Undernews: July 22 2011

Who holds America's debt?

Percentage of total U.S. debt, according to Business Insider:

• Hong Kong: $121.9 billion (0.9 percent)
• Caribbean banking centers: $148.3 (1 percent)
• Taiwan: $153.4 billion (1.1 percent)
• Brazil: $211.4 billion (1.5 percent)
• Oil exporting countries: $229.8 billion (1.6 percent)
• Mutual funds: $300.5 billion (2 percent)
• Commercial banks: $301.8 billion (2.1 percent)
• State, local and federal retirement funds: $320.9 billion (2.2 percent)
• Money market mutual funds: $337.7 billion (2.4 percent)
• United Kingdom: $346.5 billion (2.4 percent)
• Private pension funds: $504.7 billion (3.5 percent)
• State and local governments: $506.1 billion (3.5 percent)
• Japan: $912.4 billion (6.4 percent)
• U.S. households: $959.4 billion (6.6 percent)
• China: $1.16 trillion (8 percent)
• The U.S. Treasury: $1.63 trillion (11.3 percent)
• Social Security trust fund: $2.67 trillion (19 percent)

So America owes foreigners about $4.5 trillion in debt. But America owes America $9.8 trillion.

Three Harvard doctors sanctioned for pharma connections

What it's like to be arrested by the FBI

We have no idea as to whether former Boston council member Chuck Turner was guilty of the extortion charges for which he was convicted and sent to prison. The background to the story can be found here. The case for his innocence can be found here. But what caught our eye was Turner's own description of his arrest, which brought to mind how seldom one finds a readable account of such a major incident in life. Here are some excerpts:

On November 21, 2008, at 6:16 a.m. I was confronted in my office at City Hall by 10 white men and women, some in police uniforms. One of them barked at me, “Hang up the phone”. I had been talking with my wife, Terri, who had called me 10 minutes earlier, saying that the FBI had just come to our house to arrest me. My first response was “Well it finally happened” and we both laughed since Terri had been saying for years that my political work would result in my being killed or put in jail.

My second response was “Why are they going to arrest me.” She said she didn’t know and went on to say that they forced their way into the house when she told them that I had left for work. She was still relating her experience with them when the FBI accompanied by Boston Police burst into my office and ordered me to hang up the phone.

The large officer at the edge of my desk who had told me to hang up the phone, then ordered me to stand up and put my hands behind my back. As I followed his instructions, I started to laugh which infuriated him. “What are you laughing at?”, he shouted. I replied, “You would never understand”.

The situation was obviously a serious one. At the same time these ten “public safety officers” standing around me in my small office getting ready to handcuff a 68 year old, black, 9 year City Councilor, and lifelong activist seemed so ludicrous that I couldn’t help but laugh. It seemed that somehow I was playing a part in a grade C detective movie or perhaps even a Keystone Cops movie.

At that point, the leader of the group said move and I and the pack of “public safety officials” began to move out the door, some in front of me and some behind. As we walked down the hall to the elevators, I wanted to ask how much each of them earned per hour because it seemed like a tremendous waste of tax payer money. Did they think I was going to make a break for it and they needed ten officers to take me down? Even if they thought I was going to perform an act of civil disobedience, they wouldn’t need ten officers.

When the elevator arrived, it seemed that they all wanted to ride with me so most of us crowded into the elevator and rode to the first floor level where we walked out to the parking area where I saw a traditional red Ford parked and waiting for us. The young, male FBI agent who had interviewed me three weeks before said “Get in the car”. I turned my back to him so he could take the cuffs off, when he again barked “Get in the car”. I then realized that they were playing “We’ve caught the dangerous criminal who will make a run for it, if we take the handcuffs off”. Or maybe it was the “Now that we have arrested this arrogant, loudmouth “Negro” politician, lets show him whose in charge and how difficult we are going to make life for him”.

Regardless which scene they (the young female agent who had also interviewed me was by then standing beside him) were playing, the best thing to do was to try to make myself as comfortable as possible, hand cuffs and all in the back seat of their car. As I listened to them talk, it became apparent that they were getting ready to take me on a 45 minute ride to Worcester, MA. Apparently US Attorney Sullivan had scheduled my arrest to take place on the day that the judge magistrate who would arraign me was at the Courthouse in Worcester.

After about twenty minutes of trying to get comfortable with my hands cuffed behind my back, I started to have the urge to ask if they could at least loosen the cuffs. However, it occurred to me that their objective was to make me as uncomfortable as possible. So it was clear that the best thing to do was to suck it up and understand that my discomfort was miniscule compared to what others endure at the hands of “public safety officers” every day.

Unfortunately, when we arrived in Worcester, they couldn’t find their way to the court house. They kept asking questions of the person on the other end of their radio unit but it didn’t seem to do any good. However, after what seemed to be a half an hour, finally we arrived at the Worcester federal court house and parked in the back. The female officer opened the rear door and said “Get out”. I thought for a moment about resisting and forcing them to have the court officers carry me out of the car into the jail. But then an internal voice said what would be the point or value of an act of resistance at this point.

Sitting in the barren jail cell, with no idea of my crime, I felt very alone. I had no idea what time I would go before the judge. However, I knew I had to find some way to keep myself calm until that moment. Remembering Nichiren Daishonen, the Buddhist monk who had been imprisoned for his views, I began to chant “Nam Myo Ho Renge Kyo” the powerful chant he had developed. After a few minutes I would pause and then begin again.

After about an hour or so, I began to hear this strange clanging against the bars and realized that I was not alone. I assumed that the clanging was a message to stop chanting. At that moment, I was in no mood to take his or her feelings into consideration. I rationalized that whether s/he realized it, my chanting was helping both of us.

Eventually, I dozed off and was awakened by a guard saying that my lawyers had arrived. It was now two thirty. I was told that in a half hour, I would be led into court to begin the most difficult ordeal of my life. While I was being moved to Worcester, Terri had been contacted by Kazi Toure and Steve Kirshbaum, political allies, who when they heard I had been arrested secured legal assistance.

Kazi worked as an investigator for Barry Wilson, a local criminal lawyer, who agreed to represent me at the arraignment. Steve, a steward of the School Bus Drivers Union, asked John Pavlos, also a criminal lawyer, to join Barry. Also through the bus drivers union and the International Action Center, Steve organized a group of men to provide security on the porch of our house bringing a sense of relief to Terri who was being barraged by the ever present, ever insistent press.

In the short time we had before going before the magistrate, John and Barry showed me the affidavit that the prosecutor had given them. The affidavit said that I was being charged with extortion, three counts of lying to the FBI officials who had interviewed me three weeks before, and conspiracy with Senator Dianne Wilkerson, the first Black female state senator. There were also two pictures of a black hand putting something in my hand. I couldn’t see the person’s face but the picture on the wall led me to believe that it had been taken in my district office.

The affidavit identified the hand as belonging to US Attorney Sullivan’s cooperating witness who they only identified as a community business person. The senator and I were accused of being in a conspiracy to extort money from him. The charges of lying to FBI agents were based on the fact that when I was interviewed three weeks earlier on the day of the Senator’s arrest for taking bribes, I was asked three questions by the officers. Did I know a local businessman, Ron Wilburn? Did Mr. Wilburn ever offer to give me a fund raiser? Did Mr. Wilburn ever give me money? To which I answered No, No, and definitely Not. How could I been given money by a person that I didn’t even know. My answers to these questions increased the number of my crimes (counts) from two to five.

After talking briefly about the procedures of the court process and agreeing to meet the following Sunday, the three of us proceeded to court. When the court officer opened the door to the court room, what I saw almost brought tears to my eyes. The court room was filled. There were my wife and one of my daughters in the front row. Around them and back of them were a myriad of other friends and supporters. Despite the fact that Sullivan had arranged that the session would be held 45 miles away from Boston, my family, friends, and supporters were still there with me in my time of need. The moment just confirmed what I have always said, “Our greatest asset in the struggle for justice is the love and support of each other”.

As I turned to look at the judge and prosecutor, I was amazed by the smirk on the face of the person who would be presenting the government’s case, Asst US Attorney McNeil. I assumed he was thinking, “Now we’ve got you!” I said to myself “But you’re not going to keep me without the fight of your life” and smiled back. The formalities went quickly. The prosecutor read the charges. I plead not guilty. The judge said some other things that I don’t remember and released me on my own recognizance with the reminder that if I broke any of the conditions, I would not only go to jail but forfeit a $50,000 bond which meant to me that I would have to give the government $50,000 which would have been an impossibility.

Moving out of the court room surrounded by friends and family, someone said that the Boston City Council President Maureen Feeney had announced at noon that she was stripping me of my Council Committee seats and inviting me to meet with the Council on Monday, the next working day, to decide what they would do. I said to myself, “It’s amazing, a year ago, I went to Maureen as a representative of Team Unity, the four Boston City Councilors of color, and said that if she ran for President, we would support her because we thought she would be a fairer Council President than Councilor Flaherty. Now that’s she President, she’s tried me before I have even been indicted. Looks like we made a bad assumption about fairness.”

Before I could think any more about the irony of her actions, the doors to the outside were opened and in front of us were lights, cameras, and reporters shouting, “Do you have a statement. What have you got to say”. Understanding that to say nothing would be taken as an admission of guilt, I went to the battery of mikes, thinking that it was amazing that during my nine years as a Councilor, I would be lucky if any reporters showed up to cover what I thought were important news stories. Now that I am accused of being a corrupt politician, they all want to hear what I have to say.

So I made it short and sweet. “Let me be clear. I am not guilty of any of the charges. I have served the people of my district with integrity over the last nine years and intend to continue. And Council President Feeney has no right to take away my Council powers, I haven’t even been indicted.” Then it all became a blur as we moved to get into the car and drive to Boston to prepare for Monday’s confrontation with Council President Feeney and the Council.

Segregated socialism: only the rich need apply

Senator Bernie Sanders release - The first top-to-bottom audit of the Federal Reserve uncovered eye-popping new details about how the U.S. provided a whopping $16 trillion in secret loans to bail out American and foreign banks and businesses during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. An amendment by Sen. Bernie Sanders to the Wall Street reform law passed one year ago this week directed the Government Accountability Office to conduct the study. "As a result of this audit, we now know that the Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in total financial assistance to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the United States and throughout the world," said Sanders. "This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you're-on-your-own individualism for everyone else."

Among the investigation's key findings is that the Fed unilaterally provided trillions of dollars in financial assistance to foreign banks and corporations from South Korea to Scotland, according to the GAO report. "No agency of the United States government should be allowed to bailout a foreign bank or corporation without the direct approval of Congress and the president," Sanders said.

The non-partisan, investigative arm of Congress also determined that the Fed lacks a comprehensive system to deal with conflicts of interest, despite the serious potential for abuse. In fact, according to the report, the Fed provided conflict of interest waivers to employees and private contractors so they could keep investments in the same financial institutions and corporations that were given emergency loans.

For example, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase served on the New York Fed's board of directors at the same time that his bank received more than $390 billion in financial assistance from the Fed. Moreover, JP Morgan Chase served as one of the clearing banks for the Fed's emergency lending programs.

In another disturbing finding, the GAO said that on Sept. 19, 2008, William Dudley, who is now the New York Fed president, was granted a waiver to let him keep investments in AIG and General Electric at the same time AIG and GE were given bailout funds. One reason the Fed did not make Dudley sell his holdings, according to the audit, was that it might have created the appearance of a conflict of interest.

To Sanders, the conclusion is simple. "No one who works for a firm receiving direct financial assistance from the Fed should be allowed to sit on the Fed's board of directors or be employed by the Fed," he said.

The investigation also revealed that the Fed outsourced most of its emergency lending programs to private contractors, many of which also were recipients of extremely low-interest and then-secret loans.

The Fed outsourced virtually all of the operations of their emergency lending programs to private contractors like JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo. The same firms also received trillions of dollars in Fed loans at near-zero interest rates. Altogether some two-thirds of the contracts that the Fed awarded to manage its emergency lending programs were no-bid contracts. Morgan Stanley was given the largest no-bid contract worth $108.4 million to help manage the Fed bailout of AIG.

A more detailed GAO investigation into potential conflicts of interest at the Fed is due on Oct. 18, but Sanders said one thing already is abundantly clear. "The Federal Reserve must be reformed to serve the needs of working families, not just CEOs on Wall Street."

Great headline writer retires

Jim Romenesko - Page Six reports Vincent A. Musetto "was given an affectionate send-off by his colleagues" Thursday night after 40 years at the tabloid. (He notes that he's been with the paper "since it was a left-wing daily.") Musetto, who wrote the classic "Headless Body" headline in 1982, says the favorite of his own heds is "Granny Executed in Her Pink Pajamas.

Other New York headlines

FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD
(Daily News, 1975)

KOTCHA!
(Koch re-elected; News, 1985)

KISS YOUR ASTEROID GOODBYE!
(Meteor misses earth; Post, 1998)

CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR
(Senate fails to convict Clinton; News, 1999)

FROM A BIG HOUSE TO THE BIG HOUSE
(Lizzie Grubman sentenced; News, 2002)

Pocket paradigms

We've got too many people in this country employed trying to prevent other people from being bad and not enough people employed helping other people to be good.- Sam Smith

U.S. company Murdoch wanted to buy had its computers hacked

Gay barbarians descend on Bachmann clinic

Think Progress - A group of gay “barbarians” descended upon Marcus Bachmann’s Christian counseling center to protest the harmful ex-gay therapy offered there. During a radio interview in 2010, Bachmann compared gay people to “barbarians” who need to be “disciplined.” Organized by Nick Espinosa, who famously showered Newt Gingrich with glitter, the protest glittered Bachmann’s empty waiting room and reception area, chanting “You can’t pray away the gay ¬ baby, I was born this way!”

Giuliani's close ties to Murdoch

Obama shuts Democrats out of deal

Patricia Murphy, Daily Beast - House Democrats are shocked and outraged that Obama is pursuing a debt deal with Boehner that sidelines them and won’t hike taxes¬though some are resigned to it.

The possible framework would slice more than $3 trillion from the federal budget over the next 10 years, including cuts to key entitlement programs such as Medicare, which Democrats have vowed to block.

Worse, in other Democrats’ minds, was a proposal to move a tax reform package in Congress to raise revenues, instead of the party’s plan to hike income taxes on wealthy Americans.

Not only was the president apparently moving without their knowledge, but as details of the possible agreement made clear, Obama was choosing a path that was designed to win the votes of the Republicans’ caucus in the House and not the Democrats’ own caucus.

As rumors about a possible deal spread across Capitol Hill, confounded House Democrats said that if Obama was looking for 218 votes to pass such a package, he would have to do it without them.

Ohio's anti-collective bargaining law headed for voter ballot

Cleveland Plain Dealer - The fate of Senate Bill 5, Ohio's new collective bargaining law, will be in the hands of Ohio voters on Nov. 8, the state's elections chief announced. The verified petition signatures for the SB 5 referendum are the most on record in recent history for an Ohio ballot issue. SB 5 reduces the collective bargaining power of about 360,000 public workers in Ohio, increases health care costs for some workers and puts an emphasis on job performance as opposed to seniority.

The facts on prison slavery

Rania Khalek, Alternet - There is one group of American workers so disenfranchised that corporations are able to get away with paying them wages that rival those of third-world sweatshops. These laborers have been legally stripped of their political, economic and social rights and ultimately relegated to second-class citizens. They are banned from unionizing, violently silenced from speaking out and forced to work for little to no wages. This marginalization renders them practically invisible, as they are kept hidden from society with no available recourse to improve their circumstances or change their plight.

They are the 2.3 million American prisoners locked behind bars where we cannot see or hear them. And they are modern-day slaves of the 21st century.

With just 5 percent of the world’s population, the US currently holds 25 percent of the world's prisoners. In 2008, over 2.3 million Americans were in prison or jail, with one of every 48 working-age men behind bars. That doesn’t include the tens of thousands of detained undocumented immigrants facing deportation, prisoners awaiting sentencing, or juveniles caught up in the school-to-prison pipeline. Perhaps it’s reassuring to some that the US still holds the number one title in at least one arena, but needless to say the hyper-incarceration plaguing America has had a damaging effect on society at large.

According to a study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, US prison rates are not just excessive in comparison to the rest of the world, they are also substantially higher than our own longstanding history. The study finds that incarceration rates between 1880 and 1970 ranged from about 100 to 200 prisoners per 100,000 people. After 1980, the inmate population began to grow much more rapidly than the overall population and the rate climbed from about 220 in 1980 to 458 in 1990, 683 in 2000, and 753 in 2008.

The costs of this incarceration industry are far from evenly distributed, with the impact of excessive incarceration falling predominantly on African-American communities. Although black people make up just 13 percent of the overall population, they account for 40 percent of US prisoners. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), black males are incarcerated at a rate more than 6.5 times that of white males and 2.5 that of Hispanic males and black females are incarcerated at approximately three times the rate of white females and twice that of Hispanic females.

Michelle Alexander points out in her book The New Jim Crow that more black men are in jail, on probation, or on parole than were enslaved in 1850. Higher rates of black drug arrests do not reflect higher rates of black drug offenses. In fact, whites and blacks engage in drug offenses, possession and sales at roughly comparable rates.

Three Credit Suisse Bankers Indicted By U.S. For Tax Evasion Services

Reuters - U.S. authorities indicted three Credit Suisse AG private bankers, one a senior executive, on Thursday, toughening their stance against the bank for allegedly helping wealthy Americans to evade taxes.

Federal prosecutors in Alexandria, Virginia, filed criminal charges against Markus Walder, the former head of North America Offshore Banking and a former senior Credit Suisse executive; Susanne D. R Meier, a former manager; and Andreas Bachmann, a former banker at a subsidiary of the bank. Also charged was Josef Dorig, the founder of a Swiss trust company that worked with the bank.

2011 Has Already Seen A Record Number of Anti-Abortion Laws--And It's Only Half Over

In just the first half of this year, states have enacted a whopping 162 new laws relating to reproductive health--and nearly half of them restrict abortion access.

Unemployment rates rose in most states in June

Unemployment rates rose in most states in June : "Unemployment rates rose in 28 states and Washington, D.C., last month. Rates declined in eight states and were flat in 14.

Hyatt uses heat lamps on protestors in already blazing Chicago

CBS, Chicago - Union workers say someone turned on the heat lamps in blazing hot broad daylight Thursday, as they walked a picket line in front of the Park Hyatt Hotel.
As WBBM Newsradio 780’s Mike Krauser reports, workers at Hyatt Hotels in nine cities are walking picket lines Thursday, trying to pressure the hotel into coming to an agreement on a new contract.

The Park Hyatt at 800 N. Michigan Ave. was among the hotels where picketing was held, and at some point Thursday morning, someone turned on the outdoor heat lamps that are usually used in winter.

Combined with the outdoor air temperature, Linda Long says it was hotter than the Hyatt kitchen she’s worked in for eleven years.They put the heat lamps on us, like we were nothing,” Long said. “If the heat didn’t kill us, the heat lamps would.”The heat lamps were turned off when the press showed up.

Why saving to the cloud is dangerous

ZD Net - Getting ready to enthusiastically shovel all your data into the cloud? Here’s a cautionary tale of what can happen when your connection to that data is pulled because of accusations that you violated Terms of Service.

This is what happened to one Google Apps user Thomas Monopoly (a pseudonym, although now after being called a fake he’s changed his name to Dylan M … his real first name). He was a happy user (and evangelist it seems) of numerous Google services ¬ until the company disabled his Google account. On July 15 he received an automated message telling him that Google had ‘perceived a violation’ and since then hasn’t been able to access anything linked to that account. Monopoly vehemently denies claims that he did anything wrong and says that he “did not violate any Terms of Service, either Google’s or account specific ToS” and that Google hasn’t offered up any evidence to support its claim of a violation.

So how much data did Monopoly lose when Google pulled the plug on his account? A mindbogglingly scary amount:

I had spent maybe four months slowly consolidating my entire online presence, email accounts, banking info, student records, etc, into that one Google account, having determined it to be reliable. That means in terms of information, approximately 7 years of correspondence, over 4,800 photographs and videos, my Google Voice messages, over 500 articles saved to my Google Reader account for scholarship purposes.
…
I have lost all of my bookmarks, having used Google bookmarks.
…
I have also lost access to my Docs account with shared documents and backups of inventory files. I have also lost my Calendar access. With this I have lost not only my own personal calendar of doctors appointments, meetings, and various other dates, but I have also lost collaborative calendars, of which I was the creator and of which several man hours were put into creating, community calendars that are now lost.
…
I have also lost my saved maps and travel history. I have also lost in my correspondence medical records and a variety of very important notes that were attached to my account. My website, a blogger account for which I purchased the domain through Google and designed myself, has also been disabled and lost.

I encourage you to read the rest of Monopoly’s letter to Google.

Judge strikes down Republican limit on number of poor Pre-K students

News Observer, NC - A judge has ruled that the state cannot deny poor children access to the state's prekindergarten program, striking down apparent limits in the recent Republican-authored budget law.

Wake County Superior Court Judge Howard Manning Jr. issued an order Monday that the state cannot implement any barrier or regulation that prevents eligible at-risk children from enrolling in the state's prekindergarten program, previously known as More at Four.

Manning cited a part of the new law spelling out a 20 percent cap for at-risk children, which would dramatically reduce the number of slots for them. The budget also cut the program's budget by 20 percent, or $32 million, and specified that families who are not "at risk" would be charged co-payments.

Plenty of children left behind and they don't know where

Public Education Network - The most recent results of the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress reveal that U.S. students are making little progress in understanding geography and how people change and are changed by their natural environment, The Wall Street Journal reports. For instance, only a third of fourth-graders could determine distance on a map, and less than half of eighth-graders knew Islam originated in what is now Saudi Arabia. Twenty-three percent of fourth-graders, 30 percent of eighth-graders, and 21 percent of 12th-graders rated "proficient" or "advanced." The results, which come on the heels of similar disappointing scores on the national history and civics exams, were attributed by some to students' obsession with technology, which they said reduces facility with maps. Others said the social sciences, especially geography, are losing ground because of the intense focus on math and reading under NCLB. Geography "is losing out to the zero-sum game that results from high-stakes testing," said Roger Downs of Pennsylvania State University. "As the economic and cultural forces of globalization and the impacts of global environmental change are felt by everybody everywhere, the case for geography seems both obvious and inescapable."

Word

When you come before us and tell us that we are about to disturb your business, we say to you that you have made the definition of a businessman too limited in its application. The man who is employed for wages is as much a businessman as his employer; the attorney in a country town is as much a businessman as the corporation counsel in a great metropolis; the merchant at the crossroads store is as much a businessman as the merchant of New York; the farmer who goes forth in the morning and toils all day ... is as much a businessman as the man who goes upon the board of trade and bets upon the price of grain ... We come to speak for this broader class of businessmen. We do not come as aggressors. Our war is not a war of conquest; we are fighting in the defense of our homes, our families, and posterity. We have petitioned, and our petitions have been scorned; we have entreated, and our entreaties have been disregarded; we have begged, and they have mocked when our calamity came. We beg no longer; we entreat no more; we petition no more. We defy them.- William Jennings Bryan

The GOP platform

Shawn Lawrence Otto, Huffington Post - On the issue of sex ed in Texas, Perry has taken governing positions that affect millions of children based on his own personal opinions, even when those opinions are overwhelmingly contradicted by the evidence.

Texas lawmakers cut sex ed from two six-month courses to a single unit of "abstinence only" education. But early indications showed that the program wasn't working. In fact, teens in almost all high school grades were having more sex after undergoing the abstinence only program. By 2007, Texas had the highest teen birth rate in the nation.

Nevertheless, the program continued. By 2009, 94 percent of Texas schools, which at the time were educating more than 3.7 million students, were giving no sex ed whatsoever beyond "abstinence only," a curriculum that includes emphasizing that birth control doesn't work.

One Texas public school district's sex ed handout is entitled "Things to Look for in a Mate:"

I. How they relate to God
A. Is Jesus their first love?
B. Trying to impress people or serve God?

Another public school district uses this:

Question: "What does the Bible say about sex before marriage/premarital sex?"

Answer: Along with all other kinds of sexual immorality, sex before marriage/premarital sex is repeatedly condemned in Scripture (Acts 15:20; Romans 1:29; 1 Corinthians 5:1; 6:13,18; 7:2; 10:8; 2 Corinthians 12:21; Galatians 5:19; Ephesians 5:3; Colossians 3:5; 1 Thessalonians 4:3; Jude 7).

Another major problem found with Obamacare

The Hill - A major provision of the healthcare reform law designed to prevent businesses from dropping coverage for their workers could inadvertently leave families without access to subsidized health insurance.

The problem is a huge headache for the Obama administration and congressional Democrats, because it could leave families unable to buy affordable health insurance when the healthcare law requires that everyone be insured starting in 2014.

Some of the administration’s closest allies on healthcare reform warn this situation could dramatically undercut support for the law, which already is unpopular with many voters and contributed to Democrats losing the House in the 2010 midterm elections.

Flash mob hits Wal Mart

Down East notes: Best resignation statement we've seen

From a statement by Norman Olsen, recently resigned head of the Maine Department of Marine Resources. Can't recall the last time a resigning public official said something like: "Am leaving, not for health reasons, and not to spend more time with my family, and not to pursue other interests, which are all the commonly used themes for such resignations, but because this administration is more interested in pacifying special interest groups than in responsibly managing Maine’s marine resources for the benefit of the entire state. I cannot be part of that. The legacy of my fishermen father, grandfather and great grandfather will not allow it."

At the Maine Fishermen’s Forum in March, I addressed completely and transparently every question put before me by an audience of some 400, including many members of the press and the Marine Resources Committee. The Governor told the same gathering, “Commissioner Olsen is in charge.”

Regrettably, while I have maintained my commitments, the Governor’s office has not maintained its resolve.

Since then, the Governor and his senior team have repeatedly given private audiences to groups and individuals objecting to my open discussion of the issues. While legitimate fishing industry representatives wait months for appointments, a single vocal individual with wild accusations can get through the door within days. A group with a photocopier can generate a hundred letters of complaint.

I learn about such meetings only when these individuals go back to their colleagues, or their fellow lobster zone council members, or, frankly, my own DMR staff, to draw from three known cases, to say that they got to the Governor and he’s going to fire the commissioner.

Instead of backing me in our joint aims of managing Maine’s marine resources for the benefit of the entire state, the Governor and his senior team cut me off. As a Commissioner of the State of Maine, I had to wait six full weeks, from early May to late June, to get a meeting with the Governor on time-critical issues of resource management worth tens of millions of dollars to the State.

When I did get a meeting, and presented my initiatives to the Governor, he rejected them all:

¬ No further collaboration with the City of Portland to develop measures to return our groundfish boats to Maine, despite the work already done to secure the support of visiting Commerce Department officials. Portland was against him, he said, and we will not work with that city. Rather than work with Portland, he said, we’ll build a new port somewhere.

¬ No further collaboration with the Director of the federal National Marine Fisheries Service to secure emergency federal assistance that could help return the fleet to Maine.

¬ No consideration of measures to properly and prudently manage the heavily overcapitalized shrimp fishery so that Maine could gain the most value-added from this resource.

¬ No collaboration with the federal government to jointly manage resources in federal waters. Instead, he instructed his deputy legal counsel to find a way for Maine to supersede federal authority outside the three-mile limit.

Yet more disturbing, after that meeting in late June, the Governor sent his chief of staff and his chief of boards and commissions to threaten me with firing if I would not do whatever necessary to stop the complaints reaching him from special interest groups. I was not allowed to know the source of the complaints, or their content, but I was to back off. “If you don’t turn this around by the end of summer, Commissioner Olsen, the Governor will have to make a hard decision, and you don’t want him to have to do that, Commissioner Olsen.”

In addition, the Governor has adopted a policy of prohibiting me from attending meetings that he has with industry members, even those for whom I initiated the meeting request. I learn the outcomes of these meetings ¬ and his positions on the topics that they raise ¬ from a staff aide who reports to me whatever she feels like reporting.

Finally, with the initiation July 1 of the still-ongoing top-to-bottom, all-agency review of the Department of Marine Resources by a team of outside experts, and the uncovering of deficiencies there, those industry members, grant recipients and DMR staff members who have collaborated for the past decade to their mutual benefit, and against the best interests of the State, have found common cause in attacking me. That’s understandable, I suppose. It must be very uncomfortable when the Commissioner’s investigations uncover the fact that your supposedly well-run program essentially doesn’t exist.

In the latest development, a senior DMR bureau director has ordered key staff members to no longer provide me with information that I am seeking.

This morning, I asked the Governor for his direct support to take action. He urged me to do so, including via firings, and confirmed that I have led his agenda of responsible fisheries management and government reform, but he declined to go public with that support. Instead, his aide said, after Labor Day they would call unspecified people to get their opinions on me, and those poll results would determine whether I stay on as commissioner. If such support was evident from the telephone poll, then, the governor pledged, he would hold a press conference to voice his unequivocal support for me. If not, I would be relieved. In short, my future, and that of Maine’s fishing industry, would depend on a staffer’s telephone poll.

In that regard, and with me no longer here to ensure transparency, I urge each of you to insist on the publication of the review study, as required by law, and reject the attempt, already under way, at a cover-up. I am confident that the report will reinforce my own findings that the Department is in need of major overhaul.

I still find it amazing that a tiny faction of industry members seeking to protect their state-granted monopolies over a public resource ¬ perhaps a hundred and fifty out of some 12,000 marine resource license holders ¬ and signing pre-printed letters, can trounce a supposedly iron-willed Governor. But, clearly, they have done so.

So, I am leaving, not for health reasons, and not to spend more time with my family, and not to pursue other interests, which are all the commonly used themes for such resignations, but because this administration is more interested in pacifying special interest groups than in responsibly managing Maine’s marine resources for the benefit of the entire state. I cannot be part of that. The legacy of my fishermen father, grandfather and great grandfather will not allow it.

I leave with regret for the people of Maine, who have allowed public resources to become the private domain of a select few, and especially for those other Mainers who have been prevented from earning a living.

Finally, I regret leaving that portion of DMR employees who, in the face of their supervisors’ and colleagues’ intransigence and willful disregard of the State’s greater interests, try their hardest to manage our state resources and enforce our laws for the benefit of all Mainers. To them I give my heartfelt thanks and my best hopes for avoiding the retribution that they are even now facing.

Foreclosure prevention scheme isn't working

New America Media - A widely touted strategy aimed at keeping Maryland residents from losing their homes by bringing banks and homeowners to the bargaining table has met with little success as the nation braces for another wave of foreclosures.

A year after the Maryland law was passed, fewer than 1,000 borrowers had applied for mediation, and just 56 borrowers had received a loan modification as of the end of May, according to the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation.

Word: Obama's betrayal

Glenn Greewald, Guardian, UK - It is now beyond dispute that President Obama not only favours, but is the leading force in Washington pushing for, serious benefit cuts to both social security and Medicare.

This week, even as GOP leaders offered schemes to raise the debt ceiling with no cuts, the White House expressed support for the Senate's so-called "gang of six" plan that includes substantial cuts in those programmes.

The same Democratic president who supported the transfer of $700bn to bail out Wall Street banks, who earlier this year signed an extension of Bush's massive tax cuts for the wealthy, and who has escalated America's bankruptcy-inducing posture of Endless War, is now trying to reduce the debt by cutting benefits for America's most vulnerable – at the exact time that economic insecurity and income inequality are at all-time highs.

Therein lies one of the most enduring attributes of Obama's legacy: in many crucial areas, he has done more to subvert and weaken the left's political agenda than a GOP president could have dreamed of achieving. So potent, so overarching, are tribal loyalties in American politics that partisans will support, or at least tolerate, any and all policies their party's leader endorses – even if those policies are ones they long claimed to loathe.

This dynamic has repeatedly emerged in numerous contexts. Obama has continued Bush/Cheney terrorism policies – once viciously denounced by Democrats – of indefinite detention, renditions, secret prisons by proxy, and sweeping secrecy doctrines.

He has gone further than his predecessor by waging an unprecedented war on whistleblowers, seizing the power to assassinate U.S. citizens without due process far from any battlefield, massively escalating drone attacks in multiple nations, and asserting the authority to unilaterally prosecute a war (in Libya) even in defiance of a Congressional vote against authorising the war.

And now he is devoting all of his presidential power to cutting the entitlement programmes that have been the defining hallmark of the Democratic party since Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. The silence from progressive partisans is defeaning – and depressing, though sadly predictable.

How the GOP screws you for their rich buddies

Pocket paradigms

We tend to discount the importance of unplanned moments because of our fealty to the business school paradigm in which change properly occurs because of a careful strategic plan, an organized vision, procedures, and process. During the past quarter century when such ideas have been in ascendancy, however, America has demonstratively deteriorated as a political, economic, and moral force. In reality, many of the best things happen by accident and indirection. While it may be true, as the Roman said, that "fortune smiles on the well prepared," part of that preparation is to be in the right place at the right time. In other words, it is necessary to create an ecology of change rather than a precise and often illusory process. - Sam Smith

Word

I was recently asked what it takes to become a writer. Three things, I answered: First, one must cultivate incompetence at almost every other form of profitable work. This must be accompanied, second, by a haughty contempt for all the forms of work that one has established one cannot do. To these two must be joined, third, the nuttiness to believe that other people can be made to care about your opinions and views and be charmed by the way you state them. Incompetence, contempt, lunacy - once you have these in place, you are set to go. - Joseph Epstein

GOP Platform

I want the mainstream media -- and I've said this for a couple years now -- I want to help them. I have a journalism degree. That is what I studied. I understand that this cornerstone of our democracy is a free press, is sound journalism. I want to help them build back their reputation. - Sarah Palin

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