It is fitting. The NYPD has been behaving like scrooges for the last 3 months:
Occupy Wall Street protesters convened for a Christmas celebration in Zuccotti Park in Manhattan yesterday, but when volunteers showed up with bags of cookies and food, New York City police officers prevented them from entering.Full article
An NYPD spokesperson offered no comment on why the volunteers, who instead distributed the food along the sidewalk outside the park, were not allowed in.
Great idea. The U.S. government likes to invade countries and then rebuild them. So why don't we invade the USA to try and do something about a crumbling infrastructure and economy. But instead of using bombs and soldiers, we use bulldozers and workers.
The link to this article includes a list of your representatives in Congress (they should have included President Obama) to where you send the pre-entered suggestion. First, you enter your zip code. Maybe we can give Congress an idea for solving some of the nation's problems. They can't seem to come up with any of their own.
This report was supposed to be about the top 5 international stories of 2011. It started out as a discussion about how Occupy Wall Street is inspired by Tehrir Square and in turn inspire the protesters in Egypt:
The answer is a resounding--no. It's still bad. But would a Republican elected in 2012 be any better? The answer is still--no. Every election cycle we go through this same pointless exercise. The Democrats would say that if we get a majority in both houses of Congress we get things done with President Obama. They wouldn't have to deal with the do-nothing Republicans. Well they had just such a majority in 2009 and the Donkeys failed. The American people did what they do every election now, give the majority back to the other party. When will we wise-up and stop playing musical chairs. It is as clear as it has ever been. The problem is a two-party system that gives us no choice, just the same nonsense masquerading as something different:
Back in the 1980 presidential race, Republican candidate Ronald Reagan set the modern standard for gauging the economic mood of voters when he defeated incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter by asking the simple question: "Are you better off than you were four years ago?"Full article
In 2012, President Barack Obama will try to win re-election in the face of what is likely to be the highest unemployment rate for any president seeking a second term in 76 years. Not since Franklin Roosevelt won re-election in 1936 has a president faced a worse economic situation. Obama's job approval stands at 46% – below George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Ronald Reagan a year before they were re-elected – and approval of Obama's handling of the economy is a dismal 39%.
Oops. Just admit it.
Ron Paul may now be backing away from controversial newsletters published in the 80s and 90s, but he took a different tone in a 1995 interview.
Buzzfeed's Andrew Kaczynski unearthed this video of Paul taking credit for the newsletters.
Really?! What was Romney's employment record while Governor of Massachusetts?
America is a war zone just Afghanistan. And it's made that way by the proliferation of guns, drugs and a violent culture. Seems to me that we need to win the war at home before we can win any wars abroad:
An Army soldier recovering from injuries suffered in a suicide bombing in Afghanistan has been shot at his homecoming party, and family members say he's paralyzed and in critical condition.Full article
Christopher Sullivan, 22, was shot late Friday while trying to break up a fight between his brother and another man at a San Bernardino, Calif., residence.
This monstrosity of a regime would not have happened had it not been for the U.S. government overthrowing the Iranian democracy in the 1950s. Now they are totally impotent in dealing with the Tehranian rulers:
There is some question whether she's guilty at all. This from 2008:Authorities in Iran said Sunday they are again moving ahead with plans to execute a woman sentenced to death by stoning on an adultery conviction in a case that sparked an international outcry, but are considering whether to carry out the punishment by hanging instead.
Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani is already behind bars, serving a 10-year sentence on a separate conviction in the murder of her husband. Amid the international outrage her case generated, Iran in July 2010 suspended plans to carry out her death sentence on the adultery conviction.
On Sunday, a senior judiciary official said experts were studying whether the punishment of stoning could be changed to hanging.
A lawyer for an Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning has told a British newspaper she was tortured for two days before confessing on state TV to being an accomplice to her husband's death.
Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani's lawyer told the Guardian on Thursday that his client, a 43-year-old mother of two, was forced to give the interview, which was recorded in Tabriz prison where she has been held for the past four years.
"She was severely beaten up and tortured until she accepted to appear in front of camera. Her 22-year-old son Sajad and her 17-year-old daughter Saeedeh are completely traumatised by watching this programme," lawyer Houtan Kian said on the newspaper's website.
Despite the propaganda from free marketeers, raising the minimum wage benefits the economy. It also keeps us from being a third world nation. It is certainly no substitute for the higher paying manufacturing jobs that have been outsourced by companies wanting to take advantage of cheap labor abroad. The problem has been that businesses have tried to get around the raising of the minimum wage by hiring illegal aliens or outsourcing. Therefore the solution to the problem is a government that isn't beholden to the lobbyists of business interests. And that ain't happening with the current two-party system. We must begin the struggle to defeat the anti-labor argument by making the case that a well paid work force fuels the consumption that makes an economy grow. And that's good for business:
When low-wage workers have more money in their pockets, they have little choice but to spend it immediately on basic necessities like groceries, clothing and school supplies. And as demand for goods and services grows, businesses expand and hire; the increased spending resulting from the minimum-wage bumps in eight states on Jan. 1 will lead to an additional $366 million in economic output and create the equivalent of more than 3,000 jobs, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute. That's a shot in the arm our economy needs.Full article
The minimum-wage increase is especially important when so many better-paying jobs in sectors like construction, manufacturing and finance have disappeared, and many families are left supporting themselves with lower-paid service-sector jobs. An analysis by the National Employment Law Project finds that while the majority of jobs lost during and after the recession were in mid-wage occupations, roughly three-quarters of the jobs added since job growth resumed are in low-wage occupations.
And things aren't going to improve any time soon: The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that seven of the 10 occupations with the most job growth between 2008 and 2018 will be low-paying positions. While we know our economy will have an increasing number of positions in home health care, food preparation and customer service, these jobs don't have to pay poverty wages. At one time, the manufacturing jobs that we now yearn for were dangerous, low-wage and undesirable. But we turned them into good jobs, with safer work places, higher pay, and a voice for workers.
Eight states will take a step in the right direction on Jan. 1 when they raise minimum wage rates to keep pace with inflation. But while more than 1.4 million workers will see their wages increase Jan. 1, millions more must depend on the stagnant federal minimum wage of just $7.25, or $15,000 a year for full-time work. The American people know this isn't right: A national poll conducted in November found that more than two-thirds of Americans support raising the minimum wage to $10 an hour. It's a deeply popular idea that can help boost the economy while not adding to state or federal budget deficits.
Food banks across...
the country kicked into high gear for the holiday season this week in an effort to feed America's hungry people. But a few instead homed in on an often overlooked casualty of hard times -- the family pet.
"It's the forgotten pets that go by the wayside," said Ann King, founder of an Atlanta-based nonprofit group called Save Our Pets Food Bank.
Appalled by tales of pet owners compelled to hand over their cats and dogs to shelters, King formed her organization in 2008 in an effort to provide cash-strapped owners a way to keep their canine and feline friends.
Shameful. So much for healthcare reform. Well at least we have a payroll tax cut extension for two months. That should solve the problem. Or maybe we should listen to the Conservatives and Tea Partyers. They would say people flooding emergency rooms are lazy good for nothings. It's their fault they don't have a job. Suck it up. They should follow the example of Wall St. bankers. Look how well they're doing. You don't hear them complaining:
Across the country, doctors like Sullivan are facing a spike in psychiatric emergencies - attempted suicide, severe depression, psychosis - as states slash mental health services and the country's worst economic crisis since the Great Depression takes its toll.Full article
This trend is taxing emergency rooms already overburdened by uninsured patients who wait until ailments become acute before seeking treatment.
"These are people without a previous psychiatric history who are coming in and telling us they've lost their jobs, they've lost sometimes their homes, they can't provide for their families, and they are becoming severely depressed," said Dr. Felicia Smith, director of the acute psychiatric service at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
Fareed Zakaria is one of the very few in the mainstream press that not only criticizes what's going on in our society but has solutions:
The answer is pretty clear. Only five years ago, American infrastructure used to be ranked in the top 10 by the World Economic Forum. Now we're 24th. U.S. air infrastructure has gone from 12th in the world to 31st - roads from eighth to 20th.Full article
The drop in human capital is even greater than the drop in physical capital. The United States used to have the world's largest percentage of college graduates. We're now number 14, according to the most recent OECD data, and American students routinely rank toward the bottom of the developed world in international tests.
The situation in science education is more drastic. Even with the increase in college attendance over the past two decades, there were fewer engineering and engineering technologies graduates in 2009 (84,636) than in 1989 (85,002). Research and development spending has risen under Obama, but the basic trend has been downward for two decades. In percentage terms, the federal share of research spending - which funds basic science - is half of what it was in the 1950s.
In other words, the big shift in the United States over the past two decades is not a rise in regulations and taxation but a decline in investment - in physical and human capital. And investment is the crucial locomotive of long-term growth. In our interview, Michael Spence, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, pointed out that the United States got out of the Great Depression because of the spending associated with World War II but also because during the war, the U.S. dramatically reduced its consumption and expanded investments. People spent less; they saved more and bought war bonds. That surge in investment - by people and government - produced a generation of growth after the war.
If we want the next generation of growth, we need a similarly serious strategy of investment.
Christmas isn't about material things. It's spiritual:
Full articleCongregation Beth Shalom is continuing its annual practice of placing a Christmas tree inside the Oak Park synagogue to welcome the homeless of various faiths.
The Detroit Free Press reports (http://on.freep.com/uj4KGk ) Saturday that the synagogue allows clients of the South Oakland Shelter to use its kitchen, classrooms and Youth Lodge through Monday as churches that participate throughout the year in the program are busy with their own activities over the Christmas holiday.
The answer is simple: yes. Why would it be any different. Even when the Democrats had a large majority in both House of Congress in 2009 very little got accomplished that we could consider beneficial to the country. As for the "change" we were promised. It doesn't seem like much has changed. The problem is Obama himself. We have a President who is clearly in over his head. He's also not motivated, like Clinton, in principals. It's all about ego and self promotion. His gift is in winning elections. That's it. He sold his soul to get elected in 2008. And his agenda, like his predecessors is pay back the wealthy donors that funded his election victories. That's the name of this corrupt game:
President Obama may have slightly boosted his reelection chances by outmaneuvering the Republicans on the payroll-tax-cut extension. But after a year of Beltway paralysis, that deal simply preserves the status quo for a mere two months—the latest sign of the capital’s utter dysfunction.Full article
So is there any reason to believe that Obama would fare better in a second term?
More of the same is not appealing. Yet for Obama to govern with any degree of success, he would need either a big electoral upset—with Democrats regaining the House and maintaining a nominal hold on the Senate—or a chastened Republican Party, newly open to cooperation and willing to set aside the all-or-nothing brinkmanship that has defined its strategy.
The prospect of four more years of gridlock while Obama looks on from the sidelines will hardly energize voters already disappointed by the president’s performance. For now, Obama is benefiting by standing apart from an institution whose approval rating is 11 percent, but mastering the legislative process is a big part of the job of being president, and while Obama squeezed major legislation through Congress in his first two years, this last year has been a disaster all around.
This proves that Gingrich was never a serious threat to win the nomination. He won't win Iowa which would truly end any chance he ever had of challenging Mitt Romney:
Full articleFormer House Speaker Newt Gingrich has failed to qualify for Virginia’s March 6 Republican primary, a development that complicates his bid to win the GOP presidential nomination.
“After verification, RPV has determined that Newt Gingrich did not submit required 10k signatures and has not qualified for the VA primary,” the Republican Party of Virginia announced early Saturday on its Twitter website.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry also fell short of the 10,000 signatures of registered voters required for a candidate’s name to be on the primary ballot, but former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Texas Rep. Ron Paul will be on the ballot.
It was naive to believe that the rulers in Yemen would give up power simply because of some toothless agreement. There had to have been more restrictions on the military. There also had to have been the threat of international war crime trials if the the agreements were not adhered to. In addition, the opposition would have to had a promise of some kind of support if the agreement had been ignored by the government:
Yemen's powerful Republican Guard forces opened fire with guns, tear gas and water cannons Saturday at a march by more than 100,000 protesters demanding that the outgoing president be put on trial.Full article
The protesters were attacked as they entered the capital Sanaa after marching for four days from Taiz, a city that has been a major opposition center 170 miles to the south. The first of its kind protest was called the March of Life and aimed to put pressure on the country's new government not to grant Ali Abdullah Saleh immunity from prosecution.
The violence underlined the continuing turmoil in Yemen even after Saleh signed a U.S.- and Saudi-backed deal last month by which he handed his powers to his vice president and committed to step down completely in return for immunity.
Protesters who rallied by the thousands for the past nine months rejected the deal, demanding Saleh be tried for his bloody crackdown on their movement.
At the same time, Saleh has seemed to continue to exercise influence through his relatives and loyalists still in their positions, even after Vice President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi formed a unity government between the opposition and ruling party. Forces loyal to Saleh have defied orders to withdrew from the streets of Sanaa after a deadline was reached Saturday to do so.
This is the reason the financial system is on the verge of another collapse. But the next time no amount of bailout will save it. And nothing is being done to prevent the disaster from coming. That's why it's inevitable:
Bloomberg reports that Bank of America (BAC) has shifted about $22 trillion worth of derivative obligations from Merrill Lynch and the BAC holding company to the FDIC insured retail deposit division. Along with this information came the revelation that the FDIC insured unit was already stuffed with $53 trillion worth of these potentially toxic obligations, making a total of $75 trillion.Full article
Derivatives are highly volatile financial instruments that are occasionally used to hedge risk, but mostly used for speculation. They are bets upon the value of stocks, bonds, mortgages, other loans, currencies, commodities, volatility of financial indexes, and even weather changes. Many big banks, including Bank of America, issue derivatives because, if they are not triggered, they are highly profitable to the issuer, and result in big bonus payments to the executives who administer them. If they are triggered, of course, the obligations fall upon the corporate entity, not the executives involved. Ultimately, by allowing existing gambling bets to remain in insured retail banks, and endorsing the shift of additional bets into the insured retail division, the obligation falls upon the U.S. taxpayers and dollar-denominated savers.
There is some question whether the Federal government was involved in the crackdown on Occupy Wall Street. Did the CIA teach the NYPD techniques and strategies that were used against OWS. If true it would be particular frightening. The CIA, in particular, has failed miserably in preventing terrorism and in predicting events abroad. They be should focusing on protecting America not stifling free speech at home :
Full articleThe CIA said Friday its internal watchdog found nothing wrong with the spy agency's close partnership with the New York Police Department.
The agency's inspector general concluded that no laws were broken and there was "no evidence that any part of the agency's support to the NYPD constituted `domestic spying'," CIA spokesperson Preston Golson said.
[...]The revelations troubled some members of Congress and even prompted the U.S. director of national intelligence, James Clapper, to remark that it did not look good for the CIA to be involved in any city police department. Thirty-four lawmakers have asked for the Justice Department to investigate but so far that request has gone nowhere.
Governments around the world, including in the U.S., realize that the internet has been essential to the revolutionary movements that are arising in many countries. As a result they might try to limit the freedoms that exist. That would be disastrous for those of us who are fighting to bring change to our countries. It's already happening in America. We must prepare for the worst. All freedom seekers must develop strategies for dealing with our governments' attempt to shut us down. Democracy must be defended at all costs since the alternative is tyranny:
A trends analyst who made his reputation by predicting the 2008 economic crash appears to have scored again — at least in part.Full article
A year ago, Gerald Celente told Russia Today that 2011 would be marked both by young people around the world coming together on the Internet to combat political and financial corruption and by government attempts to control dissent by shutting down free speech online.
“[The Internet is] exposing the corruptness, the ineptitude and the double dealing going on that [governments] don’t want the public to know about,” Celente told RT in a January 2011 interview. “The more freedom of information that goes out, they’re going to start using cyber war and the war on terror to take that Internet freedom away from America.”
“But in 2011, the game’s gonna run out,” he continued. “On one end, it’s a wake-up call and on the other hand it’s [an effort to] screw the people.”
