19 January 2008

The Fraud of Bushenomics: They’re Looting the Country

By Larry Beinhart, AlterNet
Posted on January 19, 2008, Printed on January 19, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/74262/

The New York Times made it official. The Economy is a problem!

So, now, at last we can discuss it.

Not just discuss it, in rapid order "recession" became the word of the day, from White House, Congress, the Fed and the media.

It's blamed, mostly, on the subprime crisis.

But that's not the problem. It's a symptom. It is the logical, and probably one of the necessary results, of Bushenomics.

One Argument, 12 Million Holes

The big fat immigration bill that died last year in Congress was, for all its flaws, an anchor that kept debate tethered firmly to reality. Like it or not, it contained specific remedies for the border and the workplace. It had a plan for clearing backlogs in legal immigration and managing its future flow. Perhaps most critical, it dealt with the 12 million illegal immigrants already here, through a tough path to earned citizenship.

Unmoored from a comprehensive federal bill, the debate was pushed into the states and is now floating in the La-La Land of the presidential campaign. The Republicans have been battling over the sincerity of their sound bites and trying to make their fixation on one dimension of the problem — tough border and workplace enforcement — sound like the solution.

Paul Krugman: Don’t Cry for Me, America

Mexico. Brazil. Argentina. Mexico, again. Thailand. Indonesia. Argentina, again.

And now, the United States.

The story has played itself out time and time again over the past 30 years. Global investors, disappointed with the returns they’re getting, search for alternatives. They think they’ve found what they’re looking for in some country or other, and money rushes in.

But eventually it becomes clear that the investment opportunity wasn’t all it seemed to be, and the money rushes out again, with nasty consequences for the former financial favorite. That’s the story of multiple financial crises in Latin America and Asia. And it’s also the story of the U.S. combined housing and credit bubble. These days, we’re playing the role usually assigned to third-world economies.

Company Connected to GOP and Romney Delivers Diebold Machines to Maryland Polls

A company, whose head is the former chairman of the Maryland Republican Party and is on Mitt Romney's presidential campaign steering committee, has won a contract from Diebold to deliver its voting machines on Election Day to precincts in 14 Maryland voting districts. I filed this story on the deal for Wired's front door.

The trucking firm, Office Movers, is owned by the family-run Kane Company, whose CEO and president is John M. Kane, chairman of the Republican Party in Maryland from 2002 until December 2006 and pictured at right with President Bush. Last November, Kane joined the steering committee for Republican presidential nominee candidate Mitt Romney, who won Tuesday's primary in Michigan.

Tomgram: CSI Iraq

The Corpse on the Gurney

The "Success" Mantra in Iraq
By Tom Engelhardt

The other day, as we reached the first anniversary of the President's announcement of his "surge" strategy, his "new way forward" in Iraq, I found myself thinking about the earliest paid book-editing work I ever did. An editor at a San Francisco textbook publisher hired me to "doctor" god-awful texts designed for audiences of captive kids. Each of these "books" was not only in a woeful state of disrepair, but essentially D.O.A. I was nonetheless supposed to do a lively rewrite of the mess and add seductive "sidebars"; another technician then simplified the language to "grade level" and a designer provided a flashy layout and look. Zap! Pow! Kebang!

During the years that I freelanced for that company in the early 1970s, an image of what I was doing formed in my mind -- and it suddenly came back to me this week. I used to describe it this way:

Who Will Take the Fall for the CIA Torture Tape Scandal?

By Roberto Lovato, AlterNet
Posted on January 18, 2008, Printed on January 19, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/74033/

As he concluded a closed-door congressional hearing into the CIA torture tape scandal, Committee Chairman Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, on Wednesday opened the country to a historic possibility: that the fate of the investigation into the destruction of the tapes will be decided by Latino government officials. Current and former Latino officials may even determine whether the investigation reaches the White House.

Reyes, the powerful chair of the House Intelligence Committee, is charged with overseeing an investigation into the latest controversy. Reyes' fellow Tejano, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who was one of four Bush administration officials briefed on the tapes before they were destroyed, may be asked to testify in the investigation. And at the heart of the whole affair is Jose Rodriguez, the Puerto Rican native who was the CIA's former director of clandestine operations. According to the CIA officials, Rodriguez ordered the destruction of the interrogation tapes in 2005.

Siphoning the Globe: Water Exhibit Exposes Worldwide Crisis

By Kelly Stewart, AlterNet
Posted on January 18, 2008, Printed on January 19, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/72376/
Sometimes my shower head drips -- I can hear the steady beat as I try to fall asleep at night. And sometimes, instead of tinkering with the temperamental shower knobs, I'll close the bathroom door to block out the noise.

Entering the new exhibition, Water: H20 = Life, at the Museum of Natural History in New York City, I was struck by a similar scene. One drop at a time, water falls from the ceiling, splashing into the others that have fallen before it. It's a hypnotic reminder that every drop is worth contemplating.

17 January 2008

New inflation data explain middle-class squeeze

Kevin G. Hall | McClatchy Newspapers

last updated: January 16, 2008 07:34:57 PM

WASHINGTON — New data from the Labor Department confirm what most middle-class Americans already know: Inflation is squeezing them.

As consumer prices rose by 4.1 percent last year, the highest rate since 1990, the prices of basic essentials such as food, gasoline and health insurance climbed far more steeply, explaining why so many Americans are telling pollsters that the economy is their chief concern.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday that the price of food and beverages rose 4.8 percent. At the same time, real weekly earnings failed to keep pace, rising 0.9 percent for the year. In the simplest of terms, a dollar earned bought less.

This partly explains why the economy so frustrates Americans.

Baltimore Finds Subprime Crisis Snags Women

BALTIMORE — At Vixxen Hair Salon, the main topic of conversation has always been money. But since last August, Anjanette Booker, the owner, has noticed a new focus. “Now it’s money and foreclosures,” Miss Booker said.

The Vixxen salon, along with the nearby salon Hair Vysions, is one of the informal social centers for the Belair-Edison neighborhood, a community of brick row houses that have in recent years been bought largely by single black women with children.

For each of the last four years, more than half of the foreclosures in this neighborhood have been homes owned primarily by women, according to an analysis of public records by the Reinvestment Fund, a nonprofit community development organization.

Goldberg's Liberal Fascism argument panned: 'Like saying mustaches are fascist,' Stewart tells author

01/17/2008 @ 11:23 am

Filed by David Edwards and Nick Juliano

You write a book whose title and symbology implicitly ties liberals to Nazis, and you should expect to get a little bit of heat.

Jonah Goldberg, says the Hitler-mustachioed smiley face and title, Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning, are based on ideas espoused by others. He bristles at critics -- most recently The Daily Show's Jon Stewart -- who call him out, accusing them of not having read his latest tome.

How Bush Stacks Up

Like Rorschach tests, a growing stack of Bush books reveals very different presidents—Evangelical Bush, Frat-Boy Bush, Weepy Bush—as authors try to explain his failure. There’s an even grimmer version—the story of his “success.”

James Wolcott
February 2008

Most people fear death. It’s something they’d prefer to skip, if possible, or at least put off to a later date. President George W. Bush entertains a more laid-back, come-what-may attitude toward the big D, and not, I suspect, because he’s assured of a pre-boarding pass to heaven. It’s because death provides the most unassailable of alibis, the perfect getaway. It lets him off the hook, providing an escape hatch for personal accountability while history deliberates on the lasting achievements and ruinous legacies of his presidency. No matter how lousy his approval ratings, how low America’s esteem sinks in the world, how hacktacular his political appointments, Bush takes comfort in the knowledge that posterity takes a long time to deliver its final draft (“There’s no such thing as short-term history as far as I’m concerned,” he told NBC’s Brian Williams on the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina), and by then he’ll be compost. It’s difficult to think of any modern inhabitant of the Oval Office who has contemplated his own mortality aloud more often than Bush, or drawn more consolation from its graveyard perspective. On the last page of Bob Woodward’s Plan of Attack (2004), Bush, asked how history would judge the war in Iraq, verbally shrugs: “History. We don’t know. We’ll all be dead.” And on the first page of Robert Draper’s Dead Certain (2007), Bush cautions, “You can’t possibly figure out the history of the Bush presidency—until I’m dead,” then inserts a piece of cheese into his mouth. This exit clause isn’t something he invokes only to reporters. In Bill Sammon’s The Evangelical President (2007), an aide confirms to the susceptible author that Bush doesn’t brood about the petty setbacks that bedevil less serene souls: “His attitude is a very healthy one. He says, ‘Look, history will get it right and we’ll both be dead. Who cares?’ ” If only the estimated 1.5 million Iraqis displaced by the war and driven into Syrian exile could adopt such a healthy outlook, maybe they too would learn how not to sweat the small stuff.

Bush departs Mideast with few apparent gains, experts say

Hannah Allam | McClatchy Newspapers

last updated: January 15, 2008 07:25:22 PM

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — President Bush wraps up a weeklong tour of the Middle East Wednesday, leaving many Mideast political observers mystified as to the purpose of the visit and doubtful that the president made inroads on his twin campaigns for Arab-Israeli peace and isolation for Iran.

Bush is heading back to Washington mostly empty-handed, said several analysts and politicians throughout the region. Arab critics deemed Bush's peace efforts unrealistic, his anti-Iran tirades dangerous, his praise of authoritarian governments disappointing and his defense of civil liberties ironic.

Greenspan `Mess' Risks U.S. Recession, Stiglitz Says

By Reed V. Landberg and Paul George

Nov. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel-prize winning economist, said the U.S. economy risks tumbling into recession because of the ``mess'' left by former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.

``I'm very pessimistic,'' Stiglitz said in an interview in London today. ``Alan Greenspan really made a mess of all this. He pushed out too much liquidity at the wrong time. He supported the tax cut in 2001, which is the beginning of these problems. He encouraged people to take out variable-rate mortgages.''

Chertoff Permanently Installs Hand-Picked DHS Staffers, ‘Overextending His Influence’ After 2008

Since its establishment in 2003, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been plagued by incompetent political appointees. As late as last year, ABC News noted that DHS was still “a political dumping ground,” with 350 White House-appointed staffers (compared to just 64 at the Department of Veteran Affairs).

For the past five years, the Bush administration has refused to fire these cronies.

Why the Saudis Hate Bush

By Robert Scheer, Truthdig. Posted January 16, 2008.

Why is it that George W. Bush gets only a 12 percent favorability rating in Saudi Arabia? Even Osama bin Laden and Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad scored higher in a poll last month by the nonpartisan Terror Free Tomorrow group, which counts both Republican Sen. John McCain and Democrat former Rep. Lee Hamilton on its advisory board. What ingrates those Saudis are. Didn't the Bush family save them twice from Saddam Hussein?

Punishing Thought Crime: Would New Bill Make YOU a Terrorist?

By Scott Thill, AlterNet. Posted January 17, 2008.

Meet the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act.

According to Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., House Resolution 1955, otherwise known as the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007, is a much-needed piece of national security legislation subject to unnecessary paranoia and fear. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, the resolution, which Harman sponsored, is one step too close to an Orwellian nightmare, especially for the Democrats who concocted it.

The truth, as always, lies somewhere in between. But first, let's back up and check the facts.

Bush wants personal tax rebates

By JEANNINE AVERSA and ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writers
28 minutes ago

President Bush told congressional leaders privately on Thursday he favors personal income tax rebates and tax breaks for businesses to help avert a recession, officials said, as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke joined in calls for an economic stimulus package.

Bush spoke with congressional leaders as top House aides worked on an economic rescue package that included more money for food stamp recipients and the unemployed as well as tax rebates and cuts.

16 January 2008

ON DEADLINE: Mitt Won, Authenticity Lost

By RON FOURNIER, Associated Press Writer
Tue Jan 15, 10:38 PM ET

Mitt Romney's victory in Michigan was a defeat for authenticity in politics.

The former Massachusetts governor pandered to voters, distorted his opponents' record and continued to show why he's the most malleable — and least credible — major presidential candidate.

And it worked.

The man who spoke hard truths to Michigan lost. Of all the reasons John McCain deserved a better result Tuesday night, his gamble on the economy stands out. The Arizona senator had the temerity to tell voters that a candidate who says traditional auto manufacturing jobs "are coming back is either naive or is not talking straight with the people of Michigan and America."

It's the Recession, Stupid

It ain’t sexy, I know, but a word about the economy and the presidential debate.

Wall Street banks are holding a fire sale; employment is down, holiday sales tanked. Burdened with record debt and stagnant incomes, homeowners are about to reckon with declining home values, their largest investments, with a projected $2 trillion in assets evaporating in the course of the year. Even clueless George — “the fundamentals are strong” — Bush admitted a little stimulus might be needed.

White House reused e-mail tapes

White House Tape Recycling Raises Possibility That Some E-Mails Are Gone

PETE YOST, AP News
Jan 16, 2008 13:31 EST

The White House has acknowledged recycling its backup computer tapes of e-mail before October 2003, raising the possibility that many electronic messages — including those pertaining to the CIA leak case — have been taped over and are gone forever.

The disclosure came minutes before midnight Tuesday under a court-ordered deadline that forced the White House to reveal information it has previously refused to provide.

Bogus Iran story was product of Pentagon spokesman, reporter says

01/16/2008 @ 9:06 am

Filed by John Byrne

An American journalist and historian who was the first to break the story of a secret Iranian peace overture to the Bush Administration in 2006 alleges that the latest Pentagon encounter between Iranian ships and a Navy vessel was a deliberate fabrication.

The incident, on Jan. 5 in Strait of Hormuz off the Iranian coast, was originally described as a non-event -- then quickly became one in which Iranian boats threatened to "explode" American ships.

Ignoring Iraq: Why Has it Become the Forgotten Issue of the '08 Race?

"What if the United States were at war during a presidential election -- and none of the candidates wanted to talk about it?" Good question. It was asked by Noah Feldman in this week's New York Times Magazine. And Time is running a story this week asking: "Will Iraq Return as a Campaign Issue?"

Bush's escalation of troops is now one year old. When it was launched, we were told that the purpose of the so-called surge was to help bring about political reconciliation in Iraq. Clearly, that has not come about.

GAO questions report on Iraq

GAO Says Figures in Administration's September 'Benchmark' Report Were Unreliable

PAULINE JELINEK, AP News
Jan 15, 2008 15:39 EST

The Bush administration, in its last so-called Iraq "benchmark" report, used questionable financial data to assert that the Baghdad government was making progress in managing its budget, a new study says.

The study released Tuesday by the Government Accountability Office focused specifically on whether Iraqis were spending their capital budget, that is money for infrastructure needed to boost the country's lagging economic growth and improve poor public services.

Will Dems Follow Through on Promises to Fix NAFTA?

By Sarah Anderson, AlterNet
Posted on January 16, 2008, Printed on January 16, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/73700/

Kudos are in order for the intrepid activists in Iowa and New Hampshire whose bird-dogging helped shift the presidential debate on free trade. Just one sign is that all three top Democratic contenders told the Iowa Fair Trade Coalition they would fix problems with the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Even Hillary Clinton, whose husband rammed NAFTA through Congress 14 years ago, has vowed to "correct its shortcomings."

Democracy Now: A Relief From Corporate News B.S.

By Thomas Boothe and Danielle Follett, Le Monde diplomatique
Posted on January 16, 2008, Printed on January 16, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/73900/

A small group of activists in the rural northeastern corner of Tennessee in the United States persuaded their local public radio station, WETS, to start broadcasting the progressive news-hour Democracy Now two years ago. This pocket of Appalachia would seem to be unwelcoming territory for such an endeavor since the economically depressed farming and mining region votes overwhelmingly Republican -- by as much as 75 percent in the last presidential election -- and is, according to Joseph Fitsanakis, organizer of Democracy Now Tri-Cities (DNTC), "the kind of place where 30 years ago you couldn't really do anything politically unless you were a Klan member."

Merchants of Trivia

Why do the media insist on reducing one of the most exciting presidential primary seasons in American history to a simple horse race?

MATT TAIBBI
Posted Jan 10, 2008 8:09 AM

December 28th, a beastly-cold afternoon in Story City, Iowa. Another school gym full of polite, placard-bearing Iowans herded in to support yet another pomp-and-ceremony-promising presidential candidate, in this case Hillary Clinton.

Hillary's late, however, so the campaign decides to pass the time by sending a pair of central-casting Adorable Local Children onstage to chuck HILLARY '08 T-shirts into the crowd. A young Hillary volunteer in a standard-issue Pale Blue Button-Down Shirt (the mandatory uniform of all campaign volunteers) takes the mike to introduce the kids.

15 January 2008

Less Than Human

Friday marked the sixth anniversary of the arrival of the first detainees at the American GULAG constructed to house prisoners taken in the Bush Administration’s War on Terror in Guantánamo. Around the world, thousands gathered in public commemorations in London, Stockholm, Dublin, Brussels and Bahrain. More than twelve hundred parliamentarians signed a formal plea calling for the immediate closing of the base. The same plea had previously been issued by Pope Benedict, Chancellor Angela Merkel and more than two dozen other world leaders. Indeed, quite remarkably, on Sunday Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff essentially joined in with the protestors.

Now the Theocrats Want 'American Religious History Week'

By Chris Hedges, The Nation
Posted on January 15, 2008, Printed on January 15, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/73778/

Here is an event I have no intention of honoring: American Religious History Week. OK, it's not official yet. But it is spelled out as Resolution 888 in the bowels of a House committee, sponsored by Republican Congressman Randy Forbes and backed by thirty-one other Representatives. This is an insidious attempt by the radical Christian right to rewrite American history, to turn the founding fathers from deists into Christian fundamentalists, to proclaim us officially to be a Christian nation. If you want to know why Mike Huckabee is dangerous, why his brand of right-wing Christian populism is so frightening, you should read this resolution.

The Funniest 'Green' Book You'll Read

By Tara Lohan, AlterNet
Posted on January 14, 2008, Printed on January 15, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/www.alternet.org/73731/

There's a lot of books out there about how to green you life, but the folks at Grist, took a stab at their own version (Wake Up and Smell the Planet). And it's very, well, Grist -- which, if you aren't a regular reader of their environmental news and commentary, means it's pretty damn amusing.

White House Falsely Claims Bush Supports Iran NIE, While He Trashes It Abroad

By Amanda Terkel, Think Progress
Posted on January 15, 2008, Printed on January 15, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/http://www.thinkprogress.org//73787/

Today during a White House teleconference, a Fox News reporter asked whether President Bush "fully accepts" the conclusions of the latest NIE, which said that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003.

"Has he admitted the possibility at all in his mind that the analysts may be wrong about this?" asked the reporter. Perino replied that Bush has not expressed "anything but support" for the NIE's findings:

Greedy Bank of America Engineers "Fake Rescue" in Sub-Prime Fire Sale

By Danny Schechter, AlterNet
Posted on January 15, 2008, Printed on January 15, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/73733/

rescue |_reskyo_|

verb ( -cues , -cued, -cuing ) [ trans. ]

-save (someone) from a dangerous or distressing situation

-an act of saving or being saved from danger or distress

New York, New York: Who doesn't love the idea of a dramatic rescue -- like saving a child who fell in a well, bringing miners out of danger from a hazardous hellhole, or the courage of that hero who jumped on the subway tracks to safeguard a passenger in the way of a speeding train?

We appreciate rescue helicopters, rescue squads in fire departments -- New York has a big fully equipped van called "Rescue One,"-- or the daily bravery of the Coast Guard plucking unskilled seafarers from turbulent waters. The more risky the rescue, the more we like it.

Consumer spending drop raises new fears

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer
1 hour, 15 minutes ago

Consumer spending, the critical bulwark that has kept the country out of a recession, is showing signs of cracking. Retail sales plunged by 0.4 percent last month as consumers battered by a sinking housing market, rising unemployment and the credit crunch, handed retailers their worst Christmas in five years.

The Commerce Department's sales report Tuesday was just the latest in a string of weaker-than-expected numbers that have economists worried that the current economic expansion, now in its seventh year, could be in danger of faltering.

14 January 2008

Antarctic ice loss

Increasing amounts of ice mass have been lost from West Antarctica and the Antarctic peninsula over the past ten years, according to research from the University of Bristol and published online this week in Nature Geoscience.

Meanwhile the ice mass in East Antarctica has been roughly stable, with neither loss nor accumulation over the past decade.

Aggression as rewarding as sex, food and drugs

NASHVILLE, Tenn.—New research from Vanderbilt University shows for the first time that the brain processes aggression as a reward - much like sex, food and drugs - offering insights into our propensity to fight and our fascination with violent sports like boxing and football.

The research will be published online the week of Jan. 14 by the journal Psychopharmacology.

“Aggression occurs among virtually all vertebrates and is necessary to get and keep important resources such as mates, territory and food,” Craig Kennedy, professor of special education and pediatrics, said. “We have found that the ‘reward pathway’ in the brain becomes engaged in response to an aggressive event and that dopamine is involved.”

US drafting plan to allow government access to any email or Web search

National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell is drawing up plans for cyberspace spying that would make the current debate on warrantless wiretaps look like a "walk in the park," according to an interview published in the New Yorker's print edition today.

Debate on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act “will be a walk in the park compared to this,” McConnell said. “this is going to be a goat rope on the Hill. My prediction is that we’re going to screw around with this until something horrendous happens.”

Paul Krugman: Responding to Recession

Suddenly, the economic consensus seems to be that the implosion of the housing market will indeed push the U.S. economy into a recession, and that it’s quite possible that we’re already in one. As a result, over the next few weeks we’ll be hearing a lot about plans for economic stimulus.

Since this is an election year, the debate over how to stimulate the economy is inevitably tied up with politics. And here’s a modest suggestion for political reporters. Instead of trying to divine the candidates’ characters by scrutinizing their tone of voice and facial expressions, why not pay attention to what they say about economic policy?

Faith Talk 2008

Here's the strange thing: If we are in a political "season of change" and "change" is now the word most used by presidential candidates, change isn't exactly valued when it comes to presidential runs themselves. Take, for example, the Democratic debate moderated by ABC News' Charlie Gibson a week ago. In that mere hour and a half of television, Gibson, his TV sidekicks like George Stephanopoulos, and the four candidates managed to use the "C" word some 48 times -- being "agents of" or "power voices for change," "making," "delivering," "producing," "advocating for," "fighting for," "believing deeply in," "loving," even "embody[ing] change." In the process, they just about ground change into the dust. But lurking in the background was another use of that word -- as an accusation -- and it went unnoticed.

Worsening Economy Gives Obama and Hillary a Chance to Copy Edwards' Populist Ideas

By William Greider, TheNation.com
Posted on January 14, 2008, Printed on January 14, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/73640/

When Goldman Sachs announces recession and the Federal Reserve chairman on the same day promises ready-to-go interest rate cuts, you can take it to the bank: the recession is official. The 2008 campaign's refreshing spirit -- the chorus of "change, change, change" -- is joined by a more traditional theme. "Jobs, jobs, jobs." Suddenly, everyone wants to sound like a Keynesian liberal, ready to prime the pump with federal spending.

My advice to Barack Obama: look through the John Edwards file -- he got there first -- and borrow freely from his sound ideas for economic stimulus. Then double or triple Edwards' numbers to show your sincerity. Do this fast. Hillary Clinton is already out of the box with a plan the New York Times describes as the first from any Democratic candidates.

Matt Taibbi on Mainstream Media

By Adam Howard, AlterNet
Posted on January 13, 2008, Printed on January 14, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/www.alternet.org/73631/
Rolling Stone's excellent political reporter Matt Taibbi (whose work regularly appears here on AlterNet) stopped by Bill Maher's returning Real Time with Bill Maher this weekend and talks about the exhaustive experience of covering the presidential campaigns.

Sensationalist Media Did Pentagon's Bidding in Fake Naval 'Provocation' with Iran

By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!
Posted on January 14, 2008, Printed on January 14, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/73618/

The United States has lodged a formal diplomatic protest against Iran for its "provocation" in the Strait of Hormuz on January 6. But new information reveals that the alleged Iranian threat to American naval vessels may have been blown out of proportion. Democracy Now! spoke with investigative historian Gareth Porter.

Democracy Now! co-host Juan Gonzalez: The United States has lodged a formal diplomatic protest against Iran for its "provocation" in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday morning. But new information reveals that the alleged Iranian threat to American naval vessels in the Strait might have been blown out of proportion.

On Tuesday, the Pentagon released video of Iranian patrol boats approaching American warships and an audio recording of a direct threat in English. The accented voice says, "I am coming to you," and then adds, "You will explode after a few minutes."

13 January 2008

What Happened in the Strait of Hormuz?

How to prevent a naval war with Iran.

By Fred Kaplan

Posted Thursday, Jan. 10, 2008, at 6:29 PM ET

Just how serious was the half-hour standoff Sunday morning between three American warships and five Iranian speed boats in the Strait of Hormuz? Did we come close to war? Was there any provocation? Was the Pentagon's version of events, as the Iranians claim, a fake?

In response to the Iranians' charge, the Defense Department released excerpts from a videotape of the incident. In response to that, the Iranians issued their own video. Both clips are strange. They are also very different from each other. There's a good reason, however, for the strangeness and the contradictions.

Frank Rich: Haven’t We Heard This Voice Before?

SHE had me at “Well, that hurts my feelings.”

One cliché about Hillary Clinton is true. For whatever reason — and it’s no crime — the spontaneous, outgoing person who impresses those who meet her offstage often evaporates when she steps into the public spotlight. But in the crucial debate before the New Hampshire primary, the private Clinton popped out for the first time in the 2008 campaign. She parried a male inquisitor’s questioning of her likability by being, of all things, likable.

Not only did Mrs. Clinton betray some (but not too many) hurt feelings with genuine humor, she upped the ante by flattering Barack Obama as “very likable.” Which prompted the Illinois senator to match Mrs. Clinton’s most human moment to date with the most inhuman of his own. To use family-newspaper language, he behaved like a jerk — or, to be more precise, like Rick Lazio, the now-forgotten adversary who cleared Mrs. Clinton’s path to the Senate by boorishly waving a paper in her face during a 2000 debate.

US scientists tackle evolution deniers

AS New Scientist went to press, one of the front-runners for the Republican US presidential nomination was a politician who does not believe in evolution.

Mike Huckabee, who surprised pundits with his rapid rise from obscurity by winning the Iowa caucus last week, believes God played a role in creation and that the human race could not have come about by "accident". None of the other remaining candidates has denied evolution.

U.S. corporate elite fear candidate Edwards

Reuters
Friday January 11 2008
By Kevin Drawbaugh

WASHINGTON, Jan 11 (Reuters) - Ask corporate lobbyists which presidential contender is most feared by their clients and the answer is almost always the same -- Democrat John Edwards.

The former North Carolina senator's chosen profession alone raises the hackles of business people. Before entering politics, he made a fortune as a trial lawyer.

In litigious America, trial lawyers bring lawsuits against companies on behalf of aggrieved individuals and sometimes win multimillion-dollar settlements. Edwards won several.

Admirers of Constitution Booted for Wearing Impeach T-shirts in DC

Sat Jan 12, 2008 at 03:57:43 PM PST

With the original First Amendment "Freedom of Speech" looking on, admirers of the U.S. Constitution in the Washington D.C. National Archives Building today were ordered to leave for wearing tee-shirts reading "Impeach Bush and Cheney." Many of the tourist-activists were in town to hail the arrival of impeachment marcher John Nirenberg, the 61 year-old college professor who has just walked from Boston to D.C. to call attention to the need for the impeachment of Bush and Cheney.

In a telephone interview, one of the participants, Susan Serpa, age 56, told me she was looking at the displays when a female security guard approached her and said "You need to go speak to that man over there" indicating a burly security guard. When Serpa asked why, the woman said: "Your shirt." Serpa's shirt reads on the front: "Impeach Bush and Cheney, Change History." On the reverse it says: "MaineImpeach.org."

Insurers rip off consumers, group says

Firms boost profits by overcharging policyholders, underpaying claims, study finds

(01-11) 04:00 PST Washington --

U.S. insurance companies systematically overcharge customers and underpay home and auto claims to pad their already-fat bottom lines, a consumer group said Thursday.

The Consumer Federation of America's insurance director, Robert Hunter, said insurance companies have enjoyed robust profits and contained losses largely by "methodically overcharging consumers, cutting back on coverage, underpaying claims and getting taxpayers to pick up some of the tab for risks the insurers should cover."

Grass biofuels 'cut CO2 by 94%'

Producing biofuels from a fast-growing grass delivers vast savings of carbon dioxide emissions compared with petrol, a large-scale study has suggested.

A team of US researchers also found that switchgrass-derived ethanol produced 540% more energy than was required to manufacture the fuel.

World Bank pledges to save trees... then helps cut down Amazon forest

A month ago it vowed to fight deforestation. Now research reveals it funds the rainforest's biggest threat.

By Daniel Howden
Published: 13 January 2008

The World Bank has emerged as one of the key backers behind an explosion of cattle ranching in the Amazon, which new research has identified as the greatest threat to the survival of the rainforest.

Ranching has grown by half in the last three years, driven by new industrial slaughterhouses which are being constructed in the Amazon basin with the help of the World Bank. The revelation flies in the face of claims from the bank that it is funding efforts to halt deforestation and reduce the massive greenhouse gas emissions it causes.