Republican Duo Supported by Energy Industry Seek to Rein in EPA on Coal Ash

For months now, political pressure has mounted against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to regulate for the first time the disposal of coal ash — an environmental hazard fouling water supplies and threatening communities across the country. The impact of coal ash has been highlighted by the Center for Public Integrity in a series of stories.

This week, the pressure on regulators took a new turn as two Republican congressmen inserted language in a must-pass spending bill that would stop the EPA from moving forward to protect the public and the environment from the hazards of coal ash.

The Republican Strategy

Thursday, February 17, 2011

The Republican strategy is to split the vast middle and working class – pitting unionized workers against non-unionized, public-sector workers against non-public, older workers within sight of Medicare and Social Security against younger workers who don’t believe these programs will be there for them, and the poor against the working middle class.

By splitting working America along these lines, Republicans want Americans to believe that we can no longer afford to do what we need to do as a nation. They hope to deflect attention from the increasing share of total income and wealth going to the richest 1 percent while the jobs and wages of everyone else languish.

The Issue of the Decade

Mary Landrieu said a few days back that dealing with the deficit is the "issue of the decade." And this is from a Democrat.

The inside-the-Beltway mentality creates its own Bizarro World, brain-dead obsessions that are so distorted compared to the real world, that it completely takes one's breath away. The fact that both parties are focused on the same obsessions is a tribute to the power of the framing machine the Wall Street-backed conservative media has created.

I write this even though I do actually think getting a handle on the long-term structural deficit is very important both economically and politically. Being the Midwestern Methodist I am, the kind of debt we are running up makes me very unsettled, and paying hundreds of billions of dollars in interest does the economy no good. I also think that, politically, Democrats and progressives always will have trouble making the case for doing the kinds of things we want government to do unless we make progress on bringing the federal deficit under control. I think progressives should do what Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky and organizations like Demos (a client), the Campaign for America's Future and others have done, and put out their own plans for reducing the deficit. But having said all that, to mindlessly parrot Republican, panic-inducing talking points about the deficit being the issue of the decade is as wrong as can be.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker: Funded by the Koch Bros.

The politician trying to eviscerate public-sector unions is in sync with one of his largest financial backers—the right's infamous billionaire brothers.

By Andy Kroll | Fri Feb. 18, 2011 9:12 AM PST

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Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker, whose bill to kill collective bargaining rights [1] for public-sector unions has caused an uproar [2] among state employees, might not be where he is today without the Koch brothers. Charles and David Koch are conservative titans of industry who have infamously used their vast wealth to undermine President Obama [3] and fight legislation they detest, such as the cap-and-trade climate bill, the health care reform act, and the economic stimulus package. For years, the billionaires have made extensive political donations to Republican candidates across the country and have provided millions of dollars to astroturf right-wing organizations. Koch Industries' political action committee has doled out more than $2.6 million to candidates. And one prominent beneficiary of the Koch brothers' largess is Scott Walker.

Republican Governor Deliberately Spent Wisconsin Surplus To Pick Fight With Unions

By Susie Madrak

It's important that people understand this: This is a fight Gov. Walker picked for the specific purpose of breaking the unions. Wisconsin had a surplus, and as soon as he was sworn in, Walker gave it away to special interests in order to put the state into deficit. Is it a coincidence that every Republican governor is suddenly going after the unions and the pensions? Is it simply bubbling up from the ground for no special reason? Hell, no.

Rep. Chris Murphy Announces Bill To End Supreme Court Immunity To Judicial Ethics Law

The Code of Conduct for United States Judges provides that in almost all circumstances, “a judge should not personally participate in fund-raising activities.” Yet, because the Justices of the Supreme Court have exempted themselves from this Code, conservative Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito have all participated in high-dollar fundraisers for right-wing political causes. In response to this unethical — but technically legal — conduct by these three justices, Rep. Chris Murphy (D-CT) is pushing a bill that would end the Supreme Court’s immunity to federal ethics law

Are We Headed For Massive Oil Price Spikes? Leaked Cables Claim Saudi Oil Reserves Grossly Overstated

By Jeremy Leggett, The Guardian
Posted on February 10, 2011, Printed on February 19, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/149876/

John Vidal's report on US diplomatic cables from Saudi Arabia raises the spectre of premature peak oil: an unexpected deline in global oil production in an oil-dependent world. The US government is among many administrations that routinely reassure the public that supplies of oil can go on growing far into the future. But in private, top diplomats have been telling Washington that they hold deep concerns about supplies from the world's number one supplier. This is an issue that has far-reaching consequences for an oil-importing nation like the UK, and for the global economy.

George Monbiot comes out fighting on 'Left Hook' tour

The opening bout between Monbiot and his critics took place at Warwick Arts Centre, where he proved a deft fighter

Plastered on the campus walls leading to Warwick Arts Centre are student posters offering two very different meetings. One publicises UK Uncut, the grassroots movement against corporate tax dodging, the other an economic summit sponsored by RBS, Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Barclays Wealth. And both in their contrasting ways also feature in "Gentleman" George Monbiot's Left Hook tour.

On Wednesday night I joined about a hundred people at the centre for the opening night of the tour. Billed as the "Guardian newspaper's unbeaten intellectual heavyweight champion of free speech", it is the first time in many years Monbiot has been on the road. And while admitting to some pre-fight nerves, he was also clearly relishing the opportunity to pit his wits against all comers on any subject.

The Real Reason Glenn Beck Hates Google

By Mark Howard, News Corpse
Posted on February 19, 2011, Printed on February 19, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/149949/

It's getting harder and harder to keep up with Glenn Beck's conspiracy delusions. If it isn't health care reform being a backdoor to reparations for slavery, it's Cash-for-Clunkers being a plot to let the government take control of your computer. Or food safety regulations being an excuse to raise prices so that people starve. Or that chemical trails from airplanes are actually missiles from a Chinese submarine off the coast of Santa Monica.

Lately Beck has taken to accusing Google of somehow being in cahoots with the federal government to foment unrest around the world or recruit our youth into socialist conclaves or ... who knows what. He is certain that whatever it is, it is evil.

Top 4 Victories Handed to Corporate America by the Supreme Court -- So Far

By Jim Hightower, Hightower Lowdown
Posted on February 19, 2011, Printed on February 19, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/149861/

One of the great works of American political literature is Ambrose Bierce's The Devil's Dictionary, first published in 1906. From A-Z, Bierce offered about a thousand irreverent definitions of political, legal, and cultural terms, getting much closer to the truth of what the words really mean than the formal definitions you'll find in Webster's. For example, consider this stinger: "LAWFUL, adj. Compatible with the will of a judge having jurisdiction."

A century later, Bierce's elucidation of the term pretty well nails the Roberts Court, the five-man junta of Chief Justice John Roberts and his fellow black-robed corporados on the Supreme Court: Sam Alito, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas. For these extremist judicial activists, 'lawful' is whatever they will it to mean, even if their rulings defy logic, reality, the will of the people, the Founders' clear intentions, legal precedent, common sense, and any sane measure of justice.

States ignored warnings on unemployment insurance

By KEVIN FREKING, Associated Press

WASHINGTON – State officials had plenty of warning. Over the past three decades, two national commissions and a series of government audits sounded alarms about the dwindling amount of money states were setting aside to pay unemployment insurance to laid-off workers.

"Trust Fund Reserves Inadequate," federal auditors said in a 1988 report.

It's clear now the warnings were pretty much ignored. Instead, states kept whittling away at the trust funds, mostly by cutting unemployment insurance taxes at the behest of the business community. The low balances hastened insolvency when the recession hit, leading about 30 states to borrow $41.5 billion from the federal government to pay unemployment benefits to their growing population of jobless.

The ramifications will be felt for years.

Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail?

Financial crooks brought down the world's economy — but the feds are doing more to protect them than to prosecute them

Over drinks at a bar on a dreary, snowy night in Washington this past month, a former Senate investigator laughed as he polished off his beer.

"Everything's fucked up, and nobody goes to jail," he said. "That's your whole story right there. Hell, you don't even have to write the rest of it. Just write that."

I put down my notebook. "Just that?"

"That's right," he said, signaling to the waitress for the check. "Everything's fucked up, and nobody goes to jail. You can end the piece right there."

Nobody goes to jail. This is the mantra of the financial-crisis era, one that saw virtually every major bank and financial company on Wall Street embroiled in obscene criminal scandals that impoverished millions and collectively destroyed hundreds of billions, in fact, trillions of dollars of the world's wealth — and nobody went to jail. Nobody, that is, except Bernie Madoff, a flamboyant and pathological celebrity con artist, whose victims happened to be other rich and famous people.

Republicans seek to quash ‘net neutrality’ rules

By Agence France-Presse
Thursday, February 17th, 2011 -- 5:14 pm

WASHINGTON — Republican members of the US Senate and House of Representatives are seeking to quash rules approved by US telecom regulators designed to ensure an open Internet.

The five-member Federal Communications Commission (FCC), in a vote split on party lines, agreed in December to the rules aimed at safeguarding "network neutrality," the principle that lawful Web traffic should be treated equally.

Loan Mod Program Left Homeowner’s Fate in Hands of Dysfunctional Industry

by Olga Pierce and Paul Kiel
ProPublica, Feb. 17, 2011, 5:03 p.m

Last February, with 6 million homeowners in danger of losing their homes, the mortgage industry was assembled at a luxury hotel in San Diego applauding themselves—literally.

“As a group, we owe ourselves a round of applause,” said Yvette Gilmore, vice president of loss mitigation at Freddie Mac, citing the industry’s efforts to avoid foreclosures, garnering loud clapping from the ballroom full of bank executives, lawyers and others in the industry.

Gov. Chris Christie: The Biggest Sham In American Politics

By Bill Scher

Created 02/17/2011 - 3:35pm

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is being puffed up by many conservatives as the refreshing, straight-talking principled budget slasher that could lead a nationwide right-wing resurgence. Yesterday, conservatives drooled as Christie gave a trademark performance at the American Enterprise Institute conservative think tank. [1]

"Performance" is the operative word. There is nothing straight about Christie's talk.

Far from refreshing, Christie's main brand of politics is the well-worn practice of scapegoating, under the guise of, in his words, "doing the big things and being courageous."

House Dem reveals abortion on the House floor

By Greg Sargent

Strong stuff from Dem Rep. Jackie Speier of California, who delivered an emotional speech on the House floor last night, revealing she had an abortion as she dressed down a Republican colleague for trivializing the decisionmaking that goes into deciding whether to undergo the procedure

'The Next Rush Limbaugh': Conservatives Pumping Right-Wing Young People into Media Jobs

This year's Conservative Political Action Conference offered such panels as "Freelance Writing for Freedom" and "Want to be the Next Rush Limbaugh?"

February 18, 2011 | This year at the Conservative Political Action Committee in Washington, D.C., there were a number of targeted media trainings and journalism-oriented panels. A panel titled “Shining Light into Dark Places” sought to stress the importance of investigative journalism. Others included “Freelance Writing for Freedom,” “So You Want to be a Columnist” and “Want to be the Next Rush Limbaugh?”

Despite Sarah Palin's invectives against the "lamestream media," conservatives seem eager to fill its ranks with right-wing young people.

Obama and Geithner's Insidious Plan to Hand the Entire Housing Industry Over to the Banks

By Robert Scheer, Truthdig
Posted on February 17, 2011, Printed on February 18, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/149960/

This article first appeared on TruthDig.

A most dastardly deed occurred last Friday when the Obama administration issued a 29-page policy statement totally abandoning the federal government’s time-honored role in helping Americans achieve the goal of homeownership. Instead of punishing the banks that sabotaged the American ideal of a nation of stakeholders by “securitizing” our homesteads into poker chips to be gambled away in the Wall Street casino, Barack Obama now proposes to turn over the entire mortgage industry to those same banks.

The Secret Weapon of the Rich: Mone

By Kevin Drum | Wed Feb. 16, 2011 10:12 PM PST

I've written before about Larry Bartels' research showing that politicians basically don't care about the views of low and medium-income individuals. The non-rich simply have no impact on their voting behavior at all. But I know you want more evidence. So here it is.

Republicans Cut Jobs, Keep Oil Company Tax Breaks, Don't Cut Military!

By Dave Johnson
Created 02/16/2011 - 1:29am

As you read this, remember what Republicans did just a few weeks ago to force huge tax cuts for the wealthy, adding as much as $900 to budget deficits. Also, keep in mind that we spend more on military than every other country combined.

People Want Job Creation Not Cuts

Finally, keep in mind that polls show the public wants job creation, and does not want cuts in the things government does for We, the People. On the Campaign for America's Future website front page [1] under "THE PULSE" you can see the results of a poll, showing significant majorities reject cuts in various programs. (Other polls [2] show broad public support for increasing taxes on the wealthy.)

What the public wants, the public doesn't get. This isn't about what the public wants. It certainly isn't about jobs. And, right after increasing the deficits with huge tax cuts for the wealthy, this is not about cutting deficits, either. It certainly isn't about governing or the public interest. This is about one thing only: gutting the [3] hated government.

Former Sen. Russ Feingold Launches 'Progressive Movement'

Former Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold, regarded as liberal but independent during his three terms in the Senate, says he is starting a "progressive" movement to support like-minded candidates and fight the influence of corporate money in campaigns.

Feingold, who was defeated in his bid for reelection in November, has rejected calls from some liberal voices to challenge President Obama as a candidate of the political left in the 2012 Democratic primaries. Instead of returning to electoral politics, he said in a new video he's forming Progressives United, a group that will have a political action committee to raise money and back candidates that "uphold our progressive ideals."

Jamie Dimon’s ‘Biggest Disaster’ Is Waiting

By Simon Johnson - Feb 16, 2011

Bloomberg Opinion

Jamie Dimon, chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co., has harsh words for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They are “the biggest disasters of all time,” Dimon told the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission last fall, according to his just-released interview.

Along with others, Dimon greatly exaggerates the role Fannie and Freddie played in the financial crisis, a theme my MIT colleague, Daron Acemoglu, has written about with great clarity.

Too many bankers assert some version of the refrain: Fannie Mae made me do it. As the FCIC’s report makes clear, it was the private sector that led us into the financial crisis by making massive subprime bets and then using complex derivatives deals to magnify the downside risks.

Florida Gov. Absurdly Refuses Rail Funding, Enraging His Fellow Floridians

The federal government had already allocated over $2 billion for a high-speed rail project linking Tampa and Orlando. With Florida's 12% unemployment rate, the project was poised to give the state a much needed boost -- creating tens of thousands of jobs and boosting economic development, with practically no investment needed from the state government.

Yesterday, for reasons that no one can explain, Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) announced he'd refuse to accept the money and would instead allow the jobs to go to some other state.

Boehner's Spending Cuts Would Kill 1 Million Jobs

Megan Carpentier | February 16, 2011, 9:25AM

At a press conference yesterday, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) told reporters that if some federal jobs were lost as a result of his proposed spending cuts, "so be it."

How many jobs are we talking about? According to federal budget expert Scott Lilly at the Center for American Progress, Boehner's proposed spending cuts could kill almost 1 million jobs.

Sleepwalking Toward Plutocracy

By BuzzFlash

Created 02/15/2011 - 7:43pm

MARSHALL C. WHITFIELD FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

"Corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed." - Abraham Lincoln ^{[1] [1]}

This grim vision caused Lincoln to "tremble for the safety of my country," as he wrote on November 21, 1864. It foretold of Plutocracy (rule by the wealthy) in America.

Today, we watch his vision coming true: the richest 1 percent of Americans now take home 24 percent of U.S. income, up from 9 percent in 1976. ^{[2] [2]} America's wealth is "aggregating in a few hands" right before our eyes, in plain view.

And we stare uncomprehendingly, like deer in the headlights.

Who is Influencing Obama’s Budget Proposal? Follow the Funders

By Rob Johnson, NewDeal 2.0
Posted on February 15, 2011, Printed on February 16, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/149938/

President Obama is a smart man. When Gallup surveys suggest that unemployment is around 10 percent — and that unemployment plus underemployment is 19 percent of the workforce — then it’s clear that the best way to raise revenues and close the deficit is to put people back to work. President Obama surely knows this. But his actions don’t seem to follow this obvious logic. Why is that?

Part of the reason lies in a group of people who pour money into our political system but don’t necessarily want the same things that ordinary Americans want.

Paul Krugman: Economic Turmoil Has Preceded Revolutions, Though Not Egypt’s

Maybe it’s because I spent time working for the United Nations Development Program in the Philippines in the ‘90s — I was a bit surprised that few people have mentioned the parallel between the Egyptian uprising and the People Power Revolution in Manila, which took place in 1986.

Geithner: cut corporate tax rate substantially

Rachelle Younglai and Kim Dixon
Reuters US Online Report Domestic News

Feb 15, 2011 17:14 EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Tuesday that the United States needs to cut the corporate tax rate substantially with a goal in the high 20 percent range, down from the current 35 percent

A day after the White House unveiled a budget that seeks to trim the country's massive deficit, Geithner reiterated that the Obama administration and Congress had to work together to overhaul the tax code, starting with corporate taxes.

Alan Greenspan: feted for failure

Alan Greenspan was at the wheel, apparently asleep, when the US economy drove off a cliff. Why on earth is he still lionised?

Dean Baker
Tuesday 15 February 2011 17.21 GM

The Brookings Institution stands alongside Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, among the nation's elite intellectual institutions. This is why it so striking that it chose to invite former Federal Reserve board chairman Alan Greenspan to give the keynote address at a forum on reforming the home mortgage finance system last week.

It would be difficult to imagine a more disastrous failure than Alan Greenspan. Tens of millions of people are unemployed, under-employed, or have given up looking for work altogether, as a direct result of Greenspan's ineptitude. Millions of families are facing the lost of their homes. More than one quarter of mortgage holders are underwater with their mortgages.

More Facts Emerge About the Leaked Smear Campaigns Aimed at WikiLeaks Supporters and Chamber of Commerce Critics

by Glenn Greenwald

As I noted on Friday, the parties implicated in the smear campaigns aimed at WikiLeaks supporters and Chamber of Commerce critics have attempted to heap all the blame on HBGary Federal ("HBGary") and its CEO, Aaron Barr. Both Bank of America and the Chamber -- the intended clients -- vehemently deny any involvement in these schemes and have harshly denounced them. The other two Internet security firms whose logos appeared on the proposals -- Palantir Technologies and Berico Technologies -- both issued statements terminating their relationship with HBGary and insisting that they had nothing to do with these plots. Only Hunton & Williams and its partner, John Woods -- the central cogs soliciting these proposals -- have steadfastly refused to comment.

Science Review Casts Doubt on Some Evidence in FBI’s Anthrax Investigation

by Tom Detzel
ProPublica, Feb. 15, 2011, 1:20 p.m.

The National Academy of Sciences is just out with a 190-page review [1] of the forensic science behind the FBI's investigation of the 2001 anthrax letter attacks. The takeaway: Some of the evidence cited to identify Army microbiologist Bruce E. Ivins as the perpetrator isn't as conclusive as the FBI has claimed.

In particular, the panel of experts said it "did not definitively demonstrate" that the source of the anthrax was spores taken from a flask controlled by Ivins, a microbiologist who did vaccine research at the U.S. Army Institute for Medical Research of Infection Diseases in Maryland. Nor did scientific data generated for the FBI "rule out other sources" for the anthrax, the panel's report says.

Paul Begala: It's Time to Defund Kentucky

While its small-government crusaders decry Obama’s budget and government spending, the Bluegrass State is thriving on D.C. welfare. Paul Begala says it’s the perfect place for a truly democratic experiment.

The great Mark Shields has said that most Americans are theoretical conservatives but operational liberals. I think Shields is right. In fact, we ought to make it a law of political analysis: According to Shields’ Law, the same people who vote for politicians who pledge to slash government spending are appalled when the politicians they elect actually slash government spending.

Wall Street’s Dead End

By FELIX SALMON

THE stock market has been big news in recent days. Last week’s report that Deutsche Börse, a giant German exchange, intends to buy the New York Stock Exchange, creating a company worth some $24 billion, arrived shortly after the Dow broke the 12,000-point barrier for the first time since before the financial crisis.

These developments drew headlines because they seemed to exemplify significant trends in the American economy. But look at America’s stock exchanges more closely, and there’s less to them than meets the eye. In truth, the stock market is becoming increasingly irrelevant — a trend that threatens the core principles of American capitalism.

Misleading “Research” From The Chamber Of Commerce

By Simon Johnson

On behalf of key financial sector players, Keybridge Research has just published a report that claims the Dodd-Frank reforms for over the counter derivatives market “could cost 130,000″ jobs. My MIT colleague, John Parsons, deftly takes this apart on his blog today – pointing out that the technical basis of this report is very weak (or nonexistent).

John is an expert on these issues and spends a great of time with nonfinancial companies that use derivatives in a sensible and responsible manner. His critique should carry weight – including with the relevant congressional hearings scheduled for this week.

Do We Really Need More Submarines and Aircraft Carriers?

The brewing battle over the defense budget.

By Fred Kaplan
Posted Monday, Feb. 14, 2011, at 7:57 PM ET

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Will this be the year that Congress takes after the defense budget, seeing it not as holy writ laid down by an unchallengeable priesthood but rather as a political document hammered out by competing bureaucracies, each with long-standing vested interests?

It's a bubbling brew out there, the Tea Party Republicans keen to slash any and all federal programs, joined in a potential alliance of convenience with liberal Democrats seeking to kill big-ticket weapons slammed as pork-barrel waste or Cold War antiques.

The Obama administration's proposed defense budget for fiscal year 2012, rolled out Monday afternoon by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, makes for a gigantic target on this shooting range.

Obama and the GOP: United Against the Working Poor

David Cay Johnston | Feb. 14, 2011 11:57 AM EST

Who says bipartisanship is dead?

On Capitol Hill, the Democrats and Republicans may no longer play cards and drink together, but that does not seem to stop them from working together to shift tax burdens down the income ladder even when it violates their promises on the campaign trail.

Grover Norquist calls bipartisanship the political equivalent of date rape. But there is one group that President Obama, many congressional Democrats, and all congressional Republicans ganged up on in December -- the working poor.

Staying Vigilant on Social Security

By Daniel Marans

Created 02/14/2011 - 2:25pm

We should all thank the President for refusing to include Social Security cuts in his 2012 budget. But we should not take the President’s decision for granted. Apparently, the White House was prepared to include specific cuts in Social Security benefits in the 2012 budget just to bring Republicans to the table, but a groundswell of progressive opposition helped stop it in its tracks, the Wall Street Journal reported [1] on Friday.

The lesson is clear: What we are doing is working. But we are still facing a real threat to Social Security, and a White House whose idea of negotiating is conceding in advance to Republican demands. We must temper our current praise for the president with vigilance for the future. Cuts are not yet dead; we need to keep up the pressure.

Paul Krugman: Eat the Future

On Friday, House Republicans unveiled their proposal for immediate cuts in federal spending. Uncharacteristically, they failed to accompany the release with a catchy slogan. So I’d like to propose one: Eat the Future.

I’ll explain in a minute. First, let’s talk about the dilemma the G.O.P. faces.

Republican leaders like to claim that the midterms gave them a mandate for sharp cuts in government spending. Some of us believe that the elections were less about spending than they were about persistent high unemployment, but whatever. The key point to understand is that while many voters say that they want lower spending, press the issue a bit further and it turns out that they only want to cut spending on other people.

Introducing the Progressive Strategy Handbook

Sunday 13 February 2011

by: Joe Brewer, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

Are you ready to build the progressive movement that America desperately needs? This is the moment you’ve been waiting for. We’ve finished writing the Progressive Strategy Handbook that you — the community — paid for last fall through a crowdfunding campaign.

So you want to be part of a real progressive movement? You’ve come to the right place.

The Lack of Female Bylines in Magazines Is Old News

If you really want more women writers, get more women editors.

By Katha Pollitt
Posted Friday, Feb. 11, 2011, at 11:59 AM ET

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As Meghan O'Rourke reported here last week, VIDA, an organization for women writers, has released a tally of male and female bylines for the 2010 run of 14 high-end, literary-oriented magazines. Despite a couple of relatively bright spots (the New York Times Book ReviewAtlantic's table of contents and feel that little sinking of the heart that means "I can't believe there's only one woman in the whole issue and it's Caitlin Flanagan." I've written so often about the dearth of women in high-end magazines, including my own home base, The Nation, over so many years, and to so little effect, that sometimes I see myself, sitting at the kitchen table in some year like 2050, enjoying a nice bowl of reconfigurated vitamin-infused plastic bags, and over my phlogistatron will come the headline "Study Shows Men Write 85 Percent of Articles in Interplanetary Media. Martian Weekly Editor in Chief: Where Are the Women?" surprisingly being one), the numbers they found were just as dismally skewed as you might have expected, or even worse. None of this will come as news to the many women who've been keeping score at home, who run their eyes down the Atlantic's table of contents and feel that little sinking of the heart that means "I can't believe there's only one woman in the whole issue and it's Caitlin Flanagan." I've written so often about the dearth of women in high-end magazines, including my own home base, The Nation, over so many years, and to so little effect, that sometimes I see myself, sitting at the kitchen table in some year like 2050, enjoying a nice bowl of reconfigurated vitamin-infused plastic bags, and over my phlogistatron will come the headline "Study Shows Men Write 85 Percent of Articles in Interplanetary Media. Martian Weekly Editor in Chief: Where Are the Women?"

10 Historical 'Facts' Only a Right-Winger Could Believe

By Roy Edroso, AlterNet
Posted on February 11, 2011, Printed on February 13, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/149871/

As you may have noticed by following their writings, conservatives are not sticklers for historical accuracy, especially when they have a point to defend and not a lot of evidence to support it. Get a load, for example, of John Podhoretz explaining how the pro-choice Rudy Giuliani reduced abortions in New York City (though, um, not really) because he cut crime, which is one of "the spiritual causes of abortion."

Yeah, deadline pressure's a bitch. But there are some bizarre notions of American history in which conservatives have become so invested they've adopted them into their worldview. The best-known example is probably Jonah Goldberg's notion of "Liberal Fascism"; nowadays anytime a conservative talks about, say, Woodrow Wilson or Hillary Clinton, you may expect him to mention their resemblance to Benito Mussolini. They don't even have to think about it, even when normal people are gaping at them open-mouthed like audience members at "Springtime for Hitler" -- it's part of the folklore that helps them understand the American experience.

Frank Rich: At Last, Bernie Madoff Gives Back

By FRANK RICH

WHEN Bernie Madoff was arrested in December 2008, America feasted vicariously on a cautionary tale of greed run amok. But like Rod Blagojevich, the stunt governor of Illinois who had been arrested days earlier, Madoff was something of a sideshow to that dark month’s main events. For a nation reeling from an often incomprehensible economic tsunami and unable to identify the culprits, he was, for the moment, the right made-to-order villain at the right time.

But Madoff was a second-tier player. Some in the upper echelons of New York’s financial world, including in the business press, had never heard of him. His firm’s accountant operated out of a strip mall and didn’t bother with electronic statements. The billions that vaporized in Madoff’s Ponzi scheme amounted to a rounding error next to the eye-popping federal bailouts, including those pouring into too-big-to-fail banks wrecked by their own Ponzi schemes of securitization. The suffering he inflicted on his mostly well-heeled dupes was piddling next to the national devastation of an economy in free fall. In a December when a half-million Americans lost their jobs — a calamitous rate not seen since 1974 — the video of a voiceless, combative Madoff in a baseball cap, skirmishing with photographers outside his Upper East Side apartment house, soon lost its punch.

Finding the Good in the 'Good Old Days'

By Sam Pizzigati

Created 02/13/2011 - 10:44am

Home Feature Box:

It’s federal budget time, and they’re talking 1950s on Capitol Hill. Well, sometimes we can move forward by turning the political clock back. But we have to know exactly where to stop.

Last week, in a speech at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, President Obama pledged [1] that the federal budget he unveils this week will take “domestic discretionary spending down to the lowest share of our economy since Eisenhower was President.”

No one in the Chamber audience cheered, mainly because Chamber types don't trust Obama when he talks budget cuts. But the rest of us shouldn't be cheering either. If we're going to be heading back to the Eisenhower era, we have much better options for what we ought to be trying to emulate.