"EJ Dionne" - The Tea Party Is Yesterday’s News

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_tea_party_is_yesterdays_news_20110525/

Posted on May 25, 2011 - By E.J. Dionne, Jr.

When Richard Nixon won his 49-state landslide over George McGovern in 1972, Pauline Kael, the legendary New Yorker film critic, was moved to observe: “I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon.”

All of us can have our vision distorted by the special worlds we live in, and what was a problem for Kael in 1972 is now an enormous obstacle for conservative Republicans.

Both the leaders and rank-and-file of the Republican Party devoutly believe “the people” gave them a mandate last November to slash government, including that big-government health care program known as Medicare. And never mind that many Republican candidates in 2010 criticized President Obama’s health care law for reducing Medicare expenditures.

More than that: They see their mandate as including an obligation to oppose any tax increases, period, even if more revenue is essential to balancing the federal budget in the long run. “This House will not support tax hikes,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said flatly this week. So much for a grand bipartisan deal on deficits.

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“Tirivangani Masawi” - Pentagon Plan To Muscle Out China: New Scramble For Africa

By Tirivangani Masawi

Global Research, May 28, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25014

Windhoek: Southern Africa has become the battle ground for a new scramble for resources, with the United States seeking to muscle out Chinese influence so as to secure strategic minerals - mainly for its military.

More frightening is the possibility of the US military itself becoming involved in securing these strategic minerals within the next 20 years.

According to a study by Dr Stephen Burgess, a Zimbabwean-born associate professor at the US Air War College, Washington may have to enlist the services of the Department of Defence, the National Security Agency and the Africa Command (AFRICOM) to secure Southern Africa's resources.

His study, titled 'Sustainability of Strategic Minerals in Southern Africa and Potential Conflicts and Partnerships', says the US should move quickly to secure Southern Africa's uranium, manganese, platinum, chrome, cobalt and rare earth minerals for America's industrial needs and for its military as well as maintenance of weapons systems.

The study focuses on resource accessibility in the DRC, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe and draws parallels with the 1880s scramble for Africa.

To triumph in this new scramble, Burgess notes, 'all instruments of (US) power' must be deployed.

Burgess visited all these countries – except Zimbabwe – and makes recommendations on how the US can muscle out China.

He interviewed mining sector experts, government officials and journalists as part of his research.

There were also consultations with American institutions such as the Defence National Stock Pile Centre, the Defence Logistics Agency and the Marine Corps Command.

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"Progressive Radio Network Host Carol Brouillet, Thursday @ 5pm" - Into Eternity - Nuclear Past, Present and Future

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/05/27/18680563.php

Into Eternity - Nuclear Past, Present and Future
by Carol Brouillet ( cbrouillet [at] igc.org )

An award winning Danish film, Into Eternity will be screening this weekend in San Francisco. The film peers into the daunting question of containing the nuclear waste produced by the nuclear industry. With the situation in Fukushima out of control, concerned citizens are forced to confront the reality of the radioactive contamination of air, water, soil, food, ocean and the possibility of the nuclear disasters continuing and worsening, promoted by pro-nuclear governments. Citizens are mobilizing to monitor radioactivity and to shut down the nuclear industry.

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"Thomas Naylor" - Greed, Glitz and Gluttony

http://counterpunch.org/naylor05272011.html

By THOMAS H. NAYLOR

Although I can claim no kinship with McGill University Professor R. T. (Thomas) Naylor, whom I have never met, I am an admirer of his work as an economist, a historian, a criminologist, and a political journalist.  Even though he tackles very weighty problems, Thomas Naylor skillfully manages to find the humor and the irony in the dark side of life.  His latest book,Crass Struggle: Greed, Glitz, and Gluttony in a Wanna-Have World, is no exception to the rule. 

Crass Struggle is about how the ultra-rich respond to the human condition, namely, separation, meaninglessness, powerlessness, and fear of death, as well as the devastating global social, economic, and environmental consequences of their behavior.  For those in the top 1 percent of the world’s population who own 50 percent of the world’s wealth, life is all about having – owning, possessing, manipulating and controlling money, power, people, and things – very expensive things such as precious metals, gemstones, diamonds, art objects, historical artifacts, rare coins, fine wines, Cuban cigars, scarce fish, exotic birds, wild animals, and elephant tusks.

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"NaturalNews.com" - Fraudulent organics from China spell safety hazards for U.S. consumers

NaturalNews.com  May 31, 2011

http://www.naturalnews.com/032563_China_organic_produce.html

(NaturalNews) Three years ago, Chinese baby formula tainted with Melamine caused the death of six infants and over 300,000 serious injuries. After initially suppressing the information, the Chinese government made a grand gesture of eradicating the problem. The company was shut down. Some executives were even put to death. The epidemic, however, was not.

The scandal reared its head earlier this year, when the product line was placed back into circulation in China. Innumerable parents stood helplessly by as their toddlers developed kidney stones caused by the same Melamine-laced formula that they had hoped to consider a notorious and dark part of their country's history.

Many citizens in China are only too aware of the food safety issues that are still rampant in their country. Verna Yu, a writer in Hong Kong, reported to the New York Times a brief history of the health issues that have plagued Chinese food safety, placing the scandal in a nightmarish context: "...there had been plenty of food scares floating around: The fake baby formula killed 12 babies in 2004, the carcinogenic food-coloring that found its way into many food products in 2005, not to mention fake eggs, fake vaccines and flour tainted with powdered lime."

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"Alliance for Natural Health" - How the American Dietetic Association is Strengthening its Monopoly

http://www.anh-usa.org/how-the-american-dietetic-association-is-strengthening-its-monopoly/

Alliance for Natural Health,  May 10, 2011

The ADA is clever. It gets legislation passed under the radar, when no one is looking. And natural health nutritionists are getting a rotten deal.

As we reported a few weeks ago ^[1], the American Dietetic Association (ADA) has sponsored legislation in over 40 states. These bills usually lump dietitians and nutritionists into one licensing scheme, and require nutritionists to complete a dietitian program in order to practice nutritional therapy. Even if the nutritionist holds a Masters or a PhD in nutrition, the nutritionist is still required to complete registration through the ADA in order to keep practicing.

This is the organization that lists among its corporate sponsors soft drink giants Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, cereal manufacturers General Mills and Kellogg’s, candy maker Mars, and Unilever, the multinational corporation that owns many of the world’s consumer products brands in foods and beverages.

The ADA’s legislative manipulations are able to go undetected because it takes years for a bill to go through the regulatory phase and be implemented—so few people become aware of the full consequences of the law. Moreover, the ADA hasn’t yet “pulled the trigger” sending out cease-and-desist letters to nutritionists everywhere telling them they can no longer practice—but you can rest assured this will happen, as soon as the organization has its monopoly firmly established. In the meantime they go on to lobby for new legislation in other states.

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“Stuart Biggs and Yuriy Humber” - Tepco Failed to Disclose Scale of Fukushima Radiation Leaks, Academics Say

Global Research, May 28, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25018

Bloomberg. By Stuart Biggs and Yuriy Humber - May 27, 2011

As a team from the International Atomic Energy Agency visits Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s crippled nuclear plant today, academics warn the company has failed to disclose the scale of radiation leaks and faces a “massive problem” with contaminated water.

The utility known as Tepco has been pumping cooling water into the three reactors that melted down after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. By May 18, almost 100,000 tons of radioactive water had leaked into basements and other areas of the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant. The volume of radiated water may double by the end of December and will cost 42 billion yen ($518 million) to decontaminate, according to Tepco’s estimates.

“Contaminated water is increasing and this is a massive problem,” Tetsuo Iguchi, a specialist in isotope analysis and radiation detection at Nagoya University, said by phone. “They need to find a place to store the contaminated water and they need to guarantee it won’t go into the soil.”

The 18-member IAEA team, led by the U.K.’s head nuclear safety inspector, Mike Weightman, is visiting the Fukushima reactors to investigate the accident and the response. Tepco and Japan’s nuclear regulators haven’t updated the total radiation leakage from the plant since April 12.

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"Kevin Drum" - Why the Democratic Party Has Abandoned the Middle Class in Favor of the Rich

By Kevin Drum, Mother Jones
Posted on May 27, 2011, Printed on May 30, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/151108/why_the_democratic_party_has_abandoned_the_middle_class_in_favor_of_the_rich

The following article first appeared in Mother Jones. For more great content from Mother Jones, sign up for their free email updates here.

In 2008, a liberal Democrat was elected president. Landslide votes gave Democrats huge congressional majorities. Eight years of war and scandal and George W. Bush had stigmatized the Republican Party almost beyond redemption. A global financial crisis had discredited the disciples of free-market fundamentalism, and Americans were ready for serious change.

Or so it seemed. But two years later, Wall Street is back to earning record profits, and conservatives are triumphant. To understand why this happened, it's not enough to examine polls and tea parties and the makeup of Barack Obama's economic team. You have to understand how we fell so short, and what we rightfully should have expected from Obama's election. And you have to understand two crucial things about American politics.

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“Ellen Brown” - Japan Shows How to Defuse Debt Time-bomb

By Ellen Brown

Global Research, May 29, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25035

[T]hreatening to default should not be a partisan issue. In view of all the hazards it entails, one wonders why any responsible person would even flirt with the idea. - Alan S. Blinder, Princeton professor of economics, former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve

A game of Russian roulette is being played with the national debt ceiling.  Fire the wrong chamber of the gun, and the result could be the second Great Depression.

The first Great Depression led to totalitarian dictatorships, war to consolidate power, and concentrations of capital in the hands of a financial elite.  The trigger was a default on the global reserve currency, in that case the pound sterling.  The U.S. dollar is now the global reserve currency.  The concern is that default could create the same sort of global panic today.  Dark visions are evoked of the President declaring a national emergency, FEMA plans locking into place, camps being readied for protesters, and the secret government taking over . . . .

This may all just be political theater, but do we really want to get close enough to the economic precipice to find out?  The conservative ideologues toying with the debt ceiling are doing it to force cuts in the budget, a budget that was already approved by Congress.  Congress is being held hostage by a radical minority pushing a risky agenda, one that is based on an economic model that is obsolete. 

High-stakes Gambling

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"Michael Hudson" - Breakup of the Eurozone?

http://counterpunch.org/hudson05272011.html

By MICHAEL HUDSON

Last month Iceland voted against submitting to British and Dutch demands that it compensate their national bank insurance agencies for bailing out their own domestic Icesave depositors. This was the second vote against settlement (by a ratio of 3:2), and Icelandic support for membership in the Eurozone has fallen to just 30 per cent. The feeling is that European politics are being run for the benefit of bankers, not the social democracy that Iceland imagined was the guiding philosophy – as indeed it was when the European Economic Community (Common Market) was formed in 1957.

By permitting Britain and the Netherlands to blackball Iceland to pay for the mistakes of Gordon Brown and his Dutch counterparts, Europe has made Icelandic membership conditional upon imposing financial austerity and poverty on the population – all to pay money that legally it does not owe. The problem is to find an honest court willing to enforce Europe’s own banking laws placing responsibility where it legally lies.

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