This is probably the single most important story of 2012. This is the noose that has been strangling local governments, non-profits, universities, unions, pension funds and the like GLOBALLY. This IS the housing crisis, the local services crisis, and the pension crisis at their common root.
Dan
http://truth-out.org/news/item/10442-titanic-banks-hit-libor-iceberg-will-lawsuits-sink-the-ship
Hi,
Tell Congress to stop with the financial yo-yo effect in the renewable energy industry, and give clean energy suppliers a predictable tax regulation environment for the next decade. The federal PTC is the biggest factor in renewable energy development, and its impending expiration and year-by-year on-off nature us causing boim and bust cycles in the entire industry. This could mean the difference between a domestic manufacturing base, or more foreign imports.
That's why I created a petition to The United States House of Representatives, The United States Senate, and President Barack Obama, which says:
"Dear Federal Government, please end regulatory and financisl uncertainty in the renewable energy industry; renew the PTC for a solid ten years, and let America become a true renewable energy leader!"
Will you sign this petition? Click here:
http://signon.org/sign/extend-the-renewable?source=c.em.mt&r_by=1415825
Thanks!
| POLITICAL MOJO FROM DAVID CORN, KEVIN DRUM, AND THE NEWS TEAM | |||
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TOP STORY By Kevin Drum Earlier this week I wrote about the long-standing hope of Democrats that demographic changes are working in their favor and will soon create a durable national Dem majority. There are several moving parts to this theory, but the two big ones are (a) young people are trending Democratic, and (b) the Dem-leaning nonwhite population is getting bigger and bigger. As far as I know, Republicans don't really deny that these things are happening. After all, the trend in the youth vote jumps out in every poll, and the growing nonwhite share of the population is regularly front-page news. George Bush and Karl Rove, who desperately wanted to pass a comprehensive immigration bill in 2006 in order to stanch the flow of Hispanic votes into the Democratic column, knew perfectly well how important this was. So what's the Republican response to all this? They have two options: [READ MORE]
MOST READ
TOP IN SOCIAL MEDIA
ADVERTISEMENT | IN OTHER NEWS How Mitt Romney Invested in Outsourcing By David Corn According to government documents reviewed by Mother Jones, Romney, when he was in charge of Bain, invested heavily in a Chinese manufacturing company that depended on US outsourcing for its profits—and that explicitly stated that such outsourcing was crucial to its success. [READ MORE]
THIS WEEK'S NEWS ROUNDUP They're Not Saying "Boo," They're...Never Mind, They're Booing After spending the weekend dodging the hoi polloi in the Hamptons, Mitt Romney was booed at the NAACP for attacking policies that matter to black voters, prompting Rush Limbaugh to utter the dumbest comment "since the time the 61-year old radio host revealed he didn't know how birth control works." The first rule of banning abortion clinics is that you shouldn't tell everyone you're trying to ban abortion clinics. Elsewhere: The GOP's health care plan is still terrible, Maryland's gay marriage fight is officially on, and an NYPD spokesman gets pwnd.
CHART OF THE WEEK: The Fed's Amazing Stock Market Juicing Powers [READ MORE]
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: Samsung's Just Not That Cool [READ MORE]
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Click here to view this and past newsletters online. Please add "messenger@truthout.org" to your email contacts to ensure delivery.  Dear Readers, We're excited to bring you a new, exclusive series from groundbreaking economist and author Gar Alperovitz. Truthout will be publishing weekly installments of Alperovitz's paradigm-shifting book, "America Beyond Capitalism: Reclaiming our Wealth, Our Liberty, and Our Democracy," which lays out a roadmap for the systemic economic change necessary to build a just society. Join us in exploring questions of ownership, wealth distribution, cooperation, democracy, and what an economic future might look like that does not assume the dominance of corporate capitalism. Alperovitz suggests "the inherent logic of a very American community-based and community-sustaining direction that moves beyond the theoretical approaches at the heart of both traditional corporate capitalism and traditional socialism." Today, we begin with the introduction, which gives us a first glimpse of Alperovitz's ideology-eschewing vision - and demonstrates why this vision's time has come. -The Truthout Team ---------- Support Truthout with a tax-deductible donation by clicking here.
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Daniel,
BREAKING NEWS: Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) just announced that Majority Leader Harry Reid scheduled a vote on the Disclose Act next week -- after PCCC members made hundreds of calls to Reid and other senators this week, urging a vote!
This is great momentum for our Take Back Democracy campaign. The Disclose Act is a first step toward reversing the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling. It would bring anonymous big-money donations out of the shadows.
We need to pressure senators to support this reform and build pressure for bigger reforms, like a constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United.
The Disclose Act came within one vote of passing in 2010, and a lot has happened since then -- including senators in both parties being attacked by anonymous big-money interests.
When you sign up for the Take Back Democracy campaign, we'll let you know how you can make a difference before next week's vote and how you can work with thousands of others to push bigger reforms.
See our 5-part Take Back Democracy plan here -- and sign up today.
Thanks for being a bold progressive.
-- Stephanie Taylor, Adam Green, Josh Wolfsun, Andrew Mayersohn, Amanda Johnson, and the PCCC team
Want to support our work? We're entirely funded by our members—no corporate contributions, no big checks from CEOs. And our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. Chip in $3 here.
Click here to view this and past newsletters online. Please add "messenger@truthout.org" to your email contacts to ensure delivery. Thursday 12 July 2012 Secret Donors vs. First Amendment: The Tricky Task of Reforming Election Abuse by NonprofitsDina Rasor, Truthout: "In last week's column, I laid out the problem of nonprofit organizations, especially 501(c)4, 'social welfare' organizations being used to channel money toward campaigns while keeping their donors secret. In fact, for all the ink spilled concerning super PAC committees, which must reveal donors, according to iWatch News, these nonprofits have been spending more money on the 2010 campaigns than the super PACs. The trend is now to start a super PAC and a C4 organization at the same time, then have the skittish donors, especially corporations that don't want the public to know that they are backing specific candidates, use that money for campaign ads done by the C4 and give some of the money from the C4 to the super PAC, which still hides the original source of the money." Read the Article A Prophet Crying in the Wilderness: Montana's Governor Vows to Continue His Fight Against Citizens United Richard Schiffman, Truthout: "'I'm just a rancher who ended up governor of Montana,' Brian Schweitzer is fond of saying. In a world where even Mitt Romney paints himself as a populist with humble roots, one might reasonably be skeptical of Schweitzer's self-portrait. The governor of the Big Sky State, however, appears to be the real deal - a plainspoken 51-year-old farmer and irrigation engineer, who had never held public office before he ran for the highest post in Montana eight years ago." Read the Article Kucinich Explains the LIBOR Scandal Congressman Dennis Kucinich: "We don't know just how deep this scandal goes. But the fact is that if a fundamental component of our financial system has been or is being manipulated, we have the right to know about it. Banks are not above the law and they should not be allowed to operate in secrecy, especially when they have a history of taxpayer bailout and when we are forced to rely on them to provide capital for economic growth." Watch the Video and Read the Article Workers Protest Con Ed Lockout: "They Couldn't Raise Rates on Customers ... So They Went After Us" John Knefel, Truthout: "As negotiations between union reps and management to settle the Con Ed lockout continue far from the public's view, the workers are making their presence known in the street. Union workers have staged a protest outside Con Ed's main headquarters on 4 Irving Place in New York City every day this week and will likely continue to do so until an agreement is reached." Read the Article Congress Considers Prosecutions of Reporters Over Leaked Information Annika McGinnis, McClatchy Newspapers: "In response to New York Times stories that relied on leaks of sensitive national-security information, a House of Representatives panel on Wednesday discussed legislation that could allow journalists to be prosecuted for disclosing such information. Army Col. Ken Allard testified to a House Judiciary subcommittee that the extent of national security leaks is 'unprecedented' in American history. Recent examples include the Times' investigations of President Barack Obama's terrorist 'kill list' and American cyberattacks on Iran." Read the Article Bill Moyers | Unions Are in Peril Bill Moyers, Moyers & Co.: "Lost in the Supreme Court media chatter last week: a disturbing ruling in Knox vs. SEIU Local 1000 that restricts labor unions from directing collected dues toward political causes. There's no similar limit on corporations, naturally - yet another indication that the power and status of modern unions is waning, especially when compared to the unbridled influence of Corporate America. With a sharp decline in union membership, a legion of new enemies, and a series of legal and legislative setbacks, can unions rebound and once again act strongly in the interest of ordinary workers?" Watch the Video and Read the Transcript Obama's Scramble for Africa: Secret Wars, Secret Bases and the Pentagon's "New Spice Route" in Africa Nick Turse, TomDispatch: "They call it the New Spice Route, an homage to the medieval trade network that connected Europe, Africa, and Asia, even if today's 'spice road' has nothing to do with cinnamon, cloves, or silks. Instead, it's a superpower's superhighway, on which trucks and ships shuttle fuel, food, and military equipment through a growing maritime and ground transportation infrastructure to a network of supply depots, tiny camps, and airfields meant to service a fast-growing US military presence in Africa." Read the Article On the News With Thom Hartmann: Public Transportation System Is Failing Low-Income Workers, and More In today's On the News segment: According to a new study by the Brookings Institute, only a quarter of Americans can get to work in less than 90 minutes using public transportation; the LIBOR rate-fixing scandal is coming to America; in Wisconsin, there are questions about whether or not June's recall election was rigged; and more. Watch the Video and Read the Transcript Paul Krugman | Blame Politics, Not Economics, for This Enduring Crisis Paul Krugman, Krugman & Co.: "So Econ 101 has done just fine, and perhaps more to the point, it has made successful predictions 'out of sample' - that is, about what would happen under conditions very different from normal experience. This is the sort of thing that produces paradigm shifts in the hard sciences: Light bends! Einstein is right! So why the sense that macroeconomics is a mess? I'd say that it's essentially political." Read the Article Where the Money Lives: Vanity Fair Report Reveals Loopholes, Offshore Havens Behind Romney's Fortune Amy Goodman, Democracy NOW!: "Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney is on the hot seat over where he stashes his vast personal fortune, estimated at up to $250 million. We speak with reporter Nick Shaxson, whose new Vanity Fair article, 'Where the Money Lives,' delves into the murky world of offshore finance and reveals loopholes that allowed Romney to skirt tax laws and store millions in foreign tax havens. The article has sparked the latest round of questions about Romney's taxes and offshore accounts, amplified by Romney's refusal so far to release more than one year's worth of tax returns." Watch the Video and Read the Transcript Click here for more Truthout articles
Mark Karlin, BuzzFlash at Truthout: "This blows a huge credibility hole in the Romney narrative of being a job creator, in addition to his own company's documents contradicting him, and leaves little room to conclude anything other than that he lied. It will be legally impossible for him to effectively deny what is stated in SEC documents and Massachusetts State filings, because that could raise the specter of being accused of fraudulent financial reports. FactCheck.org previously implied that such a scenario, filing false government reporting documents, would be a felony." Read the BuzzFlash Commentary Lab Contamination May Have Led to Occupy Wall Street/Sarah Fox DNA Match A Scandal Over Rate-Fixing Is About to Hit the US Not Again! How Our Voting System Is Ripe for Theft and Meltdown in 2012 Romney Invested Millions in Chinese Firm That Profited on US Outsourcing Joe Conason | If We're Headed Toward Greece, Republicans Are Driving Us There Mitt Romney the Race Baiter at the NAACP As Long as the Rich Can Speculate on Food, the World's Poor Go Hungry Click here for more BuzzFlash headlines
---------- Support Truthout with a tax-deductible donation by clicking here.
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Daniel,
The roar of a chainsaw shatters the peaceful calm of the Karelia forest in Northwestern Russia. A logger carves into an exquisite giant -- a 600-year-old tree -- with expert precision. Within minutes, he has masterfully sliced through tree rings, added the felled tree to a growing pile, and moved on to the next.
These trees -- part of Russia's last remaining old-growth forests -- will be chopped up to make cutting boards, wooden spoons and other items for IKEA. IKEA has built a reputation around sustainability and tells its customers, literally, "We Love Wood", and that the furniture they buy will not contain wood from old-growth forests. But a new report shows that IKEA is clear-cutting Russia's remaining ancient forests and destroying hundreds of thousands of unique animal species for profit. If it doesn't stop now, there may be no trees left.
IKEA is the third-largest purchaser of wood in the world, behind Home Depot and Lowe's, and roughly 60 percent of the products stocked in IKEA's 300 department stores across the globe contain wood of some form. IKEA already decimates 1,400 acres of forest a year -- that's why it purchased this enormous swath of over 740,000 acres of Russia's Karelia lush boreal forests -- for expansion.
IKEA is trying to convince customers that it adheres to the strictest environmental standards, and only uses wood sourced in economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable ways. But a Swedish conservation group discovered that IKEA's wholly-owned subsidiary, Swedwood, is clear-cutting the last of Karelia's old-growth forests from areas of high conservation and devastating invaluable forest ecosystems in the process. This directly violates the minimum requirements IKEA has set for its timber.
IKEA truly cares about its sustainable image and internationally-known brand and is especially vulnerable to public pressure from SumOfUs.org members. That's why it is important we send a strong message now.
As a world leader in the furniture industry and one of the world's largest companies, with over $30 billion in profits between 2000 and 2008, IKEA has the means to make its forestry practices more ecologically friendly and needs to stop misleading its customers.
Thanks for loving trees,
Emma, Taren, Kaytee and the rest of us
*******************************
Why are old-growth forests so important?
Russia's lush, old-growth forests perform vital functions for life on Earth. They help to stabilize the climate by locking carbon in the soil -- which helps safeguard our climate. In addition, old-growth forests have much greater biodiversity than managed plantations, and are home to literally hundreds of thousands of unique animal and plant species, like rare species of lichens, mosses and other plants and animals. These species cannot survive in secondary forests.
But because of logging, only 10% of Russia's old-growth forests remain.
NGOs claim that IKEA, through Swedwood, is helping to destroy ecosystems that are home to endangered species by clear-cutting already depleted old-growth forests. In Karelia, only isolated tracts and pockets of old-growth forests remain.
In Russia, Swedwood Karelia LLC owns a logging concession of over 740,000 acres. And with Russian markets increasingly opening to the global market, and World Trade Organization (WTO) membership likely, environmentalists fear the worst damage to Russia's forests is yet to come.
Further Reading:
IKEA under fire for ancient tree logging, The Guardian. May 29, 2012.
SumOfUs is a world-wide movement of people like you, working together to hold corporations accountable for their actions and forge a new, sustainable path for our global economy. You can follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook. Click here to view this and past newsletters online. Please add "messenger@truthout.org" to your email contacts to ensure delivery. Wednesday 11 July 2012 Click here for more Truthout articles
Creating an Unhealthy America Is a Pre-Existing Condition for the Right Wing Rachel Maddow's Quiet War US Judge Weighs Whether to Keep Blocking Law That Could Shut Only Abortion Clinic in Mississippi Katrina vanden Heuvel: Time for "Banksters" to Be Prosecuted NAACP Crowd Boos Romney's Promise to Repeal "Obamacare" Supreme Court Immigration Ruling in Arizona v. US Got It Backward Glenn Greenwald: America's Own Terror Group Shell's Arctic Gamble Click here for more BuzzFlash headlines ---------- Support Truthout with a tax-deductible donation by clicking here.
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Click here to view this and past newsletters online. Please add "messenger@truthout.org" to your email contacts to ensure delivery. Tuesday 10 July 2012 Click here for more Truthout articles
Mitt in the Hamptons: Let Them Eat Road Kill! Romney in the Hamptons: The View From Outside the Gates "Money in, People Out": The Twin Pillars of the GOP's 2012 Plan Buy American: General Motors Will Slash Outsourcing in IT Overhaul Wall Street Executives Believe Employees Need to Engage in Illegal Behavior to Succeed Without GOP, Unemployment Would Be Under 6 Percent Obama's Camp Makes Aggressive Push for Romney to Disclose Offshore Finances Read the Fine Print: The Republicans' Crazy Party Platforms Click here for more BuzzFlash headlines ---------- Support Truthout with a tax-deductible donation by clicking here.
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