Feds Plan to Harness the Huge Amounts of Data It Collects

White House Aims to Tap Power of Government Data

March 29, 2012

National Journal - The White House announced a plan on Thursday to pour millions of dollars into harnessing the huge amounts of data, from genetic databases to earthquake tracking, collected by government agencies.

The "Big Data Research and Development Initiative” will provide more than $200 million "to greatly improve the tools and techniques needed to access, organize, and glean discoveries from huge volumes of digital data," the Office of Science and Technology Policy said in a statement.

The effort will span half a dozen agencies, from the Defense and Energy departments to the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health.

“In the same way that past federal investments in information-technology R&D led to dramatic advances in supercomputing and the creation of the Internet, the initiative we are launching today promises to transform our ability to use Big Data for scientific discovery, environmental and biomedical research, education, and national security,” office Director John Holdren said in the statement.

Officials hope the additional funding will help develop new technologies to collect, store, manage, analyze, and share massive amounts of data; and expand the number of people working on data projects. Such data can then be put to use solving problems in science, engineering, national security, and education, among other areas.

Too often, the government is gathering unmanageable amounts of information, said Marcia McNutt, director of the U.S. Geological Survey, which is proposing programs to help understand climate change, earthquakes, and other environmental issues.

“We’re in danger of drowning in data while starving for understanding,” she said at an event on Thursday.

Collecting information is useless without ways to analyze and understand, Holdren said at the event.

Data, he said, gives government the “ability to move from data to knowledge to action.”

Specific projects include an NIH partnership with Amazon to use cloud services to give the public access to the international 1000 Genomes Project, which is the world's largest set of data on human genetic variation.

The Department of Defense and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, meanwhile, plan to spend millions of dollars to develop ways to sift through intelligence; and create systems that can make decisions on their own.

Brenda Dietrich, chief technology officer for IBM’s Business Analytics program, said the proposals are a “big step forward” for efforts to harness and understand the information being collected every day.

“Now we have a huge opportunity to shift data analysis from being a craft being done by individuals to a large collective intelligence—where people share data, tools and a common computing infrastructure,” she said in a blog post. “This will make more knowledge available to more people, and to society, more quickly.”

2012 to be Bigger Year for Foreclosures Than 2010; 2011 Saw a Decline Because of 'Robo-signing' Scandal

Americans Brace for Next Foreclosure Wave

April 4, 2012

Reuters - Half a decade into the deepest U.S. housing crisis since the 1930s, many Americans are hoping the crisis is finally nearing its end. House sales are picking up across most of the country, the plunge in prices is slowing and attempts by lenders to claim back properties from struggling borrowers dropped by more than a third in 2011, hitting a four-year low.

But a painful part two of the slump looks set to unfold: Many more U.S. homeowners face the prospect of losing their homes this year as banks pick up the pace of foreclosures.

"We are right back where we were two years ago. I would put money on 2012 being a bigger year for foreclosures than 2010," said Mark Seifert, executive director of Empowering & Strengthening Ohio's People (ESOP), a counseling group with 10 offices in Ohio.

"Last year was an anomaly, and not in a good way," he said.

In 2011, the "robo-signing" scandal, in which foreclosure documents were signed without properly reviewing individual cases, prompted banks to hold back on new foreclosures pending a settlement.

Five major banks eventually struck that settlement with 49 U.S. states in February. Signs are growing the pace of foreclosures is picking up again, something housing experts predict will again weigh on home prices before any sustained recovery can occur.

Mortgage servicing provider Lender Processing Services reported in early March that U.S. foreclosure starts jumped 28 percent in January.

More conclusive national data is not yet available. But watchdog group, 4closurefraud.org which helped uncover the "robo-signing" scandal, says it has turned up evidence of a large rise in new foreclosures between March 1 and 24 by three big banks in Palm Beach County in Florida, one of the states hit hardest by the housing crash.

Although foreclosure starts were 50 percent or more lower than for the same period in 2010, those begun by Deutsche Bank were up 47 percent from 2011. Those of Wells Fargo's rose 68 percent and Bank of America's, including BAC Home Loans Servicing, jumped nearly seven-fold -- 251 starts versus 37 in the same period in 2011. Bank of America said it does not comment on data provided by other sources. Wells Fargo and Deutsche Bank did not comment.

Housing experts say localized warning signs of a new wave of foreclosure are likely to be replicated across much of the United States.

Online foreclosure marketplace RealtyTrac estimated that while foreclosures dropped slightly nationwide in February from January and from February 2011, they rose in 21 states and jumped sharply in cities like Tampa (64 percent), Chicago (43 percent) and Miami (53 percent).

RealtyTrac CEO Brandon Moore said the "numbers point to a gradually rising foreclosure tide as some of the barriers that have been holding back foreclosures are removed."

One big difference to the early years of the housing crisis, which was dominated by Americans saddled with the most toxic subprime products -- with high interest rates where banks asked for no money down or no proof of income -- is that today it's mostly Americans with ordinary mortgages whose ability to meet payment have been hit by the hard economic times.

"The subprime stuff is long gone," said Michael Redman, founder of 4closurefraud.org. "Now the folks being affected are hardworking, everyday Americans struggling because of the economy."

"HARD TO CATCH UP"

Until December 2010, Daniel Burns, 52, had spent his working life in the trucking industry as a long-haul driver and manager. When daily loads at the small family business where he worked tailed off, he lost his job.

Unable to cover his mortgage, Burns received a grant from a government fund using money repaid from the 2008 bank bailout. That grant is due to expire in early 2013 and Burns is holding out on hopeful comments from his former employer that he might get his job back if the economy recovers.

"If things don't pick up, I will be out on the street," he said, staring from his living room window at two abandoned houses over the road in the middle-class Cleveland suburb of Garfield Heights, the noise of traffic from a nearby Interstate highway filling the street.

Underscoring the uncertainty of his situation, Burns' cell phone rings and a pre-recorded message announces that his unemployment benefits are due to be cut off in April.

A bit further up the shore of Lake Erie, Cristal Fell, who works night shifts entering data for a trucking company in Toledo, has fallen behind on her mortgage a second time because her ex-husband lost his job and her overtime was cut.

"Once you get behind it's so hard to catch up," she said.

Fell, a mother of four, hopes the economy will gather enough speed to help her avoid any risk of losing her home. Her ex-husband has found a new job and she is getting more overtime, so she hopes she can catch up on her mortgage by the fall.

Burns and Fell are the new face of the U.S. housing crisis: Middle class, suburban or rural with a conventional 30-year fixed mortgage at a reasonable interest rate, but unemployed or underemployed. Although the national unemployment rate has fallen to 8.3 percent from its peak of 10 percent in October 2009, nearly 13 million Americans remain jobless, meaning many are struggling to keep up with their mortgage payments.

Real estate company Zillow Inc says more than one in four American homeowners were "under water" or owed more than their homes were worth in the fourth quarter of 2011. The crisis has wiped out some $7 trillion in U.S. household wealth.

"We're seeing more people coming through who have good loans with reasonable interest rates," said Ed Jacob, executive director of non-profit lender Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago Inc, which provides foreclosure counseling. "But in many households only one person works now instead of two, or they had their hours cut."

"The answer to the housing crisis now is job creation."

EARLY SIGNS OF UPTICK?

Zillow expects the resurgence in foreclosures this year, combined with excess inventory of unsold, bank-owned homes will contribute to a 3.7 percent national decline in prices before the market hits bottom in 2013 and stays there until 2016.

"The hangover from this crisis will far outlast the party of the boom years," said Zillow chief economist Stan Humphries.

Getting through the remaining foreclosures and dealing with the resulting flood of homes on the market in the wake of the bank settlement is a necessary part of the healing process for the U.S. housing market, he added.

According to leading broker dealer Amherst Securities, some 9.5 million homes are still at risk of default and in February it said it expected to see the uptick in foreclosures start to hit in March and April.

There is other evidence that many of the foreclosures that did not happen in 2011 will happen this year.

A January report by the Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project in New York found that in the first half of 2011 the number of 90-day pre-foreclosure notices in New York City outnumbered court foreclosure actions by a ratio of 14 to one, indicating that while proceedings were initiated against many homeowners, they were left incomplete.

"Now the banks have a settlement, foreclosure numbers for 2012 are going to be high," said NEDAP co-director Josh Zinner.

A recent survey by the California Reinvestment Coalition, an umbrella group of nearly 300 non-profit groups in the state, of member agencies found 75 percent of respondents expected increased demand for their foreclosure prevention services in 2012 but more than a third had to scale back services because of funding cuts.

"Funding is a major concern given what our members expect for this year," said associate director Kevin Stein.

All this has non-profits intensifying calls for the Federal Housing Finance Agency to drop its opposition to allowing the government-backed mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac it regulates to reduce principal for underwater homeowners.

Principal reduction involves reducing the amount borrowers owe in order to make a loan modification affordable for struggling homeowners. Republicans and the FHFA oppose principal reduction because of the risk of "moral hazard"- that homeowners who do not need help will seek to abuse largesse and have their mortgages reduced too.

ESOP in Ohio engages in "hits" on Chase branches -- they say Chase is the least accommodating major bank when it comes to working with struggling homeowners -- where they try to hand letters to bank mangers calling on chief executive Jamie Dimon to lobby FHFA head Edward DeMarco for principal reductions. A Chase spokeswoman said the bank has made "extensive efforts" to work with homeowners, helping 775,000 borrowers stay in their homes since early 2009, avoiding foreclosure "more than twice as often as we have had to foreclose." Housing groups like ESOP maintain, as they have throughout the housing crisis, that unless the FHFA embraces widespread principal reduction, many more under water borrowers face losing their homes.

"Until banks engage in meaningful principal reduction as a matter of course," ESOP's Seifert said after a recent protest at a Chase branch in Cleveland, "this crisis will not end."

Michelle Obama's Campaign Against Obesity is a Campaign for Taxing 'Junk Food' and Rationing Healthcare for the Obese under Obamacare

Michelle Obama on 'Biggest Loser' to fight obesity

April 4, 2012

AFP - US First Lady Michelle Obama appeared on Tuesday night's episode of "The Biggest Loser" to promote her campaign against obesity -- and has hosted the US diet reality show's first White House workout.

The six competitors still vying for the title of "Biggest Loser" -- the one who loses the most weight -- got the shock of their lives when they were invited to Washington by the wife of US President Barack Obama.

After having makeovers for the occasion, the six contestants met Obama and were reunited with loved ones -- prompting floods of tears of joy.

"Congratulations, you have shown to millions of Americans that each of us can make positive changes in our lives," Obama said in a video message to contestants.

"It's overwhelming for me," said 43-year-old competitor Mark.

The scenes of Obama working out with contestants at the White House are due to air next Tuesday, according to NBC, which broadcasts the program.

Read More...

Student Loan Bubble Engineered by the Corporate State

Recovery Threatened by Runaway Student Loan Debt

April 4, 2012

AP - The federal student loan program seemed like a great idea back in 1965: Borrow to go to college now, pay it back later when you have a job.

But many borrowers these days are close to flunking out, tripped up by painful real-life lessons in math and economics.

Surging above $1 trillion, U.S. student loan debt has surpassed credit card and auto-loan debt. This debt explosion jeopardizes the fragile recovery, increases the burden on taxpayers and possibly sets the stage for a new economic crisis.

With a still-wobbly jobs market, these loans are increasingly hard to pay off. Unable to find work, many students have returned to school, further driving up their indebtedness.

Average student loan debt recently topped $25,000, up 25 percent in 10 years. And the mushrooming debt has direct implications for taxpayers, since 8 in 10 of these loans are government-issued or guaranteed.

President Barack Obama has offered a raft of proposals aimed at fine-tuning the system and making repayments easier. Yet the predicament of debt-burdened former students has failed to generate much notice in the GOP presidential campaign. Instead, the candidates are dismissive of government student loan programs in general and Obama's proposals in particular.

Rick Santorum went so far as to label Obama "a snob" for urging all Americans to try to obtain some form of post-high-school education — even though some polls show over 90 percent of parents expect their children to go to college.

Front-runner Mitt Romney denounces what he calls a "government takeover" of the program. Newt Gingrich calls student loans a "Ponzi scheme" under which students spend the borrowed money now but will "have to pay off the national debt" later in life as taxpayers. And Ron Paul wants to abolish the program entirely.

Lifting student debt higher and higher is the escalating cost of attending schools, with tuition increasing far faster than the rate of inflation. And enrollment has been rising for years, a trend that accelerated through the recent recession, fueling even more borrowing.

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, argues that government loans and subsidies are not particularly cost-effective for taxpayers because "universities and colleges just raise their tuition. It doesn't improve affordability and it doesn't make it easier to go to college."

"Of course, it's very hard on the kids who have gone through this, because they're on the hook," Zandi added. "And they're not going to be able to get off the hook."

It's not just young adults who are saddled.

"Parents and the federal government shoulder a substantial part of the postsecondary education bill," said a new report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. And some of the borrowers are baby boomers, near or at retirement age.

The Fed research found that Americans 60 and older still owe about $36 billion in student loans.

Overall, nearly 3 in 10 of all student loans have past-due balances of 30 days or more, the report said.

Complicating the picture further: Like child support and income taxes, student loans usually can't be discharged or reduced in bankruptcy proceedings, as can most other delinquent debt. This restriction was extended in 2005 to also include student loans made by banks and other private financial institutions.

"This could very well be the next debt bomb for the U.S. economy," said William Brewer, president of the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys.

"As bankruptcy lawyers, we're the first to see the cracks in the foundation," Brewer said. "We were warning of mortgage problems in 2006 and 2007. The industry was saying we've got it under control. Nobody had it under control. Now we're seeing the same signs of distress. We're seeing huge defaults on student loans and people driven into financial difficulties because of them."

A report by his group noted that missing just one student loan payment puts a borrower in delinquent status. After nine months, the borrower is in default. Once a default occurs, the full amount of the loan is due immediately. For those with federal student loans, the government has vast collection powers, including the ability to garnishee a borrower's wages and to seize tax refunds and Social Security and other federal benefit payments.

Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at IHS Global Insight, said the student loan crisis may not torpedo the financial sector as the mortgage meltdown nearly did in 2008, but it could slam taxpayers and the still-ailing housing market.

"When student loans don't get repaid, debts are going to be transferred from the borrower to the taxpayer," further raising federal deficits, he said. And overburdened student-loan borrowers may fail to qualify for mortgages and "stay much longer in their parents' homes," Gault said.

Young adults forming households have historically been the bulk of first-time home buyers — and their scarcity could dampen any housing recovery.

"When kids do graduate, the most daunting challenge can be the cost of college," Obama said in his State of the Union address, asking Congress to extend a temporary cut — due to expire in July — in federal student-loan rates.

The reduced federal rate is now 3.4 percent. It the cuts aren't extended, it will rise to 6.8 percent.

Still, Obama said:

"We can't just keep subsidizing skyrocketing tuition. We'll run out of money."

The Democratic minority on the House Education Committee and Workforce Committee released new figures showing that more than seven million students will incur an additional $6.3 billion in repayment costs for the 2012-2013 school year if student loan interest rates double on July 1.

Obama also asked Congress to extend the current tuition tax credit, double work-study jobs over five years and let borrowers consolidate multiple student loans at reduced interest rates.

But in this intensely partisan year, any congressional action seems dubious.

"I wish I could tell you that there's a place to find really cheap money or free money and pay for everyone's education, but that's just not going to happen," Romney says. "Now the government is taking over the student loan business. I think you'll get less competition."

The government has not taken over the student loan business. The private loan industry is still writing student loans, usually at interest rates far above the government ones.

What the Republicans are zeroing in on is a section in Obama's health care overhaul that eliminated big banks as middlemen in managing federal school-loan programs. Also, the new federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is clamping down on the lightly regulated private student loan industry.

Santorum, who now says calling Obama a "snob" for promoting higher education was "probably not the smartest" choice of words, has been seeking to rally blue-collar support by emphasizing that many jobs do not require college degrees — and suggesting many colleges are liberal bastions.

Related:

• Big Labor, Big Business, Big Government = One Entity, the Corporate State
  
• The Goal of the Corporate State Is to Create a Total Control Society
• Obama is 'Uncle Tom' to the Multinational Global Corporations
• The Corporate State and the Charter School Movement
• Obama Seeks Votes by Offering Student Loan Relief
• Student Loan Market Created a Tuition Bubble Rivaling the Housing Bubble

Campus Police Pepper Spray Santa Monica College Students

States are facing astronomical budget deficits because of promises made behind closed doors during collective bargaining with public sector unions for wages, health care and pensions plans. So expect tuition and fees at state universities to continue to skyrocket.

State Budget Solutions' second annual state deficit report reveals aggregate state debt presently exceeds $4 trillion. The states with the largest total deficits include California, New York, Texas, New Jersey, and Illinois, respectively. California hit the bottom of the list with a deficit of more than $612 billion. The same states made the bottom of list last year, too. [Source]

Students Angry Over Pricey Courses Pepper-sprayed

April 4, 2012

AP - Campus police pepper-sprayed as many as 30 demonstrators after Santa Monica College students angry over a plan to offer high-priced courses tried to push their way into a trustees meeting, authorities said.

Raw video posted Tuesday evening on the Internet showed students chanting,

"Let us in, let us in" and "No cuts, no fees, education should be free."

Students were angry because only a handful were allowed into the meeting, and when their request to move the meeting to a larger venue was denied, they began to enter the room, said David Steinman, an environmental advocate who is running for Congress as a Green Party candidate.

Two officers were apparently backed up against a wall, and began using force to keep the students out of the room. Steinman said both officers used pepper spray.

"People were gasping and choking," Steinman said.

Marioly Gomez, 21, said she was standing in a hallway outside the meeting with several hundred other students who wanted to get into the meeting.

"I got pepper-sprayed without warning," she said.

Santa Monica College spokesman Bruce Smith said he believed it was the first time pepper spray had been used to subdue students on campus.

"It was the judgment of police that the crowd was getting out of hand and it was a safety issue," he said.

Trustee David Finkel called on campus officials to look into Tuesday evening's events.

"I think it gave the college a black eye which I know it didn't deserve and certainly didn't need," he said.

Video of a similar incident at UC Davis in November, in which an officer doused a row of student protesters with pepper spray as they sat passively, drew worldwide attention. It became a rallying point for the Occupy movement.

Firefighters were called to the campus at about 7:20 p.m. Five people were evaluated at the scene and two were taken to a hospital, Santa Monica Fire Department Capt. Judah Mitchell said. Their conditions were not known, but the injuries were not believed to be serious, Mitchell said.

Students have been upset over a new plan that involves the formation of a nonprofit foundation which would offer core courses for about $600 each, or about $200 per unit — about four times the current price. The program is designed to cope with rising student demand as state funds dwindle.

The move has raised questions about whether it would create two tiers of students in a system designed to make education accessible to everyone and whether it's even legal under state education law.

Community colleges statewide have lost $809 million in state funding over the past three years, causing schools to turn away about 200,000 students and drastically cut the number of classes offered.

Trustee Louise Jaffe said during the meeting that she doesn't believe the students want to listen.

"We spoke for four hours and we weren't understood," she said.

Related:

• Police Pepper Spray and Arrest Peaceful Student Protesters at UC Davis
  
• Police Violence on University of California Campuses: Pepper-spraying UC Davis Campus Police Lieutenant's Salary was $110,243 in 2010
  
• Federated University Police Officers Association Says Operations Plan Includes the Use of Pepper Spray
  
• The Truth About Student Loans
• $4 Trillion in Deficits for State and City Pensions Could Destroy the U.S. Economy

Department of Homeland Security Buying Up Ammo Supplies

Disarming America: Homeland Security Buys Up Ammo Supplies

March 30, 2012

Infowars.com - Homeland Security is arming itself to the teeth.

Why Would HHS Buy Bullets? Are They Expecting Something?

March 30, 2012

Conservative Musings - In the past couple weeks, we have written here about our concerns that there will be no election and that we do not understand the press and the threats of riots if the killer of Trayvon Martin is not arrested. Add on top of that the tweet-gate of Roseanne Barr and Spike Lee and one has to wonder what is going to happen next.

Today we read about the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) buying bullets! I thought all they did was search old ladies and kids at the airport, oh yes, that was the TSA! Why would the DHS be buying half a trillion bullets? Sounds to me like they are expecting bad things to happen.

So maybe we are not as paranoid as some have thought! We checked the internet and there is not much more than the initial story which is posted below. There probably will not be many details released due to “national security.” If so, we can expect that bad things are on the way!

What does this story tell your paranoia meter?

Should Common Citizens Fear the Military Detention Bill?

How Does a ‘Common Citizen’ Know If They Can Be Target of NDAA?

March 30, 2012

Fire Dog Lake - At the start of the first hearing on a lawsuit challenging the Homeland Battlefield Act, a federal judge appeared to be “extremely skeptical” that those pursuing the challenge had grounds to sue the US government. However, by the end of the hearing, the judge acknowledged plaintiffs had made some strong arguments on why there was reason to be concerned about the Act, which passed as part of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on New Year’s Eve last year.

Adam Klasfeld of Courthouse News, one of the few media organizations that actually covered the hearing yesterday, reported that Judge Katherine B. Forrest cited the lack of definition of terms such as “substantial support” or “associated forces,” which appear in the law. Without clearly knowing what “substantial support” for terrorism or “associated forces” of terrorist groups could be, Forrest asked,

“How does the common citizen know?”

The government lawyers contended that the Homeland Battlefield Law “affirms” the Authorization to Use Military Force passed under President George W. Bush. But, according to Klasfeld, Forrest asked why language had changed.

“Congress writes legislation for a reason, right?”

There must be a purpose for the change.

There are seven plaintiffs trying to sue right now. Dubbed the “Freedom Seven” by their attorneys, the plaintiffs include: Chris Hedges, a journalist; Daniel Ellsberg, who is known for releasing the Pentagon Papers; Noam Chomsky, a well-known writer; Icelandic MP Birgitta Jonsdottir; Tangerine Bolen, founder of RevolutionTruth.org; Kai Wargalla, deputy director of Revolution Truth and founder of Occupy London; and Alexa O’Brien, journalist and founder of US Day of Rage.

Paul Harris of The Guardian also covered the hearing. His report indicates that the government did not block Icelandic MP Birgitta Jonsdottir’s testimony from being entered into the record.

Jonsdottir, whose past association with WikiLeaks led the Justice Department to subpoena her Twitter account, had been warned that the State Department might prevent her testimony from being read in court, but author Naomi Wolf was permitted to read Jonsdottir’s statement.

Noting that many US political leaders have labeled WikiLeaks a “terrorist” organization, the statement read by Wolf explained why Jonsdottir had refused to come give lectures in the United States for fear of being detained.

[The NDAA] provisions create a greater sense of fear since now the federal government will have a tool with which to incarcerate me outside of the normal requirements of the criminal law. Because of this change in the legal situation, I am now no longer able to travel to the US for fear of being taken into custody as as having ‘substantially supported’ groups that are considered as either terrorist groups or their associates.

Bolen and Ellsberg did not testify on Thursday, but Hedges, O’Brien and Wargalla each appeared in person to testify. Harris reported that Hedges said he "feared he might be subject to arrest under the terms of NDAA if interviewing or meeting Islamic radicals could constitute giving them ‘substantial support’ under the terms of the law." O’Brien described in detail how a private intelligence firm was trying to link US Day of Rage to “Islamic fundamentalists.” And, Wargalla testified on how the City of London had listed Occupy London alongside al Qaeda and extremist groups from Belarus and Colombia.

Lawyer Benjamin Torrance, who was in court to represent the government, declined to answer if any of the plaintiffs concerned about the law could be targeted. He said he could not “make specific representations regarding specific plaintiffs.” He could not say if Icelandic MP Birgitta Jonsdottir “would have been detained had she flown in from Iceland.” All he could say was that “an association with WikiLeaks alone would not make her subject to the NDAA.”

The reluctance to answer specifically, though routine, led Forrest to state that the government was not helping its case that citizens do not have any reason to fear the law. The judge said,

“If people weren’t worried before those series of questions, they could worry about it now,” she said.

And, with regards to Hedges, who filed the lawsuit against the government, she added,

“It sounded like Mr. Hedges was all over co-belligerents.”

The hearing that played out in court yesterday was held to determine if any of the plaintiffs had grounds to sue. Klasfeld noted,

“To win the right to sue, only one of the seven plaintiffs needs to establish a ‘reasonable fear’ of being detained for free speech. The plaintiffs that remain standing can then challenge the law on constitutional grounds.”

Back in December, Congress passed the law but there wasn’t unanimous support. There was a level of consternation over what the Obama Administration was asking members of Congress to do. Much of that dismay came from a broad political spectrum of Americans that found the law to be an assault on civil liberties. Amendments were proposed but failed to pass.

The aftermath has not seen outrage among citizens relent. President Barack Obama may have issued a signing statement to the law, but it did little to change the fact that indefinite detention was codified into law. It did nothing to prevent future administrations from wielding the power of the Homeland Battlefield Act. And, as a result, members of Congress and state officials bolstered by anger at the grassroots level are mobilizing to ensure provisions of the NDAA are stripped or neutralized.

The plaintiffs are realistic about the chance they have to actually advance this lawsuit, but they also are convinced they have to push back against unchecked executive power in the United States. They see this as a beginning and intend to add many more plaintiffs to lawsuit in the coming weeks.

Here’s video of plaintiffs and others involved in the NDAA lawsuit giving comments during a press conference:

Ron Paul and His Campaign Staffers Value Thrift and Transparency

Ron Paul is Really Serious About Transparency

April 2, 2012

ProPublica - He may be in last place when it comes to delegates, but when it comes to filing expense reports with the FEC, Ron Paul beats everyone.

His campaign’s hyper-vigilance is notable, verging on fanatical.

Every bank fee, every 22 cents at a FedEx, every $1 toll on the Florida turnpike, every $5.09 pit stop at any Starbucks anywhere, every doughnut from Dunkin’ Donuts and Dough Nutz–it’s all right there, itemized in the Paul campaign’s copious expenditure reports. In 160 instances so far, the campaign has reported purchases costing a single dollar or less.

Last week, ProPublica examined the spending of the five presidential candidates and the major super PACs, identifying their 200 top payees. But as part of digging into the more than $306 million spent through February, it was impossible to avoid the other end of the spectrum: The small bucks, if you will.

The Paul campaign tracks every cent like no other, which Paul campaign officials say is deliberate.

“We take the trust our donors place in us very seriously and are deeply committed to transparency and accuracy in our reporting,” wrote Paul’s campaign manager, Jesse Benton, in an email response to ProPublica.

Deeply, indeed.

Under Federal Election Commission rules, campaigns only have to disclose expenditures of more than $200 per election cycle to an individual or a vendor. And, for most campaigns, that’s mostly how it works. Sure, there’s the odd $1 rental car expense for Mitt Romney’s campaign, a few $5 bank fees for Newt Gingrich, and the inexplicable one-cent expense reported by Rick Santorum to the Stoney Creek Inn in Johnston, Iowa.

But generally, they don’t sweat the small stuff.

By and large, neither does President Barack Obama’s campaign, which explains on its reports that it specifies travel reimbursements totaling over $500 to any individual and payments to vendors that exceed $200 for the election cycle, but otherwise doesn’t itemize.

That just won’t do for the Paul campaign. A similar thoroughness seems to extend to one of the super PACs supporting him, Endorse Liberty. Super PACs, like other outside spending groups, are supposed to file reports of independent expenditures—TV ads or phone calls or direct mail on behalf of or against a candidate—within a day or two, depending on the time in the election cycle. But Endorse Liberty files all expense within 48 hours, including the $71.92 spent at Captain George’s Seafood Restaurant on Feb. 13 and the 8 cents paid to Google for online advertising on Feb. 27.

Paul’s expenditures show what it’s like to run for president and life on the trail. It’s a journey through gas stations and fast-food joints in towns like Romeoville, Ill., Sugar Land, Texas, and Correctionville, Iowa. There’s a kind of poetry to the purchases, which range from the austere ($59.50 for meals at the Puritan Backroom), to the whimsical ($28.43 for a meal at The Peddler’s Daughter) to the downright depressing ($26.72 for catering from Little Caesars pizza in Colorado on New Year’s Day).

Like Paul himself, the campaign staffers often seem to value thrift. On Oct. 18, for instance, someone spent $1.09 for office equipment at the Dollar Tree in Baton Rouge. Eight days later, someone else spent $1 at a Salvation Army on Sheep Davis Road in New Hampshire for event supplies.

Staffers often ate cheap, spending $1.39 for a meal at the Circle K in El Dorado, Kan., on Sept. 27, $1.27 at the Kwik Star in Charles City, Iowa, on Dec. 9, and 99 cents at the Conoco in Moses Lake, Wash., on Feb. 20. Well, maybe they weren’t meals.

“We actually don’t have any food here,” said Chris Chase, the manager of that Conoco, who didn’t recall anyone from the Paul campaign and actually had never heard of the Paul campaign. “We’ve got some candies. Suckers are under $1. We’ve got some protein bars for 99 cents, some Planters peanuts for 59 cents.”

There were a few splurges: For example, the $26,690.01 listed for staying at the Grand Sierra Resort in Reno, Nev.

Though exhaustive, the Paul campaign’s record of purchases sometimes left us wanting to know even more. How is it possible to stop 119 times at the same Kum & Go gas station in Ankeny, Iowa? And what office supply was possibly downloaded for $1.07 on iTunes on Nov. 25?

We asked, but the campaign offered no response. Sadly, we may never know.

Montgomery County Maryland Police have 22 Vehicles Equipped with License Plate Readers

Police Say License Plate Scanners Could Have Saved Lives in the D.C. Beltway Attacks

March 30, 2012

CBS WJZ, Baltimore - Ten years ago, Maryland and much of the mid-Atlantic were terrorized by the sniper murder spree. A lot has changed since then, including the way they might have been caught.

Alex DeMetrick reports, current technology could have saved lives.

Maybe you’ve seen the cop cars with the boxes on back. Maybe the combination laser, camera and computer landed you a ticket, or worse, arrest.

“It provides information such as stolen cars, wanted persons. Let’s you know if the driver is possibly suspended,” Officer Patrick Robinson of the Montgomery County Police Department said.

And it does it all by reading license plates.

“I get an audible alarm and it also goes up red and let’s me know by keying in on this– something’s happening,” Officer Robinson said.

Just the tool police didn’t have in 2002, when 10 people were murdered in the sniper shooting spree from Maryland South. Could the plate reader have helped catch John Muhammed and Lee Boyd Malvo earlier, and saved lives?

“Absolutely,” said Capt. Paul Starks of the Montgomery County Police Department.

Because the killer’s car crossed paths with police at murder scenes, but didn’t fit descriptions of a suspect vehicle, the plate reader would have remembered.

“How many hits, or how many times has the same tag come into contact with law enforcement? That would have given us a huge clue,” Capt. Starks said.

During the sniper spree, plate readers would not only seen and remembered, the computer would also look for patterns.

“And it will double check any reads prior to that day to see if I encountered that vehicle at all during the day,” Officer Robinson said.

Technology common today, but too late for the past.

Montgomery County police currently have 22 vehicles equipped with plate readers. Each is capable of processing 10,000 tags during an eight-hour shift.

Minnesota Man Thrown in Jail for Stucco Exterior on His Home Not Being 'Up to Code'

Minnesota Man Thrown in Jail for…Failing to Put Up Siding on His Home

March 21, 2012

The Blaze - A Minnesota man was arrested and thrown in jail — all because city officials said he had not properly put up siding on his house.

Officials in Burnsville, Minn. cited Mitch Faber with “having an unfinished exterior” when, nearly four years after he started it, his home’s stucco project was not complete, Fox News reported.

Faber told Minneapolis ABC affiliate KSTP-TV he always intended to finish the project, but that he ran into financial trouble when the economy took a turn. His first encounter with the city happened in 2007 when he got a letter saying the siding needed to be finished.

“We were in the process of finishing,” Faber told the station. “This wasn’t something that we were trying to avoid doing.”

There were two more letters in 2009 and another in 2010, which required Faber to appear in court. That’s when, he told KSTP, he was instructed in no uncertain terms: Finish the siding or go to jail.

In order to comply, Faber and his wife spent $12,000 to put a stucco facade over their house’s plywood exterior. It wasn’t enough: Last November, Faber was arrested after city inspectors concluded the work wasn’t up to code.

According to a statement on the city’s Facebook page — posted after the story made local headlines — a judge issued a bench warrant for Faber’s arrest after the inspectors determined the work was not complete. He was arrested during a routine traffic stop.

“I’m walking around in a green and white jump suit, I had to shower in front of a sheriff, I was shackled, my wrists were handcuffed to my waist — for siding,” Faber told KSTP.

After two days, a judge released Faber but still required him to submit to electronic home monitoring.

In a statement to KSTP, Burnsville communications coordinator Marty Doll said the city provided Faber “ample opportunity (nearly four years) to remedy the situation before issuing a citation…the city’s practice is to only issue citations for property maintenance issues (such as this one) as a last resort.”

Still, he defended the city’s actions, albeit admitting the situation is “unfortunate.”

“Code enforcement is an important part of making sure all neighbors can take pride in their neighborhoods,” he said in a statement to Fox News. “The city agrees it unfortunate that this situation was not able to be resolved in typical fashion.”

See: The Return of Debtors Prisons (After All, Prison Labor is Cheap Labor for Transnational Corporations and Private Prisons Get Paid More If There are More Inmates)

Six Million Americans are in Prison

There are More Americans in Jail Than There Were in Stalin’s Gulag Archipelago

March 24, 2012

businessinsider.com - There are now more Americans in jail -- 6 million -- than there were in Stalin's Gulag, reports Fareed Zakaria, in a column called "Incarceration Nation."

And it's not just a relative population thing.

The U.S. has 760 prisoners per 100,000 citizens.

How does that compare to other countries?

It's 7X-10X as high:

• Japan has 63 per 100,000,
• Germany has 90 per 100,000
• France has 96 per 100,000
• South Korea has 97 per 100,000
• ­Britain has 153 per 100,000

And it's also a relatively new phenomenon: In 1980, the U.S. only had 150 prisoners per 100,000 citizens.

What's to blame?

The "War on Drugs."

More than half of America's 6 million prisoners are in jail for drug convictions, with 80% of those in jail for "possession."

By the way, has the "war on drugs" worked?

Um, no.

There are still drugs everywhere.

So, maybe it's time we stopped throwing people in the slammer for possessing them.

Zakaria: Incarceration Nation (Excerpt)

March 22, 2012

Fareed Zakaria - “Mass incarceration on a scale almost unexampled in human history is a fundamental fact of our country today,” writes the New Yorker’s Adam Gopnik. “Over all, there are now more people under ‘correctional supervision’ in America - more than 6 million - than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height.”

Is this hyperbole? Here are the facts. The U.S. has 760 prisoners per 100,000 citizens. That’s not just many more than in most other developed countries but seven to 10 times as many. Japan has 63 per 100,000, Germany has 90, France has 96, South Korea has 97, and ­Britain - with a rate among the ­highest - has 153....

This wide gap between the U.S. and the rest of the world is relatively recent. In 1980 the U.S.’s prison population was about 150 per 100,000 adults. It has more than quadrupled since then. So something has happened in the past 30 years to push millions of Americans into prison.

That something, of course, is the war on drugs. Drug convictions went from 15 inmates per 100,000 adults in 1980 to 148 in 1996, an almost tenfold increase. More than half of America’s federal inmates today are in prison on drug convictions. In 2009 alone, 1.66 million Americans were arrested on drug charges, more than were arrested on assault or larceny charges. And 4 of 5 of those arrests were simply for possession....

Bipartisan forces have created the trend that we see. Conservatives and liberals love to sound tough on crime, and both sides agreed in the 1990s to a wide range of new federal infractions, many of them carrying mandatory sentences for time in state or federal prison. And as always in American politics, there is the money trail. Many state prisons are now run by private companies that have powerful lobbyists in state capitals. These firms can create jobs in places where steady work is rare; in many states, they have also helped create a conveyor belt of cash for prisons from treasuries to outlying counties.

Partly as a result, the money that states spend on prisons has risen at six times the rate of spending on higher education in the past 20 years. In 2011, California spent $9.6 billion on prisons vs. $5.7 billion on the UC system and state colleges. Since 1980, California has built one college campus and 21 prisons. A college student costs the state $8,667 per year; a prisoner costs it $45,006 a year.

The results are gruesome at every ­level. We are creating a vast prisoner under­class in this country at huge expense, increasingly unable to function in normal society, all in the name of a war we have already lost....

Read More...

Japan's Private Pension Scandal Casts Doubt on the Future of Small and Medium-sized Businesses

Japan Pension Scandal Shakes Trust in System

April 1, 2012

AP - Trucking company president Masazumi Ando said he was furious when he saw the head of an investment firm that lost $1.3 billion in pension money bow in apology at a parliamentary hearing last week.

"This is nothing but a fraud," said Ando, whose 300 employees belong to a trucking-sector pension plan with $120 million in retirement savings that may now be gone for good.

"We are preparing to file lawsuits so that any cash that may be hidden overseas could be recovered," he told AFP.

Ando's sentiment may be widely shared amid the fallout from Japan's latest financial scandal, which has shaken trust in cherished private pension plans seen as crucial for millions in a country with a rapidly aging population.

It also comes at a time when camera maker Olympus attempts to rebuild its own reputation following a $1.7 billion loss scandal by present and former top executives.

The problem at AIJ Investment Advisors goes beyond a cover-up -- analysts say the AIJ meltdown points to a serious problem with the deregulation of Japan's private pensions. It also casts doubt on the future of small and medium-sized businesses if they cannot compensate about 880,000 employees who lost money in the scandal.

"Many of them are small businesses. They could collapse in a domino effect," said Hiroyuki Ozaki, a business professor at Tokyo University of Technology.

The spectre of such a collapse comes as Japanese firms, big and small, are already struggling to recover after last year's earthquake-tsunami disaster.

The stress is particularly acute for smaller firms that contribute more and more money to their pension plans, which tend to be generous in addition to Japan's national retirement scheme.

The fate of 109.2 billion yen ($1.3 billion) managed by AIJ was all but confirmed when president Kazuhiko Asakawa on Tuesday admitted wrongdoing, saying the company falsified its accounts to hide massive losses.

Asakawa told a parliamentary panel the money had disappeared in a string of risky bets on futures and options contracts between 2002 and 2011, but insisted he had not deceived clients since his plan included making the money back.

"I didn't want to use inflated figures for the pensions fund, but I did not want to come back with losses, no matter what," he told the panel in his first public appearance since the scandal surfaced in February.

"I was confident of recouping the losses," he added.

Regulators have so far found just 8.1 billion yen in accounts in Japan and Hong Kong, with one official saying some of the money may have been funnelled into offshore bank accounts, which Asakawa has denied.

His parliamentary appearance followed a raid on AIJ's Tokyo headquarters by securities regulators, which itself came after a January inspection of AIJ's books found it could not account for most of the funds under its management.

The Financial Services Agency halted the company's operations in February and then revoked its license as an asset manager in March. No charges have yet been laid, but Mario Takeno, head of the Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission, has said the watchdog may ask prosecutors to pursue criminal charges.

It has also been widely reported that former employees at the now-defunct Social Insurance Agency were hired at AIJ. In 2007, the state agency that managed the public pension system admitted it could not find records for about 50 million accounts. The ensuing scandal contributed to the 2009 downfall of the long-ruling Liberal Democractic Party.

Yasuyoshi Masuda, a Tokyo University economics professor, said the wider problem was rooted in deregulation of the sector after Japan's booming economy headed south in the 1990s. Authorities pushed for wide-ranging changes to stimulate the economy, easing rules for investment advisors looking to manage corporate pensions, he said.

"But following the deregulation, authorities failed to set up a system to impose penalties on almost fraudulent managers like this," Masuda told AFP, referring to AIJ.

"There is a flaw in the whole system," he said.

Oil from BP Spill Enters Gulf of Mexico Food Chain

Oil from Deepwater Horizon Disaster Entered Food Chain in the Gulf of Mexico

March 20, 2012

ScienceDaily - Since the explosion on the BP Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010, scientists have been working to understand the impact that this disaster has had on the environment. For months, crude oil gushed into the water at a rate of approximately 53,000 barrels per day before the well was capped on July 15, 2010. A new study confirms that oil from the Macondo well made it into the ocean's food chain through the tiniest of organisms, zooplankton.

Tiny drifting animals in the ocean, zooplankton are useful to track oil-derived pollution. They serve as food for baby fish and shrimp and act as conduits for the movement of oil contamination and pollutants into the food chain. The study confirms that not only did oil affect the ecosystem in the Gulf during the blowout, but it was still entering the food web after the well was capped.

Oil, which is a complex mixture of hydrocarbons and other chemicals, contains polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which can be used to fingerprint oil and determine its provenance. The researchers were able to identify the signature unique to the Deep Water Horizon well in the Gulf of Mexico.

"Our research helped to determine a 'fingerprint' of the Deepwater Horizon spill -- something that other researchers interested the spill may be able to use," said Dr. Siddhartha Mitra of Eastern Carolina University. "Furthermore, our work demonstrated that zooplankton in the Northern Gulf of Mexico accumulated toxic compounds derived from the Macondo well."

The team's research indicates that the fingerprint of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill could be found in some zooplankton in the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem at low levels, as much as a month after the leaking wellhead was capped. In addition, the extent of the contamination seemed to be patchy. Some zooplankton at certain locations far removed from the spill showed evidence of contamination, whereas zooplankton in other locations, sometimes near the spill, showed lower indications of exposure to the oil-derived pollutants.

"Traces of oil in the zooplankton prove that they had contact with the oil and the likelihood that oil compounds may be working their way up the food chain," said Dr. Michael Roman of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science.

The study was led by East Carolina University with researchers from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Oregon State University, Georgia Institute of Technology, and U.S. Geological Survey. The paper, "Macondo-1 well oil-derived polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in mesozooplankton from the northern Gulf of Mexico," was published in the February issue of Geographical Research Letters.

By Introducing Problems into Electronic Banking, the 'Banksters' Will Lead Us to Accept Microchip Implants

Temporary Outage of Visa Card Network

April 1, 2012

AP - A technical problem affecting the Visa network barred some people around the United States from using their credit and debit cards for about 45 minutes on Sunday, the company said.

The outage was caused by a recent update Visa has made to its system, said Visa Inc. spokeswoman Sandra Chu. She said Visa had trouble processing some transactions as a result, but the system is operating normally now.

Chu said the problem Sunday was unrelated to the security breach potentially affecting Visa and MasterCard customers that was reported Friday by credit card processor Global Payments Inc.

The outage occurred from around 2:40 p.m. to 3:20 p.m. EDT, a person from a major bank said. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because bank employees were not authorized to speak publicly. Visa had notified the banks that are members of its network of the problem.

Consumers and merchants reported having Visa cards rejected on Sunday.

At the Shoot Smart gun range in Fort Worth, Texas, manager Jared Sloane said credit and debit transactions stopped working early in the afternoon.

Sloane said a few customers walked out when told they could only pay with cash or check, but otherwise the problem wasn't yet much of a disruption.

Shoot Smart said problems with transactions were persisting at about 6:40 EDT.

Chu said Visa's system was fully up and operational.

Experts Say Global Payments' Breach May Not Be Only One

April 2, 2012

ABC News – Global Payments Inc., the third-party payments processor that had 1.5 million bank card numbers hacked, claims the "incident is contained," though security experts say other transactions may have been compromised.

"I think there are more questions than answers," said Avivah Litan, vice president and analyst with Gartner Research, after Global Payments' conference call on Monday morning about the breach.

Visa removed Global Payments from its list of "compliant service providers" after the breach, though it said the processor can re-apply after it shows its security is "in compliance with Visa's standards."

Beverly Harzog, credit card expert with Credit.com, advised that if you have been affected by the breach, your bank will contact you and issue a new card and account number. But she said it's a good idea to call your bank and check on the status of your account even if you haven't been officially notified. The hackers reportedly obtained credit card account information, and no Social Security numbers, at least, and they can use this data to make counterfeit credit cards, Harzog said.

Consumers are only liable for $50 and, in a case like this, the bank is likely to waive that, she said. But she said consumers should go online a few times a week and check their credit card accounts frequently for unauthorized purchases.

"This situation is a good reminder that our credit information is never really completely safe," Harzog said. "So even if your account wasn't involved in this breach, it's a good idea to regularly take steps to ensure your account is safe."

Litan said there may be more than one breach in question, based on the released information from Visa, MasterCard, Global Payments and reports of even a breach with a taxi or parking company in New York City.

Brian Krebs, the security expert who reported about Visa and MasterCard's security breach on Friday, said GPS is only stating how many accounts it believes were 'exported,' which focuses on the number of accounts or card numbers that a forensics expert could reasonably argue were offloaded or downloaded from the company's systems.

"What GPS has not said is how many transactions they processed -- and potentially compromised -- during the time between when they discovered the breach," Krebs said, which was early March, according to Global Payments, "and when they 'contained' the breach [in late March]."

Krebs said the number of transactions or card numbers potentially exposed while the company was actively compromised "is probably far larger than the 1.5 million number they are citing in their statements, because those statements appear to be based on a figure that the company can say with relative certainty were downloaded or copied from its systems."

On Friday, Global Payments said in a statement that it believes the "affected portion of its processing system is confined to North America" and "less than" 1.5 million card numbers "may have been exported."

Though bank officials reportedly said Friday that Visa and MasterCard informed them the breach happened between late January and late February and hackers gained access to "Track 1" and "Track 2" data, which includes names, card numbers and validation codes, Global Payments said Track 2 card data may have been stolen.

Global Payments in the statement said, "the investigation to date has revealed that Track 2 card data may have been stolen, but that cardholder names, addresses and social security numbers were not obtained by the criminals."

A spokesman for Visa referred ABC News to Global Payments' announcement that Track 2 data was stolen. MasterCard did not immediately return a request for comment.

"Track 1" data generally refers to the information on the front of a bank card, said Litan. She said it is worrisome for consumers if either tracks are stolen, while "Track 2" is more worrisome for banks because they can be used to create counterfeit cards.

Visa said on Friday "there has been no breach of Visa systems, including its core processing network VisaNet."

Global Payments said, "based on the forensic analysis to date, network monitoring and additional security measures, the company believes that this incident is contained."

Global Payments said it has used different terminology than most companies in announcing a breach, Litan said.

"Typically when you disclose [a breach], you say how many cards were potentially compromised rather than exported, so the use of language is unusual," she said.

Krebs said "there also seem to be some questions about the timing of the breach, and whether the alerts from Visa and MasterCard that prompted me to first break this story were related to the GPS breach or were simply coincidental, and pertained to a separate, as-yet-undisclosed breach."

In an alert sent to card-issuing banks, the card associations said the window of vulnerability for the breached processor was between Jan. 21, 2012 and Feb. 25, 2012, Krebs wrote on his website on Monday.

"But GPS's statement on Friday said its own security systems identified and self-reported the breach, which it said was detected in early March 2012. So, to me, the open, unanswered question is: Was the initial alert by Visa and MasterCard that mentioned teh Jan. 21 to 25 dates related to this GPN breach or a separate one? If it was a separate one, was Global Payments involved?"

Krebs said he heard from two "reliable" law enforcement investigators who believe that this breach may be somehow connected to "Dominican street gangs in and around New York City," though he told ABC News he did not know any further information.

Litan said because the companies or law enforcement are in the middle of an investigation, it is "frustrating" to try to confirm information.

"No one at Global Payments, Visa, or Mastercard is talking," she said.

Litan said she heard an unconfirmed, similar report from her own "reliable" source that the breach "involves a taxi and parking garage company in the New York City area."

She wrote on the Gartner website that the crime involved a "Central American gang that broke into the company's system by answering the application's knowledge based authentication questions correctly." One possibility is that hackers took over an administrative account that was not protected sufficiently, she said.

Litan told ABC News the various reports from Global Payments, the credit card companies and law enforcement officials are "not adding up."

"A breach against a major processor is very different from a report from a parking garage in New York City," she said.

Krebs wrote in an email that "it is not clear yet, I think, how this breach will stack up against previous processing breaches, or whether we will truly ever know how many accounts or transactions the thieves could have viewed."

Ten Cities with Highest Poverty Rate Have One Thing in Common

Ten Cities with Highest Poverty Rate Have One Thing in Common

Thanks to Glen Beck of CNN for the following info:

What do the top ten cities with the highest poverty rate all have in common?

DEMOCRAT LEADERSHIP!

• Detroit, MI (1st on the poverty rate list) hasn’t elected a Republican mayor since 1961;
• Buffalo, NY (2nd) hasn’t elected one since 1954;
• Cincinnati, OH (3rd)… since 1984;
• Cleveland, OH (4th)… since 1989;
• Miami, FL (5th) has never had a Republican Mayor;
• St. Louis, MO (6th)…. since 1949;
• El Paso, TX (7th) has never had a Republican Mayor;
• Milwaukee, WI (8th)… since 1908;
• Philadelphia, PA (9th)… since 1952;
• Newark, NJ (10th)… since 1907.

Einstein once said,

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and always expecting different results.”

It is the disadvantaged who habitually elect Democrats - and they are still disadvantaged…

Japan Experts Warn of Future Risk of Giant Tsunami

Japan Experts Warn of Future Risk of Giant Tsunami

April 1, 2012

AP - Revised estimates of the potential impact from an earthquake off Japan's southern coast show much of the country's Pacific shore could be inundated by a tsunami more than 34 meters (112 feet) high.

A government-commissioned panel of experts says a tsunami unleashed by a magnitude-9.0 earthquake in the Nankai trough, which runs east of Japan's main island of Honshu to the southern island of Kyushu, could top 34 meters.

An earlier forecast in 2003 put the potential maximum height of such a tsunami at less than 20 meters (66 feet).

The revisions, posted on a government website, are based on new research following last March's magnitude-9.0 earthquake and tsunami, which devastated a long stretch of Japan's northeastern coast and killed about 19,000 people.

Last year's catastrophe, and the ensuing crisis at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, has prompted sweeping reviews of Japan's disaster preparedness, and criticism over apparent failures to take into account potential risks.

The tsunami knocked out power at the 40-year-old coastal nuclear plant, leading to the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986. Tens of thousands of residents have had to leave the area, and it's unclear whether some will ever be able to move back.

The Fukushima plant was designed to withstand a 6-meter (20-foot) tsunami. The actual surge was 14 meters (45 feet) high.

In other unsettling news, another government report shows that a strong earthquake hitting the Tokyo Bay region could shake the Tokyo-Yokohama metropolitan area — home to more than 33 million people — at the maximum seismic intensity of 7 on the Japanese scale.

The report, issued Friday by the Ministry of Education, came in the form of mapping that shows that much of the Tokyo region would likely experience severe shaking from a magnitude-7.3 earthquake inside Tokyo Bay.

The study prompted calls for Tokyoites to be better prepared for such disasters. Although they live with the constant threat of a major earthquake that experts have long said is overdue for the region, not all living in the region keep recommended water and other supplies on hand.

A report in the newspaper Asahi Shimbun listed troubles that might be expected from a major quake, such as electricity outages that could persist for more than a week and water supply disruptions that could last for nearly a month, based on government estimates.

The revised tsunami forecast for a possible Nankai earthquake says Tokyo could expect waves up to 2.3 meters (7.6 feet) high. But at the coastal town of Kuroshio, on the island of Shikoku, the tsunami could top 34 meters (112 feet), it shows.

The computer modeling for the revised forecasts assumes a high tide for the highest estimates.

Health Care is Full of Government Dictates

Obama's Insurance Requirement Not the Only Mandate

Are all mandates equal? Other federal health care requirements raise questions for high court

April 1, 2012

AP - The individual insurance requirement that the Supreme Court is reviewing isn't the first federal mandate involving health care.

There's a Medicare payroll tax on workers and employers, for example, and a requirement that hospitals provide free emergency services to indigents. Health care is full of government dictates, some arguably more intrusive than President Barack Obama's overhaul law.

It's a wrinkle that has caught the attention of the justices.

Most of the mandates apply to providers such as hospitals and insurers. For example, a 1990s law requires health plans to cover at least a 48-hour hospital stay for new mothers and their babies. Such requirements protect some consumers while indirectly raising costs for others.

One mandate affects just about everybody: Workers must pay a tax to finance Medicare, which collects about $200 billion a year.

It's right on your W-2 form, line 6, "Medicare tax withheld." Workers must pay it even if they don't have health insurance. Employees of a company get to split the tax with their employer. The self-employed owe the full amount, 2.9 percent of earnings.

Lindsey Donner, a small-business owner from San Diego, pays the Medicare tax although she and her husband are uninsured. Donner, 27, says she doesn't see much difference between the mandate that workers help finance Medicare and the health care law's requirement that nearly everyone has to have some sort of health insurance.

"My understanding of what is going on in the Supreme Court is that it seems to be something of a semantics issue," she said. "Ultimately, I don't see the big difference. If I am paying for Medicare, why can't I also be paying into something that would help me right now or in five years if I want to have children?"

Donner is a copy writer for businesses; her husband specializes in graphics design. In the past they had a health plan with a high deductible, but they found they were paying monthly premiums for insurance they never used — something she said they couldn't afford on a tight budget.

Under the law, people such as Donner and her husband would have to get insurance or pay a fine. But they may qualify for federal subsidies to help pay premiums for policies that would be more comprehensive. Preventive care would be covered with no co-payments.

"We have jobs, we pay our bills, we pay our taxes," said Donner. "Yet it is very difficult to find affordable, reasonable health care."

There's no question the Medicare payroll tax is a government mandate, said Mark Hayes, former chief health counsel for the Republican staff of the Senate Finance Committee.

But he makes a distinction between the payroll tax and the individual health insurance mandate in Obama's health care law.

Congress used more clearly defined constitutional powers when it created Medicare.

"The power to tax and the power to spend," Hayes said. "Here, with the individual mandate, it's a different question — regulating interstate commerce. This is a novel question from a legal standpoint."

Obama's law makes health insurance both a right and a responsibility for most. It would provide coverage to more than 90 percent of the population, subsidizing private insurance for millions. But it also requires nearly everyone to carry health insurance, either through an employer or a government program, or by buying an individual policy.

The mandate is well within the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce, the administration and the law's supporters contend. Opponents say Congress overstepped constitutional bounds by effectively requiring individuals to purchase a particular product.

Supreme Court justices are trying to determine the distinction between Obama's law and other mandates, and whether it makes a difference.

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Anthony Kennedy raised the matter during oral arguments last week.

Ginsburg brought up Social Security as an example, likening it to a government old-age annuity that everyone is forced to purchase.

"It just seems very strange to me that there's no question we can have a Social Security system (despite) all the people who say: 'I'm being forced to pay for something I don't want,'" she said.

"There's something very odd about that, that the government can take over the whole thing and we all say, 'Oh, yes that's fine,' but if the government wants to ... preserve private insurers, it can't do that."

Kennedy mused that Congress could have created a Medicare-style program for the uninsured, run exclusively by the government without the involvement of private insurers.

"Let's assume that (Congress) could use the tax power to raise revenue and to just have a national health service, single payer," said Kennedy. "How does that factor into our analysis? In one sense, it can be argued that this is what the government is doing; it ought to be honest about the power that it's using and use the correct power.

"On the other hand, it means that since ... Congress can do it anyway, we give a certain amount of latitude," Kennedy continued. "I'm not sure which way the argument goes."

The case may well turn on how Kennedy decides.

Social Security and Medicare are no longer controversial mandates because they are part of the social fabric, said Hayes, the former GOP congressional aide. Not so the health care law's mandate. "Today, this is controversial because it is novel from a legal standpoint and also new from a societal standpoint," he said.

The distinction frustrates supporters of the health care law.

"It's so crazy to think that a society that has Social Security and Medicare would not find this (law) constitutional," said MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, who advised both the Obama administration and Massachusetts lawmakers as they developed the state mandate in the 2006 law that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney championed as governor.

"The payroll tax is worse than the mandate, because that is a program where we take your money and there is no ability to get out of it," Gruber said. Citizens can avoid the health insurance mandate by paying a penalty to the Internal Revenue Service.

Other federal health care mandates include:

— The 1986 Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. It requires nearly all hospitals to treat and stabilize anyone needing emergency care, regardless of ability to pay or legal U.S. residency. Critics call it an unfunded mandate. It was part of a budget law signed by President Ronald Reagan.

— The 1996 Mental Health Parity Act. It prohibits group health plans from setting lower annual or lifetime dollar limits for mental health benefits as compared with medical and surgical benefits.

— The 1996 Newborns' and Mothers' Health Protection Act. It requires plans offering maternity coverage to pay for at a least a 48-hour hospital stay following most normal deliveries, and 96 hours following a Caesarean section. The mental health parity and maternal health laws were signed by President Bill Clinton.

New World Order Will Be Complete When Nations of the World Surrender Control Over Their Money and Over Their Military

There will be no date, no particular point in history where you can say, “On this date, the New World Order was ushered in.” To a very large extent, we’re already in it. We’ve been in it for a long, long time. What they’re really doing is just building the walls a little bit at a time with the passage of each day, and we’re in it. We will never be able to say, “Gee, it started on this date.” If there was to be a date that historians might want to put on the arrival of this monster, I suppose it would be the date on which all of the nations of the world surrendered control over their money and over their military, because those are the two legs on which national sovereignty stands. If you’ve got a strong military and a strong money system, you’re a sovereign nation. If you don’t have those things, you’re nothing. You’re just a territory that is controlled by someone who does have strong money or a strong military. So we’re very close to the surrender of our money right now. I suppose that would be a date that historians might choose for the crossover point. - G. Edward Griffin, Restore the Republic's Reality Report, May 17, 2009

Press for Truth Presents: The New World Order of the 21st Century

March 29, 2012

Press for Truth - The agenda for a one world government is advancing at an exponential rate as it continues to unfold under the radar. Sovereign nation’s like the US now seek “”international permission,” instead of “congressional approval” to provide a legal basis for combat. When the military takes it’s orders from international governing authorities instead of congress or the president then it is safe to say that the new world order has arrived.