State Disgrace: Where Was Hillary?

"...five young foreign exchange students found themselves caught in a nightmare of neglect, malnourishment and abandonment by those supposed to protect them.

"Now those five -- natives of countries stretching from Norway to Tanzania to Colombia -- are back home telling friends of a different America than they expected. And their brief visit reverberates in America as a United States senator demands accountability and reform, a Pennsylvania district attorney seeks criminal charges and the U.S. State Department concedes it failed to protect kids coming to America..."

Thanks to D for this one:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/07/15/us.exchange.students/index.html

Sam Smith Sums Up Sotomayor

"...The truth is that Sotomayer - except for her ethnicity - is an absolutely mundane, even boring, centrist judge from whom no surprises should be expected. Like her appointer, she has been elevated to sanctified status simply because the elite - many decades late - decided it was okay to have someone of her background in such a high position. And she seemed safe.

"She has thus benefited from a form of atomized affirmative action that fools a lot of people into thinking there's been a real change.

"But as the cops say, that's it, folks. You can leave now. Clear the area. There's no story here."

http://prorev.com/2009/07/flotsam-jetsam-no-story-here.html

Hansen On Waxman-Markey: Disaster Course

"...Some leaders of big environmental organizations have said I'm naïve to posit an alternative to cap-and-trade, and have suggested I stick to climate modeling. Let's pass a bill, any bill, now and improve it later, they say. The real naïveté is their belief that they, and not the fossil-fuel interests, are driving the legislative process.

"The fact is that the climate course set by Waxman-Markey is a disaster course. Their bill is an astoundingly inefficient way to get a tiny reduction of emissions. It's less than worthless, because it will delay by at least a decade starting on a path that is fundamentally sound from the standpoints of both economics and climate preservation."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-james-hansen/g-8-failure-reflects-us-f_b_228597.html

The House Of Ugland

"...Maples and Calder, owners of Ugland House (Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands), incorporated more than 6,000 new companies over the past five years. Back in 2004, the building served as home to 12,748 companies using the same address. This five-story office building on South Church Street is now the official address for 18,857 corporations. About half those Cayman companies had billing addresses in the U.S., according to a 2008 GAO study...

"Four companies alone have accumulated a combined total of more than $75 billion in earnings untaxed by the U.S.: Hewlett-Packard Co., Merck & Co., Pfizer Inc. and Coca-Cola..."

http://www.gamingthemarket.com/2009/05/house-of-ugland.html

Strongest Indictment Yet Of Carbon Cap-And-Trade

For those who missed Matt Taibbi's Goldmann-Sachs expose (sprinkled with some excellent invective), the article is linked below. Of specific interest, however, is the prediction he makes on closing, regarding the real impact of the administration's carbon cap-and-trade legislation--- notwithstanding its support by many "environmental" and liberal groups. (For those who still doubt the corruption of these elitest organizations, remember Sierra's Pope arm-in-arm with T. Boone Pickens, or Henry Paulson's long-standing romance with the Nature Conservancy):

"...Gone are Hank Paulson and Neel Kashkari; in their place are Treasury chief of staff Mark Patterson and CFTC chief Gary Gensler, both former Goldmanites. (Gensler was the firm's co-head of finance.) And instead of credit derivatives or oil futures or mortgage-backed CDOs, the new game in town, the next bubble, is in carbon credits — a booming trillion-dollar market that barely even exists yet, but will if the Democratic Party that it gave $4,452,585 to in the last election manages to push into existence a groundbreaking new commodities bubble, disguised as an 'environmental plan,' called cap-and-trade. The new carbon-credit market is a virtual repeat of the commodities-market casino that's been kind to Goldman, except it has one delicious new wrinkle: If the plan goes forward as expected, the rise in prices will be government-mandated. Goldman won't even have to rig the game. It will be rigged in advance."

http://http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/28816321/the_great_american_bubble_machine/print#

Arguing Truth

"...Corporate and government propaganda, aimed to sway emotions, rarely uses facts to sell its positions. And because progressives have lost the gift of rhetoric, which was once a staple of a university education, because they naively believe in the Enlightenment ideal that facts alone can move people toward justice, they are largely helpless.

"'Effective communication requires not simply an understanding of the facts, but how those facts will take place in the public mind,' (Stuart) Ewen said. 'When Gustave Le Bon says it is not the facts in and of themselves which make a point but the way in which the facts take place, the way in which they come to attention, he is right...'"

http://http://www.truthdig.com/

Obama-Chu Resurrect Corpse Of FutureGen

"...The big project, a public-private partnership called FutureGen, was first announced by George W. Bush in 2003...FutureGen’s administrators spent five years on studies, proposals and studies of studies, but never broke ground for a test installation.

"Then, in a fit of integrity, the Department of Energy decided the project should be put in Illinois, a Democratic state...this month, Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced he was reviving the project, hinting that the ultimate cost may run to billions of dollars.

"FutureGen was better off canceled...The Obama administration’s FutureGen plan calls for yet another year of study before any actual action; test runs may not begin for a decade. No wonder the project’s nickname is 'NeverGen...”

And despite the promise of billions in taxpayer subsidies, two major industry concerns backed out this week:

"...Both American Electric Power Co...and Southern Co. abandoned what's known as the FutureGen Alliance because they were trying to save money. Columbus, Ohio-based American Electric Power said it also backed out because of uncertainty about what the scope of the project will be.

"'It's a difficult decision for us,' said Melissa McHenry, a spokeswoman for AEP, a founding FutureGen member and one of the country's biggest utilities. 'It was really not clear at what scale - whether it was going to be a fully integrated (coal gassification plant) with carbon capture and storage.'

"That part of the new FutureGen plan has also cost the project support from some environmentalists. While groups like Greenpeace have questioned FutureGen's promise of offering 'clean coal' technology all along, others have said that the project offered a way to keep coal in the country's energy mix while limiting pollution..."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/opinion/29easterbrook.html?th&emc=th

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2009/06/26/ap6592821.html

Conyers' Wife Guilty In Sludge Bribe

"Detroit City Councilwoman Monica Conyers, the 44-year-old wife of House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.), pleaded guilty Friday for her role in a pay-to-play scheme over a $1.2 billion sludge treatment plant contract issued by the city.

Conyers faces up to five years in prison for taking at least $6,000 in cash in exchange for her vote on the treatment plant contract. She was released on a personal bond, the Detroit Free Press reported..."

http://www.rollcall.com/news/36361-1.html?ET=rollcall:e4964:80069614a:&st=email

Monbiot: A Failed State On Climate Change

"...A combination of corporate money and an unregulated corporate media keeps America in the dark ages. (The Waxman-Markey climate) bill is the best we're going to get for now because the corruption of public life in the United States has not been addressed. Whether he is seeking environmental reforms, health reforms or any other improvement in the life of the American people, this is Obama's real challenge."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot

The Indefiniteness Of Indefinite Detention

The webs they spin:

"Obama administration officials, fearing a battle with Congress that could stall plans to close the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, are crafting language for an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely, according to three senior government officials with knowledge of White House deliberations..."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/26/AR2009062603361.html