Dan Froomkin: Congress Increasingly Staffed By Former Lobbyists

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/12/congress-increasingly-staffed-by-lobbyists_n_896389.html

HuffingtonPost 7/12/11 05:26 PM ET

The number of former lobbyists working as key congressional staffers has more than doubled since the Republican Party took control of the House, a new report finds.

The Center for Responsive Politics report notes the pervasiveness of former lobbyists in the 112th Congress is due in part to an influx of those working for freshman Republican representatives, many of whom campaigned as enemies of the establishment. And it finds that "major companies' former hired-guns now work for the very congressional committees they used to lobby."

The Center found that 128 former lobbyists work in key staff positions in this Congress, compared to 60 in the last one. Researchers also determined that two House committees -- Financial Services and Energy and Commerce -- "have the highest cumulative number of former lobbyists employed by their members." Each have 14.

"AT&T alone has six former lobbyists who at one point lobbied on behalf of AT&T and now work for senators or representatives sitting on the Senate or House committees related to energy and commerce," the report states. And that's out of 13 congressional staffers in all who formerly lobbied for AT&T or a company it swallowed.

Click to read more ...

Robert Reich: The President's Jobs Plan (Not)

http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-President-s-Jobs-Plan-by-Robert-Reich-110712-410.html

July 12, 2011

By Robert Reich

What did the President do in response to last week's horrendous job report -- unemployment rising to 9.2 percent in June, with only 18,000 new jobs (125,000 are needed each month just to keep up with the growth in the potential labor force)?

He said the economy continues to be in a deep hole, and he urged Congress to extend the temporary reduction in the employee part of the payroll tax, approve pending free-trade agreements, and pass a measure to streamline patent procedures.

To call this inadequate would be a gross understatement.

Here's what the President should have said:

Click to read more ...

Fred Branfman: Obama's Secret Wars: How Our Shady Counter-Terrorism Policies Are More Dangerous Than Terrorism

By Fred Branfman, AlterNet
Posted on July 11, 2011, Printed on July 13, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/151596/obama%27s_secret_wars%3A_how_our_shady_counter-terrorism_policies_are_more_dangerous_than_terrorism

Although President's Obama's partial Afghan troop withdrawal announcement has received more attention, his June 29 "National Strategy for Counterterrorism" is of far greater long-term significance. This remarkable document states that the U.S. government intends to "disrupt, dismantle, and eventually defeat al-Qa'ida and its affiliates and adherents," in the following "areas of focus": "The Homeland, South Asia, Arabian Peninsula, East Africa,Europe, Iraq, Maghreb and Sahel, Southeast Asia (and) Central Asia." 

This assassination strategy is already operational in six Muslim countries with a combined population of 280 million: Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia and Libya, which has become a laboratory experiment for urban drone assassinations. The London Sunday Times reported a year ago that "President Obama has secretly sanctioned a huge increase in the number of US special forces ... with American troops now operating in 75 countries." There are presently 60,000 Special Operations forces worldwide, with 7,000 U.S. assassins unleashed upon Afghanistan and 3,000 in Iraq. Lt.-Col. John Nagle (ret.), an enthusiastic assassination supporter, has correctly called these operations "an almost industrial-scale counterterrorism killing machine."

Click to read more ...

"Progressive Radio Network Host Dr. Mayer Eisenstein, Thursday's @ 10am(EST)" - Why Nutraceuticals in a Weight Loss Program?

Why Nutraceuticals in a Weight Loss Program? Watch the video right here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgZ_NN7A-DA

Learn more about "Homefirst - Metabolic Syndrome Protocol

http://homefirst.com/cms/index.php/health-info/hcg-info-page



Agence France: Sunflowers to clean radioactive soil in Japan

Japan is asking people to grow sunflowers, said to help decontaminate radioactive soil, in response to the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

By Agence France-PresseFri, Jun 24 2011 at 9:04 AM EST

http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/stories/sunflowers-to-clean-radioactive-soil-in-japan

Campaigners in Japan are asking people to grow sunflowers, said to help decontaminate radioactive soil, in response to the Fukushima nuclear disaster that followed March's massive quake and tsunami.

Volunteers are being asked to grow sunflowers this year, then send the seeds to the stricken area where they will be planted next year to help get rid of radioactive contaminants in the plant's fallout zone.

The campaign, launched by young entrepreneurs and civil servants in Fukushima prefecture last month, aims to cover large areas in yellow blossoms as a symbol of hope and reconstruction and to lure back tourists

Click to read more ...

John Nichols: Obama Peddles Worst of GOP Thinking on Medicare

Published on Tuesday, July 12, 2011 by The Nation

http://www.thenation.com/blog/161927/if-obama-hikes-medicare-eligbility-age-thatll-be-12-percent-benefit-cut

If Obama Hikes Medicare Eligbility Age, That'll Be a 12 Percent Benefit Cut

by John Nichols

The word in Washington is that President Obama has, in negotiations with congressional Republicans, offered to raise the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67.
 
A report in the Washington Post quoted "a Democratic official familiar with the discussions," while other media outlets quoted multiple unnamed sources with knowledge of the talks the president and congressional leaders have been engaged in with regard to raising the debt ceiling. All the reports suggest that Obama would trade the change in the eligibility age for a Republican agreement to accept some new taxes.
 
Obama essentially acknowledged as much Monday, when he said: “I’m prepared to take significant heat from my party to get something done."
 
And rightly so.

Click to read more ...

David Korten: The Story of a New Economy

Published on Tuesday, July 12, 2011 by YES! Magazine

http://www.yesmagazine.org/blogs/david-korten/the-story-of-a-new-economy

We're in the midst of a contest of competing stories—one fabricated to serve the interests of Empire; the other an authentic story born of the experience and aspirations of ordinary people.

by David Korten

Some years ago the Filipino activist-philosopher Nicanor Perlas shared an insight with me that has since been a foundation of my work. Each of the three institutional sectors—business, government, and civil society—has its distinctive power competence. Business commands the power of money. Government commands the coercive power of the police and military. Civil society commands the power of authentic moral values communicated through authentic cultural stories. Moral authority ultimately trumps the power of money and guns. Therefore, civil society holds the ultimate power advantage. Just as stories fabricated by Wall Street are an instrument of social control, authentic stories are an instrument of liberation.

This simple frame helped me see the extent to which the global citizen resistance against the corporate misuse of multilateral trade agreements was a contest between competing stories—one fabricated to serve the interests of Empire; the other an authentic story born of the experience and aspirations of ordinary people. According to the story fabricated and promoted by Wall Street’s PR machine:

Click to read more ...

Mark Weisbrot: Why the Euro Is Not Worth Saving

Published on Tuesday, July 12, 2011 by The Guardian/UK

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/11/eurozone-crisis-euro-monetary-union

This crisis has exposed the fact that – unlike the EU itself – the eurozone's monetary union was always a rightwing project

by Mark Weisbrot

The euro is crashing to record lows against the Swiss franc, and interest rates on Italian and Spanish bonds have hit record highs. This latest episode in the eurozone crisis is a result of fears that the contagion is now hitting Italy. With a $2tn economy and $2.45tn in debt, Italy is too big to fail and the European authorities are worried.

Although there is currently little basis for the concern that Italy's interest rates could rise high enough to put its solvency in jeopardy, financial markets are acting irrationally and elevating both the fear and the prospects of a self-fulfilling prophesy. The fact that the European authorities cannot even agree on how to handle the debt of Greece – an economy less than one sixth the size of Italy – does not inspire confidence in their capacity to manage a bigger crisis.

Click to read more ...

Alyssa Battistoni: Apocalypse Investors -- How Wall Street Bets on Catastrophic Breakdowns That Destroy Lives

By Alyssa Battistoni , AlterNet
Posted on July 6, 2011, Printed on July 13, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/151551/apocalypse_investors%3A_how_wall_street_bets_on_catastrophic_breakdowns_that_destroy_lives

In the aftermath of the financial collapse, a lot was written about the schadenfreude of watching the masters of the universe take a tumble from their vaunted positions atop Wall Street. But a couple of years later, not only have the hedge fund managers and investment bankers largely reclaimed their bonuses and prestige, but they’ve somehow managed to do schadenfreude one better; instead of deriving mere pleasure at the misfortune of others, they’ve figured out how to make money off it.

Writes Azaz Ahmed in the New York Times, “so-called black swan funds — named for rare and unexpected events — offer a way to profit in the event of a market collapse.”

They may be called black swans, but they operate more like vultures, hungrily eyeing the faltering economy and waiting to swoop in to tear what’s left to shreds. Along with tail risk funds, which hedge against predictable but improbable events, black swan funds offer a way for investors to insure themselves against losses--and make a bundle selling assets bought on the cheap--in the case of rare or unexpected catastrophes, from a default in Greece to an economic slowdown in China.

These kinds of “Armageddon funds” have been in and out of the news since Nassim Taleb’s book The Black Swan topped the bestseller lists in 2007, with most of the conversation proceeding along the lines of “will this kind of investment actually make me a boatload of money or is Wall Street getting punked?”

Click to read more ...

"JOHN FEFFER" - Foreign Policy Goes Gaga

World Beat
by JOHN FEFFER | Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Vol. 6, No. 27

Foreign Policy Goes Gaga

Lady Gaga and Alice Walker don't have much in common. One dresses in red meat; the other doesn't even eat the stuff. One writes lyrics like "I want your ugly, I want your disease, I want your everything as long as it's free." The other writes The Color Purple.

But they are both cultural celebrities, and the media gravitates to them for comments. And they both have used this celebrity status to weigh in on global issues.

Alice Walker, for instance, was a passenger on the Audacity of Hope, one of the boats that tried to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza. She appeared in the first paragraph of The New York Times story on the second flotilla's formation, made her case on CNN, parried questions in a Foreign Policy interview, and prompted a disparaging Commentary commentary entitled "The Alice Walker Flotilla." Walker used her celebrity status to raise the media profile of the initiative but also to bring her own sensibility to bear on the issue. She compared the blockade-busting to the civil rights movement and spoke of her "awareness of paying off a debt to the Jewish civil rights activists who faced death to come to the side of black people in the American south in our time of need."

Click to read more ...