10 billion" ... 

---

"Morgan Stanley was once a part of the powerhouse quintet that included the country's four other top brokerage firms: Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch. Of the five, Morgan and Goldman were the only firms to avoid bankruptcy or a buyout, but barely -- both became bank-holding companies in the fall in order to qualify for TARP funds." ... 

---

"John Stumpf, president and chief executive officer, Wells Fargo & Co."
"2007 Compensation: Salary of $749,615 plus a $4.2 million bonus and $11.6 million in stock awards."
"Wells Fargo TARP Funding: $25 billion" ... 

---

"Vikram Pandit, chief executive officer, Citigroup"
"Compensation: Pandit became Citigroup's chief in late 2007. He received $44.4 million in stock awards in January, 2008."
"Citigroup TARP Funding: $45 billion" ... 

---

"Ken Lewis, chairman and chief executive officer, Bank of America"
"2007 Compensation: Salary of $1.5 million plus a nearly $4.3 million bonus and $21.2 million in stock awards."
"Bank of America TARP Funding: $45 billion, including $10 billion allocated to Merrill Lynch." ... 

---

"James Dimon, chief executive officer, JPMorgan Chase & Co."
"2007 Compensation: Salary of $1 million plus $14.5 million bonus and $13 million in stock awards."
"JPMorgan TARP Funding: $25 billion" ... 

---

"Lloyd Blankfein, chief executive officer and chairman, Goldman Sachs & Co."
"2007 Compensation: Salary of $600,000 plus $27 million bonus and $26 million in stock awards."
"Goldman Sachs TARP Funding: $10 billion" ... 

---

"Robert P. Kelly, chairman and chief executive officer, Bank of New York Mellon"
"2007 Compensation: Salary of $975,000 plus $7.5 million bonus and $10.4 million in stock awards."
"Bank of New York Mellon TARP Funding: $3 billion" ... 

---

"Ronald E. Logue, chairman and chief executive officer, State Street Corp."
"2007 Compensation: Salary of $1 million plus nearly $3.8 million bonus and $22.7 million in stock awards."
"State Street Corp. TARP Funding: $2 billion" ...

- Money - Law - Politics - Federal - Workers - Maine
"Source: Collins Strips Stim Bill Of Whistleblower Protections." ... "The House stimulus bill contained a provision designed to protect federal whistleblowers. Currently, those protections are shockingly weak. According to the Project On Government Oversight, whistleblowers who are fired or demoted can file a complaint with a government board -- but over the last eight years, that board has ruled in favor of whistleblowers only twice in 55 cases." ... "More to the point, the protections were designed to encourage federal workers to point out cases where taxpayer money is subject to waste, fraud, or abuse -- a legitimate concern when Congress spends $800 billion, and one that centrists and Republicans have been particularly exercised about." ... "Yesterday, 20 members of the House, from both parties, sent a letter to House negotiators urging them to ensure that the protections remained." ... "But, according to a person following the bill closely, Collins used today's conference committee to drastically water down the measure, citing national security concerns as the reason for her opposition. In the end, the protections were so weakened that House negotiators balked, and the result was that the entire amendment was removed." ... "According to the person following the bill, [Maine Republican Senator Susan] Collins was the "central roadblock" to passing the protections." ... "So when, in the coming months, conservatives start jumping up and down over the fact that money from the stimulus bill is being wasted, as they surely will, it's worth remember that a key measure designed to help expose that waste was removed from the bill -- and by a senator said to be a champion of fiscal discipline." -By Zachary Roth -TPMMuckracker .TalkingPointsMemo

- Food - Safety - Manufacturers - Federal - Inpectors - Corporate - Law - Ga
"Salmonella found at Ga. plant as early as 2006: Owner Stewart Parnell refused to testify at hearing; 9 have now died." ... "See the jar, the congressman challenged Stewart Parnell, holding up a container of the peanut seller's products and asking if he'd dare eat them. Parnell pleaded the Fifth." ... "The owner of the peanut company at the heart of the massive salmonella recall refused to answer the lawmaker's questions — or any others — Wednesday about the bacteria-tainted products he defiantly told employees to ship to some 50 manufacturers of cookies, crackers and ice cream." ... ""Turn them loose," Parnell had told his plant manager in an internal e-mail disclosed at the House hearing." ... "Shortly after Parnell's appearance, a lab tester told the panel that the company discovered salmonella at its Blakely, Ga. [Georgia], plant as far back as 2006. Food and Drug Administration officials told lawmakers more federal inspections could have helped prevent the outbreak." -AP -MSNBC

- Phoenix - Arizona - Law - Terrorism - Politics - Drugs - California - Texas - US - Mexico
"Kidnapping Capital of the U.S.A.: Washington Too Concerned With al Qaeda Terrorists to Care, Officials Say." ... "In what officials caution is now a dangerous and even deadly crime wave, [Arizona's capital] Phoenix, Arizona has become the kidnapping capital of America, with more incidents than any other city in the world outside of Mexico City [Mexico's capital] and over 370 cases last year alone. But local authorities say Washington, DC [America's capital is too obsessed with al Qaeda terrorists to care about what is happening in their own backyard right now." ... ""We're in the eye of the storm," Phoenix Police Chief Andy Anderson told ABC News of the violent crimes and ruthless tactics spurred by Mexico's drug cartels that have expanded business across the border. "If it doesn't stop here, if we're not able to fix it here and get it turned around, it will go across the nation," he said." ... "California Attorney General Jerry Brown warned that as the U.S. [United States] government focuses so intently on Islamic extremist groups, other types of terrorists those involved with the same kidnappings, extortion and drug cartels that are sweeping Phoenix are overlooked." ... ""Those [criminals], for the average Californian or the average America, may be a more immediate threat to their well being," Brown said." ... "In fact, kidnappings and other crimes connected to the Mexican drug cartels are quickly spreading across the border, from Texas to California." (1, 2) -By Brian Ross, Richard Esposito and Asa Eslocker -ABCNEWS.com

- Eric Cantor - Web - Video - Politics - Government - Jobs - Economic - Crisis - Peoples - Health Care - Homes - Virginia -
"GOP [Republican] Rep. Cantor Attacked For Profanity-Laced Web Video." ... "As first reported by The Plum Line, Virginia Republican [Representative] Eric Cantor is in hot water after his office responded to critics by sending out a profane web video." ... "AFSCME [American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees] President Gerald McEntee isn't amused. "Eric Cantor may think the greatest economic crisis in seventy years is a joke, but we don't," he said in a statement. "He should talk to the people in Virginia who are losing their jobs, health care and homes."" ... "Brad Woodhouse, President of Americans United for Change, responded more forcefully:"

""Does Eric Cantor believe that peddling profanity-laced filth around the Internet is consistent with the values of the people of Virginia or the country? This is childish, inappropriate and disgusting behavior from someone who is supposed to be a leader in Congress and a role model to others. Eric Cantor's response to one of the most serious crises facing America in our lifetimes is to spread this filth, denigrate government employees and treat the current economic crisis like a joke. This video has been floating around on YouTube for years - but Eric Cantor's use of it in this context shows how completely and utterly out of touch he is with the current economic crisis and the lives of his constituents. Eric Cantor should be ashamed and he should apologize.""

- Eric Cantor - Language - Politics - Video - History - Union - Ad - Virginia
"Cantor’s Office Responds: Video Depicting AFSCME Members As Goons." ... "This isn’t going to make the big unions very happy. GOP [GOP=Grand Old Party=Republican Virginia Republican Representative and] House leader Eric Cantor’s office has come up with an intriguing response to the  [American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees] AFSCME ad bllitz targeting GOP leaders: Sending over a video that portrays AFSCME union members as 1970s-era goons." ... "Update: Brad Woodhouse, the head of Americans United for Change, which is also funding the initial ad hitting the GOP leadership, sends over a statement demanding that Cantor apologize." ... "Update II: Now AFSCME chief Gerald McEntee is blasting Cantor, too." ... "Update III: And now AFL-CIO president John Sweeney is hitting Cantor and demanding an apology." -By Greg Sargent -WhoRunsGov.com

- Barack Obama - Eric Cantor - Obscenity - Video - Law - Enforcement - Politics - Workers - Investment - Advertising - VA
"Anti-Obscenity Crusader Eric Cantor Sends Out Profanity-Laced Attack On Union." ... "Today, public-workers union AFSCME [American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees] launched a massive advertising campaign targeting [Republican] neo-Hooverite conservatives who are trying to block [Democratic] President Obama’s recovery and reinvestment plan. One target is [Virginia Republican Representative] Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA [Republican-Virginia]), whom the union faults for declaring he was proud that his party was “just saying no” to Obama. A Cantor spokesman responded by sending around a profanity-laced video portraying AFSCME as mob goons. The video uses the F-word six times in one minute and ends with the tagline: “AFSCME: We’re the f*cking union that works for you.”" ... [Video. Not Safe For Work.] "Cantor claimed the video was a “joke,” though AFSCME didn’t think it was very funny." ... "Yet it’s not just unions who could be offended by the video; Cantor himself has railed against obscenity, voting for the Broadcast Deceny Enforcement Act that allowed fines of up to $500,000 on broadcasters for airing any “obscene, indecent, or profane” material. Speaking on the House floor in support of the bill, Cantor condemned “offensive television” that will “damage our society” and “cannot be tolerated“ [PDF]:"

"CANTOR: The use of obscenity…should not and cannot be tolerated. As a parent, I share the concerns of many regarding the level of offensive television and radio programs that are transmitted into our homes. The recent violations that have occurred disgusted not only me, but damage our society."

- Barack Obama - Money - Politics - Government - Law - History - Peoples - Jobs
"The Big Winners In Stimulus Compromise: The Upper-Middle Class." ... "When [Democratic] President Obama outlined on January 8 [2009] the rationale for the economic stimulus bill, "The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act," he clearly identified the men and women most in trouble:"

"Nearly two million jobs have now been lost, and on Friday we are likely to learn that we lost more jobs last year than at any time since World War II. Just in the past year, another 2.8 million Americans who want and need full-time work have had to settle for part-time jobs."

- Corporate - Government - Politics - PA - Kids - Prisons - Enforcement
"Pa. judges accused of jailing kids for cash: Judges allegedly took $2.6 million in payoffs to put juveniles in lockups ." ... "For years, the juvenile court system in Wilkes-Barre [Pennsylvania] operated like a conveyor belt: Youngsters were brought before judges without a lawyer, given hearings that lasted only a minute or two, and then sent off to juvenile prison for months for minor offenses." ... "The explanation, prosecutors say, was corruption on the bench." ... "Prosecutors say Luzerne County [Pennsylvania] Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan took $2.6 million in payoffs to put juvenile offenders in lockups run by PA Child Care LLC [Limited Liability Company] and a sister company, Western PA Child Care LLC." ... "In Luzerne County, prosecutors say, Conahan shut down the county-run juvenile prison in 2002 and helped the two companies secure rich contracts worth tens of millions of dollars, at least some of that dependent on how many juveniles were locked up." ... "One of the contracts — a 20-year agreement with PA Child Care worth an estimated $58 million — was later canceled by the county as exorbitant." ... "Robert J. Powell co-owned PA Child Care and Western PA Child Care until June." (1, 2) -AP via -MSNBC

- Science - Education - Book - Religious - People - Poll
"On Darwin’s Birthday, Only 4 in 10 Believe in Evolution: Belief drops to 24% among frequent church attenders." ... "On the eve of the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, a new Gallup Poll shows that only 39% of Americans say they "believe in the theory of evolution," while a quarter say they do not believe in the theory, and another 36% don't have an opinion either way. These attitudes are strongly related to education and, to an even greater degree, religiosity." ... "Darwin's theory has been at the forefront of religious debate since he published On the Origin of Species 150 years ago. Even to this day, highly religious individuals claim that the theory of evolution contradicts the story of creation as outlined in the book of Genesis in the Bible." ... "Implications" ... "As Darwin is being lauded as one of the most important scientists in history on the 200th anniversary of his birth (on Feb. 12, 1809), it is perhaps dismaying to scientists who study and respect his work to see that well less than half of Americans today say they believe in the theory of evolution, and that just 55% can associate the man with his theory." ... "Naturally, some of this is because of educational differences. Americans who have lower levels of formal education are significantly less likely than others to be able to identity Darwin with his theory, and to have an opinion on it either way. Still, the evidence is clear that even to this day, Americans' religious beliefs are a significant predictor of their attitudes toward Darwin's theory. Those who attend church most often are the least likely to believe in evolution, and most likely to say they do not believe in it." -By Frank Newport -Gallup.com

- Corporate - Government - Politics - Lawyers - Jobs - 2008 Election - US - International
"Bush Faithful Rewarded With Jobs: On the Way Out, He Placed Aides and Big-Money GOP [GOP=Grand Old Party=Republican] Donors." ... "Fred F. Fielding, Emmet T. Flood, William A. Burck and Daniel M. Price worked together at the White House under [Republican President] George W. Bush. Less than two weeks before leaving office, Bush made sure the senior aides shared a new assignment, naming them to an obscure World Bank agency called the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes." ... "The appointments are for six years and are potentially lucrative, paying up to $3,000 a day plus travel and other expenses if an appointee is chosen to hear a case. Bush also named two other prominent Republican lawyers to the agency, which attempts to broker international finance disagreements." ... "Bush made more than 100 such end-of-term appointments to a constellation of presidential boards and panels, such as the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports and the U.S.-Russia Polar Bear Commission." ... "Nearly half of Bush's appointments after [2008] Election Day were filled by donors who gave a total of nearly $1.9 million to Republicans since 2003, according to an analysis of the postings. At least 20 of the positions were filled by former Bush aides, plus others filled by old hands from the administrations of [Republican Presidents] Richard M. Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush." ... "Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said that while many of the appointments owe to vanity or good causes, some are also useful for maintaining political influence. "The real question is not only whether they are paid, but what benefits can they pay out from these boards," she said." -By Dan Eggen -WashingtonPost

- Political -  - Opinion
"Fox passes off GOP press release as its own research -- typo and all." ... "Summary: In purporting to "take a look back" at how the economic recovery plan "grew, and grew, and grew," [Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp television station] Fox News' Jon Scott referenced seven dates, as on-screen graphics cited various news sources from those time periods -- all of which came directly from a Senate Republican Communications Center press release. A Fox News on-screen graphic even reproduced a typo contained in the Republican press release." -By Eric H. Hananoki -MediaMatters.org

- Federal - Economic - History - Ohio
"U.S. Rep. Austria [falsely] blames Depression on Roosevelt." ... "U.S. [United States Ohio Republican Representative] Rep. Steve Austria said he supports a scaled-down federal economic-stimulus proposal, but the Beavercreek Republican told The Dispatch editorial board that the huge influx of money into the economy could have a negative effect." ... ""When (President Franklin) Roosevelt did this, he put our country into a Great Depression," Austria said. "He tried to borrow and spend, he tried to use the Keynesian approach, and our country ended up in a Great Depression. That's just history."" ... "Most historians date the beginning of the Great Depression at or shortly after the stock-market crash of 1929; Roosevelt took office in 1933." -DispatchPolitics.com

- Financial - Crisis - Government - Accounting - Politics - History - Author - Texas
"Economist James Galbraith: Bailed-Out Banks Should Be Declared Insolvent." ... "With estimates of the cost of addressing the financial crisis exceeding $9.7 trillion, we speak with economist and University of Texas professor James Galbraith, author of [the book] The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too. Galbraith says rather than pouring billions into propping up troubled giant banks, the government should declare them insolvent." ...

Watch - Listen

AMY GOODMAN: "Professor Galbraith, are you for nationalizing banks?"
JAMES GALBRAITH: "You know, I think the term is a political misleading term. I learned a few months ago that in 1982, at the time of the Latin American debt crisis, the [Republican President] Reagan administration’s FDIC had a contingency plan to nationalize the major banks in the case that a major Latin American country—let’s say Mexico or Argentina or Brazil—had defaulted outright on its debt. This was not something that administration would have wanted to do. In the end, they didn’t have to do it. But they had a plan to do it, if it was necessary because the banks were rendered insolvent by the running to ruin of a major class of assets." ... "Well, we have a major class of assets—that is to say, all of these subprime mortgage-backed securities—which have run to ruin. They should never have been issued in the first place. They are very, very highly likely to default. They were issued on terms which makes them basically unmarketable, because there is not adequate loan documentation. And when there is loan documentation, that documentation evidently indicates that the loans are likely to go bad, so that nobody outside will buy them. That’s a problem that exists in the banking system, and the regulators simply have to deal with it." ... "And I don’t think—you know, it’s not—we’re not in 1945 in Attlee’s Britain, where we are taking the commanding heights of their economy or anything like that. We are doing what regulators always have to do, in conservative and liberal administrations, when faced with major intractable insolvencies in the financial system. If you don’t deal with that, the problem of fraud and loss just gets worse. And the losses that are incurred after insolvency are losses that fall on the taxpayer, because they come against deposits that are insured. So, one way or another, until we deal with this, the taxpayers’ liability just gets bigger and bigger."

AMY GOODMAN: "Professor Galbraith, I hate to ask you this last question with just about thirty seconds to go, but it’s about the title of your book and what it means, The Predator State."
JAMES GALBRAITH: "Well, the Predator State refers to the takeover of state power by private interests masquerading behind conservative principle and basically acting for private clients and private profit. That was the [Republican President] Bush administration in a nutshell. The title goes back to Veblen and a bit to my father’s New Industrial State, and it’s an attempt to capture in two words a phenomenon that I think really has transformed our economy, much for the worse in the last several decades." -DemocracyNow.org

- Medical - Drug - Science - Safety - Corporate - Government - Politics
"Big Pharma fights oversight." ... "This is irritating."

""The drug and medical-device industries are mobilizing to gut a provision in the stimulus bill that would spend $1.1 billion on research comparing medical treatments, portraying it as the first step to government rationing.""

-Michael Steele - Political - Money - Federal - Law - Maryland - 2006 Election
"RNC [Republican] chief Michael Steele says he'll cooperate with FBI: enying allegations of impropriety in his 2006 campaign spending, Steele says he will voluntarily hand over papers to the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation], which had contacted his sister over payments her company received." ... "Reporting from Washington -- Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele said Sunday that he would provide records from his 2006 [election, Maryland, United States] U.S. Senate campaign to the FBI in an effort to speed an apparent investigation into allegations of improper campaign spending." ... "Steele confirmed that his sister was recently contacted by FBI agents looking into allegations that his campaign paid a company she owned more than $37,000 in 2007 for campaign work that was never performed. The allegations were made by Steele's former campaign finance chairman in an attempt to gain a more lenient prison sentence after he was convicted of fraud in an unrelated case." ... "Alan B. Fabian, who had been finance chairman of Steele's Senate campaign in Maryland, made the allegations in March in an effort to get a reduced sentence for his part in a $40-million fraud scheme." -By Paul West -LAtimes

- Drug - Investigation - Federal - Law - History - Texas - Calif - New York
"Sources tell SI Alex Rodriguez tested positive for steroids in 2003." ... "In 2003, when he won the American League home run title and the AL Most Valuable Player award as a shortstop for the Texas Rangers, Alex Rodriguez tested positive for two anabolic steroids, four sources have independently told Sports Illustrated." ... "Rodriguez's name appears on a list of 104 players who tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in Major League Baseball's '03 survey testing, SI's sources say. As part of a joint agreement with the MLB Players Association, the testing was conducted to determine if it was necessary to impose mandatory random drug testing across the major leagues in 2004." ... "Though MLB's drug policy has expressly prohibited the use of steroids without a valid prescription since 1991, there were no penalties for a positive test in 2003. The results of that year's survey testing of 1,198 players were meant to be anonymous under the agreement between the commissioner's office and the players association. Rodriguez's testing information was found, however, after federal agents, armed with search warrants, seized the '03 test results from Comprehensive Drug Testing, Inc., of Long Beach, Calif. [California], one of two labs used by MLB in connection with that year's survey testing. The seizure took place in April 2004 as part of the government's investigation into 10 major league players linked to the BALCO scandal -- though Rodriguez himself has never been connected to BALCO." ... "Anticipating that the 33-year-old Rodriguez, who has 553 career home runs, could become the game's alltime home run king, the [New York] Yankees signed him in November 2007 to a 10-year, incentive-laden deal that could be worth as much as $305 million. Rodriguez is reportedly guaranteed $275 million and could receive a $6 million bonus each time he ties one of the four players at the top of the list: Willie Mays (660), Babe Ruth (714), Hank Aaron (755) and Barry Bonds (762), and an additional $6 million for passing Bonds." -By Selena Roberts and David Epstein -SI.com

- Pete Sessions - Michael Steele - Terrorism - Radio - Government - Economic - Legislation - Job - Tex - Ga - Maryland - 2006 Election
"Republicans See Long-Term Victory in Defeat on Stimulus Plan." ... "GOP [GOP=Grand Old Party=Republican] Sees Positives In Negative Stand: Leaders Seize On Spending Issue." ... "After giving the package zero [Republican] votes in the House, and 0 with their [Republican] counterparts in the Senate likely to provide in a crucial procedural vote today only the handful of votes needed to avoid a filibuster, Republicans are relishing the opportunity to make a big statement. [Texas Republican Representative] Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Tex. [Representative-Texas]) suggested last week that the party is learning from the disruptive tactics of the Taliban, and the GOP these days does have the bravado of an insurgent band that has pulled together after a big defeat to carry off a quick, if not particularly damaging, raid on the powers that be." ... "And it means rallying to Rush Limbaugh, who has put himself forward as a de facto party leader, penning an op-ed article in the Wall Street Journal and accepting the on-air apologies of [Georgia Republican Representative] Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga. [Republican-Georgia]), who criticized the radio host and paid for it in a deluge of angry calls." ... "[Republican National Committee chairman Michael S. Steele congratulated congressional Republicans in some of his first remarks as Republican chairman,] "The goose egg that you laid on the president's desk was just beautiful," he told them. "You and I know that in the history of mankind and womankind, government -- federal, state or local -- has never created one job. It's destroyed a lot of them."" ... "Steele is also facing a distraction -- a federal inquiry into allegations that his 2006 [election Maryland] Senate campaign paid a defunct company run by his sister for services that were never performed. The campaign's finance chairman made the allegations to federal prosecutors last year as he sought leniency during plea negotiations on unrelated fraud charges." -By Alec MacGillis and Perry Bacon Jr. -WashingtonPost

- Media - Politics - Radio - Market -Florida - San Diego - Sacramento - California - Ohio - Minnesota - Wisconsin - Portland - Oregon
"Another Right-Wing Conspiracy in Washington?" ... "The commercial use of public airwaves is supposed to reflect the diversity of the local community, but that's not how it works in Washington [DC, America's capital]. On the AM dial, WMAL (630) features wall-to-wall conservative talk. So do stations WTNT (570) and WHFS (1580). For the past two years, OBAMA 1260 -- even with a weak signal that cannot be heard in downtown Washington -- was the exception. No longer. Starting tomorrow, our nation's capital, where Democrats control the House, the Senate and the White House, and where Democrats outnumber Republicans 10 to one, will have no progressive voices on the air." ... "Or maybe one." ... "To mollify critics, Red Zebra has said it will add Ed Schultz to its conservative lineup on 570 AM. This means Shultz will be outgunned in this market by at least 15 conservative talkers: Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Mark Levin, Chris Plante, Michael Smerconish, Michael Savage, Andy Parks, Fred Grandy, Bill Bennett, Monica Crowley, Bill O'Reilly, Dennis Miller and Lars Larsen. No matter how good Schultz is, that's not a fair contest -- nor a fair use of the public airwaves." ... "Unfortunately, what's happening in Washington reflects what has happened in one city after another across the country. In Miami [Florida], Clear Channel recently dumped progressive talk for sports: Clear Channel stations made the same move in San Diego [California] and Cincinnati [Ohio]. Sacramento [California] abandoned progressive talk for gospel music. In fact, according to a study released by the Center for American Progress and Free Press, there are nine hours of conservative talk for every one hour of progressive talk." ... "Why? Station owners complain they can't get good ratings or make any money with progressive talk, but that's nonsense. In Minnesota, independent owner Janet Robert has operated KTNF (950 AM) profitably for five years. In Madison, Wis. [Wisconsin], WXXM, 92.1 FM, just scored its highest ratings ever. And KPOJ in Portland, Ore. [Oregon], soared with progressive talk from No. 23 in market ratings to No. 1. Nationwide, progressive talkers Randi Rhodes, Ed Schultz and Stephanie Miller have proven that, given a level playing field, they can more than hold their own in ratings -- and make money for their stations." ... "In fact, the only reason there's not more competition on American airwaves is that the handful of companies that own most radio stations do everything they can to block it." ... "There is no free market in talk radio today, only an exclusive, tightly held, conservative media conspiracy." -By Bill Press -WashingtonPost

- Michael Steele - Radio - Politics - Corporate - Media - Government - Marketing
"The RNC [Republican National Committee] begs for help on right wing talk radio." ... "C&Lers Tony and Karen emailed me this tidbit and I thought I would share."

"Please take a look at the RNC [Republican National Committee] website - http://www.rnc.org/ On the right hand side is a link that goes to a list of all of the right wing radio shows, along with a plea to promote the RNC. The [Republican President] Bush administration was constantly denying that talk radio was just another arm of their party. The RNC seems to have given up this pretense. It was blatant government propaganda for eight years. Sickening!"

- Michael Steele - Money - Politics - Federal - Investigation - 2006 Election - Maryland
"Steele's Campaign Spending Questioned: Agents Contact Sister After Ex-Aide's Claims." ... "Michael S. Steele, the newly elected chairman of the Republican National Committee, arranged for his 2006 Senate campaign to pay a defunct company run by his sister for services that were never performed, his finance chairman from that campaign has told federal prosecutors." ... "Federal agents in recent days contacted Steele's sister, a spokesman for Steele said yesterday." ... "The claim about the payment, one of several allegations by Alan B. Fabian, is outlined in a confidential court document. Fabian offered the information last March as he was seeking leniency for himself during plea negotiations on unrelated fraud charges." ... "Fabian's claims emerge as Steele begins his new role at the RNC [Republican National Committee], where he oversees the raising and spending of hundreds of millions of dollars in party money. The former Maryland lieutenant governor has faced questions about his handling of campaign money in prior elections and was twice fined for missing filing deadlines." ... "The recent allegations outlined four specific transactions. In addition to the payment to Steele's sister, Fabian said that the candidate used money from his state campaign improperly; that Steele paid $75,000 from the state campaign to a law firm for work that was never performed; and that he or an aide transferred more than $500,000 in campaign cash from one bank to another without authorization." ... "In one of his allegations, Fabian points to a February 2007 payment by Steele's Senate campaign of more than $37,000 to Brown Sugar Unlimited, the company run by Steele's sister, Monica Turner. Campaign finance records list the expense as having been for "catering/web services." Turner filed papers to dissolve the company 11 months before the payment was received." (1, 2, 3) -By Henri E. Cauvin with contributions by Aaron C. Davis, Matthew Mosk, Katherine Shaver, John Wagner and Meg Smith -WashingtonPost

- Dick Cheney - Criminal - KBR/Halliburton - Corporation - Government - Politics -  - Military - People - Texas - US - Iraq - Nigeria - Oil - Construction
"KBR wins contract despite criminal probe of deaths." ... "Defense contractor KBR Inc. [Incorporated] has been awarded a $35 million Pentagon contract involving major electrical work, even as it is under criminal investigation in the electrocution deaths of at least two [United States] U.S. soldiers in Iraq." ... "The announcement of the new KBR contract came just months after the Pentagon, in strongly worded correspondence obtained by The Associated Press, rejected the company's explanation of serious mistakes in Iraq and its proposed improvements. A senior Pentagon official, David J. Graff, cited the company's "continuing quality deficiencies" and said KBR executives were "not sufficiently in touch with the urgency or realities of what was actually occurring on the ground."" ... ""Many within DOD (the Department of Defense) have lost or are losing all remaining confidence in KBR's ability to successfully and repeatedly perform the required electrical support services mission in Iraq," wrote Graff, commander of the Defense Contract Management Agency, in a [September] Sept. 30 letter." ... "Graff rejected the company's claims that it wasn't required to follow U.S. electrical codes for its work on U.S. military facilities in Iraq." ... "The deaths of [Staff Sergeant Christopher Lee] Everett and [Staff Sergeant Ryan] Maseth are among the 18 under review by the Pentagon's inspector general." ... "KBR was previously owned by Halliburton Co. [Company], the oil services conglomerate that former [Republican] Vice President Dick Cheney once led." ... "Separately, court papers filed in Houston [Texas] on Friday show KBR is preparing to plead guilty to federal bribery charges for promising and paying tens of millions of dollars in bribes to officials in Nigeria in exchange for engineering and construction contracts between 1995 and 2004." -By Kimberly Hefling -AP via -Yahoo

- Nuclear - Science - Secrets - Investigation -Military - Intelligence - History - Legal - Politics - Pakistan - Iran - Libya - North Korea - US - British - Italian - Switzerland -  - International
"Nuclear Scientist A.Q. Khan Is Freed From House Arrest." ... "Early yesterday, the Pakistani scientist at the center of one of history's worst nuclear scandals walked out of his Islamabad [Pakistan's capital] villa to declare his vindication after five years of house arrest. "The judgment, by the grace of God, is good," a smiling Abdul Qadeer Khan told a throng of reporters and TV crews." ... "Moments earlier, a Pakistani court had ordered the release of the metallurgist who had famously admitted selling nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea. Through years of legal limbo, Khan, 72, had never been charged, and now he never will be. "The so-called A.Q. Khan affair is a closed chapter," a Pakistani government spokesman said." ... "Nearly five years after Khan's smuggling operation came to light, the international effort to prosecute its leaders is largely in shambles, yielding convictions of only a few minor participants and no significant prison time for any of them." ... "Khan's international network collapsed in 2003 after U.S. [United States], British and Italian officials halted a Libya-bound ship in the Mediterranean loaded with machine parts used to make enriched uranium." ... "That discovery was the culmination of more than a decade of secret investigation by the CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] and other agencies of the business dealings of Khan, one of Pakistan's best-known scientists and the father of the country's nuclear weapons program." ... "U.S. and U.N. [United Nations] investigators ultimately accused Khan of heading a sophisticated network of businesses and front companies that manufactured and sold components needed to make nuclear bombs. But while the factories and shipping offices were dismantled, Khan proved to be beyond Washington's reach. Pakistan's then-President Pervez Musharraf, confronted with evidence of Khan's deeds, persuaded the scientist to make a public confession but then officially pardoned him. Khan would remain under house arrest, but Pakistani officials refused to allow him to be questioned by U.S. officials or investigators of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog." ... "Efforts to prosecute alleged members of the network in Switzerland touched off a series of squabbles between Swiss and U.S. officials. Swiss prosecutors accused the [Republican President] Bush administration of withholding critical evidence needed to put three Swiss businessmen -- a father and two brothers who worked with Khan in the 1980s and 1990s -- behind bars." ... "Last month, one of the brothers confirmed in a Swiss television interview that he had been working undercover for the CIA, prompting the Swiss parliament to ask why Switzerland had not been informed about covert action inside its territory. " -By Joby Warrick -WashingtonPost

- Criminal - Food - Safety - Science - Consumers - Health - Ga - Agricultural - Corporation - Plant
"FDA: Plant knew peanuts laced with salmonella." ... "As far back as 2007, salmonella-laced products were shipped by a Georgia peanut company [owned by Stewart Parnell] that knew the peanuts probably were tainted and sometimes after tests confirmed that contamination, inspection records show." ... "Federal law forbids producing or shipping foods under conditions that could make it harmful to consumers' health." ... "Food and Drug Administration officials earlier had said Peanut Corp. [Corporation] of America waited for a second test to clear peanut butter and peanuts that initially were positive for salmonella. But the agency amended its report Friday, saying that the Blakely, Ga. [Georgia], plant actually shipped some products before receiving the second test and sold others after confirming salmonella." ... "The salmonella outbreak has been blamed for at least eight deaths and 575 illnesses in 43 states. The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation. More than 1,550 products have been recalled." -By Brett J. Blackledge and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar with contributions by Mary Clare Jalonick -AP via -Yahoo

- Government - Economic - Politics - Employment
"What the centrists have wrought." ... "[T]o appease the centrists, a plan that was already too small and too focused on ineffective tax cuts has been made significantly smaller, and even more focused on tax cuts." ... "According to the [Congressional Budget Office] CBO’s estimates, we’re facing an output shortfall of almost 14% of GDP [Gross Domestic Product] over the next two years, or around $2 trillion. Others, such as Goldman Sachs, are even more pessimistic. So the original $800 billion plan was too small, especially because a substantial share consisted of tax cuts that probably would have added little to demand. The plan should have been at least 50% larger." ... "Now the centrists have shaved off $86 billion in spending — much of it among the most effective and most needed parts of the plan." ... "My first cut says that the changes to the Senate bill will ensure that we have at least 600,000 fewer Americans employed over the next two years." -By Paul Krugman/Blog -NYTimes

- Corporate - Government - Politics - AIG - Investigation
"Bush overpaid banks in bailout, watchdog says." ... "The [Republican President] Bush administration overpaid tens of billions of dollars for stocks and other assets in its massive bailout last year of Wall Street banks and financial institutions, a new study by a government watchdog says." ... "The Congressional Oversight Panel, in a report released Friday, said last year's overpayments amounted to a taxpayer-financed $78 billion subsidy of the firms." ... "Financially ailing insurance giant American International Group, which the Treasury Department deemed to be too big to be allowed to fail, received $40 billion from the Treasury for assets valued at $14.8 billion, the oversight panel found." -By Jim Kuhnhenn -AP via -Yahoo

- John A Boehner - Peter Hoekstra - Secret - Trip - Lawmaker - Electronic - Communications - Military - Ohio - Mich - US - Iraq
"Congressman Twitters an Iraq Security Breach." ... "A congressional trip to Iraq this weekend was supposed to be a secret." ... "But the cat’s out of the bag now, thanks to a member of the House Intelligence Committee who broke an embargo via Twitter." ... "A delegation led by [Ohio Republican Representative and] House Minority Leader John A. Boehner , R[Republican]-Ohio, arrived in Iraq earlier today, and because of [Michigan Republican Representative] Rep. Peter Hoekstra , R-Mich. [Republican-Michigan], the entire world — or at least Twitter.com readers—now know they’re there." ... "“Just landed in Baghdad [Iraq's capital],” messaged Hoekstra, a former chairman of the Intelligence panel and now the ranking member, who is routinely entrusted to keep some of the nation’s most closely guarded secrets." ... "Before the delegation left Washington, they were advised to keep the trip to themselves for security reasons." ... "Not only did Hoekstra reveal the existence of the lawmakers’ trip, but included details about their itinerary in updates posted every few hours on his Twitter page, until he suddenly stopped, for some reason, on Friday morning. " -By John M. Donnelly -CQPolitics.com

- John McCain - Government - Economic - History - Politics - AZ
"Krugman: How Can There Be Bipartisanship When GOP ‘Take Their Marching Orders From Rush Limbaugh?’" ... "Today on MSNBC, the Morning Joe team [featuring former Republican politician Joe Scarborough] — many of whom have been having a tough time with the facts of the economic recovery plan — hosted Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman to discuss the bill. Krugman began by emphasizing the severity of the current economic crisis. “This is not your father’s recession,” Krugman said. “This is your grandfather’s recession. This is something that is closer to what we went through in the 30s.”" ... "Krugman criticized opposition to the “pork” in the recovery plan, calling the obstruction “irresponsible” and “ludicrous.” He noted that it’s “a few billion dollars in a $900 billion plan. …They’re picking out small punctuation errors and saying ‘oh this whole thing is wrong.’” Krugman added, “This is the kind of situation where you try to build a bridge across an economic chasm and if you build half a bridge it doesn’t work.”" ... "Yesterday, the Senate defeated (but most Republicans voted in favor of) an alternative plan offered by [Arizona Republican Senator] Sen. John McCain (R-AZ [Republican-Arizona]) that centered mainly on massive tax cuts. Krugman called the plan “completely crazy” and an indication of a failure of bipartisanship:"

"KRUGMAN: Look at what just happened, we had a proposal I think it was McCain’s proposal for an economic recovery package, his version of it which was all tax cuts, a complete, let’s do exactly what Bush did, have another round of Bush-style policies. After eight years which that didn’t work and we got 36 out of 41 Republican senators voting for that which is completely crazy. So how much bipartisan outreach can you have when 36 out of 41 republican senators take their marching orders from Rush Limbaugh?"

- Sarah Palin - Politics - Investigation - Alaska
"Alaska Senate finds Todd Palin in contempt in 'troopergate'." ... "The Alaska Senate voted today to find [Alaska Republican Governor] Gov. Sarah Palin's husband, Todd, and nine Palin aides in contempt for failing to show up when ordered by subpoena to testify in the Legislature's "troopergate" investigation of the governor." ... "But the Senate resolution also said there should be no punishment because Todd Palin and the others did eventually submit written statements to the investigator, Steve Branchflower." -By Sean Cockerham -ADN.com via -McClatchyDC.com

- Jobs - Employer - People - History
"Job loss: Worst in 34 years: Employers slashed 598,000 more jobs in January as unemployment rate climbed to 7.6%." ... "Employers slashed another 598,000 jobs off of [United States] U.S. payrolls in January, taking the unemployment rate up to 7.6%, according to the latest government reading on the nation's battered labor market." ... "The latest job loss is the worst since December 1974, and brings job losses to 1.8 million in just the last three months, or half of the 3.6 million jobs that have been lost since the beginning of 2008." ... "The unemployment rate is now at its highest level since September, 1992." ... "Friday's report also showed that 2.6 million people have now been out of work for more than six months, the most long-term unemployed since 1983." ... "The so-called underemployment rate, which includes those who have stopped looking for work and people working only part-time that want full-time positions, climbed to 13.9% from 13.5% in December. That is the highest rate for this measure since the Labor Department first started tracking it in 1994." -CNN

- China - Drought - Disaster - History - People - Food - Animals - Agriculture - Land
"China suffering worst drought in 50 years." ... "China is suffering another natural disaster -- this time, the worst drought in half a century. The land is parched and the irrigation dams have dried up. Crops and livestock are dying." ... "China on Thursday raised the drought-emergency-alert level from orange to red and allocated an additional $44 million dollars on top of the $13 million in emergency aid already released." ... "Since November northern and central China has had little rain. Many places have not had rainfall for more than 100 days." ... "In the drought, more than 4.3 million residents face a shortage of drinking water, as do 2 million livestock." ... "The drought has hit 12 provinces, including the wheat-producing areas in Henan, Anhui, and Shandong provinces. Chinese media says the total area affected has reached 1,370 million hectares (3,385 million acres)." -By Jaime Florcruz -CNN

- Henry Paulson - Corporate - Government - Politics - Florida
"TARP Shortchanged Taxpayers by $78 Billion, Watchdog Panel Says." ... "[United States] U.S. taxpayers are being shortchanged by about $78 billion through the Treasury Department’s bank bailout, the panel overseeing the program said." ... "The Treasury, when it was headed by [Republican President Bush's] Secretary Henry Paulson, received bank assets worth about $176 billion in exchange for capital purchases of $254 billion under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the Congressional Oversight Panel said in a report today." ... "“The loss estimate is conservative,” said [Florida Democratic] Representative Alan Grayson, a Florida Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee. “It could turn out that those assets in the end are worthless. These are massive handouts to favored institutions to try to make up with taxpayer money the mistakes they made with investor money.”" ... "TARP [Troubled Asset Relief Program], which is part of the more than $9 trillion the government has pledged to rescue the financial system, has guaranteed $350 billion to banks so far, with another $350 billion set for use in coming months." -By Mark Pittman and Bob Ivry -Bloomberg

- Pete Sessions - Terrorism - Politics - Legislator - TX
"Rep. Pete Sessions: Taliban is ‘a model’ for how GOP [Republicans] can become an ‘insurgency.’." ... "In an interview with Hotline, [Texas Republican Representative] Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX [Republican-Texas]) said the Republican party will have to be come an “insurgency” to counter Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, and added that the Taliban can serve as “a model”:"

"[Pete Sessions:] “Insurgency, we understand perhaps a little bit more because of the Taliban,” Sessions said during a meeting yesterday with Hotline editors. “And that is that they went about systematically understanding how to disrupt and change a person’s entire processes. And these Taliban — I’m not trying to say the Republican Party is the Taliban. No, that’s not what we’re saying. I’m saying an example of how you go about [sic] is to change a person from their messaging to their operations to their frontline message. And we need to understand that insurgency may be required when the other side, the House leadership, does not follow the same commands, which we entered the game with.” […]"

"When pressed to clarify, Sessions said he was not comparing the House Republican caucus to the Taliban, the Muslim fundamentalist group. “I simply said one can see that there’s a model out there for insurgency,” Sessions said before being interrupted by an aide."

- Barack Obama - Noteworthy - Economic - Crisis - History - People - Families - Jobs - Homes - Consumer - Energy - Health Care - Education - Internet - Science - Transportation - Construction - Government - Legislation - Politics
"The Action Americans Need." [By Democratic President Barack Obama] ... "By now, it's clear to everyone that we have inherited an economic crisis as deep and dire as any since the days of the Great Depression. Millions of jobs that Americans relied on just a year ago are gone; millions more of the nest eggs families worked so hard to build have vanished. People everywhere are worried about what tomorrow will bring." ... "What Americans expect from Washington is action that matches the urgency they feel in their daily lives -- action that's swift, bold and wise enough for us to climb out of this crisis." ... "Because each day we wait to begin the work of turning our economy around, more people lose their jobs, their savings and their homes. And if nothing is done, this recession might linger for years. Our economy will lose 5 million more jobs. Unemployment will approach double digits. Our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse." ... "That's why I feel such a sense of urgency about the recovery plan before Congress. With it, we will create or save more than 3 million jobs over the next two years, provide immediate tax relief to 95 percent of American workers, ignite spending by businesses and consumers alike, and take steps to strengthen our country for years to come." ... "This plan is more than a prescription for short-term spending -- it's a strategy for America's long-term growth and opportunity in areas such as renewable energy, health care and education. And it's a strategy that will be implemented with unprecedented transparency and accountability, so Americans know where their tax dollars are going and how they are being spent." ... "In recent days, there have been misguided criticisms of this plan that echo the failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis -- the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems; that we can meet our enormous tests with half-steps and piecemeal measures; that we can ignore fundamental challenges such as energy independence and the high cost of health care and still expect our economy and our country to thrive." ... "I reject these theories, and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change. They know that we have tried it those ways for too long. And because we have, our health-care costs still rise faster than inflation. Our dependence on foreign oil still threatens our economy and our security. Our children still study in schools that put them at a disadvantage. We've seen the tragic consequences when our bridges crumble and our levees fail." ... "Every day, our economy gets sicker -- and the time for a remedy that puts Americans back to work, jump-starts our economy and invests in lasting growth is now." ... "Now is the time to protect health insurance for the more than 8 million Americans at risk of losing their coverage and to computerize the health-care records of every American within five years, saving billions of dollars and countless lives in the process." ... "Now is the time to save billions by making 2 million homes and 75 percent of federal buildings more energy-efficient, and to double our capacity to generate alternative sources of energy within three years." ... "Now is the time to give our children every advantage they need to compete by upgrading 10,000 schools with state-of-the-art classrooms, libraries and labs; by training our teachers in math and science; and by bringing the dream of a college education within reach for millions of Americans." ... "And now is the time to create the jobs that remake America for the 21st century by rebuilding aging roads, bridges and levees; designing a smart electrical grid; and connecting every corner of the country to the information superhighway." ... "These are the actions Americans expect us to take without delay. They're patient enough to know that our economic recovery will be measured in years, not months. But they have no patience for the same old partisan gridlock that stands in the way of action while our economy continues to slide." ... "So we have a choice to make. We can once again let Washington's bad habits stand in the way of progress. Or we can pull together and say that in America, our destiny isn't written for us but by us. We can place good ideas ahead of old ideological battles, and a sense of purpose above the same narrow partisanship. We can act boldly to turn crisis into opportunity and, together, write the next great chapter in our history and meet the test of our time." -By Barack Obama -WashingtonPost

- Barack Obama - Financial - Crisis - Government - Legislation

"Obama puts the heat on Republicans: He says the 'half steps' now urged by the GOP [GOP=Grand Old Party=Republican] for the stimulus bill are the same ideas that led to the financial crisis." ... "[Democratic] President Obama abruptly changed tactics Wednesday in his bid to revive the economy, setting aside his bipartisan stance and pointedly blaming Republicans for demanding what he cast as discredited "piecemeal measures."" ... "Obama's comments were a marked departure from the conciliatory tone he has maintained as he courted Republican votes for his stimulus package through compromise. Against the wishes of his own party, Obama crafted a plan that relied heavily on tax cuts rooted in Republican economic doctrine." ... ""Now, let me say this," Obama said. "In the past few days, I've heard criticisms of this plan that frankly echo the very same failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis in the first place -- the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems, that we can address this enormous crisis with half steps and piecemeal measures and tinkering around the edges, that we can ignore fundamental challenges, like the high cost of healthcare, and still expect our economy and our country to thrive." ... ""I reject these theories," he continued. "And, by the way, so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change."" ... ""A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe and guarantee a longer recession, a less robust recovery and a more uncertain future," he warned at another White House appearance." -By Peter Nicholas -LAtimes

_2009 News News Reference February 2009 News
February 4, 2009 News URL: #February-4-2009-News
20090204 Wednesday

- Judd Gregg -Jack Abramoff - Corporate - Government - Legislative - Politics - Investigation - New Hampshire
"Former Gregg Aide Tied To Abramoff Scandal, Court Documents Report He Took Gifts In Exchange For Favors." ... "Earlier today, the AP reported that Kevin Koonce, who worked as Commerce Secretary-nominee [New Hampshire Republican Senator] Judd Gregg’s legislative director from 2002-04, “has been caught up in a long-running investigation into a Capitol Hill lobbying scandal.” Koonce “was cited in a guilty plea last week by Todd Boulanger, a former deputy to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff,” as having taken gifts exceeding $10,000 in exchange for favors in spending legislation." ... "According to Boulanger’s plea documents, Koonce “tried to help insert spending measures and add other amendments to legislation for Boulanger’s clients.” At one point, Boulanger sent an e-mail to Abramoff saying that he was confident Koonce’s boss would help them out:"

"Later, Boulanger sent an e-mail to Abramoff expressing confidence that the senator [Republican Judd Gregg] for whom the staffer worked would give them a favor. “Easy money,” Boulanger wrote, adding that the aide “practically lives in our various suites. We are shady.”"

- Noteworthy - Corporate - Government - Lawmakers - Politics
"TARP Recipients Paid Out $114 Million for Politicking Last Year." ... "The companies that have been awarded taxpayers' money from Congress's bailout bill spent $77 million on lobbying and $37 million on federal campaign contributions, Center finds. The return on investment: 258,449 percent." ... "The struggling companies whose freewheeling business practices have contributed to the country's economic woes are getting a lucrative return on at least one of their investments. Beneficiaries of the $700 billion bailout package in the finance and automotive industries have spent a total of $114.2 million on lobbying in the past year and contributions toward the 2008 election, the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics has found. The companies' political activities have, in part, yielded them $295.2 billion from the federal government's Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), an extraordinary return of 258,449 percent." ... ""Even in the best economic times, you won't find an investment with a greater payoff than what these companies have been getting," said Sheila Krumholz, the Center's executive director. "Some of the companies and industries that have received payments may now consider their contributions and lobbying to be the smartest investments they've made in years."" ... "While the Treasury Department, not Congress, doles out TARP funds to specific institutions, congressional lawmakers had to authorize that money in the first place, and lawmakers will determine in the future whether to release more funds to prop up the U.S. economy. During the bill-writing process, members of Congress were able to specify to some extent where the money should go, and they have lobbied regulators to urge them to inject funds into specific banks and financial institutions, including those in lawmakers' own districts." ... ""Taxpayers hope their money is being allocated entirely on the merits, but with Congress controlling how much money the Treasury gets to hand out, it will be impossible to completely exclude politics from this process," Krumholz said." -OpenSecrets.org

- Transportation - Infrastructure - Water - Government - Money - Wash - Calif
"Senate GOP blocks extra $25B in stimulus package." ... "Senate Republicans on Tuesday blocked Democrats from adding $25 billion for highways, mass transit, and water projects to [Democratic] President Barack Obama's economic recovery program." ... "Already unhappy over the size of the measure, Republicans insisted additional infrastructure projects be paid for with cuts elsewhere in the bill." ... "But the Democratic amendment garnered 58 votes, just shy of the supermajority needed under Senate budget rules, and many more efforts to increase the measure's size are sure to follow." ... "At issue was a plan by [Washington Democratic Senator] Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash. [Democratic-Washington], and [California Democratic Senator] Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. [California-Democratic], to increase the highway funding in the bill to $40 billion, which reflected complaints from lawmakers in both parties that Obama's plan doesn't do enough to relieve a backlog of unfinished projects. The duo also wanted to increase mass transit programs by $5 billion boost and water projects by $7 billion." ... ""Our highways are jammed. People go to work in gridlock," Feinstein said Tuesday." -By Andrew Taylor -AP via -Yahoo

- Barack Obama - Judd Gregg - Corporate - Government - Seniors - Health - People - Accounting - History - NH
"Gregg Voted to Kill Commerce Before He Agreed to Lead It." ... "[Democratic] President Obama’s new candidate to run the Commerce Department voted in favor of abolishing the agency as a member of the Budget Committee and on the Senate floor in 1995." ... "[New Hampshire Republican Senator] Sen. Judd Gregg , R-N.H. [Republican-New Hampshire], whose nomination was expected to be announced Tuesday, also worked in the Senate to trim the department’s budget as head of the Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations Subcommittee." ... "The Senate version of the controversial measure envisioned spending cuts of more than $960 billion, almost half of it from Medicare and Medicaid. Democratic efforts to amend it were uniformly rebuked by a united GOP [GOP=Grand Old Party=Republican] majority on the Budget Committee." ... "Gregg also fought [Democratic] President Bill Clinton’s efforts to increase funding for the Commerce Department to administer the 2000 census. Indeed, Gregg’s commitment to basic functions of the department has been questioned at times." ... "“I guess if you can’t destroy it, go be in charge of it,” said a Senate Republican aide." -By Jonathan Allen -CQPolitics.com

- Barack Obama - Judd Gregg - Female - Employees - Pay - Legislation - Politics - History - Race - New Hampshire
"Kudos to Congress for equal pay vote." ... "The Lilly Ledbetter case is pretty straightforward. Ledbetter, an employee of Goodyear Tire and Rubber for nearly 20 years, was paid significantly less than her male co-workers for doing the same job." ... "Ledbetter filed a lawsuit against Goodyear after someone left an anonymous note in her mailbox telling her about the disparity." ... "The case wended its way to the United States Supreme Court, which found that employers are protected from lawsuits over race or gender pay discrimination if the claims are based on decisions made by the employer 180 days ago or more." ... "Seeing the inherent injustice in the letter of the law, Congress passed the Lilly Ledbetter Equal Pay Act last week. The act, which represented [Democratic] President Barack Obama's first bill signing, changes the law to begin a new 180-day statute of limitations with every paycheck." ... "New Hampshire [Republican Senator] Sen. Judd Gregg, however, voted against it, saying that while all Americans deserve "equal and fair treatment at the workplace," the bill "is really a boon for trial lawyers which dramatically broadens their ability to file lawsuits, regardless of how frivolous or whether their clients even personally experienced discrimination."" ... "That's disappointing." ... "Anytime politicians want to stand up for corporate America by opposing legislation that protects workers, they play the frivolous lawsuit card." ... "Sure, there are egregious cases where wayward juries give people ridiculous amounts of money for doing something they should have known better not to do (although those cases are often later settled for less or overturned on appeal)." ... "However, this isn't such a case, and Sen. Gregg should be able to come up with a better rationale for voting to deny thousands of Americans the opportunity to pursue equal pay for equal work." -NashuaTelegraph.com

- Barack Obama - Corporate - Government - Crisis - Politics
"Bailouts for Bunglers." ... "“We have a financial system that is run by private shareholders, managed by private institutions, and we’d like to do our best to preserve that system,” says Timothy Geithner, the Treasury secretary [appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama] — as he prepares to put taxpayers on the hook for that system’s immense losses." ... "Meanwhile, a Washington Post report based on administration sources says that Mr. Geithner and Lawrence Summers, President Obama’s top economic adviser, “think governments make poor bank managers” — as opposed, presumably, to the private-sector geniuses who managed to lose more than a trillion dollars in the space of a few years." ... "And this prejudice in favor of private control, even when the government is putting up all the money, seems to be warping the administration’s response to the financial crisis." ... "In normal times, banks raise capital by selling stock to private investors, who receive a share in the bank’s ownership in return. You might think, then, that if banks currently can’t or won’t raise enough capital from private investors, the government should do what a private investor would: provide capital in return for partial ownership." ... "But bank stocks are worth so little these days — Citigroup and Bank of America have a combined market value of only $52 billion — that the ownership wouldn’t be partial: pumping in enough taxpayer money to make the banks sound would, in effect, turn them into publicly owned enterprises." ... "My response to this prospect is: so? If taxpayers are footing the bill for rescuing the banks, why shouldn’t they get ownership, at least until private buyers can be found? But the Obama administration appears to be tying itself in knots to avoid this outcome." ... "If news reports are right, the bank rescue plan will contain two main elements: government purchases of some troubled bank assets and guarantees against losses on other assets. The guarantees would represent a big gift to bank stockholders; the purchases might not, if the price was fair — but prices would, The Financial Times reports, probably be based on “valuation models” rather than market prices, suggesting that the government would be making a big gift here, too." ... "And in return for what is likely to be a huge subsidy to stockholders, taxpayers will get, well, nothing." -By Paul Krugman -NYTimes