GOP senators block effort to freeze credit card interest rates

By Daniel Tencer
Rawstory
Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 -- 7:15 pm


Republican senators on Wednesday blocked an effort to debate a bill that would prevent credit card companies from raising interest rates ahead of new regulations coming into force next year.

The move angered congressional Democrats who were pushing for an emergency freeze on credit card rates.

"I’m extremely disappointed that the financial health of millions of American taxpayers has been completely brushed aside by a handful of Wall Street banking interests in the US Senate," Rep. Betsy Markey (D-CO) said, as quoted in the Coloradan.

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Sebelius on Mammograms: Don’t Change What You’re Doing

By KATE PHILLIPS
New York Times
November 18, 2009, 3:12 PM

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Wednesday afternoon issued a strong statement intended to put distance between federal policy and an influential panel’s recommendations that most women should start regular breast cancer screening at age 50, not 40.

The panel’s new recommendations represent a significant departure from existing guidelines, and have caused widespread concern since they were announced on Monday. The backlash has been growing among doctors, patients and even members of Congress. (A group of Republican female lawmakers used the anger over the guidelines today as a way of denouncing the Democrats’ broader health care bills, while Democrats noted that the panel is independent and its recommendations are contradicted by the American Cancer Society.)

Continue reading here.

Editorial Note: Check out Tucson doc: 'Office full of women under 50 with breast cancer'
By Stephanie Innes
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 11.18.2009

Two of the 16 members of the independent panel United States Preventive Services Task Force are ASU professors:

Diana B. Petitti, M.D., M.P.H. (Vice Chair)
Professor of Biomedical Informatics
Fulton School of Engineering
Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ

Bernadette Melnyk, Ph.D., R.N., C.P.N.P./N.P.P.
Dean and Distinguished Foundation Professor in Nursing
College of Nursing & Healthcare Innovation
Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ

Growing Consensus in Dem Caucus: Economic Team Must Go

Fire Geithner and Summers, prominent Democrat says

by Peter Tencel
Rawstory
November 18, 2009

'We may have to sacrifice just two more jobs to get millions back for Americans'

President Barack Obama "is being failed by his economic team" and should replace Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and White House economic policy director Larry Summers, says US House Rep. Peter DeFazio.

The prominent member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus told MSNBC's The Ed Show that he and other House members are growing increasingly frustrated by a White House economic policy that focuses on maintaining the financial stability of Wall Street firms while largely overlooking Main Street concerns.

Continue reading here.

Watch VIDEO

Biden on Jon Stewart: "Socialism for the Rich" "Capitalism for the Poor"

VIDEO

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Joe Biden Pt. 1
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Joe Biden Pt. 2
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Sixteen workers die each day in the United States: Employer Negligence/Lax Enforcement

Visit 16 DeathsPerDay.com....

Email the Video...Sign the Petition....Post on Facebook...Make a Donation

According to Brave New Foundation, sixteen workers are killed each day in the United States "because of reckless negligence on the part of their employers. Under existing laws, these employers get a slap on the wrist, or walk away scot-free. Meanwhile, workers who blow the whistle face threats and retaliation at the workplace."

Watch the Video

Will Credit Raters Dodge Change...Again?

Will Washington really demand change and hold the raters accountable?

The RealNews

Although the nations largest credit rating companies are blamed for underestimating much of the risk that led to the financial crisis, so far they have dodged any significant consequences. Investors lost billions of dollars on bonds awarded top ratings by Moodys, Standard & Poors and Fitch, and now Congress wants answers. But will Washington really demand change and hold the raters accountable?

The Ugly Truth About Jobs

By Robert Parry
Consortium News
November 17, 2009

Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke has given Americans a glimpse of the ugly truth about their future job prospects. Simply put, companies have found that they can shed workers and rely on technological advances and overseas factories to operate with a lot fewer U.S. employees

Bernanke told the Economic Club of New York on Monday that some U.S. companies might begin to add workers to meet rising demand, but he added that “other firms, facing difficult financial conditions and intense pressure to cut costs, seem to have found longer-lasting, efficiency-enhancing changes that allowed them to reduce their workforces. …

“To the extent that firms are able to find further cost-cutting measures as output expands, they may delay hiring.”

In other words, Americans – from blue-collar manufacturing workers to white-collar office employees – won’t be needed as much in the future by companies that are squeezing more productivity out of the workers that remain and are shifting more jobs overseas.

That means U.S. unemployment can be expected to stay high and wages low, Bernanke said.

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The 15 Biggest Congressional Recipients Of Wall Street Campaign Cash

Huffington Post
11/17/09

Reforming Wall Street is a hot topic on Capitol Hill these days. Congress is currently weighing two financial reform bills that would, to varying degrees, reshape the way the financial system is regulated.

Still, Wall Street's influence in Washington appears to be as strong as ever. After all, it was just last spring that Senator Dick Durbin, frustrated by pushback on bankruptcy reform, denounced the financial sector's influence on the Senate: the banks, he said, "they frankly own the place." The Center for Responsive Politics, a research group that tracks money in politics, reports that financial industries -- the finance, insurance and real estate sectors, specifically -- have been one of the biggest benefactors to Congress over the past two decades:

"The finance, insurance and real estate sector has given $2.3 billion to candidates, leadership PACs and party committees since 1989, which eclipses every other sector. Nineteen percent of total contributions from the employees and political action committees across all sectors came from the financial sector.

Click here for the rest of the article and a slide show featuring Wall's Street's Top 15.

Conservative Bias in Public Media

Paid Lying: What Passes For Major Media Journalism

Posted at SteveLendmanBlog
November 9, 2009


Stephen Lendman, a progressive radio commentator (Republicbroadcasting.org) is a retired marketing analyst who worked at several large U.S. Corporations summarizes in this must-read article how corporate media distorts the truth and manipulates public opinion. He writes:

Today's major media journalism is biased, irresponsible, sensationalist reporting that distorts, exaggerates or misstates the truth. It's misinformation or agitprop disinformation masquerading as fact to boost circulation, readership, viewers, or listeners, and on vital issues lie about or suppress uncomfortable truths to provide unqualified support for state and/or corporate interests - to the detriment of the greater good that's always sacrificed for profits and imperial aims.

According to Lendman, the corporate point of view is broadcast regularly on public media, NPR and PBS. He draws from a 2004 study published by by FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) article How Public Is Public Radio? published in FAIR, Extra! May/June 2004 by Steve Rendall and Daniel Butterworth determined that NewsHour is even more ideologically right than NPR that tilts far in that direction itself.

FAIR found that on four of NPR's news shows in 2003 All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Weekend Edition Saturday and Sunday, "NPR relies on the same dominant sources as the major media that include government officials, professional experts, and corporate representatives nearly two-thirds of the time." FAIR concluded that the NewsHour and NPR consistently tilt the bias in favor of those in power rather than the public interest.

A November 2009 article at FAIR.org discusses the effects on democracy of the deterioration of mainstream journalism. Public Media and the Decommodification of News
News behind pay walls is no help to democracy

While other countries fund public interest broadcasting, in the U.S. public broadcasting has not lived up to its potential as an independent source of information.

According to FAIR:

In practice, of course, governments often look out for their own interests, and those of their most powerful supporters. This has been the problem with so-called public broadcasting in the United States, whose promise has gone largely unrealized. Not only is the government funding for PBS and NPR pitifully small in comparison to the support other countries give their public systems (see chart), but the U.S. “public” broadcasters are by design dependent on massive corporate subsidies; with only 40 percent of public broadcasting revenue coming from federal, state or local government (CPB report, 9/09), it’s almost impossible to get a show on “noncommercial” television in the United States unless a wealthy for-profit company is willing to buy expensive “underwriting announcements” to air before and after it. (PBS’s primary news show, the NewsHour With Jim Lehrer, is mostly owned by the for-profit conglomerate Liberty Media.) And the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which in theory is supposed to serve as a “heat shield” to protect programmers from political pressures, has in practice been turned into a vehicle for conservatives in Congress to police funding recipients for signs of dangerous ideological independence (Extra! Update, 6/05).

Thom Hartmann: UNEQUAL Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights

Read Buzzflash review of this book

"In a nutshell, a book that reveals what you won't see on televsision [sic television] or read in the paper because the corporate owners of the media don't want you to know that they've grabbed up rights that belong to the American people."

'Republicans Are Shocked The Public Is Mad At Them For Voting Against Franken’s Anti-Rape Amendment

By Amanda Terkel
ThinkProgress.org
November 13, 2009

Last month, 30 Republican senators [Both Arizona Senators Kyl and McCain voted NO] voted against Sen. Al Franken’s (D-MN) amendment that would punish defense contractors “if they restrict their employees from taking workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court.” His amendment was inspired by Jamie Leigh Jones, who was gang-raped by her co-workers while working for Halliburton/KBR in Baghdad in 2005, and then had to fight her employer for justice.

The GOP senators who sided with defense contractors at the expense of women — such as John Thune (SD) — have been facing an intense backlash. David Vitter (LA) refused to give a rape victim a straight answer when she confronted him about his vote, claiming that he is “absolutely supportive of any [rape] case like that being prosecuted criminally to the full extent of the law.”

Click here for the rest of the story.

Anatomy of Casino Capitalism

The RealNews
Nov. 11, 2009

Jane D'Arista unravels the web of banking confidence schemes

Jane D'Arista is an economist with the Financial Markets Center in Philomont, VA. She is a Research Associate with the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) and author of the masterful study of U.S. financial regulation, The Evolution of U.S. Finance. For more than thirty years, Jane D'Arista has been one of the country's most insightful analysts of financial markets and regulation.