Calls to ditch the penny—which cost 1.79 cents apiece to manufacture last year—are nothing new . But with budget-slashing and debt-reducing on America’s mind, proponents of the move are renewing their call, reports Politico . So is the time finally right? Many think so. The US Mint lost $42….
Continue reading …Rick Perry Threatens Ben Bernanke, Calls Him Treasonous and Bushies Object
August 16, 2011 No Comment
Gov. Rick Perry is wasting no time in establishing his John Bircher/tea party credentials as he lashed out at Ben Bernanke and used thuggish and violent rhetoric to make his point. Texas Governor Rick Perry, who entered the presidential campaign on Saturday, appeared to suggest a violent response would be warranted should Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke “print more money” between now and the election. Speaking just now in Iowa, Perry said, “If this guy prints more money between now and the election, I dunno what y’all would do to him in Iowa but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas. Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treasonous in my opinion.” Treason is a capital offense. Talking treason is something knows well since he has articulated his belief that Texas should secede from the U.S . The only thing that surprises me in this clip is that he didn’t demand that America returns to the gold standard. If I were Ben, I’d stay clear of Texas. Perry seems to be in the race to take away Michele Bachmann’s supporters so that Mitt Romney can be the nominee. And maybe Rick gets the VP job as a thanks. But any way you look at it, politicians in the United States of America should not be threatening individual members of the government. There’s already been too much violence the last three years and some nut wouldn’t hesitate to lash out at Ben. What’s even more hilarious is that Karl Rove, the mastermind behind one of the worst president’s of all time is attacking Perry via GOP12: Click here to view this media This morning, Karl Rove called Rick Perry’s comments on Ben Bernanke “deeply unfortunate.” “It’s his first time on the national stage, and it was a very unfortunate comment. You don’t accuse the chairman of the federal reserve of being a traitor to his country and being guilty of treason and suggesting that we treat him pretty ugly in Texas — that’s not, again, a presidential statement.” Here’s the key, politically. “It’s not smart politics, either. Governor Perry is going to have to fight the impression that he’s a cowboy from Texas. This simply added to it.” Faiz then adds : Rove then argued that Perry and Bush are actually quite close: [In 1998, Bush] moved heaven and earth to get Rick Perry elected as his running mate…I know from the perspective of the former president that he has a cordial, personal strong friendship of nearly two decades with the governor. I think that’s true of the governor too. But why he falls into this pattern of sounding like he’s being dismissive of the former president is not smart politics strategically or tactically. Host Martha MacCallum observed, “It sounds like you feel like he’s been ungrateful to the Bushes. Many other Bushies are joining in on the criticism . Let’s get something straight: Rick Perry is not a novice at politicking. This wasn’t a slip by a newbie. He’s been around a long time and he’s playing to the teabirchers that have overtaken the GOP and also he knows how unpopular George Bush is. Digby writes: It sure looks like Rick Perry has it all. He’s a Fed hating, Christian Reconstructionist , neoconservative super-hawk Tea partier with a nasty, personal contempt for President Obama : In response to a question from Danny Yadron of the Wall Street Journal, who asked Perry if he was suggesting that Obama didn’t love this country, Perry replied: ” I dunno, you need to ask him.” Only WND, Oathers, Birthers and Newsmax supporters enjoy that kind of talk. Perry has been described as George Bush on steroids so guess who’s joining his team? The experts that he has reached out to include former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Doug Feith, former NSC strategy guru William Luti, former Assistant U.S. Attorney and National Review columnist Andrew McCarthy, former Pentagon official Charles “Cully” Stimson, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Europe Daniel Fata, former Pentagon China official Dan Blumenthal, the Heritage Foundation’s Asia expert Peter Brookes, and former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalizad. Politico reported that Donald Rumsfeld helped Perry set up the initial meeting with Feith, Luti, McCarthy, and Fata (Stimson was invited but couldn’t attend), but there have been several more since then and the Perry team is continuing to fly in experts to meet with the Governor in Texas . Holy moley. He’s made quite a splash. It’s all intellectually incoherent, of course, but that’s what makes him so darned attractive to the right wing. The more incoherent he is, the more the beltway media will praise him as an excellent campaigner. Bet on it.
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Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy are under pressure to come up with a structural answer to the euro’s problems rather than a stopgap solution First Britain, then the United States and now the eurozone. The message from the recent data is unambiguous: the big economies of the west slowed down to little more than stall speed in the spring of 2011. Tuesday’s data for the bloc of 17 countries that are part of monetary union was worrying for a number of reasons. Some slowdown in activity had been on the cards given the strength of output growth in the first quarter of the year, but the nugatory 0.2% increase in gross domestic product was far weaker than expected . More troubling perhaps was the evidence that the slowdown on the fringes of the single currency has now burrowed its way to the core of the eurozone. France had already announced that its economy was flat in the second quarter ; on Tuesday, Germany and the Netherlands said they had each registered expansion of just 0.1%. This matters for Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Italy because the only way they can hope to make up the growth shortfall from domestic austerity is by exporting to the rich countries at the heart of monetary union. If that proves impossible, as Tuesday’s figures suggest it might, that will put additional strain on the countries on the periphery, making further expensive bailouts more likely and increasing the chances of a break-up of the single currency. It is not hard to find explanations for the slowdown in the eurozone. As in Britain and America, consumers are being squeezed hard by rising energy and food prices; there have been supply problems for industry caused by the Japanese tsunami; and there has clearly been a loss of both consumer and business confidence caused by the inability of Europe’s leaders to get on top of the sovereign debt crisis. In the light of this, the European Central Bank’s decision to raise interest rates twice during the second quarter looks premature, if not downright stupid. With the eurozone’s economy barely growing and the single currency fighting for its very existence, any further increases in borrowing costs now look extremely remote. Politically, Tuesday’s data will no doubt add a bit of spice to the summit meeting between Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy. The German and French leaders are now under increasing pressure to come up with a structural answer to the euro’s problems rather than – as has been the case all too often in the past – a stopgap solution. George Osborne repeated his call for greater fiscal integration in the eurozone in his exchange of letters with Sir Mervyn King about UK inflation , but the chancellor’s advice is unlikely to be heeded unless the debt crisis gets a lot worse. On the basis of this data, there is a good chance that it will. European debt crisis Europe Germany Europe Larry Elliott guardian.co.uk
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Continuing his Midwest bus tour, President Barack Obama said Tuesday that America’s economic comeback will be driven by communities in places like Iowa, not by politicians in Washington. (Aug. 16)
Continue reading …For those who are following along with the Verizon strike and want to do what you can do to get involved, there are a bunch of ways for you to get directly involved or show your solidarity. Forty-five thousand Verizon workers are on strike because the massively profitable company, which pays no taxes, is demanding major cuts in employee compensation and refuses to negotiate fairly with workers. The Communications Workers of America filed a unfair labor practice grievance again Verizon on Friday. One creative way to get involved is the “What Verizon’s Name Means” contest sponsored by the CWA . The union is asking creative supporters to come up with a translation that reveals what Verizon’s name really means. If you are in the area, you can use this tool to find a picket line anywhere from Virginia to New York . If you are joining the strike, you can print leaflets before you go . You can also send a letter to Verizon asking them to negotiate fairly. Daily Kos also has a petition in support of the striking workers. Organizations interested in supporting the strike should contact CWA directly. Other ways to keep up with the latest on the strike is to sign up for text messages from CWA , support the strike on Facebook , and by changing your Facebook and Twitter status to show your solidarity .
Continue reading …NYT Ombudsman Finds Editors Who Don’t Mind Joe Nocera Comparing Tea Party to Terrorists
August 16, 2011 No Comment
New York Times’s Public Editor (or ombudsman) Arthur Brisbane weighed in on columnist Joe Nocera, who apologized in print last week for having compared Tea Party members to terrorists in a column August 2. Just four months into his new job as a New York Times Op-Ed columnist, Joe Nocera banged out a blistering screed against Tea Party Republicans who “have waged jihad on the American people.” These “terrorists” were willing to sacrifice the nation’s creditworthiness to achieve deep spending cuts — a goal they believed was “worth blowing up the country for,” he wrote in his Aug. 2 column. He concluded the piece by saying that, for now, “the Tea Party Republicans can put aside their suicide vests. But rest assured: They’ll have them on again soon enough.” There was a backlash in “a wave of angry reader e-mails.” And then something really unusual happened: He apologized. “I was a hypocrite, the critics said, for using such language when on other occasions I’ve called for a more civil politics,” he wrote in his column four days later. “In the cool light of day, I agree with them. I apologize.” Brisbane posed the question: Did Nocera really go too far? He found a Times opinion editor and a former L.A. Times editor-in-chief to say no. Andrew Rosenthal, the editorial page editor, didn’t think so. Neither did quite a few others with whom I spoke. John Carroll, former editor of The Los Angeles Times, said he enjoyed the first column because “I frankly think the Tea Party people have much to answer for in this case. I wasn’t offended by the rhetoric. I rather liked the concluding line about the suicide vest.” This part was revealing: He decided “you can’t call for civility and then call people terrorists,” and so he drew the line there. Perhaps not surprisingly, 90 percent of the response to his apology column, he said, was: “Why did you apologize? They are terrorists.” Brisbane found the whole experience “elevating” for the newspaper;
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Obama and His Magic Bus Obama’s Bus Tour Stops In Iowa Pres. Obama: Some Wants Opponents To Lose Than America Win 1stLadiiCarter says: gave a thumbs up to Boston Mark’s comment: FUDGE, NOBAMA’S MAMA WAS WHITE…..SO BY YOUR LOGIC THE BUS SHOULD B… http://t.co/igqvzos
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Click here to view this media Liberals have been clamoring for the President to push for job creation instead of deficit reduction for a long time, but have been rebuked by some of his political team and liberal elitists as being childish and not serious way before Drew Westin wrote an this op-ed piece in the NY Times . In the debt-ceiling debacle, their thinking was that Independents would side with the President and his willingness to negotiate a Grand Bargain over the unmoving and obstructionism of his political foes. Since there was no way the GOP would allow revenue increases in debt-ceiling talks the debate would expose conservative-teabirchers as being out of touch with reality. Now, part of that did happen . All the latest polling shows that the GOP and tea party are viewed much worse than the Democratic Party or Obama, but he was damaged as well. The president has now embarked on a three city bus tour in the mid west designed to connect with the working class. “You’ve got to send a message to Washington that it’s time for the games to stop, it’s time to put country first,” Obama said at a town hall-style meeting in Cannon Falls, Minn., the first stop of his tour through Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois. “If you can do the right thing, then folks in Washington have to do the right thing,” the president said. “And if we do that, there is not a problem that we face that we cannot solve.” In this video he talked about extending the payroll tax break for the middle class, creating tax credits to company’s that hire our returning veterans from war who are out of work and a type of WPA program that is known as the FAST program: Its main components — extending federal unemployment benefits and the payroll tax cut beyond their expiration at the end of this year — are vitally important, but their extension will only maintain the status quo. His idea for an infrastructure bank to finance large-scale building projects is also good, but would take time, and would not address the immediate need for jobs. Ditto his push for patent reform and trade agreements. There are other ideas worth fighting for. Take, for example, Fix America’s Schools Today , or FAST, an idea that has been incorporated into a House proposal to be introduced this fall by Jan Schakowsky (D-IL). Public school buildings in the United States are on average over 40 years old and in need of an estimated $500 billion in repairs and upgrades. A $50 billion school renovation program would employ 500,000 workers (1.5 million construction workers are currently unemployed) and could be easily scaled up. The money could be disbursed through existing federal formulas to all 16,000 public school districts. The initial cost could be largely offset over 10 years by ending tax breaks for fossil fuels, as called for in Mr. Obama’s 2012 budget. Many of us want him to be strong on this issue and fight for jobs no matter if Congress will act or not and I hope his political advisers feel the same way. There was a NY Times story that said his team was going to take a non confrontational approach which has not been working, but Greg Sargent dug a little deeper and found this. Over the weekend, a stir broke out on the left when the Times reported that top Obama advisers David Plouffe and Richard Daley are privately advocating a non-confrontational approach towards the GOP on the economy. — For what it’s worth, I’ve asked for some clarification from the White House, and a senior administration official shed a bit more light on what Plouffe and Daley actually believe. According to the official, who wanted anonymity because officials don’t want to be quoted on record discussing internal messaging deliberations, Plouffe and Daley both favor a confrontational rhetorical approach that will blame Republicans for opposing any and all job creation efforts for purely political reasons; both are leading internal boosters of a message that accuses Republicans of putting party before country. — To be sure, this still doesn’t tell us how ambitious Obama is willing to be in terms of proposing genuinely ambitious and bold job creation policies in order to draw that contrast with the GOP. And liberals are right to worry that the current range of options being entertained is far too limited. But if the Obama team is serious about drawing a sharp contrast — as the senior official insists is the case — we can at least hope that the policies will follow the rhetoric. Trying to play the Independent game has shown awful results so far. Obama’s approval rating has been dropping because Democratic support has been dropping and it’s no secret why. A strong push for jobs is the right path to take without trying to be cute about it.
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As Congress reviews 30 years of corn ethanol subsidies, the global food crisis has shone a negative light on biofuel production There were times when Arlyn Schipper could almost feel heroic on his family farm in the heart of America’s corn belt. His 1,619 hectares (4,000 acres) in Iowa, planted almost entirely with corn, were helping to feed a nation – or at least help put fuel in its gas tanks, as his crop was processed into corn ethanol. Schipper still sees it that way. It is just he feels America has moved on, or as he put it: “The country has turned on us.” The US debt crisis , and the challenge of finding $1.3tn (£796bn) in budget cuts, has forced Congress to re-examine three decades of government subsidies for corn ethanol. Drought and famine in the Horn of Africa have exposed further a negative consequence of biofuel production: the global food crisis . By competing with food crops for land, large-scale biofuel production has constricted supply and so boosted food prices across the world. This has led to a backlash against biofuels such as corn ethanol from environmentalists and development charities. “Ten years ago this was the greatest thing since apple pie – ethanol. A lot of farmers invested in this, and a lot of farmers invested in ethanol plants. Everybody wanted it. Our country wanted it. It was a renewable resource,” said Schipper. “And now that we have got all of this money tied up in this, it’s kind of turned on us.” Many will feel that corn farmers have had it pretty good. And the ethanol industry still has a mighty hold on America’s corn belt. America is projected to produce 14bn US gallons (53bn litres) of corn ethanol this year at 200 refineries across the midwest. Iowa, which leads the country in corn production, will use 58% of its crop for ethanol this year. Some farmers, such as Schipper, may sell up to 70% of their crop to produce ethanol. There are five ethanol plants within a 50-mile radius of his home But a five-year boom in corn ethanol production may be coming to an end – or at least that is the hope of some campaigners. “I think we are at a turning point. We are full to the gills with corn ethanol,” said Jeremy Martin, who studies biofuels for the Union of Concerned Scientists . As a start, the industry is due to lose some of its government support – more than 30 years after Jimmy Carter first began subsidising corn ethanol to encourage the development of a homegrown plant-based fuel. Congress is expected to end $6bn in subsidies during the debt deal negotiations. The subsidy had been directed to the oil firms which incorporate ethanol into their products. Fuel sold at most US petrol stations contains 10% ethanol. The industry had hoped to re-direct some of those funds to refitting petrol stations to take more ethanol, under a deal reached in the Senate last July. But the subsequent US debt ceiling deal, with its demands for deep cuts, now makes that unlikely. “Washington is out of money,” said Sheila Karpf, an analyst at the Environmental Working Group , a non-profit organisation. For farmers like Schipper, and ethanol refiners, there will be little reason to mourn the end of the subsidy, arguing that the money went directly to the oil industry anyway. But campaign groups estimate it could lead to a slight drop in corn prices. “It won’t make a big difference for American farmers but it could make a huge difference for impoverished countries,” said Marie Brill, an analyst at ActionAid . This year’s famine in the Horn of Africa has a complex set of causes, not least a dire political situation that has made problems much worse, but it has served to refocus attention on global food prices – and the impact of harvesting biofuels such as corn ethanol. The US is the world’s largest producer and exporter of corn, giving it the power to dictate global market responses. Domestic consumption of corn, as ethanol, has driven up the price of corn worldwide , according to studies from the World Bank and other institutions. The high prices for corn – while driving hunger in Africa – have encouraged other farmers to turn over land from wheat, soybeans, or even pasture to corn production. US farmers planted 92m acres of corn this year, up from 4m acres last year, according to the US department of agriculture. “Farmers are tearing up any little bit of land they had and going to corn,” said Brill. The concern over the global food crisis added new urgency to existing campaigns against the use of corn ethanol. Environmental groups had argued that its use offered no meaningful reduction in greenhouse gas emissions – in part because of the vast use of energy and water in the ethanol conversion process. As a food crop, corn is also far more damaging to the environment than other crops, such as soybeans, because it uses more pesticides and fertiliser. “The research is very clear by now. Turning corn into ethanol is not environmentally sound,” said Bill Freese of the Centre for Food Safety . “It’s really an environmental disaster.” That was not what was intended when Carter promoted the use of ethanol as a way to get America off imported oil, offering subsidies to industries to mix the fuel. The industry never really took off – even with federal funding. By 2001, 6% of corn crop was being used to produce ethanol. But energy policies brought in by George W Bush which set production quota to encourage the use of biofuels allowed the industry to take off. By last year, nearly 40% of US corn was going to produce ethanol. It is less clear, however, whether corn ethanol is having a major effect in helping America reduce its consumption of fossil fuels. Corn ethanol will displace just 7% of the energy supplied by oil by 2020, according to an analysis by Freese. Campaigners argue that the entrenched government supports for corn ethanol have blocked the development of next generations of greener biofuels made from wood or the non-edible parts of plants, known as cellulosic biofuels. “Corn ethanol continues to eat up the market and even eat up grant money that could be used to spur the development of cellulosic and advanced biofuels,” said Sheila Karpf, an analyst at the Environmental Working Group. Getting rid of corn ethanol though is another matter. For farmers like Schipper, ethanol has brought stability and new sources of income. Over the years, the refineries have spun off another industry in animal feed lots, which buy up the unused parts of the corn kernel to feed to pigs, cattle and turkey. Harris Haywood, who runs a nearby cattle finishing operation, estimates he has cut back on his corn use by 40%, by re-using the product from the ethanol refinery. “The byproduct is very, very cheap compared with corn,” he said. “And we can vary our rations to the price of corn. If corn gets cheap we can use more corn.” It’s going to be hard to persuade farmers away from ethanol. Despite the increasingly negative public opinion on ethanol Schipper is just not ready to give up on it yet. “Everything has turned on us, but ethanol is still a great thing,” he said. “It’s been good for us.” Biofuels Energy Renewable energy United States Farming Food US Congress US politics Suzanne Goldenberg guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …As Congress reviews 30 years of corn ethanol subsidies, the global food crisis has shone a negative light on biofuel production There were times when Arlyn Schipper could almost feel heroic on his family farm in the heart of America’s corn belt. His 1,619 hectares (4,000 acres) in Iowa, planted almost entirely with corn, were helping to feed a nation – or at least help put fuel in its gas tanks, as his crop was processed into corn ethanol. Schipper still sees it that way. It is just he feels America has moved on, or as he put it: “The country has turned on us.” The US debt crisis , and the challenge of finding $1.3tn (£796bn) in budget cuts, has forced Congress to re-examine three decades of government subsidies for corn ethanol. Drought and famine in the Horn of Africa have exposed further a negative consequence of biofuel production: the global food crisis . By competing with food crops for land, large-scale biofuel production has constricted supply and so boosted food prices across the world. This has led to a backlash against biofuels such as corn ethanol from environmentalists and development charities. “Ten years ago this was the greatest thing since apple pie – ethanol. A lot of farmers invested in this, and a lot of farmers invested in ethanol plants. Everybody wanted it. Our country wanted it. It was a renewable resource,” said Schipper. “And now that we have got all of this money tied up in this, it’s kind of turned on us.” Many will feel that corn farmers have had it pretty good. And the ethanol industry still has a mighty hold on America’s corn belt. America is projected to produce 14bn US gallons (53bn litres) of corn ethanol this year at 200 refineries across the midwest. Iowa, which leads the country in corn production, will use 58% of its crop for ethanol this year. Some farmers, such as Schipper, may sell up to 70% of their crop to produce ethanol. There are five ethanol plants within a 50-mile radius of his home But a five-year boom in corn ethanol production may be coming to an end – or at least that is the hope of some campaigners. “I think we are at a turning point. We are full to the gills with corn ethanol,” said Jeremy Martin, who studies biofuels for the Union of Concerned Scientists . As a start, the industry is due to lose some of its government support – more than 30 years after Jimmy Carter first began subsidising corn ethanol to encourage the development of a homegrown plant-based fuel. Congress is expected to end $6bn in subsidies during the debt deal negotiations. The subsidy had been directed to the oil firms which incorporate ethanol into their products. Fuel sold at most US petrol stations contains 10% ethanol. The industry had hoped to re-direct some of those funds to refitting petrol stations to take more ethanol, under a deal reached in the Senate last July. But the subsequent US debt ceiling deal, with its demands for deep cuts, now makes that unlikely. “Washington is out of money,” said Sheila Karpf, an analyst at the Environmental Working Group , a non-profit organisation. For farmers like Schipper, and ethanol refiners, there will be little reason to mourn the end of the subsidy, arguing that the money went directly to the oil industry anyway. But campaign groups estimate it could lead to a slight drop in corn prices. “It won’t make a big difference for American farmers but it could make a huge difference for impoverished countries,” said Marie Brill, an analyst at ActionAid . This year’s famine in the Horn of Africa has a complex set of causes, not least a dire political situation that has made problems much worse, but it has served to refocus attention on global food prices – and the impact of harvesting biofuels such as corn ethanol. The US is the world’s largest producer and exporter of corn, giving it the power to dictate global market responses. Domestic consumption of corn, as ethanol, has driven up the price of corn worldwide , according to studies from the World Bank and other institutions. The high prices for corn – while driving hunger in Africa – have encouraged other farmers to turn over land from wheat, soybeans, or even pasture to corn production. US farmers planted 92m acres of corn this year, up from 4m acres last year, according to the US department of agriculture. “Farmers are tearing up any little bit of land they had and going to corn,” said Brill. The concern over the global food crisis added new urgency to existing campaigns against the use of corn ethanol. Environmental groups had argued that its use offered no meaningful reduction in greenhouse gas emissions – in part because of the vast use of energy and water in the ethanol conversion process. As a food crop, corn is also far more damaging to the environment than other crops, such as soybeans, because it uses more pesticides and fertiliser. “The research is very clear by now. Turning corn into ethanol is not environmentally sound,” said Bill Freese of the Centre for Food Safety . “It’s really an environmental disaster.” That was not what was intended when Carter promoted the use of ethanol as a way to get America off imported oil, offering subsidies to industries to mix the fuel. The industry never really took off – even with federal funding. By 2001, 6% of corn crop was being used to produce ethanol. But energy policies brought in by George W Bush which set production quota to encourage the use of biofuels allowed the industry to take off. By last year, nearly 40% of US corn was going to produce ethanol. It is less clear, however, whether corn ethanol is having a major effect in helping America reduce its consumption of fossil fuels. Corn ethanol will displace just 7% of the energy supplied by oil by 2020, according to an analysis by Freese. Campaigners argue that the entrenched government supports for corn ethanol have blocked the development of next generations of greener biofuels made from wood or the non-edible parts of plants, known as cellulosic biofuels. “Corn ethanol continues to eat up the market and even eat up grant money that could be used to spur the development of cellulosic and advanced biofuels,” said Sheila Karpf, an analyst at the Environmental Working Group. Getting rid of corn ethanol though is another matter. For farmers like Schipper, ethanol has brought stability and new sources of income. Over the years, the refineries have spun off another industry in animal feed lots, which buy up the unused parts of the corn kernel to feed to pigs, cattle and turkey. Harris Haywood, who runs a nearby cattle finishing operation, estimates he has cut back on his corn use by 40%, by re-using the product from the ethanol refinery. “The byproduct is very, very cheap compared with corn,” he said. “And we can vary our rations to the price of corn. If corn gets cheap we can use more corn.” It’s going to be hard to persuade farmers away from ethanol. Despite the increasingly negative public opinion on ethanol Schipper is just not ready to give up on it yet. “Everything has turned on us, but ethanol is still a great thing,” he said. “It’s been good for us.” Biofuels Energy Renewable energy United States Farming Food US Congress US politics Suzanne Goldenberg guardian.co.uk
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