Tag: Open Thread

Aug 16 2014

On This Day In History August 16

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

August 16 is the 228th day of the year (229th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 137 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1896, Gold discovered in the Yukon.

While salmon fishing near the Klondike River in Canada’s Yukon Territory on this day in 1896, George Carmack reportedly spots nuggets of gold in a creek bed. His lucky discovery sparks the last great gold rush in the American West.

Hoping to cash in on reported gold strikes in Alaska, Carmack had traveled there from California in 1881. After running into a dead end, he headed north into the isolated Yukon Territory, just across the Canadian border. In 1896, another prospector, Robert Henderson, told Carmack of finding gold in a tributary of the Klondike River. Carmack headed to the region with two Native American companions, known as Skookum Jim and Tagish Charlie. On August 16, while camping near Rabbit Creek, Carmack reportedly spotted a nugget of gold jutting out from the creek bank. His two companions later agreed that Skookum Jim–Carmack’s brother-in-law–actually made the discovery.

Aug 15 2014

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

Elizabeth R. Beavers amd Michael Shank: Get the Military Off of Main Street

Ferguson Shows the Risks of Militarized Policing

FERGUSON, Mo., has become a virtual war zone. In the wake of the shooting of an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, outsize armored vehicles have lined streets and tear gas has filled the air. Officers dressed in camouflage uniforms from Ferguson’s 53-person police force have pointed M-16s at the very citizens they are sworn to protect and serve.

The police response has shocked America. The escalating tension in this town of 21,200 people between a largely white police department and a majority African-American community is a central part of the crisis, but the militarization of the police is a dimension of the story that has national implications. [..]

Militarizing our police officers does not have to be the first response to violence. Alternatives are available. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.’s statement Thursday highlighting resources like the Department of Justice’s Community Oriented Policing Services office is welcome. This is where the government should be investing – instead of grants for guns.

Police militarization is a growing national threat. If the federal government doesn’t act to stop it, the future of law enforcement everywhere will look a lot like Ferguson.

Jeff Bachman: War Crimes: Is Obama Looking for a Bailout?

On Aug. 1, President Barack Obama stated in an oddly casual manner that “we tortured some folks.” As Obama is well aware, torture is a violation of international law. It is prohibited by the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols of 8 June 1977, the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Torture Convention), and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), all of which have been signed and ratified by the United States. Further, although the ICCPR allows for some derogation from some of its requirements under extraordinary circumstances, torture is an act that is never permitted. [..]

According to Obama, the character of the United States “has to be measured in part not by what we do when things are easy, but what we do when things are hard.” Prosecuting Bush administration officials for torture would have been politically difficult. There’s no doubt about that, but that’s why we have laws. Laws are not meant to be enforced when it is convenient to do so; laws are meant to be objective and applied to all, equally. Unfortunately, despite the pious calls for justice elsewhere, protecting American officials against prosecution for war crimes is a time-honored tradition in the United States. Whether the crimes were committed during WWII, the Korean War, in Vietnam, Iraq or the wider “war on terror,” not a single high-level official has been held accountable for his or her crimes.

Obama’s contribution to U.S. hypocrisy does not end with the sheltering of Bush administration officials. The Obama administration is suspected of committing a number of crimes of its own, including violations of the Torture Convention. Despite multiple warnings of systematic torture in Afghan detention facilities, the administration continued to enter detainees into these facilities with full knowledge they could become victims of torture. Although some might argue this is a relatively lesser crime than directly authorizing these detainees’ torture, the end result is quite the same. Obama also allows for the continuing torture of Guantanamo Bay prisoners who are on a hunger strike. Jon Eisenberg, a human rights attorney who defends one of the prisoners, believes that when combining the varied practices associated with the force-feeding of detainees, “it all adds up to torture.”

Paul Krugman: The Forever Slump

It’s hard to believe, but almost six years have passed since the fall of Lehman Brothers ushered in the worst economic crisis since the 1930s. Many people, myself included, would like to move on to other subjects. But we can’t, because the crisis is by no means over. Recovery is far from complete, and the wrong policies could still turn economic weakness into a more or less permanent depression.

In fact, that’s what seems to be happening in Europe as we speak. And the rest of us should learn from Europe’s experience.

Before I get to the latest bad news, let’s talk about the great policy argument that has raged for more than five years. It’s easy to get bogged down in the details, but basically it has been a debate between the too-muchers and the not-enoughers.

The too-muchers have warned incessantly that the things governments and central banks are doing to limit the depth of the slump are setting the stage for something even worse. Deficit spending, they suggested, could provoke a Greek-style crisis any day now – within two years, declared Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles some three and a half years ago. Asset purchases by the Federal Reserve would “risk currency debasement and inflation,” declared a who’s who of Republican economists, investors, and pundits in a 2010 open letter to Ben Bernanke.

Bina Shaw: Want to end sexual violence against women? Fix the men

A crisis of masculinity needs to be addressed in order to see a reduction in sexual violence against women.

The Global Summit to End Violence Against Women in Conflict took place in London in June 2014, with 1700 delegates from 129 countries and 79 ministers attending, drawing much-needed attention to the problem of women suffering sexual assault in war zones.

Yet as I studied the programme’s fringe events and followed the coverage in the news, I wondered what exactly a conference in London could truly do, beyond the call to action, to help women in places like Syria, Iraq, or Egypt, where women have suffered systematic rape and sexual assault as a “weapon of war”, as summit keynote speaker Angelina Jolie put it.

It’s vital to commit to tackling sexual violence in conflict and supporting victims, as the summit’s action statement outlined, as fresh conflicts erupt across the Middle East and South Asia. But while the summit stated its aim was to “end the use of rape and sexual violence in conflicts around the world”, it didn’t give more voice to key elements: honesty about the true origins of the violence – the skewed concept of masculinity in patriarchal societies, which operates in both war and peace – and the concomitant need to confront male perpetrators of violence against women with a prescription that goes beyond the conventional formulae of legal reform and punishment for sexual crimes.

Robert McImtyre: Walgreen Co. Did the Right Thing, But Most Corporations Won’t Without a Change in Tax Rules

I experienced a brief moment of joy when news broke last week that pharmacy chain Walgreens has, for now, set aside plans to invert, which is a euphemism for using paperwork to reincorporate as a foreign company for tax purposes. But my joy lasted for about one minute.

While Walgreen Co. has decided to remain American for tax purposes, a lot of what consumers buy in Walgreens drug stores may come from companies that are not such outstanding corporate citizens. The prescriptions you have filled there may be made by AbbVie, which plans to become a British company for tax purposes, or Mylan, which plans to become a Dutch company, or Pfizer which is also considering a corporate inversion.  [..]

But this is a distraction. Few American corporations actually pay anything close to 35 percent of their profits in federal income taxes thanks to all sorts of loopholes, and lowering the tax rate would accomplish nothing because the ultimate goal of many inversions is to shift profits to countries like Bermuda or the Cayman Islands where the tax rate is zero. So many companies are inverting to Ireland and the Netherlands because those countries have famously lax rules when it comes to using more paperwork to make profits appear to be earned in these zero-tax countries.

If this sounds a little complicated, well, that’s why it’s the sort of policy issue that Congress is supposed to resolve. It would be nice if everyone deciding which bananas or yogurt to buy could brush up on inversions and avoid companies that engage in these tax dodges, and perhaps these consumer discontent would pressure these companies to do the right thing as did Walgreen. But my guess is that this crisis will only grow worse until Congress and President Obama act to end it.

Aug 15 2014

On This Day In History August 15

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

August 15 is the 227th day of the year (228th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 138 days remaining until the end of the year.

While there were many significant events that happened on August 15, the most delightful and happily remember is Woodstock. Not many of my Baby Boomer generation remember that today Emperor Hirohito announced the unconditional surrender of Japan or that East Germany began the building of the Berlin Wall or that Malcolm slain Macbeth, it was peace, love and Rock N’ Roll in the mud with a lack of sanitary facilities but lots of music from some of the best at the Woodstock Festivalduring the weekend of August 15 to 18, 1969. The site was a dairy farm in West Lake, NY near the town of Bethel in Sullivan County, some 43 miles southwest from the actual town of Woodstock in Ulster County. During that rainy weekend some 500,000 concert goers became a pivotal moment in the history of Rock and Roll.

Peace, Drugs and Rock N’Roll. Rock On.

Aug 14 2014

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

Trevor Timm: When will Obama’s administration stop trying to send this man to jail for telling the truth about spies, nukes and Iran?

James Risen is out of chances. It’s time for the government to stop harassing a journalist for doing his job

If you blinked at the end of June, you may have missed one of the best pieces of journalism in 2014. The New York Times headline accompanying the story was almost criminally bland, but the content itself was extraordinary: A top manager at Blackwater, the notorious defense contractor, openly threatened to kill a US State Department official in 2007 if he continued to investigate Blackwater’s corrupt dealings in Iraq. Worse, the US government sided with Blackwater and halted the investigation. Blackwater would later go on to infamously wreak havoc in Iraq.

But what makes the story that much more remarkable is that its author, journalist James Risen, got it published amidst one the biggest legal battles over press freedom in decades – a battle that could end with the Justice Department forcing him into prison as early as this fall. It could make him the first American journalist forced into jail by the federal government since Judith Miller nearly a decade ago. [..]

If there’s one issue journalists can unabashedly support without fear of being labeled as “biased”, it’s cases like this that strike at the heart of their own rights as reporters.

Tell the Justice Department to live up to its pledge: Stop pursuing James Risen. Period.

Dean Baker: The Entitlement of the Very Rich

The very rich don’t think very highly of the rest of us. This fact is driven home to us through fluke events, like the taping of Mitt Romney’s famous 47 percent comment, in which he trashed the people who rely on Social Security, Medicare, and other forms of government benefits.

Last week we got another opportunity to see the thinking of the very rich when Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of General Electric, complained at a summit with African heads of state and business leaders that there is even an argument over the reauthorization of Export-Import Bank. According to the Washington Post, Immelt said in reference to the Ex-Im Bank reauthorization, “the fact that we have to sit here and argue for it I think is just wrong.”

To get some orientation, the Ex-IM Bank makes around $35 billion a year in loans or loan guarantees each year. The overwhelming majority of these loans go to huge multi-nationals like Boeing or Mr. Immelt’s company, General Electric. The loans and guarantees are a subsidy that facilitates exports by allowing these companies and/or their customers to borrow at below market interest rates.

Richard (RJ) Eskow: “Running As Dems While Sounding Republican.” Hey, What Could Go Wrong?

They say that one swallow doesn’t make a summer, and one Politico story certainly doesn’t make a campaign season. But if a recent article there is correct – if the Democratic Party’s strategy this year really is “Running as a Dem (while) sounding like a Republican” – then the party may be headed for a disaster of epic but eminently predictable proportions.

“It’s one thing for Democrats running in red parts of the country to sound like Republicans on the campaign trail,” writes Alex Isenstadt. “It’s another when Democrats running in purple or even blue territory try to do so. Yet that’s what’s happening in race after race this season.”

Red Dems

Certainly this isn’t true of every race. Populist Sen. Elizabeth Warren has been brought in to help with Senate contests in several red states, for example. And a recent commentary (in Politico, come to think of it) argued that “an ascendant progressive and populist movement … is on the verge of taking over the party.”

So which is it? Are Dems tacking left or veering right? The answer isn’t clear yet. But Isenstadt offers some worrisome anecdotes. He points to several Democratic candidates who are recycling Republican rhetoric, even in districts that went for Barack Obama in the 2012 election.

Barry Ritholtz: Celebrating Greenspan’s Legacy of Failure

On this day in 1987, Alan Greenspan became chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. This anniversary allows us to take a quick look at what followed over the next two decades. As it turned out, it was one of the most interesting and, to be blunt, weirdest tenures ever for a Fed chairman.

This was largely because of the strange ways Greenspan’s infatuation with the philosophy of Ayn Rand manifested themselves. He was a free marketer who loved to intervene in the markets, a chief bank regulator who seemingly failed to understand even the most basic premise of bank regulations.

The stock market was having a scorching year in 1987, up 44 percent during the first seven months of the year. Stocks peaked within weeks of Greenspan being sworn in. He was still settling into the job when Black Monday came along and U.S. markets plummeted 23 percent on Oct. 19.

Welcome to Wall Street, Mr. Chairman.

The contradictions between Greenspan’s philosophy and his actions led to many key events over his career. The ones that stand out the most in my mind are as follows:

Pamela Merritt: Ferguson is not a war zone. We need to talk about more than just Mike Brown

The tragic events here in Missouri could be the beginning of something. But we need to build a path toward reconciliation

A neighborhood just north of my home – Ferguson, Missouri – has been under siege by its own police force. Maybe it’s hard to imagine what that means if you’re not here … but it’s actually harder to come to grips with if you are.

The unrest, the vandalism and the looting that you’ve heard about from local, national and international newspeople? That happened to businesses that are part of the Ferguson community. The show of force that you saw on the news the other night? That all went down in neighborhoods where many of my friends work and live. Since Sunday, the afternoons and evenings of the mostly-black residents of Ferguson have been filled with protests and vigils in response to 18-year-old Michael Brown’s death at the hands of a police officer on Saturday, and they’ve endured long nights filled with shouting police and riot gear, with wooden bullets and teargas – and, early Wednesday morning, with a second man shot by a cop.

People I know faced down police dogs to participate in a peaceful protest outside of the Ferguson police department on Saturday. A friend spent hours trying to help young people get home Monday night after buses stopped running – and she ended up letting several stay overnight for fear that they may be targeted for violence if they remained outside. Major cleanup efforts are scheduled for Wednesday.

Michelle Chen: Even bright young immigrants don’t buy Obama’s executive action fail

Whatever unilateral intervention the president may take, it isn’t nearly enough to offset systematic betrayal

With an out-of-session Congress deadlocked over immigration reform and right-wing lawmakers hell-bent on “sealing the border”, the White House faces intense pressure to do something – anything – about immigration, after years of burying a civil rights crisis in a mire of political tone-deafness and jingoistic bombast.

Activists hope that President Obama will expand an existing program to shield undocumented youth from deportation and grant reprieves to their family members. But whatever unilateral action Obama may take, it won’t be nearly enough to offset the systematic betrayal of immigrant communities over the past six years, as the White House has dangled vague promises of reform while denying justice to millions of undocumented people and their families.

Even the young people who have obtained temporary protection aren’t necessarily comforted by the prospect of more executive intervention from Obama. After watching their communities get ripped apart by incarceration and deportation, they’re now not only pressing for relief, but demanding long overdue justice.

Aug 14 2014

The Breakfast Club (Home By the Sea)

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover  we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

The Breakfast Club Logo photo BeerBreakfast_web_zps5485351c.png

This Day in History

Truman announces Japan’s surrender in World War II; Blackout hits Northeast U.S., Canada; FDR signs Social Security; British troops arrive in N. Ireland; A strike in Cold War Poland; Steve Martin born.

Breakfast Tunes

Aug 14 2014

On This Day In History August 14

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

August 14 is the 226th day of the year (227th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 139 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law.

On this day in 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs into law the Social Security Act. Press photographers snapped pictures as FDR, flanked by ranking members of Congress, signed into law the historic act, which guaranteed an income for the unemployed and retirees. FDR commended Congress for what he considered to be a “patriotic” act.

U.S. Social Security is a social insurance program that is funded through dedicated payroll taxes called Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA). Tax deposits are formally entrusted to the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund, the Federal Disability Insurance Trust Fund, the Federal Hospital Insurance Trust Fund, or the Federal Supplementary Medical Insurance Trust Fund.

The main part of the program is sometimes abbreviated OASDI (Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance) or RSDI (Retirement, Survivors, and Disability Insurance). When initially signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935 as part of his New Deal, the term Social Security covered unemployment insurance as well. The term, in everyday speech, is used to refer only to the benefits for retirement, disability, survivorship, and death, which are the four main benefits provided by traditional private-sector pension plans. In 2004 the U.S. Social Security system paid out almost $500 billion in benefits.

By dollars paid, the U.S. Social Security program is the largest government program in the world and the single greatest expenditure in the federal budget, with 20.8% for social security, compared to 20.5% for discretionary defense and 20.1% for Medicare/Medicaid. Social Security is currently the largest social insurance program in the U.S., constituting 37% of government expenditure and 7% of the gross domestic product and is currently estimated to keep roughly 40% of all Americans age 65 or older out of poverty. The Social Security Administration is headquartered in Woodlawn, Maryland, just to the west of Baltimore.

Social Security privatization became a major political issue for more than three decades during the presidencies of Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush.

Aug 13 2014

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.

Wednesday is Ladies’ Day.

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

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Jane Hamsher: Robin Williams is Gone, but Millions Will Still Suffer Until Things Change

Comedian Robin Williams was found early this morning of an apparent suicide. He was 63 years old. He struggled with addiction and depression for most of his life and recently checked into rehab as part of his constant battle.

But if the statistics are correct, he was one of 9.2 million people in the United States who suffer from what’s known as “dual diagnosis” of substance abuse and mental health problems.

Perhaps comedians are more at risk for suicide, I can’t say. If you haven’t seen it, the very heartfelt message from late night host Craig Ferguson to Britney Spears on the subject of addiction above is very moving. Ferguson was 15 years sober when he gave this monologue.

No one can know how Robin Williams felt at the time he made his decision to take his own life. But I can tell you what I’ve heard from literally thousands of other alcoholics and drug addicts I’ve met in 14 years of sobriety who have been in a similar place, struggling with a disease they just can’t seem to beat. [..]

Robin Williams may have been rich and had access to all the treatment in the world, but nobody can escape feelings of shame, weakness and guilt that depressed and addicted people feel in a society that just wants them to “buck up” – and “treats them” by putting them in jail if they don’t.

Stopping our horrific policy of trying to torture people into mental health and sobriety is only part of the problem, however. Beyond that there is a dramatic need to change the way we think about people with mental illness and substance abuse issues, how we identify them and get them help. The cost to our GDP is already far in excess of anything it would cost to do so, and the cost in human misery – not only to those who suffer but to those who love them and try to get them help – is incalculable.

Marcy Wheeler Time To Raze The CIA And Start Over

Let’s raze the damn thing and – if a thorough assessment says a democracy really needs such an agency, which it may not – start over.

I well remember when Robert Grenier testified at Scooter Libby’s trial. His performance – and it, like most of the witness testimony – was a performance. But I was more intrigued by the response. Even the cynical old DC journalists were impressed by the smoothness of the performance. “You can tell he was a great briefer,” one journalist who had written a book on the CIA said.Today, he takes up the role of bogus pushback to the Senate torture report, complete with all the false claims about the report, including:

   

  • SSCI should not have relied exclusively on documents – which, if true, is an admission that millions of CIA’s cables are fraudulent and false

    •    

  • The claim that members of the Gang of Four were briefed earlier and more accurately than even CIA’s own documents show them to have been

    •    

  • SSCI – and not CIA – made the decision that CIA officers should not testify to the committee

    •    

  • That a report supported by John McCain and Susan Collins is a Democratic report (Grenier also claims all involved with it know history from history books, not – as McCain did – from torture chambers)

    •    

  • That the CIA cables exactly matched the torture depicted on the torture tapes (see bullet 1!), and that CIA’s IG reported that, both of which are false

    • But perhaps Grenier’s most cynical assertion is his claim – in a piece that falsely suggests (though does not claim outright) that Congress was adequately briefed that Congress’ job, their sole job, is to legislate, not oversee.

    Brittney Cooper: In defense of black rage: Michael Brown, police and the American dream

    I don’t support the looting in Ferguson, Missouri. But I’m also tired of “turning the other cheek” and forgiving

    On Saturday a Ferguson, Missouri, police officer shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed teenager on his way to college this week. Brown was shot multiple times, though his hands were in the air. His uncovered body was left in the street for hours, as a crowd from his neighborhood gathered to stand vigil. Then they marched down to the police station. On Sunday evening, some folks in the crowd looted a couple of stores and threw bottles at the police. Monday morning was marked by peaceful protests. [..]

    It seems far easier to focus on the few looters who have reacted unproductively to this tragedy than to focus on the killing of Michael Brown. Perhaps looting seems like a thing we can control. I refuse. I refuse to condemn the folks engaged in these acts, because I respect black rage. I respect black people’s right to cry out, shout and be mad as hell that another one of our kids is dead at the hands of the police. Moreover I refuse the lie that the opportunism of a few in any way justifies or excuses the murderous opportunism undertaken by this as yet anonymous officer.

    The police mantra is “to serve and to protect.” But with black folks, we know that’s not the mantra. The mantra for many, many officers when dealing with black people is apparently “kill or be killed.”

    Amanda Marcotte: Telling women to just to give up and let men have it all is not advice

    Just give up hope is not real advice.

    Sexual harassment is a real obstacle for women who are trying to build up their careers. If you work in an industry where sexual harassment is common and there’s few, if any, consequences for men who harass, women are put in an impossible situation of having to choose between their personal safety and their opportunities for advancement. For instance, if going to networking events means getting groped and leered at, you are in a no-win situation. You can go, but you risk being humiliated or even traumatized. But if you don’t go, you are basically abandoning any hope of advancing your career. In many cases, this is why some men sexually harass. They aren’t horny idiots who don’t know any better, but are sexists who want to make sure that women are always second class citizens in their industry, by either wedging women out altogether or making sure the price of entrance for women always remains significantly higher than for men.

    An anonymous writer for Forbes explained how this barrier to entry is really high when it comes to trying to raise money for start-ups. If you’re male, to earn venture capital, you need to talk investors into believing in your start-up. For many women, however, you have to do that and also you have to put up with sexual harassment, as well. She started to pretend to be married in an attempt to fend off the sexual demands of men who wish to exploit a start-up manager’s need for money. In response, one message board started to ask for names of venture capitalists who try to use your money needs to get sex. I don’t personally approve of that kind of response, both because of the problem of anonymous accusations and because it perpetuates the problem of putting the responsibility on women to avoid harassment rather than on men not to harass, but that is no excuse for what happened next.

    Jeanne Rizzo: Chemical Industry Manipulations Fail to Change Scientific Fact

    The verdict is in… again! Formaldehyde is a known human carcinogen. This is not earthshaking news or even news, but apparently Congress felt it was worth a million of your tax dollars to confirm what has been a scientific fact for nearly a decade: formaldehyde causes cancer; so said the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in 2006.

    Federal government scientists at the interagency National Toxicology Program produce the biannual Report on Carcinogens, the government’s official list of chemicals that are “reasonably anticipated” or “known” to cause cancer in humans. They make those determinations through a painstaking process that includes reviews by independent science advisory boards and multiple opportunities for public comment by a full range of stakeholders. In 2011, the 12th Report on Carcinogens (RoC) listed formaldehyde as a “known human carcinogen” and styrene as a “reasonably anticipated human carcinogen,” another chemical listed by IARC, this one in 2002.

    Despite the overwhelming scientific evidence, the chemical companies that produce these two dangerous chemicals objected to the report’s conclusion. Instead of taking responsible measures to protect the public and their workers from exposures to these chemicals, they went to Congress to try one more time to find scientists who would give them the answer they wanted. And Members of Congress, who receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in election contributions per year from the chemical industry, including the Koch Brothers, capitulated and ordered a whole new report re-investigating the safety of formaldehyde in the 2012 federal spending bill.

    Daphne Eviatar: Exhibit A of the Guantanamo Failure Resumes This Week

    As the United States considers engaging in yet another war, with the start of air strikes Friday in Iraq, let’s not forget we’re still stuck with the remnants of an old one. The U.S. still has some 32,000 troops fighting in Afghanistan, though we don’t hear much about them these days. And we still have a military detention center in Cuba where we hold 154 prisoners from that war, which has now dragged on more than 12 years.

    A recent Newsweek headline called Guantanamo a “Stunningly Expensive Failure.” Kurt Eichenwald documents how the detention center has become part of conservatives’ “macho preening” despite its waste of hundreds of millions of dollars in the hopes of duping the American public into thinking it would bring us more security.

    The military commissions may be the worse example of that. Responding to irrational cries that these terrorists are too dangerous to bring to the United States for trial, there are now just a handful of Guantanamo prisoners — seven, to be exact — receiving hearings aimed at an eventual war crimes trial, which may possibly happen at some point in the coming years. Over the last 12 years the military commissions have completed eight cases, with two convictions overturned on appeal. By contrast, there have been some 500 terrorism-related convictions in federal courts since 9/11.

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    Aug 13 2014

    On This Day In History August 13

    This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

    Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

    Click on image to enlarge

    August 13 is the 225th day of the year (226th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 140 days remaining until the end of the year.

    On this day in 1521, the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan falls to Cortes:

    After a three-month siege, Spanish forces under Hernan Cortes capture Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec empire. Cortes’ men leveled the city and captured Cuauhtemoc, the Aztec emperor.

    Tenochtitlan was founded in 1325 A.D. by a wandering tribe of hunters and gatherers on islands in Lake Texcoco, near the present site of Mexico City. In only one century, this civilization grew into the Aztec empire, largely because of its advanced system of agriculture. The empire came to dominate central Mexico and by the ascendance of Montezuma II in 1502 had reached its greatest extent, extending as far south as perhaps modern-day Nicaragua. At the time, the empire was held together primarily by Aztec military strength, and Montezuma II set about establishing a bureaucracy, creating provinces that would pay tribute to the imperial capital of Tenochtitlan. The conquered peoples resented the Aztec demands for tribute and victims for the religious sacrifices, but the Aztec military kept rebellion at bay.

    After the conquest

    Cortes subsequently directed the systematic destruction and leveling of the city and its rebuilding, despite opposition, with a central area designated for Spanish use (the traza). The outer Indian section, now dubbed San Juan Tenochtitlan, continued to be governed by the previous indigenous elite and was divided into the same subdivisions as before.

    Ruins

    Some of the remaining ruins of Tenochtitlan’s main temple, the Templo Mayor, were uncovered during the construction of a metro line in the 1970s. A small portion has been excavated and is now open to visitors. Mexico City’s Zócalo, the Plaza de la Constitución, is located at the location of Tenochtitlan’s original central plaza and market, and many of the original calzadas still correspond to modern streets in the city. The Aztec sun stone was located in the ruins. This stone is 4 meters in diameter and weighs over 20 tonnes. It was once located half way up the great pyramid. This sculpture was made around 1470 CE under the rule of King Axayacatl, the predecessor of Tizoc, and is said to tell the Aztec history and prophecy for the future.

    Aug 12 2014

    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

    Dean Baker: The Entitlement of the Very Rich

    The very rich don’t think very highly of the rest of us. This fact is driven home to us through fluke events, like the taping of Mitt Romney’s famous 47 percent comment, in which he trashed the people who rely on Social Security, Medicare, and other forms of government benefits.

    Last week we got another opportunity to see the thinking of the very rich when Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of General Electric, complained at a summit with African heads of state and business leaders that there is even an argument over the reauthorization of Export-Import Bank. According to the Washington Post, Immelt said in reference to the Ex-Im Bank reauthorization, “the fact that we have to sit here and argue for it I think is just wrong.”

    To get some orientation, the Ex-IM Bank makes around $35 billion a year in loans or loan guarantees each year. The overwhelming majority of these loans go to huge multi-nationals like Boeing or Mr. Immelt’s company, General Electric. The loans and guarantees are a subsidy that facilitates exports by allowing these companies and/or their customers to borrow at below market interest rates.

    John Nichols: Congress Needs to Assert Checks and Balances on Any New Iraq Mission

    It is not a lack of sympathy with the historic and current circumstance of Iraq’s religious minorities – or of other persecuted peoples in that traumatized country – that leads some of the most humane and responsible members of Congress to say that President Obama must seek approval from the House and Senate before committing the United States military to a new Iraq mission.

    Nor is it isolationism or pacifism that motivates most dissent.

    Rather, it is a healthy respect for the complex geopolitics of the region combined with a regard for the wisdom of the system of checks and balances and the principles of advice and consent outlined in the US Constitution.

    Ari Berman: North Carolina Becomes the Latest Casualty of the Supreme Court’s Voting Rights Act Decision

    On Wednesday, August 6, the country celebrated the forty-ninth anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, the most impactful civil rights law ever passed by Congress. Two days later, a federal judge in North Carolina denied a preliminary injunction to block key provisions of the state’s new voting law, widely described as the most onerous in the country.

    North Carolina’s new voting restrictions will now be in effect for the 2014 midterms and beyond, pending a full trial in July 2015, a month before the fiftieth anniversary of the VRA. The federal government and plaintiffs including the North Carolina NAACP and the League of Women Voters argued during a hearing last month that three important parts of the law-a reduction in early voting from seventeen to ten days, the elimination of same-day registration during the early voting period, and a prohibition on counting provisional ballots cast in the wrong precinct-disproportionally burdened African-American voters in violation of Section 2 of the VRA and should be enjoined before the 2014 election.

    Scott Lemieux: The NCAA’s business model is about to collapse – and that’s a good thing

    An almost radical court ruling has only one downside: it didn’t go far enough to pay student-athletes for the sham that is ‘amateur’ college athletics

    On Friday afternoon, US District Judge Claudia Wilken issued a potentially landmark antitrust ruling against the National Collegiate Athletic Association, finding that the severe restrictions the NCAA places on the ability of its players to be compensated clearly violated federal antitrust laws.

    The ruling didn’t go far enough: there are still far too stringent caps on how players can be compensated, and the judge permitted the NCAA to maintain its indefensible ban on third party payments to players. But, not unlike the first tentative state court opinions requiring states to make civil unions available to same-sex couples in lieu of marriage, the biggest NCAA ruling in this era of backlash could have a ripple effect and eventually reverse their increasingly unpopular standards. Or, it’s possible that the ruling will allow the NCAA to tinker with, but maintain, a terrible system: the implications of the ruling are too unclear to be sure.

    But given that the NCAA’s professed commitment to “amateurism” is an increasingly farcical sham that allows administrators and even comically inept coaches to rake in massive amounts of money while players get paid a fraction of their value, that judgment day can’t come soon enough.

    Jeb Lund: Welcome back to Iraq fear-mongering, brought to you by John McCain and Co

    We now return to our regularly scheduled Sunday shows, featuring another war, another 9/11 and Hillary. We still deserve better than this

    It’s so great to be bombing again. And not like any of this BS remote-controlled bombing where we only admit to it two weeks later, after photos surface of some remote-control jockey from the 38th Chairborne precision-striking a Yemeni funeral. I’m talking real deal bombing. Maybe we even get another Outkast song out of it.

    These aren’t my sentiments, but if you watched the Sunday American talk shows this week, you could get the impression that these were the attitudes of an entire nation: There is a humanitarian crisis in northern Iraq, and the only way to stop the killing is to kill our way our of it. No, dig UP, stupid. The president has already authorized several strikes in just a couple days, but, like, what is the freaking holdup?

    By now seemingly every print and online outlet has had a crack at explaining why the Sunday shows are so phenomenally useless. And they are. They are invariably the most intelligence-insulting television panel discussion on a day during which their far more popular competition is usually the Beefcake Backslap Chucklefuck Hour on Fox, discussing how Stem test scores will affect our nation’s football readiness. The purpose of these shows is to give a klatsch of DC navel-gazers time to congratulate themselves on addressing problems you don’t face and with which you do not identify, by advocating policies you don’t support or need. These are people who neither know of nor care about your existence, and they are endlessly high-fiving themselves for screwing you over on your behalf.

    Joe Conason: Ebola’s Message: Foreign Aid and Science Funding in a Time of Global Peril

    Most Americans have long believed, in embarrassing ignorance, that the share of the U.S. federal budget spent on foreign aid is an order of magnitude higher than what we actually spend abroad. Years ago, this mistaken view was amplified from the far right by the John Birch Society. Today, it is the tea party movement complaining that joblessness and poverty in the United States result directly from the lamentable fact that “President Obama keeps sending our money overseas.”

    Actually, spending on foreign assistance has remained remarkably steady for many years in Washington, at around 1 percent, a minuscule level compared with what other developed nations spend to improve living standards in the developing world. But perhaps that is because those other countries have figured out what we may soon learn from the latest Ebola outbreak: Disease vectors do not respect national or political boundaries-and the lack of medical infrastructure in one country can ultimately threaten all countries.

    At this very moment, the health systems built by many years of painstaking effort in Africa-inadequate as they are-struggle to prevent the spread of this awful illness beyond the countries already struck. We would be far safer if those systems were more modern and robust.

    Aug 12 2014

    On This Day In History August 12

    This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

    Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

    Click on image to enlarge

    August 12 is the 224th day of the year (225th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 141 days remaining until the end of the year.

    It is the peak of the Perseid meteor shower. It is also known as the “Glorious Twelfth” in the UK, as it marks the traditional start of the grouse shooting season.

    On this day in 1990, fossil hunter Susan Hendrickson discovers three huge bones jutting out of a cliff near Faith, South Dakota. They turn out to be part of the largest-ever Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton ever discovered, a 65 million-year-old specimen dubbed Sue, after its discoverer.

    Amazingly, Sue’s skeleton was over 90 percent complete, and the bones were extremely well-preserved. Hendrickson’s employer, the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research, paid $5,000 to the land owner, Maurice Williams, for the right to excavate the dinosaur skeleton, which was cleaned and transported to the company headquarters in Hill City. The institute’s president, Peter Larson, announced plans to build a non-profit museum to display Sue along with other fossils of the Cretaceous period.

    Preparation and display

    The Field Museum hired a specialized moving company, with experience in transporting delicate items, to move the bones to Chicago. The truck arrived at the museum in October 1997. Two new research laboratories funded by McDonalds were created and staffed by Field Museum preparators whose job was to slowly and carefully remove all the rock, or “matrix” from the bones. One preparation lab was at Field Museum itself, the other was at the newly opened Animal Kingdom in Disney World in Orlando. Millions of visitors observed the preparation of Sue’s bones through glass windows in both labs. Footage of the work was also put on the museum’s website. Several of the fossil’s bones had never been discovered, so preparators produced models of the missing bones from plastic to complete the exhibit. The modeled bones were colored in a reddish hue so that visitors could observe which bones were real and which bones were plastic. The preparators also poured molds of each bone. All the molds were sent to a company outside Toronto to be cast in hollow plastic. Field Museum kept one set of disarticulated casts in its research collection. The other sets were incorporated into mounted cast skeletons. One set of the casts was sent to Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Florida to be presented for public display. Two other mounted casts were placed into a traveling tour that was sponsored by the McDonald’s Corporation.

    Once the preparators finished removing the matrix from each bone, it was sent to the museum’s photographer who made high-quality photographs. From there, the museum’s paleontologists began the study of the skeleton. In addition to photographing and studying each bone, the research staff also arranged for CT scanning of select bones. The skull was too large to fit into a medical CT scanner, so Boeing’s Rocketdyne laboratory in California agreed to let the museum use their CT scanner that was normally used to inspect space shuttle parts.

    Bone damage

    Close examination of the bones revealed that Sue was 28 years old when she died, making her the oldest T. rex known. During her life this carnivore received several injuries and suffered from numerous pathologies. An injury to the right shoulder region of Sue resulted in a damaged shoulder blade, a torn tendon in the right arm, and three broken ribs. This damage subsequently healed (though one rib healed into two separate pieces), indicating Sue survived the incident. The left fibula is twice the diameter of the right one, likely a result of infection. Original reports of this bone being broken were contradicted by the CT scans which showed no fracture. Multiple holes in the front of the skull were originally thought to be bite marks by some, but subsequent study found these to be areas of infection instead, possibly from an infestation of an ancestral form of Trichomonas gallinae, a protozoan parasite that infests birds. Damage to the back end of the skull was interpreted early on as a fatal bite wound. Subsequent study by Field Museum paleontologists found no bite marks. The distortion and breakage seen in some of the bones in the back of the skull was likely caused by post-mortem trampling. Some of the tail vertebra are fused in a pattern typical of arthritis due to injury. The animal is also believed to have suffered from gout. In addition, there is extra bone in some of the tail vertebrae likely caused by the stresses brought on by Sue’s great size. Sue did not die as a result of any of these injuries; her cause of death is not known.

    Display

    After the bones were prepared, photographed and studied, they were sent to New Jersey where work began on making the mount. This work consists of bending steel to support each bone safely and to display the entire skeleton articulated as it was in life. The real skull was not incorporated into the mount as subsequent study would be difficult with the head 13 feet off the ground. Parts of the skull had been crushed and broken, and thus appeared distorted. The museum made a cast of the skull, and altered this cast to remove the distortions, thus approximating what the original undistorted skull may have looked like. The cast skull was also lighter, allowing it to be displayed on the mount without the use of a steel upright under the head. The original skull is exhibited in a case that can be opened to allow researchers access for study. When the whole skeleton was assembled, it was forty feet (twelve meters) long from nose to tail, and twelve feet (four meters) tall at the hips.

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