THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

Isles said doctors wanted to make sure his heartbeat was back to normal. He suffered no burns or other physical effects from the strike, which he said could have been worse because his yard has a power line pole and wires overhead.

"But for the grace of God, I would have been dead," Isles said. "It was not a direct strike."

Isles said he had someone buy him 10 more tickets to the Mega Millions lottery on Friday night.

// posted by montag @ 11:00 PM 0 Comments

A Mexican national said he has been barred from entering the United States to bury his 10-year-old son, a U.S. citizen who died Tuesday in a house fire in northeastern Pennsylvania that killed three other people.

Attorneys for Fidelmar "Fidel" Merlos-Lopez are trying to win humanitarian parole so he can attend the funeral, but say U.S. Customs and Border Protection has rebuffed their efforts...

Humanitarian parole is granted to immigrants who have a compelling emergency that requires temporary entry into the United States. It is used sparingly: The government approves only about 25 percent of the 1,200 applications it gets each year.

Surin said Lopez qualifies. In fact, the Mexican husband of Tiffany Sanchez, the 29-year-old woman who died in the fire, was granted humanitarian parole to attend the funeral, she said.

// posted by montag @ 4:59 PM 0 Comments

The thing that makes our current politics particularly awful isn’t procedural. It’s that the Republican Party has become over-the-top extreme. You can try to fix that by working from within to groom a more sensible pack of future candidates, or from without by voting against the Republicans’ nominees until they agree to shape up.

// posted by montag @ 1:38 PM 0 Comments

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told U.S. Marines and sailors on Friday that Congress would be irresponsible if it doesn't act to prevent drastic military budget cuts.

In a visit to this amphibious assault ship off the Southern California coast, he also said Afghanistan is making progress against the Taliban but Iran remains a potential threat to the U.S.

A budget agreement reached last August calls for defense cuts of $487 billion over a decade, a reflection of the drawdown of two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the pressure to reduce the nation's deficit.

The failure of Congress to come up with at least $1.2 trillion in savings means automatic cuts of more than $1 trillion next January to defense and domestic programs.

Congress "did a stupid thing" in risking the $50 billion in across-the-board reductions that would kick in next January, Panetta told hundreds of Marines and sailors.

// posted by montag @ 1:18 PM 0 Comments

Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Thursday that Poland has become the "political victim" of leaks from U.S. officials that brought to light aspects of the secret rendition program.

In his most forthcoming comments on the matter to date, Tusk said an ongoing investigation into the case is proof of Poland's democratic credentials and that Poland cannot be counted on in the future in such clandestine enterprises.

"Poland will no longer be a country where politicians – even if they are working arm-in-arm with the world's greatest superpower – could make some deal somewhere under the table and then it would never see daylight," said Tusk, who took office four years after the site was shuttered.

"Poland is a democracy where national and international law must be observed," Tusk said. "This issue must be explained. Let there be no doubt about it either in Poland or on the other side of the ocean."

To some, it sounded like a long-delayed admission that Poland allowed the U.S. to run the secret site, where terror suspects were subjected to harsh interrogation tactics that human rights groups consider torture...

The issue is hugely sensitive because any Polish leaders who would have cooperated with the U.S. program would have been violating Poland's constitution, both by giving a foreign power control over part of Polish territory and allowing crimes to take place there.

Any officials who were involved could – in theory – be charged with serious crimes, including crimes against humanity.

// posted by montag @ 1:01 PM 0 Comments

The real crisis of public morality in the United States doesn’t lie in the private decisions Americans make in their lives or their bedrooms; it lies at the heart of an ideology — and a set of policies — that the right-wing has used to batter and browbeat their fellow Americans...

It’s hard to point to a single priority of the Republican Party these days that isn’t steeped in moral failing while being dressed up in moral righteousness. This week, for example, they are hoping the Supreme Court will be persuaded by radical (and ridiculous) constitutional arguments to throw out some or all of the Affordable Care Act. Sure, you could argue that it’s really nice to make sure 31 million people who didn’t have health care can get it. Sure you could make the case that lifetime limits are a bad thing, that women shouldn’t have to pay more for health insurance just because they’re women, that the United States shouldn’t be a country where you die because you lost your coverage when you lost your job. But then again, liberty. Let’s not forget liberty. Also, freedom.

It is a very strange thing that the people who lecture most fervently about morality are those who are most willing to fight for policies that are so immoral. They watch Wall Street turn itself into the Las Vegas strip, take the economy down and destroy people’s lives and livelihoods. To that they say, “By God we need less regulation. Get me the hose, I have things to water down!” They see a CEO of a bank or a corporation, someone who passed off all of the risk and took on all of the reward, and they say, “Get that man a bigger bonus! In fact, get him two!”

// posted by montag @ 12:30 PM 0 Comments

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// posted by montag @ 7:07 PM 0 Comments

1.  $2.4 trillion in reductions from Medicaid and other health care for people with low or moderate incomes.
2. $134 billion in cuts to SNAP, formerly known as the Food Stamp Program.
3. At least $463 billion in cuts in mandatory programs, such as farm programs and federal employee retirement.
4. At least $291 billion in cuts in low-income discretionary programs, like Head Start, child care, K-12 education, job training, Pell grants and services for the elderly.

// posted by montag @ 5:55 PM 1 Comments

Investigators in Arizona are looking into whether embattled Sheriff Paul Babeu’s office destroyed records that may have shed light on whether he threatened to deport his immigrant ex-boyfriend after their breakup.

A report published Friday morning in the Arizona Republic said the inquiry is focusing on roughly 6,200 files that seem to have disappeared after state investigators requested they be preserved.

The new revelations mean that Babeu, an immigration hawk who was a rising Republican star before the scandal broke last month, is now facing three investigations — one each at the federal, state and local levels.

They come at a time when Babeu is also trying to make a step up to Congress, running for the Republican nomination in the state’s newly created 4th District.

// posted by montag @ 5:26 PM 0 Comments

A Roman Catholic college in Massachusetts has withdrawn an invitation to the widow of U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy to speak at graduation after the bishop of Worcester (WUS'-tur) raised concerns about her views.

Victoria Reggie Kennedy was scheduled to speak at Anna Maria College's May commencement. The Paxton school announced Friday that "concerns were expressed about the college being in conflict with the bishop."

The college did not cite Bishop Robert McManus's specific concerns.

A diocese spokesman says the bishop has followed directions that Catholic institutions should not honor Catholics who take positions contrary to church principles, "particularly on the dignity of life from conception and the sanctity of marriage."

// posted by montag @ 1:04 PM 0 Comments

In a series of 2009 and 2010 transactions, Bank of America sold credit card receivables to an outfit called CACH LLC, based in Denver. Co. Each month CACH bought debts with a face value of as much as $65 million for 1.8 cents on the dollar. At least a portion of the debts were legacy accounts acquired from MBNA, which Bank of America purchased in 2006.

The pricing reflected the accounts' questionable quality, but what is notable is that the bank could get anything at all for them. B of A was not making "any representations, warranties, promises, covenants, agreements, or guaranties of any kind or character whatsoever" about the accuracy or completeness of the debts' records, according to a 2010 credit card sales agreement submitted to a California state court in a civil suit involving debt that B of A had sold to CACH.

In the "as is" documents Bank of America has drawn up for such sales, it warned that it would initially provide no records to support the amounts it said are owed and might be unable to produce them. It also stated that some of the claims it sold might already have been extinguished in bankruptcy court. B of A has additionally cautioned that it might be selling loans whose balances are "approximate" or that consumers have already paid back in full. Maryland resident Karen Stevens was the victim of one such sale, which resulted in a three-year legal battle (see related story).

// posted by montag @ 12:51 PM 0 Comments

An Afghan policeman shot to death nine of his fellow officers as they slept in a village in an eastern Taliban stronghold on Friday, police said, blaming the attack on the insurgents.

The gunman opened fire with his assault rifle after waking up at 3 a.m. ostensibly to take over guard duty at a small command post in Paktika province, killing everybody inside, including the commander, according to officials. He then took their weapons, piled them in a pickup truck and sped away.

It was the latest in a growing number of attacks by Afghan security forces against their own people or against international troops in Afghanistan in recent years, some the result of arguments and others by insurgent infiltrators.

Provincial police chief Dawlat Khan Zadran said the incident took place in Yayakhil town of Yayakhil district.

Bowal Khan, chief of Yayakhil district, identified the gunman as Asadullah and said he goes by one name, as do many Afghans.

Khan said his own brother was among those killed, along with the commander of the post, identified as Mohammad Ramazan, and two of the commander's sons.

// posted by montag @ 12:42 PM 1 Comments

A record number of Americans support the legalizing and taxing marijuana, according to Rasmussen Reports.

Their nationwide survey found that 47 percent of Americans agree that marijuana should be legalized, while 42 percent disagree. Ten percent are undecided.

The survey was conducted on March 24-25.

In October 2011, Gallup also found that Americans favor marijuana legalization now more than ever. A record-high 50 percent of Americans said the use of marijuana should be made legal, up 4 percent from last year and 14 percent from 2006.

“If this current trend on legalizing marijuana continues, pressure may build to bring the nation’s laws into compliance with the people’s wishes,” Gallup noted.

// posted by montag @ 12:37 PM 1 Comments

Speaking to Fox News host Sean Hannity after attending Supreme Court arguments on Wednesday, the former Republican presidential candidate said that the Obama administration was wrong to suggest that insurance could be regulated because everyone would eventually be in the health care market.

“One argument that the government was trying to make is that somehow health care is uniquely different,” Bachmann explained. “That government can regulate it because everyone participates. Health insurance is not uniquely different.”

“It’s still an opportunity that some people choose to engage in, but 40 million people do not.”

She continued: “And the premise was made that people don’t buy insurance because they can’t afford it. That’s not true. There are people who just decide they want to roll the dice and take their chances that they won’t need insurance.”

// posted by montag @ 12:19 PM 0 Comments

A Republican Party Web-based advertisement uses altered audio from U.S. Supreme Court oral arguments to attack President Barack Obama’s health-care law.

In a spot circulated yesterday, the Republican National Committee excerpts the opening seconds of the March 27 presentation of Obama’s top Supreme Court lawyer, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, in which he is heard struggling for words and twice stopping to drink water.
Enlarge image Republicans Alter U.S. Supreme Court Audio in Obama Web Attack

“Obamacare,” the ad concludes, in words shown against a photograph of the high court. “It’s a tough sell.”

A review of a transcript and recordings of those moments shows that Verrilli took a sip of water just once, paused for a much briefer period, and completed his thought, rather than stuttering and trailing off as heard in the doctored version.

The RNC points to Verrilli’s halting performance as evidence that the 2010 law he is arguing to uphold -- the marquee item on Obama’s domestic agenda and a favorite line of attack for Republican candidates seeking to defeat him in the November elections -- is invalid.

“It seems that Obama’s lawyer hit a bit of a snag trying to defend the constitutionality of Obama’s health care takeover,” the RNC said in a statement accompanying the ad. “Maybe he’s beginning to realize something the American people already know: It’s hard to defend a law that is indefensible.”

// posted by montag @ 7:22 PM 0 Comments

For the second year in a row, Republicans voted Thursday to effectively dismantle Medicare — this time, just over seven months before a presidential election. And Democrats are salivating at the political opportunity, eager to hang the vote around the neck of the party’s presidential nominee and its candidates in tough congressional races...

The blueprint by House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan is similar to his controversial Medicare plan last year, in that it ends the health insurance guarantee for seniors and replaces the program with a subsidized insurance-exchange system. Unlike last year’s plan, seniors can buy into traditional Medicare as a sort-of public option, and the vouchers it provides are more generous.

// posted by montag @ 5:17 PM 0 Comments

The court’s right-wing justices seemed to forget that the best argument for the individual mandate was made in 1989 by a respected conservative, the Heritage Foundation’s Stuart Butler.

“If a man is struck down by a heart attack in the street,” Butler said, “Americans will care for him whether or not he has insurance. If we find that he has spent his money on other things rather than insurance, we may be angry but we will not deny him services — even if that means more prudent citizens end up paying the tab. A mandate on individuals recognizes this implicit contract.”

Justice Antonin Scalia seemed to reject the sense of solidarity that Butler embraced. When Solicitor General Donald Verrilli explained that “we’ve obligated ourselves so that people get health care,” Scalia replied coolly: “Well, don’t obligate yourself to that.” Does this mean letting Butler’s uninsured guy die?

Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick called attention to this exchange and was eloquent in describing its meaning. “This case isn’t so much about freedom from government-mandated broccoli or gyms,” Lithwick wrote. “It’s about freedom from our obligations to one another . . . the freedom to ignore the injured” and to “walk away from those in peril.”

This is what conservative justices will do if they strike down or cripple the health-care law. And a court that gave us Bush v. Gore and Citizens United will prove conclusively that it sees no limits on its power, no need to defer to those elected to make our laws. A Supreme Court that is supposed to give us justice will instead deliver ideology.

// posted by montag @ 1:07 PM 0 Comments

Congress, which never draws any serious conclusions from terrible tragedies involving gunplay, did have time on Wednesday to fight about whether Representative Bobby Rush of Chicago violated the House dress code when he took off his suit jacket, revealing a gray sweater he was wearing underneath, and pulled the hood up over his head.

You may remember that Geraldo Rivera took measure of the Martin case and determined that the moral was: young men, throw out your hoodies. Even Rivera’s son said he was embarrassed. But, hey, we’re talking about it. Mission accomplished.

“Just because someone wears a hoodie does not make them a hoodlum,” Congressman Rush said, before he was hustled off for violating the rule against wearing hats on the House floor.

This is pretty much par for the course. Whenever there is a terrible shooting incident somewhere in America, our politicians talk about everything except whether the tragedy could have been avoided if the gunman had not been allowed to carry a firearm.

// posted by montag @ 12:49 PM 0 Comments

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// posted by montag @ 7:08 PM 0 Comments

The research comes from both directions. As Porter writes, Emmanuel Saez of Cal-Berkeley has research showing that the Laffer curve is set far, far too low. Higher marginal tax rates on the wealthy will not cause massive tax avoidance or a reduction of work from high-income earners such that economic growth would slow. The peak of where raising taxes can reduce revenue is simply much higher than the 35% nominal tax rate of the present day in the US. Saez and Peter Diamond of MIT (the former Fed Governor nominee) posited last November that the top tax rate could be increased to 76% without losing revenue, and to 48% even with the same loopholes we have today. My favorite conclusion of theirs was that the rich don’t really contribute all that much to economic growth:

// posted by montag @ 5:37 PM 0 Comments

Support for the war in Afghanistan is slipping fast, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll released Monday. More than two-thirds of those surveyed, 69 percent, think the United States should no longer be fighting, a 16 percent jump from just four months ago.

A similar number, 68 percent, say the war effort is going either "very badly" or "somewhat badly," a big increase from 42 percent in the last poll in November.

Nearly half of Americans think the timetable for pulling U.S troops out of Afghanistan should be moved up. Forty-four percent say U.S. forces should leave before the Obama administration's planned withdrawal by the end of 2014, while 33 percent say the U.S. should stick to the current schedule. Seventeen percent say the U.S. should stay "as long as it takes"; 3 percent say the troops should come home now.

The growing disillusionment with the war is shared by both Republicans and Democrats, although Republicans have slightly less negative impressions of how the war is going and are more likely to want the U.S. to stay in Afghanistan.

// posted by montag @ 5:28 PM 0 Comments

“One of most humorous I think relates to my father. You may remember my father, George Romney, was president of an automobile company called American Motors … They had a factory in Michigan, and they had a factory in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and another one in Milwaukee, Wisconsin,” said Romney. “And as the president of the company he decided to close the factory in Michigan and move all the production to Wisconsin. Now later he decided to run for governor of Michigan and so you can imagine that having closed the factory and moved all the production to Wisconsin was a very sensitive issue to him, for his campaign.”

Romney said he recalled a parade in which the school band marching with his father’s campaign only knew the Wisconsin fight song, not the Michigan song.

“So every time they would start playing ‘On Wisconsin, on Wisconsin,’ my dad’s political people would jump up and down and try to get them to stop, because they didn’t want people in Michigan to be reminded that my dad had moved production to Wisconsin,” said Romney, laughing.

// posted by montag @ 5:13 PM 0 Comments

Towns whose identities are tied up in red, white and blue are being cut free with the pullback. Four of 12 Army bases in Germany will close, and Baumholder, a town of 4,500 Germans surrounded by 13,500 Americans on base — 4,300 troops, plus their families and other staff members — faces a turbulent future. Many Germans here doubt the base will remain open much longer, although the Army has said it will eventually replace half of the 3,700 troops who will depart by October.

In a town where American uniforms fill dry cleaners’ racks and one restaurant has clocks for three time zones — Baumholder, Baghdad and New York — residents say a closure might shake loose their longtime tilt toward America.

“We think more American — what they are doing here, where are they going, what’s going to happen — a lot more than other German cities. Because it affects our lives,” said Ingrid Schwerdtner, a town council member.

Many fear that the diminishing of the American presence would spell the end for them, too.

// posted by montag @ 1:37 PM 0 Comments

In February, JPMorgan Chase donated a home to an Iraq war veteran in Bucoda, Wash., and Bank of America waived the $140,000 debt that a Florida man still owed after the sale of his foreclosed home. Over the last year, Wells Fargo has demolished about a dozen houses in Cleveland.

Banks do things like this — real estate transactions that do nothing to prevent foreclosure — all the time. But beginning this month, they can count such activities as part of their new commitment to help people stay in their homes.

That commitment comes under the landmark $25 billion foreclosure abuse settlement between the government and five major banks announced last month. The settlement promises that of the $25 billion, the banks will give $17 billion “in assistance to borrowers who have the intent and ability to stay in their homes,” according to a summary of the settlement. But more than half of that money can be used in ways that will not stop foreclosures, including some activities that are already standard bank practices.

For example, the banks can wipe out more than $2 billion of their obligation by donating or demolishing abandoned houses. Almost $1 billion can be used to help families that have already defaulted move out.

“The $17 billion is supposed to be the teeth of this settlement,” said Neil M. Barofsky, the former inspector general for the Treasury’s bank bailout fund known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program. “And yet they are getting all this credit for practices that they do every day.”

// posted by montag @ 1:22 PM 0 Comments

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) on Tuesday blocked legislation that would impose a new sanctions on Iran.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) had hoped to quickly pass the bill by unanimous consent. But Paul objected and introduced an amendment stating that any use of military force against Iran must be authorized by Congress.

“Our Founding Fathers were quite concerned about giving the power declare war to the Executive,” Paul said on the Senate floor. “They were quite concerned that the Executive could become like a king.”

“Before sending our young men and women into combat, we should have a mature and thoughtful debate over the ramifications of and over the authorization of war and over the motives of the war,” he added.

The bill would penalize U.S. parent firms for certain Iran-related activities of their foreign subsidiaries and mandate sanctions for anyone that provides Iran with equipment that aids censorship or the suppression of human rights.

// posted by montag @ 12:48 PM 0 Comments

During an appearance on NBC’s Tonight Show, host Jay Leno told Romney that he knew people that had never been able to get insurance before “Obamacare” was passed.

“It seems to me like children and people with preexisting conditions should be covered,” Leno noted.

“People with preexisting conditions — as long as they’ve been insured before, they’re going to continue to have insurance,” Romney explained.

“Suppose they were never insured?” Leno asked.

“Well, if they’re 45 years old, and they show up, and they say, I want insurance, because I’ve got a heart disease, it’s like, `Hey guys, we can’t play the game like that. You’ve got to get insurance when you’re well, and if you get ill, then you’re going to be covered,’” Romney replied.

“I know guys that work in the auto industry and they’re just not covered because they work in brake dust,” Leno pressed. “And then they get to be 30, 35, and were never able to get insurance before. Now they have it. That seems like a good thing.”

“But people who have had the chance to be insured — if you’re working in an auto business for instance, the companies carry insurance, they insure all their employees — you look at the circumstances that exist,” the candidate explained. “But you don’t want everyone saying, `I’m going to sit back until I get sick and then go buy insurance.’ That doesn’t make sense. But you have to find rules that get people in that are playing by the rules.”

// posted by montag @ 12:28 PM 0 Comments

A ban on brothels puts prostitutes at risk and is unconstitutional, Ontario's top court ruled Monday, in a case that is expected to be appealed to Canada's top court and have ramifications for the country at large.

The Ontario Court of Appeal said sex workers should be allowed to work safely indoors.

"The world in which street prostitutes actually operate is a world of dark streets and barren, isolated, silent places," said the five-judge panel in their ruling. "It is a dangerous world, with always the risk of violence and even death."

The court in Canada's most populous province has given the government a year to rewrite the law if it chooses.

The panel also said Monday that rules against profiting from prostitution should apply only to "circumstances of exploitation" to prevent pimps from exploiting prostitutes.

The change will allow police to prosecute violent and manipulative pimps while at the same time permitting prostitutes to hire drivers or body guards to protect them, the court said.

// posted by montag @ 11:48 AM 0 Comments

A US soldier was killed at an Afghan police checkpoint on Monday in the latest “insider attack” by local security forces, a US military official said.

The assault in eastern Afghanistan was the second shooting incident of the day involving Afghans opening fire on their NATO-led allies, with two British soldiers shot dead in the southern province of Helmand. The attacks brought the death toll to 16 this year for such incidents.

The two British troops were killed when an Afghan soldier opened fire at the entrance gate to British headquarters in Lashkar Gah city. The attacker was shot dead by coalition forces and another British soldier was severely wounded...

More than one in six of the 91 foreign soldiers to have died in the country in 2012 have been killed in so-called “green-on-blue” attacks by Afghan security troops, and the growing problem has commanders worried about the effect on the war-effort.

// posted by montag @ 11:39 AM 1 Comments

The Oklahoma Senate has dropped legislation that would require politicians throughout the state to be drug tested along with people receiving temporary public assistance.

The bill, passed by the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services on Monday, would still require applicants for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program to undergo a mandatory drug test.

The Department of Human Services estimates 22,000 people in Oklahoma receive TANF benefits, which helps poor families with children pay for living expenses, including rent, heat, utilities and personal care items.

Democrats in the Oklahoma House who opposed the legislation added an amendment that required anyone seeking public office to pass a drug test as well. The bill’s sponsor, Republican state Rep. Guy Liebman, opposed the amendment, but his attempt to eliminate measure was defeated by a bipartisan vote.

When the bill arrived in the state Senate, Sen. David Holt (R) dropped the provision from the legislation, describing the amendment a “stunt.”

// posted by montag @ 11:17 AM 1 Comments

“Let’s say you want to follow this administration’s idea of greatest good for the greatest number of people,” he said at a press conference. “It ought to scare liberals to come run and join conservatives, because what it means is when this president’s out of the White House and you get a conservative in there, if this president has the authority under Obamacare to trample on religious rights, then some redneck president’s got the right to say, ‘you know what, there’s some practices that go on in your house that cost people too much money and healthcare, so we’re going to have the right to rule over those as well.’”

// posted by montag @ 11:05 AM 1 Comments

The Supreme Court has thrown out a lower court ruling allowing human genes to be patented, a topic of enormous interest to cancer researchers, patients and drug makers.

The court on Monday overturned patents belonging to Myriad Genetics Inc. of Salt Lake City on two genes linked to increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer...

The high court said it sent the case back for rehearing because of its decision in another case last week saying that the laws of nature are unpatentable.

// posted by montag @ 1:10 PM 0 Comments

Note that she found Limbaugh “destructive” not because he was harming women but because he was harming her party. But the problem wasn’t that Limbaugh confused the issue. His real transgression was that he had given away the GOP game, crystallizing an issue that had been in full view for weeks. That’s why his behavior resonated with and angered so many Americans who otherwise might have tuned out his rant as just another sloppy helping of his aging shtick. It’s precisely because there is a Republican war on women that he hit a nerve. And surely no one knows that better than Noonan, a foot soldier in some of the war’s early battles well before Rush became a phenomenon. In her 1990 memoir about her service in the Reagan administration, What I Saw at the Revolution, she recalls likening Americans who favored legal abortions to Germans who favored killing Jews—a construct Limbaugh wouldn’t seize on and popularize (“feminazis”) until Reagan was leaving office and Anita Hill and Hillary Clinton emerged on the national stage.

GOP apologists like Noonan are hoping now that Limbaugh and Limbaugh alone will remain the issue—a useful big fat idiot whom Republicans can scapegoat for all the right’s misogynistic sins and use as a club to smack down piggish liberal media stars. The hope is that he will change the subject of the conversation altogether, from a Republican war on women to, as Noonan now frames it, the bipartisan “coarsening of discourse in public life.” That’s a side issue, if not a red herring. Coarse and destructive as sexist invective is—whether deployed by Limbaugh or liberals—it is nonetheless policies and laws that inflict the most insidious and serious casualties in the war on women. It’s Republicans in power, not radio talk-show hosts or comedians or cable-news anchors, who try and too often succeed at enacting punitive measures aimed at more than half the population. The war on women is rightly named because those who are waging it do real harm to real women with their actions, not words.

// posted by montag @ 12:47 PM 0 Comments

A man in Afghan army uniform shot dead two NATO soldiers in southern Afghanistan on Monday, raising to 13 the number of foreign troops to die in a series of such killings this year.

Almost one in seven of the 90 foreign soldiers to have died in Afghanistan this year has been killed in so-called “green-on-blue” attacks, raising tensions between NATO forces and their local colleagues.

A key strategy of NATO’s US-led mission in Afghanistan is training Afghan forces to take over national security by the end of 2014, allowing foreign combat troops to withdraw after a costly and lengthy war against the Taliban.

“An individual wearing Afghan army uniform turned his weapon against International Security Assistance Force service members in southern Afghanistan today, killing two,” ISAF spokesman Major Jason Waggoner told AFP.

Coalition forces returned fire and killed the gunman, he added, declining to specify the victims’ nationalities.

// posted by montag @ 12:28 PM 0 Comments

What is ALEC? Despite claims that it’s nonpartisan, it’s very much a movement-conservative organization, funded by the usual suspects: the Kochs, Exxon Mobil, and so on. Unlike other such groups, however, it doesn’t just influence laws, it literally writes them, supplying fully drafted bills to state legislators. In Virginia, for example, more than 50 ALEC-written bills have been introduced, many almost word for word. And these bills often become law.

Many ALEC-drafted bills pursue standard conservative goals: union-busting, undermining environmental protection, tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy. ALEC seems, however, to have a special interest in privatization — that is, on turning the provision of public services, from schools to prisons, over to for-profit corporations. And some of the most prominent beneficiaries of privatization, such as the online education company K12 Inc. and the prison operator Corrections Corporation of America, are, not surprisingly, very much involved with the organization.

What this tells us, in turn, is that ALEC’s claim to stand for limited government and free markets is deeply misleading. To a large extent the organization seeks not limited government but privatized government, in which corporations get their profits from taxpayer dollars, dollars steered their way by friendly politicians. In short, ALEC isn’t so much about promoting free markets as it is about expanding crony capitalism.

// posted by montag @ 10:30 PM 0 Comments

Appearing on two Sunday talk shows, the GOP’s top budget guru Rep. Paul Ryan promised to close enough loopholes to pay for the large tax cuts in his budget blueprint unveiled last week — but he repeatedly refused to specify any.

“We’re proposing to keep revenues where they are, but to clear up all the special interest loopholes, which are uniquely enjoyed by higher income earners, in exchange for lower rates for everyone,” Ryan said on CBS’ Face The Nation. “We’re saying get rid of the tax shelters, the interest group loopholes and lower everybody’s tax rates.”

The plan does not point to any such tax loopholes, nor is it expected to become law. But the House Budget Chairman’s suggested it isn’t his job to specify which ones. His message boils down to this: Trust us, we’ll get to it.

// posted by montag @ 5:05 PM 0 Comments

On any given day, more than one-third of the babies in the neonatal intensive care unit at Manatee Memorial Hospital have been exposed to drugs.

Their mothers have passed the curse of substance abuse to their newborns.

In their cribs, the infants suffer from withdrawal.

They shake with jitters, they cry inconsolably. They fight skin rashes, vomiting and diarrhea.The number of newborns in Manatee County hospitals experiencing drug withdrawal as a result of their mothers' substance abuse rose from 2 to 27 during the years 2007-2010, an increase of 1,250 percent, according to the Manatee County Substance Abuse Coalition.

Nearby, other Tampa Bay area hospitals are seeing similar trends: From 2009-2011, the number of babies born at Tampa General Hospital who were exposed to opiates and/or Methadone skyrocketed from 12 per year to 64.Those who provide medical care to babies blame prescription drug abuse.

The Manatee County Commission on Tuesday will consider a strict new ordinance designed to shut down bogus pain management clinics called "pill mills" that are really just businesses that sell highly-addictive prescription medication for profit.

// posted by montag @ 1:42 PM 0 Comments

The families of 16 Afghan villagers killed this month by a rampaging American soldier were given $50,000 by the United States for each of their slain relatives, Afghan and American officials said.
World Twitter Logo.

The payments were made on Saturday by American military officers at the office of the governor of Kandahar province, where the killings took place. Those wounded in the violence were each given $11,000, said Haji Agha Lalai, a member of the Kandahar provincial council.

// posted by montag @ 11:59 AM 0 Comments

Former Vice President Dick Cheney had a heart transplant Saturday, after five heart attacks over the past 25 years and countless medical procedures to keep him going. Cheney, 71, waited nearly two years for his new heart, the gift of an unknown donor.

An aide to Cheney disclosed the surgery after it was over, and said the ex-vice president was recovering at a Virginia hospital...

More than 3,100 Americans currently are on the national waiting list for a heart transplant. Just over 2,300 heart transplants were performed last year, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing. And 330 people died while waiting.

According to UNOS, 332 people over age 65 received a heart transplant last year. The majority of transplants occur in 50- to 64-year-olds.

The odds of survival are good. More than 70 percent of heart transplant recipients live at least five years, although survival is a bit lower for people over age 65.

// posted by montag @ 10:32 PM 0 Comments

Former Wisconsin state Sen. Randy Hopper (R) was found not guilty by a jury Friday on a charge of drunk-driving, after mounting a court defense that his arrest in October was the product of a conspiracy by the public employee union members who had successfully worked to recall him from office earlier last summer.

// posted by montag @ 5:17 PM 0 Comments

The U.S. military on Friday formally charged Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales with 17 counts of premeditated murder, meaning the 38-year-old soldier could face the death penalty if convicted of a March 11 rampage in southern Afghanistan.

The military also said for the first time that nine children were killed and four were wounded in the early morning incident in southern Kandahar province. Their ages were unspecified and the manner of their deaths wasn't released, nor was any motive for the killings, which have shocked Americans and Afghans alike and raised new challenges for an orderly U.S. exit from the decade-long war in Afghanistan...

Bales was informed of the charges against him at the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., where he's been held since March 16, officials said. The next phase of his case will be what is called an Article 32 hearing — the equivalent of a preliminary hearing in a civilian court — which will take place at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, south of Tacoma, Wash., where Bales has been based for the past decade.

Under military rules, that hearing, where an investigating officer will determine whether there's sufficient evidence to bring Bales to trial, must take place within 120 days of his arrest, which was March 11. The military court can, however, add to that time based on lawyers' requests.

// posted by montag @ 11:59 AM 0 Comments

Jon S. Corzine, MF Global Holding Ltd. (MFGLQ)’s chief executive officer, gave “direct instructions” to transfer $200 million from a customer fund account to meet an overdraft in a brokerage account with JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), according to a memo written by congressional investigators.

Edith O’Brien, a treasurer for the firm, said in an e-mail quoted in the memo that the transfer was “Per JC’s direct instructions,” according to a copy of the memo obtained by Bloomberg News. The e-mail, dated Oct. 28, was sent three days before the company collapsed, the memo says. The memo does not indicate whether that phrase was the full text of the e-mail or an excerpt.

O’Brien’s internal e-mail was sent as the New York-based broker found intraday credit lines limited by JPMorgan, the firm’s clearing bank as well as one of its custodian banks for segregated customer funds, according to the memo, which was prepared for a March 28 House Financial Services subcommittee hearing on the firm’s collapse. O’Brien is scheduled to testify at the hearing after being subpoenaed this week.

“Over the course of that week, MF Global (MFGLQ)’s financial position deteriorated, but the firm represented to its regulators and self-regulatory organizations that its customers’ segregated funds were safe,” said the memo, written by Financial Services Committee staff and sent to lawmakers.

Vinay Mahajan, global treasurer of MF Global Holdings, wrote an e-mail on Oct. 28 that said JPMorgan was “holding up vital business in the U.S. as a result” of the overdrawn account, which had to be “fully funded ASAP,” according to the memo.

// posted by montag @ 7:24 PM 0 Comments

A federal magistrate judge on Thursday ordered the Obama administration to alert drug makers that the government may soon ban the common agricultural use of popular antibiotics in animals because the practice may encourage the proliferation of dangerous infections and imperil public health.

The order, issued by Judge Theodore H. Katz of the Southern District of New York, has the effect of restarting a process that the Food and Drug Administration began 35 years ago in hopes of preventing penicillin and tetracycline, two of the nation’s most popular antibiotics, from losing their effectiveness in humans because of their widespread use in animal feed to promote growth in livestock like chickens, pigs and cattle.

The order comes two months after the Obama administration announced restrictions on agricultural uses of cephalosporins, a critical class of antibiotics that includes drugs like Cefzil and Keflex, which are commonly used to treat pneumonia, strep throat and skin and urinary tract infections. The F.D.A. is expected to issue within days draft rules that would bar the use of penicillin and tetracycline — highly popular in agricultural settings — in animal feed to further growth, the same issue tackled by Judge Katz. A decade ago, the F.D.A. banned indiscriminate agricultural use of a powerful class of antibiotics, called fluoroquinolones, that includes the medicine Cipro.

// posted by montag @ 1:05 PM 0 Comments

“I think the hoodie is as much responsible for Trayvon Martin’s death as George Zimmerman was,” the host ranted. “You have to recognize that this whole stylizing yourself as a gangsta — you’re going to be a gangsta wannabe, well people are going to perceive you as a menace. That’s what happens. It is an instant, reflexive action.”

// posted by montag @ 12:33 PM 1 Comments

Congressman Richard Hanna (R-NY) made a surprising request of women at a rally for the Equal Rights Amendment yesterday. According to a report at Huffington Post, the Republican Representative told women to open their wallets, dig deep and donate their money…to Democrats.

“I think these are very precarious times for women, it seems. So many of your rights are under assault,” he said, “I’ll tell you this: Contribute your money to people who speak out on your behalf, because the other side — my side — has a lot of it. And you need to send your own message. You need to remind people that you vote, you matter, and that they can’t succeed without your help.”...

“This is a dogfight, it’s a fistfight, and you have all the cards,” he said to the group of mostly female rally-goers, “I can only tell you to get out there and use them. Tell the other women, the other 51 percent of the population, to kick in a few of their bucks. Make it matter, get out there, get on TV, advertise, talk about this. The fact that you want [the ERA] is evidence that you deserve it and you need it.”

// posted by montag @ 12:21 PM 0 Comments

The top commander in Afghanistan said Thursday he prefers a significant American force of 68,000 to combat insurgents in 2013, signaling a potential halt in the drawdown and complicating any effort by President Obama to speed up troop withdrawals after more than a decade of war.

Marine Gen. John Allen insisted that he will hold off on a recommendation on the pace of further reductions until after the 23,000-member surge forces leaves Afghanistan by the end of September. But in his most explicit comments in two days of congressional testimony, Allen indicated that he envisions no other withdrawals beyond that cut this year and expressed his preference for next year.

“My opinion is that we will need significant combat power in 2013,” Allen told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“Like 68,000?” asked Sen. John McCain, the panel’s top Republican.

“Sixty-eight thousand is a good going-in number, sir, but I owe the president some analysis on that,” Allen replied.

// posted by montag @ 7:28 PM 1 Comments

A natural disaster has befallen the local pussy willow crop, threatening courtship traditions of the post-Easter celebration of Dyngus Day.

Because of the unseasonably warm weather -- Tuesday's high of 80 degrees marked the fourth straight day of record-setting temperatures at Buffalo Niagara International Airport -- the growth on pussy willow branches quickly is exceeding the desired fuzzy bud, or catkin, stage.

And Dyngus Day is April 9 -- almost three weeks away.

"We are at a crisis period right now," said Martin Biniasz, co-founder of Dyngus Day Buffalo.

According to Polish custom, young men and women demonstrate their interest in potential mates by swatting them with pussy willow branches or dousing them with water.

"Without the proper pussy willows, who knows. Marriages might not happen. Relationships could fall apart," said "Airborne" Eddy Dobosiewicz, Dyngus Day Buffalo's other co-founder.

// posted by montag @ 5:06 PM 0 Comments

There is nothing so dangerous as a lobbying organization that’s running out of stuff to lobby about.

I am thinking in particular of the National Rifle Association. These people are really in desperate straits. The state legislatures are almost all in session, but some of them have already pushed the gun-owner-rights issue about as far as it can go. You can only legalize carrying a concealed weapon in church once...

This is big business. The N.R.A. takes in more than $200 million a year, which is a heck of a lot more than it made back in the old days, when its principal activity was running marksmanship classes. A considerable chunk of the cash comes from gun manufacturers and gun sellers. I cannot help but think that this was the constituency its lobbyists had in mind when they recently pushed Virginia to repeal its one-handgun-a-month purchase law. According to a recent poll, two-thirds of the residents of the state liked the law just fine. However, it did pose a considerable hardship for hard-working small businessmen involved in the transport of large quantities of weaponry up the East Coast to drug gangs in Philadelphia and New York City.

// posted by montag @ 1:01 PM 0 Comments

"Our staff will continue to dig into it and see," Jordan told Energy and Environment Daily. "But what I hope happens is we stop doing these kind of things ... this whole cronyism approach to the marketplace.

"Ultimately, we'll stop it on Election Day, hopefully. And bringing attention to these things helps the voters and citizens of the country make the kind of decision that I hope helps them as they evaluate who they are going to vote for in November."

// posted by montag @ 12:29 PM 1 Comments

In its annual report for 2011, issued on Wednesday, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas released a startling report revealing that 52 percent of all the assets held by the entire banking industry have now become aggregated into the hands of just five companies, and the top 10 institutions have swollen so large that they possess wealth that equates to roughly half of America’s annual gross domestic product (GDP).

It is for those reasons that Dallas Fed president Richard Fisher, who’s otherwise known as a conservative budget hawk, has embraced the radical cause of breaking up the nation’s largest banks and forever ending “too big to fail.” In a letter introducing the 2011 report, he cautions that Congress may not have gone far enough with prior attempts at financial reforms, and that those bills may even be working against the struggling economic recovery underway...

he argues, the risk of a “too big to fail” institution collapsing, which gave lawmakers the impetus for unprecedented financial bailouts in 2008, obstructs capitalism itself. Instead, Fisher writes, the banking industry must diversify — meaning lawmakers need to break out the hammer and chisel. He even warns that “megabanks” have become so powerful that they threaten the Fed’s ability to conduct monetary policy.

“Perhaps the most damaging effect of propagating [too big to fail] is the erosion of faith in American capitalism,” he adds. “Diverse groups ranging from the Occupy Wall Street movement to the Tea Party argue that government-assisted bailouts of reckless financial institutions are sociologically and politically offensive. From an economic perspective, these bailouts are certainly harmful to the efficient workings of the market.”

// posted by montag @ 12:14 PM 0 Comments

A group of firemen from the small town of Sedan were participating in an Irish-themed parade and fundraiser, wearing fabulously colorful gowns purchased from J.C. Penny, when a sudden emergency call came in.

Not thinking much of their attire, the first responders raced to the scene, discovering a vehicle alongside a highway that had caught fire.

Then, in front of a slowly gathering crowd of camera-wielding motorists, the frilly firemen faithfully fought both the blaze and the hazards of strapless evening wear, all at the same time.

The fire department’s chief later remarked that he now calls them, “My girls.”

// posted by montag @ 11:59 AM 0 Comments

In that spirit, let me say that the House of Representatives, under its current majority management, has degenerated into a complete madhouse, an asylum for nihilists and vandals who literally do not believe that the government of the United States has any legitimate function beyond organizing and training the military. There is no reason to mince words about these people any more. In 2010, the voters, in their infinite wisdom, visited upon the country the biggest bunch of fantasts, paranoids, and general whackaloons since the last time Glenn Beck dined alone. This is a legislative body that is not only an embarrassment to democratic self-government, but also an embarrassment to all human endeavor back to the Bronze Age. This isn't a Congress. This is a pre-school, the political equivalent of that Twilight Zone episode in which the little boy terrorizes all the adults and then turns one of them into a jack-in-the-box.

// posted by montag @ 1:08 AM 0 Comments

In an article that would appear to be a poorly-executed parody of Texas Senate candidate Ted Cruz’s (R) right-wing beliefs it Cruz had not posted it on his own website, the Tea Party stalwart touts a truly ridiculous conspiracy theory about George Soros secretly partnering with the United Nations to come into our cities and eliminate our right to play golf...

Sadly, however, Cruz’s conspiracy mongering about George Soros’ war on Tiger Woods is par for Cruz’s course. When Cruz isn’t inventing fantasies about international plots to turn fairways into rough, he invents unconstitutional proposals to nullify federal laws or calls for a radical rereading of the Constitution that would lead to Medicaid and most federal education programs being declared unconstitutional.

// posted by montag @ 5:08 PM 0 Comments

We’re not going to turn our desolate protectorate into a modern Athens and there’s not going to be any victory strut on an aircraft carrier.

When you’re buried alive in the Graveyard of Empires, all you can do is claw your way out.

// posted by montag @ 1:22 PM 0 Comments

Responding to the recent report by Wired author James Bamford, one of the leading journalists on NSA affairs, General Keith Alexander insisted that no matter what Bamford’s insider sources might claim, the NSA is not able to spy on the communications of American citizens.

Published last week, Bamford’s story rips open alleged plans to build a data center in Utah equipped with the most advanced spy tech in history. His sources claimed it essentially represents the resurrection of the “Total Information Awareness” program that Congress killed in 2003.

The center will allegedly be capable of breaking almost any encryption, reading any email and recording any phone call anywhere in the world, even if it’s not made over the Internet. A network of ultra-sensitive satellites enhance the center’s intelligence-finding capabilities with the unique ability to sniff electronic communications from a massive distance.

More troubling still, Bamford’s three covert sources who worked for the NSA reportedly claim that the agency is dumping Americans’ communications into the mix, knowingly violating the U.S. Constitution in pursuit of a modern-day Manhattan Project. And it’s not just Bamford’s sources: prior reporting by MSNBC, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and other publications have carried similar claims by other insiders

// posted by montag @ 12:34 PM 1 Comments

A statistical analysis of 36 years of monthly, inflation-adjusted gasoline prices and U.S. domestic oil production by The Associated Press shows no statistical correlation between how much oil comes out of U.S. wells and the price at the pump.

If more domestic oil drilling worked as politicians say, you'd now be paying about $2 a gallon for gasoline. Instead, you're paying the highest prices ever for March.

Political rhetoric about the blame over gas prices and the power to change them — whether Republican claims now or Democrats' charges four years ago — is not supported by cold, hard figures. And that's especially true about oil drilling in the U.S. More oil production in the United States does not mean consistently lower prices at the pump.

Sometimes prices increase as American drilling ramps up. That's what has happened in the past three years. Since February 2009, U.S. oil production has increased 15 percent when seasonally adjusted. Prices in those three years went from $2.07 per gallon to $3.58. It was a case of drilling more and paying much more.

U.S. oil production is back to the same level it was in March 2003, when gas cost $2.10 per gallon when adjusted for inflation. But that's not what prices are now.

// posted by montag @ 12:17 PM 0 Comments

Representative Paul Ryan’s budget proposal counts on more than $400 billion in tax revenue from the 2010 health-care overhaul he and other Republicans want to repeal.

Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, in the plan unveiled today calls for repealing the health-care law while setting a revenue target that assumes the tax increases remain in place. The Wisconsin Republican’s budget plan seeks to collect $37 trillion over the next decade -- the amount the government would raise if the health-care law’s taxes take effect and some expiring tax cuts are extended.

House Republicans’ proposal to reduce the deficit by repealing the health-care law would work only by retaining the law’s higher tax revenue, said Jim Horney, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The Washington research group advocates policies benefiting low-income families.

// posted by montag @ 7:21 PM 1 Comments