The Agonist - USA: Domestic Issues

Five cities that will rise in the New Economy

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:08:52 -0800

Ron Scherer | Fort Collins, CO | Nov 20

CSM - From Seattle to Huntsville, Ala., five cities are poised to prosper in the New Economy because of exports, innovation, clean technology, and healthcare.

In Houston, the Texas Medical Center is expanding so quickly that it will soon become the seventh largest downtown in the US. By itself. The hospital complex brims with restaurants, shops, and hotels, and employs 100,000 people – the population of Billings, Mont.

In Seattle, the erector-set cranes along the waterfront and big forklifts at the airport are loading exports into containers with the constancy of a piston: plywood to Beijing, halibut and crab to Tokyo, Granny Smith apples to Moscow. Last year, Washington was the only state to ship more goods to China than it receives.

In Fort Collins, Colo., town fathers are aggressively transforming the heart of the city into a zone that generates as much electricity as it consumes – making it a showcase for the city’s quest to become the Silicon Valley of clean energy.

As the United States emerges from the worst recession in 80 years, a new economy is taking root that will help create the next tier of powerhouse cities in America. Just as the Industrial Revolution of the late 1800s and the Information Age of the past 40 years helped shift the urban and regional balance of power in the US, forces are now at work that will shape who prospers in the economy of tomorrow.

No one yet knows the exact contours of the New Economy. It is more Monet than Rembrandt. But experts say that certain characteristics are already visible on the canvas that will give cities advantages in attracting new jobs and industries.

UC Berkeley protest ends with 41 arrests

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:22:12 -0800

Sandra Gonzales | Berkeley, CA | November 20

San Jose Mercury News - In a striking scene of civil disobedience, dozens of students barricaded themselves inside a UC Berkeley building for more than 11 hours Friday to protest a 32 percent increase in student fees.

The dramatic display ended Friday evening with dozens of arrests, climaxing a week of civil unrest mirrored at other campuses around the state, including Davis and Santa Cruz, where hundreds marched for the third day Friday to decry one of the biggest fee hikes in UC history.

But it seemed unlikely that the protests are having any impact. Repeated budget cuts to the 10-campus system forced UC regents this week to raise the cost of an undergraduate education above $10,000 a year by next fall, triple the cost of a decade ago. The move followed a 10 percent hike earlier this year, employee furloughs and other cuts that UC leaders say are necessary because of a 20 percent drop in state funding.

Still, students continued to try to make their voices heard.

"We have tried going to Sacramento, we've tried less direct and less confrontational ways of getting our voices heard," said UC Davis student Laura Mitchell of Palo Alto, who on Thursday joined a march of hundreds of students to the campus administration building, Mrak Hall. On Wednesday, police arrested 51 protesters there.

House Financial Services Committee Passes Paul-Grayson Amendment to Audit the Fed

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:33:48 -0800

Michael Smallberg | Nov 20

POGO - The House Financial Services Committee voted 43-26 yesterday afternoon in favor of an amendment introduced by Reps. Ron Paul (R-TX) and Alan Grayson (D-FL) that would remove restrictions preventing the GAO from auditing the Federal Reserve. The amendment was modeled after Rep. Paul’s long-standing bill to audit the Fed, which was co-sponsored by over 300 Members in the House and supported by POGO and many other groups.

The vote on the final passage of the financial regulatory package to which the Paul-Grayson amendment is attached has been delayed until after Thanksgiving. Nonetheless, yesterday’s vote signals a defeat for Rep. Mel Watt (D-NC), who had introduced an alternative amendment that would have limited the scope of the GAO’s audits.

Kudos to FDL: FDL Statement on the Committee Passage of H.R. 1207, the Paul-Grayson Bill to Audit the Fed

Child burned in bizarre 'redneck flamethrower' incident

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:32:19 -0800

James Halpin | Anchorage | Nov 18

adn.com - Two Anchorage men who told investigators they were horsing around with a "redneck flamethrower" set a 5-year-old boy's head on fire and have been charged with felony assault and reckless endangerment, according to police and court records.

Jonathon Michael Miller, 29, and Stephen Ray Dilley II, 32, were jailed Tuesday after inflicting second-degree burns to the boy's head and singing his hair with an aerosol sprayer and lighter, according to Alaska State Troopers. The child, who was injured Friday, did not receive medical treatment until arriving at school near his home in Anchor Point on Monday.

"It was described to the troopers as an accident," troopers spokeswoman Megan Peters said. "I mean a child, two guys, can of Quick Start, Bic lighter: How could this not go wrong?"

According to a troopers' affidavit filed in court, Miller told investigators he's been trying to toughen the boy up and the best way to do it is to "scare the s--t out of them when they don't see it coming."

Asked why the child had not gotten treatment, Miller told investigators, "Why go make bills for yourself over little things," according to the affidavit.

The child, identified only by his initials in court documents, suffered burns to the left side of his face, nose, eyelid and ear, according to troopers. Most of the hair on the left side of the boy's head was singed, along with some on the right side.

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The boy told troopers he had not been in trouble and described the incident as a "practical joke gone wrong," Trooper Ryan Browning wrote in the affidavit. The child said he was playing in his room over the weekend when the incident occurred.

The boy's mother was away for the weekend and had left the boy with her current boyfriend, Miller, and Dilley, with whom the mother has a child, according to troopers. Although she has a restraining order against Dilley, he has been living in a motor home on the property where she lives, at Mile 162 of the Sterling Highway, and helping her take care of her five children, according to troopers.

The men told troopers they were out on the porch smoking when they went inside and Dilley grabbed a can of compressed starter fluid and a lighter, troopers said.

"You know what would be funny?," Dilley said, according to the affidavit.

"Do you know how much trouble I could get in for this?" Miller replied.

Miller then called for the boy, who opened the door as Miller unleashed a ball of flames, according to troopers.

"Dilley stated it only lasted for about a half second and then they saw (the boy's) head was on fire," Browning wrote. "They ran to (the boy) and doused the flames with their hands, then tended to his burns. Dilley stated he didn't think the spray would go that far."

The men denied drinking, saying it was a very "sober day," according to the affidavit.

Senate Democrats introduce $849 billion healthcare reform bill

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 06:11:56 -0800

Brad Knickerbocker | Washington | November 18

CSM - Though the congressional debate and legislative sausage-making are far from over, the Senate took a major step Wednesday in putting forth a $849 billion healthcare reform bill.

The bill, launched by Senate majority leader Harry Reid – and vigorously opposed by Republicans – aims to provide health insurance for 94 percent of all Americans, including 31 million people now uninsured.

The measure reportedly would require most Americans to carry health insurance, require large companies to provide coverage for their employees, and prohibit insurance companies from denying coverage because of preexisting medical conditions.

A senior Democratic leadership aide told the Associated Press that Congressional Budget Office analysis showed the bill would reduce federal deficits by a total of $127 billion over 10 years.

[...]

A key subject of debate – in addition to a public option and the impact on the federal deficit – is abortion. The House-passed bill includes the so-called “Stupak amendment” offered by Rep. Bart Stupak (D) of Michigan, which tightens current restrictions on the use of federal funds for abortion services.

Newsweek reports that abortion language in the Reid bill is less restrictive than Stupak. But it could well reappear as House-Senate negotiators try to work out their differences in conference committee.

[...]

Reuters reports that the debate is expected to begin on Nov. 30, after the Thanksgiving holiday next week, and last for at least three weeks.

Studs Terkel went from FBI applicant to suspect

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 01:18:43 -0800

Kristen mack | Chicago | Nov 19

LA Times - Studs Terkel, the American storyteller, author, radio host, actor and activist, sought a job at the FBI, according to recently released documents.

Terkel, who died last year at 96, applied for a job in the FBI's fingerprints division in the 1930s. "It's a non-agent position," FBI spokesman Bill Carter said. "You would have to go through a background investigation, the same as you would for an agent, but you don't have arrest powers."

Instead of hiring Terkel, the agency ended up amassing a file on him. The FBI spent 45 years tracking him as a suspected communist, according to the 147 pages released from his 269-page dossier. The file was obtained by the New York City News Service under an act that requires the FBI to release certain documents to the public after an individual has died.

Terkel's paper trail started in 1945. It references Terkel speaking at a Paul Robeson rally in Chicago and quotes a source who questioned Terkel's "loyalty to the United States" because he worked with the BBC on a piece about the "sordid side of life in Chicago."

His file ends in 1990, when agents cut and pasted a Wall Street Journal article quoting his reaction to financier Michael Milken's junk-bond scandal.

"We live in a corrupt, amoral moment," Terkel said. "There are a million Milkens. He's reflective of our society at this time. People have lost their sense of outrage."

Army Corps of Engineers blamed for Hurricane Katrina levee breaches

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 01:11:48 -0800

Richard Fausset | Atlanta | Nov 19

LA Times - A federal judge says the agency showed 'gross negligence' in the years before Katrina. The ruling could leave the government open to billions in claims.

In a ruling that could leave the government open to billions of dollars in claims from Hurricane Katrina victims, a federal judge said late Wednesday that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had displayed "gross negligence" in failing to maintain a navigation channel -- resulting in levee breaches that flooded large swaths of greater New Orleans.

U.S. District Judge Stanwood R. Duval peppered his 156-page decision, issued in New Orleans, with harsh criticism of the Army corps, at one point citing its "insouciance, myopia and shortsightedness" in failing to maintain the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, known locally as MRGO.

For more than 40 years, the judge said, the corps had known that a crucial levee protecting suburban St. Bernard Parish and the Lower 9th Ward neighborhood would be compromised by the deterioration of the channel. The corps had "myriad" ways to address the problem, he wrote, but failed to do so.

Duval awarded a total of $719,000 to a small group of flood victims that sued the government in April 2006.

But according to Pierce O'Donnell, the lead plaintiff's counsel, roughly 100,000 New Orleans-area residents and businesses who have filed flood-damage claims with the Army corps were now potentially eligible for payment.

"The judge agreed with us that Katrina was not a natural disaster," O'Donnell said. "Katrina was a man-made disaster caused by the Army Corps of Engineers."

Make The Rich Pay?

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:44:38 -0800

The results of this poll are pretty interesting:

Americans don't want to shoulder the cost of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul themselves. They think the rich should pay for it.

I don't think it will happen that way, however. As a matter of fact, I know it won't. At least not yet. But it's another indication that Americans are much more progressive, especially when it comes to taxation, than politicians realize--I also think it is an indicator of just how pissed the middle class is with the wealthy in this country.

As I have noted many times here, I am in favor of a return to golden-era Eisenhower-like taxation, but I'm not holding my breath. If the Democrats really wanted a decent health-care plan, one that creates real health-care cost savings across the board, however, they could push one through. Instead we'll get a mushy-halfway plan that will be more of regressive tax on the middle class. But we all knew that, didn't we?

Trolling for Assassins

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 04:08:52 -0800

Rachel Maddow had Frank Schaeffer on again. The rhetoric from the far right has become more "incite"-full.

Video after the jump.

Via DU: Frank Schaeffer warns against fundamentalist christians wanting to harm President Obama

MADDOW: "'Let his days be few and let another take his office. Let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.' This is such strong language in secular terms about President Obama. Can you tell me if this means something less threatening to people hearing this in a Biblical context?"

SCHAEFFER: "No, actually it means something more threatening.

I think that the situation that I find genuinely frightening right now is that you have a ramping up of biblical language, language from the anti-abortion movement, for instance, death panels, and this sort of thing, and what it's coalescing into is branding Obama as Hitler, as they have already called him, as something foreign to our shores -we're reminded of that, he was 'born in Kenya' - as Brown, as Black, above all, as not us. He is Sarah Palin's 'not a real American.'

But now, it turns out, that he joins the ranks of the unjust kings of ancient Israel, unjust rulers, to which all these Biblical allusions are directed, who should be slaughtered, if not by God, then by just men.

[...]

Really, this is trawling for assassins. And this is serious business. It's un-American, it's unpatriotic, and it goes to show that the religious right, the Republican far-right, have coalesced into a group that truly wants American revolution, and if it turns out to be blood in the streets and death, so be it. This is not funny stuff any more. They cannot be dismissed as just crazies on the fringe. It only takes one."

Biblical anti-Obama slogan: Use of Psalm 109:8 funny or sinister?

Psalms 109:8 says, 'Let his days be few; and let another take his office.' The citation is being passed around the Internet as a rallying cry against President Obama.

Christian Science Monitor, By Tracey D. Samuelson, November 16

There’s a new slogan making its way onto car bumpers and across the Internet. It reads simply: “Pray for Obama: Psalm 109:8”

A nice sentiment?

Maybe not.

The psalm reads, “Let his days be few; and let another take his office.”

Presidential criticism through witty slogans is nothing new. Bumper stickers, t-shirts, and hats with “1/20/09” commemorated President Bush’s last day in office.

But the verse immediately following the psalm referenced is a bit more ominous: “Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.”

On the other hand, Threats Against Obama Drop to Normal Levels

Newsweek "Declassified" Blog, By Mark Hosenball, November 9

The mass shooting at Fort Hood by an Army doctor with an Islamic background has raised new anxiety about terrorism and threats to government personnel and installations. But the people assigned to protect President Barack Obama say that in recent months, the number of threats against him has decreased significantly. In a book about the U.S. Secret Service published earlier this year, author Ronald Kessler reported that after Obama took office, threats against the president rose by 400 percent from a rate of around 3,000 per year during the tenure of George W. Bush. According to one widely circulated elaboration on Kessler’s reporting published in August by London’s Daily Telegraph, this means that Obama has been facing 30 death threats each day. In March, Secret Service chief Mark Sullivan told a House Appropriations subcommittee that threats to individuals protected by the Secret Service “remain at high levels.”

Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan told NEWSWEEK that those figures are now out of date. According to Donovan, there were “substantial spikes” in the rate of threats the service received against Obama before and after last year’s presidential election, and then again before and after Obama’s inauguration last January. Over succeeding months, however, the rate of threats has dropped substantially, Donovan said—so substantially that while the average number of threats received is running at about the same level as it did during the presidencies of George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, on some recent days the rate of threats received against Obama has actually been lower than the rate during the reigns of Clinton and W.

Donovan said that it was almost unprecedented for the Secret Service to discuss threat levels in such detail, but said the agency is going public because it is concerned that outdated information continues to circulate regarding a tidal wave of Obama-related threats. For his part, Kessler told NEWSWEEK in an e-mail that while “threats go up and down … the 400 percent increase is correct on average” and added that the Secret Service has been “covering up its deficiencies and dissembling to the media in the face of increased threats against the president.”

Minnesota notes: Punk the tea party, then a grand jury detains people without trial

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:33:58 -0800

Strange days up here in Minnesota. A guy by the pseudonym Robert Erickson spoke to an anti-immigrant Tea Party rally at the State Capitol on Saturday. Turns out he punk'd them and demanded "Columbus Go Home" and the deportation of all these European immigrants. The videos were hits on YouTube. I got the reverse angle of the crowd in HD, now we've got a bit of a viral event unfolding!

Far from this prank, meanwhile, a much darker story is happening in town. A couple days later, two Twin Cities activists refuse to testify at a grand jury in Davenport, Iowa. A little over a month ago I was walking around south Minneapolis & I saw Carrie Feldman who has done a lot of prisoner support at the RNC and for the Green Scare (the feds' so-called eco-terrorist thing). She said she'd just been pulled over by a black SUV with FBI agents from Iowa. They gave her a subpoena to appear in a couple days. She went there and told them she wouldn't comply. They told her to come back in a month. Another subpoena came for Scott DeMuth a few weeks later.

DeMuth and Feldman had a rally in Iowa today. After defying the grand jury (which can demand information about anything), they had a contempt hearing. A prosecutor demanded to know from Feldman's dad if she was an anarchist, which the judge allowed upon objection. The prosecution brandished a photo of Feldman wearing a shirt with "LF" visible and said it must have been ELF or ALF. And Feldman even had a white pet rat -- thusly somehow implying she supported the 'terrorism' ALF vandalism incident at the University of Iowa when Feldman was 15, living in Minneapolis. The federal judge threw Feldman and DeMuth in jail yesterday without a trial, for up to 11 months.

That's all it takes, folks. There is a nationwide network of grand juries running in parallel, fishing around radical communities across America. An Indiana grand jury demanded all of Indymedia.US' server logs in January. A New York 'complex and multi-state' grand jury is after anarchists who Twitter, Iowa is pursuing vandalism. At least one more is happening out west.

Bankers and powerful people don't get these subpoenas. On CSPAN I just saw a presser from that day: cynical journalists ask Attorney General Eric Holder why they haven't shut down more financial criminals, after he and Geithner just propped up a new task force... Who cares about billions in bank fraud when there's anarchists a-twittering, doing prisoner support and in DeMuth's case, confidential sociology research?

As Long As The Health Insurance Companies Are Getting a Big Xmas Anyway

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 08:04:08 -0800

98000reasons.org: Quanisha Scott from American Association for Justice on Vimeo.

The entire staff of the Agonist has already come out against the health care bill because it's essentially a giveaway to the big health insurance companies. Well here's one more reason to oppose it.

The video above tells the story of 29-year-old Quanisha Scott who underwent a partial thyroidectomy to remove a goiter at a hospital in Little Rock, Arkansas. Twelve hours later, she began to develop a shortness of breath and began feeling her neck tighten. Despite complaints to the nurses, her condition was not appropriately monitored or reported to a physician. She went into respiratory arrest and suffered severe brain damage. It was later discovered that she had a hematoma at the site of the surgery. She is now bed-ridden and totally dependent on her mother for care.

Things like this happen to 98,000 Americans every year. If we lose our right to sue bad doctors due to "tort reform" people like Quanisha will be dependent on the tax dollars of the rest of us for care while the doctors, hospitals and health insurance companies that harmed her walk away scot free.

The Senate has indicated (page 210, PDF) they're eager to throw out our right to sue bad doctors as part of the current "health care reform" package. See the excerpt in the full entry.

Disclosure: I'm proud to be helping the American Association for Justice fight for patient's rights.

SUBTITLE H-SENSE OF THE SENATE REGARDING MEDICAL MALPRACTICE

Current Law

No provision

Chairman's Mark

The Chairman's Mark would express the Sense of the Senate that health care reform presents an opportunity to address issues related to medical malpractice and medical liability insurance. The
Mark would further express the Sense of the Senate that states should be encouraged to develop and test alternatives to the current civil litigation system as a way of improving patient safety, reducing medical errors, encouraging the efficient resolution of disputes, increasing the availability of prompt and fair resolution of disputes, and improving access to liability insurance, while preserving an individual's right to seek redress in court. The Mark would express the Sense of the Senate that Congress should consider establishing a state demonstration program to evaluate alternatives to the current civil litigation system.

Audit Faults New York Fed in A.I.G. Bailout

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 05:26:08 -0800

Mary Williams Walsh | Washington | November 16

NYT -
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York gave up much of its power in high-pressure negotiations with the American International Group’s trading partners last year, according to a government report made public on Monday.

Just two days before the New York Fed paid A.I.G.’s partners 100 cents on the dollar to tear up their contracts with the insurance giant, one bank volunteered to take a modest haircut — but it never got the chance.

UBS, of Switzerland, alone offered to give a break to the New York Fed in the negotiations last November over how to keep A.I.G. from toppling and taking other banks down with it. It would have accepted 98 cents on the dollar.

But UBS’s good-faith gesture was quickly drowned out by Goldman Sachs and the top French bank regulator. They argued, with others, that it would be improper and perhaps even criminal to force A.I.G.’s trading partners to bear losses outside of bankruptcy court.

The banks and the regulator were confident that the New York Fed was not willing to push A.I.G. into bankruptcy, because earlier in the fall the New York Fed had stepped in with $85 billion to prop up the insurer.

The New York Fed, led then by Timothy F. Geithner, who is now the Treasury secretary, therefore had little leverage in the negotiations, according to a post-mortem of what has emerged as the most inflammatory episode in the rescue of A.I.G.

The Fed “refused to use its considerable leverage,” Neil M. Barofsky, the special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, wrote in a report to be officially released on Tuesday, examining the much-criticized decision to make A.I.G.’s trading partners whole when people and businesses were taking painful losses in the financial markets.

In Reversal, Panel Urges Mammograms at 50, Not 40

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 03:12:38 -0800

Gina Kolata | Nov 17

NYT - Most women should start regular breast cancer screening at age 50, not 40, according to new guidelines released Monday by an influential group that provides guidance to doctors, insurance companies and policy makers.

The new recommendations, which do not apply to a small group of women with unusual risk factors for breast cancer, reverse longstanding guidelines and are aimed at reducing harm from overtreatment, the group says. It also says women age 50 to 74 should have mammograms less frequently — every two years, rather than every year. And it said doctors should stop teaching women to examine their breasts on a regular basis.

Just seven years ago, the same group, the United States Preventive Services Task Force, with different members, recommended that women have mammograms every one to two years starting at age 40. It found too little evidence to take a stand on breast self-examinations.

The task force is an independent panel of experts in prevention and primary care appointed by the federal Department of Health and Human Services.

Its new guidelines, which are different from those of some professional and advocacy organizations, are published online in The Annals of Internal Medicine They are likely to touch off yet another round of controversy over the benefits of screening for breast cancer.

Despite law, corrupt African bigwig gains entry to U.S.

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 03:04:08 -0800

Ian Urbina | Nov 17

NYT - Several times every year, Teodoro Nguema Obiang arrives at the doorstep of the United States from his home in Equatorial Guinea, on his way to his $35 million estate in Malibu, Calif., his fleet of luxury cars, his speedboats and private jet. And he is always let into the country.

The nation's doors are open to Obiang, the forest and agriculture minister of Equatorial Guinea and the son of its president, even though federal law enforcement officials believe that "most if not all" of his wealth comes from corruption. The graft is related to the extensive oil and gas reserves discovered more than a decade and a half ago off the coast of his tiny West African country, according to internal Justice Department and Immigration and Customs Enforcement documents.

And the doors are open despite a federal law and a presidential proclamation that prohibit corrupt foreign officials and their families from receiving U.S. visas. The measures require only credible evidence of corruption, not a conviction for it.

Susan Pittman, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement in the State Department, said she was prohibited from discussing specific visa decisions. But other former and current State Department officials said Equatorial Guinea's close ties to the American oil industry are the reason for the lax enforcement of the law. Production of the country's nearly 400,000 barrels of oil a day is dominated by American companies such as ExxonMobil, Hess and Marathon.

"Of course it's because of oil," said John Bennett, U.S. ambassador to Equatorial Guinea from 1991 to 1994, adding that Washington has turned a blind eye to the Obiangs' corruption and repression because of its dependence on the country for natural resources. He noted that officials of Zimbabwe are barred from the United States.

Recession causes more families to go without food

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 02:51:15 -0800

Tony Pugh | Washington | Nov 17

McClatchy - The number of U.S. households that are struggling to feed their members jumped by 4 million to 17 million last year, as recession-fueled job losses and increased poverty and unemployment fueled a surge in hunger, a government survey reported Monday.

These "food-insecure" households represent about 49 million people and make up 14.6 percent, or more than one in seven, of all U.S. households. That's the highest rate since the U.S. Department of Agriculture began monitoring the issue in 1995.

Additionally, more than one-third of these struggling families — some 6.7 million households, or 17.2 million people last year — had "very low food security," in which food intake was reduced and eating patterns were disrupted for some family members because of a lack of food.

In phone interviews, more than two-thirds of people with very low food security said they went hungry from time to time, and 27 percent of these adults said they didn't eat at all some days.

These families make up 5.7 percent of U.S. households, again the highest rate since 1995, up from 4.1 percent and 4.7 million households in 2007.