Robert Reich - The Precarious Jobs Recovery

February’s  227,000 net new jobs – the third month in a row of job gains well in excess of 200,000 – is good news for President Obama and bad news for Mitt Romney.

Jobs are coming back fast enough to blunt Republican attacks against Obama on the economy and to rob Romney of the issue he’d prefer to be talking about in his primary battle against social conservatives in the GOP.

But jobs aren’t coming back fast enough to significantly reduce the nation’s backlog of 10 million jobs. That backlog consists of 5.3 million lost during the recession and another 4.7 million that needed to have been added just to keep up with the growth of the working-age population since the recession began.

Read More:

http://robertreich.org/post/19010110577

Bo Cutter - The Coming Economic Growth Collapse

We are about to see an abrupt slowdown in economic growth this year and next. It will be a policy-induced slowdown, not some mysterious event caused by aliens. We have delayed obvious policy actions for so long now that a slowdown is virtually inevitable. There is absolutely no room — or inclination, so far as I can see — for a compromise between the two parties that might conceivably change this outcome. We have pushed more and more major decisions into the post-election lame duck congressional session, making a policy “accident” (and there are no good accidents) more and more likely. This slowdown, which will begin in the second half of 2012 and extend through 2013, could happen rapidly enough to influence the 2012 presidential election. And it certainly won’t help President Obama.

The story begins with a still fragile and low-level economic recovery. President Obama’s budget projects 2.7 percent growth for 2012 and 3 percent for 2013. These are very low growth numbers after a recession as major as the one we just lived through. But I’ve always thought they were too high. As a comparison, the CBO, a public source of economic forecasts, and Merrill Lynch, a private source, are each projecting much lower growth. For example, in its most recent weekly research report, Merrill projects growth of 2 percent this year and 1.4 percent in 2013. The CBO is even lower. So our base economic picture is one of very low growth.

Read More:

http://www.newdeal20.org/2012/03/01/the-coming-economic-growth-collapse-73253/?utm_source=New+Deal+2.0+newsletter&utm_campaign=0b27fa080a-ND20_Weekly_3_1_123_1_2012&utm_medium=email

White House refuses to reveal ties with Monsanto

Despite requests made under the Freedom of Information Act for correspondence out of the White House, the Obama administration is refusing to comply with calls to disclose discussions with Monsanto-linked lobbyists.

The US-based non-profit group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) is demanding that the White House comply with a FOIA request for information that might link the Obama administration with lobbyists tied to the Monsanto corporation. Monsanto, an agricultural biotech company that rakes in billions each year, has become the enemy of independent farmers in recent years after the corporation has sued hundreds of small-time growers and, in many cases, purchased farms that are unable to compete in a court of law. As Monsanto’s profits grow and the group comes close to monopolizing the market for American agriculture, the company has at the same time thrived due its use of controversial genetically-engineered seeds.

Read More:

http://rt.com/usa/news/white-house-monsanto-peer-991/

Steven Forrest - The War on Terror: How it is Affecting Our Politics and Society Today

Retrospect is an amazing thing.  Decisions rendered in the past can many times be looked at with this tool of reason in order to protect against future mistakes. It also gives one the opportunity to recognize the motives for decisions made by others in situations which seemed at the time, confusing or conflicted.  Given the religiously charged, national security centered, political frenzy of late in the race to reclaim the Presidency, the War on Terror and the rhetoric accompanying it, now more than ever, makes poignant sense.

Post 9-11, America experienced a wave of legislative acts to combat terrorism. With these acts, political propaganda and media manipulation began to promote a wave of nationalism not seen since World War II. The cries for a Christian rebirth to battle the "evil empire" both domestically and abroad had surfaced and with it, a new form of control over the people's opinions and actions which we still today, are having to battle. In retrospect, these events were the beginning of not only our National march toward an offense-oriented military policy abroad and a police state at home but the surge of Christian Reconstructionism as well, introducing a Constitution-crushing march toward the militaristic and theocratic blindness we are experiencing now.

Read More:

http://dailycensored.com/2012/03/03/the-war-on-terror-how-it-is-affecting-our-politics-and-society-today/

Chris Hedges - AIPAC Works for the 1 Percent

The battle for justice in the Middle East is our battle. It is part of the vast, global battle against the 1 percent. It is about living rather than dying. It is about communicating rather than killing. It is about love rather than hate. It is part of the great battle against the corporate forces of death that reign over us—the fossil fuel industry, the weapons manufacturers, the security and surveillance state, the speculators on Wall Street, the oligarchic elites who assault our poor, our working men and women, our children, one in four of whom depend on food stamps to eat, the elites who are destroying our ecosystem with its trees, its air and its water and throwing into doubt our survival as a species.

What is being done in Gaza, the world’s largest open-air prison, is a pale reflection of what is slowly happening to the rest of us. It is a window into the rise of the global security state, our new governing system that the political philosopher Sheldon Wolin calls “inverted totalitarianism.” It is a reflection of a world where the powerful are not bound by law, either on Wall Street or in the shattered remains of the countries we invade and occupy, including Iraq with its hundreds of thousands of dead. And one of the greatest purveyors of this demented ideology of violence for the sake of violence, this flagrant disregard for the rule of domestic and international law, is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC.

Read More:

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/aipac_works_for_the_1_percent_20120304/

Jonathan Turley - So, Eric Holder, we should just trust that the president won't assassinate us?

Attorney General Eric Holder was at Northwestern University law school Monday explaining President Barack Obama's claimed authority to kill any American if he unilaterally determines them to be a threat to the nation. The choice of a law school was a curious place for discussion of authoritarian powers. Obama has replaced the constitutional protections afforded to citizens with a "trust me" pledge that Holder repeated Monday at Northwestern.

The good news is that Holder promised not to hunt citizens for sport. Holder proclaimed that:

Read More:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/mar/06/eric-holder-trust-targeted-assassination

Ralph Nader: Obama Can Do More On Oil Prices

Gasoline and heating oil prices are ratcheting up. In California, some motorists are paying over $5 per gallon. President Obama declared that “there is no quick fix” for this problem. Meanwhile, the hapless but howling Republicans are blaming him for the fuel surge as if he is a price control czar.

Indeed, President Obama has some proper power to cool off retail petroleum prices. David Stockman, President Ronald Reagan’s Budget Director, said it plainly on CNN last week, “Stop beating the war drums right now [against Iran], and Obama could do that, and he could say the neocons are history.” Having done his stint on Wall Street, Stockman knows that war talk by the war hawks inside and outside of our government is just what the speculators on the New York Mercantile Exchange want to hear as they bid up the price. Your gasoline prices are not charging up due to strains between supply and demand. Speculation, with those notorious derivatives and swaps, is what is poking larger holes in your fuel budget, according to Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement lawyers. The too-big-to-fail Wall Street gamblers – Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, and Morgan Stanley – are at it again.

Read More:

http://www.eurasiareview.com/07032012-ralph-nader-obama-can-do-more-on-oil-prices-oped/

Gary Null - Let Us Stop The Blame

by Gary Null
Progressive Radio Network, February 13, 2012

One of the most famous examples of journalist integrity, that has served as exemplar of how journalism can correct wrongs and bring justice to bear, is the story of Emile Zola – a French naturalist writer and supporter of political liberalization in the latter half of the nineteenth century.

The case involves a Captain Alfred Dreyfus, an artillery officer in the French army who happened to have been Jewish. Following a scandal of French military secrets reaching the German embassy, growing anti-semitism convicted Drefus on charges of treason leading to his imprisonment on Devil’s Island in French Guiana.  Although evidence was available to implicate another officer, the right wing French government and media refuted it and continued with its original verdict against Dreyfus. Even the French officer, Lt. Colonel Picquart who uncovered the officer who was the real spy, was sentenced to serve a term in a prison.

Taking up the cause on behalf of Captain Dreyfus, Emile Zola risked his career by composing an article entitled – J’accuse – I accuse – that was printed on the front page of Paris’ daily. His article accused the highest echelons of French military and justice, and even the Church which held consider power in France, of anti-Semitism and corruption in accusing Dreyfus.  For his sense of justice, Zola was convicted for criminal libel, but rather than serving prison time, he had fled to England and didn’t return to France until the right wing French administration fell.  Almost a decade later, Zola was finally pardoned of all charges and became the hero standing up against corruption he rightfully deserved.

Who is our Emile Zola today in mainstream media?  Who is it that holds the facts to accuse those who falsify truth for their own profit, gain, influence and power, who speaks on behalf of citizens against those with the means and control to profit from them?

Before we continue our myth that 99 percent of Americans sleep on the side of angels and the other 1 percent bask with devils, we need to ask ourselves why we constantly blame others for the choices we permit those who we select, listen to, admire in power, to make on our behalf.

What would happen if we stopped blaming the Clinton administration and Phil Graham for eviscerating the Glass-Steagall Act, altering the Commodity Futures Trading act and neutering the SEC to assure Wall Street that no one among the banking elite would be subject to scandals leading to legal actions? Nor should we therefore blame Wall Street for its holding 100 trillion in credit default swaps and derivatives to continue their casino gambling.  

So let us stop blaming the attorney generals from all states for penalizing hundreds of banks and thousands of individuals, who engaged in criminal behavior – such as liar loans and robo-signing – with miniscule fines.  

Let us not blame the Federal Reserve for dishing out $16 trillion of taxpayer guaranteed loans with toxic valued assets and collateral at 0.25 interest across 20,000 transactions to domestic and foreign banks, hedge funds, and major corporations

Let us stop blaming Barack Obama and his administration for hiring only former Washington insiders from both the Clinton and Bush administrations to continue the entrenchment of corporate power in our policy decision making.

We must also stop blaming credit card companies who receive government loans at 0.25 percent and are permitted to debit cardholders at 29 percent or more for mispayments.
Let us not blame Walmart and major corporations from important cheap, toxic products manufactured with slave labor.

Let us not blame the economic experts who to this day paint a distorted picture of our recovery and growing economy.

Let us not blame the love-fests of the global elite at DAVOS and the Business Roundtable who believe their power, wealth and class status permit them to devise and direct our domestic and international policies.

Let us not blame the president and congress failing to implement a moratorium on home foreclosures and providing small businesses that qualify with no-interest loans, which could provide employment to millions of Americans.  

Let us forgive corporate America’s celebration of financial profits from off shoring jobs while having closed down over 50,000 factories in the US during the past dozen years and at the same time importing HB-1 foreign workers to replace 8.4 million educated American workers for lesser pay.
Neither should we blame Barack Obama for exonerating all the crimes of Bush-Cheney and their accomplices for knowingly creating secret intelligence offices in the Vice President office, which bypassed our national security apparatus, in order to divine a rationale for going to war in the Middle East.
As a constitutional scholar, let us not blame Obama for undermining our constitutional liberties by supporting the Patriot act, the Homeland Security act, FISA and the new National Defense Authorization Act that consolidates more power over Americans within the White House.  

Let us not blame the American Legislative Exchange Council or ALEC for manipulating state legislators to support bills and policies that would overturn and alter existing laws for financial gain to the ruling elite and the political campaigns of those who support them.  

Let us not blame the lobbyists, private consultants and experts, many of whom are former members of Congress or government agencies, who draft legislation that benefits their industries at the cost of the public good.

Let us not blame the military industrial intelligence-gathering industry for its massive financial fraud and redundant operations amounting to approximately $1.3 trillion annually when only $250 billion is necessary to keep Americans safe.  

Let us not blame the Bush and Obama administrations for neglecting 12 million hungry American children, the over 50 million citizens in deep poverty and the other 50 million working poor. And in the meantime, lets forgive the government for intentionally manipulating unemployment figures for political gain.

Let us not blame the House , Senate and the White House for supporting off shore oil drilling and billions of dollars in subsidies for clean coal, nuclear and hydrofracking natural gas while ignoring the cleaner more efficient geothermal and wave energy technologies.

Let us not blame any of the last five administrations for encouraging the FDA and the USDA to denounce complementary approaches for the prevention and treatment of disease while aligning federal health policies with the greed of Big Pharma and private insurance carriers who virtually write our healthcare programs, including Medicare, and prevents government from purchasing inexpensive generic drugs in order to reap an additional $1 trillion in profits.

Let us not blame our Surgeon General and our Secretary of Health and Human Services failing to offer alternative healthcare choices nationwide.  Rather, we should forgive the FDA its attacks on the natural and supplement industries, even preventing those who grow cherries and walnuts from suggesting these foods can actually prevent certain illnesses.

And while we are at it, let us forgive the FDA for permitting known pharmaceutical drugs that have maimed and killed thousands of patients to continue to be advertized and prescribed to patients.
Let us not blame American medicine for being the number one cause of death in the US while ignoring any criticism about its methodologies, drug’s evidence for efficacy and safety, and the regulatory approval processes.

Let us not blame the psychiatric industry for creating non-existent mental disorders, such as Oppositional Defiance Disorder, in order to increase medication rates and drug sale profits.  
Let us not blame the mental health centers in our inner cities for spearheading community programs to diagnose upward to 80 percent of children and young adults through erroneous test batteries such as Teen Screen to increase positive medical diagnoses.  

Let us not blame mainstream media for offering products that promote disease such as obesity and diabetes in children and adults.

Let us not blame the five past administrations for pushing neoliberal free-market globalization practices in their for globalization. Nor should we blame the IMF for the consequences of its draconian rules and structural readjustments opening markets in poor nations for foreign economic colonization.

Let us not blame the FBI, CIA and Homeland Securities for the militarization of our domestic police forces and their intrusion into our lives without warrant or due-process, including their punishing the dissent of peaceful environmental and social protesters who find themselves on enemy terrorist FBI watch lists.  
And lets forgive the dismal failures behind our government’s sanctioned domestic wars – the war on drugs, the war on cancer, the war against poverty, the war on terrorism – that serve only the high and mighty who profit from their bankrupt agendas.

Let us stop blaming the immense profits to private corporations running our prisons and the hidden agendas to incarcerate more Americans for minor misdemeanors and increase class warfare and renew Jim Crow racism with new forms of segregation.

Let us stop blaming teachers for graduating illiterate students and their curriculums designed by private corporations that never challenge students to have the intellectual skills to be independent, creative thinking human beings.  

Let us not blame the American media for failing to look honestly at economic  bubbles – equity partnerships, hedge funds, subprime and commercial market - -and then warning citizens in advance.
Let us not blame the producers within the entertainment industry who inundate us with vulgar, mind-numbing, violent programs and movies carries American culture to the bottom of etiquette, manners, decency and the ethics.

We must also forgive the agro-industrial complex -- the Monsantos and Duponts of the world -- who seek the monopolization of the global food supply and manipulate its control through genetic engineering of seeds.  

We must forgive all corporations who contribute to the pollution and destruction of our environment.
Let us cease blaming the corporate Democrats and the corporate Republicans and their mouthpieces in the media promulgating rigid ideologies that only serve the interests of those in power and not the common people.

Let us stop blaming the US military for causing the permanent disability and death of countless elderly, parents and children in the Middle East and forgive our media’s refusal to acknowledge their suffering.
Finally let us forgive all the administrations from JFK forward who expanded the military industrial complex for a global imperial outreach, sugar coated in the rhetoric of freedom and democracy, while simultaneously supporting dictators and despots around the world.

Let us also not blame the Republicans for claiming to represent smaller, efficient government while supporting the largest social welfare system in history for large banks and major corporations in the form of grotesque bailouts and subsidies.

When we cease to blame government, banks, corporations, the media and influential policy makers and opinion leaders for the choices we have made, then we must ask what personal and collective responsibilities are there for the plight and crises the nation is in?  Since our current system of governance is beyond reform from within the system itself, are we then capable of dissociating ourselves from it?

And we should pay attention to those who accept the torch of Emile Zola’s courage to speak truth to power and accuse those who deny freedom and democracy throughout the nation.  We do have our Zola’s in the voices of Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg, Tom Engelhardt, Alan Grayson, Chris Hedges, Michael Hudson, Naomi Klein, Bill McKibben, Ralph Nader, Greg Palast, Dylan Ratigan, Robert Reich, Rebecca Solnit, David Swanson, and others.

At this present moment, individuals identifying themselves as progressives and independents represent 41 percent of the population. If you are among this group, you are in the majority exceeding official Democrats and Republicans.  Therefore it is for us to decide, individually and collectively, what standards of ethically based policies and democratic structures should be fought for as we move forward.

Otherwise, just continue to watch Fox and the major networks in order to perpetuate the Manichaean myth of 99 versus 1 so the blame-game can live on. 

Ruth Marcus - Obama and Romney Exhibit Striking Similarities

The general election is shaping up as a contest between two remarkably similar men.

Not ideologically. Despite the Newt Gingrich-peddled notion that “there really is no difference” between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, the gulf in political philosophy is enormous.

Both men, left to their own devices, would occupy a centrist place within their own parties. But Obama envisions a far more muscular role for government in general and the federal government in particular. Romney’s faith is primarily — excessively, in my view — in the free market.

Still, assuming that Romney becomes the Republican nominee, the two candidates will share surprisingly similar temperaments and habits of mind. They are different from the standard-issue politician — both are more aloof than gregarious, more cerebral than impassioned.

Read More:

http://www.nationofchange.org/obama-and-romney-exhibit-striking-similarities-1328804179

Greg Palast - Queen of Angels’ Condoms

I arrived into this world at the Queen of Angels hospital in Los Angeles into the hands of Dr. Sidney Kolodny. Queen of Angels, judging by the number of nun-nurses running about, is a Catholic hospital.

Dr. Kolodny was Jewish.

Last night, I heard Senator Rick Santorum tell us that President Obama has attacked Catholics and freedom of religion by barring church-controlled businesses from excluding contraception care in their employees' health plans. Joining the shriek-fest against the president's decision, the sanctimonious little ex-senator prattled on about big bad government crushing religious freedom.

That's just arse-backwards.

Read More:

http://www.gregpalast.com/queen-of-angels-condoms/#more-5702