Woman who attempted suicide while pregnant is accused of murder

Prosecution would be a 'significant step' towards abortion being outlawed, says lawyer for pregnant women's group

Ewen MacAskill in Washington
guardian.co.uk, Friday 15 April 2011 16.23 BST

A woman accused of murdering her four-day-old baby girl by trying to kill herself with rat poison while pregnant has become a cause célèbre for US women's groups and civil liberties organisations.

Bei Bei Shuai, 34, a restaurant owner who moved to the US from China 10 years ago, was pregnant and planning to marry her boyfriend until she learned late last year that he was already married and he would be abandoning her.

A few days later, on 23 December, she went to a hardware store, bought rat poison pellets, went back to her flat in Indianapolis and swallowed some. But she did not die immediately and was persuaded by friends to go to hospital.

Foreclosures, arson burn Hunters Brooke owners

By STEVE KILAR, Capital News Service

Published 04/16/11

INDIAN HEAD - Around 4 a.m. on Dec. 6, 2004, William Fitzpatrick left his guard post at the Hunters Brooke subdivision construction site, where more than two dozen homes were nearly complete, knowing that shortly the buildings would be in flames.

The neighborhood, one arsonist said, was "going black" and it had to be stopped before more blacks -- one family was already there, sleeping soundly -- moved in later that month. So after Fitzpatrick left, five young white men crept into the neighborhood and left behind 16 scorched, unlivable houses.

This Tax Day, 'Farms' Owned by the Rich Provide Massive Tax Shelter

For all those feeling the pinch this Tax Day, rest assured America’s wealthiest one percent have no idea what you’re going through. Not only have they shaved a projected collective $121 billion off their income taxes thanks to Bush’s tax cuts for the rich but, thanks to misuse of agricultural tax breaks, many will not end up paying their fair share of property taxes either.

Take Michael Dell, founder of Dell Computers and the second-richest Texan, who qualified for an agricultural property tax break on his sprawling 1,757-acre residential ranch in suburban Austin and saved over $1 million simply because his family and friends sometimes use the land as a private hunting preserve to shoot deer. Or take billionaire publisher Steve Forbes, who got more than a 90 percent property tax reduction on hundreds of acres of his multimillion-dollar estate in upscale Bedminister, New Jersey, just by putting a couple of cows out to pasture. They are not alone. All across the country, a huge number of America’s wealthiest are tapping into agricultural tax breaks—and none of them have to do any real farming to qualify.

Cops Conspire With Baby-Killing Satanists, Claims Newt Gingrich Ally Pastor John Hagee

Posted by B. E. Wilson on @ 8:06 am

I went down there and joined this church. We were taught to vomit demons into bags. It was a very, very weird situation.” — Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi, on his experiences at John Hagee’s San Antonio Cornerstone Church

“Last night at Cornerstone Church we were privileged to have, as our speaker, Newt Gingrich. He gave a wonderful delivery of the theme, ‘Rediscovering God in America.’ ” — John Hagee

Does Newt Gingrich know that pastor John Hagee, whose San Antonio Cornerstone Church Gingrich recently gave a speech at, has promoted a variant of Hitler’s favorite anti-Jewish conspiracy theory, that Rothschild bankers control the world economy and are scheming against the common folk?

Does presidential hopeful Gingrich know that Hagee claims cops across America are conspiring with satanists who ritually slaughter babies as sacrifices to the devil? Does he know Hagee is an avowed exorcist who claims to have cast out a demon from a woman with the face of a cat?

Offshore Banking and Tax Havens Have Become Heart of Global Economy

As millions of Americans prepare to file their income taxes ahead of Monday’s deadline, we look at how corporations and the wealthy use offshore banks and tax havens to avoid paying taxes and other governmental regulations. "Tax havens have grown so fast in the era of globalization, since the 1970s, that they are now right at the heart of the global economy and are absolutely huge," says our guest, British journalist Nicholas Shaxson. "There are anywhere between $10 and $20 trillion sitting offshore at the moment. Half of world trade is processed in one way or another through tax havens." Shaxson is the author of the new book, Treasure Islands: Uncovering the Damage of Offshore Banking and Tax Havens. [includes rush transcript]

Our Phony Budget Battles Are All Smoke and Mirrors

By Richard D. Wolff, TruthOut.org
Posted on April 15, 2011, Printed on April 16, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/150631/our_phony_budget_battles_are_all_smoke_and_mirrors

Weeks of highly publicized debates - some in Congress, more in the mass media - brought Republicans and Democrats to a budget deal. To maximize public attention, they threatened a possible government shutdown. Both parties said that large government deficits and accumulated debt were "serious problems." They agreed that solving them required only spending cuts, not revenue increases. In unison, they repeated, "we" must "learn to live within our means."

In fact, both sides never actually engaged the deficit and the debt. They limited themselves to purely cosmetic, symbol-laden cuts (Republicans) and refusals to cut (Democrats). Aiming at the 2012 election, both parties used the deficit and budget debates purely to impress their voters.

Paul Krugman: Who’s Serious Now?

Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, sounds upset. And you can see why: President Obama, to the great relief of progressives, has called his bluff.

Last week, Mr. Ryan unveiled his budget proposal, and the initial reaction of much of the punditocracy was best summed up (sarcastically) by the blogger John Cole: “The plan is bold! It is serious! It took courage! It re-frames the debate! The ball is in Obama’s court! Very wonky! It is a game-changer! Did I mention it is serious?”

Then people who actually understand budget numbers went to work, and it became clear that the proposal wasn’t serious at all. In fact, it was a sick joke. The only real things in it were savage cuts in aid to the needy and the uninsured, huge tax cuts for corporations and the rich, and Medicare privatization. All the alleged cost savings were pure fantasy.

During Bush Presidency, Current GOP Leaders Voted 19 Times To Increase Debt Limit By $4 Trillion

After pushing the government to brink of shutdown last week, Republican Congressional leaders are now preparing to push America to the edge of default by refusing to increase the nation’s debt limit without first getting Democrats to concede to large spending cuts.

But while the four Republicans in Congressional leadership positions are attempting to hold the increase hostage now, they combined to vote for a debt limit increase 19 times during the presidency of George W. Bush. In doing so, they increased the debt limit by nearly $4 trillion.

New York Times' Peterson Story Spells Our Name Right, Gets An Opinion Wrong, Corrects What's Already Correct

By Richard Eskow

Created 04/13/2011 - 11:14pm

This weekend the New York Times ran what seemed to be a somewhat overly flattering piece [1] about right-wing anti-entitlement hawk Pete Peterson, and the piece included this paragraph:

Progressives like Mr. Baker or Richard Eskow of the Campaign for America’s Future often paint Mr. Peterson as a disingenuous tycoon who made his fortune from the low carried-interest tax rate (it allows hedge-fund operators to shield earnings from the government). They argue that Social Security’s trust fund — while supplied with Treasury bonds, not dollar bills — will nonetheless stay solvent for decades, and accuse Mr. Peterson of shrewdly couching entitlement reform as a way to protect future generations when, in fact, it is today’s elderly who will suffer.

That would be Dean Baker, prominent economist, who describes Peterson with considerable accuracy:

"“He’s not focused on the debt so much as on cutting Social Security and Medicare,” said Dean Baker, co-director of the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research. “Even in the late ’90s, when we had a surplus, he was saying the same thing and the debt wasn’t in any obvious way a problem then.”

Krugman: The Budget Speech

Style: I liked the way Obama made a case for government at the beginning. I liked the way he accused Republicans of pessimism, of abandoning a hopeful vision of America. Good that he went after the Ryan plan — and good that he went after the cruelty of that plan. If you ask me, too many percentages. Oh, and whichever speechwriter came up with “win the future” should be sent to count yurts in Outer Mongolia.

Shock Doctrine: Break The Economy, Lower Wages By 20 Percent. Doesn't Sound So Farfetched Anymore, Does It?

By Susie Madrak

I've thought for a while that our leaders, both political and private sector, are actually trying to create another depression, but I wasn't quite clear on why. I mean, I figured they make money on it, of course, but I didn't connect all the dots.

This interview with liberal economist Michael Hudson is a few months old, but it has the ring of truth and explains so much:

PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay, coming to you today from New York City. Now joining us is Michael Hudson. He's a distinguished research professor at University of Missouri-Kansas City. He's also the author of many books, including Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire, and Trade, Development, and Foreign Debt: A History of Theories of Polarization Versus Convergence in the World Economy. That's a mouthful. Thanks for joining us.

PROF. MICHAEL HUDSON, UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-KANSAS CITY: Thank you.

Medicare for Beginners

By James Kwak

This isn’t a post explaining how Medicare works in detail. It’s a post about why Medicare matters to you.

The basic “problem” with Medicare is that its liabilities are projected to grow faster than its revenues indefinitely because health care costs are growing faster than GDP (and Medicare’s revenues are a function of wages).* The “solution” proposed by Paul Ryan is to convert Medicare from an insurance program, which pays most of your health care expenses, to a voucher program, which gives you a certain amount of money that you can try to use to buy health insurance. I’ve described the main problems with this approach already: it transforms a large future government deficit into an even larger future household deficit, and on top of that it shifts risks from the government to individual households. Today I want to look at this from a different angle.

A chance discovery may revolutionize hydrogen production

Molybdenum-based catalysts now enable a more cost-effective hydrogen production

Producing hydrogen in a sustainable way is a challenge and production cost is too high. A team led by EPFL Professor Xile Hu has discovered that a molybdenum based catalyst is produced at room temperature, inexpensive and efficient. The results of the research are published online in Chemical Science Thursday the 14th of April. An international patent based on this discovery has just been filled.

Republicans: Let's Cut Social Security, Too

Will House Republicans support their Senate colleagues' plan for major Social Security cuts? Some already do.

— By Suzy Khimm

Thu Apr. 14, 2011 12:01 AM PDT

For all the drastic spending cuts in GOP Rep. Paul Ryan's proposed 2012 budget, there's one major government program that it barely touches: Social Security. Now Republicans in both houses of Congress are preparing to dig into that sacrosanct entitlement as well.

On Wednesday morning, shortly before Obama's big deficit speech, three Republican senators unveiled a plan to cut $6.2 trillion by paring back Social Security over the next two decades. Under a proposal unveiled by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and Mike Lee (R-Utah), the qualifying age for Social Security would rise from 67 to 70 by 2032, while benefits for everyone earning more than an average of $43,000 over their lifetime would be reduced. Graham took pains to explain that he wasn't pushing for privatization but also slammed any tax increases to shore up Social Security, saying such a move would "destroy America." "It's much better to give up benefits on the end side than pay taxes now," he explained.

Now the GOP Is Going After Sexual Health and the Pill -- And the Battle Is Just Beginning

By Amanda Marcotte, AlterNet
Posted on April 13, 2011, Printed on April 15, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/150604/now_the_gop_is_going_after_sexual_health_and_the_pill_--_and_the_battle_is_just_beginning

If it hadn’t actually happened, it would have been too strange to believe: the federal government of the most powerful nation on the earth almost shut down over birth control pills and HIV tests. In fact, even though it did happen, the implausibility of it caused many major news organizations to slip into denial. The New York Times, for instance, inaccurately characterized the fight as being over “abortion funding,” even though the funds in dispute could not be used for abortion, which is a lot like calling your rent check your “drinking money."

But many in the pro-choice community were not surprised that denying men and women access to STD testing, birth control and cancer screenings would be the thing the Republican party took a stand on during budget negotiations. (I predicted the budget shutdown would come over this specific issue back in February.) Frankly, the Republican war on contraception and general sexual health care is just heating up, and liberals best be prepared for more battles over contraception access and funding in the future. This is because anti-contraception sentiment has become mainstream in the Republican party, despite the fact that Republicans such as Richard Nixon and George Bush played a major role in supporting early initiatives to expand contraception access (although they did so for population control reasons, not for pro-feminist reasons).

Walker And Prosser Crushed Regulations On Koch Industry’s Phosphorus Pollution In Wisconsin

By Lee Fang, Think Progress

Posted on April 13, 2011, Printed on April 15, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/559634/walker_and_prosser_crushed_regulations_on_koch_industry%E2%80%99s_phosphorus_pollution_in_wisconsin

Shortly after helping to elect Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI), Koch Industries opened a new lobbying office in Madison near the state capitol. However, little has been disclosed about the Koch lobbying agenda in Madison. The New York Times reported that Koch political operatives privately pressuredWalker to crush public employee unions. But Walker’s major payback to Koch relates to environmental deregulation.

ThinkProgress has learned that the Walker administration, along with state Supreme Court judge David Prosser, has quietly worked to allow Koch’s many Georgia Pacific paper plantsto pollute Wisconsin by pouring thousands of pounds of phosphorus into the water.

9 Things The Rich Don't Want You To Know About Taxes

For three decades we have conducted a massive economic experiment, testing a theory known as supply-side economics. The theory goes like this: Lower tax rates will encourage more investment, which in turn will mean more jobs and greater prosperity—so much so that tax revenues will go up, despite lower rates. The late Milton Friedman, the libertarian economist who wanted to shut down public parks because he considered them socialism, promoted this strategy. Ronald Reagan embraced Friedman’s ideas and made them into policy when he was elected president in 1980.

For the past decade, we have doubled down on this theory of supply-side economics with the tax cuts sponsored by President George W. Bush in 2001 and 2003, which President Obama has agreed to continue for two years.

U.S. Republicans Blindly Attack Social Justice

By William Pfaff

The determination of the Republican congressional majority to destroy the country’s legacy of what once was known (in religious circles, at least) as social justice is being accomplished amid the ignorance of the vast majority that such a thing ever existed and was defended, in the 1940s, 1950s and even after, by what were known as progressive Republicans. Not only has that breed of Republican been stamped out, but so has the memory that such a movement even existed under the leadership of Theodore Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover (a humanist, if a credulous economist), Dwight Eisenhower, Wendell Willkie, Thomas Dewey and even under the demonized Richard Nixon.

What has replaced it has been an ignorant and repressive socio-political ideology that rests on assumptions of class and individual privilege devoid of responsibility. The United States has experienced this before. It might in Rumsfeldian idiom be called one of the “known knowns” of American history, and that history would indicate that it will eventually be brought to an end by electoral choice, after voters have experienced its consequences. When this will happen is an unknown known.

President Obama's Budget Plan

Wednesday 13 April 2011
by: Dean Baker, The Center for Economic and Policy Research

Washington, D.C.- Dean Baker, Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) released the following statement on the President's deficit-reduction plan:

President Obama’s statement was about as encouraging as could have been hoped for in the context of an agenda committed to deficit reduction. He rightly stressed that the wealthy, who have been the big winners in the economy over the last three decades, can afford to pay more in taxes. He also correctly pointed out that Social Security is an essential program for the nation’s retirees and workers, and that it does not contribute to the deficit. He also pointed out that the way to fix Medicare and Medicaid is to fix the private health care system, not to privatize Medicare as the Republicans in Congress have proposed.

On the negative side, it is unfortunate that President Obama accepted a formula that cuts three times as much from projected spending (including interest) as he proposes to increase taxes. It is also striking that he proposes to cut twice as much from domestic discretionary spending (the portion of the budget that includes most investment spending) as he does from defense spending, especially since defense spending is projected to be about 20 percent larger than domestic discretionary spending over the 10-year budget horizon.

Obama Jilts the Jobless

By Bill Boyarsky

In his eagerness to compromise with the Republican right, President Barack Obama has forgotten the still-suffering victims of the recession: the long-term unemployed who range from the poorest Americans to those barely holding on to their place in the middle class.

Any mention of them was absent from the celebration of last weekend’s stopgap budget deal, with its $38 million in cuts, except for a brief acknowledgement by Obama on Saturday that “[s]ome of the cuts we agreed to will be painful—programs people rely on will be cut back; needed infrastructure projects will be delayed.”

In the current budget debate, only a few are speaking up strongly for the disenfranchised. One is Democratic Rep. George Miller of California, who said: “The American people have been told the agreement contains both ‘historic’ and ‘painful’ cuts. The question will be painful for whom. Poor and middle class families have already received more than their fair share of pain in this economy while the wealthy and special interests have paid no price.”

Senators Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum Unveil Their "Brilliant" Plan to Cut Social Security

By Daniel Marans

Created 04/13/2011 - 11:26am

Must Read:

An Economy for All

Appearing on Fox News this morning [1], Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Rand Paul (R-KY) and Mike Lee (R-UT) acted like their plan to means-test Social Security and raise the retirement age was the most genius thing since sliced bread. But however attractive these options may at first seem, means testing and raising the retirement age are very bad policy. Click here [2] for a comprehensive take-down of raising the retirement age, and here [3] for a rebuttal of means-testing.

Let's start with raising the retirement age [4], the perennial favorite of would-be Social Security reformers. First, it is a big, across-the-board benefit cut, regardless of whether you claim benefits at 62 or 70. Raising the retirement age two years, from 67 to 69, amounts to a 13% cut in benefits [5], according to the SSA. (Graham, Paul and Lee And keep in mind the full retirement age is still in the process of going up to 67 from changes made in the 80s. How many people even know that the full retirement age is 67, not 65, for people born after 1960?

Risks to Boehner in Debt-Ceiling Brinkmanship

By NATE SILVER

Although John A. Boehner and the Republicans are coming off what is widely being scored as a victory on the argument over the 2011 budget, they risk overconfidence as Congress turns its attention to the next debate, the fight over raising the federal debt limit.

Perhaps the most important piece of reporting that you’ll read on the debt limit debate is this one, from The Times’s Jackie Calmes:

The Republican leader, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, has privately urged the conservatives not to filibuster, without success, say three people familiar with the talks. He argued that if Republicans did not filibuster and just 50 votes were needed for passage, the Republicans could try to force all the votes to come from the 51 Democrats — including 17 who are up for re-election. But if 60 votes are required because of a filibuster, ultimately some Republicans would have to vote for the increase lest the party be blamed for a debt crisis.

The Do-Nothing Plan

How Congress can balance the budget in eight years by literally doing nothing. This is not a joke.

By Annie Lowrey
Posted Tuesday, April 12, 2011, at 2:41 PM ET

The Simpson-Bowles blue-ribbon deficit commission longs to slash Social Security and defense spending. The Bipartisan Policy Center's Alice Rivlin and Peter Domenici yearn for a value-added tax. Rep. Paul Ryan's politically deft, economically daft plan conspires to shift the burden of health care spending, cut taxes for the rich, and make up the difference with fantastical supply-side growth assumptions. And President Obama is likely to embrace the Simpson-Bowles recommendations when he announces his long-term budget plan on Wednesday.

Why Our Broken Political System Falls Prey to Right-Wing Extremism

By Lynn Parramore and Thomas Ferguson, New Deal 2.0
Posted on April 12, 2011, Printed on April 13, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/150589/why_our_broken_political_system_falls_prey_to_right-wing_extremism

Lynn Parramore caught up with Roosevelt Institute Senior Fellow Thomas Ferguson at the annual INET conference in Bretton Woods. Ferguson, father of the Investment Theory of Politics, explains why polarization has completely gripped Washington — and why the New Deal is getting rolled back in the process.

Lynn Parramore: What’s polarization in politics and how did it start?

Thomas Ferguson: Polarization is a sharp intensification of divisions between the major political parties. The tensions between them now run through the entire system, including the Supreme Court and state and local governments. Congressional polarization is the most visible form right now and surely a key link in the whole process. Both national parties have spent enormous amounts of time and money painting each other in the worst possible terms — to the point that some Republicans have repeatedly cast aspersions on the patriotism of the Democrats.

Some Market Discipline for Economists

The IMF lashes itself for failing to foresee the crisis, but the only remedy would be the hazard of unemployment for its economists

by Dean Baker

Last month, the International Monetary Fund's independent evaluation office issued a remarkable report. The report quite clearly blamed the IMF for failing to recognise the factors leading up to the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and to provide warning to its members so that preventive actions could be taken:

"It [the report] finds that the IMF provided few clear warnings about the risks and vulnerabilities associated with the impending crisis before its outbreak. […] The IMF's ability to correctly identify the mounting risks was hindered by a high degree of groupthink, intellectual capture, a general mindset that a major financial crisis in large advanced economies was unlikely, and inadequate analytical approaches."

It's Only Going to Get Worse

By claiming credit for the $38.5 billion cut in federal spending, President Obama has bought into Republicans' government-gutting agenda.

Paul Waldman | April 11, 2011

When you listen to Barack Obama these days, it sometimes seems as though his words are crafted with the intention of driving those who were once his most passionate supporters crazy. So after agreeing under threat of a government shutdown to painful cuts to domestic programs, he goes in front of the cameras and hails "the largest annual spending cut in our history," as though that were a good thing. And before the deal was worked out, Obama said repeatedly that the controversy represented "the usual Washington politics" -- in other words, just some partisan bickering, of which one can assume both parties are equally guilty.

The Real Housewives of Wall Street

Why is the Federal Reserve forking over $220 million in bailout money to the wives of two Morgan Stanley bigwigs?

America has two national budgets, one official, one unofficial. The official budget is public record and hotly debated: Money comes in as taxes and goes out as jet fighters, DEA agents, wheat subsidies and Medicare, plus pensions and bennies for that great untamed socialist menace called a unionized public-sector workforce that Republicans are always complaining about. According to popular legend, we're broke and in so much debt that 40 years from now our granddaughters will still be hooking on weekends to pay the medical bills of this year's retirees from the IRS, the SEC and the Department of Energy.

Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail?

Most Americans know about that budget. What they don't know is that there is another budget of roughly equal heft, traditionally maintained in complete secrecy. After the financial crash of 2008, it grew to monstrous dimensions, as the government attempted to unfreeze the credit markets by handing out trillions to banks and hedge funds. And thanks to a whole galaxy of obscure, acronym-laden bailout programs, it eventually rivaled the "official" budget in size — a huge roaring river of cash flowing out of the Federal Reserve to destinations neither chosen by the president nor reviewed by Congress, but instead handed out by fiat by unelected Fed officials using a seemingly nonsensical and apparently unknowable methodology.

Here's a Real Democratic Budget that Serves the Interests of the American People

By Rep. Mike Honda and Rep. Raúl Grijalva, AlterNet
Posted on April 11, 2011, Printed on April 12, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/150582/here%27s_a_real_democratic_budget_that_serves_the_interests_of_the_american_people

Budgets are more than collections of numbers. They are a statement of our values. The Congressional Progressive Caucus Budget is a reflection of the values and priorities of America's working families. The "People's Budget" charts a path that keeps America exceptional in the 21st century, while addressing the most pressing problems facing the nation today. Our Budget eliminates the deficit, stabilizes the debt, puts Americans back to work, and restores our economic competiveness.

The CPC Budget does this by listening to the American people. In poll after poll, the public is telling us that they want to preserve Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, make higher education more affordable, expand job-training programs, cut taxes burdening the middle class, subsidize affordable housing and assist those struggling to prevent foreclosures. The majority of America, furthermore, thinks cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, K-12 education, heating assistance to low-income families, student loans, unemployment insurance, scientific and medical research, are completely unacceptable.

Why the United States Is Destroying Its Education System

by Chris Hedges

A nation that destroys its systems of education, degrades its public information, guts its public libraries and turns its airwaves into vehicles for cheap, mindless amusement becomes deaf, dumb and blind. It prizes test scores above critical thinking and literacy. It celebrates rote vocational training and the singular, amoral skill of making money. It churns out stunted human products, lacking the capacity and vocabulary to challenge the assumptions and structures of the corporate state. It funnels them into a caste system of drones and systems managers. It transforms a democratic state into a feudal system of corporate masters and serfs.

Teachers, their unions under attack, are becoming as replaceable as minimum-wage employees at Burger King. We spurn real teachers—those with the capacity to inspire children to think, those who help the young discover their gifts and potential—and replace them with instructors who teach to narrow, standardized tests. These instructors obey. They teach children to obey. And that is the point. The No Child Left Behind program, modeled on the “Texas Miracle,” is a fraud. It worked no better than our deregulated financial system. But when you shut out debate these dead ideas are self-perpetuating.

Paul Krugman: The President Is Missing

What have they done with President Obama? What happened to the inspirational figure his supporters thought they elected? Who is this bland, timid guy who doesn’t seem to stand for anything in particular?

I realize that with hostile Republicans controlling the House, there’s not much Mr. Obama can get done in the way of concrete policy. Arguably, all he has left is the bully pulpit. But he isn’t even using that — or, rather, he’s using it to reinforce his enemies’ narrative.

His remarks after last week’s budget deal were a case in point.

Government by People Who Hate You

Monday 11 April 2011
by: Dean Baker, Truthout

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan put out a budget proposal last week that will leave the vast majority of future retirees without decent health care by ending Medicare as we know it. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis, most middle-income retirees would have to pay almost half of their income to purchase a Medicare equivalent insurance package by 2030. They would be paying much more than half of their income in later years.

The Vote This Week to End Medicare and Social Security

Monday 11 April 2011
by: Bill Scher, Campaign for America's Future

Last month, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor literally said Social Security "cannot exist if we want America to be what we want America to be."

Then last week, House Budget Committee literally approved the end of Medicare as guaranteed affordable comprehensive health insurance for every retired American. The full House is expected to follow suit this week.

Climate Facts — and Fancy

From God to cows, facts and falsehoods accompany global warming votes

By Chris Hamby | April 07, 2011

On Wednesday, one of this political era’s most contentious issues — climate change — came to a head on Capitol Hill, as both the House and Senate debated and voted on proposals to block the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gas emissions. In the House, the ban prevailed; in the Senate, though, multiple amendments foundered and supporters lacked enough votes to override a threatened veto by President Obama.

As frequently happens during such showdowns, claims and counter-claims on both sides flew fast and furious — among them a few wily distortions and utter fictions you’re likely to hear again because the dueling combatants are just getting warmed up. While the votes were largely symbolic and have no chance of becoming law, the debate allowed partisans on both sides to stake out territory they’ll revisit in the run-up to the 2012 election.

ANALYSIS — Pay much attention to the insurers behind the curtain

By Wendell Potter | April 07, 2011

Democrats who think Paul Ryan and his Republican colleagues have foolishly wrapped their arms around the third rail of American politics by proposing to hand the Medicare program to private insurers will themselves look foolish if they take for granted that the public will always be on their side.

Rep. Ryan’s budget proposal would radically reshape both the Medicare and Medicaid programs. It would turn Medicaid into a block grant, which would give states more discretion over benefits and eligibility. And it would radically redesign Medicare, changing it from what is essentially a government-run, single-payer health plan to one in which people would choose coverage from competing private insurance firms, many of them for-profit.

Taxes and Spending for Beginners

By James Kwak

Over the long term, we are projected to have large and growing federal budget deficits. Assuming that is a problem, which most people do, there seem to be two ways to solve this problem: raising taxes and cutting spending. Today, the political class seems united around the idea that spending cuts are the solution, not tax increases. That’s a given for Republicans; Paul Ryan even proposes to reduce the deficit by cutting taxes. But as Ezra Klein points out, President Obama and Harry Reid are falling over themselves praising (and even seeming to claim credit for) the spending cuts in Thursday night’s deal. And let’s not forget the bipartisan, $900 billion tax cut passed and signed in December.

The problem here isn’t simply the assumption that we can’t raise taxes. The underlying problem is the belief that “tax increases” and “spending cuts” are two distinct categories to begin with. In many cases, tax increases and spending cuts are equivalent — except for the crucial issue of who gets hurt by them.*

Why Progressives Keep On Losing and the Right Keeps On Winning

By Richard Eskow

Created 04/09/2011 - 1:45pm

Congratulations! The "grand compromise" will cut nearly thirty nine billion dollars in needed government spending, which proves how "serious" everyone is about reducing the deficit. The grand compromisers could have cancelled the next ten years of tax subsidies for oil companies [1] and cut the deficit by forty billion, but apparently that's not how serious people do things.

If the Republican Party were singing to its base today, the song would be the theme from Friends, "I'll Be There For You." And the Democrats would be singing "You Always Hurt the One You Love." We're being told we should celebrate a "compromise" in which Democrats gave up [2] $38.5 billion in spending cuts, when the original Republican demand was [3] for $32 billion. That means the Democrats only gave the Republicans 20% more (20.2135%, to be precise) than they originally demanded.

New engine sends shock waves through auto industry

By Nic Halverson

updated 4/6/2011 5:29:19 PM ET

Despite shifting into higher gear within the consumer's green conscience, hybrid vehicles are still tethered to the gas pump via a fuel-thirsty 100-year-old invention: the internal combustion engine.

However, researchers at Michigan State University have built a prototype gasoline engine that requires no transmission, crankshaft, pistons, valves, fuel compression, cooling systems or fluids.