September 6, 2013

Texas AG candidate: Less abortion, and start squeezing out more GOP babies !!!!

The demographics of Texas voters is a growing concern for many of the state’s Republicans, who worry that the rising number of Latinos could turn the state from a solid red to purple, or even eventually blue. Their power as a party already showed signs of weakness this summer when it took not one, but two special sessions in order to get a simple majority vote to pass a massive omnibus abortion bill that could close down most of the clinics in the state.

Barry Smitherman, who is running for the GOP Attorney General nomination, has a simple way to turn that trend around. Smitherman says: “more babies, less abortion!”

According to the Texas Tribune, Smitherman, speaking at a recent “leadership circle” luncheon for Texas Alliance for Life, told the attendees that the state would be in much better shape economically and politically if it weren’t for abortion since the unborn “would have voted Republican.” ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/18648-one-mans-advice-for-texas-republicans-have-babies-make-more-gop-voters

September 6, 2013

12th Man Report: Michigan-Notre Dame Week

from the Detroit Metro Times:



12th Man Report: Michigan-Notre Dame Week

September 5, 2013
By Michael Laurila




This week, one of the best weeks in every college football season, started off with Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly saying that Michigan wasn’t a traditional historic Notre Dame rival.

This was obviously ridiculously — it’s literally one the NCAA’s longest standing football rivalries dating all the way back to 1887.

But instead of talking about how ridiculous Kelly’s claim was, or how he shockingly later went back on his statement, I’m going to look at some of the best, and naturally my favorite, games from the storied rivalry. This weekend’s game is even more special because the meeting agreement will expire next year between the two schools, and Saturday will mark the last time the two schools meet for at least a few years if not longer.

1994: There haven’t been too many times when both teams have been ranked in the Top-10, but this was one of those few times: Michigan came in at No. 6 and Notre Dame at No. 3. Taking place in Ann Arbor, students and fans had all but lost hope late in the game, but then-quarterback Todd Collins lead a late charge from deep in the Wolverines’ own territory setting up a field goal. Even after Collins’ Cinderella charge, it was still up to kicker Remy Hamilton — in just his first game as the starting kicker — to finish it. Hamilton nailed the 42-yard attempt and Michigan won 26-24. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://blogs.metrotimes.com/index.php/2013/09/12th-man-report-michigan-notre-dame-week/

September 6, 2013

Astounding Hypocrisy

from the Metro Times:


Astounding Hypocrisy
State Funded Health Care is Communism, except when it's for Lansing Pols

By Jack Lessenberry
PUBLISHED: SEPTEMBER 4, 2013


Here’s something so awful that even a hardened old cynic like me had a hard time believing it, at least for a nanosecond.

You know all those Republicans in the state Senate who fought hard against extending Medicaid benefits to the working poor? Turns out they aren’t completely without compassion: Every one of them voted to give lifetime, state-funded medical benefits … to themselves.

As for the poor? Their clear message is they should go crawl in a hole and die.

Even though they failed to stop Medicaid, most — as I write — are still working to hurt the poor and cost the state hundreds of millions … out of spite. That’s what they did by voting against giving the bill immediate effect. ....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://metrotimes.com/news/politics-and-prejudices/astounding-hypocrisy-1.1545889?parentPage=2.2253

September 6, 2013

Mexico City's traffic Infierno

(NYT) MEXICO CITY — From the top of a tall building on a clear night, the traffic here looks like a stream of light — bright white flowing one way, ruby red the other. On the ground, however, it’s painfully obvious that the opposite is true: nearly everyone is stuck.

How stuck varies, but here in a crowded city of 20 million people and around four million cars, six-hour commutes are not uncommon. Some wedding receptions end more quickly than the time it takes to drive a dozen miles at 6 p.m.

Outsiders tend to be stunned. On YouTube, dozens of videos show visitors marveling at long lines of cars as motionless as a corpse, or drivers shamelessly ignoring red lights while traffic cops watch.

Local residents complain, too, of course. But usually they just endure. Cars are still status symbols here, preferred even when public transport is faster, and drivers have generally come to accept the lost time and dirtier air brought by too many cars on clogged roads. ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/world/americas/in-maddening-traffic-even-road-rage-is-too-much-trouble.html?_r=0

September 6, 2013

NYC Trumpets 2012 Street Statistics: More Transit, Less Traffic

(WNYC) Redesigning New York City streets to be more pedestrian- and cyclist-friendly doesn't hurt car travel times. That's according to a new report quantifying the streetscape-changing efforts of the Department of Transportation.

To put it in other terms: transit ridership is up, traffic is down, and there's been a 58 percent increase in cycling since 2008.

That data is laid out in the latest 2012 Sustainable Streets Index, an annual report released by the NYC DOT tracking transportation trends.

The report also uses crash data; vehicle, cyclist, and pedestrian volumes; transit ridership; and travel times (largely tracked through taxi GPS data) to measure the effectiveness of the city's street alternation projects. .........................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.wnyc.org/blogs/transportation-nation/2013/sep/05/nyc-streets-safer/

September 6, 2013

Character Attack on Spitzer Veiling Wall Street-Led Establishment Assault on His Candidacy

from Naked Capitalism:


David Dayen: Character Attack on Spitzer Veiling Wall Street-Led Establishment Assault on His Comptroller Candidacy


Bill DeBlasio’s ascension in the New York City mayoral primary is something liberals everywhere are supposed to care about (outside the CORRIDOR THAT MEANS EVERYTHING, here in Los Angeles, we just elected our own fairly progressive mayor, Eric Garcetti, two months ago, but I guess it’s only in New York where one example makes a trend). From my perspective, I’m more interested in the Democratic primary for Comptroller, which pits Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer against comeback hopeful Eliot Spitzer. The polls have been wildly divergent: Quinnipiac has over the past week shown a virtual dead heat, while the Marist poll gives Spitzer a double-digit lead. Polling is notoriously difficult in citywide elections generally, and especially for downballot races, so it’s hard to get a full read on this. But Quinnipiac shows a racial divide, with African-American voters going 60% for Spitzer and white voters 60% for Stringer.

Stringer wasn’t supposed to have any competition. He was the machine candidate, anointed by the Democratic establishment months if not years ago. He bided his time and then took what everyone considered his rightful place. Spitzer upended that. And right from the outset, the city establishment tried to sabotage him. Neal Kwatra, last seen ruining the credibility of Eric Schneiderman while serving as his chief of staff, signed up with and abruptly quit Spitzer’s campaign during the signature-gathering phase, in an incident that really didn’t look like an accident. The goal was apparently to leave Spitzer high and dry amid a tight deadline to get on the ballot, forcing him at least to spend lots of money on signature gatherers (a process Kwatra didn’t set up before leaving) and drain his war chest.

Kwatra quit because the local labor establishment supports Stringer, along with the other establishment groups in the city, led by the local chapter of NOW. The New York Times laid this out in late July.

In reality, this is about one thing and one thing only: money. New York has become a true tale of two cities in the Bloomberg era, and the rich don’t want Spitzer in control of $140 billion in city pension funds, making him instantly one of the world’s most important activist investors. That would be too taxing on the executive class, and they and their friends stick together. So women’s groups or other big-money donors can come up with some “legitimate” reason to oppose Spitzer, but nobody’s really fooled. .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/09/david-dayen-character-attack-on-spitzer-veiling-wall-street-led-establishment-assault-on-his-comptroller-candidacy.html#ebRoAGTGZBIf1TTQ.99

September 6, 2013

Bonds Bleed: Largest Bubble In History Unwinds, But The “Great Rotation” Into Stocks Is Deceptive...

Wolf Richter – Bonds Bleed: Largest Bubble In History Unwinds, But The “Great Rotation” Into Stocks Is Deceptive Wall Street Hype

By Wolf Richter, a San Francisco based executive, entrepreneur, start up specialist, and author, with extensive international work experience. Cross posted from Testosterone Pit.


The bond-fund massacre has been spectacular. Prime example: antsy investors yanked $7.7 billion in August out of the largest bond fund in the world, Pimco’s Total Return Fund. In July, they’d yanked out $7.5 billion, in June a record $14.5 billion. From May 1 through August 31, the fund’s assets shriveled 14%, from $292 billion to $251 billion; $26 billion from outflows and $15 billion from the shrinking value of the bonds. The fund lost 5.5% during that period.

By riding up the greatest bond bubble in the history of mankind, the fund has become known as a place where investors who don’t mind smaller returns but shudder at the thought of losing some of their principal could park their money without having to worry about it – but now, they’re worrying about it.

September is shaping up to be even worse. Bonds are cratering and yields are spiking worldwide. In the US, the 10-year Treasury yield kissed the magic 3.0% late Thursday, at least briefly, for the first time since July 2011, up from a low of 2.75% at the beginning of the month. It will drag other bond yields, mortgage rates, and other consumer and corporate rates behind it.

Pimco’s fund wasn’t alone: in total, $39.5 billion were yanked out of bond mutual funds in August, $21.1 billion in July, and a record of $69.1 billion in June. Emerging market funds, international bond funds… they’ve all gotten hit. ....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/09/wolf-richter-bonds-bleed-largest-bubble-in-history-unwinds-but-the-great-rotation-into-stocks-is-deceptive-wall-street-hype.html#qVyMktMACecCwco3.99

September 6, 2013

Fracking triggered more than 100 earthquakes in Ohio

(Grist) A single fracking wastewater well triggered 167 earthquakes in and around Youngstown, Ohio, during a single year of operation.

That’s according to a study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research by Won-Young Kim, a researcher at Columbia University. Earthquakes had never been recorded at Youngstown before 2010. Then, at the end of that year, frackers started pumping their waste from Marcellus Shale drilling projects into the 9,200-foot deep Northstar 1 injection well. Within two weeks, the area had experienced its first quake.

From January 2011 to February 2012, the area was jangled by an average of nearly 12 earthquakes every month. Many of them were imperceptible to residents, but they grew in intensity over time and ranged up to a home-rattling magnitude-3.9 temblor on the final day of 2011. That was one day after the injection well was last used for dumping waste; the Ohio Department of Natural Resources had ordered it shut down because of the escalating flurry of earthquakes. By that time, 495,622 barrels of wastewater had been crammed into it.

After the injection well fell into disuse, the string of earthquakes quickly tapered away. .....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://grist.org/news/fracking-triggered-more-than-100-earthquakes-in-ohio/

September 6, 2013

David Sirota: What Happened to the Anti-War Movement?

from truthdig:


What Happened to the Anti-War Movement?

Posted on Sep 5, 2013
By David Sirota


A mere 72 hours after President Obama delivered an encomium honoring the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, he announced his intention to pound yet another country with bombs. The oxymoron last week was noteworthy for how little attention it received. Yes, a president memorialized an anti-war activist who derided the U.S. government as “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world.” Then that same president quickly proposed yet more violence—this time in Syria.

Among a political press corps that rarely challenges the Washington principle of “kill foreigners first, ask questions later,” almost nobody mentioned the contradiction. Even worse, as Congress now debates whether to launch yet another military campaign in the Middle East, the anti-war movement that Dr. King represented—and that so vigorously opposed the last war—is largely silent. Sure, there have been a few perfunctory emails from liberal groups, but there seems to be little prospect for mass protest, raising questions about whether an anti-war movement even exists anymore.

So what happened to that movement? The shorter answer is: It was a victim of partisanship.

That’s the conclusion that emerges from a recent study by professors at the University of Michigan and Indiana University. Evaluating surveys of more than 5,300 anti-war protestors from 2007 to 2009, the researchers discovered that the many protestors who self-identified as Democrats “withdrew from anti-war protests when the Democratic Party achieved electoral success” in the 2008 presidential election. .....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/what_happened_to_the_anti-war_movement_20130905/

September 6, 2013

Making the World Safe for Banksters: Syria In the Cross-hairs

Making the World Safe for Banksters: Syria In the Cross-hairs

Posted on Sep 5, 2013
By Ellen Brown, Web of Debt

“The powers of financial capitalism had another far reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole.” —Prof. Caroll Quigley, Georgetown University, Tragedy and Hope (1966)

In an August 2013 article titled “Larry Summers and the Secret ‘End-game’ Memo,” Greg Palast posted evidence of a secret late-1990s plan devised by Wall Street and U.S. Treasury officials to open banking to the lucrative derivatives business. To pull this off required the relaxation of banking regulations not just in the US but globally. The vehicle to be used was the Financial Services Agreement of the World Trade Organization.

The “end-game” would require not just coercing support among WTO members but taking down those countries refusing to join. Some key countries remained holdouts from the WTO, including Iraq, Libya, Iran and Syria. In these Islamic countries, banks are largely state-owned; and “usury” – charging rent for the “use” of money – is viewed as a sin, if not a crime. That puts them at odds with the Western model of rent extraction by private middlemen. Publicly-owned banks are also a threat to the mushrooming derivatives business, since governments with their own banks don’t need interest rate swaps, credit default swaps, or investment-grade ratings by private rating agencies in order to finance their operations.

Bank deregulation proceeded according to plan, and the government-sanctioned and -nurtured derivatives business mushroomed into a $700-plus trillion pyramid scheme. Highly leveraged, completely unregulated, and dangerously unsustainable, it collapsed in 2008 when investment bank Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, taking a large segment of the global economy with it. The countries that managed to escape were those sustained by public banking models outside the international banking net.

These countries were not all Islamic. Forty percent of banks globally are publicly-owned. They are largely in the BRIC countries—Brazil, Russia, India and China—which house forty percent of the global population. They also escaped the 2008 credit crisis, but they at least made a show of conforming to Western banking rules. This was not true of the “rogue” Islamic nations, where usury was forbidden by Islamic teaching. To make the world safe for usury, these rogue states had to be silenced by other means. Having failed to succumb to economic coercion, they wound up in the crosshairs of the powerful US military. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/making_the_world_safe_for_banksters_syria_in_the_cross-hairs_20130905/?ln