Elizabeth Rose - The Pentagon’s Spending Spree

Are you wondering where your tax dollars are going? Then take a look at the $642.5 billion stuffed into the National Defense Authorization Act, which the House of Representatives recently approved.

House Republicans may spout plenty of concern about the nation's budget deficit, but their version of the Pentagon's budget tops the spending levels they had agreed to a few months ago by $8 billion. It's also $4 billion above the total that President Barack Obama and the Pentagon requested.

These politicians are trying to fund Cold War-era weapons that our military doesn't want and that have been dismissed as outdated and unnecessary by the top brass — leaders like Gen. James Cartwright, the retired vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a former commander of the country's nuclear forces.

The U.S. military budget is six times that of China, and tops the next 17 highest-spending countries combined.

Military spending has played a significant role in increasing the national debt. Over the last decade, the Pentagon's budget has nearly doubled.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have also contributed to this soaring increase in defense spending and to record deficits.

The drawdown of troops from Afghanistan and Iraq should mean the Pentagon will spend less. But giant military contractors have dumped a fortune into campaign contributions and lobbying, making sure that any and all anticipated savings are going to expensive weapons systems — all paid for by you through your taxes.

Read More:

http://www.nationofchange.org/pentagon-s-spending-spree-1338198664 

Gareth Porter - U.S. Hard Line in Failed Iran Talks Driven by Israel

Negotiations between Iran and the United States and other members of the P5+1 group in Baghdad ended in fundamental disagreement Thursday over the position of the P5+1 offering no relief from sanctions against Iran.

The two sides agreed to meet again in Moscow Jun. 18 and 19, but only after Iran had threatened not to schedule another meeting, because the P5+1 had originally failed to respond properly to its five-point plan.

The prospects for agreement are not likely to improve before that meeting, however, mainly because of an inflexible U.S. diplomatic posture that reflects President Barack Obama's need to bow to the demands of Israel and the U.S. Congress on Iran policy.

The U.S. hard line in the Baghdad talks and the failure to set the stage for an early agreement with Iran means that Iran will not only increase but accelerate its accumulation of 20-percent enriched uranium, which has been the ostensible reason for wanting to get Iran to the negotiating table quickly.

Iran's enrichment to 20 percent, which Tehran has justified over the past two years as needed by its Tehran Research Reactor to produce medical isotopes, can be turned into high enriched uranium more quickly than the 3.5 percent enriched uranium for Iran's nuclear power programme.

Read More:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/gareth-porter/43412/u-s-hard-line-in-failed-iran-talks-driven-by-israel

The amazing expanding Pentagon

When President Obama and Mitt Romney cross swords on defense policy, it can sound like a schoolyard fight: Who loves the military more? Who is tougher? Who would lead a more muscular America?

This is the way we expect candidates to talk about defense: in terms of power, force, even national pride. But increasingly, when it comes to the role the Department of Defense actually plays for the nation, it misses the point. Over the past decade, the Pentagon has become far more complex than the conversation about it would suggest. What “military” means has changed sharply as the Pentagon has acquired an immense range of new expertise. What began as the world’s most lethal strike force has grown into something much more wide-ranging and influential.

Today, the Pentagon is the chief agent of nearly all American foreign policy, and a major player in domestic policy as well. Its planning staff is charting approaches not only toward China but toward Latin America, Africa, and much of the Middle East. It’s in part a development agency, and in part a diplomatic one, providing America’s main avenue of contact with Africa and with pivotal oil-producing regimes. It has convened battalions of agriculture specialists, development experts, and economic analysts that dwarf the resources at the disposal of USAID or the State Department. It’s responsible for protecting America’s computer networks. In May of this year, the Pentagon announced it was creating its own new clandestine intelligence service. And the Pentagon has emerged as a surprisingly progressive voice in energy policy, openly acknowledging climate change and funding research into renewable energy sources.

Read More:

http://articles.boston.com/2012-05-27/ideas/31837499_1_foreign-policy-pentagon-schoolyard-fight

Ethan A. Huff - Congress votes down Sen. Durbin's anti-supplement amendment, as well as Sen. Paul's freedom of health speech amendment

A sneaky, eleventh-hour attempt by Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) to essentially shut down the supplement industry alongside an amendment pertaining to prescription drug user fees has failed. In a vote of 77-20, the U.S. Senate voted to table Amendment No. 2127, which would have created "duplicative, unnecessary, and unexpected new regulations" for the supplement industry that could have resulted in many common supplements being pulled from store shelves.

To the surprise of the entire natural health community, the unveiling of Amdt. No 2127 came late Tuesday afternoon, according to the Natural Products Insider (NPI), just one day before the bill to which it was attached, S. 3187, the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act, was set for a vote. But because the natural health community immediately sprung into action to oppose Amdt. No 2127, it was successfully defeated.

"(Amdt. No 2127 is) based on the misguided presumption that the current regulatory framework for dietary supplements is flawed and that the FDA lacks authority to regulate these products," said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Ut.) on the Senate Floor, in opposition to the amendment. He added that the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA) already provisions the FDA with the tools it needs to properly regulate supplements, and that Amdt. No 2127 only "serves to punish all responsible companies with its overreaching mandates."

Read More:

http://www.naturalnews.com/035976_Dick_Durbin_supplements_Senate.html

Taylor Lincoln - Wall Street Wants Congress To Roll Back Financial Derivatives Regulations

Revisiting the lessons from deregulating derivatives is particularly important right now because Congress seems to have forgotten them. A report we just issued provides a road map of how derivatives wrecked the economy in 2008 and could do so again if Wall Street gets its way.

Nine bills that would roll back the derivatives reforms created in the wake of the financial crisis are moving in Congress. These proposals, most of which have already passed in committee, have been put forth in the name of furthering the competitiveness of U.S. companies and creating jobs for Main Street. These are quite brazen claims, since deregulating derivatives arguably did more to harm economic competitiveness and job creation than anything Congress has done for a very long time.

Here is the history, in brief: At the end of the Clinton administration, financial derivatives were relatively new and sat in a regulatory netherworld. In practice, they were not regulated. But they bore all the hallmarks of traditional futures, which by law must be traded on regulated exchanges.

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and successive Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers (a trio Time magazine dubbed The Committee to Save the World) argued that financial derivatives investors were too “sophisticated” to require oversight. Regulating derivatives would “cause the worst financial crisis since World War II,” Summers claimed.

Read More:

http://www.alternet.org/story/155528/wall_street_wants_congress_to_roll_back_financial_derivatives_regulations

Paul Greenberg - The Clean Water Act at 40: There’s Still Much Left to Do

When you turn 40, three questions inevitably arise:
1) Who am I?
2) What have I done?
3) What else can I do?

Forty years ago, the U.S. Congress, in an uncharacteristically uncowardly move, overwhelmingly overrode President Nixon’s veto and passed the most powerful law for the protection of water in American (and perhaps world) history. Yes, this year the Clean Water Act officially enters its midlife crisis years.

Since it is a law, and not a person, we won’t expect it to buy a red sports car and hook up with another law half its age. But having aged and weathered and yet oftentimes stood firm against its adversaries even if its knees became not quite what they used to be, it is worth asking this much buffeted piece of legislation in its 40th year, the three essential questions of mid-life.

So, to begin with, Clean Water Act, who are you?

Read More:

http://e360.yale.edu/feature/the_clean_water_act_at_40_theres_still_much_left_to_do/2532/

Lee Drutman - The changing complexity of congressional speech

Congress now speaks at almost a full grade level lower than it did just seven years ago, with the most conservative members of Congress speaking on average at the lowest grade level, according to a new Sunlight Foundation analysis of the Congressional Record using Capitol Words.

Of course, what some might interpret as a dumbing down of Congress, others will see as more effective communications. And lawmakers of both parties still speak above the heads of the average American, who reads at between an 8^th and 9^th grade level.

Today’s Congress speaks at about a 10.6 grade level, down from 11.5 in 2005. By comparison, the U.S. Constitution is written at a 17.8 grade level, the Federalist Papers at a 17.1 grade level, and the Declaration of Independence at a 15.1 grade level. The Gettysburg Address comes in at an 11.2 grade level and Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech is at a 9.4 grade level. Most major newspapers are written at between an 11^th and 14^thgrade level. (You can find more comparisons here)

All these analyses use the Flesch-Kincaid test, which produces the 'reads at a n-th grade level' terminology that is likely familiar to many readers. At its core, Flesch-Kincaid equates higher grade levels with longer words and longer sentences. It is important to understand the limitations of this metric: it tells us nothing about the clarity or correctness of a passage of text. But although an admittedly crude tool, Flesch-Kincaid can nonetheless provide insights into how different legislators speak, and how Congressional speech has been changing.

To see how different legislators rank, click here for a full database of all current members of Congress.

To see how many top SAT words lawmakers speak, click here.

Read More:

http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2012/05/21/congressional-speech/

Top Obama Officials, Secretive Process Create 'Assassination List'

US officials with firsthand knowledge of how the government determines who gets put on the CIA and Pentagon's lists for 'targeted killing' have confessed concern over the implications and nature of the process.  In conversations with the Associated Press, one official involved -- who spoke with assurances of anonymity -- said that some of those carrying out the policy have become leery of "how easy it has become to kill someone," under the rules established under the Obama administration and orchestrated by Obama's top counter-terrorism adviser, John Brennan.

Brennan, who last month offered the first public admission by a White House official of the existence of the clandestine drone assassination program in places like Pakistan and Yemen, has amassed unique powers by consolidating the decision-making process to a select and tightly-controlled group of people, according to AP's reporting.

"Under the new plan, Brennan's staff compiles the potential target list and runs the names past agencies such as the State Department at a weekly White House meeting," the report cites officials as describing. "Previously, targets were first discussed in meetings run by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen at the time, with Brennan being just one of the voices in the debate. Brennan ultimately would make the case to the president, but a larger number of officials would end up drawn into the discussion."

Read More:

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/05/22-2

Bernie Sanders - Let's End Polluter Welfare

A time when we have more than $15 trillion national debt, American taxpayers are set to give away over $110 billion dollars to the oil, gas, and coal industries over the next decade. Clearly, we cannot afford it. When the five largest oil companies made over $1 trillion in profits in the last decade, with some paying no federal income taxes for part of that time, they certainly do not need it. 

It is time we end this corporate welfare in the form of massive subsidies and tax breaks to hugely profitable fossil fuel corporations. It is time for Congress to support the interests of the taxpayer instead of powerful special interests like the oil and coal industries. That is why I joined with Congressman Keith Ellison to introduce legislation in the Senate and the House called the End Polluter Welfare Act. Our proposal is backed by grassroots and public-interest organizations including 350.org, Friends of the Earth, Taxpayers for Common Sense, and many others.

It is immoral that some in Congress advocate savage cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security while those same people vote to preserve billions in tax breaks for Exxon Mobil which is the most profitable corporation in America. It is equally obscene that as those members of Congress fight to continue never-ending fossil fuel subsidies worth tens of billions, they are working overtime to deny a one-year extension for key sustainable energy incentives for the emerging wind and solar industries. Instead of passing strong legislation to help reverse global warming, Congress continues the giveaways to the 200-year-old fossil fuel industry even as that industry's carbon pollution wreaks devastation on our planet. Enough is enough. 

Read More:

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Let-s-End-Polluter-Welfare-by-Bernie-Sanders-120521-833.html

Dean Baker - Mortgage and Securitization Fraud: Where Is the Task Force?

It was almost four years ago that Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke, Treasury Secretary Henry Paul Paulson, and then New York Fed Bank President Timothy Geithner ran to Congress warning that the end of the world was near. They told members of Congress that the banks were drowning in bad debt and without a massive bailout they would soon be forced into bankruptcy. Congress quickly coughed up the money in the form of $700 billion in TARP loans. The Fed contributed trillions more.

Undoubtedly most of the bad debt was due to stupidity, which does not seem to be in short supply on Wall Street despite the high paychecks. The folks running the major banks somehow could not see the largest asset bubble in the history of the world. The fact that house prices had risen by more than 70 percent above their trend level, with no plausible explanation in the fundamentals of the housing market, did not trouble these high-flyers.

But there was more than just stupidity involved here. There was an epidemic of mortgage fraud that was identified by the FBI as early as 2004. The general story was that the big subprime issuers were pushing their agents to issue as many mortgages as possible, because they knew that they could sell almost any mortgage the next day in the secondary market. As a result, many mortgage agents put down information that they knew to be false, often changing information provided by applicants to allow borrowers to get mortgages for which they were not actually qualified.

Read More:

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Mortgage-and-Securitizatio-by-Dean-Baker-120522-871.html