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Hissyspit's JournalFlorida election officials to get access to citizen database
Source: Reuters
Florida election officials to get access to citizen database
Sat Jul 14, 2012 7:19pm EDT
By Michael Peltier
TALLAHASSEE, Florida (Reuters) - Florida election officials will have access to a federal database to help purge its voter rolls of non-citizens under an agreement reached between state and federal officials and welcomed on Saturday by Florida's Republican governor.
The Department of Homeland Security will allow state officials to access the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database.
Florida and federal officials have been battling over access to the database for several weeks. Florida filed a lawsuit against the Homeland Security Department to gain access to the database. The state was hit by a lawsuit from the Justice Department seeking to stop the purge.
Justice Department officials have said the database is not a comprehensive listing of citizens and that state officials failed to hand over key information to cross-reference the listing.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE86D0ER20120714?irpc=932
Robert Reich: The Selling of American Democracy - The Perfect Storm
http://robertreich.org/post/27128864190The Selling of American Democracy: The Perfect Storm
FRIDAY, JULY 13, 2012
Who’s buying our democracy? Wall Street financiers, the Koch brothers, and casino magnates Sheldon Adelson and Steve Wynn.
And they’re doing much of it in secret.
It’s a perfect storm:
The greatest concentration of wealth in more than a century — courtesy “trickle-down” economics, Reagan and Bush tax cuts, and the demise of organized labor.
Combined with…
Unlimited political contributions — courtesy of Republican-appointed Justices Roberts, Scalia, Alito, Thomas, and Kennedy, in one of the dumbest decisions in Supreme Court history, “Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission,” along with lower-court rulings that have expanded it.
Combined with…
Complete secrecy about who’s contributing how much to whom — courtesy of a loophole in the tax laws that allows so-called non-profit “social welfare” organizations to accept the unlimited contributions for hard-hitting political ads.
Put them all together and our democracy is being sold down the drain.
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This coming Monday, for example, the Senate has scheduled a cloture vote on the DISCLOSE ACT, which would at least require that outfits like the Chamber of Commerce and Karl Rove’s “Crossroads GPS” disclose who’s contributing what. Contact your senators, and have your friends and relatives in other states — especially those with Republican senators (who have been united in their opposition to disclosure) — contact theirs. If the DISCLOSE ACT is voted down, hold accountable those senators (and, when and if it gets to the House, those House members) who are selling out our democracy for the sake of their own personal ambitions.
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WikiLeaks Grand Jury Witness David House Releases What He Says is His Grand Jury Transcript
@wikileaks: WikiLeaks Grand Jury witness David House releases what he says is his Grand Jury transcript
http://t.co/nqL5hsGV
https://t.co/xWcNxCbG
@wikileaks: RT @m_cetera: Crump: ACLU ultimately decided to represent David and filed a lawsuit arguing what happened violated both 1st & 4th amendments. #WikiLeaks
@wikileaks: RT @VoxVictoria: I'm releasing my notes from the 2011 grand jury here for the first time: http://t.co/44jkuJ7D | #HOPE9 #ACLU #WikiLeaks
Geithner Pressed British Regulators in 2008 on Libor
Source: Reuters
Geithner pressed British regulators in 2008 on Libor
Fri Jul 13, 2012 2:22am EDT
By Timothy Ahmann
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner pressed the Bank of England in June 2008 to make changes in the way that Libor, a key interest rate benchmark, was set, according to documents obtained by Reuters.
Geithner, who was the head of the New York Federal Reserve Bank at the time, sent a private email to BoE Governor Mervyn King recommending six ways to enhance the credibility of the London interbank offered rate.
More than a dozen banks are under investigation by authorities in Europe, Japan and the United States over suspected rigging of the global borrowing cost benchmark, which is used in contracts worth trillions of dollars globally.
The June 1, 2008, email, first reported by the Washington Post, included a two-page memo dated May 27 of that year that suggested establishing best practices for calculating Libor, "including procedures designed to prevent accidental or deliberate misreporting."
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE86C08G20120713?irpc=932
At least 200 Killed in Syrian Village: Opposition Activists
Source: Reuters
BEIRUT (Reuters) - At least 100 people were massacred on Thursday by Syrian government forces in a village in the province of Hama, opposition activists quoted witnesses and residents as saying.
The village of Tremseh was shelled by Syrian troops and later stormed by Shabbiha militia, they said. Several people in the village were killed by the shelling and more were shot later in the head execution-style, they added.
@Reuters: UPDATE: DEATH TOLL IN SYRIAN FORCES' ATTACK ON VILLAGE IN SYRIA'S HAMA REGION IS MORE THAN 200, MOSTLY CIVILIANS - OPPOSITION ACTIVISTS
Read more: http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE86B1DO20120712?irpc=932
ReutersTV: MIT Economist Blames Political Elite for Erosion of Democracy & Economy
http://www.reuters.com/video/2012/07/06/reuters-tv-political-elitism-is-eroding-democracy-m?&videoChannel=117853&videoId=236384660Political elitism is eroding democracy: MIT economist – Freeland File (4:58)
Politically powerful elites in the U.S. control the economic institutions that are sapping the productivity of the many in favor of the interests of the few, according to a new book from MIT economist Daron Acemoglu. (July 6, 2012)
VIDEO AT LINK[p]
Continental U.S. Breaks Heat Record in First Half of 2012
Source: Reuters
Continental U.S. breaks heat record in first half of 2012
Mon Jul 9, 2012 2:37pm EDT
- snip -
The last 12 months also have been the warmest since modern record-keeping began in 1895, narrowly beating the previous 12-month period that ended in May 2012.
Every state except Washington in the contiguous United States had warmer-than-average temperatures for the June 2011-June 2012 period.
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June was 2 degrees Fahrenheit (1.1 degrees Celsius) warmer in the lower 48 states than the 20th-century average, but still just the 14th hottest June in the record books, NOAA's National Climatic Data Center said in a statement.
June 1933, during the calamitous Dust Bowl period, was the hottest.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE86811Q20120709?irpc=932
Congressman Barney Frank Weds in Same-Sex Marriage
Source: Reuters
Congressman Barney Frank weds in same-sex marriage
Sat Jul 7, 2012 8:19pm EDT
By Tim McLaughlin
BOSTON (Reuters) - U.S. Democratic Representative Barney Frank wed his longtime partner, James Ready, on Saturday, becoming the first sitting congressman to enter into a same-sex marriage.
Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick officiated the ceremony and added some levity by saying Frank, 72, and Ready, 42, had vowed to love each other through Democratic and Republican administrations alike, and even through appearances on Fox News, according to Al Green, a Democratic congressman from Texas.
"Barney was beaming," said Green, who attended the ceremony. He added that Frank, a champion of gay rights and the sweeping reform of Wall Street, shed a tear during the ceremony.
After exchanging their vows, Frank and Ready embraced each other, Green said. "It was no different than any other wedding I've attended when you have two people who are in love with each other," Green said.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE86700820120708?irpc=932
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/fashion/weddings/barney-frank-wedding-jim-ready.html
VOWS
Barney Frank Weds Jim Ready
Gretchen Ertl for The New York Times
Newtown, MASS., JULY 7 Representative Barney Frank, right, with Jim Ready after their wedding ceremony.
By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM
Published: July 7, 2012
IT was perhaps fitting that Representative Barney Frank met his future husband, Jim Ready, at a political fund-raiser in 2005.
“I told him I had a crush on him for 20 years,” said Mr. Ready, recalling that meeting.
And what did Mr. Frank make of that? “That I’m being rewarded for coming to this fund-raiser,” he said with a laugh.
Mr. Frank, 72, and Mr. Ready, 42, were married in Newtown, Mass., on Saturday in a low-key ceremony on the banks of the Charles River. Gov. Deval L. Patrick of Massachusetts officiated. The guests included Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic House minority leader, as well as Senator John Kerry and Representatives Dennis J. Kuchinich and Steny H. Hoyer.
Robert Reich: The Wall Street Scandal of All Scandals
http://robertreich.org/post/26708840314The Wall Street Scandal of all Scandals
SATURDAY, JULY 7, 2012
Just when you thought Wall Street couldn’t sink any lower – when its myriad abuses of public trust have already spread a miasma of cynicism over the entire economic system, giving birth to Tea Partiers and Occupiers and all manner of conspiracy theories; when its excesses have already wrought havoc with the lives of millions of Americans, causing taxpayers to shell out billions (of which only a portion has been repaid) even as its top executives are back to making more money than ever; when its vast political power (via campaign contributions) has already eviscerated much of the Dodd-Frank law that was supposed to rein it in, including the so-called “Volker” Rule that was sold as a milder version of the old Glass-Steagall Act that used to separate investment from commercial banking – yes, just when you thought the Street had hit bottom, an even deeper level of public-be-damned greed and corruption is revealed.
Sit down and hold on to your chair.
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That would be a mammoth violation of public trust. And it would amount to a rip-off of almost cosmic proportion – trillions of dollars that you and I and other average people would otherwise have received or saved on our lending and borrowing that have been going instead to the bankers. It would make the other abuses of trust we’ve witnessed look like child’s play by comparison.
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So far, the scandal has been limited to Barclay’s, a big London-based bank that just paid $453 million to U.S. and British bank regulators, whose top executives have been forced to resign, and whose traders’ emails give a chilling picture of how easily they got their colleagues to rig interest rates in order to make big bucks. (Robert Diamond, Jr., the former Barclay CEO who was forced to resign, said the emails made him “physically ill” – perhaps because they so patently reveal the corruption.)
But Wall Street has almost surely been involved in the same practice, including the usual suspects — JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, and Bank of America – because every major bank participates in setting the Libor rate, and Barclay’s couldn’t have rigged it without their witting involvement.
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This is insider trading on a gigantic scale. It makes the bankers winners and the rest of us – whose money they’ve used for to make their bets – losers and chumps.
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Clean Air Survey Records the Smoggiest June in At Least Five Years
http://blog.locustfork.net/2012/07/clean-air-survey-records-the-smoggiest-june-in-at-least-five-yearsClean Air Survey Records the Smoggiest June in At Least Five Years
July 5th, 2012
by Glynn Wilson
Every time we turn around there is another report that shows how we humans are screwing up the planet we live on. Unfortunately, most of the time these stories are written up as isolated incidents with an almost mandatory skepticism and rarely are the dots connected for people between one event and the next and possible solutions.
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June wasn’t just hot and stormy, according to the non-profit watchdog group Clean Air Watch. It was the smoggiest June in at least the past five years.
The survey found that in June, people in 41 states and the District of Columbia suffered levels of smog worse than the national ozone standard set by the Bush administration in 2008. Last month was by far the smoggiest June since then. These smog levels are labeled “Code Orange” or “Code Red” under the Air Quality Index system created by the federal government.
The survey found the national health standard for smog, technically ozone, was breached at least 2,110 times at state-run monitoring stations. By comparison, during June 2011, there were 1,240 such events. For 2012 as a whole there have been 3,112 of these dirty-smog readings, compared to 1,689 in 2011. In 2008, there were 1,560 bad air days in June, 540 in 2009, 570 in 2010, 1,240 in 2011 and 2,110 in 2012 — about 25 percent more than the next highest year, which shows the trend is only getting worse.
Clean Air Watch says the widespread nature of the problem underscores the “dire need for new smog-fighting tools,” especially cleaner, low-sulfur gasoline.
The group indicates that the survey itself understates the true extent of the smog problem, and the Environmental Protection Agency conceded more than two years ago that the Bush standard was too weak to protect children with asthma and other people with breathing problems.
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