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Scott Baker is a Senior Editor and Writer at Op Ed News, a Writer for Daily Kos and Huffington Post, and is the author of Neitherworld - a two-volume novel blending Native American myth, archaeological detail, government conspiracy, with a sci-fi flair.
He has a blog: http://newthinking.blogspot.com/
He is President of Common Ground-NYC, a Geoist group focusing on achieving social justice and economic growth by untaxing production and taxing the abuse and use of the natural resources of the commons.
He is also NY State Coordinator for the Public Banking institute, which seeks to promote Public Banking, along the lines of the best-known American example, the Bank of North Dakota. The PBI is chaired by another OEN blogger, Ellen Brown.
Scott has several progressive petitions on Change.org:
A new form of capitalism: Geonomics
http://www.change.org/actions/view/a_new_form_of_capitalism_geonomics
and
Let NY fund its budget gap with a State Bank - change.org/actions/view/close_the_gap_2
www.change.org/petitions/view/let_the_empire_state_finance_its_own_budget_gap
Scott was an I.T. Manager for New York University for over two decades, where he initiated computing, developed databases, established networks for two major departments and earned a Certificate for Frontline Leadership. He had a video game published in Compute! Magazine.
Scott now chooses to use his computer for the greater good.
He is a graduate and advanced student of the Henry George School of Social Science in New York City and has published articles in the Georgist newsletter - Groundswell - put out by Common Ground.
Scott is a modern-day Renaissance Man with interests in economics, astronomy, history, natural sciences, psychology, philosophy, Native American culture, and all future-forward topics; he has been called an adept syncretist by Kirkus Discoveries for his novel, NeitherWorld.
Scott grew up in New York City and Pennsylvania. He graduated with honors and a Bachelor's degree in Psychology from Pennsylvania State University and was a member of the Psychology honor society PSI CHI.
Today he is an avid bicyclist and is active in several Green and Progressive organizations.
Scott is a strong proponent of the Georgist Single Tax: "Tax the use (and abuse) of natural resources, not wages or capital," which would dramatically reduce use of finite resources - which, rightfully, belong to all of us, and increase productivity in Earth-saving ways, while virtually eliminating unproductive Speculation (by taxing away the fuel for it) and decrease poverty and Social Injustice.
Technorati code: a72h4zxgud
Friday, February 3, 2012 NY Observer: Eric Schneiderman Suing Three Major Banks For "Deceptive And Fraudulent Foreclosure Practices (4 comments)
State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman filed a suit today against Bank Of America, J.P. Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo for creating and using a private national mortgage electronic registry system called MERS to bring " foreclosure proceedings en masse based on deceptive and fraudulent court submissions."
"The banks created the MERS system as an end-run around the property recording system, to facilitate the rapid securitization and sale of mortgages," Mr. Schneiderman said in a statement about the suit.
Sunday, January 22, 2012 Are You Ready for a Real Change? (1 comments)
Want to see how wealthy your local government really is and break through the "selective presentation" game?
Government has built their internal empires by and through selective presentation and utilizing taxpayer revenue systematically separated from the general purpose operating budgets to build power-bases of standing wealth outside of the "general purpose" operating funds. The general purpose accounting is primarily where tax revenues are brought in and allocated for "general purpose" services government provides.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012 Local governments consolidating into one merged power hub
The shell structure of government is being left in place as the wealth and stewardship responsibilities are transferred to the Private Association, or, as in Massachusetts case when transitioned from the "State" government of Massachusetts into the "Commonwealth" of Massachusetts.
When this transition took place 2 decades ago, Massachusetts no longer produced a "State" government CAFR (Comprehensive Annual Financial Report). The CAFR was now produced under the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The State Court System and Financial operations were also transitioned into and under the same "Commonwealth" structure.
Mit Romney is the Presidential pick to be promoted by the syndicate being the prior governor of Massachusetts. He is versed on operating procedure to implement the same nationally. That will be his primary mission if elected President and thus the Syndicate is moving forward.
Sunday, January 15, 2012 Israelis Facing a Seismic Rift Over Role of Women (2 comments)
In the three months since the Israeli Health Ministry awarded a prize to a pediatrics professor for her book on hereditary diseases common to Jews, her experience at the awards ceremony has become a rallying cry. Not only did Dr. Maayan and her husband have to sit separately, as men and women were segregated at the event, but she was instructed that a male colleague would have to accept the award for her because women were not permitted on stage.
Though shocked that this was happening at a government ceremony, Dr. Maayan bit her tongue. But others have not, and her story is entering the pantheon of secular anger building as a battle rages in Israel for control of the public space between the strictly religious and everyone else.
Thursday, January 12, 2012 Scandal Brewing Over Nigerian Fuel Imports (2 comments)
(from Wikileaks):
A scandal is brewing in Nigeria over prices paid by the government for imported fuel. International fuel
traders have been falsifying the dates of bills of lading to reflect particularly high market prices, overcharging the
Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) by $300 million or more.
On April 2, Chris Finlayson, Chairman and Managing
Director of Shell Petroleum Development Corporation of
Nigeria (SPDC), told Consul General and Econoff that a
scandal is brewing within the NNPC over payments made to
international fuel marketers. Finlayson said some marketers have been changing the dates when fuel shipments bound for Nigeria were loaded in order to take advantage of particularly high market prices. He said the total overpayment by NNPC may be as high as $330 million.
Friday, January 6, 2012 Newt's Shop of Horrors By TIMOTHY EGAN
There must be a Greek tragedy, a Shakespeare play or a "Daily Show" parody to explain the exquisite irony of Newt Gingrich being destroyed by the very forces he unleashed -- a smack-down that sets up 2012 as the year the moneyed elite learn to use the limitless power granted them by the Supreme Court.
The deflated Newt balloon is pathetic, to use one of his favorite words. There he was, tired and bitter on election night, after getting carpet-bombed by advertisements painting him as a soulless hack tied to Washington like sea rust on the underside of a listing ship.
He complained about "millionaire consultants" buying every television outlet to "lie" about him. He whined about getting buried under "an avalanche of negative ads" that left him "drowning in negativity." You get the picture: ugly, sudden death, the very life snuffed out of him by things he could not control.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011 How to Save Iraq From Civil War By AYAD ALLAWI, OSAMA AL-NUJAIFI and RAFE AL-ESSAWI
Baghdad
IRAQ today stands on the brink of disaster. President Obama kept his campaign pledge to end the war here, but it has not ended the way anyone in Washington wanted. The prize, for which so many American soldiers believed they were fighting, was a functioning democratic and nonsectarian state. But Iraq is now moving in the opposite direction -- toward a sectarian autocracy that carries with it the threat of devastating civil war.
Monday, December 19, 2011 Gingrich: 'Activist Judges' Should Be Arrested
Gingrich gives illegal immigrants a break - goes after Federal judges instead. Instead of rounding up illegal immigrants, he would round up "activist" judges, that is, those whose opinion he disagrees with, and ask them to explain themselves, or risk arrest. He wants to weaken the judiciary, he says, in the new land of Gingrich.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011 Sustainable Good Society: Why the European Way is Still the Best Hope in an Insecure Age By Steven Hill
In the post-collapse era, economic and ecological sustainability increasingly will take center stage. Despite the eurozone crisis, Europe's social capitalism, steady state economy, pluralistic democracies and environmental policies still provide the best foundation for comprehensive sustainability.
Friday, December 9, 2011 To Fix Health, Help the Poor By ELIZABETH H. BRADLEY and LAUREN TAYLOR
IT'S common knowledge that the United States spends more than any other country on health care but still ranks in the bottom half of industrialized countries in outcomes like life expectancy and infant mortality. Why are these other countries beating us if we spend so much more? The truth is that we may not be spending more -- it all depends on what you count.
In our comparative study of 30 industrialized countries, published earlier this year in the journal BMJ Quality and Safety, we broadened the scope of traditional health care industry analyses to include spending on social services, like rent subsidies, employment-training programs, unemployment benefits, old-age pensions, family support and other services that can extend and improve life.
Thursday, December 8, 2011 The Occupy Wall Street Movement Plots a Comeback By STEPHEN GANDEL
In a society in which we're used to taking direction from Presidents and CEOs, captains and quarterbacks, Occupy Wall Street's leaderless structure seems like a formula for chaos. And yet nearly a month after protesters were evicted from the movement's birthplace in Zuccotti Park in downtown Manhattan the exercise in organized anarchy is still going strong.
Since the Nov. 15 eviction, much of New York Occupy Wall Street group's day-to-day activities have moved inside. Occupy Wall Streeters have moved in to a donated small office space in downtown Manhattan, with desks for about 50 workers.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011 The Big Fix By STEPHEN HOLDEN (1 comments)
"The Big Fix" is an enraged exposé of the crimes of Big Oil, specifically BP, which has been accused of negligence and of taking shortcuts that helped lead to the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig off the Louisiana coast in April 2010. Eleven workers on the platform died and nearly five million barrels of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico over the next five months, killing vast numbers of marine animals before much of it washed ashore, where it wrought incalculable damage.
And it is NOT over.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011 Naomi Wolf Versus Joshua Holland: Was There a Coordinated Federal Crackdown on Occupy Wall Street? (1 comments)
Naomi Wolf responds to Joshua Holland's criticisms of her piece alleging a coordinated federal crackdown on Occupy Wall Street.
"Josh Holland's criticisms of my piece, in a blog post, "Naomi Wolf's Shocking Truth about Occupy is Anything But", was picked up the most widely of the critics' attacks. But the criticisms Holland poses are poorly grounded.
Holland's main premise is that I am part of a "flurry of speculation" that is without basis in fact, and that there was no federal involvement in the crackdown."
Monday, December 5, 2011 Debt Slavery -- Why It Destroyed Rome, Why It Will Destroy Us Unless It's Stopped by MICHAEL HUDSON (1 comments)
Since the Renaissance...bankers have shifted their political support to democracies. This did not reflect egalitarian or liberal political convictions as such, but rather a desire for better security for their loans.
The tendency for debts to grow faster than the population's ability to pay has been a basic constant throughout all recorded history. Debts mount up exponentially, absorbing the surplus and reducing much of the population to the equivalent of debt peonage.
To put matters bluntly, the result has been junk economics. Its aim is to disable public checks and balances, shifting planning power into the hands of high finance on the claim that this is more efficient than public regulation.
Thursday, December 1, 2011 A Banker Speaks, With Regret By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF (1 comments)
If you want to understand why the Occupy movement has found such traction, it helps to listen to a former banker like James Theckston. He fully acknowledges that he and other bankers are mostly responsible for the country's housing mess.
As a regional vice president for Chase Home Finance in southern Florida, Theckston shoveled money at home borrowers. In 2007, his team wrote $2 billion in mortgages, he says. Sometimes those were "no documentation" mortgages.
"On the application, you don't put down a job; you don't show income; you don't show assets," he said. "But you still got a nod."
"If you had some old bag lady walking down the street and she had a decent credit score, she got a loan," he added.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011 NY Times: Reporters Meet the Fists of the Law
In the aftermath of the Occupy Wall Street eviction from Zuccotti Park, a mayoral aide e-mailed reporters.
In the aftermath of the Occupy Wall Street eviction from Zuccotti Park, a mayoral aide e-mailed reporters.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011 Olafur Arnarson, Michael Hudson and Gunnar Tomasson: Iceland's New Bank Disaster (2 comments)
This polarizing issue has now broken out especially in Iceland. The country is now suffering a second round of economic and financial distress stemming from the collapse of its banking system in October 2008. That crisis caused a huge loss of savings not only for domestic citizens but also for international creditors such as Deutsche Bank, Barclay's and their institutional clients.
Stuck with bad loans and bonds from bankrupt issuers, foreign investors in the old banks sold their bonds and other claims for pennies on the dollar to buyers whose web sites described themselves as "specializing in distressed assets," commonly known as vulture funds. (Persistent rumors suggest that some of these are working with the previous owners of the failed Icelandic banks, operating out of offshore banking and tax havens and currently under investigation by a Special Prosecutor.)
Tuesday, November 15, 2011 Best Satire of Faux Austrian Economics Ever
This is a gem from the ex-Chief regulator of the S&L debacle in 1990-1991:
"Someone has created a fabulous, richly detailed parody of Austrian economics. They call it The Daily Bell and claim that its perspective reflects Austrian economics. In reality, it satirizes faux Austrian economics' sycophancy toward elite white-collar criminals.
I was delighted to learn that they used my recent column: The Virgin Crisis: Systematically Ignoring Fraud as a Systemic Risk as the vehicle for their send-up."
Thursday, November 10, 2011 Riverside County, California To Charge Prisoners $142 Per Day Of Their Stay (1 comments)
In one southern California county, prisoners will soon have to pay for the privilege of staying in jail.
Riverside County, California will start charging prisoners $142.42 per day of their prison stay, CNNMoney reports. The county's board of supervisors approved the measure on Tuesday as a way to save an estimated $3 to $5 million per year. Not every prisoner will be forced to pay up, however. The county will review each prisoner's case individually to determine if they can afford the fee.
(oh, sure. And prisons won't be in business to make a profit, either. How long until prisons have to be filled in order to MEET the budget, instead of breaking it?)
Tuesday, November 8, 2011 New Scientist Magazine: Climate Change: What We Do -- And Don't -- Know (3 comments)
There is much we do not understand about Earth's climate. That is hardly surprising, given the complex interplay of physical, chemical and biological processes that determines what happens on our planet's surface and in its atmosphere.
Despite this, we can be certain about some things. For a start, the planet is warming, and human activity is largely responsible. But how much is Earth on course to warm by? What will the global and local effects be? How will it affect our lives?
In these articles, Michael Le Page sifts through the evidence to provide a brief guide to what we currently do -- and don't -- know about the planet's most burning issue.
Thursday, November 3, 2011 Poorest poor in US hits new record: 1 in 15 people (1 comments)
The ranks of America's poorest poor have climbed to a record high -- 1 in 15 people -- spread widely across metropolitan areas as the housing bust pushed many inner-city poor into suburbs and other outlying places and shriveled jobs and income.
New census data paint a stark portrait of the nation's haves and have-nots at a time when unemployment remains persistently high. It comes a week before the government releases first-ever economic data that will show more Hispanics, elderly and working-age poor have fallen into poverty.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011 Joe Nocera: Corzine Crashes Like It's 2008
When Goldman Sachs went public on May 4, 1999, Jon Corzine, who was then the firm's chief executive, held a stake that was suddenly valued at $305 million. So, perhaps, it's uncharitable to complain about the piddling $12 million severance he was poised to gain if he had managed to sell his current firm, MF Global Holdings, over the weekend. But I'm going to complain anyway. The idea that Corzine, who single-handedly destroyed MF Global Holdings, was in a position to command so much as a penny in severance is horrifying.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011 Occupying Subsidized Space By Bettina Damiani
The ability of Occupy Wall Street protesters to remain in Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan for weeks while Occupy groups in other cities are being evicted from their encampments is, ironically, based on the fact that the park is private rather than public property.
But it's a special category of private property.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011 Libya: Nato Delays End To Bombing Campaign
"NATO (which some in the OWS movement have dubbed the North American Terrorist Organization) postponed a definite decision to end its bombing campaign in Libya as consultations continued Wednesday with the U.N. and the country's interim government over how and when to wind down the operation.
Air patrols have continued in the meantime because some alliance members were concerned that a quick end to NATO's seven-month operation could lead to a resurgence in violence."
Violence by who? The people who live in Libya? Apparently, Obama is not sure he likes the transitional government & might like a do-over, again, now that Gadhafi is gone. Or, perhaps it is really just about the oil and gold?
Monday, October 24, 2011 Hunt Henion: Uncovering Recent Canadian Genocide (1 comments)
A former United Church minister, Reverend Kevin Annett, has documented and exposed mass murders in Canada's Indian residential schools, and confronted those responsible in his new book, Unrepentant: Disrobing the Emperor. Rev. Annett told me that the next step in this ongoing investigation will be to exhume the bodies of the murdered children, and that could begin as soon as next week.
"It is also our position that every act related to the aim of genocide... occurred within Indian residential schools and hospitals across Canada between the years 1889 and 1996, and that this genocide is continuing."
"Killings in the Indian residential school system were not the result of unplanned or random acts of violence, but of a deliberate policy that encouraged, permitted and protected the killing of aboriginal children."
Sunday, October 23, 2011 Not With A Bang, But A Whimper: Bank Of America's Death Rattle By William K. Black (1 comments)
Bob Ivry, Hugh Son and Christine Harper have written an article that needs to be read by everyone interested in the financial crisis. The article (available here) is entitled: BofA Said to Split Regulators Over Moving Merrill Derivatives to Bank Unit. The thrust of their story is that Bank of America's holding company, BAC, has directed the transfer of a large number of troubled financial derivatives from its Merrill Lynch subsidiary to the federally insured bank Bank of America (BofA). The story reports that the Federal Reserve supported the transfer and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) opposed it.
Sunday, October 23, 2011 Muammar Qaddafi: The One-State Solution
THE shocking level of the last wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence, which ended with this weekend's cease-fire, reminds us why a final resolution to the so-called Middle East crisis is so important. It is vital not just to break this cycle of destruction and injustice, but also to deny the religious extremists in the region who feed on the conflict an excuse to advance their own causes.
But everywhere one looks, among the speeches and the desperate diplomacy, there is no real way forward. A just and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians is possible, but it lies in the history of the people of this conflicted land, and not in the tired rhetoric of partition and two-state solutions.
Saturday, October 22, 2011 Huffington Post: Occupy Wall Street: At Zuccotti Park, Conflict Arises Among Occupiers (8 comments)
Events at Zuccotti Park, the epicenter of the Occupy Wall Street movement in Lower Manhattan, have become increasingly dramatic in recent days, as egos have clashed, visions competed, and the unity of the protesters has been questioned.
The debate over whether or not the protesters should draft a list of demands led to a New York Times piece that dominated a recent General Assembly discussion. Along with complaints from area residents and continued pressure from the city about cleanliness and noise, growing concerns about safety and theft on the premises, and the proposal of a Spokes Council which for two nights in a row failed to gain consensus from the GA, it has been a long week at Zuccotti Park.
Friday, October 21, 2011 Ny Observer: Citibank Protester Talks About Undercover Infiltration In Occupy Wall Street
Marshall Garrett, one of the protesters who was arrested during Saturday's Occupy Wall Street march for trying to hold a General Assembly in Citibank, told the Village Voice what went down that day. Apparently a plainclothed cop had been very well informed of the situation ahead of time and hidden himself in the crowd.
Here's what Mr. Garrett told the paper:
But what was unknown to us and to a lot of people that day, including those in Times Square, was that there were undercover cops already there, paid to be disruptive and to be loud. One undercover cop present [at Citi] was louder than the entire group.
Thursday, October 20, 2011 Occidental Observer: Social Nationalism: The Political Thought of Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus
Alexander Lukashenko is probably the most maligned politician in the world today. The reasons for this are not difficult to discover. Contrary to the prattle about his alleged "tyranny," Lukashenko is under attack due to his success. Truth be told, of course, Belarus has more important opposition parties than the U.S., and also has a press that is part state-owned, but with many legal opposition newspapers in existence, partly funded by the United States and the EU. Nevertheless, his success is not based on this.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011 The Meagerness of the GOP Debates, the Smallness of the President's Solutions, and the Need for a Progressive Alternativ (1 comments)
Republicans are debating again Tuesday night. And once again, Americans will hear the standard regressive litany: government is bad, Medicare and Medicaid should be cut, "Obamacare" is killing the economy, undocumented immigrants are taking our jobs, the military should get more money, taxes should be lowered on corporations and the rich, and regulations should be gutted.
Americans are listening more intently this time around because they're hurting and they want answers. But the answers they're getting from Republican candidates -- tripping over themselves trying to appeal to hard-core regressives -- are the wrong ones.
The correct ones aren't being aired.
Sunday, October 2, 2011 Occupy Wall Street: 700 Arrested in a Standoff on the Brooklyn Bridge
Dozens of police officers on small motorcycles formed a long line that kept the protesters on the sidewalk and out of the traffic, a sign that the NYPD has learned from last week's march to Union Square where videos exploded on the web of a police commander spraying mace in the face of a woman behind a pen. The plan, on this rainy Saturday, was to march over the Brooklyn Bridge. Protest organizers had instructed everyone at the outset not to instigate conflict with police or pedestrians with physical violence.
Sunday, September 25, 2011 NY Times: Michael Kazin: Whatever Happened to the American Left? (1 comments)
SOMETIMES, attention should be paid to the absence of news. America's economic miseries continue, with unemployment still high and home sales stagnant or dropping...And yet, except for the demonstrations and energetic recall campaigns that roiled Wisconsin this year, unionists and other stern critics of corporate power and government cutbacks have failed to organize a serious movement against the people and policies that bungled the United States into recession. How do we account for the relative silence of the left? Perhaps what really matters about a movement's strength is the years of building that came before it.
Saturday, September 24, 2011 William Black: Attorney General Holder: Countrywide Chief's Most Valuable Friend (1 comments)
How is it possible that a crisis driven by fraudulent nonprime lenders, securitizers, and purchasers of nonprime paper has managed to lead to the conviction of not a single elite leader of a nonprime lender? A lender making liar's loans must lie -- pervasively. How is it that other state and federal investigations and investigations by private parties have consistently found endemic fraud by Countrywide, something that is impossible without C-suite support? When we responded to the savings and loan debacle we prioritized the "Top 100" institutions (producing over 600 felony convictions of the elites that drove that crisis) plus roughly 400 convictions of the roughly 200 additional "control frauds" that did not make the Top 100 list.
Monday, September 19, 2011 Bill Still: Ireland & Iceland
Karl Denninger and Bill Still took to Capitol Hill in Washington on Monday, briefing a Senate staffer on monetary reform. An update the the situation in Iceland and Ireland.
Iceland rejected bailing out the banks, despite dire warnings and only a 3-week supply of food that was threatened to be cut off.
A year later, Fitch rates Iceland as stable, moderately growing, and worthy of new loans (but does it even need new loans?).
A sovereign nation is only sovereign if it can produce its own money.
Friday, September 16, 2011 Michael Hudson on latvia's real estate bubble and land-tax policy (1 comments)
Latvia goes to the polls tomorrow. Latvia? Yes, it's worth watching this video because of how Dr. Michael Hudson exposes the pitfalls of the Flat Tax, favorite of Steve Forbes and other Right-wingers, and how a tax on land is the only tax that unburdens workers.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011 Iceland Constitutional Council: The Constitutional Council hands over the bill for a new constitution (2 comments)
Iceland's quiet bottom-up revolution continues to set new standards for human (and animal) rights, safeguarding natural resources for the nation, protecting free speech and openness. The process of creating the new constitution involves ordinary citizens, pure democracy, & the internet. Read an analysis, and click on the link for the actual constitution to be voted on this Fall.
Iceland overthrew the banksters, issued warrants for their arrest, and replaced their government. Now it is slowly recovering its economy. Is this just an aberration or True North?
Sunday, September 4, 2011 Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult
(Mike Lofgren retired on June 17 after 28 years as a Congressional staffer. He served 16 years as a professional staff member on the Republican side of both the House and Senate Budget Committees).
Both parties are rotten - how could they not be, given the complete infestation of the political system by corporate money on a scale that now requires a presidential candidate to raise upwards of a billion dollars to be competitive in the general election? But both parties are not rotten in quite the same way. The
Democrats have their share of machine politicians, careerists, corporate bagmen, egomaniacs and kooks. Nothing, however, quite matches the modern GOP.
Sunday, September 4, 2011 Jeff Smith: The Progress Report: America's Most Famous Forgotten Man (1 comments)
While the issues of 1886 were similar to today's -- jobs, wages, benefits, working conditions -- the voters were different. A successful writer, as was Henry George, could become a working class hero. The factory worker of the last century, often less than a generation removed from the farm, understood the connection between available land and available jobs.
Henry George did not initiate his 1886 campaign for mayor of New York but was drafted by the unions. Even then he tried to avoid the pressures of a campaign by challenging the unions to collect 30,000 signatures in the few weeks before the filing deadline. The challenge seemed insurmountable; George felt safe. However, for his birthday, September 2, the workingmen broke all records in rising to the occasion. Henry George was their man.
Thursday, August 18, 2011 Propublica: Our Handy Guide to the Best Coverage on Gov. Rick Perry and His Record
This is the first installment in a series of reading guides on 2012 presidential candidates.
Rick Perry has made plenty of headlines since he announced his presidential bid. But with the deluge of day-to-day coverage, it's hard to get a sense of his actual record. We've selected some of the best reading on Perry to help you get oriented.
Thursday, August 11, 2011 Sam Stein: Huffington Ost: Elizabeth Warren Gearing Up For Senate Run, Announcement To Come Post Labor Day
One time Obama adviser and longtime consumer protection advocate Elizabeth Warren is moving towards a Senate run, several Democratic sources tell the Huffington Post.
The Massachusetts resident and Harvard Law School professor authored a post for an influential progressive state-based blog on Thursday afternoon pledging that she would not "stop fighting for middle class families." The article prompted a slew of speculation that Warren was poised to take on sitting Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.).
Tuesday, August 2, 2011 Doing Debt Ceiling Battle the FDR Way
At times of national fiscal crisis, President Franklin Roosevelt ever so firmly believed, you don't give the awesomely affluent a free pass. You pound them -- and then you pound them some more....FDR believed, during World War II, that no American ought to have an income, after taxes, over what today would total about $350,000.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011 Mark Bittman: NY Times: No Food Safety in These Budget Numbers
The House's reactionary majority wants to dismantle two aspects of the Federal system that serve the majority of us not perfectly but decently: the Women, Infants and Children Program (WIC), one of the most effective of all social welfare programs, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), among whose jobs is the increasingly difficult one of protecting us from the kind of outbreak of E. coli that just killed at least 39 people in Germany, gravely -- perhaps mortally -- sickened another 800 and gave another couple thousand a few of those days none of us ever wants.
... we've had our share of foodborne illnesses in the past, but have not kept up with the increasing threat of E. coli. One in six Americans gets sick from the food we eat every year -- that's about 48 million people,...
Monday, June 20, 2011 NY TImes: Friendship of Justice and Magnate Puts Focus on Ethics
Mr. Crow stepped in to finance the multimillion-dollar purchase and restoration of the cannery (whose owner's grandfather once ran a seafood cannery that employed Justice Thomas's mother as a crab picker), featuring a museum about the culture and history of Pin Point that has become a pet project of Justice Thomas's.
The project throws a spotlight on an unusual, and ethically sensitive, friendship that appears to be markedly different from those of other justices on the nation's highest court.
The two men met in the mid-1990s, a few years after Justice Thomas joined the court. Since then, Mr. Crow has done many favors for the justice and his wife, Virginia...
Tuesday, May 31, 2011 NY Times by JOE NOCERA: The Good Banker
For nearly 30 years, Wilmers has run the M&T Bank, based in Buffalo. When he took it over, M&T had $2 billion in assets; today, its assets exceed $68 billion, and it's one of the most highly regarded regional bank holding companies. Wilmers's report, however, was less about the company's numbers than about the dismal state of his beloved profession. Wilmers, it turns out, is that rarest of birds: a banker willing to tell harsh truths about banking. That, for instance, much of the money the big banks earn comes from trading profits "rather than the prudent extension of credit that furthers commerce."
Monday, May 23, 2011 NY Times: Kucinich, Losing District, Looks Very Far Afield
Representative Dennis Kucinich, the liberal Democrat from Cleveland, was a long way from home -- 2,000 miles give or take. But he found plenty of political admirers in this stronghold of progressive political thought. Mr. Kucinich is indeed thinking about running, but it would not be another try for president and maybe not even an eighth House race back in Ohio. Instead, the 64-year-old Mr. Kucinich, who first gained fame as the "boy mayor" of Cleveland in the 1970s, is delicately examining the idea of running for Congress here in Washington State next year. Given Ohio's loss of two House seats, his district is likely to disappear when new map lines are drawn.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011 Mike Whitney Global Research: IMF Chief Strauss-Kahn Set Up For Breaking Free From Party Line?
I have no way of knowing whether the 32-year-old maid who claims she was attacked and forced to perform oral sex on IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, is telling the truth or not. I'll leave that to the braying hounds in the media who have already assumed the role of judge, jury and Lord High Executioner. But I will say, the whole matter smells rather fishy, just like the Eliot Spitzer story smelled fishy. Spitzer, you may recall, was Wall Street's biggest adversary and a likely candidate to head the SEC, a position at which he would have excelled...Strauss-Kahn had enemies in high places, too, which is why this whole matter stinks to high-Heaven. First of all, Strauss-Kahn was the likely candidate of the French Socialist Party who would have faced Sarkozy in the upcoming presidential elections. The IMF chief clearly had a leg-up on Sarkozy...
Tuesday, May 3, 2011 Julian Assange tells students that the web is the greatest spying machine ever (2 comments)
The internet is the "greatest spying machine the world has ever seen" and is not a technology that necessarily favours the freedom of speech, the WikiLeaks co-founder, Julian Assange, has claimed in a rare public appearance.
Assange acknowledged that the web could allow greater government transparency and better co-operation between activists, but said it gave authorities their best ever opportunity to monitor and catch dissidents.
Assange also suggested that Facebook and Twitter played less of a role in the unrest in the Middle East than has previously been argued by social media commentators and politicians.
Sunday, May 1, 2011 Bin Laden Dead, U.S. Official Says
President Obama announced late Sunday that Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks, was killed in a firefight during an operation he ordered Sunday inside Pakistan, ending a 10-year manhunt for the world's most wanted terrorist. American officials were in possession of his body, he said.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011 By Bryan Kavanagh: Rent revenue for a resilient society (1 comments)
For years I've argued that we ensure the phenomenon of recurrent financial and social collapses once we come to believe that taxes are essential to the running of government, that is, once we lose sight of the truism that taxation destroys.
Australia has an incredibly vast bureaucracy (and much of its citizenry) wedded to the gross stupidity that there is some sort of social responsibility to pay taxes, and slowly but surely over the years we have progressed this manner of organised public theft into law.
The phenomenon of periods of social instability and financial collapse we experience every eighteen years or so is neither the fault of capitalism nor of socialism per se, but of a sorely misguided revenue system.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011 The Daily Bell: Little Iceland Panics Big Banks (6 comments)
Little Iceland is proving to be the little country to could. Although it has slipped out of the MSM, Iceland is front and center to the People of the Bank, who are quaking over this upstart nation of 300,000 defying their schemes to bankrupt Euroland, one country at a time.
"Iceland Says No...The island nation may serve as an example for those who want capitalists to operate at their own risk. In a national referendum Saturday, Icelanders, for the second time, voted against a government proposal to pay the big losses of some of their bankers and their foreign customers, with 60% voting "No" and 40% in favor. For those of us who welcome capitalists, but want them to operate at their own risk, this hopefully sets an example for the rest of Europe." -- Wall Street Journal
Friday, April 1, 2011 Vanity Fair: Joseph Stiglitz: Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%
Americans have been watching protests against oppressive regimes that concentrate massive wealth in the hands of an elite few. Yet in our own democracy, 1 percent of the people take nearly a quarter of the nation's income--an inequality even the wealthy will come to regret.
Monday, March 28, 2011 Robert Creamer: Why Any Deal to Cut Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid Would be a Moral, Economic an
Friday, the Democratic group Third Way published a memo arguing that Democrats should support "entitlement reform" -- by which they mean cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. I don't doubt the sincerity or intentions of their proposal, but I believe that if Democrats took their advice it would result in a moral, economic and political disaster.
Here's why...
Sunday, February 27, 2011 Regulation Lax as Gas Wells' Tainted Water Hits Rivers
The American landscape is dotted with hundreds of thousands of new wells and drilling rigs, as the country scrambles to tap into this century's gold rush -- for natural gas.
The NY Times launches a series of investigative articles on this dangerous practice that is now taking place from half a million wells all over the country, plus waste distributed everywhere else. Has hydrofracking come to a neighborhood near you yet?
Monday, January 24, 2011 NY Times: By RICHARD GOLDSTEIN: Jack LaLanne, Founder of Modern Fitness Movement, Dies at 96 (2 comments)
Jack LaLanne, whose obsession with grueling workouts and good nutrition, complemented by a salesman's gift, brought him recognition as the founder of the modern physical fitness movement, died Sunday afternoon at his home in Morro Bay, Calif. He was 96.
The cause was respiratory failure resulting from pneumonia, said his son Dan Doyle.
Thursday, January 20, 2011 Watch: Drag Legend Lady Bunny Presents 'The Ballad of Sarah Palin'
(From the NY Observer):
Lady Bunny, the disco-happy drag queen who's graced New York nightlife with wig-wearing performances for decades, has fired shots against a certain former Alaskan governor. Sarah Palin's taken a good amount of heat since her response to the Giffords tragedy, but to our knowledge Lady Bunny is the first member of the drag queen contingent to throw her hat into the ring. She made a sure-to-be-viral video, it's called "The Ballad of Sarah Palin," and it is something else.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011 Michael Bloomberg: Huffington Post: Americans Can't Agree on Guns? Wrong. (3 comments)
Mass shootings and assassinations are shocking, and the sad truth is that America's history of gun murders is as repetitive as it is tragic. And what's more, much of its enormous toll never makes it into the national headlines: 34 Americans are murdered with guns each and every day.
But a new poll shows a remarkable consensus among Americans on gun issues. The poll, conducted jointly by a Democratic and Republican polling firm, was released today by the bi-partisan coalition of Mayors Against Illegal Guns.
Thursday, January 13, 2011 L. Randall Wray L. Randall Wray: Huffington Post: Nightmare on Wall Street
The chickens come home to roost:
In a ruling that could be historic, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled against two fraudster banks, US Bancorp and Wells Fargo, who illegally foreclosed on homes. In short, the two banks stole homes to which they had no legal claim. Perhaps as many as 66 million mortgages (those tainted by improper industry recording procedures) could be affected by the ruling.
Thursday, January 6, 2011 Glen Greenwald: Wall Street Fat Cats flip Public Service Workers the Bird
The latest in Class Warfare: taking the pensions from those who earned, while preserving the handling fees of those who burned it. The false debate over funding public service employees' retirement masks the real problem of the failure of fund managers to deliver their promised 8% returns. Solution: pay the pensions from taxes, but invest the fund in State Banks for the people of the states, not Wall Street of the Estates.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010 Social Security in Perspective, Part III A conversation with William Greider By Trudy Lieberman
Political reporter William Greider who recently won the Nyhan Prize & is national affairs correspondent for The Nation, explains the sham about Social Security the MSM is not reporting; a deficit of the Mind only, not of the fund. The politicians don't want to pay back the money they borrowed, going back to Reagan.
Thursday, December 16, 2010 Michael Brenner: Obama's War on Wikilieaks -- and us
The casual way that Americans are shredding their liberties is breathtaking. Rights that have been revered as the nation's spiritual heirloom for 225 years are cast aside like so many disposable keepsakes. We pretend that we still prize the ideals of which they are emblematic even as they are tossed aside. Only a people confused by runaway emotions, and forgetful of their identity, can act with such feckless abandon.
Thursday, November 25, 2010 Jimmy Carter: North Korea's consistent message to the U.S. (1 comments)
Jimmy Carter, 39th president, former envoy to North Korea, writes about North Korea's consistent message of negotiation & nuclear inspection in return for direct talks with the U.S. and the terms of 1994 agreements. It takes two or more parties to make a war...or peace. Will S. Korea & the U.S. choose further provocation or the hard path to peace?
Saturday, November 6, 2010 Propublica: Corrosion Warnings at BP Facilities in Alaska: Here's What the Data Mean (4 comments)
Will BP stand for Blowout Prone again? Their Alaska pipeline, according to their OWN inspectors, has worn down to as little as 20% of its original thickness in places. According to a BP report generated on Oct. 1, 2010, 351 isolated locations on 148 unique sections of pipes or pipelines have been given an "F" ranking and are deemed at risk of failing. "Thar she blows," again?
Thursday, November 4, 2010 Propublica: Meet the Likely House Committee Chairs--Who Promise to Roll Back "Job-Killing' Regs
Meet the old boss, same as the old boss, only much, much worse. If these 4 horsemen of the Republican Apocalypse have their way, gone will be finreg, new environmental controls in the Gulf, and there will be a slew of petty investigations by Obama's "Annoyer-in-Chief."
Saturday, October 30, 2010 NY Times: U.S. Says Genes Should Not Be Eligible for Patents (2 comments)
Reversing a longstanding policy, the federal government said on Friday that human and other genes should not be eligible for patents because they are part of nature. The new position could have a huge impact on medicine and on the biotechnology industry.
Friday, October 29, 2010 BBC: How Churchill 'starved' India (2 comments)
Some three million Indians died in the famine of 1943. The majority of the deaths were in Bengal. In a shocking new book, Churchill's Secret War, journalist Madhusree Mukherjee blames Mr Churchill's policies for being largely responsible for one of the worst famines in India's history. It is a gripping and scholarly investigation into what must count as one of the most shameful chapters in the history of the Empire.
Monday, October 18, 2010 Huffington Post: The New Tax Man: Big Banks And Hedge Funds
The banks' and hedge funds' new scheme puts them on both sides of the mortgage: loaning money and then collecting taxes, on behalf of the state, with exorbitant and unpayable penalties added on, forcing default & foreclosure - which they ALSO profit on. They have you covered, and you can't breathe.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010 Associated Press: Recession rips at US marriages, expands income gap
The latest census results show marriages have hit an all-time low while pleas for food stamps have reached a record high and the gap between rich and poor has grown to its widest ever. The income gap between the richest and poorest Americans grew last year to its largest margin ever, a stark divide as Democrats and Republicans spar over whether to extend Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010 NY Times: Basic Religion Test Stumps Many Americans
Americans are by all measures a deeply religious people, but they are also deeply ignorant about religion. On average, people who took the Pew survey answered half the questions incorrectly, and many flubbed even questions about their own faith.
Those who scored the highest were atheists and agnostics, as well as two religious minorities: Jews and Mormons. How would you do?
Friday, September 24, 2010 'Aftershock': What Happens To The Social Contract When CEO Compensation Is Out Of Control (PHOTOS)
In the Great Depression and World War Two, America created a social contract that offered the middle class a chance to succeed. The pay of top CEOs and Wall Street traders wasn't too far out of line with the pay of average workers. It would have been unseemly for CEOs to rake in more. One third of the workforce was unionized, and agreements over their pay and benefits also lifted the pay and benefits of non-unionized workers.
Friday, September 24, 2010 Washington Post: Campaign cash: Who's spending where in 2010
The numbers are in! Republicans way outspend Democrats on the election campaign. Use this interactive to track campaign spending by interest groups and political parties in the 2010 midterm elections. These totals will be updated every Tuesday through Election Day.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010 Propublica: Health Insurers in Certain States Won't Issue Child-Only Policies Anymore
A provision of the health care bill that bars health insurers from refusing to cover sick children [1] with pre-existing conditions will go into effect on Thursday [2], and several of the nation's largest health insurers, anticipating the change, have found a way to avoid bearing the law's full effect.
Many have dropped child-only policies altogether, in states where they're allowed to.
Sunday, September 12, 2010 NY Times: China Explores a Frontier 2 Miles Deep
China plunges a submersible 2 miles into the sea with three men. It's a first step to exploiting trillions of dollars in mineral and other wealth. The U.S? A distant third place & not catching up anytime soon.
Monday, September 6, 2010 C-Span: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) Town Hall (3 comments)
Senator Bernie Sanders conducted a town hall meeting in Morrisville, Vermont and responded to questions about various issues from constituents.
Morrisville, VT : 1 hr. 48 min.
Thursday, August 26, 2010 Propublica: Take It With a Grain of (Sea) Salt: Gulf Microbe Study Was Funded by BP (2 comments)
Oils Well that ends Well? Not exactly. It turns out that "recent" study that showed a new microbe was gobbling up the oil plume dates back to early summer - yet a 22 mile plume is still in the gulf. Plus, the study was funded by BP through a $500 million, 10-year grant [10].
Tuesday, August 24, 2010 Alan Krinsky: 8 Reasons Leftists Should be Pro-Israel (26 comments)
As yet more Israel-Palestinian talks begin, again, we should step back and remind ourselves of what each region represents, and does not. Here's 8 reasons progressives should support Israel.
Saturday, August 21, 2010 Center for Biological Diversity: SLIDESHOW: The Center in the Gulf (3 comments)
To assess how much damage was done, the Ctr. for Biological Diversity just spent this week walking the Gulf's beaches, boating through its marshes, and flying over its open water.
What they saw firsthand was horrific.
Beaches are covered in oil; pools of liquid oil ooze on the surface and oil mixed with sand is hardened into mats along the water's edge. See the slideshow and videos.
Friday, August 20, 2010 Senator (D-VT) Bernie Sanders: Letter to National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (2 comments)
Social Security just turned 75, and all across the country, people and senior organizations are celebrating this enormous achievement. Before President Franklin Roosevelt signed the law on August 14, 1935, about half of the senior citizens in America lived in poverty. Today, more than 52 million Americans, including over 124,000 Vermonters, receive benefits. For three quarters of a century, SS has been a great success.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010 Obama vs. Obama on Endless Wars: Who Wins - Take the Poll (5 comments)
Back in early 2007, when the Bush administration was insisting that its military intervention in a faraway land was not open-ended, Senator Barack Obama wasn't buying it.
What happened to that Senator Obama?! See the video of Obama grilling...Obama.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010 Why were resources expunged from neo-classical economics? (1 comments)
Something strange happened to economics about a century ago. In moving from classical to neo-classical economics -- the dominant academic school today -- economists expunged land -- or natural resources. Neo-classical value theory -- based on marginalism and subjective valuation-still makes a great deal of sense. Expunging natural resources from the way economists think about the world does not - Martin Wolf, Financial Times
Thursday, July 8, 2010 The Real Tea Party Begins Here! - Public Banking for ALL Americans
Find out the REAL cause of the Boston Tea Party (it wasn't tea taxes) & learn how a public state bank could remove our debt, permanently. There IS enough money to meet our needs, it is just held by monopoly powers who falsely claim the country is broke. Understand the lie, then do something about it. Support state banks.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010 Pete Peterson Foundation: America Speaks
Whatever your political position, you need to know what the Pete Peterson foundation, & its dozens of Town meetings, are proposing to do to cut the deficit. The president will. Their choices are all spelled out here. Non-partisan solution, or political cover for slashing entitlements?
Saturday, July 3, 2010 Propublica: BP Texas Refinery Had Huge Toxic Release Just Before Gulf Blowout (3 comments)
The OTHER BP Disaster: BP released a toxic cloud from its refinery-the largest in the country & the one that killed 19 workers since 2005-for 40 days in Texas City, TX, just before the Gulf catastrophe & "spewed tens of thousands of pounds of toxic chemicals into the skies...(and) failed to detect the extent of the emissions for several weeks." Are we Beyond BP yet?
Thursday, June 24, 2010 NY Times: BP Is Pursuing Alaska Drilling Some Call Risky
Is BP about to do it again? A new, untested, record-breaking technology is about to be employed on an artificial island in Alaska, "to drill two miles under the sea and then six to eight miles horizontally to reach what is believed to be a 100-million-barrel reservoir of oil under federal waters."
Tuesday, June 22, 2010 Center For Biological Diversity: GULF DISASTER: END OFFSHORE OIL DRILLING NOW (1 comments)
The Ctr. For Biological Diversity sues BP for $19 Billion under Clean Water Act, acting on behalf of a Government that won't act on its own. This article offers a detailed history of this spill, all major U.S. spills, maps & a Spill Counter. It's even worse than you think & oil is coming to a coast near you.
Sunday, June 20, 2010 My Father's Gift to Me By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
When I was 12, my father came and spoke to my seventh-grade class. I remember feeling proud, for my rural school was impressed by a visit from a university professor. But I also recall being embarrassed -- at my dad's strong Slavic accent, at his refugee origins, at his "differentness."
I'm back at my childhood home and reflecting on all this because I find myself fatherless on Father's Day. My dad died a few days ago.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010 BBC: The oil spill: Your solutions (7 comments)
Everyone thinks they know how to stop the BP spill. Experts respond to the most frequent ideas. One idea NOT considered is bio-remediation - oil-eating microbes. Why not?
Friday, June 4, 2010 Felix Gillette, NY Observer: Daniel Ellsberg Initially Suspected That C.I.A. Was Behind WikiLeaks
It was the first morning of the annual Personal Democracy Forum conference. A roomful of journalists, political operatives and tech-heads sat in the auditorium watching. Mr. Ellsberg said that years ago, when he first heard about the project, he initially thought that WikiLeaks was either (a) being launched by incredibly naïve people or (b) was a trap being set by the C.I.A. It was neither.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 Riki Ott Riki Ott Marine toxicologist and Exxon Valdez survivor: At What Cost? BP Spill Responders Told to Forgo Precau
Local fishermen hired to work on BP's uncontrolled oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico are scared and confused. Fishermen here and in other small communities dotting the southern marshes and swamplands of Barataria Bay are getting sick from the working on the cleanup, yet BP is assuring them they don't need respirators or other special protection from the crude oil, strong hydrocarbon vapors, or chemical dispersants being sprayed.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010 Oil Companies Pay a Pittance in Penalties to Offshore Drilling Regulator by Marian Wang, ProPublica
In an analysis of civil penalties levied by the regulator, ProPublica found that over the past 12 years the average penalty has been $45,000. Currently, MMS can fine oil and gas companies a maximum of $35,000 per violation per day [3] (PDF). The biggest fine an oil company has paid to the agency since 1998 was $810,000, paid in 2001 by Chevron. Overall, the Minerals Management Service has collected $20 million.
Friday, April 16, 2010 Cabot Oil & Gas's Marcellus Drilling to Slow After PA Environment Officials Order Wells Closed by Abrahm Lustgarten, Pro
More than 15 months after natural gas drilling contaminated [1] drinking water in Dimock, Pa., state officials are ordering the company responsible -- Houston-based Cabot Oil and Gas -- to permanently shut down some of its wells, pay nearly a quarter million dollars in fines, and permanently provide drinking water to 14 affected families.
The order [2] is among the most punitive in Pennsylvania's history...
Wednesday, April 14, 2010 The Price of Assassination By ROBERT WRIGHT, NY Times
There are many reasons why we should reconsider assassinating leaders of terrorist groups in countries where we have not declared war: the loss of innocent lives, waging undeclared war, etc. Now comes new evidence such assassinations are actually counter-productive & strengthen the groups they are supposed to weaken, while turning native populations against the US.
Monday, April 12, 2010 Most Barnett Shale facilities release emissions By RANDY LEE LOFTIS / The Dallas Morning News
"More than 90 percent of the gas-processing plants, compressor stations and wells that agencies have examined with leak-detecting infrared cameras since 2007 were lofting otherwise invisible plumes of chemicals. In the most recent surveillance late last year, every facility checked was emitting pollution." - Dallas Morning News
Saturday, April 10, 2010 McClatchy: What's driving up oil prices again? Wall Street, of course
Oil consumption has fallen, demand from U.S. motorists for gasoline is flat at best and refiners that turn crude into fuel are operating well below capacity. Yet oil prices keep marching toward $90 a barrel, pushing gasoline toward $3 a gallon in many markets, and prompting American drivers to ask, "What gives?"
Blame it on the same folks who brought you $140 oil and $4 gasoline in 2008: Wall Street speculators.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010 NY Times: Court Rules Against F.C.C. in "Net Neutrality' Case (4 comments)
Is this the end of net neutrality? The Supreme Court today "has ruled that the Federal Communications Commission lacks the authority to require broadband providers to give equal treatment to all Internet traffic flowing over their networks." A big win for Comcast & a bigger loss for American consumers. Once again, the Supreme Court puts corporations over people.
