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"Devastated by the results of the 2004 election, I was looking for a group that would help unite progressive Democrats with others, like the Greens, to form a 'big tent' for those who believe in social justice and peace. . .PDA has proven to be a creative, dynamic force for everything from electoral reform to ending the war in Iraq."
- Medea Benjamin, Code Pink, Global Exchange
Published by PBS.
When President Barack Obama took office in January 2009, he had no shortage of challenges to address: an economy on the verge of complete meltdown, two wars, and a health care system so broken that 44,000 people a year die for lack of coverage in the wealthiest country in the world. [more]
Published by AfterDowningStreet.
It is generally agreed, by both proponents and opponents of the Administration’s health reform bill, that the lynchpin of the legislation is the individual mandate requiring uninsured Americans to obtain health insurance, or pay a penalty on their tax return for failing to do so. Without the mandate, even the Administration’s wildly exaggerated cost savings estimates simply cannot work. The whole plan is predicated on enlarging the risk pool by bringing in younger, healthier people who currently lack the means or the incentive–or both–to purchase health insurance. [more]
The Pennsylvania Senate Banking and Insurance Committee held a hearing on SB 400 on January 16.
My overall impression was that this was an enormously successful and impressive showing for Pennsylvania state single-payer healthcare. Yes, I may be biased, but our four panelists did a superb job in explaining the Family and Business Health Security Act.
Senator Don White, Chair of the Senate B and I Committee, said at the conclusion of the hearing. "There were those who said I should not have this hearing." He indicated it was a "positive" hearing and commented that he thought it should be the beginning of a series of hearings on this most important topic. And remember, this is a committee chaired by the Senate Republicans, not the Democrats. White had two pages of questions and not enough time to ask them. One big concern was the 11-person board—appointed by the elected leadership and the governor—which oversaw the plan even. [more]
Published by The New York Times.
Buried in the deal-clinching health care package that Senate Democrats unveiled over the weekend is an inconspicuous proposal expanding Medicare to cover certain victims of “environmental health hazards.”
The intended beneficiaries are identified in a cryptic, mysterious way: individuals exposed to environmental health hazards recognized as a public health emergency in a declaration issued by the federal government on June 17. [more]
Representatives Barbara Lee (D-CA), James McGovern (D-MA), and Walter Jones (R-NC) joined a bipartisan group of Members in delivering a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi requesting that Members of the House are provided the opportunity for a separate debate and up-or-down vote on the President’s proposal to escalate the United States military presence in Afghanistan.
“President Obama spent three months reviewing and deliberating United States strategy in Afghanistan. At the very least, Congress owes our men and women in uniform an honest debate regarding the benefits, costs, affordability, and strategic importance of a military escalation,” said Lee. “Our responsibility to ensure the U.S. is most effectively and sustainably combating terrorism around the globe will not be fulfilled by sidestepping this critical debate.” [more]
Published by OpEdNews.
President Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize nine days after he announced he would send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. His escalation of that war is not what the Nobel committee envisioned when it sought to encourage him to make peace, not war. [more]
Published by BrussellsTribunal.
The machine of repression and death in Iraq continues unabated. The Presidential Council of Iraq has reportedly ratified the death sentences of some 900 detainees who languish on death row. Some 17 of them are confirmed to be women.
None of the condemned had a fair trial. The Iraqi judicial system has been deemed corrupt, fundamentally dysfunctional and plagued with sectarianism by responsible international agencies and all major human rights organisations. Hundreds of lawyers have been assassinated since 2003. The Association of Iraqi Lawyers has publicly declared that it cannot reach the detainees. [more]
Published by Carbon Tax Center.
COPENHAGEN, 19 December 2009--While the mainstream press lamented the COP15 stalemate, and delegates struggled through the night to spin their impasse over “targets” and “verification” into some semblance of progress, the scene was harmonious, even jubilant at Kilmaforum, the “people’s climate summit” near Copenhagen’s main train station Friday night.
Kilmaforum negotiations coordinator Mathilde Kaalund-Jørgensen proclaimed to a standing room-only audience in the main auditorium that she had been admitted to the Bella Center (off limits to most non-governmental organizations since Wednesday), only to sit through hours of “very boring” speeches by heads of state, droning on about “urgency” and “binding targets.” The UN granted Mathilde just two minutes at its plenary session to introduce the Klimaforum Declaration. The consensus Declaration calls on industrialized nations to recognize and begin to pay their “climate debt” for the Earth’s accumulated greenhouse gas pollution that is already raining destruction and death disproportionately on developing nations. The Declaration rejects carbon trading, carbon markets and offsets as false solutions and perhaps most importantly, includes a clear call for a transparent carbon tax with revenue returned to the people. [more]
Published by The Salt Lake Tribune.
NORTH POLE--Santa Claus is suing the United States, claiming government policies are threatening his health, home and livelihood.
The jolly old elf plans to stuff the paperwork in the president's stocking, or serve him face-to-face by crashing a White House Christmas party.
Claus, doing business as Christmas Inc., Kris Kringle Enterprises and North Pole Ho-Ho-Hos (an escort service he operates to finance his philanthropic endeavors), will sue the Food and Drug Administration, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency. [more]
Published by BradBlog.
Demon coupling will result in company counting 92% of Sunshine State votes, at least 70% nation wide...
Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum is conducting an anti-trust investigation of a voting-machine company merger that would create a near-monopoly over the levers of democracy in Florida and much of the United States.
McCollum's office has issued at least six subpoenas covering every major voting-machine company as part of a civil investigation of Election Systems & Software's $5 million acquisition of Diebold Inc.'s elections division---a merger that would give a private company too much power over the machines used to cast votes, voting-rights groups say. [more]
Published by Arab American Institute.
Israel’s near hysterical reaction to a Swedish proposal to recognize East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state, their stubborn refusal to include East Jerusalem in their questionable “settlement freeze” and their defense of repressive policies imposed on Palestinians in the area of that holy city are framed in language that masks their real intent.
When Israel speaks of Jerusalem, they often frame their concerns as based either on religion or historical attachment. Jerusalem is, they will say, “our eternal undivided capital,” and they will add “we longed to return for 2000 years.” While not dismissing the religious importance of the city, given its pivotal role in all three Abrahamic faiths, the disturbing reality that emerges from an examination of Israeli practices in the area around Jerusalem exposes, quite simply, that their efforts speak more of a naked land grab of Palestinian territory than they do of religion. [more]
Published by CodePINK.
My almost annual list of ten good things about the waning year has never before posed such a tremendous challenge. In the face of this challenge, I decided to try a minimalist thought experiment, blocking out the many baneful events that colored 2009, and instead seeking out the small, yet powerfully bright notes to inspire and give us hope for the year head.
1. Tens of thousands of people from around the world took to the streets of Copenhagen to call for meaningful action to address climate change, despite continuous attempts to squelch it. Inside Copenhagen’s meeting halls, indigenous peoples from small island nations and the Himalayas spoke powerfully about their rights and their needs. [more]
Tired of getting pushed around by faceless big business? Here are 10 ways to push back!
The New Year is nearly here, and so much has happened. Wait, what's that? Nothing major at all has happened, you say? Oh right, we've been stuck in neutral since dumping the toxic trash of the Republican Bush administration and embracing Democratic promises of hope and change, neither of which have blossomed.
A year of our collective life has flown by and our global culture is still rife with schemers, screw jobs and sorry excuses for solutions. And we just sit back and take it, year after year. But no more. When you make that hefty list of New Year's resolutions, drop some of these bombs. Then duck. You'll get your change faster than you can say, "Teabag this!" [more]
Published by McClatchy Newspapers.
Ten months after the Obama administration began pressing lenders to do more to prevent foreclosures, many struggling homeowners are holding up their end of the bargain but still find themselves rejected, and some are even having their homes sold out from under them without notice.
These borrowers, rich and poor, completed trial modifications of their distressed mortgage, and made all the payments, only to learn, often indirectly, that they won't get help after all. [more]
Published by The Salt Lake Tribune.
With the nation's jobless rate at 10 percent and six applicants for every opening, you might think this is the worst possible time for Congress to legalize millions of illegal immigrants.
Yet that's one of the proposals in a new immigration reform bill introduced by Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill.
Those who believe you can't discuss immigration in a down economy must also assume that newly legalized immigrants would automatically compete for jobs with U.S. workers, and that the last thing our homegrown work force needs in tough times is more competition. This is an easy argument to make, but it's not a very strong one for three reasons. [more]
Published by The Washington Post.
In the months leading up to the U.N.-sponsored climate talks, there was one thing observers said with confidence: Any final outcome would establish global guidelines for paying poor countries to preserve their tropical forests.
That almost happened. The fact that it didn't may pose a slight glitch, but is unlikely to halt the proliferation of such projects around the world. [more]
Published by The New York Times.
President Hamid Karzai opted for continuity over change in the list of cabinet nominees he presented to Parliament on Saturday, retaining some leaders supported by the West but also several viewed as incompetent and two accused of involvement in the fraud that tainted the recent presidential election.
The naming of the cabinet nominees was the first major test of whether Mr. Karzai would make the type of bold changes President Obama was hoping for when he decided to commit an additional 30,000 troops to fight a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan. [more]
Published by China View.
Galit Popok, a mother of six in Gaza, went to Israel with three children in 2006 to see her parents, and never came back, leaving the other three behind.
Last week, Galit told the Israeli Daily Ma'ariv that she has applied to the Israeli government with a request to include her three children in Gaza into the prisoners' swap deal between Hamas and Israel.
"The price that Israel will pay for the release of Shalit is high, and I believe that Israel can also pay a price and help me getting my children back," Galit told the Israeli paper in an interview last week. [more]
Published by E&E GreenWire.
COPENHAGEN -- President Obama presented a face-saving global warming deal today with Brazil, China, India and South Africa that avoids key questions on how to force greenhouse gas emission cuts from rich and poor nations.
The Copenhagen Accord unveiled after two weeks of nearly round-the-clock diplomacy falls far short of what many world leaders had hoped to accomplish during the annual U.N. summit. [more]
Published by The Nation.
The final deal at the Copenhagen climate summit, which was convened to develop a comprehensive international response to the threat of global warming, came down to a behind-closed-doors conversation among some of the most powerful people in the world about the difference between two terms: "examination and assessment" and "international consultations and analysis."
Then again, there may not have been a final deal. Late on Friday night, President Barack Obama announced that an agreement had been reached, establishing a minimalist accord that would not set a firm schedule with hard-and-fast targets for reducing emissions. But after Obama held a press conference to declare semi-victory--"this is going to be a first step"--and jetted back to Washington, European officials said nothing was in the bag. And Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping, the Sudanese chairman of the G77 bloc of least developed nations, claimed there was no deal. "What has happened today confirms what we have been suspicious of that a deal will be imposed by United States, with the help of the Danish government, on all nations of the world," he said. [more]
In a December 19 email distributed by Friends of the Earth, FOE president Erich Pica had this to say about President Obama's public comments on the Copenhagen Accord:
"Climate negotiations in Copenhagen have yielded a sham agreement with no real requirements for any countries. This is not a strong deal or a just one--it isn't even a real one. It's just repackaging old positions and pretending they're new. The actions it suggests for the rich countries that caused the climate crisis are extraordinarily inadequate. This is a disastrous outcome for people around the world who face increasingly dire impacts from a destabilizing climate.
"The blame for the failure to achieve a real deal lies squarely on the rich countries whose pollution has caused the climate crisis--especially the United States. Rich countries refused to budge from the grossly inadequate emissions reduction proposals they brought to Copenhagen, and they failed to put sufficient money on the table so that poor countries that did not cause this crisis have the capacity to cope with it. [more]
Published by RebelReport.
Contrary to popular belief, the US actually has 189,000 personnel on the ground in Afghanistan right now—and that number is quickly rising.
A hearing in Sen. Claire McCaskill's Contract Oversight subcommittee on contracting in Afghanistan has highlighted some important statistics that provide a window into the extent to which the Obama administration has picked up the Bush-era war privatization baton and sprinted with it. Overall, contractors now comprise a whopping 69% of the Department of Defense's total workforce, "the highest ratio of contractors to military personnel in US history." That's not in one war zone-that's the Pentagon in its entirety. [more]
Published by The Washington Post.
A House subcommittee said Thursday that it will investigate the Treasury Department's decision to change a long-standing law so that Citigroup could keep billions of dollars in tax breaks.
Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio) called Treasury's action a "farce" and an "outrage" during a hearing Thursday of the domestic policy subcommittee of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Kucinich, the subcommittee chairman, said that he would demand an explanation from Treasury officials. [more]
Published by The Rolling Stone.
The president has packed his economic team with Wall Street insiders intent on turning the bailout into an all-out giveaway
Watch Matt Taibbi discuss "The Big Sellout" in a video on his blog, Taibblog.
Barack Obama ran for president as a man of the people, standing up to Wall Street as the global economy melted down in that fateful fall of 2008. He pushed a tax plan to soak the rich, ripped NAFTA for hurting the middle class and tore into John McCain for supporting a bankruptcy bill that sided with wealthy bankers "at the expense of hardworking Americans." Obama may not have run to the left of Samuel Gompers or Cesar Chavez, but it's not like you saw him on the campaign trail flanked by bankers from Citigroup and Goldman Sachs. What inspired supporters who pushed him to his historic win was the sense that a genuine outsider was finally breaking into an exclusive club, that walls were being torn down, that things were, for lack of a better or more specific term, changing. [more]
Published by The Washington Post.
Senate Republicans failed early Friday in their bid to filibuster a massive Pentagon bill that funds the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, an unusual move designed to delay President Obama's health-care legislation.
On a 63 to 33 vote, Democrats cleared a key hurdle that should allow them to approve the must-pass military spending bill Saturday and return to the health-care debate. After years of criticizing Democrats for not supporting the troops, just three Republicans supported the military funding. [more]
Published by NewsOK.
Had she never become an actress, it’s easy to imagine that Mimi Kennedy might have followed the path blazed by many others with her surname and become a politician—and a good one. As a national board chairwoman for Progressive Democrats of America, she blogs articles for the Huffington Post and www.pdamerica.org, and she travels often to Washington to raise money for the social crusade she supports.
"My passion stems from seeking world peace and finding how we can live together creatively rather than violently,” Kennedy says. "I believe in campaigning for health care, not warfare. The wealth is being sucked up to the top as never before. Things have to be done to get it back under control right now.” [more]
Published by BorowitzReport.
The United States Senate today unveiled details of its health care plan, tentatively called CompromiseCareTM:
-- Under CompromiseCareTM, people with no coverage will be allowed to keep their current plan.
-- Medicare will be extended to 55-year-olds as soon as they turn 65.
-- You will have access to cheap Canadian drugs if you live in Canada.
-- States whose names contain vowels will be allowed to opt out of the plan. [more]
Published by Salon.
Of all the posts I wrote this year, the one that produced the most vociferous email backlash--easily--was this one from August, which examined substantial evidence showing that, contrary to Obama's occasional public statements in support of a public option, the White House clearly intended from the start that the final health care reform bill would contain no such provision and was actively and privately participating in efforts to shape a final bill without it. From the start, assuaging the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries was a central preoccupation of the White House--hence the deal negotiated in strict secrecy with Pharma to ban bulk price negotiations and drug reimportation, a blatant violation of both Obama's campaign positions on those issues and his promise to conduct all negotiations out in the open (on C-SPAN). Indeed, Democrats led the way yesterday in killing drug re-importation, which they endlessly claimed to support back when they couldn't pass it. The administration wants not only to prevent industry money from funding an anti-health-care-reform campaign, but also wants to ensure that the Democratic Party--rather than the GOP--will continue to be the prime recipient of industry largesse. [more]
Published by The Nation.
The Senate almost debated health care reform this seek. No, not the tepid tinkering proposed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, in the compromised for demanded by Senator Joe Lieberman, I-Insurance Industry.
We're talking real reform.
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has always understood that the real reform involves a lot more than enriching insurance companies with massive new infusions of federal money. [more]
Published by TomDispatch.
Introduction (by Tom Englehardt): Ashton Carter, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, put the matter this way recently: “[N]ext to Antarctica, Afghanistan is probably the most incommodious place, from a logistics point of view, to be trying to fight a war... It's landlocked and rugged, and the road network is much, much thinner than in Iraq. Fewer airports, different geography.” In other words, we might as well be fighting on the moon. In translation, this means at least one thing: don’t believe any of the figures coming out of the White House or the Pentagon about what this war is going to cost. [more]
Published by Buddhist Peace Fellowship.
The President’s disappointing decision to send more troops to Afghanistan leaves Buddhists with a choice. Buddhists can bemoan this mistake among themselves, or they can seize this opportunity to awaken the American people to the futility of war, using Afghanistan as a perfect teaching case. [more]
Published by ConsortiumNews.
Editor’s Note: In his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in Oslo, President Barack Obama downplayed the bloodshed caused by scores of U.S. military interventions and covert operations over the past six decades–and sought to justify his own escalation of the eight-year-old war in Afghanistan.
In this guest essay, Daniel C. Maguire, a Professor of Ethics at Marquette University, found Obama’s effort disappointing and disingenuous:
Whether Obama deserved the Nobel Peace Prize is not the point. He didn’t. The fact is he got it, and was gifted with the chance of a lifetime to make a classic speech on the politics of peace-making, a speech that in the glare of Nobel could have attained instant biblical standing. [more]
Published by The Washington Post.
President Obama will have to argue his own case to House Democrats as he seeks support for a planned surge of 30,000 troops into Afghanistan, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Wednesday, adding that she is finished asking her colleagues to back wars that they do not support.
"The president's going to have to make his case," Pelosi told reporters at a year-end briefing on the legislative session. [more]
Published by The Nation.
December 17, COPENHAGEN--It's the second to last day of the climate conference and I have the worst case of laryngitis of my life. I open my mouth and nothing comes out.
It's frustrating because I was just at Hillary Clinton's press conference and desperately wanted to ask her a question–or six. She said that the U.S. would contribute its "share" to a $100-billion financing package for developing countries by 2020–but only if all countries agreed to the terms of the climate deal that the U.S. has slammed on the table here, which include killing Kyoto, replacing legally binding measures with the fuzzy concept of "transparency," and nixing universal emissions targets in favor of vague "national plans" that are mashed together. Oh, and abandoning the whole concept (which the U.S. agreed to by singing the UN climate convention) that the rich countries that created the climate crisis have to take the lead in solving it. [more]
Published by t r u t h o u t.
With heavy defections from Blue Dog Democrats, the House of Representatives still narrowly passed Wednesday evening, 217 to 212, a $154 billion jobs package. It included funds for states to retain front-line workers, aid to the unemployed and transportation projects. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) declared on the House floor, "This legislation brings jobs to Main Street by increasing credit for small businesses, rebuilding the infrastructure of America, and keeping police and fireman and teachers on the job. As we create jobs for Americans, we are doing so in a fiscally responsible way. These investments are fully paid for by redirecting TARP funds from Wall Street to Main Street." [more]
Published by Creators.com.
Scientifically speaking, the weasel is in the mustelidae family, but it is not the only burrowing rodent of its genus. There's also the mustela congressa lobbyista, which is that mischievous grouping of Washington lobbyists who habitually team up with certain congress-critters to burrow loopholes in our country's ethics laws.
You might recall the big ethics reform push of 2007. In January of that year, in response to public outrage over breathtakingly flagrant scandals involving Uber-lobbyist Jack Abramoff and several Republican members of Congress, the new Democratic majority in the U.S. House pushed through a widely ballyhooed set of reforms. Incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised that the changes would deliver "the most honest, ethical and open Congress in history.
How'd that work out? [more]
Published by Consortium News.
However, unlike many neocons, Abrams has been surprisingly frank about his devotion to Israel as a Jewish state. He has even expressed resentment toward Christians who hold nuanced views about Israel or who show sympathy for the Palestinians uprooted from their ancestral homes.
In 1997, Abrams published a book entitled, Fear or Faith: How Jews Can Survive in a Christian America, which explained his strong commitment to Zionism; chastised Jews who marry Christians; and lashed out at American Christians for what he regarded as their insufficient support for Israel. [more]
See related article here.
Published by Reuters.
*Opposition high; 1 Democrat, 6 Republicans vote against
*Nomination seen clearing Senate despite misgivings
*Full Senate to take up nomination after Jan. 19 (Adds details, background, analyst reaction)
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's nomination to a second term cleared a Senate panel on Thursday despite lawmakers' misgivings, setting the stage for a contentious Senate debate and final vote in January.
The panel backed Bernanke on a 16-7 vote, with one Democrat joining six Republicans in opposition. [more]
Sickening. Saddening. Maddening. And the stuff of future determination in the political struggle for healthcare for all in the United States.
On the floor of the U.S. Senate today, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont rose to offer his single-payer, Medicare for All amendment No. 2837 and to begin debate. Then, one of the two Republican doctors in Senate, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma, demanded a full reading of the 700-page amendment.
From the Senate gallery, I watched as Sen. Max Baucus told Sanders the only way to halt the Republican delay tactic would be to withdraw the amendment. Sanders stated emphatically to Baucus, “I will offer this amendment.” But both men left the chamber as the amendment reading went on. [more]
Published by Politico.
More than anything else in Barack Obama's presidency so far, health reform has exposed a get-a-deal-at-any-cost side of Obama that infuriates his party's progressives.
And as Democrats tried to salvage health reform Tuesday, some liberals could barely hide their sense of betrayal that the White House and congressional Democrats have been willing to cut deals and water down what they consider the ideal vision of reform. [more]
The hopes of Medicare for All activists were dashed upon the floor of the US Senate yesterday when Republicans demanded a full reading of Sanders' Amendment 2837 in yet another effort to obstruct passage of healthcare legislation. Republicans demanded that the 700 page amendment be read into the record. As the reading took place and behind close doors, their maneuvering caused Sanders to withdraw his amendment:
[more]
Published by Alternet.
The House voted Wednesday to pay for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and assure the jobless don't lose their benefits, spearheading a flurry of legislative activity as lawmakers hurried to finish their work for the year.
On the last day of what has been a tumultuous year, the House is also taking action to prevent the government from defaulting on its mushrooming debt and voting on a $174 billion package to stimulate job growth through infrastructure projects, help for teachers and first responders and extended safety nets for the unemployed. [more]
Published by The Nation.
Dr. Howard Dean has a prescription for health-care reform:
Scrap the ridiculously compromised Senate bill--from which Majority Leader Harry Reid has, under pressure from Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, stripped both the public option and plans to expand Medicare--and use the budget reconciliation process to get over the 60-vote hurdle in the Senate.
"This is essentially the collapse of health care reform in the United States Senate," the former Vermont governor, presidential candidate and Democratic National Committee chairman said of Reid's compromise. "Honestly the best thing to do right now is kill the Senate bill, go back to the House, start the reconciliation process, where you only need 51 votes and it would be a much simpler bill." [more]
Published by The Huffington Post.
In light of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's decision to give in to Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and agree to scrap a Medicare compromise, and with the public option already off the table, many ardent supporters of health care reform are giving up on the legislation.
Former presidential candidate Howard Dean said in a radio interview Tuesday that he agreed.
"This is essentially the collapse of health care reform in the United States Senate," Dean said. "Honestly the best thing to do right now is kill the Senate bill, go back to the House, start the reconciliation process, where you only need 51 votes and it would be a much simpler bill." [more]
Published by Common Dreams.
With apologies to Pastor Niemöller:
First they came for the banksters, and showered them with money and put them in the Administration in a way that was not change we could believe in.
Then they came for the military industrial complex, and sent more and more of our children to die in faraway lands that had never attacked us in a way that was not change we could believe in.
And now they’ve sold out our hope for a national health care system not run by millionaire gangsters in suits. And who is left to speak for us? [more]
Published by Friends of the Earth.
COPENHAGEN, DENMARK, December 16, 2009–Friends of the Earth International denounced today an attempt by the Danish Prime Minister to derail the U.N negotiations in favour of rich countries and condemned the exclusion of critical civil society voices--including Friends of the Earth--from the UN Climate conference.
"The Danish Prime Minister is trying to push an illegitimate process which is opposed by many developing countries as well as civil society. This untransparent Danish initiative must be abandoned and the legitimate UN process restored. The last draft we saw from the Danish Prime minister favored US positions and undermined binding mitigation targets for developed countries, said Lars Haltbrekken from Friends of the Earth Norway. [more]
Published by Consortium News.
Just when you thought the big banks had maxed out their chutzpah account, think again.
While posting breathtaking profits in the last two quarters–Wells Fargo’s $3.2 billion, Citigroup’s $3 billion and Chase’s $2.7 billion–U.S. banks have figured out a way to squeeze some extra dollars from those who can least afford it, the unemployed. [more]
More war and more money for war-so what else is new? This time the war-funding bill includes money to extend unemployment benefits for the many Americans who have lost their jobs from the economic meltdown.
At a time when so many Americans are desperately seeking employment, others have lost their homes or are about to, and still others are seeing their wages cut back, the US government is about to authorize $130 billion more to spend on the futile effort in Afghanistan and Pakistan, despite the overwhelming opposition to it. [more]
Published by The Huffington Post.
The Progressive Change Campaign Committee released an ad on Tuesday in which, through the voice of a local Chicagoan, they warn that Emanuel risks support in his own district should he "undermine" the public option for insurance coverage. The spot comes the morning after Ryan Grim of the Huffington Post first reported that the White House chief of staff had urged Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to get a deal done with centrist Democrats on health care.
Playing off the widely-held belief that Emanuel will eventually return to elected politics, PCCC is set to air the ad solely on Chicago television. But it will run only as many times as fundraising permits. The initial goal is $50,000 worth of spots. [more]
Published by The Huffington Post.
One of the most telling tales in politics is the one about the progressive activist who got a meeting with FDR to explain his great new policy idea.
As the story goes, FDR heard the fellow out, and then told him: "I agree with you, I want do do it... Now make me do it." [more]
Published by The New York Times.
New federally financed drug research reveals a stark disparity: children covered by Medicaid are given powerful antipsychotic medicines at a rate four times higher than children whose parents have private insurance. And the Medicaid children are more likely to receive the drugs for less severe conditions than their middle-class counterparts, the data shows.
Those findings, by a team from Rutgers and Columbia, are almost certain to add fuel to a long-running debate. Do too many children from poor families receive powerful psychiatric drugs not because they actually need them—but because it is deemed the most efficient and cost-effective way to control problems that may be handled much differently for middle-class children? [more]
Published by Politico.
Florida Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson said Tuesday that the war in Afghanistan is “futile” and vowed to vote against the Pentagon’s appropriations bill to protest President Barack Obama’s decision to send more U.S. troops there. [more]
Kucinich Announces 12 New Co-sponsors
Congressman Kucinich (D-OH) yesterday, December 15, announced a quick bipartisan response to his call to introduce a privileged resolution to end the war in Afghanistan. The proposed legislation already has 12 cosponsors. The privileged resolution will require debate in the House of Representatives within 15 calendar days of its introduction.
“At a time when 15 million people are unemployed we cannot continue spending hundreds of billions of dollars on disastrous wars. My resolution will force a debate and vote on the war in Afghanistan. Congress must reassert its constitutional authority to start and end wars,” said Kucinich. [more]
Published by FAIR.
Now, Bill Moyers Journal need worthy replacements | Click here to sign FAIR's petition
Bad news for PBS viewers: Now and the Bill Moyers Journal will be taken off the air in April 2010. Both programs stood out as all-too-rare examples of the hard-hitting, independent programming that should thrive on public television--which is why PBS should replace these programs with similarly thoughtful shows that continue this tradition.
In late November Bill Moyers, who was also the original host of Now when it launched in 2002, announced that he would be stepping down from his Journal program, which first aired in 1972 and has been running in its current incarnation since 2007. The decision to cancel Now appears to rest with PBS, which has issued only a limited explanation, stating that the cancellation is part of the "review and reinvention of the news and public affairs genre on PBS," and is intended to help "revitalize public media in the context of today's rapidly changing communications environment." [more]
On Tuesday, December 15, Congressman Luis V. Gutierrez (D-IL) introduced new legislation, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America's Security and Prosperity Act of 2009 (CIR ASAP), to the U.S. House of Representatives. Gutierrez was joined by members of many different faiths and backgrounds, including the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Black Caucus, Asian Pacific American Caucus and Progressive Caucus.
Upon introduction Gutierrez said, "We have waited patiently for a workable solution to our immigration crisis to be taken up by this Congress and our President," said Rep. Gutierrez. "The time for waiting is over. This bill will be presented before Congress recesses for the holidays so that there is no excuse for inaction in the New Year. It is the product of months of collaboration with civil rights advocates, labor organizations, and members of Congress. It is an answer to too many years of pain--mothers separated from their children, workers exploited and undermined security at the borde—all caused at the hands of a broken immigration system. This bill says 'enough,' and presents a solution to our broken system that we as a nation of immigrants can be proud of." [more]
Published by Reuters.
The U.S. Supreme Court said on Monday that it rejected an appeal by four former Guantanamo Bay prisoners arguing that they should be able to proceed with their lawsuit against top Pentagon officials for torture and religious abuse.
The justices refused to review a U.S. appeals court ruling that dismissed the lawsuit by the four British citizens over their treatment at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba on the grounds the officials enjoyed immunity. [more]
Published by Associated Press.
Two trade programs allowing developing nations to sell their products duty-free in the United States would be extended for a year under legislation approved by the House Monday.
The first program, implemented in 1976, allows some 132 developing countries to export about 3,400 types of products without paying duties. Among those, the 44 least developed may export an additional 1,400 types of products. [more]
Published by The New York Times.
U.S. trade officials have formally notified the U.S. Congress of President Barack Obama’s intention to negotiate a regional free trade deal with Vietnam, New Zealand, Singapore, Chile and three other countries in the Asia-Pacific region.
The action Monday came with the future of the eight-year-old Doha round of world trade talks in doubt. Also, Mr. Obama is delaying, because of concerns from his Democratic Party, the submission to Congress of trade deals with Colombia, Panama and South Korea that were negotiated by his predecessor, George W. Bush.
The U.S. trade representative, Ron Kirk, said the United States’ participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement would be vital to reversing “a significant decline” in U.S. export market share over the past decade in the fast-growing Asia-Pacific region. [more]
Published by The Charlotte Observer.
'Hustle for money' compromises officials, group says, and more N.C. voters see that.
When the N.C. Voters for Clean Elections began a decade ago, only a few reformers championed the idea of publicly financing state political campaigns. [more]
For several years now, the news media have identified healthcare and the war in Iraq as key issues in American politics. But very little of the reporting or the punditry goes beneath the buzz-word surfaces to the human realities that span from local hospitals to a faraway war.
“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift,” Martin Luther King Jr. said 40 years ago, “is approaching spiritual death.” Today, nearly one in six Americans has no health insurance, and tens of millions of others are woefully under-insured--while the war in Iraq continues to further skew the U.S. government's budget priorities.
By launching the national “Healthcare Not Warfare” campaign, Progressive Democrats of America is moving ahead with a grassroots opportunity to turn from warfare to healthcare for all. While growing ever since it came into existence four years ago, PDA has been working with--and, more often, pushing--Democrats in Congress to end the occupation of Iraq. And, integral to its progressive program, PDA has been mobilizing support behind H.R. 676, the bill to create a universal single payer system to guarantee healthcare for all. [more]
