Tag: Politics

Obama Budget: From Bad to Worse

Pres. Barack Obama has released his proposed budget that include cuts Medicare and linking Social Security payments to Chained CPI in hopes (there is that ugly word again) of gaining “bipartisan” (another bad word) from Congressional Republicans. Never mind that the fact that the majority of voters do not want cuts to the top three social safety programs, the president is willing to sacrifice the disable, veterans and the elderly for a few tax changes that even if passed, would most likely be reversed in the next six months. This is not “compromise,” it is a sell out of the majority of Americans.

Huffington Post‘s Sam Stein has the breakdown of the proposal that will be releases in all its full gory details next Wednesday:

   

  • The budget would reduce the deficit by $1.8 trillion over ten years — $600 billion of this reduction would come from revenue raisers, and $1.2 trillion would come from spending reductions and entitlement reforms;
  • It would change the benefit structure of Social Security (chained-CPI);
  • It would means test additional programs in Medicare;
  • All told, it would include $400 billion in health care savings (or cuts);
  • It would cut $200 billion from other areas, identified by The New York Times as “farm subsidies, federal employee retirement programs, the Postal Services and the unemployment compensation system;”
  • It would pay for expanded access to pre-K (an Obama priority) by increasing the tobacco tax;
  • It would set limits on tax-preferred retirement accounts for the wealthy, prohibiting individuals from putting more than $3 million in IRAs and other tax-preferred retirement accounts;
  • And it would stop people from collecting full disability benefits and unemployment benefits that cover the same period of time.

Dean Baker shows that these cuts over time are worse for seniors than for the rich:

By comparison, Social Security is about 70 percent of the income of a typical retiree. Since President Obama’s proposal would lead to a 3 percent cut in Social Security benefits, it would reduce the income of the typical retiree by more than 2.0 percent, more than three times the size of the hit from the tax increase to the wealthy.

Chained CPI impact on Income photo btp-chained-cpi-obama_zpsdeb1873b.jpg

The congressional Democratic apologists insist that “certain lines won’t be crossed” which translates that if Republicans realize they can get the cuts to “entitlements’ that they want by temporarily sacrificing the tax and revenue increases this is a done deal.

The president is willing to agree to the entitlement cuts only in exchange for tax hikes in other areas.

“The president has made clear that he is willing to compromise and do tough things to reduce the deficit, but only in the context of a package like this one that has balance and includes revenues from the wealthiest Americans and that is designed to promote economic growth,” the administration official said. “That means that the things like CPI that Republican Leaders have pushed hard for will only be accepted if Congressional Republicans are willing to do more on revenues.”

This is political suicide for Democrats up for election. The Republicans will forever blame Democrats for destroying these programs.

As Paul Krugman points out, this makes no sense other than just Pres. Obama’s need to seek approval of the “Serious People:”

So what’s this about? The answer, I fear, is that Obama is still trying to win over the Serious People, by showing that he’s willing to do what they consider Serious – which just about always means sticking it to the poor and the middle class. The idea is that they will finally drop the false equivalence, and admit that he’s reasonable while the GOP is mean-spirited and crazy.

But it won’t happen.

No, that won’t happen because underneath it all this is what Obama has wanted all along and has continuously said so since 2006. It’s not the GOP that is “mean-spirited and crazy” it’s Obama.

Punting the Pundits

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Paul Krugman: The Urge to Purge

When the Great Depression struck, many influential people argued that the government shouldn’t even try to limit the damage. According to Herbert Hoover, Andrew Mellon, his Treasury secretary, urged him to “Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers. … It will purge the rottenness out of the system.” Don’t try to hasten recovery, warned the famous economist Joseph Schumpeter, because “artificial stimulus leaves part of the work of depressions undone.”

Like many economists, I used to quote these past luminaries with a certain smugness. After all, modern macroeconomics had shown how wrong they were, and we wouldn’t repeat the mistakes of the 1930s, would we?

How naïve we were. It turns out that the urge to purge – the urge to see depression as a necessary and somehow even desirable punishment for past sins, while inveighing against any attempt to mitigate suffering – is as strong as ever.

Eugene Robonson: The racket with standardized test scores

It is time to acknowledge that the fashionable theory of school reform – requiring that pay and job security for teachers, principals and administrators depend on their students’ standardized test scores – is at best a well-intentioned mistake, and at worst nothing but a racket. [..]

Our schools desperately need to be fixed. But creating a situation in which teachers are more likely than students to cheat cannot be the right path.

Standardized achievement tests are a vital tool, but treating test scores the way a corporation might treat sales targets is wrong. Students are not widgets. I totally reject the idea that students from underprivileged neighborhoods cannot learn. Of course they can. But how does it help these students to have their performance on a one-size-fits-all standardized test determine their teachers’ compensation and job security? The clear incentive is for the teacher to focus on test scores rather than actual teaching.

Richard (RJ) Eskow: As Europe Gets Sicker, Its Austerity Poison Is Still Our Prescription

How much sicker does the patient have to get before the doctors stop prescribing poison? [..]

Paul Krugman’s right: This isn’t a recession. It’s Europe’s Second Depression, and it’s on track to last even longer than the first one. Austerity economics has been imposed across most of the Eurozone, to a greater or lesser degree, with devastating economic results:  This is Europe’s sixth consecutive quarter of economic contraction.

Europe’s Austerity Recession (or Depression) has now lasted longer than the one brought on by the financial crisis of 2008.

Dean Baker: Nevermind: Headline of Correction for NYT Piece on Projected Cost of Dementia

The New York Times ran a front page piece warning readers that the cost of treating dementia is “soaring.” The piece tells readers of the findings of a new study by the Rand Corporation that shows the cost of dementia doubling by 2040 from its 2010 level.

Are you scared? Are you shaking in your boots? Thinking about pulling the plug on these costly old-timers?

Well our friend, Mr. Arithmetic, reminds us that the Congressional Budget Office projects (pdf) that the size of the economy is projected to roughly double over this period. This means that the Rand study’s finding implies that dementia will impose pretty much the same burden on the economy in 2040 as it does today.

Dave Maass and Trevor Timm: Are You a Teenager Who Reads News Online? According to the Justice Department, You May Be a Criminal

During his first term, President Barack Obama declared October 2009 to be “National Information Literacy Awareness Month,” emphasizing that, for students, learning to navigate the online world is as important a skill as reading, writing and arithmetic. It was a move that echoed his predecessor’s strong support of global literacy — such as reading newspapers — most notably through First Lady Laura Bush’s advocacy.

Yet, disturbingly, the Departments of Justice (DOJ) of both the Bush and Obama Administrations have embraced an expansive interpretation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) that would literally make it a crime for many kids to read the news online. And it’s the main reason why the law must be reformed.

The Myth of Equal Justice

March 18 marked the fiftieth anniversary of Gideon v. Wainwright, the landmark case by the Supreme Court that required states under the 14th amendment to provide counsel in criminal cases for defendants who are unable to afford to pay their own attorneys, extending the identical requirement made on the federal government under the 6th Amendment.

But is justice now equal?

The Legacy of Gideon v. Wainwright

by John Light, Moyers & Company

Anthony Lewis, The New York Times journalist whose masterwork chronicled the Supreme Court’s landmark Gideon v. Wainwright decision, died earlier this week at the age of 85. The court’s ruling, handed down 50 years ago last week, established a criminal defendant’s right to an attorney, even if that defendant cannot afford one. [..]

Here are some resources on Anthony Lewis and the legacy of Gideon v. Wainwright.

1. Gideon’s Trumpet

In 1964, Lewis, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, published his book Gideon’s Trumpet. In it, he described Clarence Earl Gideon as a wrongly convicted Florida man convinced that he was entitled to legal representation even though the state of Florida said otherwise. [..]

2. Defending Gideon

A new documentary from The Constitution Project and the New Media Advocacy Project examines the impact of Gideon v. Wainwright and includes a recent interview with Anthony Lewis as well as an archival interview from the 1960s with Gideon, who explains that he was surprised to hear from the trial judge that he was not entitled to a lawyer. [..]

3. “The Silencing of Gideon’s Trumpet”

Ten years ago, on the 40th anniversary of Gideon v. Wainwright, Lewis described in The New York Times Magazine the “endless failures to bring the promise of Gideon to life.” He wrote, “Even more alarming is the assertion by the Bush administration that in a whole new class of cases it can deny the right to counsel altogether. [..]

4. Adam Liptak on Lewis’s Transformative Journalism

Adam Liptak, one of Lewis’s successors as Supreme Court correspondent for The New York Times, wrote the paper’s obituary of its former reporter and columnist. He noted that Gideon’s Trumpet has never been out of print from the day it was published, and that Lewis’s knowledgeable and thorough coverage of the court during the years Earl Warren served as its chief justice made him almost as essential to its history as the judges themselves. [..]

5. Andrew Cohen on Lewis and Gideon today

Writing in The Atlantic earlier this month, legal scholar Andrew Cohen described how, in the story of Gideon v. Wainwright, Lewis found material for one of the “best nonfiction works written about the Supreme Court and the American legal system.” [..]

But the thrust of Cohen’s essay is that Gideon’s legacy has not fared so well. A Brennan Center for Justice report found that many court appointed lawyers are overworked and spend less than six minutes per case at hearings where they counsel their clients to plead guilty. Lawmakers haven’t funded public defenders adequately, Cohen says, and the Supreme Court has not required them to do so.

On March 29th’s Moyers & Company, host Bill Moyers discussed the system’s failures, and ongoing struggles at the crossroads of race, class and justice with attorney and legal scholar Bryan Stevenson. Then Mr. Moyers is joined by journalists Martin Clancy and Tim O’Brien, authors of Murder at the Supreme Court, to examine the fatal flaws of the death penalty.

The broadcast closes with a Bill Moyers Essay on the hypocrisy of “justice for all” in a society where billions are squandered for a war born in fraud while the poor are pushed aside.



Full transcript can be read here

Punting the Pundits

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Wednesday is Ladies’ Day

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Katrina vanden Heuvel: Lack of paid sick leave is unhealthy for America

More than 40 million Americans – disproportionately low-income, black and Latino workers – cook, clean, fold, and ring us up without any paid time off when they or their children are ill. On any given day, these workers must choose between caring for a sick child and their job. They handle our food and our purchases, coughing and sniffling through Kleenex, to avoid being handed a pink slip.

The absence of paid sick leave is a glaring injustice that puts American workers in the distinguished company of workers in Syria, Somalia and North Korea. It’s an affront to our values and the dignity of a hard day’s work. And it’s a drag on our families, our businesses, and our society.

Valerie Strauss: Atlanta Test Cheating: Tip of the Iceberg?

It would be easy to think that the Atlanta cheating scandal by adults on standardized tests is the worst we have seen, given last week’s startling indictment against former Atlanta schools superintendent Beverly Hall and 34 others under a law used against mobster

But you shouldn’t.

In the past four academic years, test cheating has been confirmed in 37 states and Washington D.C. (You can see details here, and, here, a list of more than 50 ways that schools can manipulate test scores.)  The true extent of these scandals remain unknown, and, as Michael Winerip of The New York Times shows here in this excellent article, it is very hard to get to the bottom of these scandals. In Atlanta, it took the will of two governors who allowed investigators to go in with a lot of time and subpoena power.

Joan Walsh: Mr. President, you won the election, not them!

Obama’s new budget will reportedly include GOP’s beloved entitlement cuts. Why he’s overlooking the real solution

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that the budget will likely include the chained CPI for Social Security. “We and all of the groups engaged on this are starting to feel it may well be in the budget,” AARP vice president Nancy LeaMond told the WSJ. The same day the New York Times revealed that Obama and House Republicans are getting close to agreement on a package of Medicare cuts that would restructure Medicare parts A and B – one covers hospitalization, the other doctors’ visits – to raise deductibles for the 80 percent of seniors who see doctors but don’t require hospitalization in any given year. The Times reports that some version of the proposal might also find its way into the 2014 budget.

Including entitlement curbs would be notable, the WSJ’s Damien Parella notes, “as Republicans often have criticized the White House for offering such steps in private negotiations but never fully embracing them as part of an official budget plan.”

But if he’s now embracing them publicly, doesn’t that remove them as something to bargain over?

Allison Kilkenny: Thousands Protest the UK Government’s Brutal Austerity

Britain’s government has introduced sweeping changes to the country’s welfare, justice, health and tax systems, including a “bedroom tax” that will reduce housing subsidies that primarily benefit poor people. The levy ostensibly aims to “tackle overcrowding and encourage a more efficient use of social housing,” resulting in an estimated million “social housing” households losing 14-25 percent of their housing benefits.

The Guardian:

   Critics say it is an inefficient policy as in the north of England, families with a spare rooms outnumber overcrowded families by three to one, so thousands will be hit with the tax when there is no local need for them to move. Two-thirds of the people hit by the bedroom tax are disabled

.

Thousands of trade unions, advocates for the disabled, leading churches, and anti-poverty protesters held marches against the changes over the weekend, calling the cuts “unjust.” In a joint report released over the weekend, the Baptist Union of Great Britain, the Methodist Church, the United Reformed Church and the Church of Scotland criticized the government of perpetuating myths about poverty in an attempt to justify the cuts.

Tory Field and Beverly Bell: From Growing Profit to Growing Food: Challenging Corporate Rule

Just outside of the small town of Maumelle, Arkansas sits your run-of-the-mill American strip mall. And as in so many other box store hubs, a Walmart dominates the landscape. [..]

We are bombarded and manipulated by corporate name brands every day. A Coca-Cola annual report some years back stated, “All of us in the Coca-Cola family wake up each morning knowing that every single one of the world’s 5.6 billion people will get thirsty that day… If we make it impossible for these 5.6 billion people to escape Coca-Cola…, then we assure our future success for many years to come. Doing anything else is not an option.”

“Impossible” to “escape” sounds daunting, downright creepy. Yet people are escaping, in droves, a food system that is more obsessed with money than with sustenance.

Abby Rapoport: The People’s Bank: Deep-Red North Dakota’s Populist Bright Spot

When the financial crisis struck in 2008, nearly every state legislature was left contending with massive revenue shortfalls. Every state legislature, that is, except North Dakota’s. In 2009, while other states were slashing budgets, North Dakota enjoyed its largest surplus. All through the Great Recession, as credit dried up and middle-class Americans lost their homes, the conservative, rural state chugged along with a low foreclosure rate and abundant credit for entrepreneurs looking for loans.

Normally one of the overlooked states in flyover country, North Dakota now had the country’s attention. So did an unlikely institution partly responsible for its fiscal health: the Bank of North Dakota. Founded in 1919 by populist farmers who’d gotten tired of big banks and grain companies shortchanging them, the only state-owned bank in America has long supported community banks and helped keep credit flowing. The bank’s $5 billion deposit base comes mostly from state taxes and funds. The money is leveraged so the bank can offer loans for local small businesses and infrastructure projects; the interest, rather than going to Wall Street banks, stays in the state. The Bank of North Dakota rarely makes direct loans; instead, when a community bank wants to give a sizable loan but lacks the capital, the state bank will partner on the loan and provide a backstop. Such partnerships help ensure that small-business owners, farmers, and ranchers can access lines of credit-and they strengthen community banks, which is why North Dakota has more local banks per capita than any other state.

Protecting Monsanto Risks Food Safety

A rider to protect the biotech giant Monsanto from litigation was anonymously slipped into the bill, HR933, that averted the shut down have the government and signed into law by Pres. Barack Obama. The rider, known as the “Monsanto Protection Act,” has ignited a firestorm of protests not just from food safety advocates and environmentalists but from the right wing as well. Much of the ire has been directed at Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, for not drawing attention to the rider. According the Amy Goodman, at Democracy Now, the rider was written by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) with Monsanto’s help and initially was backed by Sen. John Tester (D-MT), who realizing the pernicious aspects of the rider to farmers, attempted to have it removed from the bill before it was passed. Sen. Tester failed to get the rider removed. The bill passed with the rider intact and was signed into law by Pres. Obama. On the bright side of this, the rider is temporary since the act expired in six months. It does raise wider issues of genetically modified organisms (GMO), their safety and protecting the food chain as opposed to protecting the right of a multinational corporation that wants to dominate and control food through seed supplies.

Ms. Goodman and her co-host, Aaron Maté. discuss the “Monsanto Protection Act” and the safety of genetically modified foods with two guests: Gregory Jaffe, director of the Biotechnology Project at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that addresses food and nutrition issues; and Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch and author of the book, “Foodopoly: The Battle Over the Future of Food and Farming in America.



Full transcript here

The IBTimes listed the most troubling aspects of the rider that was written by Monsanto lawyers:

1. The Monsanto Protection Act effectively bars federal courts from being able to halt the sale or planting of controversial genetically modified (aka GMO) or genetically engineered (GE) seeds, no matter what health issues may arise concerning GMOs in the future.

2. The provision’s language was apparently written in collusion with Monsanto.

-Many members of Congress were apparently unaware that the Monsanto Protection Act even existed within the Bill they were voting on.

3. The President did nothing to stop it, either. On Tuesday, Obama signed HR 933.

4. It sets a terrible precedent…The message it sends is that corporations can get around consumer safety protections if they get Congress on their side.

The article also revealed that Sen. Blunt has received over $60,000 from Monsanto in campaign contributions. Sen. Mikulski issued a statement that she “understands the anger over this provision. She didn’t put the language in the bill and doesn’t support it either.”  

The controversial provision has also raised the ire of the right wing Tea Party

“It is not the purview of Tea Party Patriots to comment on the merits of GMOs — that is a discussion and debate for experts and activists within that field,” wrote Dustin Siggins, who blogs for Tea Party Patriots, on the group’s website. “From the perspective of citizens who want open, transparent government that serves the people, however, the so-called ‘Monsanto Protection Act,’ Section 735 of the Continuing Resolution, is one heck of a special interest loophole for friends of Congress.”

Food Democracy Now has begun a petition that has already been signed by 250,000, demanding that President Obama to issue an Executive Order requiring the mandatory labeling of GMOs.

Late last night President Barack Obama signed H.R. 933, which contained the Monsanto Protection Act into law. President Obama knowingly signed the Monsanto Protection Act over the urgent pleas of more than 250,000 Americans who asked that he use his executive authority to veto it. President Obama failed to live up to his oath to protect the American people and our constitution.

Today we’re calling on President Obama to issue an executive order to call for the mandatory labeling of genetically engineered foods.

Not only is GMO labeling a reasonable and common sense solution to the continued controversy that corporations like Monsanto, DuPont and Dow Chemical have created by subverting our basic democratic rights, but it is a basic right that citizens in 62 other countries around the world already enjoy, including Europe, Russia, China, India, South Africa and Saudi Arabia.

Join us in demanding mandatory labeling of GMO foods. Now’s the time!

Call President Barack Obama (202) 456-1111 or if that line is busy, please call (202) 456-1414 – then ask at least 5 of your friends to join you!

Punting the Pundits

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

New York Times Editorial Board: One Industry’s Hold on the Senate

Ever since Congress included a 2.3 percent tax on medical devices in President Obama’s health care reform law in 2009, there has been a forceful and well-financed campaign to repeal the tax – waged, naturally, by the medical device industry. It has donated generously to lawmakers and candidates, taken them on tours of their plants and spent tens of millions in lobbying. [..]

The tax, which applies to devices like artificial joints, pacemakers, wheelchairs and gloves, is expected to raise about $29 billion over 10 years. It is one of several sources of new revenue in the health care law that will pay for the expansion of health coverage to 30 million uninsured people, many of them poor. The industry claims the tax will hurt demand for its products, but, in fact, sales of these devices, which are not purchased directly by consumers, are unlikely to be affected by price, especially by a small tax increase. As more people receive health coverage that pays for devices, the industry will more than make up the cost of the tax.

Mike Lux: The Greatest Disappointment

There is a new report out this morning once again reminding us of the greatest disappointment progressives have in the Obama administration: the lack of toughness in regards to Wall Street. The report, issued by the Campaign for a Fair Settlement (full disclosure: this is a coalition I have helped in various ways since their founding), is probably the most harshly critical analysis yet by a coalition aligned with traditional progressive Democratic groups. The report opens with this damning list of hard-to-dispute facts, and then just goes on from there: [..]

So there are two questions that Obama loyalists might ask about this report. The first is whether all this negativity is truly deserved. The second is why Wall Street accountability activists are so obsessed with this issue.

Eugene Robinson: The Test Score Racket

It is time to acknowledge that the fashionable theory of school reform-requiring that pay and job security for teachers, principals and administrators depend on their students’ standardized test scores-is at best a well-intentioned mistake, and at worst nothing but a racket. [..]

Our schools desperately need to be fixed. But creating a situation in which teachers are more likely to cheat than students cannot be the right path.

Standardized achievement tests are a vital tool, but treating test scores the way a corporation might treat sales targets is wrong. Students are not widgets. I totally reject the idea that students from underprivileged neighborhoods cannot learn. Of course they can. But how does it help these students to have their performance on a one-size-fits-all standardized test determine their teachers’ compensation and job security? The clear incentive is for the teacher to focus on test scores rather than actual teaching.

Wendell Potter: Is a High-Deductible Health Plan a Silver Bullet — or Snake Oil?

Those accustomed to obtaining health insurance through the workplace and choosing among different types of policies may be in for a rude surprise.

Increasingly, employers of all sizes are eliminating choice and offering only high-deductible plans — euphemistically referred to in the insurance world as consumer-directed health plans or HDHPs.

The looming shift has nothing to do with Obamacare or even the widely held belief that certain types of health plans will encourage people to give up costly bad habits like smoking. It is about profit.

Bil McKibben: The Methane Beneath Our Feet

Insouciant New Yorkers-here is another pending disaster to shrug off with characteristic brio! There is a huge, ongoing gas leak beneath your very feet. A team of natural gas experts recently commissioned to survey the New York system has found vastly elevated levels of methane in locations all over Manhattan, a clear indication that Con Ed’s 4,320-mile network of pipes, dating back to the 1800s, is corroded, full of holes, and spewing methane into the atmosphere. The main danger here is to planetary, not personal, safety: though it has received relatively little attention, methane, the primary component of natural gas, is second only to carbon dioxide on the list of greenhouse gases that are inducing climate change. [..]

Because of the grave threat methane poses to the climate, the dangers of natural gas leakages go well beyond the immediate risk of exploding manhole covers (though recent measurements in Washington, DC indicate that there is enough leaking gas to cause any cautious pedestrian a certain amount of worry). And given the vastness of the problem, the leaks challenge some of the basic assumptions of current US energy policy, which has aggressively endorsed natural gas as a “clean” and climate-friendly alternative to oil and coal.

James Hansen: Doubling Down on Our Faustian Bargain

Humanity’s Faustian climate bargain is well known. Humans have been pumping both greenhouse gases (mainly CO2) and aerosols (fine particles) into the atmosphere for more than a century. The CO2 accumulates steadily, staying in the climate system for millennia, with a continuously increasing warming effect. Aerosols have a cooling effect (by reducing solar heating of the ground) that depends on the rate that we pump aerosols into the air, because they fall out after about five days. [..]

The tragedy of this science story is that the great uncertainty in interpretations of the climate

forcings did not have to be. Global aerosol properties should be monitored to high precision, similar to the way CO2 is monitored. The capability of measuring detailed aerosol properties has long existed, as demonstrated by observations of Venus. The requirement is measurement of the polarization of reflected sunlight to an accuracy of 0.1 percent, with measurements covering the spectral range from near ultraviolet to the near-infrared at a range of scattering angles, as is possible from an orbiting satellite. Unfortunately, the satellite mission designed for that purpose failed to achieve orbit, suffering precisely the same launch failure as the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO). Although a replacement OCO mission is in preparation, no replacement aerosol mission is scheduled.

TPP: Expansion of Corporate Power

The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports that negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership continued under wraps in Singapore earlier this month.

The 16th round of negotiations over the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPP) began in Singapore today, as trade delegates and private stakeholders from 11 participating countries gather to discuss this the contours of Pacific trade. EFF and many others are deeply concerned about TPP, because it appears to contain an intellectual property (IP) chapter that would ratchet up IP enforcement at the expense of digital rights. The TPP could turn Internet Service Providers into copyright cops, prompt ever-higher criminal and civil penalties for sharing content, and expand protections for Digital Rights Management. The Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) has announced that they plan to complete the TPP by the fall of this year.

We say “appears to contain” because the negotiations have been carried out in secret: our understanding of the U.S. proposal is based primarily on leaked texts from February 2011. However, there have been some additional leaks, like those following the USTR announcement that the TPP would include exceptions and limitations to copyright. Despite the USTR’s effort to suggest that introducing fair use into the TPP was its idea, the leaked negotiating text made it clear that the U.S. was likely pressured into agreeing to exceptions and limitations as a concession. The leak also showed that the U.S. and Australia opposed any fair use that would extend to the “digital environment.” Thus, it appears the USTR continues to lobby for ever more stringent international IP standards without much regard for the collateral damage to the public interest.

The AFL-CIO is also concerned that TPP would have a negative impact on basic labor rights, including free association and collective bargaining:

For example, regarding labor rights, the “Outlines of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement” released in November 2011 reads: “TPP (Trans-Pacific FTA) countries are discussing elements for a labor chapter that include commitments on labor rights protection and mechanisms to ensure cooperation, coordination, and dialogue on labor issues of mutual concern,” but fails to mention core labor standards (as determined by the International Labor Organization) or even whether the labor provisions in the final agreement will be enforceable.

Margaret Flowers, a congressional fellow with Physicians for a National Health Program and a pediatrician based in Baltimore and Kevin Zeese, activist lawyer and co-director of It’s Our Economy, discussed the agreements impact on  labor, environmental, and internet rights with Paul Jay of the Real News Network.

TransPacific Partnership Will Undermine Democracy, Empower Transnational Corporations

by Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, Truthout | News Analysis

On critical issues, the massive Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) being negotiated in secret by the Obama administration will undermine democracy in the United States and around the world and further empower transnational corporations. It will circumvent protections for health care, wages, labor rights, consumers’ rights and the environment, and decrease regulation of big finance and risky investment practices.

The only way this treaty, which will be very unpopular with the American people once they are aware of it, can be approved is if the Obama administration avoids the democratic process by using an authority known as “Fast Track,” which limits the constitutional checks and balances of Congress.

If the TPP is approved, the sovereignty of the United States and other member nations will be dissipated by trade tribunals that favor corporate power and force national laws to be subservient to corporate interests.

Energy Secretary Nominee a Shill For Big Oil and Fracking

The Department of Energy, like the Treasury Department and Justice, has become a revolving door for shills for oil and fracking companies. Pres. Barack Obama’s nominee for Energy Secretary, Ernest Muniz to replace out going Secretary Steven Chu, is no different.

President Obama’s pick to run the Department of Energy has been a highly paid consultant for a private equity firm heavily invested in the oil and gas sector while running MIT’s premier energy research center, according to financial disclosure documents.

Ernest Moniz, who has directed the MIT Energy Initiative since it was established in 2006, has earned at least $75,000 since 2008 advising Riverstone Equity Holdings LP, which according to government filings has $2.5 billion invested in a variety of fossil fuel production and storage companies in the United States and abroad.

Amy Goodman at Democracy Now discussed Prof. Muniz’s nomination with Kevin Connor of the Public Accountability Initiative and ProPublica reporter Justin Elliott, who have both authored investigations into Moniz’s ties to industry.

Energy secretary nominee Ernest Moniz has deep ties to oil, gas, and nuclear industries

by John Upton, Grist

The Republican minority in the Senate loves to obstruct confirmation of President Obama’s Cabinet nominees, but it isn’t saying boo about the man who appears set to become the nation’s next energy secretary.

That might be because Ernest Moniz has friendly relations with a number of dirty energy companies – the kind of companies that generously fund so many senators’ campaigns. [..]

Moniz also directs the MIT Energy Initiative, which gets significant corporate funding from BP, Saudi Aramco, Shell, Chevron, and a number of utilities that operate nuclear plants.

At the same time, Moniz has stressed the importance of moving away from coal and has promoted and called for more funding for renewable energy and energy efficiency. That’s earned him praise from the Natural Resources Defense Council. But other environmental and watchdog groups are campaigning against his nomination because of his industry ties. [..]

Moniz is also coming under criticism for a big report on natural gas released by the MIT Energy Initiative in 2011. It called the environmental impacts of fracking “challenging but manageable,” endorsed natural-gas exports, and talked up gas as a “bridge fuel” that could help the country move away from dirtier fossil fuels and toward clean energy (a controversial notion).

The Energy and Natural Resources Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on Moniz April 9. MIT has said that Prof. Muniz is not giving interviews, and the White House didn’t respond to requests for comment.  

Tar Sands Oil Spilled In Arkansas

On Friday, a 20 inch pipeline carrying Canadian heavy crude oil ruptured in Arkansas flooding the town of Mayflower with 84,000 gallons of the world’s dirtiest oil. The pipeline was carrying Canadian Wabasca Heavy crude, a heavy bitumen crude diluted with lighter liquids to allow it to flow through pipelines. the oil is produced in the Athabasca region, where the oil sands are located.

According to Exxon, the Pegasus pipeline carries 90,000 barrels of oil per day from Pakota, Illinois, to Nederland, Texas. The proposed Keystone XL pipeline will carry 800,000 barrels per day from Canada the Gulf Coast refining hub. This is the second spill of Canadian oil in the past week. A tanker train derailed in Minnesota spilling 15,000 gallons of oil.

This has prompted critics of Keystone XL, to point out the dangers of the pipeline and urge the president to reject the permit. “This latest pipeline incident is a troubling reminder that oil companies still have not proven that they can safely transport Canadian tar sands oil across the United States without creating risks to our citizens and our environment,” said Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-MA), the ranking Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee.

Chris Takkett at Treehugger explains what happens when a pipeline breaks:

I’m no engineer, but from what I understand, when a section of pipe ruptures, the quantity of oil that can spill is as large as the pipe is thick and long until you reach the nearest shutoff valve. It also depends on how fast the pipeline operators notice the spill, shut off the flow and close the leak.

At Crooks and Liars, Diane Sweet noted:

In 2009, Exxon modified the capacity of the Pegasus pipeline, increasing the capacity to transport Canadian tar sands oil by 50 percent, or about 30,000 barrels per day. In a 2012 report, Bloomberg News reported the pipeline daily capacity to be 96,000 barrels of oil per day.

Tar sands oil is the most toxic fossil fuel on the planet, that leaves in its wake scarred landscapes, a web of pipelines, and polluting refineries.

This morning on Democracy Now, Amy Goodman spoke with environmental activist Bill McKibben of 350.org about the spill.

The Sierra Club explains why this type of oil, diluted bitumen (dilbit), is different making it difficult to clean up:

Punting the Pundits

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

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Paul Krugman: Lessons From a Comeback

Modern movement conservatism, which transformed the G.O.P. from the moderate party of Dwight Eisenhower into the radical right-wing organization we see today, was largely born in California. The Golden State, even more than the South, created today’s religious conservatism; it elected Ronald Reagan governor; it’s where the tax revolt of the 1970s began. But that was then. In the decades since, the state has grown ever more liberal, thanks in large part to an ever-growing nonwhite share of the electorate. [..]

A dozen years ago, the state was supposedly doomed by all its environmentalists. You see, the eco-freaks were blocking power plants, and the result was crippling blackouts and soaring power prices. “The country’s showcase state,” gloated The Wall Street Journal, “has come to look like a hapless banana republic.”

But a funny thing happened on the road to collapse: it turned out that the main culprit in the electricity crisis was deregulation, which opened the door for ruthless market manipulation. When the market manipulation went away, so did the blackouts.

Thomas Homer-Dixon: The Tar Sands Disaster

IF President Obama blocks the Keystone XL pipeline once and for all, he’ll do Canada a favor.

Canada’s tar sands formations, landlocked in northern Alberta, are a giant reserve of carbon-saturated energy – a mixture of sand, clay and a viscous low-grade petroleum called bitumen. Pipelines are the best way to get this resource to market, but existing pipelines to the United States are almost full. So tar sands companies, and the Alberta and Canadian governments, are desperately searching for export routes via new pipelines.

Canadians don’t universally support construction of the pipeline. A poll by Nanos Research in February 2012 found that nearly 42 percent of Canadians were opposed. Many of us, in fact, want to see the tar sands industry wound down and eventually stopped, even though it pumps tens of billions of dollars annually into our economy.

Dean Baker: Profit Share Hits Post-War High and the Post Doesn’t Notice

The revised GDP data for the fourth quarter released yesterday showed the profit share of corporate income hitting 25.6 percent. This is the highest since it stood at 25.8 percent in 1951. However if we look at the after-tax share of 19.2 percent, we would have to go back to 20.8 percent share in 1930 to find a higher number, excepting of course the 19.3 percent number hit last year.

To put this in context, the after-tax profit share was just 14.5 percent in Reagan’s Morning in America days. The difference would have come to roughly $330 billion last year. To put this in the 10-year budgetary window that is the standard framework in Washington these days, the rise in after-tax corporate profits since the Reagan era can be seen as equivalent to a $5.0 trillion tax on the nation’s workers.

This surge in profits in a weak economy (profits tend to move with the cycle) is striking but readers of the Washington Post version of AP piece on the data wouldn’t know anything about it. This piece includes no mention of the jump in corporate profits in 2012.

Robert Kuttner: Looking Backwards

Jubilant Republicans took back the Senate in yesterday’s mid-term election, and appeared to have increased their majority in the House by about ten seats.

“Barack Obama is now the lamest of lame ducks,” said Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, now the Majority Leader, who held on to his own Kentucky seat by about three percentage points, the Senate Republicans only close call of the evening.

“The Senate numbers this year were against the Democrats,” said pollster Stan Greenberg, “but what really killed us with the voters was the economy.” [..]

“This fiasco, once again, is why I don’t call myself a Democrat,” said Vermont independent Senator Bernie Sanders. “Don’t progressives get even one party?”

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