The suicide rate has skyrocketed for one particular age group: the over 50 crowd….the Boomers…
Susie Madrak has a post up on it here.
From the comments, which are really sobering:
dogjudge • 3 hours ago
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The comments are heartbreaking. And very telling. There’s a lot of pain out there….and not a lot of hope that things will get better.
Are you listening, members of Congress? President Obama?
….probably can’t hear over the loud voices of lobbyists and campaign donors….
(As I first started reading this, I thought of a pun with the title: “Something’s fishy” but PR Watch beat me to it in their write up. Heh.)
(So…I’ll have to settle for the boring title of FDA drops the ball…so what else is new?)
Note in the comments section the paid flack who attacks the article not based on facts, but wild accusations….um-hmmm…
There are a million souls who do not want frankenfish. (and probably millions more would be protesting if they only knew what was going on) .
What does it take for American citizens to be heard? And why is this garbage science of Genetically Modified organisms released without a) thorough testing by independent research labs with no financial/political gain; b) without follow-up by independent research to investigate the damage that they have caused; and c) why isn’t the entire ecological system considered when making these decisions…?
Center for Media and Democracy has this up at PR Watch.org.
From the site:
These banks enjoy an implicit government guarantee that has been quantified by economists as a hidden taxpayer subsidy that disadvantages smaller banks. Bloomberg recently pegged this subsidy at some $84 billion,
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The Brown-Vitter bill wants the banks to be ready to give themselves a bailout when there is another shock to the financial system. The bill significantly raises the amount of high-quality (equity) capital that the big banks must hold – foreign banks operating in the United States included. Community banks would stay under the current rules, mid-sized and regional banks would be required to hold eight percent in capital to cover their assets, and megabanks – institutions with more than $500 billion in assets – would be required to meet a new 15 percent capital requirement, virtually double their current requirements.
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Ab-so-freaking-lutely.
If you click on the Bloomberg link, the question of the year: Why Should Taxpayers Give Big Banks $83 Billion Per Year?
From Bloomberg:
The top five banks — JPMorgan, Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. – – account for $64 billion of the total subsidy, an amount roughly equal to their typical annual profits (see tables for data on individual banks)
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Now, these banks wouldn’t be getting these NICE dividends because of campaign donations and lobbying, now would they…? Nah, we *know* they are too honest, too upstanding, too ethical to do that…right…? Pfft.
When I clicked on the massive bailouts to foreign banks, as well link, the site wasn’t that informative, and that is something I would reeeeallly like to know…how much are we paying out for other countries’ banks??
The bill is supposed to force the banks’ hand: they either come up with the capital to cover their assets or they start divesting their mega corporations into smaller banks, which is what they should have done immediately after the crash in ’08.
Firedoglake has this up on the *cough* research of Rogoff and Reinhart.
From one of the commenters, letsgetitdone at 16:
I think, finally, that the RR study is an example of the corruption of social science in modern times. I believe that one can show that the study was not just guilty of calculation errors and errors of omission, but that these must be seen as part of a pattern of systematic bias that permeated their whole process of inquiry beginning with their selection of the problem, moving through every decision point in implementing the study, and ending with their evaluation of their evidence and their writing of the result. They made no attempt to do a scientific study maximizing fair comparison of alternative theories having policy relevance, but instead prepared what was essentially a legal brief supporting austerity policies and the Pete Peterson line. The social costs of what they did are strewn all over the globe. See this recent post at DailyKos.
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This is a big deal because politicians around the world have used this finding from R&R to justify austerity measures that have slowed growth and raised unemployment. In the United States many politicians have pointed to R&R’s work as justification for deficit reduction even though the economy is far below full employment by any reasonable measure. In Europe, R&R’s work and its derivatives have been used to justify austerity policies that have pushed the unemployment rate over 10 percent for the euro zone as a whole and above 20 percent in Greece and Spain. In other words, this is a mistake that has had enormous consequences.~~~~~~~~~~
Electronic Frontier Foundation has this up.
The internet should be viewed as a private transaction between the user and the internet. I don’t understand the thought that because you’re on the ‘net, you’re automatically abdicating the Right to Privacy guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment.
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
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Diane Ravitch has this up on the debate on Common Core education standards in Michigan. It’s odd that they are debating it after they had accepted it….jumped the gun, maybe? That seems to be all to common in the education world–some *expert* claims to have the magic bullet for *fixing* education, but that never seems to pan out….
Diane Ravitch has a blog up on the new standard, Common Core for the public schools in NYC.
From The Economist comments section:
the new testing regime encourages a wider opening of the class gulf by giving teachers an incentive to compete for students with strong skills, excellent home support, and private resources to purchase any necessary tutoring to get Junior up to snuff. Who will stand up for the child of a poor single parent who can’t afford Khan Academy tutoring, doesn’t know enough algebra to help, and doesn’t have time to walk her/his child through the mountains of test preparation homework dispensed in the months leading up to this?
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Word. The poor kids with no one at home who can help them and no money for tutoring and coming to school hungry because single Mom can’t afford breakfast…depressing….
An incident popped into my head when reading the comments on the link she provides to The Economist (strange that a story on education would end up there, eh?) Anyway, being 34, the college I wanted to attend had required I take entrance exams a second time (the first time was the SAT’s in h.s.). Algebra and Trigonometry were part of the exam. I didn’t take the college prep courses in high school because I didn’t think I’d ever get to go to college (even though I wanted to)….so you could have knocked me over with a feather when the admissions counselor told me that I passed the Math test and could opt out of the pre-Math courses. I think I actually laughed that I passed them without taking classes….which goes to show that exams shouldn’t have as much weight as they do. I mean, I got decent grades in Math (B’s)…but did not know the material before taking the class—it would have been a disaster for me to opt-out. Maybe, just maybe, I had a few Algebra and Trig problems while in h.s., because, if I recall correctly, textbooks at that time had problems for the next grade level at the back of the book, in order to prepare the students for the next year. This might explain at least some of it.
Additionally, when I was in college, the ADD was bad and even though I studied my butt off for several hours and knew my subject matter, I still only got B’s and sometimes C’s because of poor test taking. My mind would be all over the place. This is another reason that testing shouldn’t be given the weight that it does–I knew the material, but you wouldn’t know it by the test.
Also, the university I began at had a much better support system with excellent tutors available to help unravel the Math mysteries. The university I went to after the initial classes–the one I graduated from–deliberately made Math very difficult. I think this was to “weed out” the students…after all, most of the professions that pay well involve Math. If you have a lot of folks who can do Math, well then, you don’t have exclusivity, do you? Harder to justify higher salaries when there are more folks who can do those jobs.
Lastly, testing aside, parents DO need to take an active role in supplementing their child’s teacher’s efforts. AND even question their teachers when appropriate. I had to do this twice –once when my middle child was having difficulty learning to read. Her 1st Grade teacher was frustrated and going to label her as “stupid”…I could see the handwriting on the wall. I went to the precious gift of the library and checked out books on teaching kids to read, since I didn’t know how to help her—she was getting stuck on the words “a” , “and” and “the”….I luckily (or guided 🙂 found a book on Dyslexia. I discovered that she was dyslexic. And I discovered that I was, too. Dyslexics have a hard time with a, and, the—because they learn to read by visualizing a picture in their head–b-a-l-l is a round thing they can bounce….they can’t picture a, and,the—because they don’t represent any *one* thing. I checked out a Phonics book and began sitting down with her every night and eventually she *got it*. She graduated from the same university many years later 😉
The second time I had to question my child’s teachers was when they were going to “Whole Language” — a stupid program that didn’t teach Phonics. I wouldn’t have it and protested it. I got a bunch of flack for it, but I went ahead and checked out the Phonics book a second time to help my third child to read, too. Incidentally, I also protested a change in class organization, when they were going to make the 2nd graders switch classes….like they were in middle school…to have two different teachers during the day. I protested that because I believe the younger kids need to have one teacher for consistency…little ones need that security. I was sent a condescending note that “they were sorry that I wouldn’t be joining them…” As if everyone else didn’t have a problem with it, so why did I?
PR Watch has this press release:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 4, 2013
CONTACT: Nikolina Lazic, nikolina@prwatch.org, (608) 260-9713
A REPORTERS’ GUIDE TO THE “STATE POLICY NETWORK:” THE RIGHT-WING THINK TANKS SPINNING DISINFORMATION AND PUSHING THE ALEC AGENDA IN STATES
New Resource Details “Think Tanks” Tanking Americans’ Rights
MADISON, WI — The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), the publisher of the award-winning ALECexposed.org investigation, is releasing a new web resource, http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Portal:State_Policy_Network for reporters and citizens about the activities of Tracie Sharp’s State Policy Network (SPN) and its state “think tank” members. Although the funding of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is approximately $7 million a year, funding for SPN, its 59 state operations and the controversial Heartland Institute — an SPN ally like ALEC that tries to change both state and federal law — has topped $80 million in recent years. And these SPN operations often function like an echo chamber of the corporate-funded ALEC agenda.
CMD’s three-month investigation, http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/04/11909/reporters%E2%80%99-guide-%E2%80%9Cstate-policy-network%E2%80%9D-right-wing-think-tanks-spinning-disinform uncloaks some of the major funders of SPN’s expanding operations in the states and raises major concerns over whose agenda these groups are advancing in the state:
1. Mystery Funds. This investigation identifies hundreds of thousands of dollars, and perhaps much more than that, which Sharp distributes to these organizations but that is not disclosed to the IRS as passing through SPN’s books. It is possible that Sharp is distributing or designating funds made available via the Koch-connected “DonorsTrust” and “Donors Capital Fund” or some other stream of cash for the state operations she helps grow. However, some of the big bucks at her disposal did not show up in SPN’s 990 form in the same year it was distributed to an SPN group. See the SourceWatch article on SPN Funding for more.
2. Even More Koch Money Than Previously Known. This guide also flags that substantial funding for some SPN state operations has come from Koch Industries itself and not only the Koch family foundations. That is, hundreds of thousands of dollars, at least, hav been spent by the privately held energy conglomerate controlled by two of the richest billionaires in the world, Charles and David Koch. The total amount is secret because it is not passing through the Koch foundations, which are required to disclose their disbursements. The total amount of Koch money spent on SPN-related efforts to change state laws and spin the news is understated by analysis of their foundation spending alone. See the SourceWatch article on SPN Funding for more.
3. Trying to Change the Law, but Reporting Little or No Lobbying. Like ALEC, SPN and its affiliates seek to change state laws, but report little or no lobbying. That means that corporations and individuals (like Koch Industries and others) that fund their operations can get a tax write-off for funding SPN efforts. See the SourceWatch article on the SPN Agenda for more.
4. SPN Funders Help Some Interests Get Multiple Votes on ALEC Bills. The relationship between SPN affiliates and ALEC is strong and is funded by some of the same donors. That means that some corporate interests like the Kochs get, in effect, multiple votes to change the law on ALEC task forces, where corporate lobbyists and special interest groups like SPN operations vote as equals with elected officials behind closed doors. A particular ALEC task force may have multiple Koch-funded operations — including a lobbyist from Koch Companies Public Sector, a special interest representative from an SPN operation like the Goldwater Institute, and reps from national Koch-controlled or fueled groups like David Koch’s Americans for Prosperity (AFP) and the Charles Koch-founded Cato Institute, along with the Heritage Foundation, a long-time ally of the Koch agenda. Through ALEC, SPN helps write templates to change state laws; then ALEC members vote in secret for those bills; and then SPN supports the introduction or adoption of those bills as law, sometimes with help from David Koch’s AFP echo chamber in a state.
5. SPN Funders Have Included Some of the Richest and Most Ideological Families in the Country. Fueling SPN-related efforts is a bevy of right-wing billionaires and foundations beyond the Koch brothers and including the Bradley Foundation, DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund (large donor-directed funds), the Olin Foundation, the Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation (the Amway fortune), the Coors-related Castle Rock Foundation and the Adolph Coors Foundation, the McCamish Foundation, the JM Foundation, and the Smith Richardson Foundation. SPN-related activities are also funded by the Roe Foundation, the charitable arm that is part of the legacy of Thomas Roe, the man who helped launch SPN over two decades ago, after telling one of his allies, “I’m going to capture the states,” just like Ronald Reagan was going to capture the U.S.S.R.
6. SPN’s Legislative Agenda Is Frequently Buttressed by Its Forays as “Press” and the Echoes of Its Allies in the Growing Right-Wing State “Press” Corps. As CMD was one of the first to document, SPN groups like the Goldwater Institute are hiring people to act as reporters, and the legislative agenda of SPN is increasingly echoed by the growing right-wing infrastructure of groups that pose as press. Some even get their stories or “reports” picked up as news and delivered to state newspapers as a “wire” service like the Associated Press, as with the Franklin Center’s Watchdog.org groups and the Ryun brothers-allied “American Majority” and “Media Trackers” operations.
This Reporters’ Guide details how SPN works, who funds it, what the network’s groups do, and looks at some of their legislative goals, including undermining workers’ rights and weakening unions as well as undoing renewable energy laws and expanding ways in which tax dollars are redirected to the private sector, for example through funding so-called “virtual schools.”
Key resources include:
1. PRwatch Special Report with Key Findings: http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/04/11909/reporters%E2%80%99-guide-%E2%80%9Cstate-policy-network%E2%80%9D-right-wing-think-tanks-spinning-disinform
2. State Policy Network Main Portal: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Portal:State_Policy_Network
3. SPN Funding: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/SPN_Funding
4. SPN Ties to ALEC: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/SPN_Ties_to_ALEC
5. SPN Members: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/SPN_Members
6. SPN Agenda; http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/SPN_Agenda
7. SPN_Founders,_History,_and_Staff: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/
Exxon is interfering with our right to know and the First Amendment–the right of the news crews to fly over the spill to document it. And my guess that the reason I haven’t heard of it on the news is becoming obvious–trying to shut down the news of it so that the Canadian XL pipeline can go through without protest… (note again the Hillary Clinton connection to XL…)
…and as I said, the real reason they don’t want *outsiders* taking the ducks and other wildlife to rescue centers is to thwart attempts to document the damage with photos of the dead and suffering wildlife….
(I say outsiders with just a little sarcasm…as if the American public were outsiders in their own country….but increasingly made to feel that way, eh? )
$4 million…and who was he working for when with the DOJ?
And he’s former council to none other than Bill Clinton during impeachment hearings….<sigh>…I really hate to think he was in the DOJ as payback?
Eagle 
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