WASHINGTON (AP) – FAA administrator Randy Babbitt resigned Tuesday as head of the Federal Aviation Administration following his arrest over the weekend on charges of drunken driving.
http://travel.usatoday.com/flights/story/2011-12-06/FAA-chief-resigns-after-drunken-driving-arrest/51680182/1
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Obama Strikes Populist Chord With Speech in Heartland
Doug Mills/The New York Times
The speech, and the days of buildup that preceded it, marked the president’s most stark attack so far on what he described as “breathtaking greed.”
OSAWATOMIE, Kan. — Venturing into the conservative heartland, President Obama on Tuesday delivered his most pointed appeal yet for using taxes and regulations to level the economic playing field.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/07/us/politics/obama-strikes-populist-chord-with-speech-in-heartland.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/07/us/politics/obama-strikes-populist-chord-with-speech-in-heartland.html
Newt Gingrich: Let Mad Scientists Terraform The Planet
Republican presidential frontrunner Newt Gingrich’s embracement of global warming pseudo-science isn’t limited to cringeworthy PSA’s with Nancy Pelosi, not does it stop at his advocacy for carbon taxes. Gingrich is also a vehement proponent of geoengineering.
Geoengineering is a product of the harebrained and potentially catastrophic scientific fringe which posits that using airliners to dump huge amounts of sulphur into the atmosphere, injecting the oceans with nitrogen, and parking giant spaceships above the earth to block out the sun, is necessary to avert global warming.
Who Killed the Postal Service?
USPS is slashing first-class delivery, cutting billions of dollars, and looking to cut thousands of workers. How did it get this bad?
Wikipedia
Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night will keep your postman from delivering that Mad Men DVD you've been waiting for. But legacy labor costs and the disruptive force of the Internet? Yeah, that'll do it.
Today, the Postal Service announced roughly $3 billion in service cuts that will slow down the delivery of first-class mail for the first time in 40 years. Starting in April, it plans to shutter more than half of its 461 mail processing centers, stretching out the time it will take to ship everything from Netflix DVDs to magazines. One-day delivery of stamped envelopes will all but certainly become a thing of the past.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/12/who-killed-the-postal-service/249508/
Wikipedia
Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night will keep your postman from delivering that Mad Men DVD you've been waiting for. But legacy labor costs and the disruptive force of the Internet? Yeah, that'll do it.
Today, the Postal Service announced roughly $3 billion in service cuts that will slow down the delivery of first-class mail for the first time in 40 years. Starting in April, it plans to shutter more than half of its 461 mail processing centers, stretching out the time it will take to ship everything from Netflix DVDs to magazines. One-day delivery of stamped envelopes will all but certainly become a thing of the past.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/12/who-killed-the-postal-service/249508/
Attorneys see challenges in federal probe of sex allegations against former Syracuse coach
Attorneys see challenges in federal probe of sex allegations against former Syracuse coach
ALBANY, N.Y. — Prosecutors investigating allegations of child molestation against former Syracuse assistant basketball coach Bernie Fine face obstacles that include finding corroborating proof, statutes of limitations on old accusations, and the credibility of the men who accuse him of sex abuse, according to defense attorneys.
The 65-year-old Fine, who had been coach Jim Boeheim’s top assistant since 1976, has adamantly denied wrongdoing. He was fired when three men made public accusations and ESPN played a 2002 recording of a phone call in which a woman ESPN identified as Laurie Fine tells accuser Bobby Davis she knew “everything that went on.”
news you can use december 06 2011
BP is accusing Halliburton of having "intentionally destroyed evidence" related to the explosion aboard an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico that led to the worst oil spill in U.S. history.
Be The First To Comment... and No Reactions Yet...
Her speech accused the “heavy-handed” mercenary’s legal team of the “attempted intimidation of a member of Congress.” You can watch it below.
Former German finance minister Peer Steinbrueck, an opposition leader and possible candidate for chancellor in 2013, warned on Tuesday of the perils of a collapse of the euro zone, saying it could revive nationalist sentiment in Europe.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have been put on a war footing amid increasing signs that the West is taking direct action to cripple Iran’s nuclear programme.
Last week the U.S. Senate passed 93-7 a version of the National Defense Authorization Act that includes provisions giving the military the right to detain you forever and without charge if they think you're some kind of terrorist. Consider it an early holiday present! There is no exchange policy, sorry.
The leaders of France and Germany agreed a master plan on Monday for imposing budget discipline across the euro zone, saying the EU's basic treaty will need to be changed in the search for a sweeping solution to its debt crisis.
The Federal Reserve, along with the 17 euro zone national central banks, may help provide the International Monetary Fund with funds that could be used to aid debt-ridden states, a German newspaper said.
France is the latest nation to voice opposition against genetically modified crops, with GM maize unlikely to hit French fields next year despite the end of a ban Monsanto maize.
France and Germany have agreed on a series of reforms to address the euro zone sovereign debt crisis that will be presented to EU President Herman Van Rompuy on Wednesday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said after a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday.
At Los Alamos National Laboratory, scientists and engineers refer to their planned new $6 billion nuclear lab by its clunky acronym, CMRR, short for Chemistry Metallurgy Research Replacement Facility. But as a work in progress for three decades and with hundreds of millions of dollars already spent, nomenclature is among the minor issues.
Many people have commented on the Congressional vote to codify the authoritarian powers asserted by George W. Bush and Barack Obama, i.e., the arbitrary, unchallengeable power to declare anyone on earth — including American citizens — an “enemy of the state” and incarcerate them, indefinitely, outside of due process, in military custody.
Many former US intelligence officials and Iran experts believe last month’s explosion at a military base near Tehran was part of a covert effort by the US, Israel and other states to disable Iran’s nuclear and missile programs, The Los Angeles Times reported late Sunday.
Putin compares US funded NGOs to Judas the betrayer.
Mexico’s fight against drug cartels, according to current and former federal law enforcement officials.
Iran warned the West on Sunday any move to block its oil exports would more than double crude prices with devastating consequences on a fragile global economy.
With the Russian threat to cut land routes for supply to Nato troops in Afghanistan, the Afghan battleground may turn into a cold deathtrap for Nato, defence analysts believe. They say that Pakistan should utilise the opportunity for a peaceful and prosperous Pakistan by pulling it out of the American war.
The Wisconsin State Capitol building has been the scene of protests since February, when Gov. Scott Walker started the process of passing a law that severely limits collective bargaining for public employees in the state.
Amid conflicting reports that a huge explosion at Iran's uranium conversion facility in Isfahan occurred last week, speculation was rife that Israel and the United States were stepping-up covert attacks against defense and nuclear installations.
Syria has been given a final deadline by the Arab League to accept international observers into the country or face sanctions.
BBC rewrites 10 years of history and declares Pakistan the new enemy.
The head of Pakistan’s military has ordered his country’s forces to respond instantly to any future aggression along the border with Afghanistan without waiting for instructions from high command. Pakistani military sources confirmed to VOA Friday that General Ashfaq Kayani has told his soldiers to fully retaliate “irrespective of the cost and consequences” to any future aggression, following the deadly NATO bombing on two Pakistani border outposts nearly a week ago.
A surveillance drone flying over western Afghanistan had gone out of control late last week and may be the one Iran said it had shot down over its own airspace, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has said. “The UAV to which the Iranians are referring may be a US unarmed reconnaissance aircraft that had been flying a mission over western Afghanistan late last week. The operators of the UAV lost control of the aircraft and had been working to determine its status,” an ISAF statement said on Sunday.
Globalists Grind Development to a Halt in Myanmar (Burma).
Top officials willfully concealed the true extent of the 2008-'09 bailouts from Congress and the public.
Preface: This post does not discuss whether or not 9/11 was a “false flag” operation or an “inside job”. Anything other than a discussion of the negligence of the Bush administration is unnecessary for the purposes of this essay, and is thus beyond the scope of this post.
Despite chest-pounding Russian protests, the US is moving ahead with plans to install a missile defense shield to protect NATO European territory, and has committed four of its 60 Arleigh Burke-class destroyers to sit off the coast of Spain.
Target Syria – the strategic prize that outstrips Libya. The stage is set. The stakes couldn’t be higher. Libya 2.0 equals Syria? It’s more like Libya 2.0 remix. With the same R2P (”responsibility to protect”) rationale – starring civilians bombed into ”democracy”. But with no UN Security Council resolution (Russia and China will veto it). Instead, Turkey shines, fanning the flames of civil war.
The U.S. Federal Reserve and other central banks must not succumb to calls for additional help from monetary authorities in the face of high budget deficits, two top Fed officials said on Friday.
Under fire for losing track of weapons that turned up at crime scenes along the Southwest border, the Justice Department has taken the extraordinary step of formally withdrawing an inaccurate letter about the episode that it sent to Congress earlier this year.
As everyone realizes by now, Congress’ push for indefinite detention includes American citizens on American soil.
“The information contained in our shared [genome] is so fundamental, and requires so much further research to understand its utility, that patenting it at the earliest stage is like putting up a whole lot of unnecessary toll booths on the road to discovery”, said National Institutes of Health Director and former head of the Human Genome Project Francis Collins in his 2010 book The Language of Life: DNA and the Revolution in Personalized Medicine.
In a shocking article published in Reuters, Felix Salmon confirmed what the so-called conspiracy theorists have said all along: former Secretary of the U.S. Treasury Hank Paulson was giving insider tips to his cronies at Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street titans which directly benefited them.
With overt traitor ElBaradei outed, Successor Hamza now in imperialists’ lap.
Armed U.S. police officers will for the first time be allowed to operate in Canada along with the RCMP as part of far-reaching changes in Canadian-American border operations to be unveiled next week by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and President Barack Obama.
According to the limited GAO audit of the Federal Reserve that was mandated by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the grand total of all the secret bailouts conducted by the Federal Reserve during the last financial crisis comes to a whopping $16.1 trillion.
The government lawyers — CIA counsel Stephen Preston and Pentagon counsel Jeh Johnson — did not directly address the al-Alwaki case. But they said U.S. citizens don't have immunity when they're at war with the United States.
The Massachusetts attorney general has filed a lawsuit against five large U.S. banks accusing them of deceptive foreclosure practices, a signal of ebbing confidence that a multi-state agreement can be worked out.
And to think that Attorney General Eric Holder is getting testy about congressional calls for his resignation. After all, the Justice Department has nothing to hide, right?
Forecasting a future of robotic warfare in which perverted science is put at the service of its Empire, the U.S. has built 60 bases around the world for its unmanned, remotely controlled killer drone warplanes. And more bases are under construction.
Recently I reported on the highly controversial bill S. 1253, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for the fiscal year of 2012 which was introduced back in June.
WIN
The federal government has not done enough to oversee the treatment of America's foster children with powerful mind-altering drugs, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report to be released Thursday.
Stocks Rocket 4%, Dow Closes Above 12,000
LOS ANGELES—Sanitation workers wearing hazmat suits and masks moved in to City Hall park Wednesday to start cleaning up tons of trash, debris and human waste left after police evicted the 2-month-old Occupy LA tent camp in a mostly non-violent pre-dawn raid that resulted in the arrest of almost 300 people.
Update: Armed militia is patrolling in Tskhinvali in South Ossetia, the occupied region of Georgia. As tension is growing, Russia has deployed units of the internal troops in the region.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) called for the U.S. Federal Reserve to be reformed after Bloomberg reported the central bank secretly loaned nearly $8 trillion to financial institutions from 2007 to 2009.
The Libyan government apparently wants to share its successful experience of overthrowing the Gaddafi regime with like-minded Syrians. It has sent 600 of its troops to support local militants against the Assad regime, according to media reports.
Defying the Obama administration’s threat of a veto, the Senate on Tuesday voted to increase the role of the military in imprisoning suspected members of Al Qaeda and its allies — including people arrested inside the United States.
A notary public who signed tens of thousands of false documents in a massive foreclosure scam before blowing the whistle on the scandal has been found dead in her Las Vegas home.
“A Middle East Dictatorship Has More Democratic Accountability for Abuse of Power, Including Torture, Than the US Under Obama”
Have you ever been so poor that you had to live in your car? Have you ever been so low on funds that the only place you could afford to live was a rat-infested motel?
The federal government has agreed to pay $2.5 million to the widow and children of the first person killed in the anthrax letter attacks of 2001, settling a lawsuit claiming that the Army did not adequately secure its supply of the deadly pathogen.
Blatant lies told by alleged “human rights activists” led to ignominious NATO-sanctioned brutality and ultimately brought BP, Shell, Total-sponsored Petroleum Institute representative, Abdurrahim el-Keib, into power in Libya. Now, these same corporate-financier interests, through their same networks of propaganda, duplicity and deception, are laying the ground work for a repeat performance in Syria.
The arrival of 7 and half tons of tear gas to Egypt’s Suez port created conflict after the responsible officials at the port refused to sign and accept it for fear it would be used to crackdown on Egyptian protesters.
Italy has had preliminary discussions with the International Monetary Fund about financial support to cope with the euro zone’s debt crisis, possibly co-funded by national European central banks, but no decision has been taken, several sources close to the situation said.
Standard & Poor’s ratings service just cut the ratings of Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup from A to A-.
Suicide Bombing Kills 52 at Shi'ite Shrine in Afghan Capital
Photo: AP
Afghan policemen are seen at the site of an explosion in Kandahar, south of Kabul, Afghanistan, December 6, 2011.
Officials say at least one attacker detonated explosives near the Abul Fazel shrine as pilgrims gathered Tuesday to mark the Shi'ite festival of Ashura. More than 100 people also were wounded in the blast.
"The ceremony was about to finish," says Kabul police chief General Mohammad Ayoub Salangi. "A new group arrived and the suicide bombers placed themselves among the new group. As a result of the suicide bombing, unfortunately, some of our Muslim mourners have been killed."
Eyewitnesses say that some hospitals in the area are overwhelmed with the number of wounded.
"I took this wounded person to this emergency hospital for treatment, but here, there is not treatment, and no one cares that I have been waiting here for two hours," said Shah Hussein, a Kabul resident. "I need to take this person to another hospital."
Authorities say the number of casualties is expected to rise.
Meanwhile, officials say a second explosion targeted a shrine in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, killing four people. It is not clear whether Shi'ites were also the target of the second attack.
The Taliban released a statement on Tuesday saying it did not plan the attacks, calling them "cruel and indiscriminate" and blaming them on the "invading enemy."
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/Suicide-Bombing-Kills-52-at-Shiite-Shrine-in-Afghan-Capital-135095853.html
Why Gingrich is surging in Iowa
(Credit: Nati Harnik/AP/dapd) 
This post originally appeared on Slate.
DES MOINES--Conservatives prize constancy above all else, but if Republicans are really faced with a choice between Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, this will be a nomination defined by reversals. Nominating Gingrich will require conservatives to embrace a sweeping ideological reversal. Nominating Romney will require Republicans to embrace a candidate who is defined by personal reversals.
If Mitt Romney is the nominee, conservatives will have to reverse themselves on the idea of constancy itself. His flips are numerous and on videotape. Gingrich would need persuade two of the most powerful forces in modern Republican politics to reverse themselves. Social conservatives and Tea Party activists would appear to have insurmountable objections to Gingrich. Social conservative leaders have long argued that presidents must have a sterling private history. Gingrich has the most checkered personal past in the Republican field, with two divorces and an admitted adulterous affair. Tea Party activists, meanwhile, largely blame establishment politicians in both parties for government bloat and a system that rewards the well-connected and influential. Gingrich was in Congress for 20 years and afterward joined the non-elected establishment, making millions working for Freddie Mac and other private companies seeking influence and advice in Washington.
Full CBS News coverage: Newt Gingrich
Gingrich appears to be well on his way to winning over social conservatives and Tea Party supporters in Iowa. Gingrich is the front-runner and leads Romney by between 8 and 9 points in the most recent Des Moines Register poll and the NBC/Marist poll.
Social conservatives have played a key role in the state, voting Pat Robertson to second in the 1988 caucuses and giving Mike Huckabee the win in 2008. The polls show evangelical voters backing Gingrich, who regularly and freely admits his past sins. (Thirty-one percent of evangelical voters support him in the Marist poll; Romney, the next closest competitor gets 14 percent.) Mitt Romney was the one who was supposed to be helped by the fact that social conservatives were going to be less focused on family values issues in this election. Right now Gingrich appears to be benefitting.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57337487-503544/why-gingrich-is-surging-in-iowa/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)