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can a class action suit be brought against goldman sach for the buble they created with the rising gas prices last year. because of goldman sach we all paid more at the pump
Now that we’ve had all weekend to mull over the significance of the “event,” what can possibly explain the latest strange twist in the Sarah Palin saga? Better yet, why should we care? Sure, some might throw objectivity out the door with “go-girl” editorializing and proclaim this a new phase in Palin’s “rising star.” Perhaps an early start in her 2012 presidential run, to embark on a cross-country bullpucky express. At least she’ll have Harriet Christian’s anyone-but-a-male support—the more shrill and psychotic the better, I say.
Others might have a different opinion. While other governors are battling their budget crisis in this unstable economy, Palin is bailing. This is a potential “leader” of the free world when she doesn’t have the stamina to last out her own term as governor of small (by population) state? Because she couldn’t stand the “heat” from media hype she courted and was given a free ride to overnight sensationdom?
Palin and her husband also owe a half-million dollars in legal expenses; perhaps she is trying to head-off additional expenses from yet unreported revelations of corruption on the horizon, or more embarrassing family issues. Or perhaps being governor bores her, and the prospect of a speaking tour funded by wealthy right-wing donors will keep her in the spotlight she allegedly doesn’t crave, as well as lucrative. Or maybe there is the issue of competence; when Alaska was gushing with oil revenue, governing was easy because there so much money to play around with that every citizen received a dividend from the state oil fund (instead of being used for public education, for which Palin had refused stimulus money for. With the state joining the lower 48 in economic troubles, quitting at this juncture may either be an admittance of her lack of know-how, or her inability to work with legislators (not that she is alone; Lou Dobbs declining to run for governor of New Jersey was a tacit admission that he was all hot-air and no substance).
Palin for all the rope she has been given to prove herself a viable quantity, has demonstrated that she can’t be trusted to go the distance. I think that "Sarah Barracuda" is what she has always been: an individual who has a pathological lust for power for its own sake, and will tread on anyone who is in her way to get it. She is also someone who has an uncanny ability to incite a mob mentality with over-the-top "populist" rhetoric that appeals to the darkest instincts of human nature. Yet when she was required to be a leader, she abandoned the field like a coward—which makes her announcement on the eve of the Fourth of July seem just that more incomprehensible. For her own sake and ours, she should bail-out of politics altogether. As for the Republicans, if they see Palin as their future, be afraid—be very afraid, or at least they should.
After listening to the rebroadcast last Friday of “Rev.” Ken Pagano’s shibboleth about the “open-carry day” at his so-called church, another reason why it is so baffling is that while Kentucky has passed laws banning guns in school, bars and other public places, it never occurred to lawmakers to include churches, until this “God, Guns and Patriotism” harebrained character came along. Although “pioneers” may have brought their guns to church, Pagano didn’t follow the guidelines of his “forbears” who required parishioners to offload their arms in gun racks in the back.
This event, and the pronunciations of “national security” paranoids like Michael Scheuer who would invite an attack on the U.S. as a “wake-up” call, should remind us that whenever Americans—or more properly their leaders—during times of stress or national malaise “regenerate” themselves by finding enemies, usually dark-skinned peoples, or so posits Richard Slotkyn in his book “Regeneration Through Violence.” The U.S. “character” has in large part been built on a mountain of human bones—the bones of Native Americans, of African slaves, of Mexicans, of Moro Indians in the Philippines, of Central Americans, of Koreans, of Vietnamese, of Arabs. Unlike conflicts against the British, Germans and the Japanese, we had no legitimate reason for going to war and killing these people.
As a culture, America revels in violence as much as it condemns it. We see it in film and on TV; even shows like “Law and Order” manipulates viewers’ emotions with an exploitive fascination with violence, particularly gender-related. The American inclination to glorify violence is a matter of record and of history; those who do so in defense of “defense” are as guilty as the murderous psychopath. Those who defend most violently their so-called Second Amendment rights are perhaps the people most to be feared, since they not only oppose any regulation on weapons of any sort, but they are more likely to “prove” why it is “necessary” to own guns. In my view, guns are more an invitation to trouble than in preventing it.
I thought that today's Dilbert strip catches on some of the problems in Washington. Primarily on how the defense industry has such a stronghold on our government by putting defense contracts in every state. Check it out:
http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-07-06/
Whose Country is it anyway? A political-economic oligarchy has taken over the United States of America
By Prof. John Kozy
URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14226
The prophet, the president, and American exceptionalism
July 4 weekend is a good time to think about great Americans. And if there's a great American thinker in 2009, I nominate Andrew Bacevich, a retired Army colonel who now teaches international relations at Boston University. Not only did Bacevich serve the nation in Vietnam and elsewhere around the globe, but his family made the ultimate sacrifice when his son -- also named Andrew Bacevich, a first lieutenant -- was killed in Iraq by an IED in 2007. By then, Bacevich, a self-described "Catholic conservative," had already been highly critical of the U.S. invasion, and the increasing role that militarism -- as opposed to diplomacy -- and a quest for American domination was playing in our national life.
I've kind of overdosed on Bacevich lately -- I was just finishing his outstanding book, "The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism," this week when I heard most of his hour-long interview on WHYY's "Radio Times" (which you can listen to here). His writing speaks truly to neither classical, locked-in liberalism or conservatism, but seeks to find a rational role for America in the 21st Century, as opposed to untenable policies based on cheap oil and long -- endless, in fact -- wars.
"The Limits of Power" was written at the very start of the 2008 campaign and was published last summer. In its conclusion, Bacevich wrote something strikingly prophetic for 2009, when President Obama has been disappointing in several key areas in delivering the change he promised, sometimes because of external forces and sometimes for reasons that are self-inflicted.
Here's what he wrote last year, with hyperlinks from 2009 to illustrate the power of his prophecy:
The (Obama) agenda is an admirable one.Yet to imagine that installing a particular individual in the Oval Office will produce decisive action on any of these fronts is to succumb to the grandest delusion of all. The quadrennial ritual of electing (or relecting) a president is not an exercise in promoting change, regardless of what the candidates may claim and ordinary voters believe. The real aim is toensure continuity, to keep intact the institutions and arrangements that define present-day Washington. The veterans of past administrations who sign on as campaign advisers are not interested in curbing the bloated powers of the presidency. They want to share in exercising those powers. The retired generals and admirals who line up behind their preferred candidate don't want to dismantle the national security state. They want to preserve it and, if possible, expand it. The candidates who decry the influence of money in national politics are among those most skilled in courting the well-heeled to amass millions in campaign contributions.
No doubt the race for the presidency matters. It just doesn't matter as much as the media's obsessive coverage suggests. Whoever moves into the White House on Jan. 20, 2009, the fundamental problem facing the country -- a yawning disparity between what Americans expect and what they are willing to pay -- will remain stubbornly in place.
The subtitle of Bacevich's book is "The End of American Exceptionalism." That sure sounds like a downer, especially as we prepare for the pomp and fireworks of another Independence Day. But the truth is that it all depends on how you define "exceptionalism." I believe that all people are created equal with equal rights, regardless of which particular slab of this rock they're born onto. I don't think any nation is entitled to an outsized claim on the world's resources, for example, nor is empire something that is desirable or that has ever worked for very long in the history of humankind. But I do believe that America, and Americans as a people, have done some exceptional things over 233 years and can be even more exceptional in the future, by continuing to create a more perfect union that values human rights and freedom in a way that others will envy and copy. That is the eternal American quest that we celebrate on July 4 -- and every other day.
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/attytood/
This is such a blatant display collusion between the Corporate Media & those who can afford access (The Elite Ruling Class). It just confirms that we've officially lost our fourth estate/fifth column.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/24496.html
Access scandal echoes beyond Post
By: Michael Calderone and Andy Barr
July 3, 2009 02:29 PM EST
For embarrassed Washington Post executives — reeling from what the paper's own ombudsman called a public relations "disaster" over a flier promoting a "salon" for lobbyists to mingle with prominent newsmakers — there must be a sense of "Why us?"
The fact is the Post's clumsy effort to make money on its brand name and market its access to the powerful was a belated effort to follow in the steps of at least two other prominent news organizations: The Wall Street Journal and the Economist magazine.
The Journal, for instance, is charging a $7,500 for its two-day CEO Council in November, an elite gathering that will include the paper's top editors and high-profile speakers like Tony Blair, Rupert Murdoch, and Education Secretary Arne Duncan. And for a few thousand dollars, The Economist can open the door to intimate off-the-record meet-and-greets with world leaders.
These events illustrate how the basic transaction — charging big fees to special interests to arrange private, special-access encounters with powerful people — that caused the Post this week to be excoriated is a more endemic practice than many people in political and media circles realize. Some watchdogs hope this week’s Post scandal will help put an end to a hard-to-defend practice by revenue-hungry news organizations.
Tom Rosenstiel, director of Pew's Project for Excellence in Journalism, said he thought the Post flier raised a red flag for news organizations to be wary of entering into a financial arrangement with people that you're covering.
"One has to ask," Rosenstiel said, "Is the amount of money you might generate from this worth damaging that bond with your readers?"
While the speakers at the Journal conference this November will be on the record, with ostensible benefits for Journal readers, Rosenstiel said the bigger problem is when newsmakers and top editorial staffers are offered up to guests with no press access whatsoever, as the Post was originally planning. By doing so, he said, news organizations are "encouraging the notion in the readers mind that [they're] part of some insider establishment that it considers more important than public knowledge."
The Journal arguably crossed that line in March, when the paper agreed to allow National Economic Adviser Larry Summers to conduct his talk, during a $5,000-a-head conference, as closed to press. All the other speakers at the Future of Finance Initiative conference, including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, spoke on the record. But when it came time for Summers talk, Journal deputy managing editor Alan Murray, who's instrumental in organizing the paper's executive conferences, instructed attendees (and not reporters) to get in cars headed for White House. (The Journal declined to comment on this arrangement).
Changing the Summers talk from on to off the record and whisking executives over to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. came up late in the process at the Journal. By contrast, The Economist, the British publication that has developed considerable readership on this side of the Atlantic, makes it clear from the start what the ground rules are for its conferences. And those have nothing to do with informing average readers.
The Economist has scheduled two off-the-record summits this year bringing together government officials and business leaders together in Mexico and Brazil. The magazine's website lists three aims for the summits, one of which is to foster an off-the-record, high-level debate between Mexican business leaders and key ministers on the policies and strategies of the current government. The price for the Mexico and Brazil summits are not listed, but prices for other events run anywhere from a few hundred dollars to nearly $4,000.
"The events are off the record because we have found it is the best way for our delegates and host governments to get value from the discussion," an Economist spokesperson wrote in an e-mail. “It also explicitly means that the event will not be covered by The Economist.
"We host events because they are a natural extension of the debate initiated by the magazine," the spokesperson added.
Rarely has a prestigious news organization found itself so much on the defensive about the practice as the Post was on Thursday following POLITICO's report on a marketing flier sent to lobbyists that offered exclusive, off-the-record access to the top of the Post's masthead, congressional leaders, Obama administration officials, and the paper's health care reporters in exchange for fees ranging from $25,000 for one event to $250,000 for ten.
Post executives — Katharine Weymouth and executive editor Marcus Brauchli — focused on the flier, which in particularly over-the top language promised a corporations a “seat at the table” with policymakers for a dinner that would have a certain type of mood. “Spirited? Yes. Confrontational? No. The relaxed setting in the home of Katharine Weymouth assures it."
Weymouth and Brauchli said the flier not been vetted, adding that the newsroom would never have taken part in a pay-to-play scheme as described. But Weymouth did not repudiate the concept of charging corporate sponsors for off-the-record dinners and insisted that "there is a viable way to expand our expertise into live conferences and events."
Rosabeth Moss Kanter, a professor at Harvard Business School, said on POLITICO's Arena that the bottom line for the Post brass was money, "and when people start thinking money, they tend to forget to think about anything else."
"Let's hope that the Chinese wall between the news side and the business side doesn't crumble under current intense financial pressure as the industry transforms," Kanter said. "The bottom line, so to speak, is not what was said on the fliers about paying big bucks and getting a seat at Weymouth's dinner table. It is that the fliers were honest about the nature of the offering: contacts for cash."
For the Post, facing steep losses this year, such events have been part of a revenue-generating strategy for some time. As Weymouth told staffers in a memo last December, "to expand our revenue base and diversify our business model, we must look for opportunities to create new products, especially in the areas where business and policy intersect." One idea, she wrote at the time, was "hosting of specialized conferences for business decision makers with a stake in Washington policymaking."
Perhaps no one has perfected the art of bringing together ideas and debate in the public sphere while generating profits and prestige as Atlantic Media owner David Bradley. Microsoft has teamed up with National Journal for private dinners, and Bradley's annual schmoozefest, the Aspen Ideas Festival, brought together over one hundred speakers with leading positions in government, business, journalism, advocacy and the arts this past week.
Sponsored by the Aspen Institute and Atlantic, along with corporate support, the festival also features Cabinet members, the top editors and writers from Bradley's magazines, and a sundry media all-stars. (As coincidence would have it, Weymouth sat on a future of journalism panel in Aspen titled "What's the News Worth to You?")
The Atlantic editor James Bennet said that "the whole idea of the [festival] is to be on-the-record and in open conversation."
According to Bennet, "sponsors of the session here go to events and have the same opportunities to ask questions as everybody else." But the Atlantic, like other news organizations, charges big money for such gatherings, though anyone can head to the website for regular festival dispatches or clips of panels and interviews.
POLITICO has also collaborated with sponsors such as the ACLU and Yahoo in holding public events. But each has been open to the public and press — a critical distinction according to John F. Harris, POLITICO's editor-in-chief.
"My view is that it is the job of news organizations to illuminate public issues, and do so in a public way," Harris wrote in an e-mail. "Sponsored events, in which editors set the agenda and the proceedings are transparent, can do this effectively. It is not our job to serve as a kind of escort service to facilitate private encounters between special interests and public officials."
"Publisher Robert Allbritton agrees with this and has directed us to avoid events that revolve around these kind of transactions," Harris added.
© 2009 Capitol News Company, LLC
Access Scandal Echoes Beyond The Washington Post
Friday 03 July 2009
by: Michael Calderone and Andy Barr
For embarrassed Washington Post executives-reeling from what the paper's own ombudsman called a public relations "disaster" over a flier promoting a "salon" for lobbyists to mingle with prominent newsmakers-there must be a sense of "Why us?"
The fact is The Post's clumsy effort to make money on its brand name and market its access to the powerful was a belated effort to follow in the steps of at least two other prominent news organizations: the Wall Street Journal and the Economist magazine.
The Journal, for instance, is charging a $7,500 for its two-day CEO Council in November, an elite gathering that will include the paper's top editors and high-profile speakers like Tony Blair, Rupert Murdoch, and Education Secretary Arne Duncan. And for a few thousand dollars, The Economist can open the door to intimate off-the-record meet-and-greets with world leaders.
These events illustrate how the basic transaction-charging big fees to special interests to arrange private, special-access encounters with powerful people-that caused the Post this week to be excoriated is a more endemic practice than many people in political and media circles realize. Some watchdogs hope this week's Post scandal will help put an end to a hard-to-defend practice by revenue-hungry news organizations.
Tom Rosenstiel, director of Pew's Project for Excellence in Journalism, said he thought the Post flier raised a red flag for news organizations to be wary of entering into a financial arrangement with people that you're covering.
"One has to ask," Rosenstiel said, "Is the amount of money you might generate from this worth damaging that bond with your readers?"
While the speakers at the Journal conference this November will be on the record, with ostensible benefits for Journal readers, Rosenstiel said the bigger problem is when newsmakers and top editorial staffers are offered up to guests with no press access whatsoever, as the Post was originally planning. By doing so, he said, news organizations are "encouraging the notion in the readers mind that [they're] part of some insider establishment that it considers more important than public knowledge."
The Journal arguably crossed that line in March, when the paper agreed to allow National Economic Adviser Larry Summers to conduct his talk, during a $5,000-a-head conference, as closed to press. All the other speakers at the Future of Finance Initiative conference, including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, spoke on the record. But when it came time for Summers talk, Journal deputy managing editor Alan Murray, who's instrumental in organizing the paper's executive conferences, instructed attendees (and not reporters) to get in cars headed for White House. (The Journal declined to comment on this arrangement).
Changing the Summers talk from on to off the record and whisking executives over to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue came up late in the process at the Journal. By contrast, The Economist, the British publication that has developed considerable readership on this side of the Atlantic, makes it clear from the start what the ground rules are for its conferences. And those have nothing to do with informing average readers.
The Economist has scheduled two off-the-record summits this year bringing together government officials and business leaders together in Mexico and Brazil. The magazine's website lists three aims for the summits, one of which is to foster an off-the-record, high-level debate between Mexican business leaders and key ministers on the policies and strategies of the current government. The price for the Mexico and Brazil summits are not listed, but prices for other events run anywhere from a few hundred dollars to nearly $4,000.
"The events are off the record because we have found it is the best way for our delegates and host governments to get value from the discussion," an Economist spokesperson wrote in an e-mail. "It also explicitly means that the event will not be covered by The Economist.
"We host events because they are a natural extension of the debate initiated by the magazine," the spokesperson added.
Rarely has a prestigious news organization found itself so much on the defensive about the practice as The Post was on Thursday following POLITICO's report on a marketing flier sent to lobbyists that offered exclusive, off-the-record access to the top of the Post's masthead, Congressional leaders, Obama administration officials, and the paper's health-care reporters in exchange for fees ranging from $25,000 for one event to $250,000 for ten.
Post executives- publisher Katharine Weymouth and executive editor Marcus Brauchli--focused on the flier, which in particularly over-the top language promised a corporations a "seat at the table" with policy-makers for a dinner that would have a certain type of mood. "Spirited? Yes. Confrontational? No. The relaxed setting in the home of Katharine Weymouth assures it.""
Weymouth and Brauchli said the flier not been vetted, adding that the newsroom would never have taken part in a pay-to-play scheme as described. But Weymouth did not repudiate the concept of charging corporate sponsors for off-the-record dinners and insisted that "there is a viable way to expand our expertise into live conferences and events."
Rosabeth Moss Kanter, a professor at Harvard Business School, said on POLITICO's Arena that the bottom line for the Post brass was money, "and when people start thinking money, they tend to forget to think about anything else."
"Let's hope that the Chinese wall between the news side and the business side doesn't crumble under current intense financial pressure as the industry transforms," Kanter said. "The bottom line, so to speak, is not what was said on the fliers about paying big bucks and getting a seat at Weymouth's dinner table. It is that the fliers were honest about the nature of the offering: contacts for cash."
For the Post, facing steep losses this year, such events have been part of a revenue-generating strategy for some time. As Weymouth told staffers in a memo last December, "to expand our revenue base and diversify our business model, we must look for opportunities to create new products, especially in the areas where business and policy intersect." One idea, she wrote at the time, was "hosting of specialized conferences for business decision makers with a stake in Washington policy-making."
Perhaps no one has perfected the art of bringing together ideas and debate in the public sphere while generating profits and prestige as Atlantic Media owner David Bradley. Microsoft has teamed up with National Journal for private dinners, and Bradley's annual schmoozefest, the Aspen Ideas Festival, brought together over one hundred speakers with leading positions in government, business, journalism, advocacy and the arts this past week.
Sponsored by the Aspen Institute and Atlantic, along with corporate support, the festival also features Cabinet members, the top editors and writers from Bradley's magazines, and a sundry media all-stars. (As coincidence would have it, Weymouth sat on a future of journalism panel in Aspen titled "What's the News Worth to You?")
Atlantic Monthly editor James Bennet said that "the whole idea of the [festival] is to be on-the-record and in open conversation."
According to Bennet, "sponsors of the session here go to events and have the same opportunities to ask questions as everybody else." But The Atlantic, like other news organizations, charges big money for such gatherings, though anyone can head to the website for regular festival dispatches or clips of panels and interviews.
POLITICO has also collaborated with sponsors such as the ACLU and Yahoo in holding public events. But each has been open to the public and press - a critical distinction according to John F. Harris, POLITICO's editor-in-chief.
"My view is that it is the job of news organizations to illuminate public issues, and do so in a public way," Harris wrote in an e-mail. "Sponsored events, in which editors set the agenda and the proceedings are transparent, can do this effectively. It is not our job to serve as a kind of escort service to facilitate private encounters between special interests and public officials."
"Publisher Robert Allbritton agrees with this and has directed us to avoid events that revolve around these kind of transactions," Harris added.
http://www.truthout.org/070409C?print
Ernie,
I think you're asking about Alan Jablonski. He's been on Thom's show several times. His website is www.ajconsumerwatch.com/
Hope this is the info you were looking for.
Where do we go to get the skinny on all of the various health care reform plans? Where do we find a detailed analysis of the public option, the single-payer option and the co-op option so that we can debate the costs and benefits in an honest way? There are a ton of rumors out there.
Thank you,
Happy Fourth!
Loretta
Today I heard on this show about Attorney Alan G??? with a website _ _ consumer..."something".org They talked about house refinance and new rules for loan modification.
Does anybody know the correct name and website of this person?
Thank you
E fro, CHICAGO
Thanks Quark! I'm going to look it up on MSNBC's website. It's amazing that there has been no news on TV other than Michael Jackson in the past two weeks. Meanwhile, our country is going to hell in a handbasket and the corporate media is partially to blame. It's Pathetic!
Thom,
Yes, that was beautiful.
B Roll,
Now that you say that (about "The Family"), I kind of remember hearing about it when it came out --- I especially remember the Hillary Clinton part. What I thought was interesting this time was that Gov. Sanford contacted a group associated with the "family" for advice on his marriage problems after he made his trip to Argentina and the truth came out.
Making Progress,
Matt Taibbi was on "The Ed Show" on MSNBC yesterday or the day before. I hope this info. gets out into the general population.
Thom,
You read a historical passage about our Founding Fathers and their signing of the Declaration of Independence on Thursday. Could you send me the source of that read. It would be great to share with my family and friends on the 4th.
Thank you,
Rich Corr
The Great American Bubble Machine
Matt Taibbi on how Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/28816321/the_great_american_b...
This is an article that everyone should read, or atleast watch interview videos explaining it. Goldman Sachs is pissed.
the light show is getting old....! independence day is a day about how one will survive a collective... the new world order.
Quark,
re: Jeff Sharlet's "The Family"
The book isn't so recent. It came out in May of 2008. (I thought it was earlier than that, but I checked Amazon. It may have been that I heard him talking about an article he wrote earlier on a similar topic.).
I recall hearing Sharlet talking about a conservative prayer group that Hillary Clinton had been a part of. More info at
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&add...
Just got off the phone with a Markey aide asking about whether indeed the EPA would not be able to regulate greenhouse gases under the Waxman Markey bill. We were able to discern that the purpose of Waxman Markey was built with the intent of an international compatibility concerning carbon trading credits in that what was needed and wanted, was for the select purposes of global warming and did not dilute in any fashion the United States Clean Air Act, nor especially the newly won provision that the EPA regulate greenhouse gases 2007 ruling nor yesterday's grant of waiver to the State of California.
Aide assured me that the EPA in the United States will be able to measure and monitor and report green house emmissions to standards as is now. In asking the aide to make an analogy to sofware versions of pollution standards, he had felt that the Waxman Markey Bill would be another platform altogether than the Federal Clean Air Act.
Key to Waxman Markey are addressing the forests for example, world wide. We cannot think of them nor our air as only belonging to the USA when in fact when a forest is cut somewhere in another country, with respect to global warming. The idea is to cap emissions from the 2005 levels by 2020 so by 2050 we meet a reduction of 83%. The Federal EPA will administer the bill. Under this bill, the act of emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which is now free will have to be paid for. Thus, simply adding onto the Clean Air Bill would not be in order and an entirely new and specified legislation into a carbon cap, would be.
The Clean Air was built around questions such as does SOx or NOx travel from Ohio to New York for example; whereas needed an entirely new piece of legislation was needed for the mechanism to read concentrations of carbon with respect to other countries including research and development for low carbon generation and energy efficiencies.
My concern was that De Fazzio states that the EPA will not be regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Bill and to this, the Markey aide says is not true.
The real issue evidently is that the credits are being given away....?
Here is master link to Markey site: http://globalwarming.house.gov/multimedia/welcome_video see the tabs on top and look more closely into them.
Here is link to the actual bill H.R. 2454 The American Clean Energy and Security Act http://globalwarming.house.gov/legislation?id=0007#main_content
Off the master page is Skeptic Watch beneath the Hearing & Publications Tab: Science Over Spin with references to both the Lomborg Washington Post article and the Stern Review : http://globalwarming.house.gov/mediacenter/pressreleases?id=0092
Off the master page is Science Basics beneath the Issues Tab http://globalwarming.house.gov/issues/globalwarming?id=0002
Note: would re inserts the EPAs authority- ....legalese..... confusing!
Oh I see --
DeFazio, Stark and Kucinich did not vote for Waxman Markey because the bill essentially would marginalize the EPA and so have introduced these ammendments:
(174) Would strike the EPA's authority to list a greenhouse gas as an air pollutant under section 108 of the Clean Air Act
(126) Would restrict what entities can buy, sell, trade, and retire allowances and offsets to the industries that emit greenhouse gases. It also would state that nothing in the subsection would prevent these industries from obtaining consultation from financial advisers to carry out the purposes of the section.
http://www.rules.house.gov/amendment_details.aspx?NewsID=434
Yes, could be a reason for not voting for the bill. I will continue to try to learn why the EPA was being taken out of the loop as surely, they would still need to measure GHG output - very disconcerning this whole bill -- and Repower America [Al Gore's group very hard to get ahold of]:
RE: My Previous Post on "The Family"
So. Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (along with other politicians) has links to this group.
Me too, and more about commodities too. My portfolio is in the tank. I'm going to buy that guy's book (great interview BTW!) but I'd like to find some additional resources as well.
Thom
Where can I find more information on the 20 Year stock cycles?
Interesting interview on NPR's Fresh Air Radio yesterday with author Jeff Sharlet about his recent book The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power. Sharlet examines the power wielded by a secretive Christian group known as the Family, or the Fellowship.
The group's approach to religion, Sharlet says, is based on "a sort of trickle-down fundamentalism," which holds that the wealthy and powerful, if they "can get their hearts right with God ... will dispense blessings to those underneath them."
Members of the group ardently support free markets, in which, they believe, God's will operates directly through Adam Smith's "invisible hand."
The Family was founded in 1935 by a minister named Abraham Vereide after, he claimed, he had a vision in which God came to him in the person of the head of the United States Steel Corporation.
Here's a link to the interview:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106115324