Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Experts Worry as Population and Hunger Grow

This is the price of globalism. International capitalism had an orgy and left out the great vast population. Now that this system has nearly collapsed, the poorest in the world now suffer even more. This issue isn't overpopulation. The ultimate solution is education. The immediate solution is investment in these countries. That was supposed to be what the World Bank was for. Investment should create industries that provide jobs. Those industries should then have markets, thus leading to trade. None of that is being done other than in China, and a few others.

in reference to:

"Experts Worry as Population and Hunger Grow"
- Food Experts Worry as World Population and Hunger Grow - NYTimes.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Video: Dylan Ratigan: Big Banks Using Our Money to Pay Themselves Large Bonuses

Dylan Ratigan is one of the very few media personalities denouncing the looting profiteering going on with Wall St. This video shows how. You can watch Ratigan every weekday at 9am on MSNBC.

World failing to dent heroin trade, U.N. warns

And it's only going to get worse. It price to pay for a failed war in Afghanistan because all these years were spent fighting in Iraq. Now it's too late to stem the tide. So not only do we have to worry about Jihadist terrrorism but also narcotrafficking. This means before too long drug wars will be breaking out just as in Mexico, and just as in happened in America in the 1980s. And no one in this country is addressing this. No one.

in reference to:

"World failing to dent heroin trade, U.N. warns"
- World failing to dent heroin trade, U.N. warns - CNN.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Woman recants story of West Virginia abuse

The system failed again. If true, innocent went to jail. But what about the press? Why didn't they ask questions? Are were they convicted by the press? And why did these people plead guilty? Were they coerced? This is the Duke case all over again. And again it was white people falsely accused. The press is quick to believe false allegations. The converse has been also true as well. This is example of a failed criminal justice system that does not work. It is also a product of racial division, and people willing believe that racial violence occurred even when its made up. We should be more skeptical and ask questions next time someone cries wolfe.

in reference to:

"A 22-year-old woman whose claims that she was abused in a trailer in rural West Virginia in 2007 helped send six people to prison now says she made up the story, her lawyer said Wednesday."
- Woman recants story of West Virginia abuse - CNN.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Keith Olbermann 'Countdown' Transcript (10-20-09)

Complete transcript. Excerpt below:

SEN. HARRY REID (D), MAJORITY LEADER: We are learning toward talking about a public option.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: Why the endless pussyfooting around? Our guest: Congressman Anthony Weiner.

Medical bankruptcy: We`re going to let people go broke trying to save their children from things like cystic fibrosis. At least we can make it easier for them to file for bankruptcy to save families, like the Burns, who are getting 60 collection calls a day in the E.R. because they could not go bankrupt past enough.

We`re joined by the chairman of the Senate subcommittee on administrative oversight, Sheldon Whitehouse -- to whom Elizabeth Edwards also testified.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELIZABETH EDWARDS, JOHN EDWARD`S WIFE: I sit in a chemotherapy chair once every few weeks and listen to people wondering how they`re going to pay for the kinds of care that they -- that they need in order to stay alive.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: The White House versus the evil empire: Now, two fronts are open. Press Secretary Gibbs on how FOX noise differs from news networks. "You and I should watch sometime around 9:00 tonight or 5:00 in the afternoon."

But the less obvious influence of FOX`s opinion shows has side doors through which to push phony news stories onto their supposed non-opinion shows and then into the real news media. Like, all the TV networks get together to do special theme weekend dramas and sitcoms on volunteering. Or, as Lonesome Roads put it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GLENN BECK, FOX NEWS HOST: It`s almost like we`re living in Mao`s China right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: Uh-huh?

And the reality show Richard Heene was publicity-stunting in hopes of getting, he had already written a theme song.

(MUSIC)

OLBERMANN: Michael Musto on the American family Heene.

All that and more -- now on COUNTDOWN.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is fantastic!

(END AUDIO CLIP)

(END VIDEOTAPE)

OLBERMANN: Good evening from New York.

The day after a new poll confirmed not only that do most Americans want a public option, but that most Americans want a public option even if not a single Republican would vote for it.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is asked about the public option -- and in our fifth story tonight: He gets cute about it while Americans are going bankrupt, dying.

But first, the new poll as Reid, Senators Chris Dodd and Max Baucus continued to hash out with the White House whether the Senate`s final health care bill will or will not include the public option. A new "Washington Post"/ABC News poll echoes the findings of an earlier one from Daily Kos/Research 2000 that we had discussed on this news hour, namely, Americans want a public option. Fifty-seven percent, more than elected Mr. Obama, want a public option; 36 percent, more than one out of three Americans, strongly want the public option.

Support up five points since the Republicans went on a town hall rampage against the public option on August. The numbers strongly opposed is down four points.

And bad news from Republican Senator Olympia Snowe, to whom Mr. Obama and Mr. Reid have granted considerable say in this process in hopes of winning her vote, despite her opposition along with every other Republican to the public option -- most Americans would rather have a public option than Senator Snowe`s vote for a plan without a public option. Fifty-one percent preferring a totally partisan, Democratic-only bill; only 37 percent of the country is saying, no sacrifice the public option to win some kind of bipartisan support.

And to all those who treat as axiomatic, the notion that Americans consider health care reform too much government, this wake up call, only 42 percent of the country thinks it`s too much. Fifty-five percent, the clear majority, say it is just right or not enough.

Nevertheless, when Mr. Reid was asked today whether talks are leaning toward a public option, he first joked that they are leaning about a public option -- whatever that was supposed to mean -- and then that they are leaning toward talking about it.

Rachel Maddow Show Transcript (10-20-09)

Complete transcript. Excerpt below:

MADDOW: Is what we`re witnessing in this one race in Upstate New York -- is it the tea party movement flexing its electoral muscles? Is that how we should see this?

WEIGEL: It absolutely is. The Dick Armey-Newt Gingrich split, I think, it`s the most telling thing about this race. Dick Armey has been aligned with the tea party movement since the inception, since they split - - since conservatives reject the Republicans who voted for TARP.

And I -- "The Weekly Standard`s" role is the most interesting part to me, though, because this is a magazine that nine years ago was backing John McCain for president as a sort of center-left challenge to the Republican Party. Now, they are backing the third party, the conservative candidate, and it`s in alignment with the tea party movement. They`re saying that the Republican Party must not be allowed to come back to power with moderate candidate. They must -- if they come back to power, be pure candidates approved with Dick Armey`s rubber stamp and with the right statements on card check and ACORN and all the other litmus tests that have been created over this last year.

MADDOW: What are the forces that are weighing in against the Republican Party from the right here? There`s Dick Armey. There`s "The Weekly Standard." It seems to me like there aren`t a lot of local divisions that parallel the national division here. It sort of seems to me like this is a who`s who of national conservative movement figures coming in and kind of big-footing this race.

WEIGEL: Well, that`s the way -- that`s the way it looks. I mean, in D.C., I remember when Scozzafava was announced as the candidate, and the first Republicans I talked to said it`s over. The Republican activists who knew about this said it was over.

But in the district, tea party activists are just working the phones getting local Republicans to diss her. The chairman of the Oneida County Republican Party spoke to one of the original tea party organizers, this guy, Michael Patrick Leahy and said, "I`ve already written the race off. We lost this from the get-go. The conservative party can`t be allowed to run our situation."

It`s a very organic fight. I mean, as much as national conservatives are organizing around this, the tea parties have always, you know, pounded their chests about independents and not Republican Party pawns. And this is the -- this is the most extreme case you`ve seen of that. They`re willing to make a Republican go down with the ship, locally and nationally, if it proves the conservative movement is independent.

MADDOW: Well, what do you think the national waves of this would be? I mean, local Republicans in this district thought they needed a moderate Republican to win in this district. If conservatives -- whether they`d be local, as you point out, or national, as we`re also seeing -- if conservatives force that moderate Republican candidate out of the race who local Republicans chose, what`s the -- what are the ripples? What`s the impact nationally?

WEIGEL: Republicans are pretty confident that they`ve going to win the Virginia governor`s race. They`re going to sweep in Virginia, they think. So, they are ready to spin the day after the election that conservatism won.

If a Democrat picks up that seat in New York, they`re going to say, "Well, look at the conservative vote plus the Republican vote. And then look at Bob McDonald in Virginia and maybe look at this election result in Maine."

I mean, they view this as almost a free vote because if a Republican wins the race, all people who endorse the conservative party candidate tell me they are ready to go and mount a primary challenge to her. She`d be spending 10 months as an incumbent member of Congress, getting beaten up by Michelle Malkin, by Dick Armey, by all these people, having trouble getting Republicans in Congress to endorse her.

I mean, the message -- this is not so much a campaign about electing a congressman. It`s part of the cause. In the run for 2010, they`re willing to throw this Republican under the bus if it makes the point that the Republican Party cannot be allowed to send moderate liberals, supporters of abortion rights to Congress.