New Breitbart "investigation" reveals his dishonesty

Andrew Breitbart has no problem lying to his readers, especially if he can score points against progressives. Breitbart's website BigGovernment.com is famous for promoting heavily edited videos that turn truth on its head that are produced by anti-abortion rights activist Lila Rose and falsely claiming that the video proves that Planned Parenthood engages in systemic criminal activities. In 2009, Breitbart promoted heavily edited tapes that he falsely claimed showed systematic corruption at the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) related to child prostitution and sex trafficking. In 2010, Breitbart posted heavily edited video of Shirley Sherrod speaking at an NAACP function and falsely suggested that Sherrod discriminated against a white farmer in her capacity as the Agriculture Department's Georgia Director of Rural Development. This video caused her to lose her job, but Sherrod is now suing Breitbart.

Then in April, just a week after he promised to "go after the teachers and the union organizers," his website started running a series of choppy, heavily edited videos taken from labor studies courses taught at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and the University of Missouri-Kansas City by this week’s guest, Judy Ancel and a colleague, Don Giljim. Ancel is the Director of UMKC's Institute for Labor Studies.

Breitbart's posts promoting these videos claim, among other things, that the professors "instruct students on how fear, intimidation, and, even, industrial sabotage are important and, often, necessary tools," and that they teach their students that the US flag is "racist."  But as listeners will hear, this is just another lie by a right-wing fanatic as Ancel exposes Breitbart's tactics and his dishonesty on this week’s show.

To read Ancel's statement on the Breitbart sting visit: http://stlactivisthub.blogspot.com/2011/04/judy-ancels-statements-on.html.

Read Media Matters for America's statement on Breitbart's attack on Ancel and Don Giljum at http://mediamatters.org/blog/201104290020.

Kansas City Star article: Judy Ancel and colleague were framed by Breitbart

Yahoo News: KC university supports lecturer in video flap

Here's the link to the Institute's report on the mining operations in Cananea, Mexico -  Crossing Borders to Cananea: High Stakes and Teachable Moments

MP3 File

Clippings for 25 February 2011

Plutocracy Now: What Wisconsin Is Really About

Kevin Drum writes for Mother Jones: "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." Illustration: Jason Schneider

It's the Inequality, Stupid: Eleven Charts that Explain Everything that's Wrong with America
Dave Gilson and Carolyn Perot report for Mother Jones:

Recommended Audio: The Breakdown - Why Aren't Corporations Paying Their Taxes?

While pressure mounts for both sides of the aisle to pursue more fiscally-responsible budget plans in Washington and around the country, many are rightly wondering why generating more revenue from uncollected corporate taxes isn't on the agenda. There's even a citizen movement called US Uncut afoot to hold corporations accountable for their tax evasion. On this week's episode of The Breakdown, DC Editor Chris Hayes talks with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston about the manifold maneuvers corporations carry out in order to avoid paying their share of contributions to civil society.

Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail?
Matt Taibbi reports for RollingStone: "Over drinks at a bar on a dreary, snowy night in Washington this past month, a former Senate investigator laughed as he polished off his beer. 'Everything's fucked up, and nobody goes to jail,' he said. 'That's your whole story right there. Hell, you don't even have to write the rest of it. Just write that.' I put down my notebook. 'Just that?' 'That's right,' he said, signaling to the waitress for the check. 'Everything's fucked up, and nobody goes to jail. You can end the piece right there.'"

Recommended Audio: Democracy Now - Matt Taibbi: "Why Isn’t Wall Street in Jail?"

"Nobody goes to jail,” writes Matt Taibbi in the new issue of Rolling Stone magazine. “This is the mantra of the financial-crisis era, one that saw virtually every major bank and financial company on Wall Street embroiled in obscene criminal scandals that impoverished millions and collectively destroyed hundreds of billions, in fact, trillions of dollars of the world’s wealth." Taibbi explains how the American people have been defrauded by Wall Street investors and how the financial crisis is connected to the situations in states such as Wisconsin and Ohio.



"US Uncut" Calls Out Corporate Tax Deadbeats

Allison Kilkenny provides the follow analysis for Truthout: "A few weeks before he died, Howard Zinn had lunch at the Warwick Hotel in Manhattan with New York Times columnist Bob Herbert. Their topic of conversation was, of course, social justice. 'If there is going to be change, real change,' Zinn told Herbert, 'it will have to work its way from the bottom up, from the people themselves. That's how change happens.' A year later, the streets of London erupted with citizens who were engaging in Zinn's favorite pastime: active democracy. Students gathered in protest at Parliament Square, but there were also other protests in Oxford, Scotland, Glasgow, Cambridge, Birmingham and Leeds. Across the region, students displayed their frustration with a government that sought to triple tuition fees, effectively pricing young men and women out of their educations."  Photo: UK Uncut

All-American Decline in a New World: Wars, Vampires, Burned Children, and Indelicate Imbalances
Tom Engelhardt comments for TomDispatch: "This is a global moment unlike any in memory, perhaps in history. Yes, comparisons can be made to the wave of people power that swept Eastern Europe as the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989-91. For those with longer memories, perhaps 1968 might come to mind, that abortive moment when, in the United States, France, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Brazil, and elsewhere, including Eastern Europe, masses of people mysteriously inspired by each other took to the streets of global cities to proclaim that change was on the way."

Recommended Audio: Tom Engelhardy and Jeremy Scahill Discuss the Near East



Bringing Home 150 Troops From Afghanistan Would Fix Wisconsin's Budget "Crisis"
Robert Greenwald writes for Rethink Afghanistan: "Wisconsin’s Governor Scott Walker is using phony budget projections to manufacture a staged “fiscal emergency” in his state so that he can whack programs and political opponents, but even his fake “emergency” pales in comparison to the cost of the Afghanistan War to his state. In fact, the U.S. would only have to bring home 151 troops from Afghanistan to save more money than Walker’s ridiculous union-busting plan. Better yet, ending the Afghanistan War altogether would save taxpayers in Wisconsin $1.7 billion this year alone, more than ten times the amount “saved” in Walker’s attack on state employee rights."

Walker’s Budget Plan is a Three-Part Roadmap for Conservative State Governance

Mike Konczal writes for New Deal 2.0: "Tim Fernholz wrote an excellent article in the National Journal about the 'bait and switch' of Governor Walker’s Wisconsin plan. Fernholz points out that the short-term deficit problem can be covered by debt restructuring and that the big pieces of the bill that relate to dismantling public sector unions, control over Medicaid and creating a no-bid energy asset sale process are not directly budget related. There’s a three-prong approach in Governor Walker’s plan that highlights a blueprint for conservative governorship after the 2010 election. The first is breaking public sector unions and public sector workers generally. The second is streamlining benefits away from legislative authority, especially for health care and in fighting the Health Care Reform Act. The third is selling of public assets to private interests under firesale and crony capitalist situations."

Really Bad Reporting in Wisconsin: Who 'Contributes' to Public Workers' Pensions?
David Cay Johnston writes for Tax.com: "When it comes to improving public understanding of tax policy, nothing has been more troubling than the deeply flawed coverage of the Wisconsin state employees' fight over collective bargaining. Economic nonsense is being reported as fact in most of the news reports on the Wisconsin dispute, the product of a breakdown of skepticism among journalists multiplied by their lack of understanding of basic economic principles.  Gov. Scott Walker says he wants state workers covered by collective bargaining agreements to "contribute more" to their pension and health insurance plans."

Recommended Audio: Gov. Walker Reveals Entire Union-Busting Strategy to Prank Caller

You have to hear this: A blogger impersonating Tea Party billionaire David Koch called Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and got him to reveal his secret plan to lure Democrats back to the state. Phenomenal.





Koch Brothers "Prank" No Laughing Matter
Mary Bottari writes for the Center for Media and Democracy: "Embattled Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker came under fire today after news broke about statements he made in a 20-minute phone call from a Buffalo-area alternative news reporter, Ian Murphy of the Daily Beast, posing as David Koch, a billionaire whose corporate PAC directly supported Walker and who has given millions to groups that have run ads to aid Walker's rise to the state's highest office.  As the Center for Media and Democracy has reported, the Koch PAC not only spent $43,000 directly on Walker's race, but Koch personally donated $1 million to the Republican Governors Association which spent $5 million in the state. Besides the Governor, the Koch brothers have other "vested interests" in the state."

Addicted to Koch
Mark Sandlin writes on his blog "The God Article:" "That's right.  We are all addicted to Koch.  That's Koch Industries – the infamous Koch (pronounced 'coke') Brothers. For those who may not be familiar with these fine (I use the term loosely) brothers, let me give you a little background.  Let's see... they are filthy rich... no, stinking, filthy rich.  And they got that way because YOU (and the rest of we minions) buy their stuff.  You might be asking yourself at this point, 'Self? What do they do with their butt loads of money?' If you don't mind, I'll take this one."

Yes, America Still Needs Unions
Joe Conason writes for Truthdig.com: “'There was once a need for unions, but they’ve outlived their purpose,' said a nice lady interviewed on the radio in Tennessee just the other day. Annoyed by the spectacle of tens of thousands of teachers, firefighters, cops and other public employees rallying to protect their rights in Wisconsin, she was saying what more than a few Americans think about the labor movement.”

GPACE Comments to Colorado Public Utilities Commission Regarding 2010 Tri-State G and T IRP: 28 Questions that should have been asked...

Scott Allegrucci writes: "As the Executive Director of the Great Plains Alliance for Clean Energy (GPACE), I write to you regarding the Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association (Tri-State) 2010 integrated resource plan (IRP) submitted for review to the Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC).  Specifically, this letter references PUC docket number 10M-879E, and PUC decision number C11-0109. Briefly, GPACE is a Kansas non-profit organization formed to support a clean, secure, prosperous energy economy benefiting Kansas businesses, farms, communities, and all future Kansans.  We have coordinated grassroots education and outreach and legislative lobbying with a diverse alliance of partner organizations and communities, including private companies, other non-profit groups, student organizations, and religious congregations around Kansas.  GPACE has approximately 2,000 active members and a direct, opt-in communications network of over 10,000 Kansas citizens.

USDA Approved Monsanto Alfalfa Despite Warnings of New Pathogen Discovered in Genetically Engineered Crops

Mike Ludwig reports for Truthout: "Just two weeks before the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) fully deregulated Monsanto's Roundup Ready alfalfa, a senior soil scientist alerted the department about a newly discovered, microscopic pathogen found in high concentrations of Roundup Ready corn and soy that researchers believe could be causing infertility in livestock and diseases in crops that could threaten the entire domestic food supply."

Monsanto Shifts ALL Liability to Farmers
Cassandra Anderson reports for MORPHcity: "Farmers like genetically modified (GM) crops because they can plant them, spray them with herbicide and then there is very little maintenance until harvest. Farmers who plant Monsanto's GM crops probably don't realize what they bargain for when they sign the Monsanto Technology Stewardship Agreement contract. One farmer reportedly 'went crazy' when he discovered the scope of the contract because it transfers ALL liability to the farmer or grower."

Oscar-Nominated 'Gasland' Director Calls Latest Attack on His Film 'Outlandish' and Tells Why the Industry Is Getting Desperate

Editor's Note: Read the letter Josh Fox wrote in response to the gas industry's attacks on his film. Brad Jacobson reports for AlterNet: "When the gas industry sent an open letter this month to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences demanding it revoke its best documentary nomination for the gas-drilling exposé Gasland, many seemed surprised by this brazen missive. Gasland director Josh Fox wasn't one of those people."

The Year in Hate and Extremism, 2010
Mark Potok reports for The Southern Poverty Law Center: "For the second year in a row, the radical right in America expanded explosively in 2010, driven by resentment over the changing racial demographics of the country, frustration over the government’s handling of the economy, and the mainstreaming of conspiracy theories and other demonizing propaganda aimed at various minorities. For many on the radical right, anger is focusing on President Obama, who is seen as embodying everything that’s wrong with the country. Hate groups topped 1,000 for the first time since the Southern Poverty Law Center began counting such groups in the 1980s. Anti-immigrant vigilante groups, despite having some of the political wind taken out of their sails by the adoption of hard-line anti-immigration laws around the country, continued to rise slowly. But by far the most dramatic growth came in the antigovernment “Patriot” movement — conspiracy-minded organizations that see the federal government as their primary enemy — which gained more than 300 new groups, a jump of over 60%."

Right-Wing Hate on the Rise

HurricaneDean reports for the Censored Project: "Yesterday, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) released their spring 2011, Intelligence Report. Since the 80’s, SPLC began counting hate groups. For the first time, the organization has counted over 1000 hate groups, up from 932 in 2009. Since 2000, there has been a 66% increase in hate groups. According to the SPLC, “All hate groups have beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics.”  The report points out, that just because an organization is on the “Hate Group” list, doesn’t imply the group advocates violence or criminal activities."

House Approves FY 2011 Spending Proposal, Including Amendment Blocking Federal Funding to Planned Parenthood
The National Partnership for Women and Families: "The House on Friday voted 240-185 to approve an amendment to the continuing resolution (HR 1) that would block any federal funding for Planned Parenthood, Politico reports. The amendment was introduced by Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.). Ten Democrats supported the amendment, and seven Republicans voted against it (Nather/Nocera, Politico, 2/18). On Saturday, the House voted 235-189 to approve the continuing resolution -- an appropriations bill that will fund government programs for the remainder of fiscal year 2011, the New York Times reports. President Obama has said he would veto the spending bill if it passes the Senate (Herzenhorn, New York Times, 2/20)."

White House Declares Defense of Marriage Act Unconstitutional
Nadia Prupis reports for Truthout: "The Obama administration said Wednesday that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional and the Justice Department will no longer support it. The Defense of Marriage Act is a federal law defining marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman.  Attorney General Eric Holder sent a letter to House Speaker John Boehner stating, 'Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act ... as applied to same-sex couples who are legally married under state law, violates the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment.'"

The FCC, Net Neutrality and the Future Enrons of the Internet
Derek Lazzaro writes for Truthdig.com: "America’s largest Internet service providers, which own most of the network backbone, have decided that Internet content providers such as YouTube are using too much bandwidth, and becoming too rich, and now the ISPs are demanding a bigger piece of the pie. Amid surprisingly little public debate, the ISPs have engaged in a focused campaign to lobby Congress and win court cases with the goal of stripping the government of any meaningful authority to regulate their price structures or data-routing policies."

What You Need to Know About the Assault on NPR and PBS

Megan Tady reports for In These Times: "Congressional attacks on public media seem to come as regularly as NPR fundraising drives. Every year, as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) pleas for federal funding, some members of Congress denounce public media altogether, while others quietly vote to shave off another sliver of subsidies, rather than eliminate all funding. In the end, the CPB limps away still intact, but wounded."

>In the Absence of Public Media Funding, the US Has Outsourced Its National Voice
OrganGrinder blog at The Guardian UK writes: "If you want to get coverage for public media funding, try turning up at Congress with a puppet on your arm. Last week it was the turn of Arthur the Aardvark (unless advocates were picked alphabetically) to try and defend the principle of publicly-funded media. Arthur was unsuccessful, for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting potentially lost its $430 million funding as part of a budget amendment which the House of Representatives voted through the following morning. The CPB scatters what funds it has fairly widely. The two best known recipients of state funding are the radio platform NPR and the broadcaster PBS although, in truth, the handout from government is only a small part of their collective income."

What Effect has the Internet had on Journalism?

Aleks Krotoski reports for The Guardian UK: "For Peter Beaumont, this newspaper's foreign affairs editor, the revolution in Egypt revealed more than the power of the people in triumphing over repressive regimes; on a personal level, he discovered something new about his working practices. Beaumont trained as a journalist in the days before the world wide web, but, like most of his profession, he has integrated new technologies into his news-gathering techniques as they've emerged. Covering the events in Cairo during the internet blackout in Egypt was like taking a step back in time. 'We went back to what we used to do: write up the story on the computer, go to the business centre, print it out and dictate it over the phone,' he says. 'We didn't have to worry about what was on the internet; we just had to worry about what we were seeing. It was absolutely liberating.'"

Clippings for 25 January 2011

8 Reasons Global Capitalism Makes Our Lives Worse -- And How We Can Create a New Kind of Economy

Tara Lohan reports for AlterNet: "To many of us, a society where no one goes hungry, where there is no unemployment, where people are happy and they have spacious homes and lots of leisure time seems like fantasy. But it's not a fantasy for Helena Norberg-Hodge -- she saw it firsthand in the tiny Himalayan region of Ladakh, a remote mountain community that borders Tibet. During the course of 35 years there, she also saw what happened when Ladakh was suddenly thrown open to the outside world in the 1970s and subsidized roads brought subsidized goods to the region. The local economy was undermined, the cultural fabric was torn apart. Unemployment, pollution and divisiveness emerged for the first time."

Obama Embraces the "Economic Philosophy That Has Completely Failed"
William Black comments on Michael Moore's Blog: "President Obama's Executive Order on regulatory review was originally set in motion by his February 3, 2009 direction to OMB to create an improved regulatory review process.

The fundamental principles and structures governing contemporary regulatory review were set out in Executive Order 12866 of September 30, 1993. A great deal has been learned since that time. Far more is now known about regulation -- not only about when it is justified, but also about what works and what does not. Far more is also known about the uses of a variety of regulatory tools such as warnings, disclosure requirements, public education, and economic incentives. Years of experience have also provided lessons about how to improve the process of regulatory review. In this time of fundamental transformation, that process--and the principles governing regulation in general -- should be revisited."

Turbulence Ahead
Joseph E. Stiglitz provides the following analysis for Truthout: "Another year of malaise along the Atlantic. By the numbers, the great recession's long gone. The World Bank forecasts that developing countries - chugging along at an average growth rate of 6 percent - will expand the global economy by more than 3 percent this year. In the last six months, London's FTSE 100 is up more than 15 percent, and Wall Street's Dow Jones index is up nearly as much. It's just about enough to say the good times are back."

Discretion Advised

Ruth Marcus writes for Truthdig.com: "Discretionary spending, the part of the federal budget that is not on autopilot and is subject to annual appropriations, generally constitutes less than 40 percent of federal spending. Take out defense spending and that share drops to well under 20 percent. So if your goal is to slash government spending and your approach is to go after discretionary spending without touching the military, it will require punishing, drastic cuts to make any serious dent in the deficit."

Is America Too Corrupt to Keep Up?
David Sirota comments for Truthout: "A sovereign nation investing its wealth in its domestic economy seems like a no-brainer, especially during a global recession. But in this crazy age of American politics, even that has become a controversial notion. This is the subtext of a dispute that simmered beneath the pomp and circumstance of this week's U.S.-China summit.... China's industrial policy success carries a basic lesson: When a nation couples public spending with incentives that encourage domestic corporate investment, an economy tends to grow its own wealth-building industries. That's simple enough to understand, right? Evidently, not within our own government."

Congress to Investigate Pentagon Decision to Deny Coverage for Brain Injured Troops
T. Christian Miller, ProPublica, and Daniel Zwerdling, NPR, report for ProPublica: "A key congressional oversight committee announced today that it was opening an investigation into the basis of a decision by the Pentagon's health plan to deny a type of medical treatment to troops with brain injuries. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., the chairman of the subcommittee on contracting oversight, said she wanted to examine a contract issued by Tricare, an insurance-style program used by soldiers and many veterans, to a private company to study cognitive rehabilitation therapy for traumatic brain injury. Such injuries are considered among the signature wounds of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq."

US Case Against Wikileaks’ Julian Assange Collapses

Juan Cole writes on Informed Comment: "The US government, according to NBC correspondent Jim Miklaszewski, now admits that it cannot tie Pfc. Bradley Manning to Wikileaks leader Julian Assange. The military also admitted that Manning was put on suicide watch improperly twice last week by the base commander at Quantico, essentially as a form of punishment and with no consultation with psychiatrists. During the watch they took his glasses from him so he could not read."

Patriot Act's Wiretapping, FISA Provisions Quietly Come Up For Renewal
Rachel Slajda reports for Talking Points Memo: "At the end of next month, two of the Patriot Act's controversial provisions -- one authorizing "roving" wiretapping and one allowing the government to pull all sorts of records and electronic communications from U.S. citizens -- will expire. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), the new chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has already introduced legislation that would simply extend the provisions for one more year.  That would essentially be a repeat of what happened a year ago, after the provisions expired in December 2009. There was a bit of a fight from civil liberties advocates, but the measures were renewed for another year at the end of last February."

Justice Department Seeks Mandatory Data Retention

Declan McCullagh reports for CNET News: "Criminal investigations 'are being frustrated' because no law currently exists to force Internet providers to keep track of what their customers are doing, the U.S. Department of Justice will announce tomorrow. CNET obtained a copy of the department's position on mandatory data retention--saying Congress should strike a "more appropriate balance" between privacy and police concerns--that will be announced at a House of Representatives hearing tomorrow. 'Data retention is fundamental to the department's work in investigating and prosecuting almost every type of crime,' Jason Weinstein, deputy assistant attorney general for the criminal division, will say, according to his written testimony. 'The problem of investigations being stymied by a lack of data retention is growing worse.'" (See related article.)"

It's Not the Teachers' Unions
Richard Kahlenberg writes for the American Prospect: "The resignation of Washington, D.C., Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee concludes the latest chapter in the ongoing war between free-market education reformers and teachers’ unions. Many Rhee supporters blame union opposition for the electoral defeat of Rhee’s boss, Mayor Adrian Fenty, and see unions as the biggest problem in education. In the much-discussed documentary, Waiting for Superman, in which Rhee is painted as a heroine, Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter declares, 'It's very, very important to hold two contradictory ideas in your head at the same time. Teachers are great, a national treasure. Teachers' unions are, generally speaking, a menace and an impediment to reform.'"

Fudging the Facts on Health Care and Deficits

Joe Conason writes for Truthdig.com: "Facts always matter, but never more than when politicians deal with issues of real consequence, like health care and budget deficits. Data sets and out-year projections may make everybody’s eyes glaze over, but without accurate information, the end result of legislation is disaster. Today, there is no way to avoid fiscal ruin and social erosion unless we can determine whether health care reform will tame or swell deficits. Yet the Republican leaders in Congress are now insisting on their own 'facts' concerning health care and deficits, which directly contradict the careful studies of the Congressional Budget Office. They have gone so far as to denigrate the CBO, among the most respected agencies in Washington since its founding in 1974, by accusing its analysts of using 'rigged' assumptions to reach its conclusions."

Study: 84% of Nutrition Labels On Kids' Foods "Misleading"

Josh Harkinson reports for Mother Jones: "Labels on the front of foods marketed to children tout all sorts of nutritional benefits, from high protein and natural flavoring to heaps of fiber and vitamin C. But most of those claims are just feel-good marketing designed to mask the fact that our kids are being sold junk food. This is according to a study released yesterday by the Strategic Alliance, a California-based group of nutrition and exercise experts. It concludes that 84 percent of the nutritional claims made on the front of 58 "better for you" products were misleading; most of the products didn't even meet the basic nutrition standards set by the US Department of Agriculture and the National Academies of Science. "

Climate Benefits of Natural Gas May Be Overstated

Abrahm Lustgarten reports for Propublica: "The United States is poised to bet its energy future on natural gas as a clean, plentiful fuel that can supplant coal and oil. But new research by the Environmental Protection Agency—and a growing understanding of the pollution associated with the full “life cycle” of gas production—is casting doubt on the assumption that gas offers a quick and easy solution to climate change.  Advocates for natural gas routinely assert that it produces 50 percent less greenhouse gases than coal and is a significant step toward a greener energy future. But those assumptions are based on emissions from the tailpipe or smokestack and don’t account for the methane and other pollution emitted when gas is extracted and piped to power plants and other customers. Photo: Douglas C. Pizac/AP file photo

Foot-and-Mouth Study, in Kansas?
Bill Bishop reports in the Daily Yoder: "There are some who don’t think it is the best idea in the world to build a facility that will study live foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) pathogens across the street from the Kansas State University football stadium — and within 200 miles of nearly ten percent of the U.S. cattle herd."

Where Liberals Go to Feel Good
Chris Hedges comments for Truthdig: "Barack Obama is another stock character in the cyclical political theater embraced by the liberal class. Act I is the burst of enthusiasm for a Democratic candidate who, through clever branding and public relations, appears finally to stand up for the interests of citizens rather than corporations. Act II is the flurry of euphoria and excitement. Act III begins with befuddled confusion and gnawing disappointment, humiliating appeals to the elected official to correct 'mistakes,' and pleading with the officeholder to return to his or her true self. Act IV is the thunder and lightning scene. Liberals strut across the stage in faux moral outrage, delivering empty threats of vengeance. And then there is Act V. This act is the most pathetic. It is as much farce as tragedy. Liberals - frightened back into submission by the lunatic fringe of the Republican Party or the call to be practical - begin the drama all over again."

SPLC Report: Nativist Laws Cost Communities Millions, Inflame Racial Tension

The Southern Poverty Law Center writes: "Harsh anti-immigrant laws enacted in communities across the country – promoted by national nativist organizations that want to severely limit immigration – have burdened taxpayers with millions in legal expenses, inflamed racial tensions and devastated businesses, according to a report issued today by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).  The report – When Mr. Kobach Comes to Town: Nativist Laws and the Communities They Damage – examines the impact of these laws, which have been promoted and defended by former law professor and newly elected Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach. Kobach also played a leading role in drafting Arizona's controversial anti-immigrant statute, S.B. 1070."

GOP's State of the Union Responder Would Set Higher Taxes on Middle-Class Than Millionaires
Pat Garofalo reports for Think Progress: "House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) was announced today as the Republican who will be responding to President Obama's State of the Union address next week. Ryan has gained a (largely unearned) reputation as a fiscal hawk due to his radical Roadmap for America's Future, under which the U.S. budget will eventually be balanced (after federal debt surpasses 100 percent of GDP), mostly via privatizing Social Security and Medicare. According to an analysis by Citizens for Tax Justice, the Roadmap would raise taxes on 90 percent of Americans, while dramatically lowering them for millionaires. In fact, a new analysis from the Economic Policy Institute found that Ryan's plan would ultimately translate into middle-class tax rates being higher than those for millionaires."

Angry Progressive Coalition to Protest Billionaire Gathering Hosted by Koch Brothers, Major Tea Party Funders

Don Hazen reports for AlterNet:Increasingly, Democrats, liberals and progressives are coming to understand that the Koch brothers, a secretive right-wing billionaire family that pours limitless money into virtually every destructive anti-democratic initiative affecting tens of millions of Americans, are "Public Enemy Number One."
More and more, leaders and activists are shifting tactics and confronting the Kochs face-to-face, challenging their efforts to steal the American Dream and drown out the voices of ordinary Americans by buying our democracy, and trying to take control of civic and economic life. The Kochs' goal appears to be nothing short of transforming America into a radical right-wing, corporate, third-world-like country, crushing social safety nets, and letting the destructive "free market" reign supreme."

Clarence Thomas Failed to Report Wife's Income, Watchdog Says
Kim Geiger reports for the L. A. Times: "Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas failed to report his wife's income from a conservative think tank on financial disclosure forms for at least five years, the watchdog group Common Cause said Friday. Between 2003 and 2007, Virginia Thomas, a longtime conservative activist, earned $686,589 from the Heritage Foundation, according to a Common Cause review of the foundation's IRS records. Thomas failed to note the income in his Supreme Court financial disclosure forms for those years, instead checking a box labeled "none" where "spousal noninvestment income" would be disclosed."

Recommended Audio: Democracy Now! - On Anniversary of Citizens United Ruling, Calls for DOJ to Investigate Scalia and Thomas

Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, Democracy Now!: "Today marks the one-year anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, that opened the floodgates for unlimited corporate spending on election campaigns. We speak with Bob Edgar, the president of Common Cause, which has filed a petition with the U.S. Department of Justice urging it to investigate whether Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas should have recused themselves from the case last year because of a conflict of interest."

With New TV Show, Radio Talker Thom Hartmann Brings Substance to Style

Adele M. Stan reports for AlterNet: " It's 9pm in the middle of a busy week and Thom Hartmann, the nation's most popular progressive talk radio host, is just sitting down to dinner with his wife Louise at a crowded Washington restaurant. As host of "The Thom Hartmann Program" (heard on 120 affiliates, according to the show's Web site), Thom did his customary three hours of radio earlier in the day, and just wrapped up an episode of his hour-long daily cable television program, "The Big Picture," which airs on RTTV and was just picked up by Free Speech TV, which runs the show over the Dish and DirecTV networks. (It's also available from iTunes in podcast form.) It's a typical 14-hour day for Hartmann, but he's hardly worse for the wear. At 59, he looks at least 10 years younger, and his energy is still bubbling over. Louise, just back from a day at the hospital with a friend who rushed there in an emergency, begs off the interview, wanting nothing more than a quiet meal after a stressful day."

FCC Blesses Comcast Merger and New Era of Media Monopoly

Joe Torres reports for the Huffington Post: "Yesterday the Federal Communications Commission gave its blessing to the Comcast-NBC Universal deal, one of the largest media mergers in a generation, and we have one man to thank for it.  When Julius Genachowski took the helm of the FCC in 2009, many predicted the chairman would restore confidence in an agency that has for too long placed corporate interests over the public interest.  He had President Obama's ear; he had experience at the agency and in the tech industry; and he pledged to change the way the agency operated. The new FCC chairman seemed to be the right man at the right time to lead this agency."

The Comcast-NBC Merger: Why the FCC Should Be Held to a Higher Standard
Corie Wright writes at StopBigMedia.com: "Question: Two federal agencies review the same merger. Both agencies have jurisdiction to review the merger under U.S. law. The agencies review the merger during the same time period, and ultimately they reach the same decision – to approve the merger with conditions. One is right, the other is wrong. Why? This is not an SAT question – it really happened."

Verizon Sues to Protect its Right to Pillage

Kevin Fogarty reports for ITworld: "Verizon sued the FCC today, asking a U.S. District Court to overturn a set of net neutrality rules the FCC created by taking the overly lax suggested outlines handed in by Verizon and other carriers and running them through a photocopier. Forget for a moment whether it's really kosher to take rules written by the companies you're supposed to regulate and pass them off as your own, and the overwhelming tendency of the FCC to protect the carriers at the expense of their customers and all you're left with is astonishment. That's all most of us are left with; Verizon still has some outrage left. Not only is Verizon not satisfied treating the FCC like a bully treats a nerd with lunch money, it wants to formalize the relationship."

Verizon Loves Net Neutrality to Death
Tim Karr writes for the Huffington Post: "Verizon has a love-hate relationship with Net Neutrality. The company professes its love of the open Internet, but then tries to smother it with a pillow in the middle of the night. The company's strained relationship with openness was evident yesterday when Verizon asked a federal appeals court to overturn an extremely weak Federal Communications Commission rule protecting Net Neutrality -- the principle that guarantees Internet users' the right to go where they want and do what they choose online. Ironically, the rule in question, adopted by the FCC just last month, was modeled after a vastly unpopular "policy framework" drafted by Verizon and Google attorneys in August. (Nate Anderson of ArsTechnica lays out these similarities in graphic detail)."

Organizations Renew Long-Outstanding Requests for Examination of Hate Speech in Media

The National Hispanic Media Coalition writes: "Yesterday, the National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC), joined by a robust and diverse collection of other organizations, reached out to leaders at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to urge each entity to act on NHMC's long-standing requests to study the effects of hate speech in media. NHMC sent letters to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and Assistant Secretary Lawrence Strickling of the NTIA. In the letter to FCC Chairman Genachowski, NHMC requested prompt action on its two-year-old petition for inquiry and urged the FCC to examine the extent, nature and effects of hate speech in media, and possible non-regulatory ways to counteract or reduce its negative impacts. All four FCC Commissioners have been receptive to opening the inquiry. As the only person with the power to add the petition to the FCC's agenda, Chairman Genachowski is solely responsible for the delay. In the other letter, NHMC renewed another two-year-old request, and urged the NTIA to promptly update its 1993 report, The Role of Telecommunications in Hate Crimes. Assistant Secretary Strickling has agreed to update the 1993 report. However, he says that he cannot do so until he receives funding from Congress."  Image: TransGriot Blog

Clippings for January 16, 2011

Martin Luther King's Legacy
Peter Rothberg writes for The Nation: "In the mid-1960s, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. contributed an annual essay to The Nation on the state of civil rights and race relations in the United States.  His last piece, from March 14, 1966, could have been written today: 'Jobs are harder to create than voting rolls. Harmonizing of peoples of vastly different cultural levels is complicated and frequently abrasive.'"  Readers will find links to several of King's speeches and to the video of King's "I Have a Dream" speech at this page.

Joshua Holland, a journalist at AlterNet provides the following summary of King's writings.



18 Disturbing Things We Wouldn't Know Without WikiLeaks
The Nation magazine writes: “Nearly fifty days have passed since the WikiLeaks document release in late November, this one centering on US diplomatic cables and quickly dubbed ‘Cablegate,’” Greg Mitchell writes in his article in "Why WikiLeaks Matters."

So far, WikiLeaks has released less than 3,000 cables from the 251,000-document cache, but already the media, politicians and the public are questioning the value of the leak. “It's important,” Mitchell writes, “to review a small sample of what we have learned thanks to WikiLeaks since April and the release of the 'Collateral Murder' US helicopter video, which showed the killing of two Reuters journalists, among others. It's necessary to do this because most in the US media, after brief coverage, provided little follow-up.”

Here are a few of the things we have learned from WikiLeaks.

Swiss Whistleblower Rudolf Elmer Plans to Hand Over Offshore Banking Secrets of the Rich and Famous to WikiLeaks
Ed Vulliamy reports for The Observer via The Guardian: "The offshore bank account details of 2,000 "high net worth individuals" and corporations – detailing massive potential tax evasion – will be handed over to the WikiLeaks organisation in London tomorrow by the most important and boldest whistleblower in Swiss banking history, Rudolf Elmer, two days before he goes on trial in his native Switzerland."

The Class War Launched by America's Wealthiest Is Getting More Savage

Larry Bienhart reports for AlterNet: "We’re in a class war. It’s the corporations and the very wealthiest against all the rest of us. We’re losing. In 1962 the wealthiest 1 percent of American households had 125 times the wealth of the median household. Now it’s 190 times as much. Is that a case of a rising tide lifting all boats, just a few of them a little bit higher? No."  Photo: AlterNet

Recommended Audio: Wendel Potter on the Health Insurance Industry's Lock on Congress

From The Nation: "Wendell Potter, author of Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR Is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans, stopped by The Nation's offices this week to explain how insurance companies are manipulating the conversation surrounding healthcare legislation. Potter was a health insurance executive for nearly 20 years but quit his position in 2008 because he found it difficult to work for an industry that placed profit over people’s health. In 2009, Potter testified before the Senate on how insurance companies have engaged in practices that have forced millions of Americans to become uninsured."




Bradley Manning and GI Resistance to US War Crimes
Angola 3 News (via Truthout) interviews independent journalist Dahr Jamail on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the media's coverage of WikiLeaks, the actions of Bradley Manning and the military's response to soldier resistance. Jamail says, "The US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq could not have more clearly violated international law. Even the former secretary general of the United Nations (UN), Kofi Annan, said in September 2004 that the Iraq war was illegal and breached the UN Charter. An illegal war is thus the mother of all war crimes, for from that stems all the rest.... What Manning did by leaking this critical information has been to uphold his oath as a soldier in the most patriotic way."

Combat in Our Genes?
Jay Stanley, Speech, Privacy and Technology Program, ACLU writes: "Born soldiers may say they have "combat in our genes" — but a new report suggests the Pentagon may want to give the phrase whole new meaning by turning DNA into the next military battleground. The report, prepared by a defense science advisory panel known as JASON and reported by Secrecy News and HuffPost's Dan Froomkin, among others, recommends that the military take advantage of the rapidly falling cost of gene sequencing by preparing to engage in the mass sequencing of the genomes of all military personnel."

Recommended Audio: Nine Years of Guantánamo: What Now?

Former Community Bridge guest, Andy Worthington, provides the following commentary about the ninth anniversary of the Guantánamo concentration camp: "On the afternoon of January 11, after I had spoken at a rally outside The White House and at a protest outside the Department of Justice, the New America Foundation in Washington D.C. hosted a panel discussion, “Nine Years of Guantánamo: What Now?” which I had organized as part of a week-long US tour to raise awareness of the plight of the remaining 173 prisoners at Guantánamo on the 9th anniversary of the prison’s opening."

The following video features Andy Worthington, Morris Davis, Tom Wilner and Ben Wittes at the New America Foundation discussing the GITMO camp.



Green Energy Opponents Are the Real Job Killers
Dan Fenton writes for The Nation: "Listen to how we discuss clean energy in this country, and you'll note that the conversation is exactly upside down. To hear the mainstream discourse tell it, clean energy may be a nice idea but it's prohibitively expensive. Going green, it's said, will cost jobs and strangle growth at a time when America must do whatever it takes to get our economy and people working again. Environmentalists are going to raise everyone's energy bills. We're the 'job killers.'"

Opponents to Fracking Disclosure Take Big Money From Industry

Abrahm Lustgarten reports for ProPublica: "In the context of today’s roiling political and energy debates, it’s not at all clear who will win. But if money is an indicator, the anti-regulatory group has the upper hand.... According to data from Open Secrets, the 32 [congress] members against disclosure received $1,742,572. The average contribution from the oil and gas sector to individuals from that group was $54,455. Oklahoma Democrat Dan Boren, who co-chairs the caucus, personally received more than $202,000, including almost $15,000 from Chesapeake Energy, one of the largest natural gas producers in the United States." Photo by Abrahm Lustgarten/ProPublica

Sierra Club Files to Block New Kansas Power Plant
John Milburn reports for Associated Press (in the Beaumont Enterprise): "The Sierra Club asked the state Court of Appeals on Friday to strike down an air-quality permit for a new coal-fired power plant in southwest Kansas. The request, filed in Topeka, asks the court to set aside the permit issued last month by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment to Sunflower Electric Power Corp. Named in the petition is acting KDHE Secretary Robert Moser Jr., who was appointed to the post by Republican Gov. Sam Brownback. Sierra Club attorneys argue in part that flawed environmental data were used in the permitting process. In addition, the Sierra Club says KDHE rushed the permitting process to ensure that Sunflower would have permission to build the plant before more stringent federal air quality regulations took effect Jan. 2."

Farmland by the Numbers
The Farmland Report writes: "Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s 2007 National Resources Inventory story of our nation’s farm and ranch land loss in numbers. The 2007 National Resource Inventory is the most comprehensive natural resource database in the United States—tracking conditions and trends on non-federal land from 1982 to 2007."

Come Saturday Morning: In Case It Wasn’t Obvious That Bigots Run The GOP
Phoniex Woman writes on FireDogLake: "So much racially-connected synchronicity going on over in Wingnutville lately.  Michael Steele, presiding over a midterm electoral romp by the Republicans in which the moderate GOP candidates that managed to survive the primaries outperformed the Tea Party endorsees by a three-to-one margin, was ousted as RNC chair by a teabagger-endorsed guy named Reince Priebus, the former head of the Wisconsin GOP, who got the gig ostensibly for actually managing to get a teabagger who wasn’t the son of a famous congressman into the senate seat of the much-beloved Russ Feingold."

New RNC Chairman Bashed Stimulus, but Helped Clients Get Stimulus Funds
Charles Johnston writes for Little Green Footballs: "The new head of the Republican National Committee, Reince Priebus, is famous (or infamous, depending where you stand) for throwing this chunk of red meat to the angry right:

 if you’re pro-abortion, pro-stimulus, pro-G.M. bailout, pro-AIG, well you know guess what, you might not be a Republican.

Blatant right wing hypocrisy has become so commonplace that it’s no surprise at all to discover that Priebus himself worked at a law firm that helps clients secure federal stimulus funds."

Why We Should Take Jared Loughner's Politics Seriously

Steve Striffler comments for Truthout: "Contrary to the prevailing wisdom, however, holding muddled political views does not in and of itself necessarily make Loughner mentally ill, unstable, crazy, or even particularly unusual. It makes him American and peculiarly so. In the college classroom, at political events and in grassroots organizing meetings, it does not take long to find many young (and not so young) people who hold what many of us consider to be an oddly contradictory collection of political views.... In a world where fragments of information come from so many sources, it often leads them to the odd place where any explanation of the world is as good as any other, where there is no conceptual rudder for judging one theory or idea against another." Image: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: HeyThereSpaceman., unforth, D Sharon Pruitt

How the Right's Rhetoric Fueled the Actions of Arizona's Mass Murderer
Adele Stan writes for AlterNet: "It's too soon to say what, exactly, motivated the man apprehended for the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., and 18 others outside a Tucson supermarket on Saturday. All we really know about Jared Lee Loughner, the 22-year-old alleged shooter, is that he is apparently a profoundly disturbed young man whose paranoia involves some indecipherable notions about the U.S. Constitution."

Hate and Violence Are Encoded in the DNA of the American Right

Arun Gupta reports for AlterNet: "Jared Loughner’s attempted assassination of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is a wakeup call for us to confront the reality that hate and violence are encoded in the political DNA of the American Right. Since Obama took office in January 2009, there have been seven separate cases of disturbed white men committing political murders after becoming hopped up on guns, right-wing media and anti-government and anti-Obama blather. And this doesn’t even include Loughner’s attack or other incidents where the gunman was intent on killing but didn’t succeed."  Photo: NewsCorpse.com

Recommended Audio: Bill Maher to Tea Partiers - The Founding Fathers Would’ve Hated Your Guts

Talk show host Bill Maher once again displayed his ignorance for America's history and founding by telling Tea Partiers that the Founding Fathers would have "hated" their "guts."

As you'd come to expect from Maher he constantly referred to members of the Tea Party as "teabaggers" - which would probably be an insult coming from virtually everybody else. When Maher uses this word, however, the Tea Party should wear it as a badge of honor.

Next he told Tea Partiers that the Founding Fathers were "nothing like them." No, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, George Washington and all the others were profoundly different. How? Here comes Maher:


What the Right Gains From Poisoning Our Political Discourse and Inspiring Violence

Michael Winship writes for AlterNet: "The Russian playwright Anton Chekhov had a rule: if you show a gun in the first act, by the time the curtain falls, it has to go off. For weeks and months, that gun, the weapon of angry rhetoric and intemperate rabblerousing, has been cocked and loaded in plain view on the American stage; Saturday morning outside a shopping mall in Tucson, Arizona, it went off again and again and again."  Photo: AFP