Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
marmar
marmar's Journal
marmar's Journal
April 9, 2012
from Rolling Stone:
Boy, do I feel like an idiot. I've been out there on radio and TV in the last few months saying that I thought there was a chance Barack Obama was listening to the popular anger against Wall Street that drove the Occupy movement, that decisions like putting a for-real law enforcement guy like New York AG Eric Schneiderman in charge of a mortgage fraud task force meant he was at least willing to pay lip service to public outrage against the banks.
Then the JOBS Act happened.
The "Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act" (in addition to everything else, the Act has an annoying, redundant title) will very nearly legalize fraud in the stock market.
In fact, one could say this law is not just a sweeping piece of deregulation that will have an increase in securities fraud as an accidental, ancillary consequence. No, this law actually appears to have been specifically written to encourage fraud in the stock markets. ...............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/why-obamas-jobs-act-couldnt-suck-worse-20120409#ixzz1raevYSoM
Matt Taibbi rips the JOBS Act
from Rolling Stone:
Boy, do I feel like an idiot. I've been out there on radio and TV in the last few months saying that I thought there was a chance Barack Obama was listening to the popular anger against Wall Street that drove the Occupy movement, that decisions like putting a for-real law enforcement guy like New York AG Eric Schneiderman in charge of a mortgage fraud task force meant he was at least willing to pay lip service to public outrage against the banks.
Then the JOBS Act happened.
The "Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act" (in addition to everything else, the Act has an annoying, redundant title) will very nearly legalize fraud in the stock market.
In fact, one could say this law is not just a sweeping piece of deregulation that will have an increase in securities fraud as an accidental, ancillary consequence. No, this law actually appears to have been specifically written to encourage fraud in the stock markets. ...............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/why-obamas-jobs-act-couldnt-suck-worse-20120409#ixzz1raevYSoM
April 9, 2012
'This is weird. This is not good.'
Published on Monday, April 9, 2012 by Common Dreams
Record Warm March Temperatures Continue Record-Breaking Periods
More than 15,000 warm temperature records broken during March
- Common Dreams staff
The contiguous United States experienced the warmest March ever in the warmest start of the year ever in the warmest 12-month period ever, according to new data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
The record warm March temperatures hit the entire nation with each state having experienced at least one record warm daily temperature. The NOAA reports that there were over 15,000 warm temperature records broken during the month.
The NOAA also connected the record breaking March temperatures to the slew of tornadoes saying that "warmer-than-average conditions across the eastern U.S. also created an environment favorable for severe thunderstorms and tornadoes."
The first three months of the year were record warm for the contiguous United States with an average temperature of 42.0°F, 6.0°F above the long-term average. .....................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/04/09-5
April 9, 2012
from the Chicago Sun-Times:
The federal government is looking to throw former Chicago Bears Super Bowl quarterback Jim McMahon for a loss.
Long after his football career ended, McMahon quietly spent six years as a board member for Broadway Bank, owned by the family of Alexi Giannoulias, the former Illinois state treasurer who made an unsuccessful run for President Barack Obama’s old U.S. Senate seat two years ago.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. shut down the failed bank in April 2010. And now McMahon is among seven former Broadway Bank board members and two former bank executives who have been personally targeted in a lawsuit the FDIC filed to recover $104 million lost from 17 bad loans the bank made before regulators shut it down.
McMahon — who quarterbacked the 1985 Bears to victory in the Super Bowl and retired from pro football in 1997 — was the only celebrity on the bank board, though not many people knew that. .................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.suntimes.com/11717919-417/feds-aim-to-sack-former-bears-qb-jim-mcmahon-over-bad-bank-loans.html
Jim McMahon named in bank fraud case
from the Chicago Sun-Times:
The federal government is looking to throw former Chicago Bears Super Bowl quarterback Jim McMahon for a loss.
Long after his football career ended, McMahon quietly spent six years as a board member for Broadway Bank, owned by the family of Alexi Giannoulias, the former Illinois state treasurer who made an unsuccessful run for President Barack Obama’s old U.S. Senate seat two years ago.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. shut down the failed bank in April 2010. And now McMahon is among seven former Broadway Bank board members and two former bank executives who have been personally targeted in a lawsuit the FDIC filed to recover $104 million lost from 17 bad loans the bank made before regulators shut it down.
McMahon — who quarterbacked the 1985 Bears to victory in the Super Bowl and retired from pro football in 1997 — was the only celebrity on the bank board, though not many people knew that. .................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.suntimes.com/11717919-417/feds-aim-to-sack-former-bears-qb-jim-mcmahon-over-bad-bank-loans.html
April 9, 2012
NOAA: March 2012 the Warmest on Record
by Chris Dolce, weather.com Meteorologist
Updated: April 9, 2012 8:15 am ET
Last week we revealed the dozens of cities that had their warmest March on record. Now we have the official word from the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that March 2012 was the warmest March on record in the contiguous United States. In addition, the January through March period of 2012 was the warmest first quarter of the year on record. Records date back to 1895 in both cases.
NOAA also released information stating that the early March tornado outbreak in the Ohio Valley and Southeast was the first billion-dollar weather disaster of 2012.
NOAA's full report on March 2012 will be released at 11 am on Monday. Click the link below to see more information on the record-breaking month as we examine March 2012 by the numbers.
http://www.weather.com/outlook/weather-news/news/articles/march-warmest-on-record_2012-04-09
It's Official... Warmest March Ever!
NOAA: March 2012 the Warmest on Record
by Chris Dolce, weather.com Meteorologist
Updated: April 9, 2012 8:15 am ET
Last week we revealed the dozens of cities that had their warmest March on record. Now we have the official word from the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that March 2012 was the warmest March on record in the contiguous United States. In addition, the January through March period of 2012 was the warmest first quarter of the year on record. Records date back to 1895 in both cases.
NOAA also released information stating that the early March tornado outbreak in the Ohio Valley and Southeast was the first billion-dollar weather disaster of 2012.
NOAA's full report on March 2012 will be released at 11 am on Monday. Click the link below to see more information on the record-breaking month as we examine March 2012 by the numbers.
http://www.weather.com/outlook/weather-news/news/articles/march-warmest-on-record_2012-04-09
April 9, 2012
By Noah Feldman Apr 8, 2012 6:00 PM ET
(Bloomberg) To be the swing voter, you have to be willing to swing. In the last three weeks, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has shown how it’s done.
First he wrote the majority opinion in a landmark 5-4 case establishing a constitutional right to an adequate lawyer in plea-bargaining negotiations. Liberals were enthused. Yet in his tough questioning during the Obamacare arguments, he shook up the conventional wisdom that mandatory coverage would be upheld comfortably. Liberals were not enthused. Then, as a coda, he wrote the majority opinion in a 5-4 case allowing jails to strip-search anyone being put into the general prison population -- even without suspicion, and even after the most trivial misdemeanor arrest. The same liberals who loved him in March are prepared to loathe him in April.
What principle, if any, explains Kennedy’s vote in the strip-search case? Kennedy-watchers know that he is deeply sympathetic to arguments based on human dignity. His perception of dignity led him to vote to preserve the core of Roe v. Wade in 1992, and to write the two opinions that more or less created constitutional rights for gay people.
The plaintiff in the strip-search case was arrested after a routine traffic stop and jailed for a minor outstanding warrant that may well have been a mistake. Before entering the jail, he was forced to strip, lift his genitals, squat and cough. If that isn’t an assault on human dignity, you might think, what is? .............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-08/strip-search-case-reflects-death-of-american-privacy.html
Strip-Search Case Reflects Death of American Privacy
By Noah Feldman Apr 8, 2012 6:00 PM ET
(Bloomberg) To be the swing voter, you have to be willing to swing. In the last three weeks, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has shown how it’s done.
First he wrote the majority opinion in a landmark 5-4 case establishing a constitutional right to an adequate lawyer in plea-bargaining negotiations. Liberals were enthused. Yet in his tough questioning during the Obamacare arguments, he shook up the conventional wisdom that mandatory coverage would be upheld comfortably. Liberals were not enthused. Then, as a coda, he wrote the majority opinion in a 5-4 case allowing jails to strip-search anyone being put into the general prison population -- even without suspicion, and even after the most trivial misdemeanor arrest. The same liberals who loved him in March are prepared to loathe him in April.
What principle, if any, explains Kennedy’s vote in the strip-search case? Kennedy-watchers know that he is deeply sympathetic to arguments based on human dignity. His perception of dignity led him to vote to preserve the core of Roe v. Wade in 1992, and to write the two opinions that more or less created constitutional rights for gay people.
The plaintiff in the strip-search case was arrested after a routine traffic stop and jailed for a minor outstanding warrant that may well have been a mistake. Before entering the jail, he was forced to strip, lift his genitals, squat and cough. If that isn’t an assault on human dignity, you might think, what is? .............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-08/strip-search-case-reflects-death-of-american-privacy.html
April 9, 2012
TOKYO (MarketWatch) -- Sony Corp. plans to reduce its workforce by an estimated 10,000 jobs, or about 6% of its global workforce, as part of new Chief Executive Kazuo Hirai's restructuring plan, people familiar with the matter said Monday.
The payroll cuts could run through the two fiscal years until March 2014, although the final timing has not been settled, the people said. The potential reductions are the first details to emerge of Hirai's restructuring plan--due to be announced at a corporate strategy meeting Thursday--since he replaced Howard Stringer as CEO of Sony in April.
After four straight years of losses, Hirai's main focus is to turn around the company's struggling electronics business, which once established Sony as a global brand known for innovative products. But in recent years Sony has failed to match the success of Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co., and its electronics division has suffered from the impact of the strong yen and brutal price competition.
For the last two months, Hirai has huddled with key deputies searching for ways to streamline the company without killing future pipelines for innovations, the people said. ................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/sony-is-said-planning-to-cut-6-of-jobs-2012-04-09?dist=beforebell
Sony is said planning to cut 10,000, or 6%, of jobs
TOKYO (MarketWatch) -- Sony Corp. plans to reduce its workforce by an estimated 10,000 jobs, or about 6% of its global workforce, as part of new Chief Executive Kazuo Hirai's restructuring plan, people familiar with the matter said Monday.
The payroll cuts could run through the two fiscal years until March 2014, although the final timing has not been settled, the people said. The potential reductions are the first details to emerge of Hirai's restructuring plan--due to be announced at a corporate strategy meeting Thursday--since he replaced Howard Stringer as CEO of Sony in April.
After four straight years of losses, Hirai's main focus is to turn around the company's struggling electronics business, which once established Sony as a global brand known for innovative products. But in recent years Sony has failed to match the success of Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co., and its electronics division has suffered from the impact of the strong yen and brutal price competition.
For the last two months, Hirai has huddled with key deputies searching for ways to streamline the company without killing future pipelines for innovations, the people said. ................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/sony-is-said-planning-to-cut-6-of-jobs-2012-04-09?dist=beforebell
April 9, 2012
from truthdig:
The Real Health Care Debate
Posted on Apr 9, 2012
By Chris Hedges
The debate surrounding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act illustrates the impoverishment of our political life. Here is a law that had its origin in the right-wing Heritage Foundation, was first put into practice in 2006 in Massachusetts by then-Gov. Mitt Romney and was solidified into federal law after corporate lobbyists wrote legislation with more than 2,000 pages. It is a law that forces American citizens to buy a deeply defective product from private insurance companies. It is a law that is the equivalent of the bank bailout bill—some $447 billion in subsidies for insurance interests alone—for the pharmaceutical and insurance industries. It is a law that is unconstitutional. And it is a law by which President Barack Obama, and his corporate backers, extinguished the possibilities of both the public option and Medicare for all Americans. There is no substantial difference between Obamacare and Romneycare. There is no substantial difference between Obama and Romney. They are abject servants of the corporate state. And if you vote for one you vote for the other.
But you would never know this by listening to the Democratic Party and the advocacy groups that purport to support universal health care but seem more intent on re-electing Obama. It is the very sad legacy of the liberal class that it proves in election cycle after election cycle that it espouses moral and political positions it will not pay a price to defend. And since we have no fight in us, since we will not punish politicians like Obama who betray our core beliefs, the corporate juggernaut rolls forward with its inexorable pace to cement into place our global neofeudalism.
Protesting outside the Supreme Court recently as it heard arguments on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act were both conservatives from Americans for Prosperity who denounced the president as a socialist and demonstrators from Democratic front groups such as the SEIU and the Families USA health care consumer group who chanted “Protect the law!” Lost between these two factions were a few stalwarts who hold quite different views, including public health care advocates Dr. Margaret Flowers, Dr. Carol Paris and attorneys Oliver Hall, Kevin Zeese and Russell Mokhiber. They displayed a banner that read: “Single Payer Now! Strike Down the Obama Mandate!” They, at least, have not relinquished the demand for single payer health care for all Americans. And I throw my lot in with these renegades, dismissed, no doubt, as cranks or dreamers or impractical by those who flee into the embrace of empty political theater and junk politics. These single payer advocates, joined by 50 doctors, filed a brief to the court that challenges, in the name of universal health care, the individual mandate.
“We have the solution, we have the resources and we have the money to provide lifelong, comprehensive, high-quality health care to every person,” Dr. Flowers said when we spoke a few days ago in Washington, D.C. Many Americans have not accepted the single payer approach “because people get confused by the politics,” she said. “People accept the Democratic argument that this (Obamacare) is all we can have or this is something we can build on.” .................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_real_health_care_debate_20120409/
Chris Hedges: The Real Health Care Debate
from truthdig:
The Real Health Care Debate
Posted on Apr 9, 2012
By Chris Hedges
The debate surrounding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act illustrates the impoverishment of our political life. Here is a law that had its origin in the right-wing Heritage Foundation, was first put into practice in 2006 in Massachusetts by then-Gov. Mitt Romney and was solidified into federal law after corporate lobbyists wrote legislation with more than 2,000 pages. It is a law that forces American citizens to buy a deeply defective product from private insurance companies. It is a law that is the equivalent of the bank bailout bill—some $447 billion in subsidies for insurance interests alone—for the pharmaceutical and insurance industries. It is a law that is unconstitutional. And it is a law by which President Barack Obama, and his corporate backers, extinguished the possibilities of both the public option and Medicare for all Americans. There is no substantial difference between Obamacare and Romneycare. There is no substantial difference between Obama and Romney. They are abject servants of the corporate state. And if you vote for one you vote for the other.
But you would never know this by listening to the Democratic Party and the advocacy groups that purport to support universal health care but seem more intent on re-electing Obama. It is the very sad legacy of the liberal class that it proves in election cycle after election cycle that it espouses moral and political positions it will not pay a price to defend. And since we have no fight in us, since we will not punish politicians like Obama who betray our core beliefs, the corporate juggernaut rolls forward with its inexorable pace to cement into place our global neofeudalism.
Protesting outside the Supreme Court recently as it heard arguments on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act were both conservatives from Americans for Prosperity who denounced the president as a socialist and demonstrators from Democratic front groups such as the SEIU and the Families USA health care consumer group who chanted “Protect the law!” Lost between these two factions were a few stalwarts who hold quite different views, including public health care advocates Dr. Margaret Flowers, Dr. Carol Paris and attorneys Oliver Hall, Kevin Zeese and Russell Mokhiber. They displayed a banner that read: “Single Payer Now! Strike Down the Obama Mandate!” They, at least, have not relinquished the demand for single payer health care for all Americans. And I throw my lot in with these renegades, dismissed, no doubt, as cranks or dreamers or impractical by those who flee into the embrace of empty political theater and junk politics. These single payer advocates, joined by 50 doctors, filed a brief to the court that challenges, in the name of universal health care, the individual mandate.
“We have the solution, we have the resources and we have the money to provide lifelong, comprehensive, high-quality health care to every person,” Dr. Flowers said when we spoke a few days ago in Washington, D.C. Many Americans have not accepted the single payer approach “because people get confused by the politics,” she said. “People accept the Democratic argument that this (Obamacare) is all we can have or this is something we can build on.” .................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_real_health_care_debate_20120409/
April 8, 2012
from Mother Jones:
We've heard a lot about the life-threatening challenges facing penguins and polar bears as snow and ice disappear. But what about all the other life of the cryosphere—the parts of Earth where water is in its solid state for at least one month of the year (map below)? From a new paper in Bioscience:
The paper describes impacts identified through decades-long ecological studies. The authors found two ecosystem-level responses—that is, responses rippling across various species and trophic levels—as a result of the disappearing cryosphere:
The complete piece is at: http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/04/cryosphere-global-warming
Watching Earth's Ice Disappear
from Mother Jones:
We've heard a lot about the life-threatening challenges facing penguins and polar bears as snow and ice disappear. But what about all the other life of the cryosphere—the parts of Earth where water is in its solid state for at least one month of the year (map below)? From a new paper in Bioscience:
Global average air temperature has warmed by 1 Celsius (°C) over the past century, and in response, the cryosphere—the part of the Earth’s surface most influenced by ice and snow—is changing. Specifically, alpine glaciers are retreating, the expanse of Arctic sea ice has been shrinking, the thickness and duration of winter snowpacks are diminishing, permafrost has been melting, and the ice cover on lakes and rivers has been appearing later in the year and melting out earlier. Although these changes are relatively well documented, the ecological responses and long-term consequences that they initiate are not.
The paper describes impacts identified through decades-long ecological studies. The authors found two ecosystem-level responses—that is, responses rippling across various species and trophic levels—as a result of the disappearing cryosphere:
1. Changes in foodwebs resulting from the loss of habitat and from the loss of species or the replacement of species (a.k.a. the big stuff we tend to notice and take photos of).
2. Changes in the rates and mechanisms of biogeochemical storage and cycling of carbon and nutrients, caused by changes in physical forcings or ecological community functioning (a.k.a. the little stuff that's hard to see but that underpins the big stuff in #1).
..................(more)
2. Changes in the rates and mechanisms of biogeochemical storage and cycling of carbon and nutrients, caused by changes in physical forcings or ecological community functioning (a.k.a. the little stuff that's hard to see but that underpins the big stuff in #1).
The complete piece is at: http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/04/cryosphere-global-warming
April 8, 2012
America's hall of mirrors recovery
US economic growth is grotesquely distorted, with the benefits bloating the 1%, while middle-class Americans are still pinched
Robert Reich
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 7 April 2012
The economy added only 120,000 jobs in March – down from the rate of more than 200,000 in each of the preceding three months. The rate of unemployment dropped from 8.3 to 8.2%, mainly because fewer people were searching for jobs – and that rate depends on how many people are actively looking.
It's way too early to conclude the jobs recovery is stalling, but there's reason for concern.
Remember: consumer spending is 70% of the US economy. Employers won't hire without enough sales to justify the additional hires. It's up to consumers to make it worth their while.
But real spending by American consumers (adjusted to remove price changes) this year hasn't been going anywhere. It increased just 0.5% in February, after an anemic 0.2% increase in January. ..................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/apr/07/america-hall-mirrors-recovery-robert-reich
Robert Reich: America's hall of mirrors recovery
America's hall of mirrors recovery
US economic growth is grotesquely distorted, with the benefits bloating the 1%, while middle-class Americans are still pinched
Robert Reich
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 7 April 2012
The economy added only 120,000 jobs in March – down from the rate of more than 200,000 in each of the preceding three months. The rate of unemployment dropped from 8.3 to 8.2%, mainly because fewer people were searching for jobs – and that rate depends on how many people are actively looking.
It's way too early to conclude the jobs recovery is stalling, but there's reason for concern.
Remember: consumer spending is 70% of the US economy. Employers won't hire without enough sales to justify the additional hires. It's up to consumers to make it worth their while.
But real spending by American consumers (adjusted to remove price changes) this year hasn't been going anywhere. It increased just 0.5% in February, after an anemic 0.2% increase in January. ..................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/apr/07/america-hall-mirrors-recovery-robert-reich
Profile Information
Gender: MaleHometown: Detroit, MI
Member since: Fri Oct 29, 2004, 12:18 AM
Number of posts: 77,090
