Ever Wonder Where the Extreme Right's Conspiracy Theories and Paranoid Rumors Get Started? Meet WorldNetDaily

By Leah Nelson 

October 10, 2012  |  WorldNetDaily (WND) describes itself as “an independent news company dedicated to uncompromising journalism, seeking truth and justice and revitalizing the role of the free press as a guardian of liberty.” The online newspaper, which this year celebrated its 15th year in operation, is one of the “very few sources” martial artist and action film hero Chuck Norris (who happens to be a columnist) trusts for news and an operation that megachurch pastor Greg Laurie (also a columnist) says does “a service to God and Country.”

WND is the brainchild of Joseph Farah, a self-described “radical” and longtime antigovernment propagandist and apologist for the Confederacy who believes “cultural Marxists” are plotting “to transform our political system, to change the way we think, to attack our values, to demean our faith in God, to reduce that shining city on the hill to the status of a drab public-housing project.”

Together with a coterie of antigovernment “Patriots,” anti-gay activists, white nationalists, Muslim-bashers, conspiracy theorists, end-times prophets and ultraconservative hardliners, Farah — who did not respond to requests to be interviewed for this article — has built WND into a modest media empire including a book imprint, an online subscription-only “intelligence resource,” and a glossy, full-color monthly magazine. At press time, Alexa, which ranks websites, said WND was the 1,832nd most popular website in the world and the 423rd in the U.S. — just above the site for Nickelodeon and a few notches below Victoria’s Secret.

It’s Up to All of Us to Protect Social Security

by Rose Ann DeMoro

“One thing I know. Social Security is so firmly embedded in the American psychology today that no politician, no political group could possibly destroy this Act and still maintain our democratic system. It is safe forever, and for the everlasting benefit of the people of the United States.” —Frances Perkins, on the 25th anniversary of the enactment of the Social Security Act (from the book, The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR’s Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience)

Good thing Frances Perkins is not hearing the disinformation from Washington and many in the media today claiming Social Security is going broke and that there is a “consensus” that cuts are needed in Social Security to reduce the federal deficit.

Or the disgraceful assertion that people who receive Social Security, or other public assistance, are “takers” who, as Mitt Romney said in the now infamous tape of a private meeting with donors last May, do not “take personal responsibility or care for their lives.”

Social Security may be the most enduring, successful, and popular reform in U.S. history. But, in the 77 years since its inception, it has never faced as grave a threat as it does today.

A real class war may be on its way.

By Harold Meyerson
 
Suppose the growth of the U.S. economy slows to a trickle. I don’t mean in the next quarter or next year or even over the next decade. I mean from this time forth.

That’s the prediction of Northwestern University economist Robert Gordon in a new paper that’s become the subject of widespread commentary.

Gordon writes that three industrial revolutions have taken place over the past 250 years: the first centered on the steam engine and railroads; the second based on electric power, the internal combustion engine and indoor plumbing; and the third rooted in computers and the Internet. By substituting mechanical power for human power in the production process and by greatly speeding up transportation and communication, Gordon asserts, the second revolution raised productivity and wealth far more than did the other two.

Fisheries benefit from 400-year-old tradition

NEW YORK (October 11, 2012)— A new study by the Wildlife Conservation Society and James Cook University says that coral reefs in Aceh, Indonesia are benefiting from a decidedly low-tech, traditional management system that dates back to the 17th century.

Known as "Panglima Laot" – the customary system focuses on social harmony and reducing conflict among communities over marine resources. According to the study, reefs benefitting from Panglima Laot contain as much eight time more fish and hard-coral cover due to mutually agreed upon gear restrictions especially prohibiting the use of nets.

The study, which appears in the October issue of the journal Oryx, is by Stuart Campbell, Rizya Ardiwijaya, Shinta Pardede, Tasrif Kartawijaya, Ahmad Mukmunin, Yudi Herdiana of the Wildlife Conservation Society; and Josh Cinner, Andrew Hoey, Morgan Pratchett, and Andrew Baird of James Cook University.
 

Romney Floats One-Time Amnesty For Preexisting Conditions

Sahil Kapur
October 11, 2012, 1:56 PM

Mitt Romney is still trying to convince voters that his health care plan, which includes repealing the Affordable Care Act, will protect people with preexisting medical conditions. But experts still say his claims don’t match reality.

His latest pitch? An open-enrollment period during which insurance companies would be require to sell coverage to uninsured consumers.

Paul Krugtman: Triumph of the Wrong?

In these closing weeks of the campaign, each side wants you to believe that it has the right ideas to fix a still-ailing economy. So here’s what you need to know: If you look at the track record, the Obama administration has been wrong about some things, mainly because it was too optimistic about the prospects for a quick recovery. But Republicans have been wrong about everything.

About that misplaced optimism: In a now-notorious January 2009 forecast, economists working for the incoming administration predicted that by now most of the effects of the 2008 financial crisis would be behind us, and the unemployment rate would be below 6 percent. Obviously, that didn’t happen. 

There Is No Nobel Prize in Economics

By Yasha Levine

October 12, 2012  |  It’s Nobel Prize season again. News reports are coming out each day sharing the name of the illustrious winner of the various categories — Science, Literature, etc. But there’s one of the prizes that’s a little different. Well, that’s putting it lightly… you see, the Nobel Prize in Economics is not a real Nobel. It wasn’t created by Alfred Nobel. It’s not even called a “Nobel Prize,” no matter what the press reports say.

The five real Nobel Prizes—physics, chemistry, literature, peace, and medicine/physiology—were set up in the will left by the dynamite magnate when he died in 1895. The economics prize is a bit different. It was created by Sweden’s Central Bank in 1969, nearly 75 years later. The award’s real name is the “Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.” It was not established by Nobel, but supposedly in memory of Nobel. It’s a ruse and a PR trick, and I mean that literally. And it was done completely against the wishes of the Nobel family.

Sweden’s Central Bank quietly snuck it in with all the other Nobel Prizes to give free-market economics for the 1% credibility. One of the Federal Reserve banks explained it succinctly [3], “Few realize, especially outside of economists, that the prize in economics is not an “official” Nobel. . . . The award for economics came almost 70 years later—bootstrapped to the Nobel in 1968 as a bit of a marketing ploy to celebrate the Bank of Sweden’s 300th anniversary.” Yes, you read that right: “a marketing ploy.”

That’s “Medicaid,” Not Medicare

By Ed Kilgore

Regular readers know that I’m more than a little cranky about the ancient habit of Democrats of raising heaven and hell to defend the Medicare program while ignoring threats to Medicaid, based on the cynical belief that the former is popular among people who actually vote, while the latter is a “welfare” program of interest only to po’ folks who don’t vote or vote so reliably Democratic that they can be ignored. It’s a particularly offensive habit at the moment, since the GOP’s evil designs on Medicaid are much clearer and more immediate than their convoluted schemes to slowly strangle Medicare benefits.

So I share Jonathan Cohn’s surprise and happiness that the Obama campaign is now actually running a 30-second ad about Medicaid and only Medicaid. To be sure, it’s only about the long-term care function of Medicaid, which affects those prone-to-vote old folks, not to mention their children, who face the possibility of much greater “sandwich generation” woes if states implement a Medicaid block grant with reduced funding by cutting back on the “middle-class entitlement” of long-term care assistance.

IMF Suddenly Decides It Might be OK to Loosen Austerity Tourniquets Now that Gangrene is Setting In

While deathbed conversions might earn you a spot in heaven in some religions, they don’t carry you very far here on Planet Earth.

Christine Lagarde has taken too small a step in the right direction far too late to do much good. At the current IMF annual meeting in Tokyo, she’s made dramatic-sounding pronouncements consistent with the rather embarrassing admission in the Fund’s latest quarterly report that austerity is working less well than voodoo (I’ve never tried it myself, but some correspondents give it high marks).

As we stressed, the IMF has admitted what observers have already reported on, at some length, by looking at economic outcomes in Latvia, Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain: its tender ministrations are leaving its patient worse off. Cuts in fiscal deficits (ex in special circumstances, such as being able to trash your currency at a time when your trade partners have good levels of growth) lead to even greater falls in GDP levels, resulting in higher debt to GDP ratios, the exact opposite of what this exercise was intended to accomplish. The bureaucratese is “fiscal multipliers.” When fiscal multipliers are greater than 1 deficit cutting makes matters worse. The IMF’s ‘fessing up to a problem without releasing country by country data suggests it is showing fiscal multiplies greater than 1 in pretty much all of the countries now wearing the austerity hairshirt.
 

Report: Private Insurers Profit by Ripping Off Medicare

Researchers say private programs like Medicare Advantage just add waste; Call for reformed, expanded Medicare for All 

- Common Dreams staff 

 

New research by health care experts concludes that privately run insurance plans designed to supplement the Medicare system serve no truly useful purpose and instead of helping seniors receive better care, Medicare Advantage plans actually undermine traditional Medicare’s fiscal health.

By creating conditions where Medicare is overpaying premiums to these private (mostly for-profit) programs, the report—to be published in the forthcoming issue of International Journal of Health Services—found that as much as $282.6 billion dollars has been drained from Medicare since they were first introduced in 1985.

Jason Chaffetz Admits House GOP Cut Funding For Embassy Security: 'You Have To Prioritize Things'

The Huffington Post  | By Sarah Bufkin10/10/2012 1:32 pm EDT
Updated: 10/11/2012 1:55 pm EDT

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) acknowledged on Wednesday that House Republicans had consciously voted to reduce the funds allocated to the State Department for embassy security since winning the majority in 2010.

On Wednesday morning, CNN anchor Soledad O'Brien asked the Utah Republican if he had "voted to cut the funding for embassy security."

"Absolutely," Chaffetz said. "Look we have to make priorities and choices in this country. We have…15,000 contractors in Iraq. We have more than 6,000 contractors, a private army there, for President Obama, in Baghdad. And we’re talking about can we get two dozen or so people into Libya to help protect our forces. When you’re in tough economic times, you have to make difficult choices. You have to prioritize things.

How the Grand Bargaineers Hurt America

By Matthew Yglesias  |  Posted Tuesday, Oct. 9, 2012, at 12:15 PM ET

Jon Chait writes that "the liberal critique of Peterson Inc. is that its advocacy of deficit reduction is wrong," but that his critique is different. Rather, his issue is "that these groups are very bad at understanding how to achieve their goal." The problem, according to Chait, is that the professional deficit scold industry fails to adequately account for the fact that it's the modern conservative movement's foundational opposition to tax increases that prevents deficit reduction. Noam Scheiber, reviewing Bob Woodward's book, seems to have a similar critique:

Woodward argues that the White House and Congress failed to reach a major deficit-reduction deal last summer because Obama didn’t provide the necessary leadership, even though this thesis is untethered from Woodward’s own reporting, to say nothing of reality.

Betsey Stevens & Justin Wolfers offer a similar argument in Bloomberg View this week, noting that over the past generation Democrats have consistently been the party of fiscal responsibility and the GOP the party of high debt. That is all, I think, correct. But I'd like to push the idea that the deeper critique is also correct—the focus on long-term fiscal policy is misguided and it's the misguided nature of this focus that helps drive the odd interventions into partisan politics.

Food Sickens Millions as Company-Paid Checks Find It Safe

By Stephanie Armour, John Lippert and Michael Smith - Oct 11, 2012 12:00 AM ET

William Beach loved cantaloupe -- so much so that starting in June last year he ate it almost every day. By August, the 87-year-old retired tractor mechanic from Mustang, Oklahoma, was complaining to his family that he was fatigued, with pain everywhere in his body.

On Sept. 1, 2011, Beach got out of bed in the middle of the night, put his clothes on and walked into the living room. His wife, Monette, found him collapsed on the floor in the morning. At the hospital, blood poured from his mouth and nose, splattering sheets, bed rails and physicians. 

Obama: Giving Away Social Security

Robert Kuttner

October 9, 2012

The president's position on retirement benefits is indeed almost identical to Romney's—and that's no good thing.

Here is Mitt Romney’s proposal to cut Social Security benefits, from the Romney campaign website:

 

First, for future generations of seniors, Mitt believes that the retirement age should be slowly increased to account for increases in longevity.

Second, for future generations of seniors, Mitt believes that benefits should continue to grow but that the growth rate should be lower for those with higher incomes.

In other words, cuts in benefits. In the first debate, I was waiting for President Obama to go to town on this.

Don't Lower Taxes For Billionaires. Double Them.

By Richard (RJ) Eskow

October 9, 2012 - 9:48pm ET 

Forget the "Buffett rule." It's not enough. What's more, "letting the Bush tax cuts expire for the rich" isn't enough either - although it might get us halfway there.

As for that "Simpson Bowles" so-called "deficit reduction" plan: It's a hoax, another ploy to give the ultra-rich yet another huge tax cut - unless you believe that the lobbying fairy will magically grant a wish that's never been granted before: an end to billionaires' loopholes.

Beware the 'Grand Bargain': Post-Election Deficit Deal Threatens Medicare and Social Security

The solution is Improved Medicare for All

by Kay Tillow

 

After the November election, there will be a major effort in Congress to pass a budget deal that will make cuts in Social Security, raise the Medicare and Social Security eligibility age, and perhaps more–unless we act to stop it with a solution that is close at hand.

There is agreement from the Wall Street Journal’s David Wessel to liberal economists Dean Baker and Paul Krugman that the pressure will be on to reach a Simpson/Bowles type of compromise.  Such a bipartisan plan would damage our most cherished programs and excuse the dastardly deed by asserting that the cuts are small and necessary because of the deficit.

'The Raiders of Your Lost Retirement' -- Obama Campaign Website Weasels on Social Security

by divineorder

Today I posted a quickie  which included these words from kos:

You see, Republicans want to destroy Social Security, and Democrats want to ... destroy it a little less? God, I hope not. But that's the Obama people got last week.

Now the campaign website has 'clarified' the President's position, still talking  about how much he and Romney agree FTW !!!!! (Hat Tip to Common Dreams)

The President knows that guaranteed Social Security benefits are not handouts, but a bedrock of the commitment to retirement security America makes to our seniors. He believes that no current beneficiaries should see their basic benefits reduced, and he will not accept any approach that slashes benefits for future generations. President Obama stands firmly opposed to privatizing Social Security—the future security of hard-working Americans should not be dependent on the fluctuations of the stock market.

 

Why I expect Obama to try to cut Social Security

10/8/2012 9:55am by Gaius Publius

Short answer: Because he’s telling us he wants to. To see why I think that, read on. To see what you can do, especially if you’re just a citizen like me, click here. (Media folks are also invited to click; you can help a lot.)

About two weeks ago I wrote:

Obama may cut Social Security benefits during Lame Duck session following election

for the excellent reason that Sen. Bernie Sanders thought so and I agreed with him. Since then, much has happened, in the sense that nothing has changed — a “nothing” that tells the tale. I’m now convinced that Obama is planning Social Security cuts. Here’s why.

10 Steps to Break Up the Wealth of the Super Rich

By Chuck Collins
October 10, 2012  |  The following is an excerpt from 99 to 1: How Wealth Inequality Is Wrecking the World and What We Can Do About It  [3], by Chuck Collins (Berrett-Koehler, 2012).

We must change the rules of the economy so that they serve and lift up the 100 percent, not just the 1 percent. Starting in the mid-1970s, the rules were changed to reorient the economy toward the short-term interests of the 1 percent. We can shift and reverse the rules to work for everyone.

Three Types of Rule Changes

There are three categories of policy changes that we need: rules and policies that raise the floor, those that level the playing field, and those that break up overconcentrations of wealth and corporate power. These are not hard-and-fast categories, but a useful framework for grouping different rule changes.
 

Most of Us Will Not Have a Better Life Unless We Turn the Tables on the Super Rich

By Chuck Collins

October 4, 2012  |  The following is an excerpt from 99 to 1: How Wealth Inequality Is Wrecking the World and What We Can Do About It [3], by Chuck Collins (Berrett-Koehler, 2012).

An economy so dependent on the spending of a few is also prone to great booms and busts. The rich splurge and speculate when their savings are doing well. But when the values of their assets tumble, they pull back. That can lead to wild gyrations. Sound familiar? It’s no mere coincidence that over the last century the top earners’ share of the nation’s total income peaked in 1928 and 2007—the two years just preceding the biggest downturns. —Robert Reich (b. 1946)

There are many theories about what triggered the 2008 economic meltdown. These explanations focus on bad actors such as the large banks and financial firms, the unregulated “shadow” financial sector, and unethical subprime mortgage pushers.

But there is a missing lens to the story, one that shows how the economic meltdown was caused by excessive income and wealth inequality. The two triggers were consumption by the 99 percent based on borrowing rather than real wage growth, and reckless financial speculation by the 1 percent.
 

Mitt Romney’s Most Dishonest Speech

When it comes to lies and half-truths, Romney saves his best stuff for foreign policy.

By Fred Kaplan  |  Posted Monday, Oct. 8, 2012, at 5:14 PM ET

Mitt Romney has delivered a lot of dishonest speeches in recent months, but Monday’s address on foreign policy may be the most mendacious yet.

It was expected that he would distort President Obama into a caricature of Jimmy Carter. But it was astonishing to watch Romney spin a daydream of himself as some latter-day George Marshall, bringing peace, prosperity, and hope to a chaotic world—this from a man who couldn’t drop in on the London Olympics without alienating our closest ally and turning himself into a transcontinental laughingstock.

To the extent that Romney recited valid criticisms of Obama’s policies, he offered no alternatives. To the extent he spelled out specific steps he would take to deal with one problem or another, he merely recited actions that Obama has already taken.

Schumer To Dems: Abandon Simpson-Bowles Tax Model

Brian Beutler, October 9, 2012, 10:00 AM


Senate Democrats’ top political and policy-making strategist is imploring members of his party to abandon a tax reform principle members of both parties increasingly share: that Congress should reform the tax code by closing myriad, costly loopholes, and then use the new revenue to lower tax rates across the board, particularly for the wealthiest.

It’s a break with an increasingly bipartisan orthodoxy, first forged in 1986 when it served as the basis of Ronald Reagan’s tax reform, and more recently with a tax reform model promoted by the chairmen of President Obama’s commission on fiscal responsibility, Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles.
 

8 Facts That Prove Our Govt. Is Not Going Broke

By Les Leopold

October 8, 2012  |  Pete Peterson, the billionaire former private equity mogul, is quietly funding a noisy bus tour [3] to whip up debt hysteria across the land. The “Ten Million a Minute Tour” headed by the Peterson Foundation’s former CEO, David M. Walker (and featuring such economic soothsayers as Alan Greenspan and Ross Perot) will end this week in Washington, DC after traveling coast to coast to alert America about the myriad of alleged dangers posed by government debt and deficits.

Really, it should be called the “Million an Hour” cavalcade because that’s about how much Peterson and company made, in part, through obscene tax loopholes designed for private equity firms and hedge funds. If there really is a debt problem, then Peterson and his fellow tax-evading financial moguls have contributed mightily to it.

But America does not face a debt crisis. Nor are we likely to face one in the next 100 years. In fact, we are the last country on Earth that needs to worry about its public debt.

Paul Krugman: Truth About Jobs

If anyone had doubts about the madness that has spread through a large part of the American political spectrum, the reaction to Friday’s better-than expected report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics should have settled the issue. For the immediate response of many on the right — and we’re not just talking fringe figures — was to cry conspiracy.

Leading the charge of what were quickly dubbed the “B.L.S. truthers” was none other than Jack Welch, the former chairman of General Electric, who posted an assertion on Twitter that the books had been cooked to help President Obama’s re-election campaign. His claim was quickly picked up by right-wing pundits and media personalities.

 

Disturbing News: Exit Polling to Be Scrapped in Some 19 States, Allowing For Much Easier Manipulation of Election Results

Posted By Brad Friedman On 4th October 2012 @ 13:46
Well this item from Washington Posts' "The Fix" blog today ^[1] is rather troubling. It seems the the media consortium which previously ran Exit Polls on Election Day --- the best indicator of fraud and failure in election results (as opposed to pre-election polling which is far less accurate) --- is being scrapped in some 19 states, for the very first time, in the upcoming Presidential Election...

Breaking from two decades of tradition, this year’s election exit poll is set to include surveys of voters in 31 states, not all 50 as it has for the past five presidential elections, according to multiple people involved in the planning.

Dan Merkle, director of elections for ABC News, and a member of the consortium that runs the exit poll, confirmed the shift Wednesday. The aim, he said, “is to still deliver a quality product in the most important states,” in the face of mounting survey costs.

The decision by the National Election Pool — a joint venture of the major television networks and The Associated Press — is sure to cause some pain to election watchers across the country.
...
Here is a list of the states that will be excluded from coverage: Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.

That would seem to be an invitation to fraud in those states, since Exit Polls have traditionally served as a helpful check and balance against fraudulent or simply inaccurate election results, particularly for the almost 100% unverified election results that the media now count on to report results in all 50 states. Those results come from often-failed, easily-manipulated computer tabulators used across the entire country.

Social Security: President Obama's Biggest Failure in Last Week's Debate

Monday, 08 October 2012 00:00  
By Dean Baker, Truthout | Op-Ed 

President Obama definitely had a bad night when he faced Gov. Romney in Denver for the first presidential debate. However, for many listeners the worst moment was not due to his atypical inarticulateness. Rather the worst moment was when he quite clearly told the country that there was not much difference between his position on Social Security and Gov. Romney's. He also expressed his desire to "tweak" Social Security to improve its finances.

This is very bad news to the tens of millions of people who depend on Social Security now or expect to in the near future. It's also bad news to the hundreds of millions of people who have been counting on the Social Security system to provide a degree of financial security to their retired or disabled family members.
 

Paul Ryan's Debt to Barry Goldwater—Who'd Be Mortified by Paul Ryan

Oct 5 2012, 8:01 AM ET
Elias Isquith

The conservative scion vice-presidential nominee seeks to finish the work that the GOP started in 1964, with one crucial revision.

When Mitt Romney announced Paul Ryan would be his vice-presidential choice, the congressman from the Badger State was ebullient. Bounding toward the podium during the glorified photo-op that served as his formal introduction, Ryan's zeal was such that an uninformed observer might have thought the Republican ticket had already won. But Romney and Ryan weren't the only ones with big grins and bigger dreams that morning. Bloomberg's Jonathan Alter, a favorite of the White House, soon reported that Democrats weren't happy about the Ryan pick. They were "ecstatic."

The reason? Despite his affable, aw-shucks demeanor, Ryan is the most ideological and potentially divisive nominee to the White House in a half century. Not since Barry Goldwater proclaimed extremism in defense of liberty to be no vice and moderation in pursuit of justice no virtue has a major party candidate so forcefully challenged America's political status quo.

Rethinking Columbus: Towards a True People's History

by Bill Bigelow

 

This past January, almost exactly 20 years after its publication, Tucson schools banned the book I co-edited with Bob Peterson, Rethinking Columbus. It was one of a number of books adopted by Tucson’s celebrated Mexican American Studies program—a program long targeted by conservative Arizona politicians.

The school district sought to crush the Mexican American Studies program; our book itself was not the target, it just got caught in the crushing. Nonetheless, Tucson’s—and Arizona’s—attack on Mexican American Studies and Rethinking Columbus shares a common root: the attempt to silence stories that unsettle today’s unequal power arrangements.
 

Why We Must Stop Fetishizing Economic Growth

By Robert A. Johnson

September 25, 2012  |  Can economics be morally centered? And perhaps more importantly, should it be?

These are questions that society is grappling with in the face of the economics profession's failure to confront the global impact of exploding inequality within and between countries.

Limitations of the Dismal Science

Economists are very good at studying mechanisms for efficiently allocating things. But they are less effective at addressing more fundamental questions related to these things' social value. Indeed, economists typically leave values unexamined in their mathematical formulas. Social utility is simply not explored.

But what happens when economists' implicit value assumptions break down?