Homeowner settlement still may not turn housing market around, experts say
February 20, 2012 No CommentFederal and state officials announced Thursday the largest agreement yet to address the effects of the housing crisis, in which five of the nation’s largest banks will pay $26 billion to help current and former homeowners. The deal aims to hold banks accountable for abusive foreclosure practices and to give a boost to the still-struggling housing
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A Syria-based activist says three columns of army reinforcements including tanks are heading toward the restive central city of Homs. (Feb. 20)
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Whitney Houston laid to rest at private burial; ‘Safe House’ and ‘The Vow’ fight for top weekend spot; Lindsay Lohan to guest host ‘SNL’ next month. (Feb. 20)
Continue reading …Gov. Mark Dayton Calls Out ALEC By Name, Is A Model for Other Democrats
February 20, 2012 No CommentMinnesota Gov. Mark Dayton (D) specifically called out the American Legislative Exchange Council in a recent speech, taking on one of the key operatives on the right wing in a way that few other Democrats have done in recent years, despite ALEC’s rising power in state legislatures across the country. ALEC has repeatedly attempted to push pro-corporate, anti-working family legislation in numerous states and has managed to largely fly under the radar in the media and with the public. The more high profile politicians like Dayton call them out, the more pressure the organization will face from working families and their allies. Minnesota’s Governor, Mark Dayton, is doing a really good job. As we have reported in the past months, he is trying to stimulate the state’s economy via expanded infrastructure and local hire and he has vowed to fight the newly radicalized Minnesota GOP by reaching across the aisle for bipartisan support. But what is going to really get progressive panties in a bunch is Dayton’s latest move: calling out the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) by name. Referring to four now-vetoed tort reform laws as “partisan political ploys,” Dayton told the press that, “The real impact would be to reduce the rights of law abiding citizens and businesses to seek justice from the wrongdoing of others.” At one point during his remarks (video below), he held up the ALEC manual that the tort reform laws came from: “So exactly who did the Republicans in the legislature listen to?” Dayton asked, as he held up a thick document. “Three of the four bills come right from this manual. Tort Reform Boot Camp, published by the American Legislative exchange council, or ALEC.” The organization often holds seminars for conservative state legislators across the nation, and provides model legislation that reflects a public policy agenda. “It is an extremely conservative group funded largely by large corporations, big business associations, insurance companies and very wealthy individuals,” Dayton remarked… “I’ve found that Minnesotans do not want their laws written by the lobbyists of big corporations.”
Continue reading …Fracking Study: It’s Not The Process Contaminating Groundwater, It’s the Sloppy Way They Do It
February 20, 2012 No CommentWatch “Gasland” on PBS. See more from NOW on PBS. See, what happens is, the companies who are doing the fracking drilling won’t do it the way it should ideally be done, but if they would do it the way it should be done, there wouldn’t be groundwater contamination ! And as my mother used to say, if pigs had wings, they could fly. In any event, we should all feel a lot better now, knowing that the reason the water is being contaminated is completely different – if related: The hydraulic fracturing of shale formations to develop natural gas has no direct connection to groundwater contamination, according to a study released Feb. 16 by the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin . The study reported that many problems blamed on hydraulic fracturing are related to processes common to all oil and gas drilling operations, such as casing failures or poor cement jobs. University researchers also concluded that many reports of contamination can be traced to above-ground spills or other mishandling of wastewater produced from shale gas drilling, rather than from hydraulic fracturing, Charles “Chip” Groat, an Energy Institute associate director, said in a statement. “These problems are not unique to hydraulic fracturing,” he said.
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Monday is election day in the Libyan city of Misrata. This is the city’s first vote since the fall of dictator Moammar Gadhafi. Misrata residents are electing a 28-member local council. (Feb 20)
Continue reading …There’s no shortcut: The only way police departments respond to the community is when the community rises up. Unfortunately, far too often, people think expressing your outrage online is equivalent to showing up at your town council meetings. It isn’t. Leaders will go as far as they think they can go without suffering public backlash: Relations between Oakland police and the city’s residents have never been good, which is one reason why the department issued body-mounted cameras to its officers last year. The goal was to increase accountability, which is important for a department that is facing a federal takeover this March. However, the above video, which shows several officers with their body-mounted cameras turned off – a departmental violation – is just the latest example of Oakland police officers not wanting any accountability.The video is also a clear demonstration of just how high tensions are between Oakland police and citizens. The video was produced by Jacob Crawford and journalist Ali Winston from footage obtained during the January 28th demonstration that included activists attempting to break into city hall. “When the cameras are turned on, you see a green light,” said Crawford, a longtime Cop Watch activist whom I wrote about in 2010 after he was assaulted for attempting to video record a cop.“When the cameras are turned off, they just look like a pager.”
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European finance ministers have cancelled a meeting scheduled for Wednesday that was to discuss Greece’s second bailout. Eurozone members say Greece has failed to meet all the conditions needed in order to receive its next rescue loan. The group had demanded Greece detail how it will cover its budget gap of $428m. Al Jazeera’s John Psaropoulos, reporting from Athens, said the cancellation was the latest in a line of procedural hiccups. He said “the Greeks have gone to Brussels unprepared with respect to precisely where the 325m euro [$428m] that was still outstanding” from the $3.9bn in cuts that were meant to be made this year. “What I am hearing from the Greek government…
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An analysis by Lt. Col. Daniel Davis, which the US Army has not approved for public release but has leaked to Rolling Stone magazine, provides the most authoritative refutation thus far of the official military narrative of success in the Afghanistan War since the troop surge began in early 2010. In the 84-page unclassified report, Davis, who returned last fall after his second tour of duty in Afghanistan, attacks the credibility of claims by senior military leaders that the US-NATO war strategy has succeeded in weakening the Taliban insurgent forces and in building Afghan security forces capable of taking primary responsibility for security in the future. The report, which Davis had…
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The US and Afghan governments have begun secret three-way talks with the Taliban, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said. “There have been contacts between the US government and the Taliban, there have been contacts between the Afghan government and the Taliban, and there have been some contacts that we have made, all of us together, including the Taliban,” he told The Wall Street Journal in an interview published on Thursday. The newspaper said Karzai had declined to specify the location of the talks or go into further detail, saying he feared this could damage the process. Karzai, whose government had protested for being left out of recent talks between Washington and the…
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